We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
While Ray Bradbury is most well known for his science fiction and dystopian writings, I consider the Story of Love to be on par in quality and enchantment to his other works. This short story explores the constraints that society puts on love and recognizes that affections cannot always be pursued.
That was the week Ann Taylor came to teach summer school at Green Town Central. It was the summer of her twenty-fourth birthday, and it was the summer when Bob Spaulding was just fourteen.
Everyone remembered Ann Taylor, for she was that teacher for whom all the children wanted to bring huge oranges or pink flowers, and for whom they rolled up the rustling green and yellow maps of the world without being asked. She was that woman who always seemed to be passing by on days when the shade was green under the tunnels of oaks and elms in the old town, her face shifting with the bright shadows as she walked, until it was all things to all people. She was the fine peaches of summer in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot early-June morning. Whenever you needed an opposite, Ann Taylor was there. And those rare few days in the world when the climate was balanced as fine as a maple leaf between winds that blew just right, those were the days like Ann Taylor, and should have been so named on the calendar.
As for Bob Spaulding, he was the cousin who walked alone through town on any October evening with a pack of leaves after him like a horde of Hallowe’en mice, or you would see him, like a slow white fish in spring in the tart waters of the Fox Hill Creek, baking brown with the shine of a chestnut to his face by autumn. Or you might hear his voice in those treetops where the wind entertained; dropping down hand by hand, there would come Bob Spaulding to sit alone and look at the world, and later you might see him on the lawn with the ants crawling over his books as he read through the long afternoons alone, or played himself a game of chess on Grandmother’s porch, or picked out a solitary tune upon the black piano in the bay window. You never saw him with any other child.
That first morning, Miss Ann Taylor entered through the side door of the schoolroom and all of the children sat still in their seats as they saw her write her name on the board in a nice round lettering.
“My name is Ann Taylor,” she said, quietly. “And I’m your new teacher.”
The room seemed suddenly flooded with illumination, as if the roof had moved back; and the trees were full of singing birds. Bob Spaulding sat with a spitball he had just made, hidden in his hand. After a half hour of listening to Miss Taylor, he quietly let the spitball drop to the floor.
That day, after class, he brought in a bucket of water and a rag and began to wash the boards.
“What’s this?” She turned to him from her desk, where she had been correcting spelling papers.
“The boards are kind of dirty,” said Bob, at work.
“Yes. I know. Are you sure you want to clean them?”
“I suppose I should have asked permission,” he said, halting uneasily.
“I think we can pretend you did,” she replied, smiling, and at this smile he finished the boards in an amazing burst of speed and pounded the erasers so furiously that the air was full of snow, it seemed, outside the open window.
“Let’s see,” said Miss Taylor. “You’re Bob Spaulding, aren’t you?”
“Yes’m.”
“Well, thank you, Bob.”
“Could I do them every day?” he asked.
“Don’t you think you should let the others try?”
“I’d like to do them,” he said. “Every day.”
“We’ll try it for a while and see,” she said.
He lingered.
“I think you’d better run on home,” she said, finally.
“Good night.” He walked slowly and was gone.
The next morning he happened by the place where she took board and room just as she was coming out to walk to school.
“Well, here I am,” he said.
“And do you know,” she said, “I’m not surprised.”
They walked together.
“May I carry your books?” he asked.
“Why, thank you, Bob.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, taking them.
They walked for a few minutes and he did not say a word. She glanced over and slightly down at him and saw how at ease he was and how happy he seemed, and she decided to let him break the silence, but he never did. When they reached the edge of the school ground he gave the books back to her. “I guess I better leave you here,” he said. “The other kids wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m not sure I do, either, Bob,” said Miss Taylor.
“Why we’re friends,” said Bob earnestly and with a great natural honesty.
“Bob –” she started to say.
“Yes’m?”
“Never mind.” She walked away.
“I’ll be in class,” he said.
And he was in class, and he was there after school every night for the next two weeks, never saying a word, quietly washing the boards and cleaning the erasers and rolling up the maps while she worked at her papers, and there was that clock silence of four o’clock, the silence of the sun going down in the slow sky, the silence with the catlike sound of erasers patted together, and the drip of water from a moving sponge, and the rustle and turn of papers and the scratch of a pen, and perhaps the buzz of a fly banging with a tiny high anger against the tallest clear pane of window in the room. Sometimes the silence would go on this way until almost five, when Miss Taylor would find Bob Spaulding in the last seat of the room, sitting and looking at her silently, waiting for further orders.
“Well, it’s time to go home,” Miss Taylor would say, getting up.
“Yes’m.”
And he would run to fetch her hat and coat. He would also lock the school-room door for her unless the janitor was coming in later. Then they would walk out of school and across the yard, which was empty, the janitor taking down the chain swings slowly on his stepladder, the sun behind the umbrella trees. They talked of all sorts of things.
“And what are you going to be, Bob, when you grow up?”
“A writer,” he said.
“Oh, that’s a big ambition: it takes a lot of work.”
“I know, but I’m going to try,” he said. “I’ve read a lot.”
“Bob, haven’t you anything to do after school?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, I hate to see you kept in so much, washing the boards.”
“I like it,” he said. “I never do what I don’t like.”
“But nevertheless.”
“No, I’ve got to to that,” he said. He thought for a while and said, “Do me a favour, Miss Taylor?”
“It all depends.”
“I walk every Saturday from out around Buetrick Street along the creek to Lake Michigan. There’s a lot of butterflies and crayfish and birds. Maybe you’d like to walk, too.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Then you’ll come?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Don’t you think it’d be fun?”
“Yes, I’m sure of that, but I’m going to be busy.”
He started to ask what, but stopped.
“I take along sandwiches,” he said. “Ham-and-pickle ones. And orange pop and just walk along, taking my time. I get down to the lake about noon and walk back and get home about three o’clock. It makes a real fine day, and I wish you’d come. Do you collect butterflies? I have a big collection. We could start one for you.”
“Thanks, Bob, but no, perhaps some other time.”
He looked at her and said, “I shouldn’t have asked you, should I?”
“You have every right to ask anything you want to,” she said.
A few days later she found an old copy of `Great Expectations’, which she no longer wanted, and gave it to Bob. He was very grateful and took it home and stayed up that night and read it through and talked about it the next morning. Each day now he met her just beyond sight of her boarding house and many days she would start to say, “Bob –” and tell him not to come to meet her any more, but she never finished saying it, and he talked with her about Dickens and Kipling and Poe and others, coming and going to school. She found a butterfly on her desk on Friday morning. She almost waved it away before she found it was dead and had been placed there while she was out of the room. She glanced at Bob over the heads of her other students, but he was looking at his book; not reading, just looking at it.
It was about this time that she found it impossible to call on Bob to recite in class. She would hover her pencil about his name and then call the next person up or down the list. Nor would she look at him while they were walking to or from school. But on several late afternoons as he moved his arm high on the blackboard, sponging away the arithmetic symbols, she found herself glancing over at him for a few seconds at a time before she returned to her papers.
And then on Saturday morning he was standing in the middle of the creek with his overalls rolled up to his knees, kneeling down to catch a crayfish under a rock, when he looked up and there on the edge of the running stream was Miss Ann Taylor.
“Well, here I am,” she said, laughing.
“And do you know,” he said, “I’m not surprised.”
“Show me the crayfish and the butterflies,” she said.
They walked down to the lake and sat on the sand with a warm wind blowing softly about them, fluttering her hair and the ruffle of her blouse, and he sat a few yards back from her and they ate the ham-and-pickle sandwiches and drank the orange pop solemnly.
“Gee, this is swell,” he said. “This is the swellest time ever in my life.”
“I didn’t think I would ever come on a picnic like this,” she said.
“With some kid,” he said.
“I’m comfortable, however,” she said.
“That’s good news.”
They said little else during the afternoon.
“This is all wrong,” he said, later. “And I can’t figure out why it should be. Just walking along and catching old butterflies and crayfish and eating sandwiches. But Mom and Dad’d rib the heck out of me if they knew, and the kids would, too. And the other teachers, I suppose, would laugh at you, wouldn’t they?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I guess we better not do any more butterfly catching, then.”
“I don’t exactly understand how I came here at all,” she said.
And the day was over.
That was about all there was to the meeting of Ann Taylor and Bob Spaulding, two or three monarch butterflies, a copy of Dickens, a dozen crayfish, four sandwiches and two bottles of Orange Crush. The next Monday, quite unexpectedly, though he waited a long time, Bob did not see Miss Taylor come out to walk to school, but discovered later that she had left earlier and was already at school. Also, Monday night, she left early, with a headache, and another teacher finished her last class. He walked by her boarding house but did not see her anywhere, and he was afraid to ring the bell and inquire.
On Tuesday night after school they were both in the silent room again, he sponging the board contentedly, as if this time might go on forever, and she seated, working on her papers as if she, too, would be in this room and this particular peace and happiness forever, when suddenly the courthouse clock struck. It was a block away and its great bronze boom shuddered one’s body and made the ash of time shake away off your bones and slide through your blood, making you seem older by the minute. Stunned by that clock, you could not but sense the crashing flow of time, and as the clock said five o’clock, Miss Taylor suddenly looked up at it for a long time, and then she put down her pen.
“Bob,” she said.
He turned, startled. Neither of them had spoken in the peaceful and good hour before.
“Will you come here?” she asked.
He put down the sponge slowly.
“Yes,” he said.
“Bob, I want you to sit down.”
“Yes’m.”
She looked at him intently for a moment until he looked away. “Bob, I wonder if you know what I’m going to talk to you about. Do you know?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe it’d be a good idea if you told me, first.”
“About us,” he said, at last.
“How old are you, Bob?”
“Going on fourteen.”
“You’re thirteen years old.”
He winced. “Yes’m.”
“And do you know how old I am?”
“Yes’m. I heard. Twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four.”
“I’ll be twenty-four in ten years, almost,” he said.
“But unfortunately you’re not twenty-four now.”
“No, but sometimes I feel twenty-four.”
“Yes, and sometimes you almost act it.”
“Do I, really!”
“Now sit still there, don’t bound around, we’ve a lot to discuss. It’s very important that we understand exactly what is happening, don’t you agree?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“First, let’s admit that we are the greatest and best friends in the world. Let’s admit I have never had a student like you, nor have I had as much affection for any boy I’ve ever known.” He flushed at this. She went on. “And let me speak for you — you’ve found me to be the nicest teacher of all teachers you’ve ever known.”
“Oh, more than that,” he said.
“Perhaps more than that, but there are facts to be faced and an entire way of life to be considered. I’ve thought this over for a good many days, Bob. Don’t think I’ve missed anything, or been unaware of my own feelings in the matter. Under any normal circumstances our friendship would be odd indeed. But then you are no ordinary boy. I know myself pretty well, I think, and I know I’m not sick, either mentally or physically, and that whatever has evolved here has been a true regard for your character and goodness, Bob; but those are not the things we consider in this world, Bob, unless they occur in a man of a certain age. I don’t know if I’m saying this right.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s just if I was ten years older and about fifteen inches taller it’d make all the difference, and that’s silly,” he said, “to go by how tall a person is.”
“The world hasn’t found it so.”
“I’m not all the world,” he protested.
“I know it seems foolish,” she said. “When you feel very grown up and right and have nothing to be ashamed of. You have nothing at all to be ashamed of, Bob, remember that. You have been very honest and good, and I hope I have been, too.”
“You have,” he said.
“In an ideal climate, Bob, maybe someday they will be able to judge the oldness of a person’s mind so accurately that they can say, `This is a man, though his body is only thirteen; by some miracle of circumstances and fortune, this is a man, with a man’s recognition of responsibility and position and duty’; but until that day, Bob, I’m afraid we’re going to have to go by ages and heights and the ordinary way in an ordinary world.”
“I don’t like that,” he said.
“Perhaps I don’t like it, either, but do you want to end up far unhappier than you are now? Do you want both of us to be unhappy? Which we certainly would be. There really is no way to do anything about us — it is so strange even to try to talk about us.”
“Yes’m.”
“But at least we know all about us and the fact that we have been right and fair and good and there is nothing wrong with our knowing each other, nor did we ever intend that it should be, for we both understand how impossible it is, don’t we?”
“Yes, I know. But I can’t help it.”
“Now we must decide what to do about it,” she said. “Now only you and I know about this. Later, others might know. I can secure a transfer from this school to another one –“
“No!”
“Or I can have you transferred to another school.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“Why?”
“We’re moving. My folks and I, we’re going to live in Madison. We’re leaving next week.”
“It has nothing to do with all this, has it?”
“No, no, everything’s all right. It’s just that my father has a new job there. It’s only fifty miles away. I can see you, can’t I, when I come to town?”
“Do you think that would be a good idea?”
“No, I guess not.”
They sat awhile in the silent schoolroom.
“When did all of this happen?” he said, helplessly.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Nobody ever knows. They haven’t known for thousands of years, and I don’t think they ever will. People either like each other or don’t, and sometimes two people like each other who shouldn’t. I can’t explain myself, and certainly you can’t explain you.”
“I guess I’d better get home,” he said.
“You’re not mad at me, are you?”
“Oh, gosh no, I could never be mad at you.”
“There’s one more thing. I want you to remember, there are compensations in life. There always are, or we wouldn’t go on living. You don’t feel well, now; neither do I. But something will happen to fix that. Do you believe that?”
“I’d like to.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“If only,” he said.
“What?”
“If only you’d wait for me,” he blurted.
“Ten years?”
“I’d be twenty-four then.”
“But I’d be thirty-four and another person entirely, perhaps. No, I don’t think it can be done.”
“Wouldn’t you like it to be done?” he cried.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It’s silly and it wouldn’t work, but I would like it very much.”
He sat there a long time.
“I’ll never forget you,” he said.
“It’s nice for you to say that, even though it can’t be true, because life isn’t that way. You’ll forget.”
“I’ll never forget. I’ll find a way of never forgetting you,” he said.
She got up and went to erase the boards.
“I’ll help you,” he said.
“No, no,” she said, hastily. “You go on now, get home, and no more tending to the boards after school. I’ll assign Helen Stevens to do it.”
He left the school. Looking back, outside, he saw Miss Ann Taylor, for the last time, at the board, slowly washing out the chalked words, her hand moving up and down.
He moved away from the town the next week and was gone for sixteen years. Though he was only fifty miles away, he never got down to Green Town again until he was almost thirty and married, and then one spring they were driving through on their way to Chicago and stopped off for a day.
Bob left his wife at the hotel and walked around town and finally asked about Miss Ann Taylor, but no-one remembered at first, and then one of them remembered.
“Oh, yes, the pretty teacher. She died in 1936, not long after you left.”
Had she ever married? No, come to think of it, she never had.
He walked out to the cemetery in the afternoon and found her stone, which said “Ann Taylor, born 1910, died 1936.” And he thought, Twenty-six years old. Why I’m three years older than you are now, Miss Taylor.
Later in the day the people in the town saw Bob Spaulding’s wife strolling to meet him under the elm trees and the oak trees, and they all turned to watch her pass, for her face shifted with bright shadows as she walked; she was the fine peaches of summer in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot early-summer morning. And this was one of those rare few days in time when the climate was balanced like a maple leaf between winds that blow just right, one of those days that should have been named, everyone agreed, after Robert Spaulding’s wife.
The End
Do you want more?
I have more stories in my Ray Bradbury Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
Listen, and understand.
That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
You all have watched the 1980’s movie “Terminator”, eh?
Well, it’s nearing the end of the Chinese Year. We exit the year of the rat, and say hello to the year of the bull. It’s a busy time in China as factories are trying to speed up production to send orders out before the one month shut down. Of course, this is still a strange time, and most people are staying home. Few are going to travel back to their families. It’s too dangerous with the two brand new viral strains floating around.
Two brand new viruses?
Yes. There are two brand-spanking-new, never before seen, “novel” viruses that hit China at the end of 2019.
No I’m not talking about the seizure inducing respiratory COVID-19B. Not the mild stain; the immunization strain in American the COVID-19A. That pathway and history has been substantially mapped out in great detail. https://lnkd.in/gBM2Fur.
I particularly like how the mild strains the COVID-19A (the immunization strain) was moving through America and Britain all Summer 2019. While the deadly strains, COVID-19B and COVID-19C hit China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia at the same time in January 2020. All traced back to the Military Games in Wuhan, and the hotel where the 300 military soldiers were housed.
But I am not talking about this.
I’m talking about the (yet to be named, but I’m naming it) COVID-20. A death by vomiting virus. New. Novel. Hit China right after Trump “gave up on Hong Kong”.
Seems that some the "cat's paw" Chinese drone operators who dispensed the 2018 - 2019 swine flu, "spilled the beans" to the PLA and the government. You see, the Chinese fellows that the CIA hired (to spray the swine flu to the pigs using drones), well they immediately went to the Chinese authorities when given these new viral containers by their CIA handlers.
Uh oh!
When Trump told the NED that “Let it (HK) all burn”, I guess that he didn’t count that everything in Hong Kong was under complete audio and video surveillance. And this pretty much upset Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and Tom Cotton. And one or more of them gave the ok to release this very, very nasty virus in China.
American and British passport holders, arrested and deported for training “color revolution” techniques, bomb-making, insurgency techniques, and how to provoke the government so that they would violently respond to the provocations.
It’s funny. It broke out in Beijing. Where did everyone get this tick-borne virus? Inside of Starbucks?
Everyone know that Beijing is full of ticks and other critters because it is so filthy and polluted.
.
The people in the United States, and Britain nod their heads. “Yup. China is dirty and filthy. Of course it’s full of germs and bad stuff”. LOL.
Hardly.
If you are an American you probably think that the pandemic is either fake, or a singular virus. Not realizing that China has been hit with a massive carpet-bombing of viral agents.
Anyways, to make a long story short, I went off to go to the local clinic to get my free swabs and measurements. You can never be too careful.
A visit to the local clinic
To get an idea of what it’s like in China, you have to understand that pretty much if you want to go to any public area or a mall (or anything like that) you need to have your QR code approval.
There’s different applications for this but basically you use your cell phone to scan a QR code and then they’ll tell you if you have traveled into a “hot” area where one of the viruses are active.
Scan to see if you have traveled to a “hot” area. You need to do this and pass before the security guard will allow you in the building.
.
The QR scan is immediate. And it will tell you whether you’re good to go or not. This morning, I’m dealing with some medical issues on top of our periodic evaluation and so of course we had to scan the QR code and this is what it looks like…
A “clean” QR scan that says that you are “good to go”.
.
I don’t know what they’re doing in the states, but I can’t imagine they’re doing anything like this. Pretty much China’s is all QR codes, drones, IR scans, barcodes and scanning.
Really, nobody uses money anymore.
And everybody, of course is taking precautions or wearing mask especially this time of season. Oh sure, you’ll see a couple that aren’t but for the most part people take things very seriously, given all the events that happened this time last year.
I guess it’s kind of a crazy time to live, and I you know I suppose that this is going to go down in history books of course. And we’re living through it so that’s gotta be worth something right? They always say that you don’t realize how bad things were until you actually read about it in the history books.
Of course, the person (or people) who controls and writes the history books are the ones that control the narrative. Don’t you know.
Anyways…
An Oreo and Spam burger in China!
Lordy!
I read on my news feeds and Yahoo news, as well as the MSN and drudge report and all those other kinds of “News media” the stunning news! Apparently FOX News first reported that China has a new burger at McDonald’s.
It’s called an Oreo spam burger and everybody’s commenting how disgusting it is and how horrible the Chinese sense of tastes are. And just how crazy that the Chinese would eat (dare they!), eat such a thing. There’s a considerable amount of internet space on this…
… so it’s pretty shocking to me. As I live in China, and there’s nothing at all about this monstrosity. And since it is near CNY, there are McDonald’s advertisements everywhere showing their new CNY holiday menus.
McDonald’s holiday menu advertisements are up and are all over the place. Like this one at the corner of a busy intersection.
.
Here’s a close up of that picture. I had a zoom feature on my cell phone and snapped this picture. I think that it is clearer and show just what the McDonald’s holiday menu advertisement looks like.
Guess what?
No Oreo-spam burger. Anywhere!
Closer view showing the McDonald’s advertisement for the CNY 2021 holiday menu. Showing a “KFC bucket style” offering and a ton load of sides and desserts. All for 75 yuan (roughly $10 USD).
.
Well that’s a big mystery.
So what do I do…
I go to McDonald’s here in China and I ask him about it. Never heard of the thing they don’t know what the heck I’m talking about.
So I went over to the website and tried to find their attachment links the Fox news article, the Yahoo article has ton load of links and all the links point back to MSN and Yahoo. None of them point to an advertisement for this mysteriously terrible horrific burger. And, yes, I went to Fox news which is always anti-China and the same thing there they can’t show me a picture of this stupid burger.
Finally I found one.
But not on any McDonald’s website, or part of a McDonald’s advertisement or promotional campaign. I found it on the Hormel Foods website; the company that makes Spam. As best that I can figure out, there is some kind of “I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine”, between Hormel and one of the local independent McDonald’s franchises in Beijing. It’s not, NOT, a McDonald’s product.
It is a local franchise owner’s local product.
The Hormel / McDonald’s Frankenstein burger.
.
Anyways, now you know the entire story. You’ll never figure out this kind of background on your own by reading the American “news”. Sometimes you all just have to go off yourself and see things with your own two eyes.
For 99.9999% of the McDonald’s in China, it’s a completely different story.
This is what the front door to McDonald’s looks like, and THIS is the burger that they are actually promoting this 2021 CNY. It’s the year of the Bull. Why in Pete’s name would they promote a pork spam burger on a beef year?
Think people think!!!!!!
The door to the front of McDonald’s showing the new promoted breakfast burger. It is a beef sloppy-Joe with Chinese spices and flavorings on an extra large English Muffin. It should be pretty delicious. Price is around a $1.20 for a burger and a coffee.
.
Disappointing because I really wanted to see this thing up close and personal.
I was finally able to do a search for this burger. All of the pictures were in English. None was in Chinese. And none originated out of China. All the picture originated out of America, and had English text. I wonder who’s great idea this was? To market an unsavory burger to Americans in English and say that China is selling it?
Fox news?
CNN?
Sometimes I think that. American news. Is in another complete time track, in reality of their own making, it’s just something that’s completely off the wall.
However, McDonald’s does have a new holiday burger that’s out. It looks pretty good, it’s a beef patty with chicken-fried bacon toppings. And a kind of a mustard sauce that they’re happening all on this new kind of Sesame bun looks like. Looks pretty good price is pretty reasonable. Here’s the advertisement marquee poster on another window…
Sorry for the glare. Note that in China, no one advertises in English. And all Chinese advertisements tend to have characters from history, in one form or the other, within the advertisement.
.
Of course, you’ll never hear about that, nope, not at all, not in the American news.
At the medical clinic
So anyways, I trooped out to the local clinic. The local clinic is giving away free Coronavirus packages to everybody.
It’s a nice thing to do. You get scanned, you get swabbed, and you get a nice free check up. It’s on going and there just isn’t any really long lines. You go in, and get checked.
Here’s the banner showing the “care package” that you can get with the QR scan to apply for it.
Banner to apply for the COVID care package at the clinic. Note the fire extinguisher box to the left of the the picture. This is how fire extinguishers are stored all over China.
.
Anyways, the packages come with a bunch of free masks disposable masks. Some hand sanitizer. Seventy five percent alcohol for swapping things. Some herbal medicines that (you know Chinese herbal medicines) are helpful when you have distress and discomfort. As well as some medicines to handle harsh distress, western medicines, well (actually) made in China but western medicines and of course a sticker with a magnetic back that you can put on your refrigerator. That has a scanning barcode (A QR code). You just scan and it immediately contacts the clinic.
It’s a direct line to the clinics and hospitals in the direct and immediate area.
I would imagine that there’s probably something along these lines in the states too. Maybe at the local clinics and hospitals, there’s probably something similar, I’m sure that you’ll probably will have to pay for it. It’s the American way, don’t you know. Everything for a buck. But the USA just has to be doing this. This is what all the responsible nations are doing. Whether they are in Europe, or Russia, of Africa. Nations are trying to meet the needs of their people.
It’s how reasonable and responsible nations behave.
But you know, China has this because after all, it has been a very difficult period to go though.
The end of the year. Woo woo!
Well, it’s almost the end of the Year of the Rat; 2020. Soon it will be the year of the Bull. 2021 was one Hell of a year. I think everyone can well agree with me on that. It really sucked.
You can tell just how much it sucked, by the kinds of jokes that floated around then…
My best friend got mad at me because he caught me sniffing his sister's panties
It didn't help that she was still wearing them.
Or that his whole family was there.
That made the rest of his sister's funeral kind of awkward.
And who thought you could make the funeral for such a small child more awkward than it already was..
Indeed, if a normal year would be a large Christmas banquet, 2020 would be discarded peanut shells inside an elephant cage.
.
Indeed, 2020 was a hard year.
If 2020 was a drink, what kind of beverage would it be?
Colonoscopy prep.
As nasty as the year was, America has it easy.
At least the rest of the world wasn’t carpet bombed with biological weapons, a non-stop anti-China propaganda campaign, and CIA-sponsored “pro-democracy” color-revolutions in their cities.
I know everything happens for a reason, but 2020? What the actual fuck!
Ah, but in China…
They. Do. Not. Play. They operate on another level entirely.
When the government went DEFCON ONE, and the militia and reserves were called up everything went harsh lock-down. And you can’t blame them actually. With an onslaught of biological weapons thrown at China from every angle they had to do something.
Do you remember hula hoops? Well if 2020 was a hula hoop you would probably need to visit the hospital after playing with it.
And so they did.
Six biological weapons aimed at grains and produce. Three targeting livestock, and even using drones to spray the viruses over the remote farms and ranches. And then finally, the grand finale, the Coronavirus COVID-19B released when China was most vulnerable on CNY. With two even worse viral agents COVID-20, and COVID-21 in an effort that really just appears to be spiteful, vengeful and (yes) desperate.
No wonder the 2020 meme’s rang true…
.
All things taken together most American and those outside of China know nothing of all this. To them, there is one unified pandemic. It is natural, and all nations are dealing with it the best that they can.
Though truthfully, America has handled this year the worst.
I suspect that it has to do with the leadership.
Xi Peng felt his nation was under biological weapons attack and went DEFCON ONE. Everything that could be done was done. No chances were taken.
Donald Trump felt that his nations was fine and that everything was going as planned. Let people get a minor sniffle and they would be forever immunized from the nasty lethal strain that attacked China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.
Psychologically, I believe that people act and behave differently during an emergency.
Have you ever been in a car crash when you were drinking. man, oh man, you sure sober up quick. I think that this is the same phenomenon here. Donald Trump didn’t treat this coronavirus; the COVID-19A as anything to be concerned about. he wanted everyone to get it. And he never thought that it would become a dangerous strain.
And so Americans had to suffer.
Some 2020 memes
It’s not just Americans mind you. But everyone.
Here’s from Australia…
.
The 2020 rat year hit and affected everyone. Absolutely and positively every one.
Is it safe to say that babies born in the year 2020 will be called....
...doomers?
And…
The year 2020 began with Australia on fire and over a billion animals dead.
Little did we know then that it would be the feel good story of the year.
And…
Back in time
Stop me if you heard this joke:
Jimmy magically traveled back in time hundreds and hundreds of years.
He walked around the village feeling very superior to these uneducated and backward people. Saw them practicing with bows and arrows, riding horses, etc.
He walked up to the men practicing with bow and arrows.
“You guys are so simple. I come from the year 2020. Where I come from, we have guns.”
*Guns?*
“Yes, we use gun powder, which explodes. The gun powder is in a small bullet and when it gets hit hard it explodes and sends the bullet out the end of a tube so fast it can kill instantly.”
*That’s amazing, can you make us this gun powder?*
“Uh, no. I don’t know how. Someone smarter than me figured it out.”
They shook their heads and went back to practicing.
Then he walked by a girl riding a horse.
He shook his head in sympathy, “Where I come from we ride around in cars.”
*Cars?*
“Yes, they were like your wagons, but they didn’t need horses. We poured gasoline into them, which gave it power when it burned and made the care move way faster than any horse.
*Can you make me this gasoline?*
“Uh, no. I don’t know how. Someone smarter than me figured it out.”
*Well, how could it go so fast over the bumpy ground?*
“We had long streets made of concrete which made it very smooth for miles and miles.”
*Wow, can you make us this concrete?*
“Uh, no. I don’t know how. Someone smarter than me figured it out.”
As night fell, he walked over to a small house, lit only by candles.
“Where I come from, there is light in every room, every street, we even carry light in our pocket if we need it.”
*How is that possible?*
“Electricity. It’s like the energy from lightning but we make it and then we store it in a battery and it powers everything in the world. “
*That’s amazing. Can you make us this electricity?*
“Uh, no. I don’t know how. Someone smarter than me figured it out.”
In the morning, he walked by a doctor taking care of a boy coughing.
“You should cover his mouth and nose with a cloth, so you and his family don’t get sick.”
*How do you know this?*
“Uh, I don’t know. But someone smarter than me figured it out.”
Not really a joke. Just wear a mask. Because someone smarter than you figured out it was the right thing to do.
There’s a ton load of memes about this most crappy of years. And you can search the internet for many more examples of how everyone else thought about this year. I can say that I have good news and bad news.
I don't know what animal the year 2020 is in the Chinese calendar...
...but I'm pretty sure it has rabies
Well, 2020 was the year of the RAT.
Firstly the good news. 2020 is over, and in two weeks the Year of the Rat will end. Yay!
In the year 2020, the Lord came unto Noah, Who was now living in America and said:
“Once again, the earth has become wicked and over-populated, and I see the end of all flesh before me."
"Build another Ark and save 2 of every living thing along with a few good humans."
He gave Noah the blueprints, saying:
"You have 6 months to build the Ark before I will start the unending rain for 40 days and 40 nights."
Six months later, the Lord looked down and saw Noah weeping in his yard - but no Ark."Noah!," He roared, "I'm about to start the rain! Where is the Ark?"
"Forgive me, Lord," begged Noah, "but things have changed."
"I needed a Building Permit."
"I've been arguing with the Boat Inspector about the need for a sprinkler system."
"My homeowners association claim that I've violated the Neighborhood by-laws by building the Ark in my back yard and exceeding the height limitations. We had to go to the local Planning Committee for a decision."
"Then the City Council and the Electricity Company demanded a shed load of money for the future costs of moving power lines and other overhead obstructions, to clear the passage for the Ark's move to the sea. I told them that the sea would be coming to us, but they would hear none of it."
"Getting the wood was another problem. There's a ban on cutting local trees in order to save the Greater Spotted Barn Owl."
"I tried to convince the environmentalists that I needed the wood to save the owls - but no go!"
"When I started gathering the animals, PETA took me to court. They insisted that I was confining wild animals against their will. They argued the accommodations were too restrictive and it was cruel and inhumane to put so many animals in a confined space."
"Then the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that I couldn't build the Ark until they'd conducted an environmental impact study on Your proposed flood."
"I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the Human Rights Commission on how many minorities I'm supposed to hire for my building crew."
"The Immigration Dept. Is checking the visa status of most of the people who want to work."
"The labor unions say I can't use my sons. They insist I have to hire only union workers with ark-building experience."
"To make matters worse, the IRS seized all my assets, claiming I'm trying to leave the country illegally with endangered species."
"So, forgive me, Lord, but it would take at least 10 years for me to finish this ark."
"Suddenly the skies cleared, the sun began to shine and a rainbow stretched across the sky."
Noah looked up in wonder and asked, "You mean you're not going to destroy the world?"
"No," said the Lord. " The Government beat me to it.
That was an American joke.
…
Now the bad news.
Certain (unnamed) nations have handled this what-ever-you-want-to-call-it outrageously poorly, and this will make containment much more difficult and harder. I anticipate that things will not get back to normal for some time. Years probably. So if you are thinking that everything is going back to normal in four to six months you can dream on. I really doubt that.
.
Ok, ok. I know that you just don’t want to be reminded of that nasty, nasty year.
But you all have to appreciate that the memes were on fire. I mean really. You can take a meme from America and show it to someone from South Africa or Brazil and they would end up on the floor laughing. Of course, there will be some minor cultural differences. Like no one else in the world were stupidly hoarding toilet-paper. That was just a uniquely American thing.
But for many, the American memes are quite relatable.
.
Or, perhaps just consider the strange and crazy things that were going on. I wonder what the history books will write. I mean, it’s been an unusually long year. Well at least it seems like it was. In fact, it seems like the year was maybe three times longer than a “regular” year.
It makes you wonder what our collective karma must have been. Right?
.
And of course, with everyone being locked inside their residences, the normal ways of doing things, the normal activities and the normal relationships all were turned on their heads.
Fathers who normally would be away at work “earning the money” now had to contend with six pre-school boys rampaging inside the house. And the mothers, who would enjoy a nice night out occasionally found out all about the romances that one can have at home.
Yup.
2020 upended a lot of lives. That’s for certain.
.
The new year; 2021.
In two weeks will by CNY 2021. Already everyone is making plans for the holidays, and the directives from the local governments is “nope, stay put.” So, that’s what most of us are doing. If we did decide to travel then we would need to allocated 7+14 +7 days on top of our holiday. And all the hotel quarantine expenses will be out of our personal pockets.
Yikes!
So guess what?
Yup. We are staying home.
Doing homework. Yah, and all the Chinese kids will spend their holidays continuing to study and strive to be the best that they can be. Here’s two kids outside of a local corner grocery store. This is typical China.
.
Anyways, being shut in and isolated from all the parties, KTV’s and the huge banquets is a bummer, but it at least gives me some time to read. And I do have a list don’t you know. And so, without further ado, let’s take a glimpse of some history.
We are going to find a cozy nook, and curl up with a nice book. Well, at least in our mind we will. And as we settle down with a nice tea, or mug of coffee, or glass of wine, let’s put another log on the fire and snuggle under a throw as we read about other bad years at other times.
If you’ve got a favorite pet, a cat or a dog, bring them in. Nothing is finer than spending reading time with a loved one.
Cozy reading nook.
.
I’m going to put this in my “Tales of the Little Guy” sub-Index of the SHTF Index. And yeah, it is a tale of the little guy. And while he was part of an Army that fought in the American Civil War, I cannot help but believe that his actions were very personal to him.
The following is a reprint of an article titled “Jack Hinson: A Civil War Sniper Hell Bent on Revenge” written on Apr 16, 2018 by Shahan Russell. It was found HERE, and reprinted as found with editing to fit this venue. All credit to the author.
Jack Hinson: A Civil War Sniper Hell Bent on Revenge
John W. “Jack” Hinson, better known as “Old Jack” to his family,
was a prosperous farmer in Stewart County, Tennessee. A non-political
man, he opposed secession from the Union even though he owned slaves.
Friends and neighbors described him as a peaceable man, yet despite all
this, he would end up going on a one-man killing spree.
Jack’s plantation was called Bubbling Springs, where he lived with
his wife and ten children. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he was
fiercely determined to remain neutral.
When Union Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant arrived in the area in February 1862, the Hinsons hosted the man at their home. The general was so pleased with the plantation that he even turned it into his temporary headquarters.
Even when one of their sons joined the Confederate Army, while another joined a militia group, Jack remained strictly neutral. They were content to manage their plantation despite the ongoing conflict.
Grant had stayed at the Hinson estate after capturing Fort Henry and
Fort Donelson. In taking the last, he secured a vital gateway to the
rest of the Confederacy. The Union’s victory at the Battle of Fort
Donelson was also its first major one since the start of the Civil War.
Battle of Fort Donelson.
His victory also meant that Union troops became a permanent fixture
in the Kentucky-Tennessee border where the Hinsons lived. While the
family had no problem with that, others did – and the Hinsons would pay
dearly for it. In the end, so would many Union soldiers.
Since many in the region were sympathetic to the Confederacy, some
turned to guerrilla tactics to deal with the better armed and trained
Union soldiers. These were called bushwhackers, because they hid in the
woods where they could attack Union troops before fading back into the
wild.
The only known image of Jack Hinson
It wasn’t just soldiers they went after, however.
There were many cases where they’d target Unionist farmers and sympathizers, as well. Still others were not so politically motivated. Some bushwhackers were bandits who took advantage of the deteriorating law-and-order situation to prey on isolated homesteads. In some cases, they even attacked entire communities.
After the fall of Fort Donelson to Union troops, guerrilla attacks on
Union soldiers and their supporters increased. As a result, it became
policy to torture and execute any suspected bushwhackers without a
trial.
In the fall of 1862, Jack’s 22-year-old son George Hinson, and his
17-year-old brother, Jack, went deer hunting about a mile from their
home as they always did. Unfortunately, they came across a Union patrol
who suspected them of being bushwhackers.
The boys were tied to a tree then shot, after which their bodies were dragged back to town. There the corpses were paraded around the Dover courthouse square as an example of the Union’s zero-tolerance policy toward resistance.
The remains were then decapitated and left there, while the heads were brought to the Hinson plantation.
Ulysses
Grant went on to become the 18th president. This picture of him taken
between 1870 to 1880 is his official presidential portrait
Before the entire family, the heads were stuck on two gate posts as an example of Union justice.
The lieutenant in charge wanted to arrest the Hinsons for their relationship to the two alleged bushwhackers but was informed about Grant’s stay on the property. He was also told that the major general would not take kindly to any mistreatment of the surviving Hinsons, so they were left alone.
That was the lieutenant’s second mistake of the day.
Of Scottish-Irish descent, Jack could not let the murders of his sons
go unpunished. He buried his children’s remains, then sent the rest of
his family and slaves to West Tennessee to stay with relatives.
He then commissioned a special 0.50 caliber rifle with a
percussion-cap muzzle-loader. Besides its lack of decorative brass
ornamentation, this rifle was also unique because it had a 41” long
octagonal barrel that weighed 17 pounds. The length of the barrel
ensured that he could accurately hit targets from half a mile away.
As to the octagonal shape, it was based on the Whitworth Rifle. With
its hexagonal barrel, it could shoot farther (2,000 yards) and more
accurately than the Pattern 1853 Enfield (1,400 yards) with its
traditional round rifled barrel.
Moving into a cave above the Tennessee River, Jack became a bushwhacker at the age of 57.
Jack became a bushwhacker at the age of 57.
His first target was the lieutenant who ordered his sons shot and beheaded. The man was killed as he rode in front of his column.
The second target was the soldier who placed the heads on the gateposts.
It didn’t take the Union long to connect the dots, so they burned down the abandoned Hinson plantation.
The British Whitworth sharpshooting rifle which served as the basis for Jack’s own
The
Tennessee and Cumberland rivers were major transport hubs, so he
frequented both. From his higher vantage points, he targeted Union
boats, picking off captains and officers, as well as disrupting the flow
of river traffic.
The most spectacular story of his sniping career was when an entire boat of Union soldiers surrendered to him.
After Jack fired on the boat, the captain thought he was being attacked by Confederate soldiers. To avoid further bloodshed, the captain beached his boat, raised a white tablecloth, and waited to be captured. But Jack couldn’t possibly handle them all, so he retreated and let them wait.
With help from the locals and by constantly staying on the move, he avoided capture despite the massive manhunt for him.
Though he remained apolitical, he began helping the Confederate Army.
In November 1864, for example, he guided Lieutenant General Nathan
Bedford Forrest to Johnsonville to attack its Union supply center.
Jack died on 28 April 1874 and lies buried in the family plot in Cane Creek Cemetery.
With help from the locals and by constantly staying on the move, he
avoided capture despite the massive manhunt for him. His family was not
so lucky, however. Two of his younger children had died of disease,
while the son who joined the army also died, as did another during a
guerrilla raid.
Jack survived the war and cut 36 circles in the barrel of his rifle to mark the number of Union officers he killed. Union records, however, blame him for over 130 kills – though it’s believed that he may have killed “only” a little more than 100.
Kyle Reese:
Listen. Understand. That Terminator is out there. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with...it doesn't feel pity of remorse or fear...and it absolutely will not stop.Ever. Until you are dead.
Some thoughts on this.
He tried to stay neutral. He tried to stay out of the fight. He tried to make peace. But trying to pretend that the political changes that whirl around you doesn’t affect you is a losing proposition. You are just as likely as not to be caught up in the whirlwind.
And you don’t want that.
You need to be completely aware of everything that is going on around you.
150 years ago Americans fought bloody battles against each other.
.
And you need to realize that during difficult time you must act and behave differently than you did during peaceful times.
2020 was a crap year. But was it any different in stress than what occurred 150 years ago? Maybe you aren’t watching long columns of men march down the dirt streets, or cheer on your brave men folk… but during times of upheaval it’s difficult to recognize exactly what is going on.
Who’s to say that America, or the rest of the world, isn’t going though the beginnings of stark and drastic societal change? Who’s to say?
No two wars are alike. Stop pretending that they are.
Everything, absolutely everything is personal. It is visceral and affects our own, our own reality. And just as society has advanced with bar codes, cell phones, internet, High Speed Trains, and ranch dressing in single-use packs, so has war and conflict advanced.
What you see today could very well be the start of a long, long period of long-drawn-out change.
What ever you do, learn as best as you can from the past. No matter how far away and seemingly distant to you.
Make the best with what you have.
Enjoy life.
Take care.
A woman’s bathroom in a mall in China. Tomorrow will be better.
And about the end of 2020 and into 2021
The meme’s just keep a rolling along.
Things that I have learned.
.
And let’s not forget how everyone else celebrated the end of 2020. Does this remind you of yourself?
All of us after the year 2020.
.
Ah, but you know that the government really cares about you. Why most other nations gave monthly and by-weekly stimulus checks to their citizenry all year. From January through December of 2020. For most people in Europe, Australia and some nations in South America it was as if there wasn’t a pandemic at all. You still got your checks and you still kept your house.
But “exceptional” America, of course, did the same. Well, sort of…
Americans got a “stimulus” check roughly equal to about one half of a month’s rent.
.
Ah, but we really can’t get too down on America. The government needs that money, don’t you know. If that multi-trillion dollar amount was divided equally by the number of Americans, each and every American (including children) would get hundreds of thousands of dollars. But that would (of course) take away from the real purpose of government…
…to protect it’s people and make sure that they are living life and the “pursuit of happiness.”
America needs the money to protect Americans.
.
Now, if you are a fine MM reader, then you know that you can alter your reality and make your life better. Or at least certainly better than your peers.
Reality.
MetallicMan Bonus
For those of you that are conducting Affirmation Prayer campaigns, I would suggest you incorporate this affirmation…
The year 2021 is a very lucky, prosperous, and wonderful year for me, and my family, as well as my business, career and income stream.
Do you want more?
I have more posts like this in my “Tales of the Little Guy” sub-Index of the SHTF Index.
Do you want to see similar posts?
I hope that you found this post curious. Please take care. You can view other similar posts in my SHTF Index, here…
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
It’s difficult to measure the damage that an ideology can do on a society. Often you don’t realize what a mess things are until long after the great looting, and destruction. But you can notice events. Often singular events, and often whispered about quietly. And one such event is the purging of art in favor of the formless and meaningless.
Look at the painting above. It is titled “Consulting the Oracle” and was painted by John William Waterhouse. It’s great right? It’s large. It would occupy the wall in a nice sized living room. It’s 77 inches long and 46 inches high. And it’s beautiful. Right?
This painting was very quietly sold by the museum that held it for £5 ($7.50) to a private individual.
I’ve seen cups of coffee that cost more.
The excuse is that the museum needed the money. Bills needed to be paid, and new works of art needed to be purchased to “keep the museum alive and vibrant”. Of course that old “song and dance”. The excuse, a progressive excuse, that you must destroy the old to make room for the new.
Ok.
I’ll bite.
What “new” art was worthy of purchase. How about millions of dollars for this magnificent piece…
Willem de Kooning’s Woman III
.
This undeniably strange-looking painting of a woman made Willem de Kooning and his estate a few millions richer. The painting recently changed hands to the tune of $137.5 million. This abstract painting was finished by Kooning in 1953. The painting became rather controversial in the 1970s, because it was refused for exhibit at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. This painting is currently privately owned. It spans 68 inches in height and 48.5 inches in width.
Yes. I cannot believe it. Can you?
And we are not alone either…
This painting is awful.
I get that it’s an abstract expressionist painting, but it is so hideous to look at. You honestly couldn’t convince me to take it if I was walking down the street and saw that laying on the grass. Clearly that means I have no taste because it sold for a ridiculous $137.5 million in 2006. This made it the 4th most expensive painting ever sold.
It was created by painter Williem de Kooning in 1953.
The buyer, David Geffen, is worth $6.5 billion, so nobody is going to step in and tell him how to spend his money… but are you kidding me?
-10 Ugly Pieces Of Art You Won't Believe Sold For Millions
Who in their right mind made this decision?
The Art Renewal Center chimes in…
From the Art Renewal Center…
Works of art worth tens of millions of pounds today have been sold off quietly by museums over the past 50 years for a few pounds. British art institutions such as the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Exeter City Museum have disposed of pictures by masters such as Van Dyck and Henri Fantin Latour . They were sold without public notice, dismissed as too unimportant to keep. Among the most serious cases is a painting by the 19th-century master, John William Waterhouse . In 1965, the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro sold it for £200 ($300) to a private collector; today it is worth more than £5 million ($7.5 million).
"Most of the works were sold off as they were deemed to be artistically worthless", Christopher Wright, a leading Old Masters scholar, said. He discovered evidence of the sales while preparing a nationwide study of British art for Yale University Press. "They have been sold off without public notice," he said. "Many of the museums didn't dare make it public. They've all been proved wrong."
Mr Wright expressed disbelief at the decision of the Exeter museum to "rape" its collection of 160 works - "there is no other word to describe the destruction of an entire museum collection". The auctions, which involved selling works for as little as £5 ($7.50), included Waterhouse's Consulting the Oracle, four paintings by Fantin-Latour and one by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema . Caroline Worthington, fine art curator at Exeter, said that the sale took place at Christie's in 1954, "when High Victorian art was deeply unfashionable ... We would like them back, most definitely." "We're talking household names", Mr Wright said, adding that many were bought by the heavyweight dealers Agnews and Colnaghi, who clearly appreciated the importance of the artists, even if the museums did not.
Tamsin Daniel, Truro's curator of art and exhibitions, said that the museum had needed money for storage and a lift. She conceded that the loss was painful. The Waterhouse went to a private collector bidding at Christie's. The £200 ($300) it cost him, she said, was "a bit different to what Andrew Lloyd Webber paid recently for a Waterhouse": £6.6 million ($9.9 million).
Leeds City Art Gallery and Museum, Mr Wright was told by an insider, actually disguised the provenance of works when selling them through an auction house. "They were described as property of Madame X," he said. "The sales were clandestine. They didn't say Leeds was de-accessioning. They were all Victorian pictures purchased from the Royal Academy. They got rid of dozens." Nigel Walsh, curator of exhibitions, expressed surprise at the news, denying that the gallery had sold anything. Nor did Evelyn Silber, its director, know anything about it until contacted by The Times. She later discovered that 37 paintings (nearly all Victorian) had been sold in 1939 under the then director, Philip Hendey, who went on to head the National Gallery in London. The Fitzwilliam in Cambridge sold more than 200 works in the 1950s. Although they were marked "property of the Fitzwilliam" in the catalogs, they were mixed up with hundreds of other lots, Mr Wright said. "They put them through the salerooms in dribs and drabs."
Mr Wright said that the Fortune-teller with Soldiers "was sold off as a copy, but it has since been published as the real thing worth millions".
Craig Hartley, a Fitzwilliam curator, said: "In retrospect, this seems a horrific thing to have done." Among other institutions to have sold off paintings, Mr Wright said, were the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich; the Cooper Art Gallery in Barnsley; the Holbourne Museum of Art in Bath; and the Birmingham City Art Gallery.
-Art Renewal Center article by Dalya Alberge
I am horrified.
Just beyond my self.
So who ended up getting these magnificent works of art?
"They were described as property of Madame X," he said. "The sales were clandestine. They didn't say Leeds was de-accessioning. They were all Victorian pictures purchased from the Royal Academy. They got rid of dozens."
Well, you must understand that a museum collects works of art for pubic display and enjoyment. If they no longer wants to display that art to the public, they take if off display and put it in storage. Apparently these works took up too much space, so they sold them to “Art Dealers”. And these art dealers held auctions and auctioned them off to wealthy attendees.
Yes.
That’s right. The art was taken away from public display and sold off to the oligarchy for their own personal use.
Ladies and Gentlemen ... Artists,
The art of painting, one of the greatest traditions in all of human history has been under a merciless and relentless assault for the last one hundred years. I'm referring to the accumulated knowledge of over 2500 hundred years, spanning from Ancient Greece to the early Renaissance and through to the extraordinary pinnacles of artistic achievement seen in the High Renaissance, 17th century Dutch, and the great 19th century Academies of Europe and America. These traditions, just when they were at their absolute zenith, at a peak of achievement, seemingly unbeatable and unstoppable, hit the twentieth century at full stride, and then ... fell off a cliff, and smashed to pieces on the rocks below. Since World War I the contemporary visual arts as represented in Museum exhibitions, University Art Departments, and journalistic art criticism became little more than juvenile, repetitive exercises at proving to the former adult world that they could do whatever they damn well wanted ... sadly devolving ever downwards into a distorted, contrived and contorted notion of freedom of expression. Freedom of expression? Ironically, this so-called "freedom" as embodied in Modernism, rather than a form of "expression" in truth became a form of "suppression" and "oppression." Modernism as we know it, ultimately became the most oppressive and restrictive system of thought in all of art history.
Every reasonable shred of order and any standards with which it was possible to identify, understand and to create great paintings and sculpture, was degraded ... detested ... desecrated and eviscerated. The backbone of the painters' craft, namely drawing, was thrown into the trash along with modeling, perspective, illusion, recognizable objects or elements from the real world, and with it the ability to capture, exhibit, and poetically express subjects and themes about mankind and the human condition and about man's trials on this speck of stardust called Earth ... Earth, hurtling through infinity with all of us along on board, along with everything we know and everything we hold dear.
Reason ... philosophy ... religion ... literature ... fantasy ... dreams, and all of the feelings, emotions and pathos of our every day lives ... all of it was no longer worthy of the painter's craft. Any hint by the artist at trying to portray such things was branded as banal, maudlin, photographic, illustration, or petty sentimentality.
Our children, going supposedly to the finest universities in the world, being taught by professors with Bachelors or Arts, Masters of Arts, Masters of Fine Arts, Masters of Art Education ... even Doctoral degrees, our children instead have been subjected to methodical brain-washing and taught to deny the evidence of their own senses. Taught that Mattisse, Cézanne, and Picasso, along with their followers, were the most brilliant artists in all of history. Why? Because they weren't telling us lies like the traditional painters, of course. They weren't trying to make us believe that we were looking at scenes in reality, or at scenes from the imagination, from fantasy or from dreams. They were telling us the truth. They were telling it like it is. They spent their lives and careers on something that was not banal, and not silly, insipid or inane. They in fact provided the world with the most ingenious of all breakthroughs in the history of artistic thought. Even the great scientific achievements of the industrial revolution paled before their brilliant discovery. And what was that discovery for which they have been raised above Bouguereau , exalted over Gérôme , and celebrated beyond Ingres , David , Constable , Fragonard , Van Dyck , and Gainsborough or Poussin ? Why in fact were they heralded to the absolute zenith ... the tiptop of human achievement ... being worthy even of placement shoulder to shoulder on pedestals right beside Rembrandt , Michelangelo , Leonardo , Caravaggio , Vermeer and Raphael ? What did they do? Why were they glorified practically above all others that ever went before them? Ladies and gentleman, they proved ... amazing, incredible, and fantastic as it may seem, they proved that the canvas was flat ... flat and very thin ... skinny ... indeed, not even shallow, lacking any depth or meaning whatsoever.
And the flatter that they proved it to be the greater they were exalted. Cézanne collapsed the landscape, Matisse flattened our homes and our families, and Pollock, Rothko and de Kooning placed it all in a blender and splattered it against the wall. They made even pancakes look fat and chunky by comparison. But this was only part of the breathtaking breakthroughs of modernism ... and their offshoots flourished. Abstract expressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, minimalism, ColorField, Conceptual, op-art, pop-art and post modernism ... and to understand it all ... to understand, took very special people indeed, since the mass of humanity was too ignorant and stupid to understand. Like that famous advertisement in the NY Times said so many years ago ... Bad art ... or Good art? You be the judge, indeed.
Of course, to justify this whole theoretical paradigm, all the artists that painted recognizable scenes with depth and illusion had to be discredited ... and discredited they were, with a virulence and vituperation so scathing and merciless that one would think they must have been messengers of the devil himself to deserve such abuse. And to put the final nail in their coffins, all of their art was banished and their names and accomplishments written right out of history. I graduated with a Master's in art education from Columbia University, and I'd never heard of Bouguereau , much less that he was President of the Academy and head of the Salon ... the most celebrated artist of his time who single handedly, using all of his influence as the most respected leader of art world, opened up L'Ecole Des Beaux Arts and the Salons to women artists for the first time in history.
During most of the 20th century, the type of propaganda that has been hurled at academic artists is so insidious that people have been literally trained to discredit, out-of-hand, any work containing well-crafted figures or elements, or any other evidence of technical mastery. All the beauty and subtlety of emotions, — interplay of composition, design and theme, — the interlacing of color, tone and mood, — are never seen. The viewer has been taught that academic painting on a prima facie basis is bad by definition — bad by virtue of its resorting to the use of human figures, themes or stories and objects from the real world.
Prestige suggestion causes them to automatically assume that a work must be great if it's by any of the "big names" of modern art, so they at once start looking for reasons why it must be proclaimed great. Any failing to find greatness is not considered a failing in the art but in the intelligence and sensibilities of the viewer. Students operating under that kind of intimidating pressure, you can be sure, will find greatness - no matter what they are looking at.
The reverse of this has been trained into them when they view academic paintings. They have been taught that works exhibiting realistic rendering are "bad art" and therefore any good that is seen is not due to qualities inherent in their artistic accomplishments, but are rather due to a lack of intelligence and taste in the viewer. The same intimidating pressure works in reverse to ensure that a work by Bouguereau , Lord Leighton , Burne-Jones , Gérôme , Frederick Hart , or any of the rest of you here, will not be seen as anything other than bad by definition.
No student in a school with this kind of dictatorial brain-washing will ever risk exploring or even listening to opposing views, for fear of being stigmatized from that point on, with some undesirable label and being universally despised ... sadly, a very effective deterrent to independent thought. Thus the visual experience of well-drawn representational elements is perceived as a negative, ad hominem, that proves with knee-jerk automaticity the presumed "badness" of the art and its creator.
It is especially ironic that these are the same people who trumpet the virtues and inalienable right to freedom of speech, while they surreptitiously and steadfastly conspire to remove that freedom from those with whom they disagree.
Equally ironic is the charge that academic painting is "uninspired," a proclamation issued by critics who are unable to see beyond the technical virtuosity for which they condemn it, to see what is being said. This rich visual language is wasted on eyes that will not see. It would be no different than dismissing out-of-hand a piece of music as soon as it was determined that notes, chords and keys were used, or dismissing any work of literature upon noticing words arranged in grammatically correct sentences.
That is not to say that all academic art is great, or above criticism - certainly, it is not. It would be no less fallacious to issue blanket praise to an entire category than to condemn it. Academic painting ranges from brilliantly conceived and deeply inspired, to trite and silly, depending on the subject and the artist.
That being said, I find even the worst of it more meaningful than art based on the ridiculous notion that it is somehow important to prove the canvas is flat, and/or that one needs no skill or technique to be an artist - views generally embraced by those who condemn the entire category of academic art. Their point seems to be to elevate to legitimacy that which has removed all standards and prior defining characteristics of art. In other words, by defining non-art as art, the logical conclusion is that art is non-art.
Modern artists are told that they must create something totally original. Nothing about what they do can ever have been done before in any way shape or form, otherwise they risk being called "derivative". How utterly absurd.
These critics like to say Bouguereau's work is really only derivative, harking back to earlier artists. Only in the 20th century has such a thing ever been scorned. To this I have one thing to say:
What, dear friends, is wrong with being derivative?
That's one of the core beliefs of modernism that must be soundly vanquished by common sense and logical analysis. Nobody can accomplish anything of merit if they are in fact not derivative. Only by mastering the accomplishments of the past and then adding to it can we go still further. Every other field of endeavor recognizes this truth. Without the knowledge of the past we are doomed to everlasting primitivism.
And, as far as holding our works up to the old masters, that's what we want to have happen. If we are to accomplish things of true merit and excellence, we must germinate and nurture great masters in the next millennium, too. Bouguereau was quite aware that his work would be compared on the altar of past accomplishments, as did his contemporaries. It was precisely because they mastered the techniques of the past, built upon them and then opened them up to an avalanche of new subject matter and Enlightenment ideals, that they accomplished the greatest half-century of painting in art history.
And when we talk about the basic criteria and parameters of the academic tradition that built from the 14th through 19th centuries, Bouguereau , Lord Leighton and Alma-Tadema were second to none.
Could Bach and Beethoven and Mozart have achieved their masterpieces if someone before had not discovered scales and the circle of fifths? Does that mean these musical giants were nothing but derivative too? In fact all great literature exists due to the existence of advanced language. This upside down thought process would make Dosteovsky, Balzac, Chekhov, Shakespeare and the Brontë sisters derivative as well. If you think about it a bit you will see that these are exact analogies. There is nothing any more derivative about these 19th century Traditional-Humanist-Academic masters.
Being derivative is entirely different from copying. Copying itself can have value, but only for the purposes of instruction. Obviously, a copied work is not original art. But modernist ideologues have disingenuously dismissed all realist art as "derivative" as if that were the same as copying.
Additionally, students today are taught that every parameter upon which any standard for quality and excellence can be deduced is improper, because it's "limiting to freedom of expression."
There can be no story, for then you have to stay within the "tight boundaries" of the tale.
There can be no illusion, for then you are "chained" by the need to recreate a sense of three dimensions.
There can be no drawing, as that can be "limiting" to objects or people or things taken from the real world.
They want to remove the "shackles" of modeling, perspective, or subject matter of any sort.
There certainly can be no attempt at harmonizing of the above parameters with composition, color and tonality, for that would "restrict" one to making everything work together.
On the contrary, they have been propagandized by modernism into believing that only those works that break boundaries, ignore standards, and show no interest in skill or technique can be truly "original" or "inspired." In fact originality of methods take precedence over all else. If something has been done before, or is derivative in any way of anything that was done before, it thereby loses value proportionate to those similarities. In such a "Through the looking glass" world, every would-be "artist" is placed in the untenable position of trying to create an entirely new art form in order to be considered relevant. The sheer glaring reality is that nothing could be more imprisoning, binding, restricting, chaining and shackling than the impossible limitations of modernism and post-modernism, that remove from the would-be artist every tool (including training) that could give him or her the ability to create great works of art. The simple truth is that each and every one of us (and I mean nearly every human being), is capable of thinking of something that has never been done before. Does that make it worth doing and the work of genius?
For example:
(1) I could carefully (with enough money) dig up an old bombed out tenement building in the Bronx, and have it transported to a special slab built for it in Central Park. Rope off the structure and aim lights at it at night and give it a title, and with enough pomp and circumstance think of twenty reasons why this is sheer brilliance and genius.
(2) I could boil the entrails of several different animals and then preserve them by imbedding them in clear plastic. I could then hang them from a mobile with similarly preserved body parts of cadavers, and have critics claim that this is the greatest artistic statement about the horrors of war since Guernica
(3) I could imbed into the walls, ceiling and floors of a small room, pieces of neon lights, parts from broken machines and engines, and broken pieces of structural building materials like bricks, beams and cinder blocks. Then I could glue between everything millions of nails, nuts and bolts, and have clever writers and critics point out how this room (which could be installed at MOMA or the Guggenheim) is the quintessential statement of the effects of the industrial age on human psychology.
Well, those three ideas took all of 3 minutes to think of. MY GOD! This must mean I'm three geniuses rolled into one. Why, at this rate I could come up with more brilliant ideas for Modernism than all of the modernist geniuses put together, if I just would put aside a week or two.
The thing here that really is interesting is not their art at all, but the statement it makes about the nature of our species — that so many seemingly intelligent people have been so easily snookered by the tongue-twisting, convoluted illogic of modernist rhetoric. Clearly for many people it is more important to feel that they are some part of an elitist in-group that is endowed with the special ability to see brilliance where the bulk of humanity sees nothing and is afraid to say so.
Since most people aren't devoted to or educated in fine art, they have successfully intimidated the bulk of humanity into cowering away in silence, feeling foolish for their inability to understand. The average person shrinks away from believing the reality of his or her own senses in the face of seemingly overwhelming numbers of people in this 20th century "establishment" who authoritatively dictate what is great art and what everyone should be seeing.
Modern and Post-modern Art is nihilistic and anti-human. It denigrates humanity along with our hopes, dreams, desires and the real world in which we live. All reference to any of these things is forbidden in the canonistic halls of modernist ideology. We can see that their hallowed halls are a hollow shell, a vacuous, vacant vault that locks their devotees away from life and humanity. It ultimately bores the overwhelming bulk of its would-be audience, who can find nothing with which to relate.
It has been called exciting and cutting-edge, but the sad truth is that it is incredibly humdrum and monotonous. Whether you glue together pieces of plastic or shards of glass, assemble metal scraps or piles of feathers. Whether you dribble little dollops of colors or drag fat uneven slashes of black. Whether you compile a mountain of paper or wrap the Statue of Liberty. The effect is always the same. MEANINGLESS PRIMITIVISM.
Modernism is art about art. It endlessly asks the question, ad nauseam: What is art? What is art? Only those things that expand the boundaries of art are good; all else is bad. It is art about art. Whereas all the great art in history, my friends, is ART ABOUT LIFE.
Of course, this isn't exactly the first time in history that ideas which were complete shams managed to engulf the belief systems of entire cultures and civilizations. In many of those in the past, the lunacy was enforced by the severest of punishments for anyone who would dare to speak out.
At least we live in a time and place where it's possible to speak against this consummate con that has been perpetrated against the greatest period of artistic development and achievement in the history of Western Civilization and culture over the last 500 years.
Three-quarters of the 20th century will go down in art history as a great wasteland of insanity — a nightmarish blip in the long road of the development of human logic and reason and art, from which we are only just starting to awake.
The artists of the 19th century exhibited a deep, abiding respect for humanity and human feelings. A respect for our minds, our spirits and our reason, and a love of beauty, grace and true excellence and accomplishment. Bouguereau , Lord Leighton , Waterhouse , Burne-Jones and the other giants of the 19th C. tried to capture those things that are good and decent in our species. Their accomplishments are the quintessential high point of hundreds of years of human study and development in the art of painting. They are arguably the greatest painters that history has ever produced. Bouguereau especially fits this description. How fitting and sadly obvious that he should be characterized as the chief villain by those who would destroy rather than build — who celebrate chaos rather than order and beauty.
He continues…
Recently, a contributor to an on-line art forum I subscribe to made the following comments about Picasso,
I love the way Picasso did that woman all shards and angles. I don't recall the name of the work. But, he painted the woman in her turmoil how she tore herself apart within, and how he saw what her turmoil did to her. He painted the way he saw her, as fragmented as he saw her. She was a beauty on the outside. Yet, he painted the ugly face of her turmoil, and in so doing painted his turmoil as well.
Picasso worked in a turbulent time. I think it's why some of his works appeared to be reflections in a broken mirror. Shards, impressions all cut up and each with a voice about his subjects and of Spain. His work shows a deeply sensitive artist and was a pivotal point for the Russian avant garde school that said it was okay to feel in paint, to get all the chaos out in paint ... I didn't love him until I studied him ...
- Laurie
And he continues…
I thought it fitting to read here my response to her.
Laurie and Goodart subscribers,
I really need to address these ebullient expressions of praise for Picasso a bit more precisely.
Laurie, this is not to fault you at all, but to analyze the description you have made which reflects the gospel that is taught about him in most art history courses. His name and "achievements" have become so "untouchable" within the sacrosanct walls of modernist cathedrals, that to do any other than you have stated here would be like criticizing the cross or the bible in the College of Cardinals.
Let's look at this one idea at a time.
You said that, "He painted the woman in her turmoil how she tore herself apart within, and how he saw what her turmoil did to her".
I
n fact, all that he painted was a messy characterization of a woman in which the forms and shapes don't align or create any cohesive form. The drawing is virtually non-existent, and the disintegration of all artistic elements are self-consciously laid out for the express purpose of rejecting prior artistic standards.
There is no beauty in her face, or for that matter, ugliness. There isn't even a face ... but elements thrown together with just enough evidence to let the viewer know that it was meant to suggest a face.
Everything about the finished product is utterly awful and would be beneath the capabilities of a talented 12 year old.
Now, what if you are a theorist who needs to justify this hodge-podge of sloppy color and form? What can you creatively think of to place value and meaning, where none exists ... especially, if you are being paid to do just that?
It's simple: you need but approach the work as you would a Rorschach inkblot test, where anyone can use creative ability to make up a story, suggested by little, if any, information. If you want this man's work to be valued highly, you must create a tale of great importance, with meaning, which, when discussed or analyzed in intellectual circles, will be considered profound and meaningful.
The idea of a lady being ugly on the inside is a concept from literature, psychology, and in fact all of human history. Ugliness, mean-spiritedness, and turmoil are major concepts that tint all of human experience. So you simply say that the messiness represents that, and look how brilliant he is to have captured it.
But in truth he has done nothing of the kind. The writers who said that was what it means were the one who did it, and not the artist. Inner turmoil and ugliness on the inside is far more difficult to capture, and takes intense, subtle handling of story telling, composition, drawing, and realistic rendering to successfully convey so that it can be recognized without any words. Waterhouse's Lady of Shalott and Bouguereau's Divideuse both capture beautiful women loaded with inner turmoil, and Cabanel's Cleopatra testing poisons on slaves portrays intense inner ugliness within a beautiful face and figure infinitely better than these broken blotchy messes on canvas by Picasso.
But when the modernist professors say that's what it means, then implicit in their words is that if you don't see it too you're stupid and tasteless. Also to not see it becomes associated with not seeing how wonderful that subject matter would be. And it is after all truly wonderful subject matter. Only one problem; Picasso didn't paint it.
You say, "his work shows a deeply sensitive artist," but I don't conclude any sensitivity whatsoever. What is there is the sensitivity of a bull in a china shop, who stomps around breaking all the beautiful porcelain, and then with an army of critics lined up with their nostrils flaring dares anyone to criticize the dump he just left in the your living room.
"Either you love my turds or you are against freedom of expression."
If you don't want it in your museum, you're the enemy of freedom of speech. Faced with such intimidation surely many would rather line up in support. But there is truly nothing there. It's a trick of words and intimidation. An Illusion of social pressure and fearful conformity.
His school, "... said it was okay to feel in paint, to get all the chaos out in paint ... I didn't love him until I studied him."
Of course you didn't love him until you studied him. What you learned to love was all the explanations about worthwhile concepts and subjects. And with a training right out of Pavlov, you were taught to salivate when you were shown things that caused associations to those worthwhile ideas.
But Laurie, WHERE'S the BEEF? You're salivating at a symbol much the way people react to their country's flag. The flag comes to be seen as beautiful because it represents family, home and hearth, friends, loyalty, and the things we love. You've been taught to react to symbols instead of responding with the freedom of independent thought to works of art that are not supposed to be flag-like-symbols of great artistic ideas, but the great works of art themselves, which communicate, through a readily discernable visual language, some aspect of the human condition.
You had to be taught to love Picasso, because nobody would love him otherwise. But people don't need to be taught to love Rembrandt , Michelangelo , Bouguereau , or for that matter Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, or Tom Sawyer, The Grapes of Wrath, Alice in Wonderland, or The Christmas Carol.
Teaching and information can add to the depth of understanding of great works of art, but they are great initially by their ability to capture the soul and imagination of the viewer, without thousands of words to instruct us on how to deny the evidence of our own senses and to deny our innate sense of truth and reason.
Of course, what tends to happen to people who have allowed themselves to be convinced that the emperor is wearing beautiful clothes, is that they have become "ego invested" due to years of having parroted the same falsehoods ... and the associated humiliation that goes with acknowledging that one has been had. The more years, and the more said in support of Modernism, the greater the difficulty in breaking through the gestalts, and taking off the iconic blinders, shedding all the preconceptions and looking again with "innocent eyes" and describing what is really there (at least to yourself), and then comparing it to the maligned academics like Waterhouse , Bouguereau , Lord Leighton , Burne-Jones , Gérôme , and Alma-Tadema , and deciding with freedom of thought and an honest wish to find the truth, which of them indeed are works of art, and which are snake oil salesmen."
He continues…
And so I ended that letter.
The change in people's perceptions about this is happening now very quickly. Even this austere institution, probably the greatest museum in the Western Hemisphere, just a couple of summers ago had a major retrospective of one of these maligned 19th century masters, Edward Coley Burne-Jones.
And in their literature on the show declared him one of the three greatest English artists of the last century, along with Constable and Turner. In fact, the Metropolitan Museum deserves great credit for being one of the first great institutions to once again hang their Bouguereaus and Gérômes, Meissonnier and Burne-Jones, on permanent exhibit in the face of scathing criticism from the press back in 1980.
Soon after, Laurie followed this with a good-natured post saying that although she felt that I may have insulted her intelligence, she loved me all the same. To which I responded:
And …
Laurie,
It was not my wish to insult your intelligence. The very brightest of people are just as vulnerable. It is in human nature to go along to get along. I certainly did it too when I was in college and grad school in fine art. Even when I was finally willing to speak my mind about Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko and Warhol .... Picasso was somehow sacrosanct, and I would pay lip service to his brilliance while the works of the other modernists I allowed myself to see as they were.
It wasn't until I hit about 40 years old that I started to more fully recognize the power of prestige suggestion and social intimidation in forming opinions.
To truly judge your own feelings and opinion about a work of art, you need to look at it as if it were painted by a complete unknown, perhaps some student in another town, and then ask yourself what your opinion of that work would be then. Would you think it was one of the greatest works in the history of civilization, would it even be great ... or good ... or mediocre .... or just plain bad?
So true.
He continues further…
I know now absolutely that nearly all the works by most of the famous Modernists are truly awful on all fronts.
I also know that the best works by Bouguereau and Waterhouse would thrill me to my bones even if they had been painted by complete unknowns. When I saw a Bouguereau for the first time, I had never heard of him, but my response was immediate unambiguous and self-validating. I needed no books or texts or convoluted explanations. The strength of the work was powerful, unique, immediate and overwhelming.
It was exactly as I had felt in the presence of Michelangelo's David. Ah, but when I saw the David I was already predisposed to see what history considered one of humanity's greatest masterpieces. However, it was that seminal experience at 18 that excited my interest in art. The Bouguereau that I saw, Nymphs and Satyr, was when I was 32 years old, and it's effect was equally profound, changing the course of my life, ultimately leading me to this podium here today.
Don't let pride get involved here. Don't even answer me. Just ask yourselves and answer honestly.
One common claim that you hear repeatedly is that the proof that some abstract expressionists were great artists, can be found in their high quality academic student drawings. My answer to this is that it's really irrelevant whether or not they could do a decent student drawing. If anything it only makes it sadder that promising young talent was wasted. The quality and value of their "mature" work is not helped a bit by showing that they could draw decently when young.
The best way to prove that is to consider the inverse.
Would Raphael or Bouguereau's mature work be somehow made the worse if their student drawings from decades earlier had been of poor quality? Their great paintings would still be just as great, and de Kooning's hideous smears for which he is so famous are still just as awful.
I am quite certain that every artist in this audience paints better than all of the famous modernists and post modernists, and is more deserving of societal attention and praise. Yet still, so-called "major works" of theirs can sell for between 2 and 25,000,000 dollars at auction. The dirty little secret, however, that the modernist establishment and the press has been hiding, is that those same works sold for two to three times those prices back in 1988 and 1989. While the prices of all the icons of modernism peaked at that time, and any money invested then has declined a whopping 50 to 80%, the market for Gérôme , Waterhouse , Bouguereau , Alma-Tadema , Burne-Jones , Rossetti , Millais and Lord Leighton , has increased between 2000 and 10,000 percent since 1975.
Every year, records are being broken again and again.
In 1977, the world record price for a Bouguereau was $17,000. Now, in the past 3 years, the world records for his work first topped a million dollars in 1997, then a million and a half in 1998, two and a half million in 1999, and last May, Charity sold for over $3,500,000. Additionally, last June the world record for any Victorian painting was completely trampled when Saint Cecilia, by John William Waterhouse, sold for just over $10,000,000 in London to Andrew Lloyd Weber.
There are only 826 Bouguereaus and about 465 Tademas in the world. Do you know how many Picassos there are? Can anybody here guess? There are 80,000 of them, and the balance between supply and demand has faltered, and like the dot com stocks of last year they will soon come crashing down along with hundreds of billions of paper profits lost in the dust of history. Like the tulip bulbs in the 17th century, or Tokyo Real estate in the 1980's, investors will be decimated. If I owned a work by any of those "Abstract artists" I would be racing to cash it in before the fall, and that has been my recommendation to dozens who have asked me.
Many of my friends in and out of ARC have told me that I shouldn't talk so much about the modernists. One of them recently wrote to me saying, "I really don't think we help our cause by helping talentless modernists get press coverage." Another fearfully said, "Don't criticize the modernists, just focus on what's good."
I replied as follows:
His reply…
When have the modernists ever held back from criticizing traditional and academic art? The problem with this attitude, while I also find it very appealing, is that our not talking about the modernists doesn't really mean much.
The fact is that they are being talked about with high praise, in nearly every university art department and art history course in the western world ... parroting the same things that they were taught. They are also being constantly celebrated and exhibited by the biggest and most prestigious museums and getting rave reviews in the newspapers as often as not.
If somebody doesn't explain to everybody why they're not really any good, and why they're not really even artists, and how the whole thing is a hoax, then they will continue their propaganda and continue brainwashing our children and intimidating them into feeling stupid if they don't go along to get along ... and they'll do it unopposed.
If we don't speak up and tell the world that the Emperor's naked, nobody else will. We may not want to talk about them, but we have to if we are going to have any chance of turning things around. We have to provide a theoretical and philosophical context for the feelings of the tens of millions of people out there who are disgusted and feel an aversion for Modernism ... but feel afraid to say so. They need to know that they are not alone and they need to have their feelings validated. And at the same time, we need to provide alternatives ... rich alternatives with great traditional art and with countless images of the greatest paintings in history.
So well put…
And now ladies and gentlemen ... artists ... portrait artists ... I come at this point ... to you. Who are you? Who do you think yourselves to be? Well let me tell you how I see you. You are beyond doubt, the true artistic heroes and heroines of the 20th century.
Many of you know that I am the chairman of the Art Renewal Center, which you can find at http://www.artrenewal.org. The Art Renewal Center is building the largest on-line museum on the internet, and is completely devoted to the return of standards, training and human themes and subjects in the visual arts. Modern Art is about expanding the definition of art.
They believe that "everything is art", or, "Whatever the artist says is art, is art."
Well, if everything is art, then nothing is art.
Any definition that includes everything is not a definition at all. As I said, Modern art is "art about art", while all the great art and literature and theatre throughout history is "Art about life."
I wrote about all of you, and your teachers, in the published Philosophy of the Art Renewal Center. Here's what I said:
Against all odds, and in the face of the worst kind of ridicule and personal and editorial assault, only a small handful of well-trained artists managed to stay true to their beliefs. Then, like the heroes and heroines who protected a few rare manuscripts during inquisitional book-burnings of the past, these 20th Century art world heroes managed to protect and preserve the core technical knowledge of western art. Somehow, they succeeded in training a few dozen determined disciples. Today, many of those former students, have established their own schools or ateliers, and are currently training many hundreds more. This movement is now expanding exponentially. They are regaining the traditions of the past, so that art may once again move forward on a solid footing. We are committed in every way possible to record, preserve and perpetuate this priceless knowledge.
That's who you are. So if some of you are having trouble selling your work, or haven't been able to command the prices you deserve ... if you feel infuriated at piles of bricks and elephant dung filling museum galleries, while you can only pay to have space allotted to you for an evening in a great museum like this ... don't despair.
Your time is coming. You have done humanity a service of such magnitude, that sadly you will never be properly repaid. Keep painting your great portraits, and when you can find the time, paint what your heart tells you to paint, too.
The modern world is a boiling cauldron of all sorts of great and absurd ideas, feelings, pathos, pathologies, psycho pathologies, humiliation, and dehumanizing ideas ... and yet ... yet even beauty, too, is still here amongst us, here in this hall and throughout the world, and her manifestations in modern times have been insufficiently expressed. So, find her in your homes, find her in the streets, find her in your communities and in nature, and especially, find her in each other ... and save her ... save her ... protect and cherish her ... and exalt her back to her rightful place ... a place of supreme prominence, and bring her back into these our greatest institutions and our highest citadels of society and culture.
Thank you.
So inspiring.
Here’s one of my lost paintings. Destroyed by the “new” America that exists for the few; the oligarchy that controls all.
I am not a master, but I like to believe that I could have been one. The idea that the oligarchy controlled government can destroy your life’s work, your purposes, and everything that you have created so that they can implement some kind of selfish utopia is distrubing. It show that they are, and the systems that they have created, are pure psychopaths and psychopathic in nature.
.
Psychopathic systems do not lend longevity to society. Instead they offer a means of destruction.
I aruge that the oligarchy can only continue upon this path that they tred upon by converting everyone to adopt their methodology, or to convert everyone into mindless, emotionless followers.
How about other examples…
"In retrospect, this seems a horrific thing to have done."
Ya. Think?
There are so many examples of great works of art that used to be owned by museums for public enjoyment, but that have been sold off to private collectors. And while some have been repurchased by other museums and are now available for viewing, the battle to obtain these “lost works” was contentious in many cases. We are , and should consider ourselves, to be lucky. Lucky that the oligarchy has allowed us to be able to view these works on the internet. Lucky to be able to recognize that they existed and still exist, and lucky that they were not burned in bonfires of progressive revisionism and fashion.
Examples of artworks that have been sold off…
Let’s look at just some of the art; the paintings that the museums around the world has sold off for the price of a cup of coffee…
Constant Afternoon Langour by Jean-Joseph Constant (Benjamin-Constant) (1845-1902, France)
And…
Bramley Frank – A Hopeless Dawn
And…
Herbert Draper – Lament for Icarus
Draper's vision of Icarus, crashed and dead on the rocks, stays true to the myth and yet has a drama to it that is definitely the making of a more contemporary mind. Nearly 50% of the canvas is covered by the image of Icarus' gigantic, broken, dark wings. The wings are so huge they are cut off at the top left of the canvas and at the middle right.
This makes the image seem even larger than life. It is as if we look through a window that is not large enough to hold the view. It is possible that the advent of the camera influenced the artist's eye in choosing this unusual perspective.
But the impact is successful, dramatic and highly emotional because of the skill in which the wings are painted.
They are so huge, in fact, that they make shadows on much of what remains of the canvas. They are so immense and yet they have failed poor Icarus so completely.
Icarus lies dead; a darkening figure still strapped to the useless wings, as a sorrowful and sensual nymph pulls his upper torso gentle towards her. Two other nymphs look on woefully. The canvas creates a heart breaking darkness with small splashes of gold light falling on the nymphs and the far rock wall. The golden light is reminiscent of the hope for freedom that Dadelus had once had for his son Icarus.
All life, beautiful or not, comes to an end, and all our grand strivings lead us to the same end. The power in this work of art is the sense of loss it projects. If you read the text in the catalogue, it mentions other layers of possible meaning. Simon Toll makes note that Draper's father died shortly before this painting was executed and he suggests that this painting "may also be a private statement of loss." The text also suggests that the painting may be a tribute to the artist Leighton, who died two years earlier.
-ARC
And…
Lady Godiva by Lefevbre Claude Gheerbrant – Musée de Picardie
Examples of “art” that have been purchased by museums afterwards…
Let’s have a look at the kinds of art that the museums (all over the world) purchased once they discarded the “old” and “outmoded” art…
White Fire I by Barnett Newman
.
Would you believe that this ridiculous-looking canvas was sold for $3.8 million? This abstract painting, which is comprised of two straight lines, was created in 1954. Barnett is an American artist who is a strong follower of abstract expressionism.
Abstract Expressionism, broad movement in American painting that became a dominant trend in Western painting during the 1950s. The movement comprised many styles varying in both technique and quality of expression. Artists include Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler.
-Abstract Expressionism | Definition
This painting, which follows the color field painting style, is one of the few pieces that he has created during his lifetime. Barnett is considered the greatest color field painters of his time. That is the reason why this expensive painting is very popular now.
Or how about a museum considering this to be a worthwhile addition…
Royal Red and Blue
.
This is one of the most basic paintings to date but don’t let its simplicity fool you. It was sold for a whopping $75.1 million during a Sotheby’s auction in November of 2012.
The painter, Mark Rothko, is a known abstract expressionist.
This painting date back 1954 and basically has three blocks of color – and that’s it. Rothko is an American painter with Russian and Jewish Roots. He is known for the color field method style of painting which was popular in New York during the 50’s.
Summary of Color Field Painting
Color Field Painting is a tendency within Abstract Expressionism, distinct from gestural abstraction, or Action Painting. It was pioneered in the late 1940s by Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Clyfford Still, who were all independently searching for a style of abstraction that might provide a modern, mythic art and express a yearning for transcendence and the infinite.
To achieve this they abandoned all suggestions of figuration and instead exploited the expressive power of color by deploying it in large fields that might envelope the viewer when seen at close quarters. Their work inspired much Post-painterly abstraction, particularly that of Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Jules Olitski, though for later color field painters, matters of form tended to be more important than mythic content.
-The Art Story
The idea is to paint the canvas with large blocks of solid colors giving off an impression of an uneven surface and a flat plane. This painting pretty much depicts that, although very simplistic that you can imagine a toddler painting this art piece, it has a surprisingly outrageous value.
Interchange
.
To a lot of people, this can be viewed as a real abstract painting with a lot of character in it. There is no doubt about it- but to be valued at $300 million sparks a different kind of conversation.
As with all abstract art, most people can claim they can paint something similar, but in fact, there is more to this painting that meets the eye.
William de Kooning is a New York painter, but is originally from Netherlands. This artwork is an example of ‘action painting’ which is a technique where the artist spontaneously splash paint on canvas versus the traditional painting style that is meticulous and takes time to complete.
Action painting, direct, instinctual, and highly dynamic kind of art that involves the spontaneous application of vigorous, sweeping brushstrokes and the chance effects of dripping and spilling paint onto the canvas. The term was coined by the American art critic Harold Rosenberg to characterize the work of a group of American Abstract Expressionists who utilized the method from about 1950.
-Action painting | art | Britannica
It is somehow a form of physical art.
This technique is made popular during the 40’s to 60’s and has coined the concept of abstract expressionism. This painting was made in 1955 and is now housed in the private collection of Kenneth C. Griffin.
Onement VI
.
This is one of the most boring paintings that you will ever see but you will be surprised to know that this blue colored canvas sold for over $43 million in 2013. It is one of the works of Barnett Newman, a known abstract expressionist. He has done a number of similar paintings such as this and has an entire “Onement” collection, which is basically composed of one dominant color and a division (what he calls a ‘zip’) right smacked in the middle. The zip is used to define the space of his paintings. This New York artist was born in 1905 and has made a following because of his color field art.
Birthday by Paul Klee
.
If you don’t know better, you might mistake this for a preschooler’s art project. This is actually a painting from the famed painter Paul Klee. It starts off with an odd old maroon color with asymmetrical and disorganized images of triangles and squares, and oh yes, an odd orange circle in off center. One can maybe make this out as a series of houses or even a castle- but, hey, what do we know. Paul Klee is a Swiss-German painter born in 1879. Most of his works are now housed in varied museums all over the globe.
Blue Rectangle Over The Red Beam
.
If you hear the word ‘painting’ you might be imagining something with a lot of imagination, color gradients and creative imagery. This painting from Kazimir Malevich is far from being complicated or deep but it is one of the most significant work of art to date.
Malevich is actually the pioneer of geometric abstraction- that is pretty obvious with his love of squares and rectangles.
Geometric abstraction, through the Cubist process of purifying art of the vestiges of visual reality, focused on the inherent two-dimensional features of painting. This process of evolving a purely pictorial reality built of elemental geometric forms assumed different stylistic expressions in various European countries and in Russia.
-Geometric Abstraction | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of ...
This artwork was sold in Sotheby’s auction for a staggering $60 million and is the most expensive piece of Russian artwork of all time.
No. 5, 1948
.
To the naked eye, this painting may simply look like a piece of stringy lines splashed around using a yarn, just like those kindergarten art projects kids use to make. This is an artwork done by Jackson Pollock in the year 1948. It is quite a large piece of artwork measuring 8 ft by 4 ft. He is a known abstract expressionist.
This painting in fibreboard uses brown, yellow, white and grey paint. It is often tagged as a dense bird’s nest because of the way the strips of paint overlap each other. This artwork was reported to be sold for over $140 million to a private collector.
Black Square
This oil painting was done in oil on linen and is now housed at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. As you would have realized by now, the painting is a mere black square. But there is a lot of philosophy and history behind this seemingly plain and dull painting. This piece is dubbed as the ‘zero point of painting’ and a combination of various art methods including futurism and constructivism. This is one of the prime works of Kazimir Malevich, who is the leader in Russian avant-garde art and has several pieces of similar works under this collection. He described this artwork as ‘liberated nothing’.
Conclusion(s)
One afternoon I toured an art museum while waiting for my husband to finish a business meeting.I was looking forward to a quiet view of the art works.
A young couple viewing the paintings ahead of me chatted nonstop between themselves.I watched them a moment and decided the wife was doing all the talk.I admired the husband's patience for putting up with her continuous talk.Distracted by their noise,I moved on.
I met with them several times as I moved through the different rooms of art.Each time I heard her constant burst of words,I moved away quickly.
I was standing at the counter of the museum gift shop making a purchase when the couple came near to the exit.Before they left,the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a white object.He extended it into a long stick and then tapped his way into the coatroom to get his wife's jacket.
"He's a brave man."The clerk at the counter said,"Most of us would give up if wewere blinded at such a young age.During his recovery he made a promise that his life wouldn't change.So ,as before,he and his wife come in whenever there's a new art show."
"But what dose he get out of the art?"I asked,"He can't see."
"Can't see?You're wrong.He sees a lot.More than you or I do."The clerk said,"His wife describes each painting so he can see it in his head."
I learned something about patience,courage and love that day.I saw the patience of a young wife describing paintings to a person without sight and the courage of a husband who would not allow blindness to change his life.And I saw the love shared by two people as I watched this couple walk away hand in hand.
-MoFanGe
If you were in the role of the wife (as described above – explaining each painting to her husband), how would you go about describing the more traditional artworks that the museums have sold off? How long would each painting take to describe?
Likewise, how would you describe the new progressive artworks? How long do you think it would take to describe them?
Perhaps this simple measurement, this idea in how to describe the impressions of art that is presented to you, is an element of it’s value and worth. Not that of the amount of currency that is used to purchase it, but rather the emotions and feelings that are generated upon viewing it.
I have argued HERE that the oligarchy is populated with psychopathic individuals that not only are unable to emote, but are unable to feel or express real emotions. Instead they only mimic actions and facial expressions to manipulat others to follow and believe them. As such, these psychopathic individuals see no value in art. Their only value is how they can be used as an element in financial exchange and commerce.
And thus, the study of art, is the study of the oligarchy that rules us.
The oligarchy that rules 99.9% of humans have evolved into a new KIND of human.
They are in possession of a service-for-self sentience, and are extremely good at manipulation, creation and generation of money and currency, as well as the accusition of power as well as the control over others. They are weak in the ability to express emotions and cannot emote. Medically they are known as psychopathic personalities and a healthy society cannot afford to have individuals of this disposition near any positions of power.
As they see no value in the art like “normal” people, they have subverted the institutions that they control; the libraries, the museums, and the art world into something that they understand. They understand money and using objects as trade mediums. They do not conderstand or emote the value of art.
And finally…
This movement towards progressive revisionism can only originate from those that are unable to understand art. They have no idea or concept of evoked emotion via visual stimulation. It is alien to them. They couldn’t understand it in any of it’s myrid forms. Thus…
Indeed, thus…
The entire progressive revisionism movement from art, to culture to society is driven from the oligarchy downward. It is their efforts to redraw the world into a “utopia” that they can understand and embrace.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
Have you ever suddenly came to “an understanding”, or a”realization” that what you have thought, what you have known, and what you have “felt” was all wrong?
Wrong.
This happens to all of us, at one time or the other.
We realize that what we thought at one time, was entirely wrong, or false or not at all the entire picture. Do you know what I am talking about? A realization of the way you think the world works, or how things work, or a relationship works, is not what is really going on? It’s usually a shock. Right?
You can say that about anything really.
You can say that you thought America was one thing, when it was really something else.
Or you could say that you thought China was one thing, when it was something else.
Or you could say that you thought Boston was one place, when it was something else…
But you could say that about relationships as well.
You thought he was one thing when he was really something else.
Or your friends were one thing when they were really something else.
Or your company was one way, when it was really something else entirely different.
It’s a sudden realization that what you thought existed was all a big lie.
And no. I’m not going to start delving into secret government programs, the lifestyles of the rich oligarchy, the casting couches in Hollywood, or the secrets of the Lincoln Bedroom. I’m not going to discuss how your high school text books “got it wrong” or whether or not your best friend is sleeping with your spouse. We are going to go in a different direction here…
We are going to talk about a state of mind where there are NO preconceptions of what reality is. Things are as you see them, or not. And what you might want to happen, could or could not occur.
We are going to talk about your little universe.
The picture above.
The picture at the top of this post above is pretty amazing, eh? It depicts a gladiator over his dying opponent asking the audience for guidance as to whether to kill him or not. It’s stunning. Actually. Not only in the subject matter, but also in the artistic technique.
Now. I want to conduct a thought exercise with you. Let’s go from character to character in the painting. Try to imagine their thoughts, feelings and life that day prior to that snapshot in time.
The Audience that is giving a “thumbs down”. What do you think their life was like on that day? Maybe ate a boiled egg, and some bread and looked forward to “The Games” at “The Circus”. And after the bloody gore, will probably go home and hand out with their friends. maybe enjoy the day, and perhaps do a little shopping in the market.
The Emperor. He sits there watching on. IS this what he wants? And if so why? What does the loss of this life mean to him? After the “Games” he will have a nice big meal, cavort with women, and drink enough wine until he falls asleep.
The Losing Gladiator. He struggles for his life and asks the audience for pity. What do you think is going through his head right now? What do you think he thought about the day as he was getting ready to fight? What was his morning like?
The Winning Gladiator. He’s panting. he fought hard. He is over another person like himself. But he must do what is asked of him. Does he want to do it? Is there any emotion or any compassion? What is he feeling?
In this example, you can see that there are a host of different people in this painting. All with different stories, different histories, different ideals families, passions and futures. Some experience pain. Some experience emotions – such as elation, adoration, fear, terror, and agony.
But there is one person in that painting that doesn’t seem to be showing any emotion, or any care. It is the Emperor. He sits there in numb isolation. Those people are nothing to him. Kill them. Not kill them. It doesn’t matter. Not to him now. Not to him in the future. He just doesn’t care.
He cannot feel. He cannot emote. He is typical. He is a psychopath.
Now…
…Consider this. Almost every single person in the American Government today, no matter how they appear to you in public, or though the media are psychopaths. They have no feelings, no cares, and no desires. They do what they need to do to stay within their roles, but that is it.
They put on a show, of course…
Donald Trump hugging the flag.
.
Consider Hillary Clinton…
Hillary Clinton showing that she loves and respects farmers.
.
Al Gore showing that he is relatable to the folk in the “rust belt” states…
Al Gore, he’s one of us, don’t you know?
.
The truth is that they are all just playing a “song and dance”; a “puppet show” for all of us to watch because it’s all just a big “game” to them. To them, well they don’t think like we do. They don’t act like we do. They don’t live like we do.
And all this “stuff” is what they do (naturally) to convince us to do things for them, to give them money, power, respect, and anything else they desire. This is what they are. Their desires, and actions are not that of the humans that you see around you.
Instead they are something else…
They have evolved.
These “politicians” might look like humans, dress like humans, and talk like humans, but they are different. They are a different type of creature entirely. They have a different sentience.
They have a different sentience that the rest of us.
If you were to look at their non-physical body with the kinds of eyes that <redacted> then you would see that their appearance is very superficial. They are something else.
No they are not reptilians, or some other kind of obscene joke, they are a kind of distorted humanoid shape. And yes, you could say that their non-physical form greatly resembles a galactic quantum archetype.
Have you ever wondered why so many people BELIEVE the fantasy that Reptilian extraterrestrials, that can shape form, have taken over control of the United States?
Could it be that these people, who are in control of the levers of power, are not acting and behaving like the "normal" people that surrounds you and I?
There are several paintings that had a particularly strong impact on me and remain memorable. First is John William Waterhouse's painting of Saint Eulalia.
The painting depicts, in a startling manner, the murder of a 12-year-old girl, Eulalia, who was martyred because she refused, as a Christian, to worship the imperial Roman gods.
The 4th century Spanish poet, Prudentius, places her death in 313 AD, and tells of the miracle, signaling her martyrdom, that occurred after her death-it began to snow and doves flew out of her mouth.
He further describes her torture as being brutal, with hooks tearing her flesh and her body being burnt with torches.
Waterhouse has been inspired by this poem as is explained in the exhibit's text.
Waterhouse does something remarkable in this painting. He eliminates the gory signs of her extreme torture, and yet impresses upon the viewer the horror of what has happened.
She is partly undressed, her upper torso bare, but her lower body is covered in her torn brown-red and dirty garment. Waterhouse has taken poetic license in order to give the child dignity and yet convey the suffering and indignities she endured.
He makes a masterful use of perspective by placing Eulalia in the foreground. He uses extreme foreshortening which he accomplishes with masterful skill, a very difficult feat. Eulalia, in this foreshortened pose, is lying headfirst on her back and her image takes up one third of the large canvas.
The viewer is looking up the length of her body to her legs that are turned slightly askew to the viewer's left. Her blood red hair (a red with dark burnt umber and sepia) is reminiscent of spilt blood beginning to age. The hair flows toward the viewer almost to the edge of the canvas.
The thin layer of snow on the ground accentuates the sense of drying blood, as does her garment, which gives, at second viewing, the look of flayed skin. The snow is of course also a symbol of her virginity. The doves that have issued from her mouth are now just ordinary doves and flit about her indifferently.
This adds to the dead child's sense of abandonment.
On her left wrist remains a piece of tied rope, symbol of her torture. As your eyes move up the canvas you are met with the shaft of the makeshift cross she was roped and nailed to on your right, not far from where the she lies. Moving further away from Eulalia, the remainder of the upper canvas depicts Roman guards and a cluster of people on steps that lead to the square where Eulalia lies dead.
The backdrop is of Roman columns.
The crowd seems only to be there out of curiosity.
One figure, a woman in white robes, kneeling, head down, at the top of the steps, grieves. One wonders if it is a sister or maybe the girl's mother, forbidden to go to Eulalia by the foremost guard who holds a spear.
There is absolutely nothing sexually titillating about this painting. It takes an overwhelming stretch in a critic's mind, in order to fit this image into a predetermined aesthetic agenda, to see otherwise. The all-over coloration of the painting is in hues of white, gray, brown, gray-blue and the dark drenched reds.
This powerful image will stay with me.
-Art Renewal center
In this painting we see how a young innocent girl is hurt, tortured and killed by the uncaring machine that government has become. People do their jobs. They follow their orders. They obey their commands.
We all know about how uncaring, methodical and ritualized our governments have become. You enter the “system” and you become “processed” by it.
But you know, there are two mechanisms at play. There is a mechanism of government that favors the wealthy oligarchy in power, and one that is used on everyone else. Needless to say, it is the one used on “Joe and Suzy Average” that is harsh and brutal. But that system used against the oligarchy is trivial. Those in power live a different kind of life than you and I do.
It’s not just that they are surrounded by wealth and opulence. It’s that they, their friends and all their associations are with those of one singular sentience.
America is segregated by sentience. Not class.
Voluntary sentience segregation
Nothing that I have so far mentioned should come as a surprise. We all know how “well heeled” the oligarchy that runs America is. And we all know that they seem “off” or a little different from you and I and the rest of the people around us. But would you accept the notion that this kind of sentience segregation fits an approved galactic archetype?
The powers-that-be censoring books.
.
I guess that the big shocker that I have to announce to the MM readership is that things have advanced for the human species. And while the past have always had a wealthy class and a poor class, advances in technology has moved the human species to a point of inflection. It’s a “tip over event”. It’s a point where sentience becomes established within a society, and in our cases, within a species.
Throughout the Metallicman writings I have pushed the idea that our human species has been striving to weed out the confused sentience’s, and establish a unified sentience.
What ever it might be.
And to this end, I have stated that it would take years, if not centuries to do so. In this regards, I have suggest (if not stated out right) that humans must choose between either a [1] Service-to-self sentience, or [2] a Service-to-others sentience.
However, what appears to be happening is something quite different, and my personal biases are hereby notified to stop being so “black and white” about everything.
You see, all that matters to our benefactors is that Humans get their collective acts together and work out a unified sentience. They don’t really care what it would be, just that it is unified, and that it fits (or can fit with some RNA changes) into a galactic archetype.
It has nothing to do whether they like or hate humans as a species. It has to do with the generation of the thoughts that we have, their power and our ability to entangle with other species. If our sentience does not develop into an approved archetype, then our thoughts and actions can be ruinous for the rest of the galaxy (as well as the rest of the universe).
But…
But…
But you know, there is every evidence that the oligarchy that runs the United States and much of the world are already within a galactic archetype. It’s a Service-for-self archetype.
They are no longer evolving.
They ARE evolved.
And for the world to fit within the matching schedule made by our benefactors, that means that the rest of the earth must fit within one of two (remaining) complementary sentience’s.
Service-for-self. (Where 100% of the human species has the same sentience.)
Service-for-another. (Where a caste system forms, and the rest of us serve the oligarchy.)
Or, perhaps a picture would explain it better. Consider the HG Wells science fiction class “The Time Machine“.
On January 5, 1900, a disheveled looking H.G. Wells - George to his friends - arrives late to his own dinner party. He tells his guests of his travels in his time machine, the work about which his friends knew.
They were also unbelieving, and skeptical of any practical use if it did indeed work. George knew that his machine was stationary in geographic position, but he did not account for changes in what happens over time to that location.
He also learns that the machine is not impervious and he is not immune to those who do not understand him or the machine's purpose.
George tells his friends that he did not find the Utopian society he so wished had developed.
He mentions specifically a civilization several thousand years into the future which consists of the subterranean morlocks and the surface dwelling eloi, who on first glance lead a carefree life.
In the movie, the wealthy, the smart, the powerful move underground. They evolve in that environment. They become a new kind of human; The Morlock.
The evolved oligarchy. A sub-species of humans that has fully adopted a service-for-self sentience. Scene is from the 1960 movie “The Time Machine.”
.
The rest of the people stay above ground. They live in the abandoned cities, and live a pastoral life. They are the people that serve the Morloks. They are the Eloi.
The evolved human species. This is the other sub-species. This species is full of service-for-another humans. Scene is from the 1960 movie “The Time Machine”.
.
Is that the direction that the world is heading towards right now? That the human species is segregating into two separate sentience’s intentionally? Or in other words, two completely different sub-species of humans?
Spelling things out...
If the human species is already at a point where a portion of the human species has decided to branch off into their own species - A service-to-self species.
Then...
That leaves the rest of us to become either [1] Like them. We too become a service-for-self species. Or [2] we take on the role of a sub-servant species of human. The service-for-another species.
And understanding this fact, will help to explain a lot of the strange and freaky (deaky) things that are going on contemporaneously.
What things?
Well…
Let’s look at this. Ok?
You know, Trump tried to suppress China. He conducted a “hybrid war”, declared himself a “War President”, he festooned his office with war-themed objects and flags, posted his “campaign coins” prominently on display and did everything possible short of nuclear war.
And one aspect of this “hybrid” war was the release of six viral bio-weapons to collapse the Chinese agricultural and livestock industries (2017 through 2018), followed up with three strains (2019 and 2020) to take out the Chinese people themselves.
I have to admit that it really bums me out. (Sigh.)
.
The first assault was on CNY 2020 with the COVID-19B.
Subsequent assaults (after the six attempts of the destruction of grains and livestock) were the COVID-19. This came in numerous strains. A, B, C... and mutated into many others...
Bu the USA launched other biological weapons against the Chinese people as well.
There is the (yet unofficially named) completely new virus COVID-20. This is not a strain of the COVID-19, but yet another "novel" virus, and yes it is unusually enormous in size. This nasty virus was unleashed about a month after Trump "gave up" the "color revolution in Hong Kong. Super nasty. This was super lethal and caused death by vomiting. It lies in the gut and in the anus. It was discovered by the PLA by monitoring one of the Chinese CIA "assets" (that was involved in drone spraying of the swine flu in 2019.) This was the reason why Trump went into hiding for three days, and America went DEFCON ONE. He feared military retaliation. Not the "Trump caught coronavirus" nonsense that the "news" reported.
Drat! Trump snarled and twisted his evil long mustache. "I'll show them who's boss!"
What followed was the worst virus of all. Yet another (unofficially un-named) novel new, and enormous in size COVID-21 new virus. This nasty, nasty, horrible virus was unleashed about a month after the seven battle carrier Naval fleet left the South China Sea. Also very deadly, and with a very high R0. Also found in hyper vigilant sweeps of all imported food and visitors to China. It lies within the gut and anus and results in death by diarrhea.
Today 28JAN21, the Western media is finally reporting on the Chinese "new" swab testing regime that was implemented right after the new year during the first week in January. The new technique uses swabs of the anus to detect for viral infections. Of course, the media are perplexed. Why do this with a COVID-19 with is a virus that affects the nasal passages and throat? Why test in the gut and anus?
That is because the new test not just tests for COVID-19, but also the two new lethal viruses COVID-20 and COVID-21. Both of which affect the gut and the anus.
And part of this plan was to protect Americans from “blow back”. Meaning that he didn’t want any of the bio-weapon released upon the Chinese to end up hurting America. Which was why trump insisted that COVID-19A be spread to all Americans and that no one is to wear a mask. He wanted everyone to be immunized.
blowback
...unintended adverse results of a political action or situation.
He wanted the light strain COVID-19A to spread to all Americans and the “West” to get this virus. Why? So that they would be immune to “blow back”. This was through giving everyone “herd immunity”.
… the COVID-19A ran unchecked through America and the nations of “The West”. As it did so, it gave everyone “herd immunity” to the nasty virus; the COVID-19B, the Chinese, Russian and Iranian strain.
And don’t give me the Alex Jones / Rush Limbaugh / Sean Hannity / CIA narrative that the Coronavirus was a Chinese bio-weapon gone wrong. Sheech!
𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱-𝟭𝟵 𝘃𝗶𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗮. The Covid virus genome was found in waste water samples in Barcelona in March 2019, almost a year before it was first reported in Wuhan China. A USA mayor said he tested to have COVID antibody as early as November 2019, meaning he was infected much earlier. Scientists at University of Milan confirmed the virus was present in Italy since November 2019.
https://lnkd.in/e4rH_eY
But…
But, suddenly the entire “news” dialog has changed.
Now everyone MUST take this new vaccination. It is very important or you will die! You must do it now! Hurry up take it NOW! Now. Now. Nowwwwww!
It seems like things have changed. The news media leads one to believe that things are different, and that things have changed.
Oh sure, there’s all sorts of warnings and alerts about new strains popping out of nowhere inside of America…
No one wants to be a casualty in a pandemic. It’s heart-rendering.
.
Now, pay attention.
China, Russia and their allies are using the viral inoculation for the very nasty COVID-19B. This is a unique vaccination and is quite unlike what has been bantered about in America. This is necessary, and the Chinese version, the COVID-19B has a R0 or 15% to 20%. Much more dangerous than the “lite” American strain COVID-19A with a R0=0.1%.
But suddenly, America has a vaccination and everyone MUST take it!
This viral inoculation is very, very different from the Chinese solution, and involves changing the RNA of the person so inoculated.
.
I find it very curious that there is this urgency to inoculate every America, and every citizen of a nation allied with America, with a RNA altering vaccination for COVID-19A with a very low R0. It’s very odd.
And I am not the only one questioning this either…
Now, the “news” is all filled with bullshit. So it’s pretty hard to make heads or tails out of what is going on. I can tell you the following are as clear as day…
President Trump declared war on China. And launched biological warfare attacks to that end.
The COVID-19B is real. People die from it. China locked the entire down over it, and went DEFCON ONE with armed nuclear weapons over it. This is the deadly strain.
The COVID-19A is real, and this strain was exposed to Americans almost six months prior to the release of the lethal strain in China. This is the inoculation strain.
For the Trump / Bolton / Pompeo / Tom Cotton plan to work, it is important that herd immunity be obtained using COVID-19A inside of America.
So what is going on with this sudden frantic “need” to inject everyone with a RNA changing vaccine against a mild strain of COVID-19A?
What indeed?
Right now inside America everything is a big mess. Certainly no one can disagree. The “news” or what constitutes it’s modern replacement is all over the place and fear-mongering is the norm. It’s hard to figure out what is going on.
Don’t allow MM here to be yet another tale of fear and woe.
I really don’t know what is going on in America and the West. To me, it really seems to be in a state of turmoil, where everything is upside down and there are a lot of crazy atmospheric conditions that point to dangerously dark storm clouds a brewing. And in and among all this turmoil is a sudden “change in direction” regarding the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Recall that in January 2020 the narrative was DO NOT WEAR MASKS. It’s not as bad as the flu, and “herd immunity”.
And now, one complete year later…
In January 2021, the narrative is WEAR MASKS. It’s much worse than the flu. Take the vaccination or die!!!!
Now…
Is this just because there is a new President…? Or is it because of a bigger plan? Or is it that the United States is so confused that it is like a thrashing elephant out of control and in a rage?
I. Do. Not. Know.
What I do know is the following…
This change in direction, it’s suddenness and crazed haphazard implementation is not a comforting sign. It points to an out-of-control government and leadership system.
From the point of view of DNA / RNA, any use of a vaccination that alter genetic structure should be of concern. (Look what happened to the tomato). It doesn’t matter if the intentions are good or bad. New technologies require vetting and careful controlled trials and experimentation.
What ever eventually does happen, the benefactors are just fine with it.
And if you get the inoculation…
And the RNA does it’s work. What then? You will look human, but what changes with the RNA alter?
Could it be like the 1956 movie “Invasion of the body snatchers”…
He looks like my uncle. He sounds like my uncle. He dresses like my uncle, he acts and walks and talks like my uncle.
...but he's NOT my uncle.
The 1956 movie “Invasion of the body snatchers”.
America seems to be going the way of the former Soviet Union
Unknown to most Americans, in the 1980s and 1990s, the Soviet Union break-up created a host of changes and discomfort for the people there. Many lost their incomes, their places of employment, food supplies dwindled and everything was very “iffy” for a while. Angered youth took over a ballistic nuclear submarine, for Pete’s sake. It was a trying time.
But now things have settled out and calmed down.
All that remains of the “glory days” of the former Soviet Union are abandoned buildings…
An abandoned medical research hospital.
.
And this, an abandoned space complex….
An abandoned space complex inside Russia.
.
And this telecommunications station left to rot…
An abandoned Russian Telecommunications station.
.
Or all these planes and aircraft in an abandoned Russian “skunk works”…
Abandoned Russian “Skunk works”.
.
Um, yeah it’s all sad.
If you liked these photos, you can find a ton lot more at this great site; https://rusue.com/. It's got urban explorers going through the bones of the old former Soviet Union. It's a great site to explore.
Anyways,
It seems like the changes inside of America are starting to manifest, and guess what? It’s not like anyone thought that they would be like. Nope. It’s not an American Civil War II – thought that is still on the table, or a scene from “The Walking Dead” and a Zombie apocalypse. It’s bio-weapons, invisible dangers, government authority, and massive control, with pockets of balkanized folk all over the place that are angry, pissed off, confused and out of their minds in blood-lust anger.
Conclusion
So we enter a state of understanding.
The war for sentience domination has begun in the United States. It is following the Former Soviet Union model, and involves all kinds of new and novel characteristics that places “common citizens” at a great disadvantage, and the ruling oligarchy at a great advantage. The only people who seemingly will survive during the culling process are those that will fit within the niche’s provided for them.
I suggest the MM readership to be aware, cautious and accommodating. But not to be in agreement. Just keep your thoughts to your selves. Do not place a big “bulls eye” on your chest. Do not flaunt disgust or anger. Be as publicly neutral as possible you need to survive thought this stressful time by keeping your wits about your and controlling your emotions.
Clan up with friends and family. Know who your neighbors are and be helpful and a participant within your own closed society. Be good. Be the kind ear to listen and the strong shoulder for other to cry upon. Remember this time WILL PASS. What it important that you pass through it unscathed.
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
To understand where the United States is heading today, we should look through the lens of the past. And while I can refer to Rome, the Soviet Union, Athens and Sparta, and a host of other historical precedents, instead, we will focus on something different than the political issues. Here we will focus on the visceral hatred that develops between Americans when they fight against each other.
Yes. We are going to discuss the American Civil War.
A history lesson
Most generals in the Civil War were trained at West Point. That
training, along with experiences in the Mexican-American War and
skirmishes with Indians, taught them how to lead men into battle. One
Civil War general stands out in bold contrast to what he called the
“P’inters.” That was Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) was a Confederate general during the Civil War (1861-65). Despite having no formal military training, Forrest rose from the rank of private to lieutenant general, serving as a cavalry officer at numerous engagements including the Battles of Shiloh, Chickamauga, Brice’s Crossroads and Second Franklin.
Known for his maxim “get there first with the most men,” Forrest was relentless in harassing Union forces during the Vicksburg Campaign in 1862 and 1863, and conducted successful raiding operations on federal supplies and communication lines throughout the war.
In addition to his ingenious cavalry tactics, Forrest is also remembered for his controversial involvement in the Battle of Fort Pillow in April 1864, when his troops massacred black soldiers following a Union surrender. After the Civil War Forrest worked as a planter and railroad president, and served as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He died in 1877 at the age of 56.
-History.com
His military skills grew out of the rugged experiences of life in
frontier western Tennessee, and his leadership skills grew out of his
inborn commanding, even frightening, personality.
Forrest enlisted in the Confederate army, alongside his
fifteen-year-old son, as a private. He was quickly made a cavalry
officer and rose to the rank of Lieutenant General during the war.
He never wrote a book on military practices and likely never read one
on that topic. As far as formal schooling was concerned, he had only
about six months of it. In his own manner and by his example, he
displayed a military prowess and innate genius that ranked him among the best generals of that war and of all times.
His sayings bear witness to his personality and style, but also capture the essence of a natural born leader of men in battle.
“When you see anything blue, shoot at it, and do all you can to keep up the skeer.”
“Always git the most men thar fust, and then, if you can’t whup ’em, outrun ’em.”
“Whenever you meet the enemy, no matter how few there are of you or how many of them, show fight.”
“The way to whip an enemy is to git ’em skeered, and then keep the skeer on ’em.”
When recruiting soldiers from among Tennessee boys, he told them, “I wish none but those who desire to be actively engaged,” and then no doubt with a gleam in his eye, he added, “Come on, boys, if you want to have a heap of fun and kill some Yankees.”
To the Confederates, he was known as “the Wizard in the saddle,” but to the enemy, he was called “that devil Forrest.” Union General William Sherman said he was “the most remarkable man our Civil War produced.” The Union Secretary of War Stanton said, “There will never be peace in Tennessee until Forrest is dead.”
At least twenty-nine horses were killed out from under him, but he
took consolation in having personally killed at least that many Union
soldiers. He even killed one of his own subordinates in a fight after
Forrest implied the officer was a coward. Forrest himself was wounded in
that skirmish, which was just one of at least three times he was shot
during the war.
For all of his aggressiveness, Forrest was quite adept at winning battles by stealth and deception. When parlaying with enemy officers, he would have troop movements going on in sight of the enemy officers giving the impression that his forces were larger than they really were. When one Yankee complained after surrendering that he had been deceived, Forrest replied, “Ah, Colonel, all is fair in love and war you know.” At other times, when surrounding an enemy stronghold, Forrest would warn them that unless they surrendered, “I will have every man put to the sword.” His reputation for ruthlessness caused many an enemy to bow before such threats.
When the occasion called for direct attack and battle, Forrest was
always up to the task, both personally and as the commander. Finding
himself having ridden into the middle of a group of Yankee soldiers at
the Battle of Shiloh, Forrest began lashing right and left with his
sword. A Yankee soldier put a gun in Forrest’s side and fired, lifting
him up out of the saddle. Forrest continued fighting and then grabbed a
Yankee soldier by the neck and used him as shield until he escaped from
the enemy.
When Forrest’s cavalry found itself surrounded at the Battle of Parker’s Crossroads, he gave the command, “Charge them both ways.” Once again, his boldness and unorthodoxy in battle paid off. Until the very end of the war when he told his men, “You may do as you damn please, but I’m a-going home,” Forrest fought to win. This fighting spirit not only undid the courage of his opponents, it often put him at odds with the Confederate higher command.
Early in the war, Forrest’s cavalry found itself surrounded along with other Confederate troops at Fort Donelson in northwestern Tennessee. The other generals met to talk about how to go about surrendering to U. S. Grant’s surrounding forces. Forrest fumed at their decision. “I did not come here to surrender my command.” Taking his men and others who could ride along behind them, Forrest’s cavalry, which he called his “Critter Company,” broke through the lines and escaped.
Much later in the war, when General Braxton Bragg refused to pursue the fleeing Yankee army after the Battle of Chickamauga, Forrest reached his limits of serving under Bragg. Then when portions of his command were taken away, Forrest confronted Bragg personally. After calling him a coward and a liar, Forrest concluded his verbal attack on Bragg by telling him, “You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do it, and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life.”
It would be the independent commands, and especially raids on enemy forts, where Forrest excelled as a commander. When Forrest was cut loose from the larger army units and command structure and was given free rein to disrupt supply lines and harass the enemy from the rear, he excelled. One of his staff officers said, “He was unfit for command under a superior; he was like a caged lion on the field of battle where he was not himself commanding.”
Forrest himself summed up his accomplishments by noting that he and
his Critter Company had fought in some 50 battles, inflicting 16,000
casualties on the Union, had captured or destroyed some 300 wagons and
67 artillery pieces, had dismantled some 200 miles of railroad, and had
cost the United States at least $15 million.
It is no wonder that Nathan Bedford Forrest has been viewed as one of the great military leaders of the war. It is not surprising that his name sent shivers into the hearts of his enemies. At the same time, Southerners took comfort in hearing the pounding of the hoofs of Forrest’s cavalry as it rode throughout middle Tennessee and other parts of the Confederacy.
Conclusion
Nice little tale. It’s the story of a man who lived and served perhaps 150 years ago. That’s it, eh? Just a nice little tale. Close the history book, and go check your news feed. Eh?
People are capable of extraordinary feats and activities. And this fellow was a ruthless General for the Confederate States; states that believed that they were wronged by the Federal Government and wanted no part of it any longer. And while history has been rewritten that the American Civil War was about “slavery”, it was really all about the freedom for the people within the States to live life as THEY chose. Not what the Federal Government decided for them.
In the big picture, after the American Civil War, nothing really changed.
And because of all this, we have the problems that America is dealing with today.
But…
That is not the point that I want to make. The point that I want to make is that all of his anger, his angst, and his hatred was directed at his fellow Americans. It was directed at people who attended the same churches his family attended, drive the same wagons his family drove. Walked the same roads, used the same Post Offices, ate the same foods and spoke the same language as he did.
Do not be so sure that ideology will not change people into monsters. It will.
Be alert, and do everything in your power to prevent history from reoccurring.
Do you want to see similar posts?
I hope that you found this post curious. Please take care. You can view other similar posts in my SHTF Index, here…
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.
Here we are going to discuss a technique regarding prayer / affirmation campaigns.
This technique not only helps you conduct a prayer / affirmation campaign, but relaxes the mind, soothes the soul, and generally helps the body and mind interact together.
We live in a world that is perpetually bombarding us with noise and discord. From the neighbor that is mowing his lawn, to the television commercial that is screaming “Call now! It’s only 9.99!” and that “news” report that says that the world is going to be a “better and safer” place now that the US Navy is sending a naval carrier group to Taiwan. Just a few bombs. What could go wrong?
We need to turn off all that noise if we are to be able to focus on our life and our navigation through the MWI.
You need to tune out all that outside noise if you are ever going to be able to arrive at a point of calm control.
.
This is a post on something that I have used before. It is very helpful in cleaning out the “junk” that tends to clutter up our minds and which works to distract from our affirmation objectives.
This technique uses the technique of self-hypnosis to allow you to focus your thoughts and “clear the path” so that the affirmations can manifest. And it is a very critical and important technique for people that have brains that just won’t shut off. Or brains that constantly repeat endless negative narratives and thoughts that bombard our senses and render our affirmation prayers moot.
Remember…
This technique is very helpful to those of us that desperately need some peace and quiet and calm to focus. If you find yourself longing to go on long drives for some solitude, walks, a lonely breakfast alone, or that has screaming children about, this technique will really help you out.
It has helped me.
Depending on my personal situation, I tend to use it for a spell and then switch to another system, or just take a vacation from everything. But using this system is easy and also allows you to relax during the affirmation campaign as well as have a much longer campaign as it is often rather easy to incorporate into your lifestyle.
It’s called self-hypnosis.
What is self hypnosis in regards to affirmation / prayer campaigns?
Self-hypnosis involves becoming highly focused and absorbed in a self-generated state of receptivity.
You relax yourself.
Being relaxed it is easy to focus.
You focus on getting more relaxed.
When you reach a state of peace, you listen to your affirmations.
Then you finish and return to normal.
This state is one that consists of a calm relaxed mind, a steady and calm body, and an audio tape that narrates your affirmation / prayer campaign to you.
The entire process lasts from fifteen minute to up to three hours depending on the person, and the campaign that they are engaged in. Mine have been from twenty minutes to forty five minutes in duration.
In general, self-hypnosis is an individual practice. It is quite unlike when you are working with a therapist. And since you alone control the affirmation dialog, you can be quite frank and open with your campaign programming.
The advantages of this technique is that it is very helpful in quieting the mind from extemporaneous thoughts, external noises and the day-to-day worries and fears that all of us have. And in so clearing away this debris, if offer a very stable and robust method for conducting an affirmation / prayer campaign.
Additionally, it can be a most empowering practice. You will learn to have better control of your thoughts and reactions to outside influences, as well as enjoying the physical and emotional benefits of the relaxation that is so very typical of self-hypnosis techniques.
An important aspect – undoing the programming of others
I have a problem: Fatalistic, negative thinking about myself. Almost every morning I wake up & think, “I hate myself.” Automatic, reflexive negative thoughts about myself persist all day long, thoughts such as, “Stupid”, “Dummy”, “Idiot” etc. Sometimes I think about ending my life just so I won’t have to listen to these thoughts.
After a lifetime of disappointment & precarious finances, I have miraculously ended up in a fortunate situation due to a 3rd marriage: No debt; mortgage free “nice” house in safe neighborhood; retired with financial security; physical health; husband who tells me every day he loves me.
Despite my fortunate external circumstances, my inner world is full of depression, fear, constant dissatisfaction and a sense of meaninglessness, purposelessness, disconnectedness & self-depreciation.
And then I beat myself up because I’m not grateful for my good circumstances.
-A Texan
Today, we like in a world where everything is trying to reprogram our mind; our brains. And that is what is. Our brain is a housing or a computer that runs a program.
We all know, if you are a regular reader to MM that the American (and Western) “news” outlets do not inform. They manipulate. They are constantly trying to herd humans and the human citizenry into actions from one extreme to the other.
“The problem is bias. While ideally the media should be objective and hold power to account, in reality we know that most news outlets are partisan and have their own agenda to advance. Whether state-owned or run by some shady tax-avoiding billionaire, getting ‘the masses’ to view the world from a certain perspective has always been a priceless power to wield.”
One could say stagnation has led to people seeing the routine, consistent tricks played by the powers that be wielding the media, for what they are. It’s been like a stagnant, constant period of time unfortunately since the beginning of events in the early 2000’s, when the media has been promoting nonstop “national defense.”
People know more about how the media is today, because it’s been the same, stagnant program for decades and decades now. It can be quantified with studies and statistics, or it can be understood in detail in one person’s own intuition and personal understanding.
-Education Inspire Change
The media “news” is one non-stop manipulation after the other. It never ends.
.
But this programming has always been part of us. From our earliest days, our earliest programs were embedded into our brains from childhood. those bully and fake-friends, and even teachers all contributed to fill your mind with nonsense. And it stays with us all these years.
Programming of the brain at a young childhood can affect your entire life unless you are able to erase the programming completely. Erase Completely. Not simply ignore it. Or pray it away. That program is still stuck there in your computer, running. Doing it’s damage, and no changes to your key-strokes, or new software that you install is going to change that fact. You need to root it out and erase it completely.
.
These taunts, these screams, these snide remarks haunt us and lie there dormant inside our brains. Our reactions to life then are tainted and manipulated by these hidden programmed actions.
Whether by childhood bullies, or media manipulations, or evil government officials. You need to deprogram yourself. You need to run an anti-virus program.
Like a piece of Malware on your computer, you must set up an anti-virus program to find it, root it out, cleanse the system and reboot. you cannot just simply ignore the program running in the background.
.
Using Self-hypnosis you are able not only to run and conduct an affirmation / prayer campaign, but you are able to set that campaign to run as a program in your brain. You can also use this technique to root out the bad programs; whether it is from childhood bullies, or bad experiences. You must run the anti-virus program of self-hypnosis to purge your system of malware.
What can a person accomplish with self hypnosis when running an intention campaign?
What can humans accomplish if they’re in the “right” frame of mind? You can accomplish anything, and if your desire is to maintain your prayer / affirmation goals then you can expect them to manifest earlier than they might otherwise manifest.
When people are focused and motivated to accomplish a goal, and most effectively use their abilities, they are at the peak of their personal power. This is even more so with an intention campaign for the entire purpose of intention prayers is to direct life goals for your consciousness to follow and obey.
Typically, people use self-hypnosis to learn new skills more easily, perform athletic feats, be more creative, tolerate pain, and to face the unknown with greater confidence. These are just a few of the infinite examples of the value of self-hypnosis. And it has a long and successful history of helping people all over the world to better themselves, increase confidence and mental agility, as well as to be able to control or augment, their natural biological body processes.
The primary advantage in using self-hypnosis in a prayer campaign is to directly program your brain to what you want it to do and how you want it to think. While in the same process, purging the brain from negative, and counter-productive routines, beliefs and negative reinforcements that run counter to your desires.
Stop the brain from running negative programs.
Purge the brain of the negative programming.
Reprogram the brain with positive programs.
Run and conduct your prayer affirmations.
Synchronize your body and mind to operate effectively together.
Self-hypnosis is a means of learning to focus yourself, motivate yourself, be more self-aware, and make the best use of your innate skills.
If you think about it, when you see other people do amazing things, they’re usually intensely focused on what they’re doing and what they’re trying to accomplish. Self-hypnosis is all about developing and using your focus in a goal-directed fashion.
And what is more goal-directed than an affirmation / prayer campaign?
Does self-hypnosis work?
Yes. It absolutely does.
This fact is well established from the days of when hypnosis was used by doctors to perform surgery and operations on patients. In those days, there were often opportunities where doctors and patients preferred to forego medicine and instead opted to go under a deep hypnotic trance.
Since the early 1800s, hypnosis has been used for medical and dental purposes, primarily to relieve pain and to replace or supplement anesthesia during surgery. At that time, it was called “mesmerism,” after the German physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who was the first to advocate the use of the process in pain control in the late 1700s.
The medical literature offers a myriad of examples where hypnosis by another person has been successful in reducing or eliminating pain felt by the patient: in children undergoing chemotherapy; in women during labor and childbirth; in habitual smokers who wish to stop smoking; in the treatment of chronic tension headache, bedwetting, and tinnitus (constant ringing in the ears); and even in cases where breasts or limbs have had to be surgically removed, and hypnosis was the only anesthesia used!
-What is self hypnosis?
While it is no longer commonly used in the medical profession to conduct surgery, it is still used to handle a host of other mental and emotional problems and conditions. You can use self-hypnosis to enter into deep states of calmness and receptivity.
...a hypnotic process is underway any time a person’s attention is focused and possibilities are offered for their consideration.
“Let your body relax totally, from head to toe”
“You will awaken feeling alert and fully rested.”
“Picture in your mind the most relaxed, peaceful place you could imagine.”
“Imagine you can hear your beloved grandmother’s voice.”
If your attention is focused on any of these suggestions, the phenomena of hypnosis tend to ensue. You enter a light “trance” state.
If this is done over a longer period of time, say 10 minutes, you will tend to go to a deeper level, especially if gentle music is playing in the background. And if you are listening to a talented storyteller, you can go even deeper, since you don’t have to know what suggestions to use next.
The more experienced the storyteller, the more deeply you can go into the experience.
-What is self-hypnosis.
Is self hypnosis the same as meditation?
No. It is not.
Self-hypnosis is very similar to meditation in that both involve entering a calm and relaxed state. The main difference is that when people practice self-hypnosis, they tend to have a specific goal in mind, something that will improve them and their quality of life in some way.
However, in a typical meditation practice there is no particular goal, just an easy acceptance of wherever the mind goes without judgment or intention. It doesn’t or isn’t intended to be anything more / other than unifying your body and mind towards a best unity of the two.
Both meditation and self-hypnosis have the potential to promote physical and mental health in parallel ways, thus highlighting the merits of learning to develop and use focus meaningfully.
Using the computer analogy…
Meditation is the same as purging your cache memory so the computer runs smoother.
Self-Hypnosis is running programs in your computer. Using programs to remove malware, and installing new novel programs so it can perform new tasks.
Self-Hypnosis by-passes the “normal” sensory input mechanisms
By using self-hypnosis you are able to by-pass the “normal” routes that feed sensory inputs into your brain. You can block some stimuli. And you can add other stimuli at will. For you are in control.
Self-hypnosis programs can be used to help you change from one state of mind, or from one mood, to another. Each mood is a kind of mini-hypnotic (or hypnoidal) state. Thus there is actually no specific state that can be called truly “not hypnotic” – unless it is pure enlightenment!
For instance, imagine there’s a day when you’re feeling great, and then suddenly get really bad news: a call comes in that your stocks crashed and your life savings have just gone up in smoke. That news changes your mood, your thoughts, and what you say and do.
Next, imagine that an hour later you get another phone call informing you that the previous one was in error, that the truth is that you have just won the lottery. Presumably, there is a dramatic change in how you feel – for the better. Actually, nothing has really happened to you physically except that on both occasions, your mental image of yourself and the world changed.
If a person in a receptive trance state is told they have touched poison ivy, they can break out in a rash; if told they are naked outside on a snowy day, they shiver; if told there is an open bottle of ammonia, they can smell it. This is due to the fact that there is a direct line between the images you have in your mind and your body – hypnotic techniques simply help you use this connection to improve your life.
Of course, the kinds of suggestions offered during hypnotherapy, or that you give yourself while listening to a guided imagery audio experience, are designed to enable you to heal more rapidly, manage stress, improve your performance, change your behavior patterns, and become the person you most want to be.
-What is self-hypnosis.
In computer language, the sensory inputs are known as I/O. Or Input / Output. They consists of the monitor, the mouse, the keyboard, the printer, a WiFi hookup or modem (if you are really old). The use of Self-hypnosis permits you to decide which I/O to connect and which to disconnect.
You can change your I/O. Disconnect from the “news”, focus on friends and family.
You can improve your connection speed. You can improve your receptivity to certain things or ideas.
You can root out your memory. You can completely remove old programs, and all the storage space that they occupy.
You can add new devices. You can program yourself to be more aware, improve ESP capability, memory efficiency, or listen for specific “signposts”.
Timing concerns
You want to create a taped or recorded narrative that describes your intention / prayer campaign PLUS the exercise necessary to conduct Self-hypnosis. This means that the time that you will need (or typically need) to read your personal affirmations will now be larger by the addition of perhaps from 20 minutes to an hour of self-hypnosis dialog. So you need to plan how the script will work and read when you are using it.
Plan your script narrative.
How often?
You should conduct this exercise at least once a week. However, when I ran the affirmation / prayer campaigns I did it every day (time and conditions permitting). It depends on your situation.
You need to make a recording.
You need to make an audio recording. There is no way that you will be able to memorize any of this.
You will need to make an audio recording.
.
This system and sessions ONLY work if you make an audio recording, and the self-hypnosis occurs when you are lying down and listening to it.
How to hypnotize yourself and run a prayer / intention campaign
Below are commonly employed steps to perform self-hypnosis. Hypnosis is perfectly safe, and you will be in control the whole time. After all, it is your experience. You are in control. At no time are you out of control. You are just calmer and more relaxed than what you could consider to be “normal”.
There are multiple parts to self-hypnosis.
[1] Find a comfortable place
Find a place to perform the self-hypnosis. I used to use my RV Class”A” motor-home, my bedroom, or my den / study. I would also do it in my car during lunchtime.
Close the door.
Make sure that others know not to disturb you.
Make sure you feel physically comfortable as this will help you relax. Many people recommend that you sit in a soft chair with your legs and feet uncrossed. I used to do this. But over time, I have taken an alternative position. You may lie down. And that is my primary and preferred method. Though for newbies, this method may lead you to simply fall sleep.
Find a place where you can be alone. (If necessary, buy a small van or a car with a big back seat and drive to a secluded area. Then put on some headphones or ear buds and tune the rest of the world out.)
.
Loosen any tight clothing and avoid eating large meals so you don’t feel bloated and uncomfortable. Ensure you will not be interrupted for 20-30 minutes during the hypnosis. Wear comfortable clothing if possible.
I know that this is not always possible. But if you can, just wear clothing that is not binding. Don’t wear a tie. Make sure that your boots are not gathered at your ankles (such as is the fashion).
Wear comfortable clothing if possible.
.
When I would perform this activity, I would tend to do it in the afternoon. Perhaps 2 to 4 pm, in a quiet place where I know that no one would disturb me. (Usually, at these times I was unemployed. Floating on a Per Diem lifestyle.) All cell phones, and distractions are turned off. I usually have a drink of water before the session, and I personally lie down with a light throw-blanket over my chest. (If you go into a deep hypnosis, your body temperature will decrease a few degrees.)
I have a tape recording (I used to use a cassette, but now it is very easy to use your smart phone instead.) with me listening to me reading my prepared script narrative. (See sections [2 and 3] next.)
A lazy-boy chair makes for a great self-hypnosis session.
.
I rest and put either my head phones or ear buds in and make sure that I am very comfortable. I used to have a set of noise cancelling headphones that were wonderful, but today I just simply use ear buds, and as long at they don’t slip out of your ears, they work just fine.
If you have a problem with the ear buds falling out, put on a “watch cap” or some other tight fitting hat to hold them in your ears. I never noticed any discomfort in wearing headphones or a watch cap with ear-phones, but everyone is different. Find out what works for you.
I personally prefer to have my shoes off, and just lie there in bed with my socks on. I also typically have my cassette player / smart phone near my head about 25 cm away (one foot). I also make sure that the phone is off (do not disturb setting) so that I will not be rudely awakened by someone calling.
You can use anything that you are comfortable with.
.
Children, pets, spouse, friends, and everyone else is left outside the room. This is a time of solitude and privacy. My one exception has always been some of my favorite cats. But they knew the ritual and would never disturb me while I was in the self-hypnosis dive.
Make sure that you will not be disturbed.
[2] Generate a script narrative.
Once you are settled in place, you turn on the script that you prepared. This is a script that you have read into your recording device.
This script consists of four parts. Which are…
Calming introduction and relaxation session. (Induction.)
Walk down to a receptive state & arrival. (Deepening.)
Read the affirmations. (The “Subject”.)
Closure and wake up. Exit. (Awake.)
Other people give these four stages different names. But the process remains the same.
[2a] Calming Introduction
You start off the “tape” or recording with about ten minutes of soothing music. this is known as “Induction”.
You play from 5 to 15 minutes of calming music.
Find some music that you find relaxing and soothing. You can find tons of this type and style of music on the internet or in your favorite music APP. Just look for any of the following keywords…
Ambiance
Trance
Tranquil
Soothing
Mellow
And search until you find something appropriate. For the longest time I would use sounds of nature to begin a session. I used sounds of thunder at night, evening rain, gentle breeze, and horse sleigh ride at night. Just find one that fits your mood and put that at the beginning of your taped session.
Start with a low volume and calm pace.
Screenshot of Kouguo songs on one of the channels.
.
Some people used Hemi-Sync. You can do this as well, but I really prefer the sounds of nature myself. Hemi-Sync is perfect for longer periods of contemplation. It is a complete package. But that is not exactly what we are looking for here. We want something that can be used WITH our affirmation / prayer campaigns.
I do however recommend it for calming and contemplative activities.
Hemi-Sync.com® is home to the largest online collection of content to help you relax, focus, meditate, sleep and lead a more vibrant life.
The idea is to start the tape with some relaxing sounds. Figure at least five minutes, and no more than fifteen minutes of music. The purpose of this is to slow down your body and the mind using the music. It serves as a curtain that you close to allow yourself some privacy from the screeching and howling of the rest of the world outside.
[2B] Walk down to a receptive state.
Here you start to enter a meditative / receptive state. This is not automatic. Just being relaxed is not the same as being receptive. You need to “trick” your mind to go into a deep trance. This is done using visualization techniques.
This is the “induction script”.
There are many techniques that you can use. Many use the “progressive muscle relaxation technique”. However, I believe that you should use a two-step process in addition to it. Thus this discussion will consist of two parts.
[2B-1] Muscle relaxation. (Relax the body.)
[2B-2] Walk down the stairs. (Enter a state of receptiveness.)
[2B-1] The progressive muscle relaxation technique
Enter the hypnotic state with a common technique known as progressive muscle relaxation. With this, focus awareness upon any tension stored in parts of the body, and release tension sequentially. Begin with your hands and arms, then move down to your back, shoulders and neck, then stomach and chest and legs and feet. Visualize the tension dissolving or evaporating away, or slowly tense then relax the muscles.
A common technique of Induction is a common technique known as progressive muscle relaxation.
.
The feeling of deep, pleasant, comfortable relaxation is an excellent starting point to begin self-hypnosis.
If you wish to use this technique, you need to narrate it in your recording. you need to tell yourself to relax your body, and then go through the various parts in great detail.
Search for areas of tension in your body.
Locate the areas and direct yourself to sooth away the tension from those areas.
Once done you can begin to relax the rest of your body.
Then go to your hands.
To your fingers.
Then your shoulders and neck. Spend time here.
Then your arms.
Then your chest.
Moving downward to your stomach.
To your legs.
To your feet.
To your toes.
Relax your body to your toes.
[2B-2] The Walk Down The Stairs Technique
You need the recording to play the calming music and then go into the walk-down sequence.
You just lie there and listen.
The recording will take you deeper and deeper into a trance.
Then when you are in that trance your affirmations can be read to you. And you will hear them with great clarity.
This is the technique that I use.
This is also the technique that was taught by Doctor Newton. (Journey of Souls).
[Begin the kind of narrative that you want to read to yourself. You can add to it. I do not suggest deleting from it. Alter and change it to fit your personal personality.]
In this technique, you listen to a narrative that you generate. In it you describe a big door standing in front of you. You describe the details of that door. You describe the heavy timbers, the age, the huge size, and the ancient knockers and hinges on it. You also describe that it is locked with a large padlock and you describe this padlock. You describe the size and the weight of this heavy metal ancient padlock.
You then describe a heavy old fashioned key that you are holding in your hand. You discuss how you use that key to open the padlock and how it feels to turn the key in that old rusty lock. You then describe the heavy old chains falling away and that you push open the door and you enter a dimly lit stone room. That no one has been in the room for many years. And that you walk forward into that room.
You then describe walking down into the dark room, and then at the end of the room is a stone alcove. You head towards the alcove. It is a carved alcove with an ornate edge and a small dusty statue of a gargoyle at the top of it, and peering inside you see steps leading down.
So you describe the steps. The steps are dusty and unused. But you can see that there are a few foot prints in the dust, and each time that you put your foot on a step that you will go into a much deeper state of relaxation and receptiveness to the narrative that you are reading. Each step takes you down lower and lower to a much more receptive and relaxed state.
You go down two steps. You feel very relaxed and much more receptive.
You go down two more steps. You are much more relaxed, and much more receptive.
You do gown tow more steps. More relaxed. More receptive.
You go down another two steps. Very relaxed and much more receptive.
You go down another two steps and you find yourself on a flat platform. It is dim, but the platform is lit by an old brass lamp. You have now gone down ten steps. You reach out and move the brass lamp from it’s nook in the side of the stone wall. It moves and displaces some dust in the process. It has a handle at the top, and it is very, very dim. So you see a small knob and you slowly turn the knob and the brass lamp give off a greater amount of light. And you can see the little stone platform that you are standing upon.
You see that there is another flight of steps, so you start walking down the steps into the darkness. Each step, like before takes you deeper into a more restful and receptive state. You put your foot on the first step, and you notice the solid dusty coldness. Then you take another step.
Each step takes you deeper down. Each step is a more relaxed state. Each step makes you more receptive. You also find yourself calmer with each step and more peaceful. For each step is like a smooth movement in the cool darkness.
You go down two steps. You feel very relaxed and much more receptive. You are very calm.
You go down two more steps. You are much more relaxed, and much more receptive.
You do gown tow more steps. More relaxed. More receptive. And extremely calm.
You go down another two steps. Very relaxed and much more receptive.
You take another two steps and you arrive at a singular room with a large hole in the dusty stone floor. You set the lantern down and peer down into the darkness. It goes deep, really deep down. But there is a very strong and sturdy ladder to the side of that hole. You cannot see much as it is very dim, but ten flights below is another platform and there is huge brass gauge there sitting on a pedestal. You cannot see it clearly. So you start to climb down the ladder. You leave the brass lantern on the floor, and you start to climb down the ladder. Each rung is a great relaxation, and great improvement on your peace, your calmness, and your being.
You go down two rungs, and you feel so much more relaxed.
And another two rungs. And you are even more relaxed. You are so very relaxed now, but each run makes you even more relaxed.
You go down two more rungs.
You go down another two rungs, and are so very relaxed now, you feel like you are floating. And you reach the bottom platform. And there you see the big heavy bronze mechanism in front of you.
This mechanism is very old, very heavy, very intricate and very beautiful. It is some kind of gauge, and you can see the arm of the gauge pointing to a number written on the faded white parchment surface behind it. It is pointing to a number. You look closely at the number that it is pointing towards. You peer closely at the number the number is starting to get clear and it looks like the roman number six.
Then you look around the room.
There are alcoves set into the wall. It is like you are at the bottom of a deep, deep well. You look at the wall and there are many alcoves all set into the wall. Each alcove contains a hallway leading towards a darkness. You look up and find the alcove numbers. They are carved into the stone above the alcove entrances, and you look for the proper portal.
You see number one carved above the first alcove. It’s not what you want. It’s empty and covered in thick, ancient cobwebs.
Then, you go to the next alcove. You see a number two carved into the stone above the alcove. It too is not what you are looking for. It is not only covered in cobwebs but is barred a little ways in. There is what appears to be a barred metal gate inside. And it is old, rusty and very dark and dim.
Then you go to the alcove after that. You look at the entrance to the alcove and you see a number three.
That is not where you want to go. either. So you see the next alcove. Above it is carved the number four. It too is like the others. It is dim and dark and full of ancient cobweb.
Not where you want to go, so you go to the next alcove. You stop at it. You look at the fine ancient workmanship and you look at the very top of the alcove. And there at the top is the roman number five. It looks like the letter “V”. It is particularly dusty and damp. You feel a coldness and a dampness inside that opening.
That is not where you want to go.
So you go to the next alcove, and you study it. And this is the alcove you want. Not only is there a number six carved and chiseled into the stone, but the path through the alcove is clear and illuminated with small torches set inside tiny nooks in the stone wall. The torches are on metal frames that are set into the walls. They seems to burn brightly, and you can clearly make out the ancient meal straps and rivets of the torch holder.
And you start to walk down the hallway.
You walk forward.
The sound of your footsteps echo in the lonely corridor.
You walk further inside.
And as you walk things are getting clearer and easier to see and understand. You have clarity. You have perception and you are fully relaxed now.
And a few more steps further and you see that there is a big door in front of you. It is a nice, solid, heavy metal door made out of walnut, and it is just beautiful. And there is a handle, and you have a key in your hand. And you put that key in the keyhole and you grab that handle and you pull on the handle.
And the door opens.
The door opens to a warm and cozy room. This room looks different than anything else. It appears that you are inside a golden submarine. The walls are curved and nice shiny gold. There are nice braces and supports that are ribbed and that go to floor to ceiling in these large circular curved arches. Inside these braces are holes like cutouts. And the entire inside looks like some kind of Victorian era interior decoration. There are big plush chairs and sofas all made out of rich leather. The inlays on these chairs are beautiful and exquisite.
The walls have these deep red velvet curtains with gold tassels that drape over the walls. They are held in place by metal hooks that are exquisite and wrought with the images of lions, and other animals of the deepest Victorian Africa.
There are windows and you can look out of the windows and see a beautiful ocean with colorful fish, corals and schools of glimmering tiny fish. You can see octopi, and starfish, and nice glowing jellyfish. There are big heavy fringed curtains that hang by the windows. They are lush with deep red patterns and gold inlays. They have gold tassels and weaved designs and hang on gold rods.
There is a painting of a pastoral scene on one of the walls. You can see the sheep and cows in the painting, and a nice woman in peasant attire from a century ago talking to a young man wearing working clothes and chewing on a stalk of wheat. He is leaning against a stone wall, and she is holding a basket with some wild flowers that she had picked. She seems to be in her teens, and he is only slightly older with a mischievous, but shy, grin.
There is also a big ornate clock on the wall. And on the clock is a hand that can go forward and backward in time, and a series of old fashioned knobs underneath it. These are porcelain knobs that resemble the kinds of knobs that you might find on an old bathtub. The knobs are labeled, and by turning the knobs you can change the time. You can go forward or backwards.
To the right of the clock is a big detailed calendar. It is thick and if you wanted to you could go back in time, many years, by turning the sheaf of pages.
And there is a big heavy chart table in the middle of the room. It has big, enormous sturdy legs. And a solid and steady table top. Above it is an old-fashioned Tiffany lamp with colored designs in the glass, and it all gives off a greenish glow. And on that chart table are papers, maps, books, leather bound journals, metal rulers, compasses and positioning equipment to include a sextant, and an old fashioned watch on a gold chain, and an empty coffee cup.
But on that table is a heavy leather book. It is huge. It’s covers are thick, and it has a title carved into the leather. The title of the book reads “Operation Manual and Orders” but it is locked with a book lock. The lock is golden and securely clamps the book shut with a leather strap.
But you have a small gold key in your hand.
You use that lock to open up the book.
The lock opens easily and your look into the pages of the book. Many of the written orders are old and very simple. You peer at them, and read some of them. They are very elementary. They say such things as “listen to your body”. “Be a good person.” And “take care of your self”. So you flip though some of the other pages.
Each page is thick and heavy, and is made out of parchment. You can feel the parchment when you turn the pages.
You see a page that contains a long description of a long poisonous memory from childhood. You carefully tear that page out. You can feel it tear out, and rip out of the book, but it is finally out. You crumple the paper. You crumple it in a ball.
Then you take a pack of old-fashioned wooden matches that are sitting on the table. You remove one wooden match. You see the red tip of the match and you strike it against the side of the box of matches and it lights into a small tiny flame. You put that flame to the crumpled ball of paper and you toss the lit paper into a big empty brass trash can that is at the foot of the large table. You watch it burn and flicker into grey dust in the golden can.
You go back to the book. And you continue to leaf through the pages.
And now you reach the latest entry in the book and it is a blank page.
You pick up a pen that is lying on the desk and you start writing in the book on the fine paper. You write…
[This part of the narrative ends and you can start reading your affirmation campaign.]
[3] Verbalize your Affirmation Campaign
In the focused and relaxed state of hypnosis, you can pay deeper and fuller attention to the suggestions you want to give yourself for self-improvement. These can be simple but clear statements you offer yourself about what you might do differently, or how you might react differently in some challenging situation, or how you might come to think differently about yourself or some circumstance.
These ‘post-hypnotic suggestions’ (meaning suggestions that can take effect after your self-hypnosis session is finished) can help you achieve your goals.
It is at this point that you read into your recorder the prayer / affirmation campaign narrative.
[4] Return to your usual level of alertness
Keep in mind that you will easily exit the trance state because your recorded dialog will instruct you to wake up easily and feel great and refreshed afterwards.
After providing the suggestions, You close the affirmation / prayer segment of the self-hypnosis exercise by adding this script…
You have finished writing into your command book. You put the pen down, and you slowly and carefully close the book. When the book is closed you pat the cover nicely, and then closed the hasp and book-lock that secures the book safely.
It is now time to leave and you move away from the table and turn around in the yellow room. You see an exit door at the back of the room. You walk towards it.
You go to the door at the back of the room.
There is a placard on the door. You can’t make it out, but there are five sentences on the card. They are numbered. The first sentence begins with a number one. You read it.
One you are becoming more alert & aware.
Two, you are exiting the room, and existing the affirmation sequence.
As you count to three, you are much more aware and awake.
At four, you are calm, and clear and ready to fully awake normally.
At the count of five, you can open your eyes and stretch out your arms and legs and go on with your day.
Tips for hypnotic suggestions
When making suggestions during self-hypnosis in step 3, follow these tips:
Say it with conviction: Imagine the words being said gently but with conviction and ensure the tone is reassuring, confident and positive.
Phrase suggestions in the present tense: The suggestion, ‘I am confident’ will be more effective than, ‘I will be confident’ as the word ‘am’ is in the present tense and is more certain.
Make suggestions positive: For example, ‘I am at peace’ is better than ‘I am not stressed’ ; talk to yourself about what you do want, not what you don’t want.
Make suggestions realistic: Avoid over-ambitious suggestions such as, ‘I will lose a lot of weight quickly’. Instead focus on smaller and more specific goals such as, ‘I will eat more vegetables, and exercise more’.
Repeat the suggestions: State the suggestions many times during the hypnosis. Repetition of an idea can help drive home the point.
Tips for improving self hypnosis:
Have a goal in mind: Before starting self-hypnosis ensure to have a goal in mind, such as lowering stress. This will ensure each session is focused and productive.
Schedule time for self-hypnosis: The hardest part of self-hypnosis can be getting started. It may work best to set aside a time each day for self-hypnosis and write it in your schedule. Self-hypnosis can be performed during the day, or at night before you sleep.
Keep up the practice: Like riding a bike, it takes time to learn self-hypnosis. With practice and instruction, you will learn to more quickly enter a state of trance. You will also learn a broader range of hypnotic suggestions to improve the outcome.
Use a mobile app: Mobile apps such as Mindset (for sleep & mental health) and Nerva (for IBS) can be a great way to get the best of both self-hypnosis and hypnosis with a hypnotherapist.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my Affirmation / Prayer Campaign Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
I have discussed in previous posts that I had a studio and that I painted in oils. I like to think that I was “good”, but not great. Never the less, it was a love of mine, and when I was “retired”, I lost everything. Here in this post / article, I preserve for eternity (well, at least for a while) some photos of my life prior to my “retirement”. Just some photos of my studio, and some of my paintings in various stages of creation. Sorry, but I really do not have any completed and finished paintings that I can show.
I dredged up these photos from an old email account.
I was surprised that they still existed. And in them I saw photos of family members now dead, and friends now dead, and my beloved pets as well. Now all dead. I saw pictures of my furniture, my homes, my cars, and my belongings. Now all long gone. I saw pictures of my art. Important to me. Now, forever discarded or sold off to others somewhere.
Please enjoy.
Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues.
This first photo is of my den / office.
Most of these pictures come from my life in Erie Pennsylvania rather than my house in Arkansas. I wasn't in Arkansas long enough to acquire enough photographs. I was only there for a few months.
The strange thing about my entire retirement was that I had lived in Pennsylvania for years, then met a girl. Got a job in Arkansas. Moved there, and then six months later, I was arrested, imprisoned, lost everything and retired in the ADC Pine Bluff Diagnostic facility by some MAJestic staff out of Washington DC. It all happened in a short period of time. Months really.
But that's how it works. The "retirement" happens in an incarceration-friendly state. It was critical to get me out of the "mid-West" or East, and down to the hard "Bible Belt" where they could do what they wished without thought or opposition.
My study. Yes. It was horribly cluttered with books. All gone now. Sold off to used book sellers at pennies by the ton. At that time in my life, prior to my “retirement”, I had a rather well comfortable nest of sorts, with books, art, and brick a brack that appealed to me.
.
Of course, today, my life is much more minimalist. Spartan, actually. I don’t have any books really. Just what I read on the internet.
But in those days, I had amassed an enormous volume of books. I had books upon books, upon books. And I loved every single one of them.
I had book, and books, and books. I’ll tell you what. I literally wall-papered my house in books. I had read every single one of them too. Some, especially the fictional ones, over and over and then over again.
.
Here’s a picture of one of my last works prior to my arrest and incarceration. I really liked it, and I planned to leave this under-paining and then begin with the glazes. Adding color and depth to the painting. Typically this period would take months. The first thing I would do is make up a sketch.
This could be in a book, or more often than not using pencil or charcoal on the canvas. Then I might experiment with some oils. Kind of roughing out the image that was developing on the canvas. I called this a pre- pre-under-painting. Then from that, I would lay out the under-painting.
This next picture is a of a under-painting before I began the real painting.
My studio was just as cluttered as my study. I had a big ol’ easel that dominated the well-lit room, and my pallet. It smelled like turpentine, linseed oil and all sorts of the joys that an artist studio would smell like. Here is an under painting. Under-painting were doing in black and white and shades of grey. Then you apply thin transparent lays of paint over the images that you lay out.
.
You can see my pallet on the lower edge of the image, and my brushes and oils.
I really wish that I could have been allowed to finish this painting before it was destroyed. It spoke to me.
Here’s a clearer view…
It’s funny the things that you miss. On the far right is my bobble-head hello kitty. When the light would hit the photo sensor the head would start to gently move side by side. A nice slow relaxing pace. On the wall is one of my first nudes. So very amateurish. But was meaningful to me.
.
It’s not that I want to relive the past, but I have gotten some emails from jack-asses that think that I make up everything that I write about. They say things like “no one can be doing all the things that you claim to have done”, and other nonsensical insults along those lines.
Life is what you make of it.
My love was art, literature and poetry. My background has always been technology and the sciences. And my dream has always been directed to space and working with extraterrestrials. I lived that reality.
What’s so hard to believe about that?
Sadly few of my art work survives. All I have are a precious few photos. Here’s another one. Also an under painting. As most of my surviving photos just (by coincidence) are of my under painting efforts.
Unfortunately I have no photos of any of my finished paintings.
Not so good. I just wish that I was able to complete this. There was so much that I wanted to do with the folds on the bed, and the layout of the cats and the gal really appealed to me. I think that this work had some great potential. I intended to have them looking out of a window and i was going to paint a nice guardian scene there.
.
Life is funny. My life now does not resemble anything at all like what it used to be. Still… but still, I do really miss painting.
Here is another under-painting. Yes. I did paint in color. It’s only that all my photos are of the under paintings.
One of my nude figurative works. it’s paintings like these that ended up getting me labeled as a sex predator, and an “evil threat to society”. When I discussed this issue with my attorney he told me that the DA would “roast me alive”. the folk of Arkansas would not give me a “fair shake”, it wasn’t like Boston, or Chicago or California. They would “hang me”, maybe even literally. He strongly, most strongly suggested that I accept the plea deal offered by the DA.
.
When I remember the police telling me that “you could paint houses”, not seeing that my strength was in the figurative forms, it just showed a callous disregard to my inclinations and talents. But they didn’t care. Their job was to get a conviction, and who cared what happened to me. Right?
A long as the world is safe from people like me.
People, you see my life, and what I did. Where in God’s name could I possibly squeeze in the time to be a sick predatory fuck like I was accused of being?
My hobbies took time. They were all consuming. They were my life.
Another view of the painting from an angle. That easel cost about $2000 when I got it. Solid oak. You all might be interested to know that it was torn down and used to make a dog house for one of the neighbors’ pit bull dogs that was chained outside.
.
Life. You know. Life.
I look at my life today, and I am happy. I eat well, I have a generally low stress life (aside from the HATE CHINA bullshit that saturates the American “news” media) and what I do and how I live my life. Going through my old photos was a glance into what I was and in many cases, I no longer can relate to it. I look much different. In fact, I look older than I am today. I more resemble photos taken thirty years ago than those taken twenty. The life in the USA was not good to me.
It really wasn’t. And when I tried to live a quiet and unassuming life, sure as shit, someone or something would have to do something about it. An artist! A Painter! A rocket scientist! Nope. Not on my watch!
American Leadership today.
.
The PTB, or the oligarchy have constructed a massive concentration camp. Everything is all about money, and if you are not contributing to make THEM richer, then you are threat to them. This is a top-down leadership.
Look around you.
Really look.
If you compare your life inside the United States with the life outside it, you can see. You can really see, just how “wonderful” you life actually is. Today, we have Federal, State, and Local governments that Americans must deal with. In addition there are County government, and an enormous number of Federal agencies, from ABC to ZZZ that you must deal with. Billions of dollars fund these minions whose sole purpose is to squeeze every last cent from you.
As one commenter stated so clearly, it’s all top driven. While the wealthy run off with handfuls of cash and bales of money, those under them end grab every iota of power and money…
…the crumbs that remain. Soon, it will be the lowest janitors and street sweepers taking the pencils, and paperclips out of the offices. It’s every man for himself.
It’s a free-for-all.
That is America today.
Off the bedroom leading towards the study. You can see my bust of the upper male torso, one of my two lava lamps, a vase full of coins and change, and my umbrella rack with my large umbrella. The large oval mirror was my favorite, and when the sun set, and twilight would start to bathe the land in coolness, I would go out to the porch and drink an evening tea, coffee, or beer.
.
These photos are just old dusty memories of a time that was seized from me. It’s like a room that I lived in before I walked down the hallway to another room. If I get the inclination, I will once again, pick up a brush and start painting again. Just as long as I am not accused of being an “evil predator” for my depictions of “devil worship“.
The following is a conceptual sketch.
I used to make up conceptional sketches before I would work out my under-paintings. Then I would flush out the painting using layers of semi-transparent glaze. This work (for reasons that I am unable to fathom) was considered to be a “classic example of the manifestation of the devil and his demons”.
I think (personally that it is a stretch, and I wasn’t thinking anything about demons or Satan when I was painting it. Instead I was thinking of higher callings, relationships, and the spiritual side of our beings.
A conceptional sketch. This is pre under painting. You can tell that at that time in my life I wasn’t really eating well. As in the foreground is a bowl of noodles, and an empty glass of wine. (I’m not a Sophisticated person. I drank out of normal glasses when I drink wine. That way they won’t tip over when I move about.)
.
I only wish that I could provide pictures of fully completed paintings. But let it be known that I am a so-so artist, but not an expert or a professional at it. Each painting would take perhaps 400 hours of work. And it was an enjoyment and a pastime that I loved.
When I dug up these pictures I found long lost images of my dad right before he died, and my mother right before she died. I also found pictures of my cat Coco before he died.
When I was seized and hauled off to Jail to wait until my trial (it took two years), “friends” took care of my belongings. My father tried his best, but he made many mistakes. Friends took care of the rest. And after I exited Prison, nothing was found of my belongings except a WTF suitcase full of WTF items.
Anyways, I found some pictures of my cat.
When I was seized and taken to jail, a friend took care of him. He did well, and he told me that Coco was “concerned” for me.
Four months after I was arrested, my friend was taken to the hospital with a brain tumor and died within a week. Coco disappeared. I assumed that he died. If he’s still alive, he would be a very ancient kitty indeed.
Coco chilling out after a heavy busy day of catting about.
.
He was a little different cat compared to all the other kitties that I had. Instead of cuddling up with me, he thought he was a dog. He liked to play, He would play fetch, and those stop and action games you play with dogs. He would also roll over and let me rub his belly. He like to hang out on the porch and laze about.
Being a black cat and all, of course the Police and DA associated him with Witchcraft. When in truth I could care less what color he was. It wasn’t his fault that he was black.
He used to go out and go out bird hunting. he would always come back with birds and mice that he would put on the porch for us to be proud of. He was one heck of a hunting-cat. he was a great mouser. That’s for certain. He was a warrior kitty. Maybe I should have gotten him a suit of armor.
What do you think?
A Genghis Khan themed Mongol suit of armor for a kitty cat.
.
Or maybe this…
A more European Suit of Armor for a kitty cat.
.
But alas that never materialized. Coco went off, I believe to Kitty Heaven, and my dog Buddy…
Well, he was carted off to the doggie slammer.
He was sent to the local shelter; kennel because my friend(s) didn’t have any room for him. (!) I guess I can sort of understand if you are renting a place and it is against your lease to have pets, or if you are so poor that a bag of Puppy-Crunchies might cause you to go into bankruptcy.
Buddy
Anyways I don’t know what became of the dog. Maybe he ended up as some kind of Frankenstein’s Monster like a frankenpuppy.
I have been told by others, often well-meaning, that I should not get all caught up and concerned about my pets. “They are only animals” I am told. That I am better off with out them. That I don’t need their problems, their expense, and their hassles. Instead I should devote all my energies to rebuilding my life (at 60!) and making money.
Don’t you know…
So I think that they are wrong. These little guys were just great and a significant part of my life. And I just wish that nothing bad came of them. And when I was in Prison and I mentioned my concerns about them, most people understood. But there were some… some really sick fucks… who took my weakness and remorse to poke at me and fill my mind with “what if” horrors that they could have gone through…
…frankenpuppy.
Frankenpuppy.
.
Of course, I really doubt that anything bad or unusual happened to them. There is about a 50/50 chance that Buddy was readopted. He was a real charmer. And Coco, well, he probably expired on one of his hunting expeditions.
Anyways, one of the last paintings that I was working on prior to my arrest and jailing was this paining of this gal in a tub. When I started this under painting, I felt that I was finally “entering my stride”. I had already some great ideas about how I was going to pattern the drapes, and the glazes that I would use on the skin for tones and shading.
Of course, you can argue that my work was still very amateurish, but I think that I was on the verge of creating some very nice works.
My last in-process painting prior to my arrest and incarceration. Still it’s an under-painting, and very simplistic. The fabric needs to be worked on and completed and the surroundings need work. But as simplistic and amateurish as it appears, I enjoyed painting and the thought that this was used as part of the neighbors dog house is repugnant to me.
.
Anyways, this a photographic record of the few remaining photographs of my life prior to my retirement.
I believe that we all have stories to tell. And while it might seem interesting or boring to you, you have to realize that everyone has a story to tell. That everyone has adventures in their lives and that if we find out the real and true story; the whole story, then we would have a much better understanding about how our world works and what powers this reality of ours.
I wish that I spent time with my grandparents and sat down and listened to their stories. I did manage to listen to some family stories from my parents, and they were interesting object lessons and curious adventures of what can happen in certain situations. I think we owe it to each other to listen. Just listen to others. And learn.
Learn.
Things are not that simplistic black and white narrative that we read about on the internet. It’s actually very complex and multi-faceted. It is up to us to learn the whole and entire story before we make judgements on others. Listen to others.
Learn from them.
Do you want more?
I have more interesting articles in my Art Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
You guys realize that MM is not as popular or as well-promoted as such “big names” as Politico, MSN, Time, Newsweek, Rush Limbaugh, Drudge report or any other American media outlets. It’s that way for a reason. Well, maybe a couple of reasons, eh? But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a readership. We do. And we have some pretty impressive readers with some pretty impressive credentials that follow us from time to time and throw out their “two cents”.
One such influencer is BlueNarwhal.
This fellow has an interesting point of view concerning some of the MM writings and I would like to expose the rest of the readership to his words and thoughts. Who knows, maybe he’ll end up being a contributor?
What is Remote viewing
I haven’t covered any Remote Viewing activity in terms of the MWI, simply because I am not an expert in it. All I have done is read a few books on it, and maybe practiced a time or two. But that’s just about it.
According to the “mainstream internet” / “mainstream media” it’s pseudoscience.
Remote ViewingRemote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target, purportedly "sensing" with the mind. Remote viewing experiments have historically been criticized for lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no scientific evidence that remote viewing exists, and the topic of remote viewing is generally regarded as pseudoscience.Wikipedia
But I can tell you that this “pseudoscience” is well funded by the United States and Russian governments. It is used by Bankers, and in American Industry, and has a track record of success that shows a sizable and significant record of success.
Remote viewing is defined as the ability to acquire accurate information about a distant or non-local place, person or event without using your physical senses or any other obvious means. It’s associated with the idea of clairvoyance, seemingly being able to spontaneously know something without actually knowing how you got the information. It is also sometimes called “anomalous cognition” or “second sight.”
Many of us experience this from time to time as an intuitive flash of insight that turns out to be correct. Many well-known entrepreneurs and business people, like George Soros, Conrad Hilton, Thomas Alva Edison and Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, have attributed their business success to this ability. And we’ve all seen natural psychics perform seemingly amazing feats of mental skill on TV.
The difference between natural psychic receptivity and remote viewing is that the latter is a trained skill, a controlled process, that the average person can learn to do, to some degree or another.
The CIA uses Remote Viewing
Money and resources were given by the Central Intelligence Agency to Stanford Research Institute (SRI), located on the campus of Stanford University at the time, to test the possibility of remote viewing. The goal was to disprove that psychic functioning was real. No one wanted it to exist. It was the last thing that the military establishment wanted to worry about, especially if it was a new Soviet threat.
Physicists Russell Targ and Hal Putoff working at SRI were tasked with determining whether Extrasensory Perception (ESP) and related phenomena were real or not. Targ and Putoff set about to locate some natural psychics and test them. Their first subject was artist, psychic and scientist Ingo Swann of New York City who had demonstrated an ability to accurately “remote view” weather in various American cities. He had published some articles about ESP and also psychokinesis, the ability to mentally affect distant objects, when he worked with researcher Gertrude Schmeidler of City College, New York and the American Society for Psychical Research.
Ingo Swann - Consciousness Researcher | Ingo Swannhttps://ingoswann.comINGO SWANN (September 14, 1933 January 31, 2013) was internationally known as an advocate and researcher of the exceptional powers of the human mind, and as a leading figure in governmental and scientific projects to investigate and identify the scope of subtle human perceptions.
Working with Schmeidler, Swann had shown that he could affect the temperature of thermistors sealed in insulated thermos canisters twenty-five feet away from him.
A thermistor is a a sensor that measures temperature. Swann was able to raise the temperature of the region around the thermistor and cause the readings on the computer to change.
At a friend’s request, Swann sent his published findings to Putoff, who asked Swann to come to SRI and demonstrate his abilities. The first thing they had Swann do was to see if he could affect a super sensitive, electromagnetically shielded quark detector buried five feet underground in a cement floor.
Every time Putoff asked Swann to think about the detector (used to detect subatomic particles), the readings from the device would noticeably deviate from the baseline readings. Putoff was convinced that Swann had special abilities and so the program to test and develop remote viewing began.
At first they had Swann view objects in a box: this was a practice he was good at but quickly became bored with. Swann said to them: “I can view anything in the universe, this is a trivialization of my abilities.”
Remote Viewing physical locations by GPS coordinates
A few days later he came up with a new way to do remote viewing: viewing map coordinates.
Targ and Putoff went out and bought the biggest atlas they could find at the local book store. The would pull coordinates off of the map, and write them down on paper inside a sealed envelope. Then give the envelope to the remote viewer.
The Swann’s coordinate map viewing turned out to be a big success.
Of course, not everyone believed that is was truly possible. A critic at the Central Intelligence Agency suggested that maybe he had memorized the entire global map.
.
Swann went on to use randomly chosen numerical coordinates to view randomly selected events, people and structures around the planet. He performed equally well using this coordinate-based viewing system.
Swann coined to term “remote viewing” to describe the process though you can question whether the information is actually remote to the viewer or whether the process is entirely visual.
Some people are more sensitive to auditory, kinesthetic or other types of sensory information and few viewers actually “see” the target very clearly. Nonetheless, the name stuck and was sufficient to convince the intelligence agencies to fund the project.
Other viewers were also tasked to help Targ and Putoff understand remote viewing.
Pat Price
Pat Price, a former police commissioner from Burbank, CA also proved to be an excellent viewer. Price used his own system to view where he actually imagined that he was at the distant target site. His results were so good that the Central Intelligence Agency hired him to work for them directly.
Pat Price was one of the most skilled of the U.S. government’s remote-viewers of the 1970s. He was someone who regularly used his psychic abilities to spy on hostile nations for various military and intelligence departments. There is very little doubt that Price would have continued with his work had death not intervened in a very strange (and even sinister) way. Price passed away on July 14, 1975. It was, however, the nature of his death that was so disturbing of all. Just a few days before his untimely death, Price had a number of covert rendezvous’ with a variety of agents of the National Security Agency. Also, with personnel from the Office of Naval Intelligence. The meetings were initiated to determine if Price would be willing to undertake remote-viewing operations for both agencies. Price was gung-ho for both projects. In no time at all, the operations began.
Just a few days after the meetings, Price flew out of Washington, D.C. His destination: he first took a flight to Salt Lake City, and then onto Sin City itself: Las Vegas. We may never know for sure if Price suspected that his life was in danger. The fact is, however, that with all of this top secret work being undertaken for U.S. intelligence, Price became concerned about his safety to at least a certain degree. To the extent that the purpose of the flight to have over some important, sensitive documents to a friend; just in case anything were to happen to him. It was in the afternoon of July 13 that Price checked into Vegas’ Stardust Hotel. All was going good. That is, until it wasn’t. As he approached the desk to check-in, a man walked straight into Price. It was a violent collision. He felt a shooting pain in his leg, as if he had been hit with a needle. With hindsight, that may very well have been what happened. In near-quick time, Price started to feel ill and decided to lay down and take a nap. But, not before handed over those precious documents.
A few hours later, and still not feeling so good, Price met with several friends for dinner. There was something on his mind. Not only did Price tell them about the collision in the lobby just a few hours earlier, but he also confided in them that while he was in Washington, D.C. just a little more than a day earlier, he had seen someone slip something in his coffee. Having seen this chilling, covert action occur, Price left the coffee well alone and exited the restaurant quickly. As for the evening at the Stardust Hotel, it wasn’t going to well. In fact, not at all. Price cut the dinner meeting short and went back to his room.
Around 5:00 a.m. the next day, Price woke up in significant physical distress. His breathing was not right. He had severe cramps in his back and stomach and he was sweating profusely. He called his friend who had those important papers, who quickly raced to Price’s room. A doctor was about to be called when Price began to convulse. Then, he went into cardiac arrest. Despite the best efforts of paramedics, who were quickly on the scene, and who managed to briefly kick-start his heart, it was all to no avail. Price was soon dead. It is a fact that Price had heart disease. With that in mind, his death could have been due to wholly natural causes and nothing else at all. But, we cannot – and should not – forget the fact that Price had seen someone surreptitiously slip something into his coffee, just a couple of days earlier. Then there was the matter of the potentially suspicious collision in the lobby of the Stardust Hotel in Vegas. To this day, the death of Pat Price – almost certainly the work of an overseas, hostile nation – is still discussed in hushed tones where the conspiratorial lurk.
-Mysterious Universe
Joe McMoneagle
Back East, another natural viewer Joe McMoneagle, also known as “Remote Viewer No. 1,” worked directly with the U.S. Army and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was also tested and found to have amazing abilities to describe and sketch distant locations. Upon retirement, McMoneagle was awarded a Legion of Merit award, in part, for his five years of remote viewing missions for the military and various government agencies.
Joseph McMoneagle is a former US Army soldier who played a leading role as a 'remote viewer' in the Star Gate psychic spying program run by American military and intelligence organizations until the 1990s. Since retiring from the military he has continued his activities in the private sector. He gives talks and public demonstrations, and has published several books.
-PSI Encyclopedia
Swann’s 6-stage RV system
However, Swann was able to describe, with great precision, what he was doing with his mind and attention as he was viewing, an ability other viewers did not have. This allowed him to come up with a 6-stage system that could be taught to anyone, including you or me.
It became known as CRV: Coordinate (or Controlled) Remote Viewing.
The Six Stages of Controlled Remote Viewing CRV was first called “coordinate remote viewing” because it used geographic coordinates instead of outbounder “beacon” teams to focus the viewer on the target. Years later, Ingo Swann changed the term “coordinate” remote viewing to “controlled” remote viewing.
Swann’s CRV system is based on separating out signal from noise in your mind as you are viewing.
All the information is recorded during a session, but the viewer puts the noise in a different place on the paper than the signal. At the end of the session, you can separate them from one another.
The method became the basis of the remote viewing protocols that the U.S. army taught to several groups of viewers. The program lasted until 1995 when it was declassified; about $20 million was spent over the two decades.
Controlled Remote Viewing
remoteviewed.com/crv_docs_full.pdf
a. Remote Viewing (RV): The name of a method of psychoenergetic perception. A term coined by SRI-International and defined as “the acquisition and description, by mental means, of information blocked from ordinary perception by distance, shielding, or time.” b. Coordinate Remote Viewing (CRV): The process of remote viewing using geographic coordinates for cueing or prompting.
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR)
During this time, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR) at Princeton University, run by Bob Jahn and Brenda Dunn, also conducted twenty years of research into remote viewing and so-called “micro-psychokinesis” with experiments on the effect of human intention on Random Number Generators (RNGs).
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
pearlab.icrl.org
The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program, which flourished for nearly three decades under the aegis of Princeton University's School of Engineering and Applied Science, has completed its experimental agenda of studying the interaction of human consciousness with sensitive physical devices, systems, and processes, and developing complementary theoretical models to …
They found that, looking at the cumulative results of hundreds of thousands of trials, that their subjects could influence about 2 or 3 events per 10,000 random coin flips seemingly moving the device away from true randomness in an inexplicable way.
The odds of these results being by chance were an astonishing 375 trillion to one.
The Technique – opening the aperture
When someone asks you to describe something, you normally proceed to name what you’re perceiving using nouns and symbols. Remote viewing is just the opposite. You begin by describing your perceptions without trying to identify anything about what they mean or what the larger picture is. You begin with basic gestalts: fundamental, general components of the target site like whether it’s manmade or living or natural. You then proceed to basic colors, smells, temperatures, shapes and sizes.
Only after you’ve been describing the target for a while can you proceed to more specific ideas and possibly names, nouns and more analytical types of information.
In this you way, Swan would say that you are opening the aperture of your perception, slowly and resisting the temptation to draw conclusions about what you are viewing.
Our minds are always attempting to draw conclusions from what we’ve perceiving at any given moment, but because you have no conscious, physical information to work from in RV, you’re almost always likely to be wrong if you do so. Which brings us to one of the great paradoxes of RV: the fainter the perception, the more likely it is to be accurate and the less likely you are to feel confident in that perception.
In other words, the more confident you are about your psychic perceptions during the session, the less likely those perceptions are to be correct! And the less confident you feel, the more likely it is that your perceptions are right on. How’s that for a paradox?
Good remote viewers learn to trust the feelings of uncertainty and ambiguity they get while doing a session.
Someone familiar with the military viewing program said that if a viewer finished a session and said with confidence “I nailed it!,” that viewer’s session would be thrown in the garbage. A good session is one in which the viewer has no idea what they’ve been doing or whether it’s accurate or not.
This is very different from the way our educational system, which stresses linear and rational thinking, trains us to deal with acquiring and processing information. And believe me, it takes some time to get used it.
Eventually, you see the benefits:
You learn to trust your intuition more and don’t necessarily need to rationalize everything before you take action.
You become more spontaneous which can often be a good thing if you’re used to over-thinking things in your life.
When the RV program was declassified, one of the two people asked to evaluate the program was statistician Jessica Utts, the head of the American Statistical Association at the time of this writing. She concluded:
“Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted.
Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI and SAIC (another government sponsored think tank) have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud.”
And researcher Dean Radin, doing very complex meta-analyses using the results of many studies about psychic perception over many decades, came to the same conclusion.
Looking at the entire population, not just trained viewers, RV is a weak effect, about four to eight percent higher than expected if we were only using our physical senses to gather information: yet, it’s consistently there in everyone.
How Does Remote Viewing Work?
So RV is scientifically proven to work. But how? What’s going inside the viewer’s body and mind? How do they access far away information with such great accuracy? You can pick your favorite explanation but the truth is, no one knows for sure. But my feeling is shared with others in that it has something to do with resonance, vibration and frequency.
Right brain thinking tends to be free flowing, intuitive and descriptive while left brain thinking is more analytical, linear and symbolic. Good remote viewers learn to distinguish their own left and right-brain thinking. They’re good at discerning the difference between the two and can separate signal from noise. Remote viewing tends to be more more accessible to the right-brain type. If you have artistic tendencies, can play music and have an ear for sound, are creative, and / or who are very spiritual as opposed to religious you would probably excel in Remote Viewing.
Picking Up Signals Through Vibrational Resonance
Where does the information come from? Well, if you look around the space wherever you are at the moment, the air will seem empty: you can’t see the air with your eyes. But you also know that it’s filled with electromagnetic information from cell phone signals, radio waves, TV signals, etc. So empty space can be filled with information coming to you from distance. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
That information is coming to you through a type of vibrational resonance that fills space-time.
When you have a receiver that is tuned to the frequency of those signals, you’ll pick them up. All you need to do after that is to amplify the signal. Remote viewing doesn’t necessarily amplify the signal of what you’re viewing, but it does teach you how to reduce your own mental noise, your monkey mind.
What is the Farsight Institute
Since the CIA have been using this system for decades and has documented successes, the private industry has (often) decided to use the techniques, and skilled RV observers for their own purposes. And thus organizations have materialized that provide this service. The Farsight Institute is one such organization.
The Farsight Institute is a nonprofit research and educational organization that is dedicated to understanding the remote-viewing phenomenon itself through the process of scientific experimentation.
It is our belief that a more complete understanding of the remote-viewing phenomenon will have collateral benefits to much of science and society.
Due to how the remote-viewing phenomenon manifests in controlled experiments, the remote-viewing phenomenon appears to be based on quantum-processes.
Much of the research done at The Farsight Institute blends theories of quantum mechanics with interpretations of experimental remote-viewing data. This has lead to new insights into the remote-viewing phenomenon as well as the nature of time and physical reality.
For example, new research indicates that alternate futures actually do exist, and that the past exists simultaneously with the present.
New research also suggests that information transfer across time does not require enormous energy consumption that would be associated with worm hole singularities. These questions are among the most profound addressed by science today.
-The FarSight Institute
OK.
With all that introductory information out of the way…
Some introductory stuff on BlueNarwhal.
Just a little bit. Here’s the (edited) text to MM from BlueNarwhal…
I have had an interesting history in studying in some rather great detail everything on JT especially the physics, and then again everything with the drone affair.
I am assuming that he is referring to JT gravity. And (of course) he is referring to CARET when he mentions the “drone affair“.
I spent maybe a half year developing some implications of theory about how the glyphs actually function and felt I was starting to translate.
When he refers to the “glyphs” he is referring to the “language” used on the CARET drones. And while the language is similar to that of what I have been exposed to in the programming of my EBP, there are differences.
Some amazing breakthroughs have come from that disclosure all of which I realized for the most part I needed to keep quiet.
I lived right where those sightings happened LoL.
And then there’s my 20 years of work in Remote viewing being good friends with s few of the greats there - I focused a lot remote viewing future tech for clients. Worked with Pru, and good friends with many of her team. She shuttered her $8m per year RV commercial business (amazing stories in there) because TPTB ...
TPTB = “The Powers That Be”.
...(they) started a heavy target hijacking and remote influence attempts on her team of 15 viewers she had hand picked from thousands she had trained.
And she is the subject of a major resources debunking after London Sunday Times cover story! Websites like pruwatch!
She was a large scale magnet physicist before that. Courtney is a long time acquaintance too. Just all really good folks in truth. I love them all.
Luckily for me I have always been outside that fray. But that does not mean that it doesn’t go on. Most of the things that occur in our world and within our reality is unknown and completely transparent to the general population.
I would be in a <redacted> and eating at a restaurant there. And I would see other engineers and scientists come in during lunch break. They would have their name badges and I would casually over hear snippets. People talked and chatted about stuff using the arcane language of scientists, and defense contractors, and while others might not have a clue as to what they were discussing… but I would.
For all of us, it’s no “big deal”.
And of course, the mainstream media “news” would be about some “expert” proving that some photograph of a blurry UFO was a hoax. Yeah. It’s like that.
... anyway, again all of your words not only ring true but actually change the person reading it.
It has been so utterly refreshing, validating, delightful and yes heartwarming because I can sense the absolutely wonderful nature of who you are, in the spiritually lovely person so it is an honor to read your words indeed. It’s like drinking clean fresh pure water, thank you!
Yes. I blushed when I read this. But we all like validation.
Yah funny you are of course just an nice average human being like me - who has a few really special skills and is really just working to have a wonderful life!
Yeah fate has decided you were ready to live up to some future legacy and be a anchor exemplar establishing certain influence factors of evolutionary value - and why not!?
What I think I like best about your writing is you have maintained a true service to others template expression so yeah you are kinda special but I can say that because I simply know to ain’t goin to yer noggin - your just sweet family man and right on for that!!
Again, I love this validation.
Remote Viewing in the MWI
Ok here’s what I wrote yesterday reflecting on what you have said in the context of my communications about this w Courtney at farsight...
So BlueNarwhal was discussing the MWI as it pertains to Remote viewing with Courtney at the Farsight Institute.
Working hypothesis:
Predictive remote viewer naturally quantum-couples or entangles their viewing range to be occur across multiple proximal world line probability trajectories in the multiverse.
I have no problems with this. In fact, this hypothesis is well stated and agrees with all my posts and articles in my Prayer / Intention Index. Here, however he is saying that the use of Remote Viewing is like a special “radar” that targets high-probability trajectories (vectors) in the MWI. Here we illustrate a remote viewing exercise of an observer of his/her future.
It is difficult to determine what the future will be. As everything is based up probabilities. So any kind of Remote Viewing activity will result in multiple targets depending on the situation and conditions imposed. In general, what we see is that Remote Viewing is like a “radar” that scans the world-line template surface for a region of highest probability (given the conditions specified). It looks something like this.
Outlier world line target coupling by RVers occurs simply due to the collateral quantum attractive influence that higher relative disruptive novelty factors exert on selected souls and consciousnesses.
e.g. a group of top viewers all view a disaster scenario that never happens in the world line from which the viewers viewed.
Yet it clearly happened in some nearby world line of greater variance to our own.
This is a very interesting perspective. This is something that I have not paid attention to. It is the idea that nearby world lines might possess more “novelty” to the Remote Viewer. It could be more “attractive” and thus dominate the viewing “radar”.
Consider this…
Within a remote viewing target, there is an area of most likely, or highest probability world-lines. We argue that there is a bias to the more interesting world-lines.
Some of these influences can be injected into remote viewing sessions.
This is due to the idea that individual remote viewers couple with targets via universal quantum field or “soul intelligence”.
This target coupling process can allow insertion of universal intent to bias the remote viewer to couple with a more novel world line but less likely or even unlikely the mutual world line viewers are viewing from.
This explanation suggests that bias of the observer (the Remote Viewer) influences his / her ability to target properly.
This bias, of course, isn’t just interest of a personal nature, but also includes pre-disposition “programming” by the soul prior to injection onto the Pre-Birth World-Line template. Which is, of course, tied into the universal quantum field.
Universal Intent Coupling
This seems to a form of universal intent coupling with (a) conscious individual.
Interesting wording.
I would agree with this appraisal. Only that I refer to it with the very clumsy name “Pre-Birth World-Line Template“. Or in other words, perhaps the desire or natural inclination of a consciousness to view certain types, kinds or relative magnitudes of world-line possibilities (within the RV target coordinates) is a primary characteristic of the Pre-Birth World-Line Template.
Not just in geography, but in the way that the body thinks, feels and behaves.
This seems to a form of universal intentcoupling with (a) conscious individual.
Again, could the ability to Remote View a place, an action, a person at another time is due to the “intent coupling” with another individual at that target coordinate? Or, not even a different person. Perhaps the same person as the Remote Viewer observer. Just viewing their knowledge and understanding at another time or another place…
But what if…
…if the person, thought streams, or target environment is in error? Suppose that you, back in 1982 remote viewed 2020. What would you see?
A Real Estate mogul as President.
Many protests everywhere.
Some people wearing masks.
News discussing how bad China is.
How would it manifest to a Remote Viewer as an observer of the events?
Crowds cheering.
Sad people wearing masks.
Some general images of China.
Riot police.
What would you conclude?
This is a bias. A bias associated with the nature of the “intent coupling” activity.
The effect is to widen the multiple world line range of consideration aperture...
... to provide high value insight about probabilities on other world lines...
... about similar lurking but unmanifest novel high impact eventualities for the viewer world line.
This is a very interesting observation.
I broke the sentence down into manageable bites for digestive autopsy, and to make fine MM points of interest.
Essentially, he is saying that the process of “intent coupling” with the thoughts, items, situation, or personalities at the target area opens up the target area, not narrows it down. And that the reason for this seems to be the bias associated with the mechanism used in “intent coupling”.
He says that this is a good thing. Because it provides us insight into the geography of the World-Line Template.
The differences in observed Remote Viewed targets as a function of two different observers who both share the same target objectives. Simplified for illustration purposes.
Could universal intent (being entangled for target coupling by remote viewers) be making individual intent see outcomes that might happen but likely won’t?
I would argue, YES.
We live in a universe where our manifested world-lines are based on thoughts that hit most probable targets. Sure, my pizza could conceivable grow legs and do a tap-dance before it jumps into my mouth, but that result is highly unlikely.
Instead, the most probable outcome, if you plop a pizza in front of me, is that I would get a slice and eat it.
I do not know if the geography of world-lines outside of our most probable world-lines that lie on our life-line path has any relevance. The only issue and aspect to this (and the only exception) is how these other world-lines affect the “quantum shadows” of the people that surround us that their “parent” consciousnesses that inhabit them.
Which was, as best that I can vocalize, what my role was in regards to our benefactors point of view. As a “dimensional anchor” I was able to “lasso” adjacent world-line trajectories to avoid mass catastrophes that are a typical result of the mass manipulation of people through use of media.
Improving sensing ability
While working with universal intent sentient within the multiverse quantum super field...
... encompassing all our souls and individual quantum clouds,
... there is no issue with requesting super sentience...
... to limit target viewing hits ...
... to only the higher probability outcomes for the present world line in which the viewers reside.
Another interesting consideration. You can use intention / prayer communication, whether or not it is part of a campaign or not to communicate to your “higher self” …
… or as I believe, to program your brain to direct your probing thoughts and senses toward specific awareness profiles. And, in so doing, improve your targeting ability.
You can use different awareness profiles; either differing statements of targeting intent, or even different people to assist narrowing down the target coordinates.
Universal intent is certainly willing to limit targeting to single world line...
... or widen the reception aperture to proximal cluster of most probable but yet alternate world lines relative to an anchor referential consciousnesses.
It does seem that way.
Target Identification
Another different possibility is that remote viewing “picking up signals” of a proximal relative cluster of world lines...
... is likely only possible because remote viewers are evolving souls and consciousness themselves.
And despite their proclivity for rationally limiting future probabilities viewing to the world line in which they reside, multiple world lines will be viewed.
Picking up signals. Yes whatever is received by the remote viewer will be colored by the knowledge and experiences of the observer.
For instance, an observer who has never been to China would have a difficult time imagining China as it is today. With everyone paying using QR instead of paper money, where High Speed Travel is the norm and preferred over aircraft, where even the tiniest town has 40-story tall sky-scrapers. Where everyone wears masks even when it is not required. Where fifth graders can speak both English and Chinese while they study their calculus.
Most Americans have absolutely no concept as to what China is today.
.
An American who is remote viewing modern China, say from the perspective of 1983, would be unable to comprehend that what he is seeing is actually China. And perhaps, maybe, would discard the images as perhaps representative of Japan or another date in a far-away future.
These are limitations that we have to deal with. You only know what you know. And thus remote viewing things that are beyond our own personal experience would be too alien to us to interpret properly.
The viewers themselves, as do human beings in general, possess individually, in groups and even globally possess the natural ability to shift/move/migrate to different world lines.
The quantum wave field of the soul focuses consciousness on inhabiting a physical embodiment existing in nearby variant world lines that furthers soul growth.
This is in turn depends on their in-body own associated outside influences, their own resonant thoughts, feelings, core beliefs and choices that normally bias target coupling to that which holds the greatest growth value for the viewer alone, unless they alter the target description to anchor its viewing parameters to exclude world line coupling that is less likely for the anchoring set of consciousnesses.
Thus…
If there are proximity world-lines, even outside that of the target area, that are more familiar to the observer, it would be a natural proclivity of the observer to migrate to those world-line influences that are easier to relate to (based on their personal experiences).
But change is part of growth. For our soul to grow and expand the consciousness it must experience the uncomfortable and novel world-lines, and if they lie on the path in our future they might be difficult to observe.
Certainly the Incas might have had a difficult time picturing the Spanish Galleons that lay at anchor off their beaches.
But what of this?
What of cross talk between different world-lines? What if wildly divergent world-lines reside in “close proximity” to your world-line template, and their novelty (no matter how strange) could alter your attention and sensing ability?
“The woman in the red dress” a scene from the Movie “The Matrix”. Our focus and our observation is drawn to that which appeals to us or that which we can clam is novel, of interest, or more interesting that the most probably reality that is within the target area.
On analyzing this particular scene in The Matrix, it becomes clear that the woman in red is a deliberate distraction, a simulated character who is a part of the Agent training program. While the woman appears harmless, she wears a vibrant shade of red in order to distract trainees, triggering what's known as the "red dress effect" - a phenomenon where women wearing red are perceived to be more attractive and open to sexual advances than those in plain colors.The Matrix: What the Woman in the RedDress Really Means
Let’s talk about world-line cross-talk
The result is remote viewing in any single timeline easily gets crosstalk from other multiverse proximal timelines.
I argue that cross-talk is a natural, and a fundamental aspect of our reality.
.
But how does the subtle influences manifest?
Let’s look at 2020. I argue that the entire world “missed a bullet”. That the President and his team of neocons were Hell-bent on attacking China in a “hot war”, and knowing China (& Russia) as I do, this would be a very brief and (to Americans) surprising nuclear exchange.
It was something like this…
.
I could write a ton-load of information on world-line cross-talk, and perhaps I will. But for now, keep things simple. There is no such thing as isolation. Either for consciousness or for world-lines. We are all connected and the purpose of our consciousness within this reality IS TO MAKE entangled associations.
Using this understanding to improve Remote Viewing capabilities and targeting
OK. Consider this…
If proven, this may predict targeting protocols with means...
... to bind multiverse RV target coupling range...
... to viewing only the most probable eventuality for the timeline...
... in which the remote viewer originates the session,
... thereby filtering the quantum coupling multiverse range...
... to the most novel punctuated variations across a cluster of intersecting world lines.
Using this knowledge and carefully improving the targeting protocols we should be able to not only [1] improve the targeting ability, but also we should be able to [2] begin to understand and even describe the near-by world-lines that will influence the ones that our trajectories will bypass.
.
There is a lot of work that needs to go into this exploration of the MWI, but I personally believe that it is worth it.
Some Ideas
There are all sorts of ways to accomplish this, once we recognize that our reality is the MWI, and not some kind of shared “universe” as it is conventionally taught.
For example, one may find some means to construct the RV target description to...
... effectively limit multi-timeline target coupling ...
....to only the most large population probable common future for a selected anchor subjects....
... in the timeline as of the session or as of an identified target date.
By realizing the true and realistic nature of the MWI, we can greatly increase our ability to target future and past events along specific shared or specific world-line trajectories. As opposed to say…
…assuming that we all share the same universe and everything that is viewed is shared and experienced by everyone.
Other ideas…
However, taskers for remote viewers can design target descriptions to block receptive coupling to less than large selected sample group collective likelihoods.
This couples the target range to a more commonly desired and likely world line so that predictive RV sessions entangle only relative to and biased from the selected baseline group of anchor parties.
It effects a proximal world line variance clamping function to block entanglement with less likely outcomes for this present world line.
Other ideas and comments…
World line entanglement blocking prevents viewer intermediaries drifting towards natural attraction of more novel world lines,
...regardless of present world line probability momentum and mass habitation factors.
It simply works to exclude less likely world line outcomes relative to an anchor reference group of persons or beings to thereby yield more likely valid predictive data for the present world line.
Bravo!
Using MM for creative discussion and information transfer.
“Free talk” and brainstorming is a great way for everyone to learn from each other. For me, I don’t have that much knowledge about remote viewing, but I do understand the MWI as far as my role was codified. By working together, we can improve the techniques, the technologies, the results for all. And perhaps, just perhaps, save the earth and make it a better place for all of us to live within.
The Ukraine on our world-line and within our world-line template…
Post-Soviet countries look worse than ever. There are no drastic changes happening, so cityscapes are clogged with handmade balconies and other outbuildings, messy advertising, and ugly signs.
But…
Imagine what would happen if we, as a species, worked together to address the haphazard trajectories that we live upon. Consider what our reality would start to look like. Consider what we can do, should do, and how we can begin.
The Ukraine on a different world-line template and upon a different vector direction.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my Prayer / Intention Campaign Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
This is going to be a (far too abbreviated) article about the great paintings of a man that the world has seemingly forgotten. Which is a shame. But it is also something else as well. For I am going to get really, and absolutely personal about art and what it means to me, and about the United States as well.
You see, and must understand, art is a creation that massages our emotions. If that art generates good thoughts, or treasured memories within us, it becomes priceless and valuable. But consider what would happen if somehow an evil person is able to take that treasured moment away from you. What then?
Thus this post.
The artist that we shall discuss is one of my all-time favorites. His name was William Adolphe Bouguereau, and I had the opportunity to see his works up front and close up in the Carnegie Mellon museum of art in Oakland, Pennsylvania (It’s an upscale suburb of Pittsburgh.)
And while he is no longer popular or appreciated in Art History class, his works and the emotions that they generate lives on through MM.
Carnegie Mellon museum of art in Oakland, Pennsylvania
Indeed, he is not forgotten here.
Fundamentally, William Adolphe Bouguereau was a most amazing painter. And while his paintings inspire and astound, when you look at his works up close, you wonder just how in the world was he able to do what he did. Up close, everything just seems to be dabs and drabs of paint here and there.
You can well imagine him put a drop here, and then a drop there, and then somehow, by some miracle it all comes together in an amazing work of art.
He is considered to be a “French Academic Classical painter, teacher, frescoist and draftsman”. He died in 1905 after 432 amazing works of art.
To see a complete collection of his works you can visit the Art Renewal Center here. Prepare to be stunned and amazed. (Pssst. You can also order prints of his works there to put up in your house or favored spot. - Just a thought. Don't you know.)
What I really want to say about this is that beauty surrounds us everywhere.
And if you have an opportunity, take an afternoon with friends or family and visit an Art museum, and then have a nice lunch. Go out. Have fun. Enjoy life. And if by chance you ever get the chance to see any Academic Classic paintings, by all means go forth and enjoy.
Check out his amazing works.
Having a fun time with the family inside the Carnegie Mellon art museum.
…
Sigh.
And now the sad part of the story.
I strongly love art for the emotions, the memories and the images that they represent to me on a very personal and visceral basis. While I have never been able to match the mastery of the oils as these Masters have, they have inspired me. And I have taken on my own efforts to pain figurative and allegorical works of my own design. And I like to think of myself as “pretty good”, I would only rate a “7” compared to the Master that is listed herein. Who is, in every way, a “10+”.
Up until my arrest (as part of my “retirement” from the MAJestic organization) I had a nice little studio. I had studios in Kittanning, and Erie Pennsylvania, and in Arkansas. My little studio in Arkansas occupied the garage. And so it was a “partial” studio. One side was bicycle storage, boxes, and a workbench. The other side was a canvas tarp covered floor, natural lighting via light-bulb and my massive painting easel.
The tale of how I was arrested, and how my life was dissembled step by methodical step is a very painful one for me. At that time, I had no idea that I would actually be “retired” as a MAJestic operator. I figured that I was somehow “special” and that my program participation would consist of a debriefing at a government office of some type. But, that did not happen.
I wasn’t important.
At least the (government) powers that be didn’t think that I was. And so, one day, out of the blue I was arrested. And I watched my life fall apart right before my eyes. I watched the entire force of an enormous and all-powerful government peel my life apart, layer by layer until I was raw, nude and helpless.
This story is still painful for me to relate.
Sorry you seem so butt-hurt about the IRS and the USA, etc. Obviously you have a seething rage and hatred for the USA for whatever (unexplained) reason . That’s OK. Stay in China and hate us all you want. Works for me.
-A quote from a jack-ass who was trolling me.
As it is indeed still very painful, I am not going to relate it at this time. But, (unfortunately) in order to know about one of my favorite artists, you will need to know a little bit about HOW I was arrested in Arkansas…
…and how it has affected my love of classical art.
Connecting art with sexual deviance
It’s simple, really.
I had a collection of books on art. many were on techniques, but others were these huge “coffee table” books that people would place on the living room coffee table for casual enjoyment. I had quite a collection of them. And most of my books were of the classics. All full of art by true and real masters.
And, on that fateful day when I was arrested in Arkansas, my large picture book of William Adolphe Bouguereau was used as evidence of my “satanic nature”, and “lust for little children“.
I well remember sitting on the lone chair in the middle of my empty living room…
All of my belongings except for my books, and a mysterious box full of CD ROMS were gone. My home was completely empty including the light bulbs and the light switch covers. Even the fake fireplace had the fake logs gone. As was the built-in microwave, and refrigerator.
On that fateful day, I had just gotten back from a three week trip to China. When I returned I discovered that my car was disabled with four flat tires, my power was turned off, and my home was completely empty except for two chairs, and a pile of books and a big (taped up) box displayed predominantly in the middle of the living room floor.
They raided me in full SWAT gear at 6am as I was leaving the house to go to work. Their black painted armored cars ran over my rose bushes, and two other squad cars blocked up the driveway to my house - a downscale McMansion in a nice section of Maumelle Arkansas.
My house at the time looked a little something like this, only a tad bigger and my grass much much greener. LOL.
…
…I sat there, in that lone chair in the middle of the empty living room …
…while the detective in charge of the “investigation” grilled me on sexual matters and my interests. I’ll never forget her holding up my coffee table book of William Adolphe Bouguereau, and making points about all the nudes, the “Satanic nature of my interests” and why I was so fixated on “the dark side of history“.
It has wounded me terribly, and I still smart from their fucking smirks and ignorance. I know, I know…
…it’s Arkansas.
But still. It came as a surprise. You see. While I have read about these things happening, I never thought that it would happen to me.
And since (from now on and forever hence) I will always have those memories associated with certain artists and works of art, I will use that venue to provide the bitter-sweet love of art that I maintain after I was dissembled and “processed” by the jackasses in Arkansas.
I discuss this fact, and my experiences in this article.
Good ol’ boys decided my fate.
.
Let’s begin with one of my all-time favorite paintings…
Nymphes et Satyre
Four nymphs tease and play with a satyr by trying to pull him into a lake. One nymph waves behind to three other nymphs in the distance, perhaps beckoning them to come and play with the satyr as well. The satyr half heartedly tries to resist the nymph’s wiles, entranced by their beauty.
Nymphes et Satyre Nymphs and Satyr 260 x 180 cms | 102 1/4 x 70 3/4 ins Oil on canvas Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Williamstown | United States
.
You don’t really need to know what nymphs are, or what satyrs are to appreciate this work. But knowing the story behind them adds a three-dimensional understanding of the art and what is being portrayed.
Nymphs are from Greek mythology.
They are considered to be minor female deities, and have a duty to protect different elements of nature such as streams, mountains and meadows (pantheon).
The male counterpart for a nymph is a satyr. A satyr is a creature also from Greek mythology having the torso and face of a man, ears and tail of a horse, and feet of a goat. They are known for being lustful and fertile creatures.
I can’t help but respond that Bouguereau captures an incredible sense of motion in this piece.
One can feel the struggle for the satyr to keep his ground, and the nymphs’ joyous struggle to pull him in. You can just feel the easy going, caviler attitude and peace in the pastoral scene. You can hear the water nymph’s jovial joking and feel their tugging towards the placid pond.
It’s like puppies playing. Or like kittens running around. It’s like small boys and girls playing in the yard on a nice sunny blue-sky day. It’s like Fresca and orange soda, peanut butter sandwiches and very-berry Cool-Aide. It’s water out of a green water-hose on a hot summer day, climbing trees, and riding your banana-seat, high-handle-bars bike all around town.
When I look at this work of art, I am transported back to another time. It makes me forget my current life, and re-experience the feelings and emotions and sensations of another time and another place.
.
Why I love this picture is actually unknown. Somehow, and in some deep way it stirs my soul. But I really cannot vocalize what that special something is. It speaks to me in a deep visceral manner.
.
And that’s the way life is. Not everyone can appreciate how you might feel about a “thing”, or an “object”, or a “piece of art”, or a “bauble”. So you just don’t try.
It’s pretty much a forgotten movie. Not well appreciated. Just something from the early 1990’s. But it makes a point about what art and beauty and appreciation is… all in terms of the early 1990’s – the decades of greed, swindles and anything / everything for a buck.
And that movie revolves around a small figurine statue. One that is worth money. But is coveted by the owners as a medium of exchange, but stolen by a housekeeper who appreciates it’s intangible beauty…
*sigh*
rare gem overlooked as much as statue nuntukamen18 December 2004
It is difficult for me to comprehend why there is only one viewer comment for this film, or why it is rated under a six.
If an excellent film is about entertainment, intelligence, great acting and a terrific story with a treasury of clever humor that expounds the deeper meaning of a good relationship between a man and a woman over wealth and selfishly egotistical success, then this is a standout film that achieves a richness of artistic accomplishment that very few films do.
No one truly sees the beauty of the bronze statue except the lowly and weathered housekeeper, a financially struggling mute, unable to express the profound feelings that are moving within her in words, but Rudi Davies sure gets it across with her expression and eyes.
I had to drive 30 miles to the Cedar Lee Theater, Cleveland's only real art house, during it's original release, but after the film was over I realized it would have been worthwhile if I would have had to walk...
...some films are just that special.
When I was a young boy, I actually saw this painting. It sat there predominantly on the wall facing the stairs as you walked up and into the museum proper. My parents went it, and took the right at the top of the stairs and enters. But I didn’t.
And to be very truthful, I just stood there on the steps looking up at it in amazement. It was larger than life to me and spoke to me…
…though, as a boy, I didn’t understand the language.
This work of art is spellbinding.
.
…
Art and the appreciation of it is a personal matter. And today, art is used as a medium to funnel large amounts of money back and forth between oligarchy members without concern. It’s a method of banking. Not an object of beauty, desire or of significance.
Today, ah, no one cares…
As an aside, the DA in Arkansas used my collection of books on art and artists as exhibits as to how terribly “evil” I was. I cannot remember the entire spiel that he gave to my attorney, because frankly, I was taken back at his ignorance and assault on my sensibilities. But a couple phrases stood out…
“...a painting depicting Satan surrounded by nude women…”
(my) “...obsession with female nudes…”
What is art and beautiful to one observer is evil and a threat to another. Do not make my mistake and think that everyone else can see beauty as you can, or who can understand things as you do, or who appreciates the world in different ways.
And when I was arrested, it was not for the possession of these works of art, or associated books. It was for two images on my laptop computer.
A Japanese comic that had a octopus having sex with a cat-like-person.
A photo that a doctor said was a girl under the age of 18 showing her genitals.
In Arkansas both images are considered “child pornography”. And each image had up to 40 years imprisonment. So I was facing 80 years.
Pretty fucking weird for a state that allowed people to get married to 16 year old girls. Was a “dry country” where you had to drive into Tennessee to buy alcohol. And where the Church in Down Town Little Rock was larger than the State Capital Building.
You know, I shared a cell in Arkansas at the ADC Brickey’s unit who got two years for killing a guy. I got five years for having two pictures. I just shake my head in perplexing exasperation.
But I digress.
I guess, at heart, I’m just a “hippie”, a “60’s child”.
Hippies in the 1960’s.
.
Can you imagine what America would have been like if the Bozos that run America today were in charge of America back in the 1960’s?
Shudder.
GOP lawmaker: God told me to remove rape exceptions from ...
https://deadstate.org/gop-lawmaker-god-told-me-to...
May 24, 2019 · Hill, who is an evangelical Christian, says that the initial exceptions were only there to ensure that the bill would pass. Even though it picked up 20 co-sponsors, it died without getting a hearing in any committee. Hill told the group in Pensacola that he plans to bring the bill back as God intended it, “without any exceptions.”
The point that I want to make is that the emotions that I now feel when I look at these great works of art are now polluted with the imagery of my memories when I dealt with the military police in Arkansas. And while my story seems to be unique, all of the rest of my MAJestic cell had similar stories. And yes, others now call me a real sick person for having those images on my computer. I get it. I understand.
And now, I live a life where I cannot enjoy art like I used to.
I’ll never forget the phrase “you can paint houses“.
And this gem; “no one wants to see paintings like this when all you need do is take a picture“.
And of course the standard narrative; “people like you need to be locked up and separated from society until your malfunction can be corrected“.
We must realize and recognize that there are others, often sick people, who are in positions of power and control and who can squash your life out like an insect. Sick people. Evil people. In positions of power.
Mike Pompeo
.
Takes away from the beauty of that great painting, eh?
Yes.
That’s my point.
Pat Robertson says God told him Trump ‘is going to win ...
https://www.christianpost.com/news/pat-robertson...
Oct 21, 2020 · Christian Broadcasting Network chairman and televangelist Pat Robertson said Monday that he believes God told him President Donald Trump will be re-elected for a second term but great civil unrest will ensue. “I want to say without question, Trump is going to win the election,” Robertson said on “The 700 Club” Tuesday. “… The election that’s coming up in just a few weeks at which time, according to what I believe the Lord told …
Art is all about the emotions you have while looking at the artwork
I enjoy art because of the feelings and the thoughts and memories they generate.
But, you know…
Some people cannot emote.
They cannot feel emotions. They cannot “relate” to others they are unable to emote or understand how others feel. To them, they cannot see art as anything other than a “thing”, a commodity that you can trick others into buying. These people with this mental illness occupy a significant percentage of our society. Some say that it is even as high as 10%. But one thing is for certain, the ability to make money and accumulate fortunes are in the strong suit for these people.
Thus, in a nation that values money above all else, where capitalism reins supreme you will find these people in positions of power and control.
Key “Republican” members of Government during the Trump Administration.
.
The American leadership; the American Oligarchy are are… are… unable to emote. They are unable to experience emotions or understand the emotions of others.
Why?
What are these people’s problem?
Perhaps this video might provide some insight to how the rest of the world views America at this point in time. A point in time, mind you, where the government does not care about the citizens. It only cares of about keeping them down, subservient, and compliant, while they run amok in their crazy delusions and obscene objectives.
Uh…
And one more thing, you will never see this kind of information on any of the Alt-Right, Alt-Left or Mainstream American media. They would rather die than face the truth.
America as viewed by the rest of the world.
…
Keep that thought in mind. A thought that says that the craziest and most evil people thrive within the American capitalist “democracy” as it exists today. And the most evil, the most selfish, and the most manipulative are able to rise to extreme levels of power and control within the American environment.
Ah.
It’s upsetting.
But let’s move one and look at some more Art. Let’s consider the fact that unlike the products that are churned out of America today, these works endure. They persist and they are established as a stable foundation for what the human species represents. Let’s look at some more of the great works by William Adolphe Bouguereau.
La Vierge aux Anges
Here we have a trio of angels playing music for baby Jesus and the Virgin Mother Mary. I love this picture, and it evokes in me the feelings of love caring, compassion and peace.
This painting can be seen elsewhere on the internet. It is embraced by religious websites and in the websites devoted to greeting and gift cards. I have even seen (I believe) this work reproduced on pictures, post cards, and such things as plates and clocks. A simple image search on Google will help you all find the great diversity of the for-profit avenues that people have used with this work.
The Virgin with Angels
.
Usually, Mary is depicted in blue and white, which I haven’t a clue as to why. And the angels tend to be in shades of white, which is also something that I have no idea about either. Never the less, this is a beautiful painting and very calming.
The Virgin with Angels is a 1900 painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. The painting media is oil on canvas, and it measures 185 × 285 cm (72.8 × 112.2 in). It’s a large painting at 6 feet by 9 feet. I imagine that when he painted this, he intended to show the love of the Mother Mary with the baby Jesus and the beauty and support of the surrounding angels. I cannot imagine what he would think that this image was being used on plates and cheap products at Walmart to support a for-profit motive.
When my home was raided they said nothing about this picture. Except maybe a quick pause before they turned the page. It’s hard to find something fundamentally wrong with angels playing violins and other musical instruments. So they just glossed over this painting and went on to the next one..
It’s lovely. Don’t you agree?
Petites Maraudeuses
But they did stop at this painting in the book.
This is a typical work of his. His works that depict children and the life of play are great themes and I well remember some homes of both uncles and aunties that had these kinds of works in their living rooms. (Of course, with a “Great Supper” painting in the kitchen or dining room.)
It is so calming…
It is titled “Little Thieves”. And while the detective and the police didn’t stop to read the captions or text inside the coffee table book, they used the artwork to grill me and goad me to admit to something ignorant and evil.
Petites Maraudeuses
.
I once worked with a fellow engineer in Boston. He was a plastics engineer from Pakistan. He saw that I had a miniature reproduction (of this painting) in my office and fell in love with the painting. He used to come into my office and we would chat. But he would always look up at the painting with this kind of far-away look in his eyes. It meant something to him. But his pride was such that he would never admit to it.
So I gave it to him when I was sacked by the company (Laid Off). When I gave it to him he was surprised and he wondered why I did so, and that yes (of course) he would accept it. He said that he secretly loved the painting. He said that it reminded him of his boyhood home. In Pakistan.
To fully appreciate the art of Bouguereau one must profess a deep respect for the discipline of drawing and the craft of traditional picture-making; one must likewise submit to the mystery of illusion as one of painting's most characteristic and sublime powers. Bouguereau's vast repertory of playful and poetic images cannot help but appeal to those who are fascinated with nature's appearances and with the celebration of human sentiment frankly and unabashedly expressed.
But it remains to understand, given Bouguereau's in many ways unique style, exactly what the artist was trying to represent. Although Bouguereau has been classified by many writers as a Realist painter, because of the apparent photographic nature of his illusions, the painter otherwise has little in common with other artists belonging to the Realist movement. Bouguereau himself regarded his tastes as eclectic, and his work indeed exhibits characteristics peculiar to Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, and Impressionism, as well as to Realism.
Within these categories, the painter is perhaps best understood as a Romantic Realist, but one would also be quite justified in this case in devising an entirely new school of painting and labeling him the first, the quintessential Photo-Idealist. The designation is apt in that, although Bouguereau actively collected photographs and tempered his observations of nature with a keen awareness of the qualities of light inherent in the photographic image, he almost never worked from photographs.1
The rare exceptions are a few portraits, usually of posthumous subjects, which are readily identifiable as photographic derivatives as they exhibit an uncharacteristic flatness and pose.
Bouguereau and his fellow academicians practiced a method of painting that had been developed and refined over the centuries in order to bring to vivid life imagined scenes from history, literature, and fantasy. The process of acquisition of the skills necessary to produce a first-rate academic painting was a long and laborious one.
...
The idealizations of Bouguereau's imaginary universe, which have delighted some critics, have incurred the wrath of others. Although some of the latter have loudly lamented the over-romanticized image of the French peasant presented by the painter, few of them have bothered to contemplate the heroic attention required to sustain such a vision of perfection in a less than perfect age. Moreover, as Bouguereau's contemporary Emile Bayard observed:
It is good to note, in any case, that dirt and rags are not exclusive to the underprivileged and that indigence is not always clothed the same way. 4
A similar charge often leveled at Bouguereau is that his art bears little or no relationship to the realities of political, industrial, and urban life in nineteenth-century France.
But if Bouguereau's art ignores in its content the pressing issues of the day, it may very well be because the artist, though well aware of them, nevertheless prompts us to lift our eyes from the ground and focus upon the lures of distant Arcadia; when misery is afoot, to exalt the more pleasant possibilities of la vie champetre is not artistic falsehood.
If one pronounces Bouguereau to have been out of step with his time, what must one then conclude about the many, many critics and collectors and viewers who supported him and others of a similar artistic persuasion? Could he really have achieved such prominence and financial success by going against the grain of the "realities" of the nineteenth century?
Exactly what are those realities and exactly what attitude was a visual artist obligated to take toward them? If the accomplishments of Bouguereau are poorly understood today, that may have something to do with the shifting of aesthetic expectations over time.
As for Bouguereau's public, it was a public raised on Raphael , a public that had not yet been conditioned to prefer abstract ideas to the palpable images that give them utterance, a public that insisted upon an obvious narrative content and that saw in Bouguereau someone opposed to the trends it regarded as inimical to art.
It may very well be that a determining factor in Bouguereau's success as a painter, apart from his talent, was that he allied himself to that sizeable, conservative, and revisionist element of French Roman Catholicism which, under the aegis of such men as Louis Veuillot , popular theologian and publisher of L'Univers, refused to yield to the attacks on traditional ideals that were current at the time.
The craft of picture-making as practiced by Bouguereau basically followed the principles of academic theory as codified by the seventeenth-century aesthetician Roger de Piles.
The code embodied the fundamental idea whereby a painting could be judged logically and objectively by its conformity to ideals established for its divisible parts, which were determined to be: composition, drawing, color harmony, and expression.
The method Bouguereau used to execute his important paintings provided ample opportunity for the study and resolution of problems that might arise in each of these areas.
The separate steps leading to the genesis of a painting were:
Croquis and tracings
Oil sketch and/or grisaille study
Highly finished drawings for all the figures in the composition, as well as drapery studies and foliage studies
Detailed studies in oil for heads, hands, animals, etc.
Cartoon; and, only then
the finished painting.
Evidently Bouguereau was constantly making croquis or “thumb nail sketches.” Often these preliminary studies were done during meetings at the Institut or in the evenings after supper.
For the most part they were scribbled from the artist’s memory or imagination, others were sketched directly from nature.
These drawings, hitherto unknown to the public, constitute a very important element of Bouguereau’s work. For one thing, they yield a wealth of information about the artist’s method.
They also show in many cases how a particular composition evolved. Executed either in pencil or ink, they served as a means of determining the grandes lignes, the important linear flows and arabesques, within the entire composition and within individual figure groups as well. They were often refined by means of successive tracings.
The oil sketches, grisailles, and compositional studies in vine charcoal served as means for determining appropriate color harmonies and for the “spotting” of lights and darks.
Like the croquis, these were usually executed from imagination and yielded a fairly abstract pattern of colors and greys upon which the artist would later superimpose his observations from nature.
The figure drawings represented the first important contact with nature in the evolution of the work. Among the considerations of the artist at this point were anatomy, pose, foreshortening, perspective, proportion and, to some degree, modeling. Although Bouguereau was reputed to have the best models in Paris, some of them were not always the most cooperative; as one observer noted:
Bouguereau's Italian model-women are instructed to bring their infant offspring, their tiny sisters and brothers, and the progeny of their highly prolific quarter.
Once in the studio, the little human frogs are undressed and allowed to roll around on the floor, to play, to quarrel, and to wail in lamentation.
They dirty up the room a great deal — they bring in a great deal of dirt that they do not make. They are neither savory nor aristocratic nor angelic, these brats from the embryo-land of Virgil.
But out of them the artist makes his capital. Sketchbook in hand, he records their movements as they tumble on the floor; he draws the curves and turns of their aldermanic bodies, and he counts the creases of fat on their plump thighs as Audobon counted the scales on the legs of his humming-birds. 7
At times Bouguereau was obliged to use sculptural sources. J. Carroll Beckwith wrote:
Entering Bouguereau's studio one morning, before he had come up from his breakfast, I was studying with interest a large canvas half completed, representing a group of laughing children with a donkey [see cat. no. 72].
A gaudily attired Italian woman was endeavoring to pacify a curly-headed cherub, the model for the morning, who was ruthlessly rubbing his dirty fingers over some exquisite pencil drawings which lay on the floor at the foot of the easel.
I rescued the drawings, while the mother apologetically explained to me in Neapolitan French that M. Bouguereau spoiled all of her children so that she could do nothing with them at home or elsewhere.
The drawings were beautiful reproductions of the Laughing Faun in the sculpture gallery of the Louvre.
As Bouguereau entered the room, he began a series of frolics with the youngster which quite verified the words of the mother. [When be stopped] at last to set his palette, I asked him when he had made the drawings. "Oh, you see, that mauvais sujet is so wicked", said he, pointing to the curly-headed urchin turning somersaults on the floor, "that I can use him for nothing but color and was obliged to spend nearly all of yesterday afternoon at the Louvre, making these notes for the form. 8
If a particular figure was to be clothed, Bouguereau would also make drapery studies by posing a mannequin in place of the model and experimenting with the folds of cloth until a disposition was found that enhanced the underlying forms.
Sometimes, especially for small or single-figure paintings, Bouguereau drew the model already draped.
Most of the figure drawings were executed in pencil or charcoal (or a combination of the two) and were often heightened with white. The support for them is usually a heavyweight toned paper of medium grain; such a background allowed Bouguereau to dispense with the problem of rendering troublesome halftones which, in any event, were more easily and accurately realized in the painted studies.
To read more about his techniques, please go HERE. It goes into great detail and goes into the various mixes he used. Great stuff for certain.
Can you imagine trying to do this today? Man oh man, you’d be locked up for-ever.
Alma Parens L’âme parentale
Wow. Oh wow. This is an allegorical painting with a ton-load of meaning. It means “The Motherland”.
Of course, the folk in Arkansas found this work “disgusting“, “abhorrent to normal sensibilities” and further evidence of my “sick nature” and “outrageously dangerous desires”.
Sigh.
And yeah, I get it.
You all don’t want to hear what the nit-wits think in Arkansas. But you are gonna hear about it here. You can leave if you don’t like to face reality. The last four years in Washington was populated with these exact kind of people. And no, I am not going to “let by-gones be by-gones”…
It’s a uni-party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats. There is just the 10% of psychopaths that run the nation, and the rest of us being treated like cattle in the process.
Is this too “salty” for ya?
The Motherland
.
I know that I am supposed to accept the fact that anything even remotely suggestive of children or sex is a threat to my very existence as I am now branded with the scarlet letter of being a “Sex Offender”. And I know that somehow, having those two images on my computer; the cartoon and the photo of the chick without clothes on created “victims”. I cannot reconcile how the image of a mother tending to her brood is in any way representative of the horrors so massively promoted in American media. You have to be a moron to connect the two…
…but, you know, have you looked at America today?
Know who you are dealing with, and recognize that these people still are in various positions in government today. Look at this jackass. Look at this pencil neck.
Tom Cotton (R-AR) is in a position of power to tell you how to live your life.
.
Hey, check out the kinds of bills that he was working on in 2020. Keep in mind this one very important point. Which of his sponsored bills actually helps and supports normal, working people inside his district in Arkansas. Yeah. go over the list.
Which ones?
Go over the list. Where during 2020 has he sponsored any legislation to help his citizens aside from the emergency related to Coronavirus? Instead it seems like he’s got a real problem with sex, China, and making sure that the Untied States government is protected against the citizenry.
Colors in REDare all about China. Yeah, he most certainly has a real “hard on” about China.
Colors inBlueare all about sexual exploitation of children.
Colors in PURPLE are all about making the government immune from protests and legal actions by the citizenry.
Colors in GOLD are for dealing with the Coronavirus.
Do you really think he cares about people? Do you think that he cares about families? Do you think that he cares about anything other than money and hate?
Well… apparently God disagrees with me…
Evangelical Pastor Claims God Says, 'I'm Not Happy About ...
https://www.newsweek.com/evangelical-pastor-claims...
Nov 05, 2020 · Evangelical Pastor Claims God Says, 'I'm Not Happy About What You're Doing to My Man' Trump in Election. By Jason Lemon On 11/5/20 at 6:49 PM EST. U.S. Evangelicals Evangelical Christians Donald ...
These people… those that take the role in government… end up becoming a tool. They end up turning into something else. Something bad. And they allow terrible things to happen, because “they are just doing their job”...
Flagellation de Notre Seigneur Jesus Christ
The FlagellationofChrist, 1880 is one of Bouguereau's masterpieces, and today hangs at the Baptistery of La Rochelle Cathedral, France. Christ, tied to a column, limply hangs, his feet dragging on the ground and head hung back, he submits to his fate.
-Flagellation de Notre Seigneur JesusChrist
The Flagellation of Christ
The Flagellation of Christ, 1880 is one of Bouguereau's masterpieces, and today hangs at the Baptistery of La Rochelle Cathedral, France. Christ, tied to a column, limply hangs, his feet dragging on the ground and head hung back, he submits to his fate.
Two men stand in mid swing with their whipping ropes, with a third kneeling to the lower right fastening birch branches for the next stage of the torture. Unlike the two men who are whipping or the forth man standing behind with birch branches in the ready, the kneeling man tying the branches appears to show some remorse for his actions as his hand muscles loosen slightly with the pull of the string.
The viewer can feel the pain of Christ's torment, though his eyes are vacant of expression as if his soul is in another place. The crowd surrounding this event is filled with curious spectators.
To the left, a young boy shelters his eyes from the horrid sight by turning his back and pressing himself against his mother. To the right, just above Christ's head, a baby looks down at him sympathetically while hoisted up on his father's shoulders.
Through the crowd, a bearded man looks directly at the viewer, thereby pulling the audience into the scene as if they are too part of the crowd. It is possible that this bearded man with furrowed brow is a self portrait, so both Bouguereau and the viewer are witnessing this scene.
This life size capa d'opera is every bit as magnificent as any religious works done by Raphael, Caravaggio, or Velasquez. The harmonious interplay of drawing, paint handling, composition, perspective and emotional thrust are second to none in their expressive power.
-by Kara Lysandra Ross
Excerpt from the article: William Bouguereau and his Religious Works
And you know, the detective in charge of the entire raid and my case had some very piercing things to say about this work of art. And I have never forgotten her words…
“…this preoccupation with torture, young children, and nudes point to a serious mental illness that needs to be eradicated from our treasured citizenry…”
Yeah.
So you want to know what it was like for me being arrested and “investigated” in Arkansas…? Look at who the fuck is running that place, controlling the minds of the people there, and who are accumulating riches beyond compare. Look at them. For they ARE America.
Hard Right Religious Extremism and Law-Making makes for a dangerous situation.
Televangelist Pat Robertson says God told him Trump will ...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8862797
Oct 21, 2020 · A televangelist has claimed that God told him President Donald Trump will win the upcoming election but that five years later an asteroid will hit …
Yah!
Beware of asteroids you all.
It’s all coo-coo!
When I joined MAJestic, I was instructed that I would be in it for life, but that I was forbidden to have children during my active engagements. I agreed, not realizing what that meant. I was also told that I would be alone, with no support and that I would not ever be rich or famous as that was a danger to the organization.
Maybe I was stupid for taking on this role? But I gave up so very much for this, and then to have myself retired like I was, and then have these jokers prance around in Washington DC like they do really upsets me.
I think that this exposure to what the American government is has taught me quite a bit as to what America has become; what it is, and where it is going. Unlike most Americans who read about this, or who read about that. I’ve experienced it first hand. Up front and viscerally. Don’t get all that caught up on what the media promotes. It’s all lies. Pay attending to the first-hand reports by others who’s veracity you can trust.
Cut out the bullshit.
Americans mostly resemble the inmates in a mental asylum. And the American leadership is just as messed up and corrupted to a degree that is nearly unfathomable.
.
Anyways, art, like music is really meaningful to me. I remember an old black and white movies from the 1940s or 1950s where there is this guy in prison who paints. It’s his only love. It’s his only hobby. Then one day the warden visits him and see that the painter painted the warden. Not good. Not bad. But realistic. But the warden responded by taking away his ability to paint. And thus destroyed his only and sole source of happiness…
This theme was repeated in the movie “One flew over the Cuckoos nest”. Where as soon as one of the inmates showed any inkling or ability to resist the shackles that were around his legs, the powers that be made sure to destroy him beyond repair.
Americans mostly resemble the inmates in a mental asylum. And the American leadership is just as messed up and corrupted to a degree that is nearly unfathomable.
.
Le Repos
In the ADC in Arkansas we were not permitted to have any fruit. None. And one inmate who was in there for a long, long time told me that he missed bananas. He said that he could picture them. He could smell them. He could remember peeling them. But that he hadn’t held or tasted a banana in over twenty years…
… yet when I look at these paintings I see a window to a time that is long gone. A quieter time, a more peaceful time, and a time where you could only commit a crime if there was a victim. There was no such things as a victimless crime, and that the fifth amendment guaranteed that I could confront my accuser in court. Not have that entire fail-safe ignored by a plea bargain.
These paintings and this art carries me away…
I just love these relaxed paintings. Maybe this kind of life will return back to America. What do you think?
Rest.
.
This image represents my ideal.
Looking at the boys’ trousers makes me want to buy a new set of oils and brushes. I really want to paint those folds and shaded legs.
La Charité
Another lovely painting.
And yes. Yet another example of how “evil and disgusting” that I am for even suggesting that it is beautiful.
La Charité
.
Yes, you know these people “talk with God” personally. And they know what evil is, and that they are the representation of what is good in the world and that which must be destroyed.
Don’t you know.
Look at this great representation of “good”…
“I had a very close talk with Jesus Christ this morning and he told me…”
Trump Will Start the End of the World, Claim Evangelicals ...
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-will-bring-about...
"For his evangelical supporters, there's a sense that Trump's unlikely election to the presidency proves that he has been chosen by God," Young told Newsweek. "He shouldn't have won the election ...
Entre la richesse et l’amour
This is an age-old issue. When a young lass can choose the life before her. While it is shown as extremes in age and wealth, the story persists. How can a woman in her blossoming years decide her future life? the translation of this painting is “Between wealth and Love”. And it speaks volumes. Don’t you think?
Between wealth and love
.
My favorite part of this painting is the young lass’s hands. That’s just pure art.
Le Saintes Femmes au Tombeau
Le Saintes Femmes au Tombeau, 1890, translated to The Holy Women at the Tomb, depicts the three Marys, Mary the Mother of James, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Cleophas, at the tomb of the resurrection. The viewer, compositionally, is placed in a prostrated position and looking up first notices the expressions of bewilderment on the central Mary's face before looking past the three women and into the tomb.
-Le Saintes Femmes au Tombeau
Le Saintes Femmes au Tombeau
Compassion!
Compassion!
Donated by Bouguereau's descendents to the Musée D'Orsay, Paris, France, 2009
When one looks at The Compassion, 1897, at first glance the viewer may interpret this painting be simply a depiction of Christ on the Cross, with perhaps another saint, or victim.
A depiction not too different from thousands of other paintings of the subject; but in fact, the subject of this painting is not simply the event, but the conversion to Christianity through the compassion for the sacrifice Jesus made. The man with his head on Jesus' chest is a representation of every man and mankind as a whole.
The man in the painting shows the same empathy and bearing his own symbolic cross, has found his way to Jesus and his own redemption. Many Christians wear crosses around their necks to represent the same conviction, that they too have been sacrificed with Christ.
In the bible, when Jesus fell on his way to Calvary, a man from the crowd, Simon of Cyrene, went to Jesus and carried the cross for him, which was the inspiration for this widely accepted symbol.
The blood of Christ falls onto his hands, reiterating the blood sacrifice that was made for his benefit. On top of the cross a letter is posted which reads "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" in three languages, Greek, Latin, and Aramaic. Although in many depictions, Christ is crucified at the top of a mountain, Bouguereau chooses to depict the savior on a barren wasteland, symbolic of the man"s spiritual life before finding his way to Christ.
Bouguereau chose to keep this painting, which shows the importance his religion played in his own life, and it remained in his studio until its recent donation to the Musèe D'Orsay, Paris, France.
-by Kara Lysandra Ross
Excerpt from the article: William Bouguereau and his Religious Works
Berceuse
The painting, “Berceuse” is a delightful example of Bouguereau’s more domestic works. It shows a mother sitting in a rural landscape rocking her baby’s cradle as she works at spinning thread.
The title of the painting, “Berceuse” suggests that she is also singing a lullaby to her sleeping child at whom her calm, loving gaze is directed. The composition is strongly reminiscent of a Madonna and Child and the painting as a whole is beautifully executed.
Berceuse
.
We can see from this painting that Bouguereau was a master of traditional academic painting and why he had wide appeal, in France and abroad, during his lifetime.
His approach to art, was however, heavily criticized by the rising impressionist painters, many of whom found much of their work rejected by the Salon. Instead they embraced more modern types and works of art. And we all know where that ended up…
Georges Seurat/white-dog
.
After his death his reputation fell steeply and his paintings were no longer admired but were seen as vacuous or overly sentimental. It is only in recent decades that his work has begun to be re-evaluated and his paintings, such as “Berceuse” appreciated once more for the skill, artistry and dedication that Bourguereau brought to his work.
The Proposal
What kind of proposal is it? Marriage?
Hardly.
Some kind of plan being hatched… curious. Very curious.
The motif of a young man at a window, wooing a woman at her spinning wheel, and the vaguely sixteenth-century German costumes and setting, led writers to associate this painting with the tragic story of Faust and Marguerite.
Johann Georg Faust was said to be an alchemist, astrologer, and magician who lived during the Renaissance period in Germany.
He was an aging scholar, but at the end of his life, he fell out of love with his previously devoted scholastic endeavors in the accumulation of human knowledge. He is said to have made a contract with the devil, selling his soul to enjoy and partake in reckless earthly pleasures. The one who lured Faust away from his scholarly endeavors was said to be Méphistophélès, a malevolent devil.
The story of Faust has served as inspiration for numerous literary, artistic, cinematographic and musical works throughout the ages. Even the mere term ‘Faust’ has been used to refer to ambitious people who are willing to exchange moral values for strength and success in certain fields.
La Damnation de Faust – Tragic destiny
‘La Damnation de Faust’ is often interpreted to describe a tragic destiny resulting from a false wish, a trope that still holds relevance in contemporary society.
In the classic play, Faust is presented as an aging scholar in desperation. He has spent his whole life in search of wisdom just to find that at the end of it all, he has gained nothing. Youth, happiness, and achievement have all slipped away from him. Even the search for wisdom can no longer inspire him. To set him free from sorrow and depression, he decides to seek death.
In a singular moment, the resounding sound of a church bell and hymn remind him of his youth, of the time when he still held faith in religion. But that fleeting moment does not last long before the appearance of Méphistophélès, a malevolent devil, is seen before him. Faust, desperate and depressed almost at the point of suicide, accepts the devil’s offer of returning to him his youth, knowledge, and the fulfillment of all of his deepest desires. In return, he must, however, follow the devil and fall under his command.
Seemingly, the vague and fleeting religious memory Faust experienced moments before the appearance of the devil was not enough to revive in him a strong faith in religion, in a God that he once had.|
Naturally, Faust now has all that he was craving, yet, there was no way for him to know where the journey ahead would lead him.
After Méphistophélès fulfills his side of the bargain he encourages Faust to seduce Marguerite, an innocent girl whom Faust had an unrequited love for, and then abandon her, alone and pregnant.
Faust and Marguerite in the Garden, by James Tissot (1861). (Wikimedia Commons/Public domain)
Her life falls into ruin and, so, in an effort to save his lover, Faust agrees to relinquish his soul to devil Méphistophélès. With this decision, he gives the devil every reason and ability to drag him to hell. Which he does, tragically and immediately. Perhaps his final destiny was predetermined from the very moment he accepted the offer of the devil Méphistophélès.
It is a tale that resembles the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The devil Méphistophélès plays a role not dissimilar to the role of the serpent that tempted Eve to take a bite of the apple. Once Adam and Eve succumbed to the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit, it was determined that they would be expelled from the Garden of Eden.
In the case of Faust, he yields to lust and worldly desires and culminates in hell. It is the inevitable fate for the one that chooses to go against good and side with evil.
The story of Faust: An awakening bell
In the contemporary era of the robust development of science and technology, in most cases, science and knowledge play a positive role in society, but at times, it can assume a negative role, as well. Especially when the scholars and scientists ignore moral and humanistic values, and put their fame and interest on top, they would disregard any adverse impact that their work might impose on humanity.
Don’t we catch the image of Faust in communist philosophers, in surgeons involved in live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and in the development of nuclear warfare, to name a few?
No matter what excuse they can make, the undermining effect on human society that they exert is irrefutable.
In this aspect, the story of Faust can still prove its relevance to today’s society and serve as the awakening bell for those who choose to go down that path.
-La Damnation de Faust
The seduction of the innocent heroine by the wicked Faust was a popular pictorial subject in the nineteenth century, inspired by Goethe’s dramatic poem and its operatic staging by Charles Gounod.
Regardless of the lovers’ identities, the lushly painted, romantic scene would have appealed to Bouguereau’s well-heeled clientele.
Admiration Maternelle – Le Bain
'M. Bouguereau is a true artist, one of the most accomplished in Paris.'
-Edmond About, 1866
Admiration Maternelle – Le Bain
.
Beginning in 1865, Bouguereau became interested in themes of mothers and children and he began a series of paintings devoted to this subject matter. These classically-informed images were greatly influenced by his travels throughout Italy in the 1850s.
Trekking from Naples all the way to Venice over a two year period, Bouguereau was frequently confronted by religious imagery, and he was particularly impressed with the works of Raphael.
A painting by Raphael.
These images of mothers and children may have been further reinforced by the birth of the artist’s fourth child in 1868, a son named Adolphe Paul. It was also in this year that the artist moved his family into the house on rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, with its large studio on the top floor of the house.
Admiration maternelle – le bain, most likely painted in the artist’s studio in 1869, depicts a young Roman mother holding her naked baby on her lap. The baby clasps an orange before him, while his older sister looks on adoringly, her hands folded together as if in prayer.
These three figures, clearly a secularized interpretation of a Holy Family or Madonna and Child with St. John, are bathed in a clear warm light which illuminates the freshly washed hair of the baby, creating a halo around his head and enhancing the association with the Christ Child.
The bowl and washcloth occupy the immediate center of the composition, bringing to mind the chalice and cloth of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The room behind the figural group is softened by the shadows of the recesses of the interior, thereby heightening the importance of the figural group.
.
There is a photograph in the Goupil Museum in Bordeaux and in Bouguereau’s own collection of what appears to be this work (Ross and Bartoli, 1869/02) without the linen towel and basin, a different bench and a slightly different background.
It is possible that the initial purchaser of the painting asked for the changes to be made, as was the case with La Bohémienne, which also had two different backgrounds.
Admiration maternelle was in the collection of George Small of Baltimore by 1879, and remained in the Small family until 1984. George Small was the President of the Ashland Iron Company and a director of the Northern Central Railroad and the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad. He amassed a fortune, but he and his wife had no children, so the painting passed to his brother’s family upon his death in 1891.
Admiration Maternelle
He does capture the moment perfectly. Doesn’t he?
Maternal Admiration
.
I love his work. I really do.
Conclusions
The artist was master of his medium and in control of his life in that time, and at that place…
In a corner of the garden measuring some two hundred square feet, he arranged his outdoor studio; and in the orangery he set up his interior studio. At six in the morning, rain or shine, drizzle or wind, escorted by his three dogs and a servant, he sets out for a two-hour walk through the fields or along the seashore. Once home, he has a cup of tea and settles down to work. At eleven, the family gathers for lunch; at one, he resumes work with his model and continues until six in the evening, with a few short breaks.
Then the painter picks up his rustic cane and his soft-felt hat and leaves, a cigarette between his lips, like any ordinary bourgeois, for a walk around the harbor, to watch the sun set on the sea.
When the town clocks chime seven, he goes back home for dinner; and at ten, it is curfew time. At dawn on Sundays, the master and his wife climb into a carriage to meet a childhood friend, an architect in a neighboring village, for an outing in the countryside or, during hunting season, to take a few pot shots, in his own words, "at hypothetical quails or the occasional rabbit."
When I look at these beautiful art works I still have stirrings of emotions. But that is now tainted with memories of the experiences that I had in Arkansas.
Memories that came into being by the actions of the government there; a government that employed people from both political parties… working in unison for their own self-worth and future fortunes. Greedy fucks. Ignorant of the true realities and consequences of their actions and their activities.
You take something that I enjoyed and you poison it with bad memories. It’s that the very fundamental nature of PTSD?
Memories that were and still are painful.
In fact, I often wonder if this was it’s intended purpose, by a some gleeful evil psychopaths to forever alter my love of art and to convert it and change it into something substantially different.
Into a ugly and foul thing…
Much like the premise in the movie A Clockwork Orange.
A controversial and offensive masterpiece. tyson-hunsaker31 January 2017
Anyone looking to watch A Clockwork Orange might be wanting to revisit some of Stanley Kubrik's work and might be interested in studying this film. Those who have already seen this film tend to already have strong opinions regarding this dark sci-fi movie but for me, I approached this film recently to obtain an opinion for myself and study one of the great masters of cinema.
The fact that this film was regarded as one of the most controversial films ever made (rightfully so) sparked genuine curiosity to give this flick a full viewing and while I have large issues with the film, the experience as a whole was both satisfying and a learning experience.
This story centers on "Alex" our main protagonist and his gang of hoodlums set in a not so distant, dystopian Great Britain. The beginning portion unfolds Alex's dark and twisted soul as we watch him and his gang fight, rape, and kill.
When he's eventually caught, he undergoes controversial "treatment" to be cured of his dark soul.
I first appreciated the inmate concepts of this story and the type of questions the story attempted to raise to the audience. Furthermore, much of the psychological ideologies surrounding freedom, choice, good vs evil, and selfishness were extremely thought-provoking. It had a way of making me feel self-exploratory despite the character's complete inability to relate with (hopefully) any viewer.
Performances were top notch; especially from the lead: Malcom McDowell. His performance felt so authentic there's never a single moment that feels fake or forced with his dark character. As always, Stanley Kubrick directs the hell out of this. His commanding and authoritative shooting style is apparent in every frame of the picture and he does a wonderful job at sucking the viewer into this terrible world to the point of enthrallment.
While all these positives make for a great movie-going experience and when Kubrick is at the director's helm not much can go wrong, the film's biggest downfall is indeed its controversy. Disturbing subject matter in this piece is indeed vital to the essence of the story but taking off the gloves when it comes to fighting, rape, and killing (especially the rape) make this so incredibly disturbing that it's difficult to muscle through.
I found that A Clockwork Orange was not only offense because of its disturbing content, it was personally offensive in so many ways. Frankly, these extremely rare and offensive movie experiences are not quite the reason I enjoy films in the first place; stories can still be thought-provoking while not morally offend and damage the viewer internally. In addition, a viewer looking to study the work of Stanley Kubrick can still experience some of cinema's greatest and transcendent experiences without feeling like their conscience has blackened.
It's understandable that not everyone feels this way; just as stated before, opinions about this film are all across the board. As time has passed however, A Clockwork Orange has stood out has one of Kubrick's finest and has been adored by die-hard fans so much its fan base has grown over the years.
The best advice to give is to see it for yourself. Much like all other Kubrick films, relying on anyone's opinion won't help one bit. Seeing it and deciding for yourself is the best course of action. That being said, despite it's strong artistic merit, I wouldn't recommend seeing it simply because of the morally offensive and sickening content that most don't appreciate. Overall, it's been the hardest one to review in a long time because it's not a simple: see it or don't see it. There's much more to this picture than that. If you do decide to see it though, be warned and well prepared. If not, that's probably just fine too.
There is nothing different from my “reprogramming” by the Arkansas government, and what happened to Alex in the movie “A Clockwork Orange”.
A clockwork orange.
.
Perhaps China is correct in preventing their nation any kind of access by these evil, evil people. People who have no compassion. People who cannot see beauty and purpose. People who look good, and say the right things, but are corrupted, and evil to their fundamental core.
Evil people.
In positions of extreme power…
…in a dying military empire.
Are inherently dangerous.
Six of the thirty that have been sanctioned by China in January 2021.
.
Back in Rome
All this reminds me of the behaviors of the government of Rome when it was at the height of decay and corruption. Consider their idea for a “half time show” in the Arena…
The enormous arena was empty, save for the seesaws and the dozens of condemned criminals who sat naked upon them, hands tied behind their backs. Unfamiliar with the recently invented contraptions known as petaurua, the men tested the seesaws uneasily. One criminal would push off the ground and suddenly find himself 15 feet in the air while his partner on the other side of the seesaw descended swiftly to the ground. How strange.
In the stands, tens of thousands of Roman citizens waited with half-bored curiosity to see what would happen next and whether it would be interesting enough to keep them in their seats until the next part of the "big show" began.
With a flourish, trapdoors in the floor of the arena were opened, and lions, bears, wild boars and leopards rushed into the arena. The starved animals bounded toward the terrified criminals, who attempted to leap away from the beasts' snapping jaws. But as one helpless man flung himself upward and out of harm's way, his partner on the other side of the seesaw was sent crashing down into the seething mass of claws, teeth and fur.
The crowd of Romans began to laugh at the dark antics before them. Soon, they were clapping and yelling, placing bets on which criminal would die first, which one would last longest and which one would ultimately be chosen by the largest lion, who was still prowling the outskirts of the arena's pure white sand. [See Photos of the Combat Sports Played in Ancient Rome]
And with that, another "halftime show" of damnatio ad bestias succeeded in serving its purpose: to keep the jaded Roman population glued to their seats, to the delight of the event's scheming organizer.
The Roman Games were the Super Bowl Sundays of their time. They gave their ever-changing sponsors and organizers (known as editors) an enormously powerful platform to promote their views and philosophies to the widest spectrum of Romans. All of Rome came to the Games: rich and poor, men and women, children and the noble elite alike. They were all eager to witness the unique spectacles each new game promised its audience.
To the editors, the Games represented power, money and opportunity. Politicians and aspiring noblemen spent unthinkable sums on the Games they sponsored in the hopes of swaying public opinion in their favor, courting votes, and/or disposing of any person or warring faction they wanted out of the way.
The more extreme and fantastic the spectacles, the more popular the Games with the general public, and the more popular the Games, the more influence the editor could have. Because the Games could make or break the reputation of their organizers, editors planned every last detail meticulously.
Thanks to films like "Ben-Hur" and "Gladiator," the two most popular elements of the Roman Games are well known even to this day: the chariot races and the gladiator fights. Other elements of the Roman Games have also translated into modern times without much change: theatrical plays put on by costumed actors, concerts with trained musicians, and parades of much-cared-for exotic animals from the city's private zoos.
But much less discussed, and indeed largely forgotten, is the spectacle that kept the Roman audiences in their seats through the sweltering midafternoon heat: the blood-spattered halftime show known as damnatio ad bestias — literally "condemnation by beasts" — orchestrated by men known as the bestiarii.Super Bowl 242 B.C: How the Games Became So Brutal
The cultural juggernaut known as the Roman Games began in 242 B.C., when two sons decided to celebrate their father's life by ordering slaves to battle each other to the death at his funeral. This new variation of ancient munera (a tribute to the dead) struck a chord within the developing republic. Soon, other members of the wealthy classes began to incorporate this type of slave fighting into their own munera. The practice evolved over time — with new formats, rules, specialized weapons, etc. — until the Roman Games as we now know them were born.
In 189 B.C., a consul named M. Fulvius Nobilior decided to do something different. In addition to the gladiator duels that had become common, he introduced an animal act that would see humans fight both lions and panthers to the death. Big-game hunting was not a part of Roman culture; Romans only attacked large animals to protect themselves, their families or their crops.
Nobilior realized that the spectacle of animals fighting humans would add a cheap and unique flourish to this fantastic new pastime. Nobilior aimed to make an impression, and he succeeded. [Photos: Gladiators of the Roman Empire]
With the birth of the first "animal program," an uneasy milestone was achieved in the evolution of the Roman Games: the point at which a human being faced a snarling pack of starved beasts, and every laughing spectator in the crowd chanted for the big cats to win, the point at which the republic's obligation to make a man's death a fair or honorable one began to be outweighed by the entertainment value of watching him die.
Twenty-two years later, in 167 B.C., Aemlilus Paullus would give Rome its first damnatio ad bestias when he rounded up army deserters and had them crushed, one by one, under the heavy feet of elephants. "The act was done publicly," historian Alison Futrell noted in her book "Blood in the Arena," "a harsh object lesson for those challenging Roman authority."
The "satisfaction and relief" Romans would feel watching someone considered lower than themselves be thrown to the beasts would become, as historian Garrett G. Fagan noted in his book "The Lure of the Arena," a "central … facet of the experience [of the Roman Games. … a feeling of shared empowerment and validation … " In those moments, Rome began the transition into the self-indulgent decadence that would come to define all that we associate with the great society's demise.
The Role of Julius Caesar
General Julius Caesar proved to be the first true maestro of the Games. He understood how these events could be manipulated to inspire fear, loyalty and patriotism, and began to stage the Games in new and ingenious ways. For example, Caesar was the first to arrange fights between recently captured armies, gaining firsthand knowledge of the fighting techniques used by these conquered people and providing him with powerful insights to aid future Roman conquests, all the while demonstrating the republic's own superiority to the roaring crowd of Romans. After all, what other city was powerful enough to command foreign armies to fight each other to the death, solely for their viewing pleasure?
Caesar used exotic animals from newly conquered territories to educate Romans about the empire's expansion. In one of his games, "Animals for Show and Pleasure in Ancient Rome" author George Jennison notes that Caesar orchestrated "a hunt of four hundred lions, fights between elephants and infantry … [and] bull fighting by mounted Thessalians." Later, the first-ever giraffes seen in Rome arrived — a gift to Caesar himself from a love-struck Cleopatra.
To execute his very specific visions, Caesar relied heavily on the bestiarii — men who were paid to house, manage, breed, train and sometimes fight the bizarre menagerie of animals collected for the Games.
Managing and training this ever-changing influx of beasts was not an easy task for the bestiarii. Wild animals are born with a natural hesitancy, and without training, they would usually cower and hide when forced into the arena's center. For example, it is not a natural instinct for a lion to attack and eat a human being, let alone to do so in front of a crowd of 100,000 screaming Roman men, women and children! And yet, in Rome's ever-more-violent culture, disappointing an editor would spell certain death for the low-ranking bestiarii.
To avoid being executed themselves, bestiarii met the challenge. They developed detailed training regimens to ensure their animals would act as requested, feeding arena-born animals a diet compromised solely of human flesh, breeding their best animals, and allowing their weaker and smaller stock to be killed in the arena. Bestiarii even went so far as to instruct condemned men and women on how to behave in the ring to guarantee a quick death for themselves — and a better show. The bestiarii could leave nothing to chance.
As their reputations grew, bestiarii were given the power to independently devise new and even more audacious spectacles for the ludi meridiani (midday executions). And by the time the Roman Games had grown popular enough to fill 250,000-seat arenas, the work of the bestiarii had become a twisted art form.
As the Roman Empire grew, so did the ambition and arrogance of its leaders. And the more arrogant, egotistic and unhinged the leader in power, the more spectacular the Games would become. Who better than the bestiarii to aid these despots in taking their version of the Roman Games to new, ever-more grotesque heights?
Caligula Amplified the Cruelty
Animal spectacles became bigger, more elaborate, and more flamboyantly cruel.
Damnatio ad bestias became the preferred method of executing criminals and enemies alike. So important where the bestiarii's contribution, that when butcher meat became prohibitively expensive, Emperor Caligula ordered that all of Rome's prisoners "be devoured" by the bestiarii's packs of starving animals. In his masterwork De Vita Caesarum, Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (b. 69 A.D.) tells of how Caligula sentenced the men to death "without examining the charges" to see if death was a fitting punishment, but rather by "merely taking his place in the middle of a colonnade, he bade them be led away 'from baldhead to baldhead,'"(It should also be noted that Caligula used the funds originally earmarked for feeding the animals and the prisoners to construct temples he was building in his own honor!)
To meet this ever-growing pressure to keep the Roman crowds happy and engaged by bloodshed, bestiarii were forced to consistently invent new ways to kill.
They devised elaborate contraptions and platforms to give prisoners the illusion they could save themselves — only to have the structures collapse at the worst possible moments, dropping the condemned into a waiting pack of starved animals. Prisoners were tied to boxes, lashed to stakes, wheeled out on dollies and nailed to crosses, and then, prior to the animals' release, the action was paused so that bets could be made in the crowd about which of the helpless men would be devoured first.
Perhaps most popular — as well as the most difficult to pull off — were the re-creations of death scenes from famous myths and legends. A single bestiarius might spend months training an eagle in the art of removing a thrashing man's organs (a la the myth of Prometheus).
The halftime show of damnatio ad bestias became so notorious that it was common for prisoners to attempt suicide to avoid facing the horrors they knew awaited them. Roman philosopher and statesmen Seneca recorded a story of a German prisoner who, rather than be killed in a bestiarius' show, killed himself by forcing a communally used prison lavatory sponge down his throat. One prisoner who refused to walk into the arena was placed on a cart and wheeled in; the prisoner thrust his own head between the spokes of its wheels, preferring to break his own neck than to face whatever horrors the bestiarius had planned for him.
It is in this era that Rome saw the rise of its most famous bestiarius, Carpophorus, "The King of the Beasts."
The Rise of a Beast Master
Carpophorus was celebrated not only for training the animals that were set upon the enemies, criminals and Christians of Rome, but also for famously taking to the center of the arena to battle the most fearsome creatures himself.
He triumphed in one match that pitted him against a bear, a lion and a leopard, all of which were released to attack him at once. Another time, he killed 20 separate animals in one battle, using only his bare hands as weapons. His power over animals was so unmatched that the poet Martial wrote odes to Carpophorus.
"If the ages of old, Caesar, in which a barbarous earth brought forth wild monsters, had produced Carpophorus," he wrote in his best known work, Epigrams. "Marathon would not have feared her bull, nor leafy Nemea her lion, nor Arcadians the boar of Maenalus. When he armed his hands, the Hydra would have met a single death; one stroke of his would have sufficed for the entire Chimaera. He could yoke the fire-bearing bulls without the Colchian; he could conquer both the beasts of Pasiphae. If the ancient tale of the sea monster were recalled, he would release Hesione and Andromeda single-handed. Let the glory of Hercules' achievement be numbered: it is more to have subdued twice ten wild beasts at one time."
To have his work compared so fawningly to battles with some of Rome’s most notorious mythological beast sheds some light on the astounding work Carpophorus was doing within the arena, but he gained fame as well for his animal work behind the scenes. Perhaps most shockingly, it was said that he was among the few bestiarii who could command animals to rape human beings, including bulls, zebras, stallions, wild boars and giraffes, among others. This crowd-pleasing trick allowed his editors to create ludi meridiani that could not only combine sex and death but also claim to be honoring the god Jupiter. After all, in Roman mythology, Jupiter took many animal forms to have his way with human women.
Historians still debate how common of an occurrence public bestiality was at the Roman Games — and especially whether forced bestiality was used as a form of execution — but poets and artists of the time wrote and painted about the spectacle with a shocked awe.
"Believe that Pasiphae coupled with the Dictaean bull!" Martial wrote. "We've seen it! The Ancient Myth has been confirmed! Hoary antiquity, Caesar, should not marvel at itself: whatever Fame sings of, the arena presents to you."
The 'Gladiator' Commodus
The Roman Games and the work of the bestiarii may have reached their apex during the reign of Emperor Commodus, which began in 180 AD. By that time, the relationship between the emperors and the Senate had disintegrated to a point of near-complete dysfunction. The wealthy, powerful and spoiled emperors began acting out in such debauched and deluded ways that even the working class "plebs" of Rome were unnerved. But even in this heightened environment, Commodus served as an extreme.
Having little interest in running the empire, he left most of the day-to-day decisions to a prefect, while Commodus himself indulged in living a very public life of debauchery. His harem contained 300 girls and 300 boys (some of whom it was said had so bewitched the emperor as he passed them on the street that he felt compelled to order their kidnapping). But if there was one thing that commanded Commodus' obsession above all else, it was the Roman Games. He didn't just want to put on the greatest Games in the history of Rome; he wanted to be the star of them, too.
Commodus began to fight as a gladiator. Sometimes, he arrived dressed in lion pelts, to evoke Roman hero Hercules; other times, he entered the ring absolutely naked to fight his opponents. To ensure a victory, Commodus only fought amputees and wounded soldiers (all of whom were given only flimsy wooden weapons to defend themselves). In one dramatic case recorded in Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Commodus ordered that all people missing their feet be gathered from the Roman streets and be brought to the arena, where he commanded that they be tethered together in the rough shape of a human body. Commodus then entered the arena's center ring, and clubbed the entire group to death, before announcing proudly that he had killed a giant.
But being a gladiator wasn't enough for him. Commodus wanted to rule the halftime show as well, so he set about creating a spectacle that would feature him as a great bestiarius. He not only killed numerous animals — including lions, elephants, ostriches and giraffes, among others, all of which had to be tethered or injured to ensure the emperor's success — but also killed bestiarii whom he felt were rivals (including Julius Alexander, a bestiarius who had grown beloved in Rome for his ability to kill an untethered lion with a javelin from horseback). Commodus once made all of Rome sit and watch in the blazing midday sun as he killed 100 bears in a row — and then made the city pay him 1 millions esterces (ancient Roman coins) for the (unsolicited) favor.
By the time Commodus demanded the city of Rome be renamed Colonia Commodiana ("City of Commodus") — Scriptores Historiae Augustae, noted that not only did the Senate "pass this resolution, but … at the same time [gave] Commodus the name Hercules, and [called] him a god" — a conspiracy was already afoot to kill the mad leader. A motley crew of assassins — including his court chamberlain, Commodus' favorite concubine, and "an athlete called Narcissus, who was employed as Commodus' wrestling partner" — joined forces to kill him and end his unhinged reign. His death was supposed to restore balance and rationality to Rome — but it didn't. By then, Rome was broken — bloody, chaotic and unable to stop its death spiral.
In an ultimate irony, reformers who stood up to oppose the culture's violent and debauched disorder were often punished by death at the hands of the bestiarii, their deaths cheered on by the very same Romans whom they were trying to protect and save from destruction.
The Death of the Games and the Rise of Christianity
As the Roman Empire declined, so did the size, scope and brutality of its Games. However, it seems fitting that one of the most powerful seeds of the empire's downfall could be found within its ultimate sign of contempt and power — the halftime show of damnatio ad bestias.
Early Christians were among the most popular victims in ludi meridiani. The emperors who condemned these men, women and children to public death by beasts did so with the obvious hope that the spectacle would be so horrifying and humiliating that it would discourage any other Romans from converting to Christianity.
Little did they realize that the tales of brave Christians facing certain death with grace, power and humility made them some of the earliest martyr stories. Nor could they have imagined that these oft-repeated narratives would then serve as invaluable tools to drive more people toward the Christian faith for centuries to come.
In the end, who could have ever imagined that these near-forgotten "halftime shows" might prove to have a more lasting impact on the world than the gladiators and chariot races that had overshadowed the bestiarii for their entire existence?
Read more from Aptowicz in her Expert Voices essay, "Surgery in a Time Before Anesthesia."
The argument about the comparisons between ancient Rome and America today is that the horrific tortures and debauchery just does not occur in America today.
I beg to differ.
I argue that the horrors committed by the national leadership and the techniques of manipulation of the people may have changed form, but they have not been eliminated. Rather, they exist in other ways, other means, and using other technology.
America today
Ah it’s time to return back to a simpler time when people like these would never ever get an opportunity to go anywhere next to the levers of power. A simpler time when people lived life in absolute freedom and never knew fear, 24-7 surveillance, and did not fear their government. A time much as was portrayed in the classical art venues.
And these evil men; these evil people? What got them there to the positions of power and absolute corruption that they currently enjoy?
A corrupt “democratic” process. That is what.
What ever happens in the United States, and no matter what changes will be implemented, any kind of democratic institution of any kind will revert to this exact same game-plan. Nothing will change. The founders of the Untied States were absolutely correct. A democracy turns into a corrupt oligarchy and unless countered, evolves into a dangerous military empire. And the citizens… well… they devolve into frightened sheep, ready for dinner.
Oh, and what happened to my own personal paintings?
You might want to know what happened to all my art that I created, my painting supplies, my painting easel, and my paints. You might want to know what happened to my loves, my dreams and my passions…
While I was incarcerated, my father handled my belongings. He held a yard sale and sold the painting for a $1 each. One man decided to buy them all up. He said that he really liked them, and they was going to use the paintings (all were oil on wood panel) to “wallpaper” his walls with. So …
… I well remember the beaming pride that my father had when he handed me a check for some $350 odd dollars. Not realizing that the materials alone were worth ten times that amount.
…and my other belongings…
The remaining belongings were put on the sidewalk and hauled away as trash. My books were collected and given to a friend to watch over. Who later suddenly dies, and his sister sold all of them in bulk to a used book seller.
He saved one suitcase and some articles of clothing, some things that were truly “WTF did he save this for”, and the screws (?) to my massive king-sized solid hardwood bed, that he simply threw away. (I paid over $3500 for that thick massive bed back in 1998. It was totally and completely awesome!) Everything else was destroyed, lost or sold off for pennies on the dollar.
My cars… he gave them away.
My Toyota Celica was driven to the dealership. He handed them the keys. Said I was in prison and didn’t want the car any longer.
My Cadillac Deville. was discovered with sliced tires, a engine (and transmission) filled with sugar and totally gummed up and useless. (It was towed away to a junk yard.)
My Ford T-Bird was left in the airport. I asked my father to get the car for me. I was in prison and was unable to get it out of the lot. But it was too much of a hassle. So he called the parking lot owner and told them “the situation”. Instead of being understanding they responded with “Sex Offender! Tough shit! That car is mine now!” and classified it as abandoned and started the necessary legal paperwork to claim it as their own.
His response to me was “you can go get new ones when you get out of prison.”
With what, Dad? My good looks and a spit shine? Not even McDonald’s would hire me.
The last four years of non-stop HATE CHINA! propaganda is ending. And those people who drove that narrative and forced the complete “fire hose” of disinformation, lies, distortions and insults are not only being axed and sent out the door, but they are being applauded by the working folk as they leave too. Good riddance…
One VOA journalist said Pack's resignation triggered "sighs of relief and cheers" among employees. She called Pack's resignation "a first step toward a return to normalcy."
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
Today Trump is vacating the office of President of the United States.
Here’s some great commentary that I would like to post. There are so many good people trying to get their “arms around the current American political situation” that it would take days to list them all. Here, I have take a few precious ones and compiled them to generate a picture of confusion and understanding. Like a bunch of folk riding a rickety old roller coaster and worried if the next bend will collapse or not.
Right off the top – MoA
The following is the “pulse of the nation” taken from the Moon Over Alabama…
Of course, the internet, is of course, filled with comments by Americans about America.
Comments by Americans
In general, few Americans view America as a healthy nation embracing good and well-deserved improvements with a new Administration. While most are happy to see Mr. Trump leave, most view America as a complete “cluster fuck”…
A half century of downward mobility — crippling of the real economy in which productivity was rewarded — and neglect causing deterioration of infrastructure (including meeting basic human needs like health care), have brought the U.S. to a state of collapse.
Almost everyone seems to sense this and we feel powerless to rectify the situation through accepted channels, thus some people believe they have a ‘patriotic’ duty to use other means.
The combination of disenfranchised minorities and disgruntled middle class becomes dangerous (to the established order) as soon as both groups realize they can’t win by blaming and fighting each other.
We haven’t reached that stage yet, judging from the comments I’ve read in the mainstream media, however it’s just a matter of time until they do.
The divide-and-rule political game keeps people attached to ideology of left vs right until it becomes clear that we all lose by adhering to this mode of thinking.
The war racket and a whole range of other exploitative financial policies are driven by the top echelon of elites, who also control the narratives through media propaganda.
Their game is failing and they’re resorting to draconian control measures to prop it up, but this can’t continue much longer.
As I see it, the collapse of the Western financial system could happen suddenly or gradually, or it could bring the ultimate destruction of human civilization.
In any case, I believe our degradation of the natural world will be the real catalyst leading either to human extinction; or else if we’re lucky and smart enough, will induce us to massively downsize our population and industrial activity in order to let the ecosystem heal itself.
-Posted by: norecovery | Jan 14 2021 19:05 utc | 9
and
Whether or not the Trump voters will be surpressed doesn't matter (anymore).
The fact is and remains that A LOT OF US citizens are unhappy. And that will create more and more unrest in the (near) future. Both the Democratic and the Republican party have become establishment parties who don't care about the petite bourgeoisie and/or the average Joe Sixpack.
-Posted by: Willy2 | Jan 14 2021 19:33 utc | 11
and
The only thing they (RINO's, the non Trumpers) are afraid of loosing is their seat on the gravy train express.
They are afraid of loosing their seat at the sleaziest brothel in the world, totally bought and controlled by powerful interest groups and foreign governments with Israel being by far the biggest one that controls that chamber.
-Posted by: Tom | Jan 14 2021 20:06 utc | 18
and
The Democrats have proven themselves complete idiots for years and years and years. The Republicans are batshit crazy.
The last election from the Democratic POV was to remove what they perceive as an existential threat to 'democracy' which is another word for 'deep state.' It is no wonder the rush to judgment to confirm what they already believe about DJT. Critical thinking and common sense are not attributes the elite political class possess. They are all vainglorious grifters.
The USA is FUBAR and none of the king's horses and none of the king's men etc. etc. etc.
-Posted by: gottlieb | Jan 14 2021 20:17 utc | 21
and
Russiagate, Ukrainegate and now Insurrectiongate convinced a lot of Americans - and not just Trump supporters - that the system is broken.
If they keep up with this lunacy, people will conclude that the system is - not just broken but - irrevocably broken.
At that point, even police state suppression won't help them.
-Posted by: Mike from Jersey | Jan 14 2021 21:20 utc | 28
and
The Trump supporters do not care that he is a murderer and a scoundrel as well as yet another US President that started yet another war against a Muslim country.
They think that US can survive a centuries-long war against Islam.
That is a major flaw in their estimation of US power and fragility of what they have in the United States.
1.2 billion Muslims, 1.2 billion Chinese, and a 130 million Russians believing that the United States is their enemy.
No amount of domestic political change in the United States can address this.
In 1976, a 17-year old American boy could travel alone in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. without any fear; he would be welcome because of the correct foreign policy of the United States.
Americans have lost that and are discussing the deck arrangements on Titanic.
-Posted by: fyi | Jan 14 2021 21:24 utc | 30
and
There are many, like me, who supported Trump only because he was the only one who actually did anything that might benefit regular Americans.
And while some have clearly eaten the worm with Trump - I personally still don't consider him a saint or a savior.
If he were to pardon Snowden or Assange, it would be exclusively as a f*** you to the intelligence community.
However, in the grand scheme of Trump things, that is very low on his list of things to do. Said list being headed mostly by ways to make money...
The really sad part is not that Trump became President - that is actually a plus for the American system.
The really sad part is that Trump was a better President for regular Americans than any of his 3 immediate predecessors and will have been better than his successor even despite the pettiness, the bull-in-china-shop, the ego, etc etc.
That is the real indictment of the United State of America at this point in time.
-Posted by: c1ue | Jan 20 2021 9:59 utc | 99
and
I think this is the overarching view of what's happening in the US and the world today. Oligarchic power and riches are now so great and so globally mobile that nation-states are simply getting in the way of the plunder.
~~
In my opinion, the very rich of this world actually do have a solution to climate change and resource depletion, and they didn't have to think very hard to see what to them is obvious. As they break up societies to make the plunder easier, they also imperil millions and ultimately billions of people, who will quickly die and relieve the burden on planetary resources.
This is why chaos is success for them. There is no plan to save anything except their own riches. Everything and everyone else can fade away. We spoke of steady-state economies the other day, and the very rich are now prepared to live in one - their own. New world order is a red herring anymore. They don't want to rule anything. They just want it all to go away.
They, the rich, have come up with the obvious, brilliant solution to all recent problems of this world. We the people are the largest ingredient of these planetary problems. Obviously, we'll have to go. And as this happens, the rich will exuberantly - with great zest - increase their own wealth from the very crumbling of former societies.
-Posted by: Grieved | Jan 20 2021 1:04 utc | 64
and
For the Trump-phenomenon to continue, the duopoly must not be allowed to carry on casting an illusory shadow of balance which the two-party tyranny employs and which many in America prefer to believe is our noble, default modus operandi.
The rush to restore civility to the GOP will be the overarching goal of the next four years by msm and BigTech. Democrats view of Rinos will soften as an atmosphere of cooperation will seemingly return. It will be Joe Biden's inaugural address on repeat for FOUR YEARS!!! Get your barf bags ready! Can we reuse them like our cloth masks?
...
But that doesn't mean that Deplorables will fall back in line. On the contrary, I believe that DJT will be the last GOP President, unless the establishment gets so desperate that they engineer a Rino win for Presidency in four years. I'm thinking Pence.
But the Deplorables will not vote another GOP Rino in.
By sowing now, Deplorables are happy to let the Democrat party reveal themselves completely as parasites by further destroying our nation. A true-Nationalist party will then emerge naturally and the Deplorables will reap the benefits of their patience. As of right now, I do not see the progressive (socialist) side of the left willing to get their hands dirty by invoking the name of Nationalism. In their own elitism, they too share disdain for the common conservative which will restrict them from forming any kind of coalition.
As a result, the splitting of the Dems into factions seems inevitable down the road, although this will lag behind the Deplorables' ability to consolidate into their own party to upset the hold of the GOP. The America-First Party will be coming up just as the neoliberal establishment is coming down due to factionalism.
A hard road ahead. But rejoice! The gears of history are spinning again and you can see the hands of time advancing in its dialectical form.
-Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 20 2021 7:21 utc | 94
and
I am one of the outlier heathens. We will not so easily conform, reform or deform into the highly suppressed shapes and tiny spaces TPTB insist we all must passively retreat into. We are more than their obedient, mindless consumer droids or random points of collected data, to be unceremoniously herded, harvested and then, casually discarded when they are satisfied that there is little to nothing left of 'value' for them to wring out of our collectively ransacked consumer carcasses.
Yet...We Are Legion!
-Posted by: Dee Plora Belle | Jan 14 2021 20:19 utc | 22
Comments by Communists
And so now, let me add some comments by Mr. Billy Bob, who (I guess) is a self-proclaimed “communist”. I think that he isn’t. But that’s just me. What ever he wants to call himself, his comments are golden…
I have not been a very active participant here but I try and keep up with most of the discussion and truly appreciate the honor of being invited to join the group.
I was recently awarded a perhaps well deserved 30 day facebook ban for calling someone a "stupid c u next tuesday". They kept insisting on the existence of millions interred in "concentration camps" and after hundreds of comments their bad faith engagement brought out the worst in me.
So I've been working on an early encapsulation of the Trump era and since I can't currently share it on facebook, I thought I would share it here. Any feedback would be appreciated.
- Billy Bob
Trump: A Communist Perspective for the Politically Ignorant
Trump was the timely beneficiary of overwhelming disgust with the two party system and its inability to further working class interests. The existing system provides a facade of democracy while promoting capitalist class interests and shielding the actual policy makers from any accountability for their lack of furthering working class interests. If managed properly, the capitalist class can play both sides against each other in perpetuity without having to offer any concessions to the working class.
Instead of engaging in the slippery slope of concession granting, the billionaire owned mass media stokes racial and cultural divisions resulting in the desired fragmentation of the working class. With the working class bifurcated into two broad groups, the mass media manipulates these groups through the propaganda technique Bernays called “continuous interpretation” in which daily events are explained through the red or blue partisan lens with the intent of rendering public opinion compatible with establishment interests while keeping the electorate divided.
With red and blue falsely depicted as opposite ends of the political spectrum, blue achievement is seen as red loss and vice versa. This tug of war is stage-managed by class conscious establishmentarians who’s prime directive is to ensure that neither side “wins” thereby maintaining the system’s viability and perpetuity. Though differences exist between the two parties, they amount to little more than strategic disagreements over how to best consolidate capitalist class power and maintain their system. Their respective platforms are in a continuous state of flux and not adhered to in any event if contradiction and hypocrisy can result in partisan gain.
Such a system would not exist if not for the overwhelming political ignorance of the American public–an ignorance which is facilitated and encouraged by the ruling capitalist establishment that has every incentive not to develop an informed and politically astute citizenry.
While extreme political ignorance was necessary for Trump’s ascendancy, even more so was the crisis of legitimacy which culminated following eight years of Barack Obama’s non-existent “Hope and Change” presidency. Trump exploited this crisis as fully as he possibly could by loudly denouncing the status quo as a swamp which needed to be drained. It was his anti-establishment rhetoric which appealed to voters and which enabled him victory over his establishment rival.
Trump’s populous demagoguery and his willingness to tarnish the sanctity of ruling class institutions of power and control like the rigged electoral system, or the fake-news mass media, ensured his popularity among a broad segment of the electorate but it also ensured that he would not be tolerated by the class conscious establishment consensus.
For four years they struggled to control and contain the demagogic outsider while they worked to harness his popularity (and unpopularity) in furtherance of their own partisan interests. Team blue took the gloves off and immediately attempted to depict Trump as evil and incompetence personified.
Team red on the other hand was far more nuanced in their approach as they had much more to gain and much more to lose. While a few on team red opposed Trump outright from the very beginning, most attempted to managing the situation in a way which harnessed Trump’s popularity while engaging in damage control over his destructive rhetoric.
Trump’s greatest supporters and defenders were indeed among the worst right wing sycophants that our society has produced. Folks like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Mark Levin, hitched their wagon to Trump’s popularity in an effort to use their platform to keep Trump’s demagoguery within the velvet ropes of traditional republican discourse and polite partisan behavior. They defended him from the outrageous and dishonest attacks of team blue and became the voice of reason during the Russiagate, and Ukrainegate hoaxes. Nevertheless, Trump’s minuscule base of establishment support never stood a chance of forcing any significant institutional change.
Trump correctly perceived the crisis of legitimacy that had been growing among the citizenry and he appeared to honestly believed that he could do a better job of running the country and furthering the interests of the American people but he maintained this narcissistic belief despite lacking the most basic understanding of how things work or why things are as they are.
He seemed truly clueless regarding the capitalist class consensus and their view of the working class as a threat that must be pacified through the liberal application of divisive propaganda via the mass media. Trump seemed clueless regarding their need to project global power through perpetual war, sanctions, trade agreements, and the military encirclement of noncompliant states.
He discovered early on that the status quo which he railed against resulted from an entrenched perspective of the capitalist class best interest and although “being friends with Russia”, making peace with North Korea, or ending the forever wars in the mid-East or Afghanistan could easily win over a majority of the population, there was no way the ruling class would allow Trump to damage and weaken their imperial grip through the implementation of such policies.
So although Trump was in many ways an instinctive and gifted politician who managed to navigate his way through the political jungle by opportunistically capitalizing on the widespread disgust of the status quo, and despite the fact that he truly believed he could do better for the prosperity of the country (including the working class) than what had been wrought by the status quo, he failed to recognize the basic reality that presidents are figureheads and exist for no other reason than to represent the interest of the ruling capitalist class consensus. He naively and indeed foolishly believed that the ruling class would permit him to pursue an agenda that was even mildly at odds with their own.
Honest intelligent folks can agree to disagree on precisely what Trump’s deeply held convictions were, whether he had any at all, and what changes he would have made had he been allowed a free hand to do as he saw fit. But proclaiming Trump to be principle-less and solely interested in his own political and economic success, fails to satisfactorily explain many of Trump’s actions.
All that can be said with certainty is that Trump had a poor grasp of the Marxian political reality grounded in oppositional *class* interests and the changes which he advocated for and which were rejected by the ruling capitalist class consensus, amounted to little more than a strategic shift away from the existing globalist order and towards a new nationalist order where Trump himself would be the arbiter of what policies and agreements were in the nation’s best interest.
Additionally, honest folks can disagree over the origins of the COVID virus and the extent to which it was exploited in furtherance of ruling class interests. Honest folks can disagree regarding the extent to which the 2020 election were rigged against Trump. Both are open questions and it is misguided to pretend to have certainty regarding either. But neither of these things is that important or relevant with regards to the political reality which we all ought to recognize and embrace. Embracing truth necessitates the rejection and dismissal of the contrived narratives designed to obfuscate reality and benefit capitalist class interests.
Democracy in this country has never existed. It has always been a tyranny of wealth. Free speech, free press, free trade, and other liberal aspirations are truly non-existent in this country. Trump was not hated because he was Hitler reincarnate nor was he hated because of his principled pursuit of working class interests. He was hated because he was not a figurehead that would play the game according to their rules and within the bounds of their democratic facade. He was happy to denounce their corrupt system for his own political benefit but he did so while lacking the knowledge, wisdom, or ability to improve the situation.
Americans ought to be more politically savvy and recognize that the propagandistic tactics being used against right wing demagoguery, will be the exact same tactics used against authentic and principled folks committed to social progress. The four year long dishonest demonization of Trump culminating with the farcically apoplectic response to the protests at the capital will be used to justify the curtailing of civil liberties and a bipartisan assault on the legacy of DJT. His burning effigy will be raised high as an example to all that dare to threaten the status quo.
Conclusions
I cannot predict the future, and I am just as confused with what is going on in America as everyone else. So my comments on this contemporary train of events are going to be necessarily simplistic.
The United States is not acting like a healthy nation.
No one is happy in the United States except the Wall Street Bankers, the Sycophantic leeches in Washington DC, and the global oligarchy. Other satisfied individuals include long-duration federal workers, special interest groups that cater to the Democrat Party, and the ignorant.
I would hazard a guess that huge segments of the United States population is unhappy. This remains true whether or not they voted for Biden or not.
Thus, anything that President Biden tries to do will not generate any kind of satisfaction. People will look upon the efforts in a pessimistic manner. Which means, boys and girls, that the unhappiness will need to run it’s course…
…I see nothing good in the future of America.
This is true regardless of whether or not I agree with the new polices of Mr. Biden and Congress or not.
And while I am happy to see the neocon, war-mongering assholes that ran the United States as some kind of high-technology mafia / military empire leave “packing”, I am not rejoicing. Instead I tremble in fear. Because none of the underlying problems that are systemic to America are being addressed, and this always leads up to catastrophe.
It's one thing cheering on about "freedom" and "democracy" when your only interaction is with the glowing blue computer screen. It's another thing entirely when you are sitting on "ground zero" and Mike Pompeo is announcing that your city must be destroyed.
Historically.
Absolutely.
Catastrophic.
A small toddler that is a bully, becomes a small town hood, that becomes a career criminal, that is eventually “put down” when his actions are deemed too dangerous by the community.
Do you want to see similar posts?
I hope that you found this post curious. Please take care. You can view other similar posts in my SHTF Index, here…
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
Phew! Another title that you will not find anywhere else in your “Google” searches.
"Everything has an end, so do empires, both the United States and the Soviet Union. Washington has outrageously favoured a small camarilla of ultra-billionaires. Now it has to face its old demons, prepare for secession and civil war..."
"...Part of the power has already tipped democratic institutions into the hands of a few ultra-billionaires. The United States that we knew no longer exists. Their agony has begun."
-https://www.voltairenet.org/article211982.html
The following is a most excellent article. And the commentary by MM is just pure gold, if I must say so myself. It’s a long read, but well worth it. In it, it compares the two forms of capitalism; [1] a Chinese form, and [2] an American form. Then argues that the American form is at an advanced state of development, whereas the Chinese form is in an infantile stage.
According to the thought process, industrial capitalism – earning money through making things is an early step that growing nations adopt. While earning money through taxation, rent, regulation and interest is a late-stage step that advanced nations evolve into.
The discussion behind all this is interesting. It starts off great and then kind of meanders about, but the content is very curious. And we provide this article here for people to consider. In all of it’s imperfections and curiosities.
Personally, I find the late-stage step; capitalism through non-physical activities to be a wasteful endeavor and a cancer upon society. As such, it is the major driver behind all the problems that the United States is currently dealing with at this moment. Please kindly read the article below. It is a full reprint, with little editing and all credit to the author.
The Consequences of Moving from Industrial to Financial Capitalism
By Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar
January 17, 2021 “Information Clearing House” – Michael Hudson: Well, I’m honored to be here on the same show with Pepe and discuss our mutual concern. And I think you have to frame the whole issue that China is thriving, and the West has reached the end of the whole 75-year expansion it had since 1945.
So, there was an illusion that America is de-industrializing because of competition from China. And the reality is there is no way that America can re-industrialize and regain its export markets with the way that it’s organized today, financialized and privatized and if China didn’t exist. You’d still have the Rust Belt rusting out. You’d still have American industry not being able to compete abroad simply because the cost structure is so high in the United States.
The wealth is no longer made here by industrializing. It’s made financially, mainly by making capital gains. Rising prices for real estate or for stocks and for bonds. In the last nine months, since the coronavirus came here, the top 1 percent of the U.S. economy grew by $1 trillion. It’s been a windfall for the 1 percent. The stock market is way up, the bond market is up, the real estate market is up while the rest of the economy is going down. Despite the tariffs that Trump put on, Chinese imports, trade with China is going up because we’re just not producing materials.
America doesn’t make its own shoes. It doesn’t make some nuts and bolts or fasteners, it doesn’t make industrial things anymore because if money is to be made off an industrial company it’s to buy and sell the company, not to make loans to increase the company’s production. New York City, where I live, used to be an industrial city and, the industrial buildings, the mercantile buildings have all been gentrified into high-priced real estate and the result is that Americans have to pay so much money on education, rent, medical care that if they got all of their physical needs, their food, their clothing, all the goods and services for nothing, they still couldn’t compete with foreign labor because of all of the costs that they have to pay that are essentially called rent-seeking.
America
Housing in the United States now absorbs about 40 percent of the average worker’s paycheck. There’s 15 percent taken off the top of paychecks for pensions, Social Security and for Medicare. Further medical insurance adds more to the paycheck, income taxes and sales taxes add about another 10 percent. Then you have student loans and bank debt. So basically, the American worker can only spend about one third of his or her income on buying the goods and services they produce. All the rest goes into the FIRE sector — the finance, insurance and real estate sector — and other monopolies.
And essentially, we became what’s called a rent-seeking economy, not a productive economy. So, when people in Washington talk about American capitalism versus Chinese socialism this is confusing the issue. What kind of capitalism are we talking about?
America used to have industrial capitalism in the 19th century. That’s how it got richer originally but now it’s moved away from industrial capitalism towards finance capitalism. And what that means is that essentially the mixed economy that made America rich — where the government would invest in education and infrastructure and transportation and provide these at low costs so that the employers didn’t have to pay labor to afford high costs — all of this has been transformed over the last hundred years.
And we’ve moved away from the whole ethic of what was industrial capitalism. Before, the idea of capitalism in the 19th century from Adam Smith to Ricardo, to John Stuart Mill to Marx was very clear and Marx stated it quite clearly; capitalism was revolutionary. It was to get rid of the landlord class. It was to get rid of the rentier class. It was to get rid of the banking class essentially, and just bear all the costs that were unnecessary for production, because how did England and America and Germany gain their markets?
They gained their markets basically by the government picking up a lot of the costs of the economy. The government in America provided low-cost education, not student debt. It provided transportation at subsidized prices. It provided basic infrastructure at low cost. And so, government infrastructure was considered a fourth factor of production.
And if you read what the business schools in the late 19th century taught like Simon Patten at the Wharton School, it’s very much like socialism. In fact, it’s very much like what China is doing. And in fact, China is following in the last 30 or 40 years pretty much the same way of getting rich that America followed.
It had its government fund basic infrastructure. It provides low-cost education. It invests in high-speed railroads and airports, in the building of cities. So, the government bears most of the costs and, that means that employers don’t have to pay workers enough to pay a student loan debt. They don’t have to pay workers enough to pay enormous rent such as you have in the United States. They don’t have to pay workers to save for a pension fund, to pay the pension later on. And most of all the Chinese economy doesn’t really have to pay a banking class because banking is the most important public utility of all. Banking is what China has kept in the hands of government and Chinese banks don’t lend for the same reasons that American banks lend.
(When I said that China can pay lower wages than the U.S., what I meant was that China provides as public services many things that American workers have to pay out of their own pockets – such as health care, free education, subsidized education, and above all, much lower debt service.
When workers have to go into debt in order to live, they need much higher wages to keep solvent. When they have to pay for their own health insurance, they have to earn more. The same is true of education and student debt. So much of what Americans seem to be earning — more than workers in other countries — goes right through their hands to the FIRE sector. So, what seems to be “low wages” in China go a lot further than higher wages in the United States.)
Eighty percent of American bank loans are mortgage loans to real estate and the effect of loosening loan standards and increasing the market for real estate is to push up the cost of living, push up the cost of housing. So, Americans have to pay more and more money for their housing whether they’re renters or they’re buyers, in which case the rent is for paying mortgage interest.
They only lend against collateral that’s already in place because they won’t make a loan if it’s not backed by collateral. Well, China creates money through its public banks to create capital, to create the means of production. So, you have a diametric opposite philosophy of how to develop between the United States and China.
The United States has decided not to gain wealth by actually investing in means of production and producing goods and services, but in financial ways. China is gaining wealth the old-fashioned way, by producing it. And whether you call this, industrial capitalism or a state capitalism or a state socialism or Marxism, it basically follows the same logic of real economics, the real economy, not the financial overhead. So, you have China operating as a real economy, increasing its production, becoming the workshop of the world as England used to be called and America trying to draw in foreign resources, live off of foreign resources, live by trying to make money by investing in the Chinese stock market or now, moving investment banks into China and making loans to China not actual industrial capitalism ways.
So, you could say that America has gone beyond industrial capitalism, and they call it the post-industrial society, but you could call it the neo-feudal society. You could call it the neo-rentier society, or you could call it debt peonage but it’s not industrial capitalism.
And in that sense, there’s no rivalry between China and America. These are different systems going their own way and I better let Pepe pick it up from there.
Pepe Escobar: Okay. Thank you, Michael, this is brilliant. And you did it in less than 15 minutes. You told the whole story in 15 minutes. Well, my journalistic instinct is immediately to start questions to Michael. So, this is exactly what I’m gonna do now. I think it is much better to basically illustrate some points of what Michael just said, comparing the American system, which is finance capitalism essentially, with industrial capitalism that is in effect in China. Let me try to start with a very concrete and straight to the point question, Michael.
Okay. let’s says that more or less, if we want to summarize it, basically they try to tax the nonproductive rentier class. So, this would be the Chinese way to distribute wealth, right? Sifting through the Chinese economic literature, there is a very interesting concept, which is relatively new (correct me if I am wrong, Michael) in China, which they call stable investment. So stable investment, according to the Chinese would be to issue special bonds as extra capital in fact, to be invested in infrastructure building all across China, and they choose these projects in what they call weak areas and weak links. So probably in some of the inner provinces, or probably in some parts of Tibet or Xinjiang for instance. So, this is a way to invest in the real economy and in real government investment projects.
Right? So, my question in fact, is does this system create extra local debt, coming directly from this financing from Beijing? Is this a good recipe for sustainable development, the Chinese way and the recipe that they could expand to other parts of the Global South?
Michael: Well, this is a big problem that they’re discussing right now. The localities, especially rural China, (and China is still largely rural) only cover about half of their working budget from taxation. So, they have a problem. How are they going to get the balance of the money? Well, there is no official revenue sharing between the federal government and its state banks and the localities.
So, the localities can’t simply go to central government and say, give us more money. The government lets the localities be very independent. And it is sort of the “let a hundred flowers bloom” concept. And so, they’ve let each locality just go the long way, but the localities have run a big deficit.
What do they do? Well in the United States they would issue bonds on which New York is about to default. But in China, the easiest way for the localities to make money, is unfortunately they will do something like Chicago did. They will sell their tax rights for the next 75 years for current money now.
So, a real estate developer will come in and say; look we will give you the next 75 years of tax on this land, because we want to build projects on this (a set of buildings). So, what this means is that now the cities have given away all their source of rent.
Let me show you the problem by what Indiana and Chicago did. Chicago also was very much like China’s countryside cities. So, it sold parking meters and its sidewalks to a whole series of Wall Street investors, including the Abu Dhabi Investment Fund for seventy-five years. And that meant that for 75 years, this Wall Street consortium got to control the parking meters.
So, they put up the parking meters all over Chicago, raised the price of parking, raised the cost of driving to Chicago. And if Chicago would have a parade and interrupt parking, then Chicago has to pay the Abu Dhabi fund and Wall Street company what it would have made anyway. And this became such an awful disaster that finally Wall Street had to reverse the deal and undo it because it was giving privatization a bad name here. The same thing happened in Indiana.
Indiana was running a deficit and it decided to sell its roads to a Wall Street investment firm to make a toll road. The toll on the Indiana turnpike was so high that drivers began to take over the side roads. That’s the problem if you sell future tax revenues in advance.
Now what China and the localities there are discussing is that we’ve already given the real estate tax at very low estimates to the commercial developers, so what do we do? Well, I’ve given them my advice. I’m a professor of economics at the Peking University, School of Marxist studies and I’ve had discussions with the Central Committee. I also have an official position at Wuhan University. There, we’re discussing how China can put an added tax for all of the valuable land, that’s gone up. How can it be done to let the cities collect this tax? Our claim is that the cities, in selling these tax rights for 75 years, have sold what in Britain would be called ground rent (i.e. what’s paid to the landed aristocracy).
Over and above that there’s the market rent. So, China should pass a market-rent tax over and above the ground rent tax to reflect the current value. And there they’re thinking of, well, do we say that this is a capital gain on the land? Well, it’s not really a capital gain until you sell the land, but it’s value. It’s the valuation of the capital. And they’re looking at whether they should just say this is the market rent tax over and above the flat tax that has been paid in advance, or it’s a land tax on the capital gain for land.
Now, all of this requires that there be a land map of the whole country. And they are just beginning to create such a land map as a basis for how you calculate how much the rent there is.
What I found in China is something very strange. A few years ago, in Beijing, they had the first, International Marxist conference where I was the main speaker and I was talking about Marx’s discussion of the history of rent theory in Volume II and Volume III of Capital where Marx discusses all of the classical economics that led up to his view; Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, John Stuart Mill, and Marx’s theory of surplus value was really the first history of economic thought that was written, although it wasn’t published until after he died. Well, you could see that there was a little bit of discomfort with some of the Marxists at the conference. And so, they invited for the next time my colleague David Harvey to come and talk about Marxism in the West.
Well, David gave both the leading and the closing speech of the conference and said, you’ve got to go beyond volume I of Capital. Volume I was what Marx wrote as his addition to classical economics, saying that there was exploitation in industrial employment of labor as well as rent seeking and then he said, now that I’ve done my introduction here, let me talk about how capitalism works in Volumes II and III. Volumes II and III are all about rent and finance and David Harvey has published a book on Volume III of Capital and his message to Peking University and the second Marxist conference was – you’ve got to read Volume II, and III.
Well, you can see that, there’s a discussion now over what is Marxism and a friend and colleague at PKU said Marxism is a Chinese word; It’s the Chinese word for politics. That made everything clear to me. Now I get it! I’ve been asked by the Academy of Social Sciences in China to create a syllabus of the history of rent theory and value theory. And essentially in order to have an idea of how you calculate rent, how do you make a national income analysis where you show rent, you have to have a theory of value and price and rent is the excess of price over the actual cost value. Well, for that you need a concept of cost of production and that’s what classical economics is all about. Post-classical economics denied all of this. The whole idea of classical economics is that not all income is earned.
Landlords don’t earn their income for making rent in their sleep as John Stuart Mill said. Banks don’t earn their income by just sitting there and letting debts accrue and interest compounding and doubling. The classical economists separated actual unearned income from the production and consumption economy.
Well, around the late 19th century in America, you had economists fighting against not only Marx, but also even against Henry George, who at that time, was urging a land tax in New York. And so, at Columbia University, John Bates Clark developed a whole theory that everybody earns whatever they can get. That there was no such thing as unearned income and that has become the basis for American national income statistics and thought ever since. So, if you look at today’s GDP figures for the United States, they have a figure for 8 percent of the GDP for the homeowners’ rent. But homeowners wouldn’t pay themselves if they had to rent the apartment to themselves, then you’ll have interest at about 12 percent of GDP.
And I thought, well how can interest be so steady? What happens to all of the late fees; that 29 percent that credit card companies charge? I called up the national income people in Washington, when I was there. And they said well, late fees and penalties are considered financial services.
And so, this is what you call a service economy. Well, there’s no service in charging a late fee, but they add all of the late fees. When people can’t pay their debts and they owe more and more, all of that is considered an addition to GDP. When housing becomes more expensive and prices American labor out of the market, that’s called an increase in GDP.
This is not how a country that wants to develop is going to create a national income account. So, there’s a long discussion in China about, just to answer your question, how do you create an account to distinguish between what’s the necessary cost to production and what’s an unnecessary production cost and how do we avoid doing what the United States did.
So again, no rivalry.
The United States is an object lesson for China on what to avoid, not only in industrializing the economy, but in creating a picture of the economy as if everybody earns everything and there’s no exploitation, no earned income, nobody makes money in their sleep and there’s no 1 percent.
Well, that’s what’s really at issue and why the whole world is splitting apart as you and I are discussing in what we’re writing.
Pepe: Thank you, Michael. Thank you very much. So just to sum it all up, can we say that Beijing’s strategy is to save especially provincial areas from leasing their land, their infrastructure for 60 years or 75 years? As you just mentioned, can we say that the fulcrum of their national strategy is what you define as the market rent tax? Is this the No. 1 mechanism that they are developing?
Michael: Ideally, they want to keep rents as low as possible because rent is a cost of living and a cost of doing business. They don’t have banks that are lending to inflate the real estate market.
However, in almost every Western country — the U.S., Germany England — the value of stocks and bonds and the value of real estate is just about exactly the same. But for China, the value of real estate is way, way larger than the value of stocks.
And the reason is not because the Chinese Central bank, the Bank of China lends for real estate; it’s because they lend to intermediaries and the intermediaries have financed a lot of housing purchases in China. And, this is really the problem for if they levy a land tax, then you’re going to make a lot of these financial intermediaries go bust.
That’s what I’m advocating, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. These financial intermediaries shouldn’t exist, and this same issue came up in 2009 in the United States. You had the leading American bank being the most crooked and internally corrupt bank in the country, Citibank making junk mortgage, and it was broke.
Its entire net worth was wiped out as a result of its fraudulent junk mortgages.
Well, Sheila Bair, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) wanted to close it down and take it over. Essentially that would have made it into a public bank and that would be a wonderful thing. She said, look Citibank shouldn’t be doing what it’s doing. And she wrote all this up in an autobiography. And, she was overruled by President Obama and Tim Geithner saying, but wait a minute, those are our campaign contributors. So, they were loyal to the campaign contributors, but not the voters; and they didn’t close Citibank down.
And the result is that the Federal Reserve ended up creating about $7 trillion of quantitative easing to bail out the banks. The homeowners weren’t bailed out. Ten million American families lost their homes as a result of junk mortgages in excess of what the property was actually worth.
All of this was left on the books, foreclosed and sold to a private capital companies like Blackstone. And the result is that home ownership in America declined from 68 percent of the population down to about 61 percent. Well, right where the Obama administration left off, you’re about to have the Biden administration begin in January with an estimated 5 million Americans losing their homes.
Decline in home ownership in the United States prior to the Coronavirus.
They’re going to be evicted because they’ve been unemployed during the pandemic. They’ve been working in restaurants or gyms or other industries that have been shut down because of the pandemic. They’re going to be evicted and many homeowners and, low-income homeowners have been unable to pay their mortgages.
There’s going to be a wave of foreclosures. The question is, who’s going to bear the cost? Should it be 15 million American families who lose their homes just so the banks won’t lose money? Or should we let the banks that have made all of the growth since 2008? Ninety five percent of American GDP of the population has seen its wealth go down. All the wealth has been accumulating for the 5 percent in statistics. Now the question is should this 5 percent that’s got all the wealth lose or should the 95 percent lose?
The Biden administration says the 95 percent should lose basically. And you’re going to see a wave of closures so that the question in China should be that, these intermediate banks (they’re not really banks they are sort of like payday loan lenders), should they come in and, bear the loss or should Chinese localities and the people bear the loss?
Somebody has to lose when you’re charging, you’re collecting the land’s rent that was paid to the creditors, and either the creditors have to lose or, the tax collector loses and that’s the conflict that exists in every society of the world today. And, in the West, the idea is the tax collectors should lose and whatever the tax collector relinquishes should be free for the banks to collect.
In China obviously, they don’t want that to happen and they don’t want to see a financial class developing along US lines.
Pepe: Michael, there’s a quick question in all this, which is the official position by Beijing in terms of helping the localities. Their official position is that there won’t be any bailouts of local debt. How do they plan to do that?
Michael: What they’re discussing, how are you not going to do it? They think they sort of let localities go their own way. And they think, well you know which ones are going to succeed, and which ones aren’t, they didn’t want to have a one-size-fits all central planning. They wanted to have flexibility. Well, now they have flexibility. And when you have many different “let a hundred flowers bloom,” not all the flowers are going to bloom at the same rate.
And the question is, if they don’t bail out the cities, how are the cities going to operate? Certainly, China has never let markets steer the economy, the government steers the markets. That’s what socialism is as opposed to finance capitalism. So, the question is, you can let localities go broke and yet you’re not going to destroy any of the physical assets of the localities, and all of this is going to be in place. The question is how are you going to arrange the flow of income to all of these roads and buildings and land that’s in place? How do you create a system?
Essentially, they’re saying well, if we’re industrial engineers, how do we just plan things? Forget credit, forget property claims, forget the rentier claims. How are we just going to design an economy that operates most efficiently? And that’s what they’re working on now to resolve this situation because it’s gotten fairly critical.
Pepe: Yes, especially in the countryside. Well, I think, a very good metaphor in terms of comparing both systems are investment in infrastructure. You travel to China a lot so, you’ve seen. You’ll travel through high-speed rail. You’ll see those fantastic airports, in Pudong or the new airport in Beijing. And then you’ll take the Acela to go from Washington to New York City, which is something that I used to do years ago. And the comparison is striking. Isn’t it?
Chinese high speed rail.
Or if you go to France, for instance, when France started development of the TGV, which in terms of a national infrastructure network, is one of the best networks on the planet. And the French started doing this 30 years ago, even more. Is there……, it’s not in terms of way out, but if we analyze the minutia, it’s obvious that following the American finance utilization system, we could never have something remotely similar happening in United States in terms of building infrastructure.
So, do you see any realistic bypass mechanism in terms of improving American infrastructure, especially in the big cities?
Michael: No, and there are two reasons for that. No. 1, let’s take a look at the long-term railroads. The railroads go through the center of town or even in the countryside, all along the railroads, the railroads brought business and all the businesses had been located as close to the railroad tracks as they could. Factories with sightings off the railroad, hotels and especially right through the middle of town where you have the railway gates going up and down. In order to make a high-speed rail as in China, you need a dedicated roadway without trucks and cars, imagine a car going through a railway gate at 350 miles an hour.
Railroad station in China.
So, when I would go from Beijing to Tianjin, here’s the high-speed rail, there’s one highway on one side, one highway on the other side. There’ll be underpasses. But there it goes straight now.
How can you suppose you would have a straight Acela line from Washington up to Boston when all along the line, there’s all this real estate right along the line that has been built up? There’s no way you can get a dedicated roadway without having to tear down all of this real estate that’s on either side and the cost of making the current owners whole would be prohibitive. And anywhere you would go, that’s not in the center of the city, you would also have to have the problem that there’s already private property there.
And there’s no legal, constitutional way for such a physical investment to be made. China was able to make this investment because it was still largely rural. It wasn’t as built up along the railways. It didn’t have any particular area that was built up right where the railroad already was.
So certainly, any high-speed rail could not go where the current railways would be, and they’d have to go on somebody’s land. And, there’s also, what do you do if you want to get to New York and Long Island from New Jersey?
Sixty years ago, when I went into Wall Street, the cost of getting and transporting goods from California to Newark, New Jersey, was as large as from Newark right across the Hudson River to New York, not only because of the mafia and control of the local labor unions, but because of the tunnels.
Right now, the tunnels from New Jersey to New York are broke, they are leaking, the subways in New York City, which continually break down because there was a hurricane a few years ago and the switches were made in the 1940s. The switches are 80 years old. They had water damage and the trains have to go at a crawl. But the city and state, because it is not collecting the real estate tax and other taxes and because ridership fell on the subways to about 20 percent, the city’s broke. They’re talking about 70 percent of city services being cut back. They’re talking about cutting back the subways to 40 percent capacity, meaning everybody will have to get in — when there’s still a virus and not many people are wearing masks, and there was no means of enforcing masks here.
So, there’s no way that you can rebuild the infrastructure because, for one thing the banking system here has subsidized for a hundred years junk economics saying you have to balance the budget. If the government creates credit it’s inflationary as if when banks create credit, it’s not inflationary. Well, the monetary effect is the same, no matter who creates the money. And so, Biden has already said that President Trump ran a big deficit, we’re going to run a bunch of surpluses or a budget balance. And he was advocating that all along.
Essentially Biden is saying we have to increase unemployment by 20 percent, lower wages by 20 percent, shrink the economy by about 10 percent in order to, in order for the banks not to lose money.
And, we’re going to privatize but we are going to do it by selling the hospitals, the schools, the parks, the transportation to finance, to Wall Street finance capital groups. And so, you can imagine what’s going to happen if the Wall Street groups buy the infrastructure.
They’ll do what happened to Chicago when it sold all the parking meters, they’ll say, OK, instead of 25 cents an hour, it’s now charged $3 an hour. Instead of a $2 for the subway, let’s make it $8.
You’re going to price the American economy even further out of business because they say that public investment is socialism. Well, it’s not socialism. It’s industrial capitalism. It’s industrialization, that’s basic economics. The idea of what, and how an economy works is so twisted academically that it’s the antithesis of what Adam Smith, John Stewart Mill and Marx all talked about. For them a free- market economy was an economy free of rentiers. Free of rent, it didn’t have any rent seeking. But now for the Americans, a free-market economy is free for the rentiers, free for the landlord, free for the banks to make a killing. And that is basically the class war back in business with a vengeance. That blocks and is preventing any kind infrastructure recovery. I don’t see how it can possibly take place.
Pepe: Well, based on what you just described, there is a process of turning the United States into a giant Brazil. In fact, this is what the Brazilian Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, a Pinochetista, as you know Michael, has been doing with the Brazilian economy for the past two years, privatizing everything and selling everything to big Brazilian interests and with lots of Wall Street interests involved as well. So, this is a recipe that goes all across the Global South as well. And it’s fully copied all across the Global South with no way out now.
Michael: Yes, and this is promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And when I was brought down to Brazil to meet with the council of economic advisers under Lula, [Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former president of Brazil], they said, well the whole problem is that Lula’s been obliged to let the banks do the planning.
So, basically free markets and libertarianism is adopting central planning, but with central planning by the banks. America is a much more centrally planned economy than China. China is letting a hundred flowers bloom; America has concentrated the planning and the resource allocation in Wall Street. And that’s the central planning that is much more corrosive than any government planning, could be. Now the irony is that China’s sending its students to America to study economics. And, most of the Chinese I had talked to say, well we went to America to take economics courses because that gives us a prestige here in China.
I’m working now, with Chinese groups trying to develop a “reality economics” to be taught in China as different from American economics.
Pepe: Exactly, because of what they study at Beijing University, Renmin or Tsinghua
is not exactly what they would study in big American universities. Probably what they study in the U.S. is what not to do in China. When they go back to China, what they won’t be doing. It’s an object lesson for what to avoid.
Michael, I’d like to go back to what the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] had been discussing in the 2000s when Lula was still president of Brazil and many of his ideas deeply impressed, especially Hu Jintao at the time, which is bypassing the U.S. dollar. Well, at the moment obviously we’re still at 87 percent of international transactions still in U.S. dollars. So, we are very far away from it, but if you have a truly sovereign economy, which is the case of China, which we can say is the case of Russia to a certain extent and obviously in a completely different framework, Iran. Iran is a completely sovereign, independent economy from the West. The only way to try to develop different mechanisms to not fall into the rentier mind space would be to bypass the U.S. dollar.
Michael: Yes, for many reasons. For one thing the United States can simply print the dollars and lend to other countries and then say, now you have to pay us interest.
Well, Russia doesn’t need American dollars. It can print its own rubles to provide labor. There’s no need for a foreign currency at all for domestic spending, the only reason you would have to borrow a foreign currency is to balance your exchange rate, or to finance a trade deficit.
But China doesn’t have a trade deficit. And in fact, if China were to work to accept more dollars, Americans would love to buy into the Chinese market and make a profit there, but that would push up China’s exchange rate and that would make it more difficult for her to make its exports because the exchange rate would come up not because it’s exporting more but because it’s letting American dollars come in and push it up.
Well, fortunately, President Trump as if he works for the Chinese National Committee, said, look, we don’t want to really hurt China by pushing up its currency and we want to keep it competitive. So, I’m going to prevent American companies from lending money to China, I’m going to isolate it and so he’s helping them protect their economy. And in Russia he said, look Russia really needs to feed itself. And, there’s a real danger that when the Democrats come in, there are a lot of anti-Russians in the Biden administration.
They may go to war.
They may do to Russia what they tried to do to China in the ‘50s. Stop exporting food and grain. And only Canada was able to break the embargo. So, we’re going to impose sanctions on Russia. So immediately, what happened is Russia very quickly became the largest grain exporter in the world.
And instead of importing cheese from the Baltics, it created its own cheese industry.
So, Trump said look, I know that Russians followed the American idea of not having protective tariffs, they need protective tariffs. They’re not doing it. We’re going to help them out by just not importing from them and really helping them.
Pepe: Yeah. Michael, what do you think Black Rock wants from the Chinese? You know that they are making a few inroads at the highest levels? Of course, I’m sure you’re aware of that. And also, JP Morgan, Citybank, etc. What do they really want?
Michael: They’d like to be able to create dollars to begin to buy and make loans to real estate; let companies grow, let the real estate market grow and make capital gains.
The way people get wealthy today isn’t by making an income, it’s been by making a capital gain. Total returns are current income plus the capital gains. As for capital gains each year; the land value gains alone are larger than the whole GDP growth from year to year. So that’s where the money is, that’s where the wealth is. So, they are after speculative capital gains, they would like to push money into the Chinese stock market and real estate market. See the prices go up and then inflate the prices by buying in and then sell out at the high price. Pull the money out, get a capital gain and let the economy crash, I mean that’s the business plan.
Pepe: Exactly. But Beijing will never allow that.
Michael: Well, here’s the problem right now, they know that Biden is pushing militarily aggressive people in his cabinet. There’s one kind of overhead that China is really trying to avoid and that’s the military overhead because if you spend money on the military, you can’t spend it on the real economy.
They’re very worried about the military and they say, how do we deter the Biden administration from actually trying a military adventure in the South China Sea or elsewhere? They said well, fortunately America is multi-layered. They don’t think of America as a group. They realize there’s a layer and they say, who’s going to represent our interests?
Well, Blackstone and Wall Street are going to represent their interests.
Then I think one of the, Chinese officials last week gave a big speech on this very thing, saying look, our best hope in stopping America’s military adventurism in China is to have Wall Street acting as our support because after all, Wall Street is the main campaign contributor and the president works for the campaign contributors.
The politician works for the campaign contributors. They’re in it for the money! So fortunately, we have Wall Street on our side, we’ve got control of the political system and they’re not there to go to war so that helps explain why a month ago they let wholly-owned U.S. banks and bankers in. On the one hand, they don’t like the idea of somebody outside the government creating credit for reasons that the economy doesn’t need. If they needed it, the Bank of China would do it. They have no need for foreign currency to come in to make loans in domestic currency, out of China.
The only reason that they could do it is No. 1, it helps meet the World Trade Organization’s principles and, No. 2, especially during this formative few months of the Biden administration, it helps to have Wall Street saying; we can make a fortune in China, go easy on them and that essentially counters the military hawks in Washington.
Pepe: So, do you foresee a scenario when Black Rock starts wreaking havoc in the Shanghai stock exchange for instance?
Michael: It would love to do that. It would love to move things up and down. The money’s made by companies with the stock market going up and down; the zigzag. So of course, it wants to do a predatory zigzag. The question is whether China will impose a tax to stop this, all sorts of financial transactions. That’s what’s under discussion now. They know exactly what Black Rock wants to do because they have some very savvy billionaire Chinese advisers that are quite good. I can tell you stories, but I better not.
Pepe: Okay. If it’s not okay to tell it all, tell us part of the story then.
Michael: The American banks have been cultivating leading Chinese people by providing them enough money to make money here, that they think that, okay they will now try to make money in the same way in China and we can join in. It’s a conflict of systems again, between the finance capital system and industrial socialism. You don’t get any of this discussion in the U.S. press, which is why I read what you write because in the U.S. press, the neocons talk about the fake idea of Greek history and fake idea of the Thucydides’ problem of a country jealous of another country’s development.
There’s no jealousy between America and China.
They’re different, they have their own way. We are going to destroy them. And if you look at the analogy that the Americans draw —and this is how the Pentagon thinks — with the war between Athens and Sparta.
It’s hard to tell, which is which. Here you have Athens, a democracy backing other democracies and having the military support of the democracies and the military in these democracies all had to pay Athens protection money for the military support and that’s the money that Athens got to ostensibly support its navy and protection that built up all of the Athenian public buildings and everything else.
So, that’s a democracy exploiting its allies, to enrich itself via the military.
Then you have Sparta, which was funding all of the oligarchies, and it was helping the oligarchies overthrow democracies. Well, that was America too. So, America is both sides of the Thucydides war if the democracy is exploiting the fellow democracies and is the supporter of oligarchies in Brazil, Latin America, Africa and everyone else.
So, you could say the Thucydides problem was between two sides, two aspects of America and has nothing to do with China at all except, for the fact that the whole war was a war between economic systems. They’re acting as if somehow if only China did not export to us, we could be re-industrialized and somehow export to Europe and the Third World.
And as you and I have described, it’s over.
We painted ourselves into such a debt corner that without writing down the debts, we’re in the same position that the Eurozone is in. There’s so much money that goes to the creditors to the top 1 percent or 5 percent that there is no money for capital investment, there is no money for growth. And, since 1980 as you know, real wages in America have been stable. All the growth has been in property owners and predators and the FIRE sector, the rest of the economy is in stagnation.
And now the coronavirus has simply acted as a catalyst to make it very clear that the game is over; it’s time to move away from the homeowner economy to rentier economy, time for Blackstone to be the landlord. America wants to recreate the British landlord class and essentially what we’re seeing now is like the Norman invasion of England taking over the land and the infrastructure.
That’s what Blackstone would love to do in China.
Pepe: Wow. I’m afraid that they may have a lot of leeway by some members of the Beijing leadership now, because as you know very well, it’s not a consensus in the political arena.
Michael: We’re talking about Volume II and III of Capital.
Pepe: Exactly. But you know, you were talking about debt. Coming back to that, in fact I just checked this morning, apparently global debt as it stands today is $277 trillion, which is something like 365 percent of global GDP. What does that mean in practice?
Michael: Yeah, well fortunately this is discussed in the 19th century and there was a word for that — fictitious capital — it’s a debt that can’t be paid, but you’ll keep it on the books anyway. And every country has this. You could say the question now, and The Financial Times just had an article a few days ago that China’s claims on Third World countries on the Belt and Road Initiative is fictitious capital, because how can it collect?
Well, China’s already thought of that. It doesn’t want money. It wants the raw materials. It wants to be paid in real things. But a debt that can’t be paid, can only be paid either by foreclosing on the debtors or by writing down the debts and obviously a debt that can’t be paid won’t be paid.
And so, you have not only Marx using the word fictitious capital. At the other end of the spectrum, you had Henry George talking about fictive capital. In other words, these are property claims that have no real capital behind them. There’s no capital that makes profit. That’s just a property claim for payment or a rentier claim for payment.
So, the question is, can you make money somehow without having any production at all, without having wages, without having profits, without any capital? Can you just have asset grabbing and buying-and-selling assets? And as long as you have the Federal Reserve in America, come in, Trump’s $10 trillion Covid program gave $2 trillion to the population at large with these $1,200 checks, that my wife and I got, and $8 trillion all just to buy stocks and bonds.
None of this was to build infrastructure. None of this $8 trillion was to build a single factory. None of this 8 trillion was to employee a single worker. It was all just to support the prices of stocks and bonds, and to keep the illusion that the economy had not stopped growing. Well, it’s growing for the 5 percent. So, it’s all become fictitious. And if you look at the GDP as I said, it’s fictitious.
Pepe: And the most extraordinary thing is none of that is discussed in American media. There’s not a single word about what you would have been describing.
Michael: It’s not even discussed in academia. Our graduates at the university of Missouri at Kansas City, we’re all trained in Modern Monetary Theory. And as hired professors they have to be able to publish in the refereed journals and the refereed journals are all essentially controlled by the Chicago School. So, you have a censorship of the kind of ideas that we’re talking about. You can’t get it into the economic journals, so you can’t get it into the economics curriculum. So, where on earth are you going to get it? If you didn’t have the internet you wouldn’t be discussing at all. Most of my books sell mainly in China, more than in all the other countries put together so I can discuss these things there. I stopped publishing in orthodox journals so many years ago because it’s talking to the deaf.
Pepe: Absolutely. Yeah. Can I ask you a question about Russia, Michael? There is a raging, debate in Russia for many years now between let’s say the Eurasianists and the Atlanticists. It involves of course, economic policy under Putin, industrial capitalism Russian style. The Eurasianists basically say that the central problem with Russia is how the Russian central bank is basically affiliated with all the mechanisms that you know so well, that it is an Atlanticist Trojan Horse inside the Russian economy. How do you see it?
Michael: Russia was brainwashed by the West when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. First of all, the IMF announced in advance that there was a big meeting in Houston with the IMF and the World Bank. And the IMF published all of its report saying, first you don’t want inflation in Russia so let’s wipe out all of the Russian savings with hyperinflation, which they did. They then said, well now to cure the hyperinflation the Russian central bank needs a stable currency and you need a backup for the currency. You will need to back it with U.S. dollars.
So, from the early 1990s, as you know, labor was going unpaid. The Russian central bank could have created the rubles to pay the domestic labor and to keep the factories in place. But, the IMF advisers from Harvard said, no you’ll have to borrow U.S. dollars. I met with people from the Hermitage Fund and the Renaissance Fund and others.
We had meetings and I met with the investors. Russia was paying 100 percent interest for years to leading American financial institutions for money that it didn’t need and could have created itself. Russia was so dispirited with Stalinism that, essentially, it thought the opposite of Stalinism must be what they have in America.
They thought that America was going to tell it how America got rich, but America didn’t want to tell Russia how it got rich, but instead wanted to make money off Russia. They didn’t get it. They trusted the Americans. They really didn’t understand that, industrial capitalism that Marx described had metamorphosized into finance capitalism and was completely different.
Finance capitalismFinance capitalism or financial capitalism is the subordination of processes of production to the accumulation of money profits in a financial system. Financial capitalism is thus a form of capitalism where the intermediation of saving to investment becomes a dominant function in the economy, with wider implications for the political process and social evolution. Since the late 20th century, in a process sometimes called financialization, it has become the predominant force in the global economy, whether in neoliberal or other form.Wikipedia
And that’s because Russia didn’t charge rent, it didn’t charge interest. I gave three speeches before the Duma, urging it to impose a land tax. Some of the people I noticed, Ed Dodson was there with us and we were all trying to convince Russia, don’t let this land be privatized. If you let it be privatized, then you’re going to have such high rents and housing costs in Russia that you’re not going to be able to essentially compete for an industrial growth. Well, the politician who brought us there, Viatcheslav Zolensky was sort of maneuvered out of the election by the American advisers.
The Americans put billions of dollars in to essentially finance American propagandists to destroy Russia, mainly from the Harvard Institute of International Development. And essentially, they were a bunch of gangsters and the prosecutors in Boston were about to prosecute them.
The attorney general of Boston was going to bring a big case for Harvard against the looting of Russia and the corruption of Russia. And I was asked to organize and to bring a number of Russian politicians and industrialists over to say how this destroyed everything. Well, Harvard settled out of court and essentially that made the perpetrators the leading university people up there. (I’m associated with Harvard Anthropology Department, not the Economics Department.)
So, we never had a chance to bring my witnesses, and have our report on what happened, but I published for the Russian Academy of Sciences a long study of how all of this destruction of Russia was laid out in advance at the Houston meetings by the IMF. America went to the leading bureaucrats and said; look, we can make you rich why don’t you register the factories in your own name, and if you’re registered in your own name, you know, then you’ll own it. And then you can cash out. You can essentially sell, but obviously you can’t sell to the Russians because the IMF has just wiped out all of their savings.
You can only cash out by selling to the West. And so, the Russian stock market became the leading stock market in the world from 1994 with the Norilsk Nickel and the seven bankers in the bank loans for shares deal through 1997. And, I had worked for a firm Scutter Stevens and, the head adviser, a former student of mine didn’t want to invest in Russia because she said, this is just a rip off, it’s going to crash. She was fired for not investing. They said look, we know that’s going to crash. That’s the whole idea it’s going to crash. We can make a mint off it before the crash. And then when it crashes, we can make another mint by selling short and then all over again. Well, the problem is that the system that was put in with the privatization that’s occurred, how do you have Russia’s wealth used to develop its own industry and its own economy like China was doing. Well, China has rules for all of this, but Russia doesn’t have rules, it’s really all centralized, it’s President Putin that keeps it this way.
Well, this was the great fear of the West. When you had Mikhail Gorbachev beginning to plan to do pretty much what is done today, to restrain private capital, the IMF said hold off. We’re not going to make any loans to stabilize the Russian currency until you remove Mr. Primakov.
The U.S. said we won’t deal with Russia until you remove him. So, he was pushed out and he was probably the smartest guy at the time there. So, they thought [President Vladimir] Putin was going to be sort of the patsy. And he almost single-handedly, holding the oligarchs in and saying, look, you can keep your money as long as you do exactly what the government would do. You can keep the gains as long as you’re serving the public interest.
But none of this resulted into a legal system, a tax system, and a system where the government actually does get most of the benefits. Russia could have emerged in 1990 as one the most competitive economies in Eurasia by giving all of the houses to its people instead of giving Norilsk Nickel and the oil companies to Yukos. It could have given everybody their own house and their own apartment, the same thing in the Baltics. And instead it didn’t give the land out to the people. And Russians were paying 3 percent of their income for housing in 1990. And rent is the largest element in every household’s budget.
So, Russia could have had low-price labor. It could have financed all of its capital investment for the government by taxing, collecting the rising rental value. Instead, Russian real estate was privatized on credit and it was even worse in the Baltics.
In Latvia, where I was research director for the Riga Graduate School of Law, Latvia borrowed primarily from Swedish banks. And so, in order to buy a house, you had to borrow from Swedish banks. And they said, well, we’re not going to lend in the Latvian currency because it can go down. So, you have a choice; Swiss Francs or German Marks or U.S. Dollars. And so, all of this rent was paid in foreign currency. There came an outflow that essentially drained all the Baltic economies. Latvia lost 20 percent of its population. Estonia and Lithuania followed suit.
And of course, the worst hit by neo-liberalism was Russia. As you know, President Putin said that neo-liberalism cost Russia more of its population than World War II.
And you know that to destroy a country, you don’t need an army anymore. All you have to do is teach it American economics.
Pepe: Yes, I remember well, I arrived in Russia in the winter of 91 coming from China. So, I transited from the Chinese miracle. In fact, a few days after Deng Xiaoping’s famous Southern tour when he went to Guangzhou and Shenzhen. And that was the kick for the 1990s boom, in fact a few years before the handover, and then I took the Trans-Siberian and I arrived in Moscow a few days after the end, in fact, a few weeks after the end of the Soviet Union.
But yeah, I remember the Americans arrived almost at the exact minute, wasn’t it, Michael? I think they already were there in the spring of 1992. If I’m not mistaken.
Michael: The Houston meeting was in 1990. But all before that already in, 1988 and 1989, there was a huge outflow of embezzlement money via Latvia. The assistant dean of the university who ended up creating Nordex, essentially the money was all flying out because Ventspils in Latvia, was where Russian oil was exported and it was all fake invoicing. So, the Russian kleptocrats basically made their money off false export invoicing, ostensibly selling it for one price and having the rest paid abroad and, this was all organized through Latvia and the man who did it later moved to Israel and finally gave a billion dollars back to Russia so that he went on to live safely for the rest of his life in Israel.
Pepe: Well, the crash of the ruble in 1998 was what, roughly one year after the crash of the baht and the whole Asian financial crisis, no? It was interlinked of course, but let me see if I have a question for you, in fact, I’m just thinking out loud now. If the economies of Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia, the case of South Korea and Russia, were more integrated at the time as they are trying to integrate now, do you think that the Asian financial crisis would have been preventable in 1997?
Michael: Well, look at what happened in Malaysia with Mohammad Mahathir. Malaysia avoided it. So of course, it was preventable, and they had the capital controls. All you would have needed was to do what Malaysia did. But you needed an economic theory for that.
And essentially the current mode of warfare is to conquer the brains of a country to shape how people think and how they perceive the economy.
And if you can twist their view into an unreality economics, where they think that you’re there to help them not to take money out of them, then you’ve got them hooked. That was what happened in Asia. Asia thought it was getting rich off the dollars inflows and then the IMF and all the creditors pulled the plug, crash the industry. And now that all of a sudden you had a crash, they bought up Korean industry and other South Asian industries at giveaway prices.
That’s what you do. You lend the money; you pull the plug. You then let them go under and you pick up the pieces. That’s what Blackstone did after the Obama depression began, when Obama saved the banks, not the constituency, the mortgage borrowers. Essentially that’s Blackstone’s modus operandi to pick up distressed prices at a bankruptcy sale, but you need to lend money and then crash it in order to make that work.
Pepe: Michael, I think we have only five minutes left. So, I would expect you to go on a relatively long answer and I’m really dying for it. It’s about debt, it about the debt trap. And it’s about the New Silk Roads, the Belt and Road Initiative, because I think rounding up our discussion and coming back to the theme of debt and global debt.
The No. 1 criticism apart from the demonization of China that you hear from American media and a few American academics as well against the Belt and Road is that it’s creating a debt trap for Southeast Asian nations, Central Asian nations and nations in Africa, etc…. Obviously, I expect you to debunk that, but the framework is there is no other global development project as extensive and as complex as Belt and Road, which as you know very well was initially dreamed up by the Ministry of Commerce. Then they sold it more or less to Xi Jinping who got the geopolitical stamp on it, announcing it, simultaneously, (which was a stroke of genius) in Central Asia in Astana and then in Southeast Asia in Jakarta. So, he was announcing the overland corridors through the heartland and the Maritime Silk Road at the same time.
At the time people didn’t see the reach and depth of all that. And now of course, finally the Trump administration woke up and saw what was in play, not only across Eurasia but reaching Africa and even selected parts of Latin America as well. And obviously the only sort of criticism, and it’s not even a fact-based criticism, that I’ve seen about the Belt and Road is it’s creating a debt trap because as you know Laos is indebted, Sri Lanka is indebted, Kyrgyzstan is indebted etc. So, how do you view Belt and Road within the large framework of the West and China, East Asia and Eurasia relations? And how would you debunk misconceptions created, especially in the U S that this is a debt trap.
Michael: There are two points to answer there. The first is how the Belt and Road began. And as you pointed out, the Belt and Road began, when China said, what is it we need to grow and how do we grow within our neighboring countries so we don’t have to depend upon the West, and we don’t have to depend on sea trade that can be shut down? How do we get to roads instead of seas in a way that we can integrate our economy with the neighboring economies so that there can be mutual growth?
So, this was done pretty much on industrial engineering grounds. Here’s where you need the roads and the railroads. And then how do we finance it? Well, The Financial Times article, last week, said didn’t the Chinese know that [with past] railroad development, they’ve all gone broke? The Panama Canal went broke, you know, the first few times there were European railway investment in Latin America in the 19th century, that all went broke.
Well, what they don’t get is China’s aim was not to make a profit off the railroads. The railroads were built to be part of the economy. They don’t want to make profit. It was to make the real economy grow, not to make profits for the owners of the railroad stocks. The Western press can’t imagine that you’re building a railroad without trying to make money out of it.
Then you get to the debt issue. Countries only have a debt crisis if their debt is in a foreign currency. The first way that the United States gained power was to fight against its allies. The great enemy of America was England and it made the British block their currency in the 1940s. And so, India and other countries, that had all these currencies holdings in sterling, were able to convert it all into dollars.
The whole move of the U.S. was to denominate world debt in dollars. So that No. 1, U.S. banks would end up with the interest in financing the debt. And No. 2, the United States could, by using the debt leverage, control domestic politics.
National debt as a function of GDP.
Well, as you’re seeing right now in Argentina, for instance, Argentina is broke because it owes foreign-dollar debt. When I started the first Third World bond fund in 1990 at Scutter Stevens, Brazil and China and Argentina were paying 45 percent interest per year, 45 percent per year in dollars debt.
Yet we tried to sell them in America. No American would buy. We went to Europe, no European buy this debt. And so, we worked with Merrill Lynch and Merrill Lynch was able to make an offshore fund in the Dutch West Indies and all of the debt was sold to the Brazilian ruling class in the central bank and the Argentinian bankers in the ruling class, we thought oh, that’s wonderful.
We know that they’re going to pay the foreign Yankee Dollars debt because the Yankee Dollars debt is owed to themselves. They’re the Yankees! They’re the client oligarchy. And you know, from Brazil client oligarchy is, you know, they’re cosmopolitan, that’s the word. So, the problem is that on the Belt and Road, how did these other countries pay the debt to China?
Well, the key there again is the de-dollarization, and one way to solve it is since we’re trying to get finance out of the picture, we’re doing something very much like, Japan did with Canada in the 1960s. It made loans to develop Canadian copper mines taking its payment, not in Canadian dollars, that would have pushed up the yen’s exchange rate, but in copper.
So, China says, you know you don’t have to pay currency for this debt. We didn’t build a railroad to make a profit and you want, we can print all the currency we want. We don’t need to make a profit.
We made the Belt and Road because it’s part of our geopolitical attempt to create what we need to be prosperous and have a prosperous region. So, these are self-reinforcing mutual gain. Well, so that’s what the West doesn’t get — mutual gain? Are we talking anthropology? What do you mean mutual? This is capitalism!
So, the West doesn’t understand what the original aim of the Belt and Road was, and it wasn’t to make a profitable railroad to enable people to buy and sell railway stocks. And it wasn’t to make toll roads to sell off to Goldman Sachs, you know.
We’re dealing with two different economic systems, and it’s very hard for one system to understand the other system because of the tunnel vision that you get when you get a degree in economics.
Pepe: Belt and Road loans are long-term and at very low interest and they are renegotiable. They are renegotiating with the Pakistanis all the time for instance.
Michael: China’s intention is not to repeat an Asia crisis of 1997. It doesn’t gain anything by forcing a crisis because it’s not trying to come in and buying property at a discount at a distressed sale. It has no desire to create a distressed sale. So obviously, the idea is the capacity to pay. Now, this whole argument occurred in the 1920s, between [John Maynard] Keynes and his opponents that wanted to collect German reparations and, Keynes made it very clear. What is the capacity to pay? It’s the ability to export and the ability to obtain foreign currency. Well, China’s not looking for foreign currency. It is looking for economic returns but the return is to the whole society, the return isn’t from a railroad. The return is for the entire economy because it’s looking at the economy as a system.
The way that neoliberalism works, it divides the economy in parts, and it makes every part trying to make a gain, and if you do that, then you don’t have any infrastructure that’s lowering the cost for the other parts. You have every part fighting for itself. You don’t look at in terms of a system the way China’s looking at it. That’s the great advantage of Marxism, you’ll look at the system, not just the parts.
Pepe: Exactly and this is at the heart of the Chinese concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, which is the approximate translation from Mandarin. So, we compare community with a shared future for mankind, which is, let’s say the driving force between the idea of Belt and Road, expanded across Eurasia, Africa and Latin America as well with our good old friends’, “greed is good” concept from the eighties, which is still ruling America apparently.
Michael: And the corollary is that non-greed is bad.
Pepe: Exactly and non-greed is evil.
Michael: I see. I think we ran out of time. I do. I don’t know if Alanna wants to step in to wrap it up.
Michael: There may be somebody who has a question.
Pepe: Somebody has a question? That’ll be fantastic.
Alanna: There is a question from Ed Dodson. He wanted to know why there are these ghost cities in China? And who’s financing all this real estate that’s developed, but nobody’s living there? We’ve all been hearing about that. So, what is happening with that?
Michael: Okay. China had most of its population living in the countryside and it made many deals with Chinese landholders who have land rights, and they said, if you will give up your land right to the community, we will give you free apartment in the city that you could rent out.
So, China has been building apartments in cities and trading these basically in exchange to support what used to be called a rural exodus. China doesn’t need as many farmers on the land as it now has, and the question is how are you going to get them into cities? So, China began building these cities and many of these apartments are owned by people who’ve got them in exchange for trading their land rights. The deals are part of the rural reconstruction program.
Alanna: Do you think it was a good deal? Vacant apartments everywhere.
Pepe: You don’t have ghost cities in Xinjiang for instance, Xinjiang is under-populated, it’s mostly desert. And it’s extremely sensitive to relocate people to Xinjiang. So basically, they concentrated on expanding Urumqi. When you arrive in Urumqi it is like almost like arriving in, Guangzhou. It’s enormous. It’s a huge generic city in the middle of the desert. And it’s also a high-tech Mecca, which is something that very few people in the West know. And is the direct link between the eastern seaboard via Belt and Road to Central Asia.
Urumqi, China.
Last year I was on an amazing trip. I went to the three borders, the Tajik-Xinjiang border, Kyrgiz-Xinjiang border and the Kazakh-Xinjiang border, which is three borders in one. It’s a fascinating area to explore and specially to talk to the local populations, the Kyrgiz, the Kazakhs and the Tajiks.
How do they see the Belt and Road directly affecting their lives from now on? So, you don’t see something spectacular for instance, in the Xinjiang – Kazakh boarder, there is one border for the trucks, lots of them like in Europe, crossing from all points, from Central Asia to China and bringing Chinese merchandise to Central Asia.
There’s the train border, which is a very simple two tracks and the pedestrian border, which is very funny because you have people arriving in buses from all parts of Central Asia. They stop on the Kazakh border. They take a shuttle, they clear customs for one day, they go to a series of shopping malls on the Chinese side of the border. They buy like crazy, shop till it drops, I don’t know for 12 hours? And then they cross back the same day because the visa is for one day. They step on their buses and they go back.
So, for the moment it’s sort of a pedestrian form of Belt and Road, but in the future, we’re going to have high-speed rail. We’re going to have, well the pipelines are already there as Michael knows, but it’s fascinating to see on the spot. You see the closer integration; you see for instance Uyghurs traveling back and forth.
You know, Uyghurs that have families in Kyrgizstan for instance, I met some Uyghurs in Kyrgyzstan who do the back-and-forth all the time. And they said, there’s no problem. They are seen as businessmen so there’s no interference. There are no concentration camps involved, you know, but you have to go to these places to see how it works on the ground and with Covid, that’s the problem for us journalists who travel, because for one year we cannot go anywhere and Xinjiang was on my travel list this year, Afghanistan as well, Mongolia.
Urumqi, China.
These are all parts of Belt and Road or future parts of Belt and Road, like Afghanistan. The Chinese and the Russians as well; they want to bring Afghanistan in a peace process organized by Asians themselves without the United States, within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, because they want Afghanistan to be part of the intersection of Belt and Road and Eurasian Economic Union. This is something Michael knows very well. You don’t see this kind of discussions in the American media for instance, integration of Eurasia on the ground, how it’s actually happening.
Michael: That’s called cognitive dissonance.
Alanna: To try to understand it gets you cognitive dissonance.
Pepe: Oh yeah, of course. And obviously you are a Chinese agent, a Russian agent. And so, I hear that all the time. Well, in our jobs we hear that all the time. Especially, unfortunately from our American friends.
Alanna: Okay. I know you have other things to do. This has been fabulous. I want to thank you so much, both of you, uh, with so easy to get attendance for this webinar. There were 20 people in five minutes enrolled and in two days we were at capacity. So, I know there are many more people who would love to hear you talk another time, whenever you two are so willing. And I think you both got much out of your first conversation in person. Everybody listening knows these two wonderful gentlemen, they have written more than 10 books, and they have traveled all over the world. They are on the top of geopolitical and geoeconomic analysis, and they are caring, loving people. So, you can see that these are the people we need to be listening to and understanding all around the world.
So, thank you so much. Ibrahima Drame from the Henry George School is now going to say goodbye to you and will wrap this up. Thank you again.
Pepe: Michael it was a huge pleasure. Really, it was fantastic. Really nice, we’re on the same website. So, let’s have a second version of this.
Ibrahima: So, let’s have a second version of this two months from now. Thank you very much for participating and I really hope you liked this event. And, we also want to ask for your support by making a tax-deductible donation to the Henry George School. I believe I shared the link on the chat. Thank you. And see you soon.
Pepe: Thank you very much. Thanks Michael. Bye!
Attributions
Michael Hudson is an American economist professor of economics at the university of Missouri Kansas City and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College. He’s a former Wall Street analyst political consultant commentator and journalist. He identifies himself as a classical economist. Michael is the author of J is for Junk Economics,Killing the Host, The Bubble and Beyond, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, Trade Development and Foreign Debtand The Myth of Aid, among others. His books have been published translated into Japanese, Chinese, German, Spanish and Russian.
Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War;Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor toThe Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.
Just a couple of guys chatting away about America and China and the theories behind capitalism; meaning …
CapitalismCapitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, a price system, private property and the recognition of property rights, voluntary exchange and wage labor. In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by every owner of wealth, property or production ability in capital and financial markets whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.Wikipedia
Ugh.
No. No. No.
Meaning;
Using money as a medium of exchange for products or services. And the idea of private ownership of the things that you can exchange it for.
I found the discussion interesting in that it validated my belief. Which is a belief that China is growing and is successful today, while the USA is apparently collapsing upon itself.
They came at it from a very interesting angle.
In their mind, the state of America today (and other leading Western nations) is because the medium of exchange differs.
China – exchanges – products & services for money.
USA – exchanges – interest on debt to generate money.
Looking at the world from this lens, or with this set of crystal-clear glasses you can see that no matter what the USA does, China will overtake it.
Not by it’s enormous size, or the great number of STEM graduates, or it’s philosophical drivers or social engineering advances…
…but rather through the nature of the capitalism that it employs.
The United States debt is over 20 trillion dollars and climbing. Those that enjoy this debt, those that make money off of it are bankers, and speculators such as the Stock Market. They are a small minority of people. A very, very, very tiny group of people.
According to this article, half the world's wealth (!) was controlled by 62 individuals in 2016. In 2017 (see here) this number drops substantially. From only these two articles, these are the numbers.
2011 - 388 people
2012/13 - 177 people
2014 - 80 people
2015/16 - 62 people
2017 - 8 people!
Meanwhile, China not only makes products and provides services, but also has a philosophy where the community REQUIRES everyone to participate making products, and providing services.
The United States has a different philosophy. Be the best, capture all the money, sit at the top. Let the rest of the world flounder.
…
Where I am getting to on all this is simple…
Imagine three hundred years in the future.
China
Everyone is either making things or providing services for others. Milk is being delivered; new gizmos and gadgets are being designed and sold. People are learning and striving. Extreme poverty is gone. But so is extreme wealth. All people have a comfortable life. But extremes in poverty and wealth do not exist.
And the United States…
United States
There is only one oligarchy running things. It is a family where the oldest member is tremendously old and is on advanced life support. He is fawned over by his family.
The rest of the world lives in extreme poverty with electronic tracking of actions and behaviors. Few own anything. They rent it all to others who funnel the money to this lone individual. These poorer people, the vast majority of them provide maintenance and protection services. No one is skilled at reason or fabrication. The most skilled are those that count the money that the wealthy own.
Oh for certain, the “citizens” of the United States will loudly and most vociferously proclaim their “freedom”! And you know what, they will probably still be able to own guns too. They will proudly take the bullets out of the display case and shine then up every Fourth of July as a symbol of how exceptional they are.
…
As I see it, the American system is not sustainable. It is not healthy and it is a waste of time. It is one that converts the citizens of the United States into a caste system of two types of people; the Rulers and the Servants.
This is a battle for the potential future of the sentience of the human species;
Service to Self society with a two-tiered caste system This is the American / Western model.
While the Chinese model, is sustainable. It is doable, and it is workable, and it will provide advantage to the vast bulk of society, not just one singular family and their psychopathic leeches.
Service to Others society, with no class distinction, only individual merit.
I strongly believe that anyone in support of the current way that the United States is and how it operates and who is desirous of continuing this path is either evil, not thinking properly, or has some kind of selfish agenda.
And this, boys and girls, is what the big “sentience selection” event(s) are all about. Our benefactors want us humans to select the pathways for our species. And you can rest assured that there are individuals on both sides of this issue that are willing to fight to the death for their vision of utopia.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
This post talks about the world going to shit fast, and our frustrations and fears that it is beyond our control. That is not true at all. In fact, we are in control of it, it just looks like we are powerless.
Back in 2016, grassroots white Americans voted anti-establishment Trump into the Oval Office. For the first time, long-held ideals of American democracy have been challenged. Pledging to “Make America Great Again”, Trump's solution was straightforward – waging trade wars on friends and foes alike; withdrawing the country from global pacts, and avoiding responsibilities for international affairs.
The consequences have been catastrophic. Populist policies originally introduced to woo American voters were ironically implemented at the sacrifice of blue-collar workers – the same group of people who supported Trump in 2016. Establishment forces are also fed up with Trump's "madness."
The 2020 election was more a fight between Biden-represented American institutions and anti-establishment forces with Trump being the spokesperson than a partisan battle. Biden, although a Democrat, has high hopes pinned on him by establishment politicians of both parties to bring the United States back to the right track. This requires the new president to restore multilateralism, intensify cooperation with allies, and mend ties with China.
-When will U.S. anti-China hysteria come to an end?
It all began with a comment;
“…our consciousness.”
It appears that my consciousness is being overwhelmed (or over-ruled) by the 99.99% who believe that shit on “TV” or “News”.
Again:
Other than your prayers to nowhere, is there simply a method to say “I’ve had enough of this charade”? Like “Help Mr. Wizard… I don’t wanna be a peon human anymore.” Suicide, is that it? Seriously, what the fuck am I learning these days (in the “sentience nursery”) that I had not known years and years ago?
And I responded with…
In reply to DSKlausler.
I want to take more time to answering your question. Unfortunately I was busy with personal things and all I could do was throw off a quick response. But I have been thinking about you and your last few emails. I can sense a great deal of frustration and angst. And I do understand it.
Do not be under the impression that the reality that you see is ruled and controlled by the masses…the manipulated masses. That point was made very clearly by the base commander when I joined MAJestic. Most of the world is populated by sheeple. Or just folk that haven’t a clue, and who graze upon the lands in a reactive way. Only a handful of people are actually really in control. these are the cowboys, the unappreciated and the under-deserved. You never hear about them, because they are not attracted to fame and fortune.
Look at 2020. Was a fucking year, right?
During the entire year, just about every other article in the United States, mainstream Alt-Right and Alt-left was all HATE CHINA! and it was non-stop. By the end of the year, the 330 million American either totally despised China, (and wanted to go to war) or were guardedly neutral. No one put up any kind of a fight when Trump started kicking the Chinese out of America, banning things, and launched a huge flotilla to attack China.
330 million people HATING China. COVID-19B launched as part of a 8-strain biological attack, a military flotilla…
…but no war happened. Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo were kicked out of office.
The American economy is in shambles. And China is bigger and stronger than ever. Not only that, but it has grown and the world is now turning it’s back on the broken promises of Trump and look at the ruins of the United States… with incredulity and disgust.
Do you actually believe that this is the result of the combined HATRED of 330 million people? Or, maybe that a MAJestic operator that happened to live inside China had a Prayer Affirmation Campaign that said…
[1] Donald Trump will not be able to harm China.
[2] All American military ventures to China will fail.
[3] The harder that Donald Trump tries to break or destroy China, the same and equal effect will hit him and his family personally.
[4] Any WMD’s implemented by America to hurt China will boomerang to the USA a hundred-fold and more.
And yeah. It doesn’t make sense. Except it does if you read everything that I am saying.
COVID-19B deaths China = 4634
COVID-19A deaths USA = 397,600
As far as you and other MM readers. I will not allow any harm to come to you all. Not if I can help it. You all are true believers. So relish in that.
[5] Followers of MM are protected with the same kind of protections that I utilize for my family provided that it is their desire.
If the shadow people thoughts have an equal power as a single person, and there at 330,000,000 of them then it is logical to say (just what you stated) that the tyranny of the majority will define the reality that we all inhabit. After all, that is the primary theory behind propaganda. But I argue quite differently. It is the strength of the thoughts of an individual consciousness that controls the reality that maintains the power to shape and shift the reality that surrounds us.
If you do not understand, I will provide more information.
After the response above, I have received some positive responses.
First from ULTan
I get it, Mr Man. Couldnt be clearer. If folks read your Maj and MWI sections thoroughly, all these concerns are addressed.
I should add again, though, if I may and IMHO: Stop watching MMMedia whatever ya’ll do. And don’t fight the masses head on. Lie low and observe their madness. Learn from it. Is it something that’s happened to them? Or does it just reveal what they really were all along. (Quantum shadows? Existing only to teach u personally? Or is that too far out for ya?) Do not get dragged into arguments with zombified and terrified normies over masks, rules, etc. Work out a method of avoidance. They’ve been driven crazy by Wizards at the top of the pile. Their pile, that is. Avoid this at all costs. Surf that wave, look after your loved ones and especially pets, other critters nearby, too. They need you at this time of year.
Trust in the Plan. And I don’t mean the Qtard one.
How is that working out for ya’ll by the way? Sealed indictments opened yet? Mass paedophilia arrests? America great again, yet?
Trump the saviour avatar?
Ehhh, not really.
Be more careful what you read and follow next time.
And if you were a Qfan and are still sane: please read about how cults work. Start with Jim Jones or the Moonies. Pentacostals, too.
Scary stuff. I assure you.
And thanks again, Mr Man. My cats– each and every one of ’em– say a bigggg hi!
Stay safe,
U.
And again from the original poster, Mr. DSKlausler…
In reply to congjing yu.Thanks for that… and I DO read everything you publish.
It just doesn’t seem right… can’t the simple folks just be left alone to live and grow at their own pace without a bunch of twits ruining the world?
I will give the affirmation deal another go.
Just switch me to the world line where people aren’t so stupid.
Let’s look at the situation
The world seems to be going to Hell. The “news”, the media, the people in Charge and everyone around you are seemingly idiots. “What is their malfunction”, you ask. And you are in fear for your life, your livelihood, and your family. Not to mention your community and your nation.
It doesn’t matter what side of the American Political Spectrum you reside on, everything is seemingly going to Hell straight away. You yearn for stability, a return to quieter and more peaceful times, and management by reason and reasonable people. And when you read the “news” it only amplifies your concerns…
That last link reflects the concerns of many, many Americans (and perhaps many people around the world). “Give me something. Give me hope. Give me Xanax.” Seemingly the population is ready for change…
…and this is a dangerous time. Eh?
Because Change is always uncomfortable, and can usher is a wonderful life, or an indescribably worse on. As we used to say in the United States “jump from the frying pan into the fire”.
Can’t quite put my finger on why. Oh yes, I just flipped on ‘MSDNC’ and opened my Failing New York Times, and now I remember: because I’ve been watching my country set ablaze, and Donald Trump and his faithful Trumpsters are holding the flamethrower.
By now, we’ve all sat rapt and horrified, watching the highlights: the MAGA-bots following the Dear Leader’s call to riot, invading the Capitol building, smashing windows, battering down doors, stealing the Speaker’s lectern and literally covering the floors in shit, for fans of too-on-the-nose metaphors. They accosted police, threatened to hang the traitor Mike Pence and trotted through the legislative chamber in full tactical gear holding flex cuffs in the hope of taking hostages. (Possibly before executing them: someone did erect a gallows on the grounds.) Five people died. Four of them Trump supporters, one of them a Capitol Police officer, hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.
I doubt Mr Trump wanted anybody to die. He just wanted to put a good scare into Congress, while trying to overturn a free and fair election, the very bedrock without which the whole system collapses. So nothing to see here, folks. Let’s talk about what really matters, Trump getting banned from Twitter!
If you haven’t gathered by now, I’ve had it. Plenty of us have always been Trump skeptical; my skepticism dates all the way back to 1999. But it’s time for his acolytes to reckon with the cancer that they’ve let metastasize. I haven’t been terribly subtle, so let’s just go ahead and lay it out: Donald Trump is a sociopathic cult leader, a moral black hole with a weird tan and a combover. Yes, I know it’s old hat to make fun of his hair, but his confidantes have told me it wounds him. And I just want him to hurt like he’s hurt America.
So now that we’re coming to the conclusion of DJT’s first and only term — which has ended in impeachment and could include imprisonment — it’s time to legacy-assess the effects of Trumpism. As several have already noted, after everything from Trump’s social-media meltdowns to him falling asleep at the wheel during the deadliest pandemic in a century, Americans are now poorer, angrier, dumber, meaner, more divided, sicker (both physically and mentally) and deader than they were four years ago. But how ’bout that wall?! (The one that’s one-fourth of the way built, that Mexico didn’t pay for.)
I wasn’t a big fan of The Establishment, either. But we threw them over for this?
I don’t detest Trumpsters: that would leave me hating roughly 60 percent of my friends and 80 percent of my family. But I would like to know how so many good people of my acquaintance could be so blind to the glaringly obvious. You edit American Greatness, one of the house organs of the movement. But by my lights, America isn’t looking so great right now. Feels more like American Mediocrity. Or America Needs Improvement. Lots of it. Give me something. Give me hope. Give me Xanax. Give me shelter from the storm. Or I might do something truly unthinkable, like quote Dylan lyrics in print. Nobody wants to see that.
Ah…
Pointing a nice big finger on a figurehead. Ah. It’s all Trump’s fault, and it’s his followers fault…
No it’s not.
It’s the way that governments crumble. They start young and youthful, they go through a “middle age”, they get old, and senile, and then they die. We are watching America die, and no singular person is at fault. So stop blaming the person at the helm. A doomed ship is going to hit that iceberg, and while the captain might be able to steer the ship somewhat, if he doesn’t hit THAT particular iceberg, he will hit the next one instead, or the one after that. A doomed ship is a doomed ship.
The one thing I’ve noticed over the past five years is that the only people more consumed by the person of Donald Trump — from his psychology to his physiognomy — than the most diehard, plan-trusting, steal-stopping, Trump super-fans are his obsessive detractors. However large the number of actual Trump cultists is, the anti-Trump cult is orders of magnitude larger, more intense and more powerful. That’s not surprising, because Trump’s rise to power is less a direct threat to the established order and the ruling class it serves than it is an indictment of their failure. Of course they react with visceral hatred. Perhaps we can stipulate that a country with a healthy culture and competent, trusted (and trustworthy) institutions would not have elected Donald Trump as president. Yet, Donald Trump has received more votes than any other Republican ever. Twice.
That suggests two possibilities. Either half the country is comprised of Deplorables, reprobates, morons or sociopaths (I’d love to see the Venn Diagram). Or something has gone quite wrong and America isn’t working very well for a lot of Americans.
Option one is the default answer of the ruling class and its aspirants and retainers. But in fact something has gone wrong. Late-stage liberalism isn’t able to keep its promises. That’s why both Trump and Bernie Sanders were so popular. That’s why there is so much social and political conflict. And Trump-obsession of any kind is a distraction and a coping mechanism.
Over the past 50 years median real wages have barely budged. Worse, the growth that has occurred has all happened at the top. The top 10 percent did OK, the top 1 percent did very well and the top 0.1 percent blasted way ahead of everyone else. Everyone except the very top fell a little behind the group ahead of them, but the group below the top 10 percent fell further and faster. This made it harder to get married, buy a house and raise a family. The cost of being middle class kept rising faster than middle class wages. That created — and continues to create — a lot of people who are socially and economically precarious.
You say ‘I wasn’t a big fan of The Establishment, either. But we threw them over for this?’ Yes. Why? Because there wasn’t a better option. Look at the group of Republicans running in 2016 and Democrats in 2020. All of them are standard-bearers for a shattered consensus. And there are a lot of mediocrities and has-beens. Biden himself is a retread of a retread. The ‘uniparty’ that runs the country either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that for a lot of people the American Dream is dead. In the cohort of people born in 1940, about 95 percent did better economically than their parents. For the cohort born in 1980 (border line millennials), only about 40 percent of those raised in middle-class families are better off than their parents at the same stage of life. These are people who were raised mostly by boomer parents to follow the program that worked so well for them: go to college, maybe grad school, trust the plan and you’ll have a life filled with grilling and long weekends. But it hasn’t worked out that way. It’s been tough. And for those that didn’t go to college, it’s even worse.
What do we do about it? That’s a big subject. But Trump offered answers in 2016 that made some intuitive sense and resonated with a lot of people. We sent our factories and their high-paying jobs to China? Let’s bring them back. Mass immigration undercuts wages? Let’s slow it down. The ruling class is corrupt, self-serving and doesn’t give a damn about anyone else? Let’s take the country back from them.
Trump accomplished some of the good things he was talking about back then, though not as many as I would have liked. But he was often stymied by a combination of internal incoherence and external opposition. In 2017, Trump had both unified government and the most political capital to spend. The fact that the Republican party’s primary goal and signature achievement was a reduction in corporate tax rates says something about the depth of institutional decay that Trump had taken advantage of when he sought the nomination.
Yes. There’s all sorts of things wrong with America right now. It’s a fucking mess. It really is. And the people want out of this mess. And the people in control aren’t really up to taking on that job. They really aren’t.
The uniparty is in control and they are not what the nation needs. It needs leadership, understanding, and merit-based managers who know how systems work and how to clean out the entire clogged up and gutted system.
I'm going to use a Chinese reference, that most Americans are unaware of...
America needs a Mr. Deng-style revolution.
In the 1980's Mr. Deng single-handedly implemented American-style Reaganomics to China. He got rid of hard-core Marxism. He tossed much of the state-mandated industries and implemented private controls. He built cities, disposed political corruptions and changed China from a hard-core Marxist Communist nation to something else.
He changed it to a single-party, traditional values, merit-based system that serves the people, and that is policed by harsh systems to makes sure that the ruling class does not move away from these values.
Ok. Let’s not get too bogged down here.
China changed, and it was hard-core Marxist. America too can change. In fact, if America is what everyone says it is, whether a “democracy” or a “republic”, it should be rather easy to change. But it’s not. You know it. I know it. And it has corrupted well past the point of band-aides and minor surgery. One half of the nation wants to burn it down, and the other half wants to restructure it into something really different.
And thus the fear.
Elements on both the LEFT and the RIGHT are scaring the living daylights out of everyone. And those in charge of the United States government today are not reassuring anyone.
Thus the feeling of helplessness.
Proactive actions
But, if you read the MM writings you realize that your reality is not what it appears to be.
We “share” an apparent reality, but we are not part of what we observe.
We are consciousness. And we are moving world-line to world-line based on our thoughts. And it is important that we NOT get too hung up on what we observe around us. For that too will alter our thoughts. What we are observing is the world-line template. Not our individual world-line.
Do not get too caught up about that looming iceberg ahead of you. Navigate round it. And then when you see another iceberg behind it, navigate around it as well. In fact, maybe you all need to start sailing South as fast as you can to get out of the looming ice pack that is up ahead. You see the warning signs, start the navigation.
Make sure that you have lookouts posted everywhere and that they are rested and alert. Make sure that the engineers and the folk loading coal into the furnaces are up to the job and in control. Make sure that you go to the map room and navigate a path out of the ice floes. Make sure that you radio your concerns and telegraph your direction changes.
Take proactive steps.
You have control
In my real world example that I gave at the top of the post, I referenced my personal affirmation campaign that I implemented back at the start of the year when the COVID-19 outbreak hit.
Up until that time, I kept on believing that Trump wanted to work with China on trade for the mutual benefit of all. I intentionally ignored the hard facts, the neocons in his administrations and his other actions. I wanted to believe. I really wanted to believe. I wanted what I hoped to happen to actually happen and I ignored the facts.
But when people all around me started having seizures, my family became locked inside the house, and the Chinese military went DEFCON ONE, I no longer could live the lie. Donald Trump declared full-spectrum war against China and I was sitting smack dab on the bullseye at ground zero.
Ground zero.
And all the neocon publications were talking about how the USA was going to win a “hot war” against China and invade the South China Sea…
…my home.
I had to do something.
Affirmation Prayer Campaigns
Normally my prayer affirmations are associated with myself. I rarely refer to others and certainly not to Geo-political, or national politics. Those things are like oil and water in regards to my affirmations. I just don’t put affirmations where a preferential presidential candidate wins over another. Instead, my affirmations are about me.
But this WAS about me.
It Was about my FAMILY, and my FRIENDS.
And unlike most Americans, this was not some faraway place that lies at the other end of the world. It is up front and close sitting smack dab in my front yard. i had to so something.
And it seemed like an up-hill battle.
The Fire Hose of Disinformation
Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo turned on the “fire hose of disinformation” against China and it was ridiculous. China could have saved a baby from a burning building and the “news” would report that the Chinese were burning babies.
Anyways, after a full year of this, most Americans consider China evil and are willing and ready to go to war for all the same old reasons and excuses.
330 million people.
And I am but one lone singular person.
What can I do?
You run a Affirmation / Prayer Campaign and you address your fears. You do it to the exclusion of everything else. That’s what you do.
And that is what I did.
My Prayer Affirmation Campaign
Well, I did indeed include personal things, and it was a long slug-fest, I’ll tell you what. But it did work. When I started the campaign, Trump was at the top of his game. He successfully launched numerous events, wars and attacks upon China. six biological weapons designed to destroy crops and livestock. Some with drones carrying vials of toxic bio-weapons to far distant farms. A “color revolution” in Hong Kong, and insurgents flowing into Xinjiang to create another Syria war there. Not to mention the COVID-19B which targeted MYSELF AND MY FAMILY.
Fuck him!
So I launched my own prayer campaign. So if he wanted to be “top dog”, let’s see who’s boss, eh?
At the time I began, everything was pro-Trump and his plans were working out more or less. He was on the verge of creating strife, conflict, starvation, a bio-weapon war, and a future of decades of warfare on the other end of the globe.
So, here’s my relevant affirmations.
[1] Donald Trump will not be able to harm China.
[2] All American military ventures to China will fail.
[3] The harder that Donald Trump tries to break or destroy China, the same and equal effect will hit him and his family personally.
[4] Any WMD’s implemented by America to hurt China will boomerang to the USA a hundred-fold and more.
While he tried to implement policies that would harm me and my family personally, my affirmation campaign was not personal. It was defensive and proactive. He and his minions will be unable to harm me, my family, my friends or China. If he tried, it would all come back to hit him.
Some quick terms on how the MWI operates.
And what?
With 330 million people seething at rage at China, and all those thoughts, anger and emotion, it was my affirmation campaign that turned things around. At least in my neck of the woods, things have become quite the opposite of what was intended.
The point here is that I was able to stop a war in China. And, by extension, world war III … nuclear war on American soil.
One person has the power to change their life. That is you. Do your prayer affirmation campaign religiously. You, it’s up to you, to make the world surrounding you a better place to live. Do not let the “world-line template” alter the fears you generate while in a world-line that lies upon that template.
If you are filled with dread or fear, that can act as a “signpost” to push you to action. You need to hop onto your affirmation campaigns STAT! and perform corrective measures. Concentrate on your personal life, our family and friends. Do not… DO NOT… put anything that you read about in the “news” in your affirmations. That’s alike a dog chasing it’s tail. You’ll go around and around in circles . You will go no where. Focus on you and your family.
.
What ever you do, run your campaign on a PERSONAL note.
Do not implement things that you read about in the “news”, or your favorite political leanings or anything like that. Those are distractions and they WILL take away from your core desires as specified within your affirmation campaign.
Trust me on this.
The ONLY reason why I included Mr. Trump in my affirmations was because he had targeted me with his war machine. Other than that, he was no where to be seen anywhere in my campaigns.
But how does it work?
The world that you observe is not real. What you are observing is the highest likely probability at any given moment on a world-line.
You are viewing the “world-line template surface”.
You are not viewing your particular, individual, world-line.
That shrub over there looks that way because that is the highest probability of it’s appearance at that moment of time…
…as VIEWED by your consciousness within that particular world-line.
That person over there is stopping to tie their shoe because that is that highest probability of occurrence at that moment in time…
…as VIEWED by your consciousness within that particular world-line.
The President on television is making a speech raising taxes because that is the highest probability of occurrence at that moment of time…
…as VIEWED by your consciousness within that particular world-line.
You CANNOT change them.
All you can change is your navigation to other world-lines.
So do not worry about what the world-line template looks like, or appears to be. That is, unless there is a guy lunging at you with a knife or some other dangerous event. And that is a special event, just like I am describing herein.
What I did…
I conducted a slide.
I slid the world-line, and carried a lot of people with me, to a new world-line template where I am, and my family, are safe. It is a world-line that avoids a Trump / Pompeo created nuclear war, and one where the human species can continue to develop their individual sentience’s while avoiding some truly horrific consequences.
No. I’m not perfect.
Trump did launch the COVID-19 bio-weapons genie and it is out of the bottle. The Chinese stopped the two successive subsequent follow-up bio-weapons attacks (more on them later), but we all still will need to deal with this mess that he got us all involved in.
I’m good. But, I’m not God.
Conclusions
At a time when an entire nation of 330 million people were ready to go to war with China, and attack my front yard, I adjusted my affirmation campaign for a different result.
I was successful.
And all the thoughts of 330 million people had zero effect on my life.
Frankly obnoxious headlines like “Trump wasn’t wrong about China. But here’s how Biden can do a better job” and “Biden must not fall into China’s smooth relations trap” suggest that Washington’s political class is single-minded: maintain an aggressive, hostile stance toward China.
Trump was wrong about China. In 2016, as a presidential contender and he launched a rhetorical tirade against China accusing that country of “raping” the U.S. economy. In 2018, he added that in addition to rape, it had caused the opioid crisis. These accusations depended on racist stereotypes about China and worked to hide the ineptness of the profit-driven U.S. health system and poor innovation record of the economy.
Trump launched his racist hysteria against China in 2018 with deceitful claims about opioids, trade, technology, and continued in 2020 with demonstrably false allegations about COVID-19’s origins. (Notably, recent media accounts, including the U.K.-based Independent and the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, have reported that COVID-19 cases appeared in Europe far earlier than initially believed.) Trump’s racially-driven rhetoric exposed the U.S. ruling class’s deepening leadership incapacity in a crisis and its frightening inability to offer and implement rational solutions to complex problems.
.
[1] Donald trump will not be able to hurt or harm China.
Happened. Donald Trump’s anti-China policies were a complete failure. Oh, it’s much worse than that. It was a “train wreck”. The USA ended up getting harmed in so many ways. From domestically, to internationally, to scientifically, to socially. The United States has paid the price for these actions.
It’s not that I wanted to hurt the USA, but I just didn’t want myself or my family to die. And that meant that I had to take on the President and his well-paid army of war-mongering neocons with a lust for war, and desire to kill. I was successful. The complete and utter failure of the Trump policies against China were astounding and will be recorded in the history books as something that you want to avoid at all costs.
[2] All American military ventures against China will fail.
This anti-China line of thought provides no real insight into Trump’s demented psychology or the validity of the establishment’s China views. Instead, it only further exposes the persistent void in policy ideas on economic development and the ruling class’s helplessness in leading innovation. Blaming China replaces reasonable interrogation of this failure of economic and social innovation.
One egregious example of the general incapacity for efficient leadership can be seen in the bloated military sector. According to a Government Accounting Office report published this month, of “46 types of aircraft [examined by inspectors] … only three met their annual mission capable goals in a majority of the years for fiscal years 2011 through 2019.” Less than 3% of military aircraft types are consistently service-ready, in other words. Meanwhile, the military budget approaches $800 billion annually.
Massive waste that ties government contracts to political donations (to both major parties), reflects the failure across all sectors to produce sustainability, innovative technology, and necessary infrastructure for a high-level quality of life. If comparisons to the 1970s are permissible, the U.S. is approaching levels of stagnation that required the ruling class to craft neoliberalism as a class strategy for renewing its power and restoring capital accumulation. This time, neoliberalism is in crisis.
And fail they did. From HK, to Xinjigng, to Taiwan, to the South China Sea. They all failed, and failed spectacularly. You can go one by one, but there are no successes in any of them; not one.
It was hardly a secret throughout the Trump administration. Now, dying embers within sight, and with minimum fanfare, comes the declassification – virtually the whole document, minus a few redactions – of the US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific.
Why now, no less than 30 years before the usual, standard US declassification/public record protocols apply? Don’t expect an answer from Trump or from his National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.
-UNZ
[3] The harder Donald Trump tries to take on China and hurt it, the effects will boomerang back to hurt Trump and his family personally.
And isn’t that what is happening? Isn’t his family and him personally getting “hits” by the American public and legal system?
[4] Any WMD’s implemented by America to hurt China will boomerang to the USA a hundred-fold and more
Evidence for this botched leadership can be seen in the incapacity to adequately meet the COVID-19 danger. The U.S. government proved unable to deliver necessary medical equipment or to define a scientifically-sound national public health policy. It wasted time and resources and still seems incapable of controlling a contagion that has cost more than 263,000 lives.
And look at how America is handling the COVID-19 coronavirus issue, eh? This singular issue is toppling the entire nation, and government alone. It’s more than just mismanagement, it’s a fiasco of historic proportions.
In fact, this mishandling (whether it is a bio-weapon or a pandemic) will go down in the history books as a massive blunder and mistakes and Trump and his administration will be labeled as clowns and buffoons for all of eternity as a result.
The bottom line is this.
You can control the events that affect your personal life and the lives of your family. You just need to control your personal affirmations. You cannot control the entire nations, you are not MM. But you have the ability to control that realm that you inhabit. So do NOT get all hung up and hot and bothered with what you read in the “news”. It’s nonsense. Concentrate on you and your family.
And keep in mind, that here, yes I Mr. MM himself, have you all in my affirmation prayers. I’m watching your backs. So don’t get too fearful.
It’s all good.
Keep in mind that what you think might be bad, if you read the “news” might end up being the best thing that could ever happen to you and your family. So do not let the “news” affect you. Again… for the third time… concentrate on you and your family. Concentrate on happiness and safety. You will be fine.
I love this story:
"One evening, my mother made dinner after she had completed a hard day's work.
She put a plate of eggs, salad and burnt toast in front of my father and me.
I immediately noticed.
The burnt toast and I were waiting to see if my father was going to complain about it.
But he started to eat everything.
Then smiling, he asked me how was my day at school.
My mum apologized to my father for the burnt toast.
I will never forget his response to her:
'Honey, I love burnt toast!'
Later, when I went to bed and my father came over to kiss me goodnight, I asked him if he really liked the burnt toast.
He hugged me and said,
'Your mother has had a difficult and hard day and she is really tired. She went out of her way to prepare the meal for us. Why blame her and hurt her!
Burnt toast never hurt anyone; but words can be very painful!'
We have to know how to appreciate what others do for us, even if it's not perfect, because it's the intention to do well that counts, and no one is perfect."
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my Affirmation Campaign Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
Could there be extraterrestrials on Titan? Or could remote viewers for the CIA observe some events in the distant future? Who knows. One thing is certain, Titan is an interesting place, and the idea that there might be a facility there is something to investigate. Even if it is seemingly unlikely.
I stumbled upon a CIA remote viewing report some time ago. It tickled my interests and I just now got a chance to sit down and ponder about it.
A quick review of Titan
Titan is an interesting moon. Saturn’s largest moon Titan is an extraordinary and exceptional world. Titan has a radius of about 1,600 miles (2,575 kilometers), and is nearly 50 percent wider than Earth’s moon. Among our solar system’s more than 150 known moons, Titan is the only one with a substantial atmosphere. And of all the places in the solar system, Titan is the only place besides Earth known to have liquids in the form of rivers, lakes and seas on its surface.
But it is a dim place.
Titan is about 759,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from Saturn, which itself is about 886 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) from the Sun, or about 9.5 astronomical units (AU). One AU is the distance from Earth to the Sun. Light from the Sun takes about 80 minutes to reach Titan; because of the distance, sunlight is about 100 times fainter at Saturn and Titan than at Earth.
Titan, is an icy world whose surface is completely obscured by a golden hazy atmosphere. Titan is larger than the planet Mercury and is the second largest moon in our solar system. Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is just a little bit larger (by about 2 percent).
Titan’s atmosphere is made mostly of nitrogen, like Earth’s, but with a surface pressure 50 percent higher than Earth’s. Titan has clouds, rain, rivers, lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons like methane and ethane.
High in Titan’s atmosphere, methane and nitrogen molecules are split apart by the Sun’s ultraviolet light and by high-energy particles accelerated in Saturn’s magnetic field. The pieces of these molecules recombine to form a variety of organic chemicals (substances that contain carbon and hydrogen), and often include nitrogen, oxygen and other elements important to life on Earth.
Titan would most certainly be a spectacular place to visit.
.
Some of the compounds produced by that splitting and recycling of methane and nitrogen create a kind of smog—a thick, orange-colored haze that makes the moon’s surface difficult to view from space. (Spacecraft and telescopes can, however, see through the haze at certain wavelengths of light outside of those visible to human eyes.) Some of the heavy, carbon-rich compounds settle to the moon’s surface—these hydrocarbons play the role of “sand” in Titan’s vast dune fields. And methane condenses into clouds that occasionally drench the surface in methane storms.
Experiments led by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggest the particles that cover the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, are “electrically charged.” When the wind blows hard enough (approximately 15 mph), Titan’s non-silicate granules get kicked up and start to hop in a motion referred to as saltation.
As they collide, they become frictionally charged, like a balloon rubbing against your hair, and clump together in a way not observed for sand dune grains on Earth — they become resistant to further motion. They maintain that charge for days or months at a time and attach to other hydrocarbon substances, much like packing peanuts used in shipping boxes here on Earth.
The findings have just been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
“If you grabbed piles of grains and built a sand castle on Titan, it would perhaps stay together for weeks due to their electrostatic properties,” said Josef Dufek, the Georgia Tech professor who co-led the study. “Any spacecraft that lands in regions of granular material on Titan is going to have a tough time staying clean. Think of putting a cat in a box of packing peanuts.”
The electrification findings may help explain an odd phenomenon. Prevailing winds on Titan blow from east to west across the moon’s surface, but sandy dunes nearly 300 feet tall seem to form in the opposite direction.
“These electrostatic forces increase frictional thresholds,” said Josh Méndez Harper, a Georgia Tech geophysics and electrical engineering doctoral student who is the paper’s lead author. “This makes the grains so sticky and cohesive that only heavy winds can move them. The prevailing winds aren’t strong enough to shape the dunes.”
-The electric sands of Titan
The largest seas are hundreds of feet deep and hundreds of miles wide.
Beneath Titan’s thick crust of water ice is more liquid—an ocean primarily of water rather than methane. Titan’s subsurface water could be a place to harbor life as we know it, while its surface lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons could conceivably harbor life that uses different chemistry than we’re used to—that is, life as we don’t yet know it. But because we really do not know much about this place, Titan could also just as well be a lifeless world.
As exotic as Titan might sound, in some ways it’s one of the most hospitable worlds in the solar system. Titan’s nitrogen atmosphere is so dense that a human wouldn’t need a pressure suit to walk around on the surface. At the surface of Titan, the atmospheric pressure is about 60 percent greater than on Earth—roughly the same pressure a person would feel swimming about 50 feet (15 meters) below the surface in the ocean on Earth.
Titan viewed from space.
.
Because Titan is less massive than Earth, its gravity doesn’t hold onto its gaseous envelope as tightly, so the atmosphere extends to an altitude 10 times higher than Earth’s—nearly 370 miles (600 kilometers) into space. The the atmosphere is quite large, larger than earths.
And the gravity is light, much lighter. Meaning that you could hop and jump for great distances. Walking would be like walking on a trampoline. Which might be pretty cool. Well, at least initially.
The spacesuit would be lighter and thinner. It would resemble something from the 2019 hit movie “The Wandering Earth”.
.
But, you know, you all would, however, need an oxygen mask and protection against the cold—temperatures at Titan’s surface are around minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 179 Celsius). It makes Siberia look like a tropical oasis. But, what this means is that the spacesuit could be light, and thin. With only a interior heater that would keep your snug and warm against the cold outside.
Indeed, the surface of Titan is one of the most Earth-like places in the solar system, albeit at vastly colder temperatures and with different chemistry. Here it is so cold (-290 degrees Fahrenheit or -179 degrees Celsius) that water ice plays the role of rock.
There is no free standing water at all. The moment you take a bottle of water outside of the hut, it freezes instantly into the hardest ice imaginable.
Titan may have volcanic activity as well, but with liquid water “lava” instead of molten rock. Titan’s surface is sculpted by flowing methane and ethane, which carves river channels and fills great lakes with liquid natural gas. No other world in the solar system, aside from Earth, has that kind of liquid activity on its surface.
Titan is an interesting and complex moon.
.
Titan’s dense atmosphere, as well as gravity roughly equivalent to Earth’s Moon, mean that a raindrop falling through Titan’s sky would fall more slowly than on Earth. While Earth rain falls at about 20 miles per hour (9.2 meters per second), scientists have calculated that rain on Titan falls at about 3.5 miles per hour (1.6 meters per second), or about six times more slowly than Earth’s rain.
A rain shower on Titan would be a slow slog of relaxing pitter-patter.
Titan’s raindrops can also be pretty large. The maximum diameter of Earth raindrops is about 0.25 inches (6.5 millimeters) while raindrops on Titan can reach diameters of 0.37 inches (9.5 millimeters), or about 50 percent larger than an Earth raindrop.
Or maybe more like a slog slog of thump-whump.
Vast regions of dark dunes stretch across Titan’s landscape, primarily around the equatorial regions. The “sand” in these dunes is composed of dark hydrocarbon grains thought to look something like coffee grounds. And as I have stated above, are electrostaticly charged to behave like “Styrofoam peanuts”. It might be a real task cleaning off your suit when you come inside.
The moon Titan has a thick and substantive atmosphere.
.
In appearance, the tall, linear dunes are not unlike those seen in the desert of Namibia in Africa. Titan has few visible impact craters, meaning its surface must be relatively young and some combination of processes erases evidence of impacts over time. Earth is similar in that respect as well; craters on our planet are erased by the relentless forces of flowing liquid (water, in Earth’s case), wind, and the recycling of the crust via plate tectonics. These forces are present on Titan as well, in modified forms. In particular, tectonic forces—the movement of the ground due to pressures from beneath—appear to be at work on the icy moon, although scientists do not see evidence of plates like on Earth.
Titan takes 15 days and 22 hours to complete a full orbit of Saturn. Titan is also tidally locked in synchronous rotation with Saturn, meaning that, like Earth’s Moon, Titan always shows the same face to the planet as it orbits.
Saturn takes about 29 Earth years to orbit the Sun (a Saturnian year), and Saturn’s axis of rotation is tilted like Earth’s, resulting in seasons. But Saturn’s longer year produces seasons that each last more than seven Earth years. Since Titan orbits roughly along Saturn’s equatorial plane, and Titan’s tilt relative to the sun is about the same as Saturn’s, Titan’s seasons are on the same schedule as Saturn’s—seasons that last more than seven Earth years, and a year that lasts 29 Earth years.
The Saturn moon Rhea in the foreground, with Titan in the background.
.
The Cassini spacecraft’s numerous gravity measurements of Titan revealed that the moon is hiding an underground ocean of liquid water (likely mixed with salts and ammonia). The European Space Agency’s Huygens probe also measured radio signals during its descent to the surface, in 2005, that strongly suggested the presence of an ocean 35 to 50 miles (55 to 80 kilometers) below the icy ground.
The discovery of a global ocean of liquid water adds Titan to the handful of worlds in our solar system that could potentially contain habitable environments. Additionally, Titan’s rivers, lakes and seas of liquid methane and ethane might serve as a habitable environment on the moon’s surface, though any life there would likely be very different from Earth’s life. Thus, Titan could potentially harbor environments with conditions suitable for life—meaning both life as we know it (in the subsurface ocean) and life as we don’t know it (in the hydrocarbon liquid on the surface).
A view of Titan when peering through the atmospheric haze.
.
All in all, I would say that Titan would not only be an absolutely fascinating place to visit, but it would be a beautiful one as well. With Saturn rises, settings, seasons, clouds, and unique geography. Not to mention the glimmering rings that would hover above you in the smoggy skies above.
The enormous dense atmosphere, with the low gravity, could make individual personal flying a reality. With only the smallest amount of propulsive jet-pack and “wings” necessary. While it would be risky; a tear in your suit due to a tumble or fall could be lethal, it would be extraordinary.
Couple that with sailing on the seas of Titan, or swimming (wearing a spacesuit of course) would be a truly unique and adventuresome experience.
What is remote viewing.
Well, Titan is a very cool place and it would be both beautiful and interesting. So… then, why is the CIA investigating it, and what is the technique that they are using?
Remote viewing is defined as the ability to acquire accurate information about a distant or non-local place, person or event without using your physical senses or any other obvious means. It’s associated with the idea of clairvoyance, seemingly being able to spontaneously know something without actually knowing how you got the information. It is also sometimes called “anomalous cognition” or “second sight.”
Many of us experience this from time to time as an intuitive flash of insight that turns out to be correct. Many well-known entrepreneurs and business people, like George Soros, Conrad Hilton, Thomas Alva Edison and Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, have attributed their business success to this ability. And we’ve all seen natural psychics perform seemingly amazing feats of mental skill on TV.
The difference between natural psychic receptivity and remote viewing is that the latter is a trained skill, a controlled process, that the average person can learn to do, to some degree or another.
Why the CIA used remote viewing
The CIA in conjunction with Stanford University operated a program known as STARGATE to investigate ‘paranormal’ abilities and phenomena that some humans are capable of, and perhaps all of us are capable of.
One of the programs under the STARGATE umbrella was the remote viewing program.
As stated above, “remote viewing” is the ability to describe a remote location, regardless of distance and ones proximity to the target, from a given location independent of the target. So basically, if you had this ability you could accurately “see” what’s on the back side of the Moon, if anything, or you could see what’s inside a specific building in another country if you were given the coordinates.
The CIA has viewed this technique as a valuable sensing mechanism / tool ever since they had obtained demonstratively consistent results guaranteeing it’s effectiveness.
To summarize, over the years, the back-and-forth criticism of protocols, refinement of methods, and successful replication of this type of remote viewing in independent laboratories has yielded considerable scientific evidence for the reality of the (remote viewing) phenomenon. Adding to the strength of these results was the discovery that a growing number of individuals could be found to demonstrate high-quality remote viewing, often to their own surprise…The development of this capability at SRI has evolved to the point where visiting CIA personnel with no previous exposure to such concepts have performed well under controlled laboratory conditions.
-Collective Evolution
A CIA remote-viewing exercise
In November 1986, a remote viewing subject who was sent to Saturn’s moon Titan reported seeing a base on Titan’s surface.
Entering the base, the remote viewer found to her astonishment that all the operators were identical to human beings.
She observed two young, healthy human males working at a control panel supervised by an attractive female.
That’s it?
Yea. It’s a fine tantalizing nugget for certain.
What I can say (from my MAJestic experience) that there are extraterrestrial species that really resemble Earth humans in physical appearance. In general, we find them to be handsome / beautiful overall. They are our height, have the same physical proportions as we do and tend to (not always though) wear clothing. They differ from us in some internal ways, in organs and some biological behaviors.
Now, the thing about this remote viewing session is that we do not know WHEN the target viewing occurred. The Remote Viewer could well describe viewing an event that will happen two hundred years in the future, and those individuals are Earth-born humans.
Certainly in 1986 there was a lot of MAJestic activity. And other agencies were often pulled into supplying supporting help tangentially without their knowledge as to why.
In general, I tend to believe that this is a contemporaneous viewing. As almost all of the MAJestic activity at that time was contemporaneous. This was most certainly true about MAJestic, and there is no reason to believe that a supporting other inter-agency group (like the CIA, for instance) would deviate from that criteria.
I can also confirm that I was active in 1986 within MAJestic, though I was still in training at that time. And while my information was “on a need to know basis only”, we (Sebastian and myself) were able to observe other people from other agencies visiting the China Lake NWC facilities from time to time, and going into our restricted access areas. What they were doing, we never found out.
In general
In general, there was always a purpose or a goal that the programs (that we participated in) had. Knowing this, we must also extrapolate that there was a reason, some kind of reason, why the CIA would remote view Titan.
Keep in mind that for many, many years, titan was only considered a little speck of light in the pictures obtained from Earth-bound telescopes. No one knew anything at all about it. For many, it was just another typical moon.
The first spacecraft to explore Titan, Pioneer 11, flew through the Saturn system on Sept. 1, 1979. Astronomers on Earth had previously studied Titan’s temperature, and calculated its mass, and Pioneer 11 confirmed those characteristics. Because of Titan’s extended and opaque atmosphere, scientists at the time thought (incorrectly, it turns out) that Titan might be the largest moon in the solar system. Pioneer 11 also saw hints of a bluish haze in Titan’s upper atmosphere, which scientists predicted the Voyager spacecraft would be able to see.
The first close up views of Titan other than as a speck of light came with the Voyager 1 flyby.
Its flyby of the Saturn system in November 1979 was as spectacular as its previous encounter.
Voyager 1 found five new moons, a ring system consisting of thousands of bands, wedge-shaped transient clouds of tiny particles in the B-ring that scientists called “spokes,” a new ring (the G-ring), and “shepherding” satellites on either side of the F-ring -- satellites that keep the rings well-defined.
During its flyby, the spacecraft photographed Saturn’s moons Titan, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, and Rhea. Based on incoming data, all the moons appeared to be composed largely of water ice.
Perhaps the most interesting target was Titan, which Voyager 1 passed at 05:41 UT Nov. 12, 1979, at a range of about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers).
Images showed a thick atmosphere that completely hid the surface. The spacecraft found that the moon’s atmosphere was composed of 90% nitrogen. Pressure and temperature at the surface was 1.6 atmospheres and minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 180 degrees Celsius), respectively.
Atmospheric data suggested that Titan might be the first body in the solar system, apart from Earth, where liquid might exist on the surface. In addition, the presence of nitrogen, methane, and more complex hydrocarbons indicated that prebiotic chemical reactions might be possible on Titan.
-NASA
Naturally, this information helped direct the follow-up mission with Voyager 2.
When the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft passed through the Saturn system in 1980 and 1981, they couldn’t see Titan’s surface because of its hazy atmosphere—images from that mission showed a featureless orange world—but they did see the blue haze as a seemingly detached layer of Titan’s upper atmosphere.
Just before Voyager 1 arrived in the Saturn system, some scientists speculated that the moon’s cold temperatures and methane meant that Titan might be home to oceans of liquid hydrocarbons. But the Voyager spacecrafts’ cameras were unable to penetrate Titan’s opaque atmosphere to get a clear view of the surface. Voyager did, however, reveal that Titan had traces of acetylene, ethane, and propane, along with other organic molecules, and that its atmosphere was primarily nitrogen.
-NASA
In 1994, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope recorded pictures of Titan using particular colors of infrared light that could pierce through the haze. The Hubble images showed large bright and dark areas, including bright region the size of Australia. The Hubble results didn’t prove that liquid seas existed, though, and the mystery about what was hidden below Titan’s haze remained until 2004.
The Cassini spacecraft, with the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe attached, became the first human-made object to orbit Saturn in 2004. Almost immediately, Cassini began observing Titan, peering through the haze for the first time.
The Huygens probe detached from Cassini and parachuted through Titan’s atmosphere, landing on the surface on Jan. 14, 2005—the first landing of a probe in the outer solar system.
Huygens collected images and atmospheric data during its descent as well as from the surface, and transmitted that data to Cassini, which relayed the data to Earth.
Cassini performed 127 close flybys of Titan over 13 years, using a suite of tools, including radar and infrared instruments to peer through Titan’s haze and finally give scientists a detailed view of the moon’s surface and complex atmosphere. Cassini-Huygens discovered that Titan has clouds, rain, lakes and rivers of liquid hydrocarbons, as well as a subsurface ocean of salty water.
The very first picture taken while on Titan’s surface.
.
Meanwhile the Cassini probe orbited the planet and peered through the haze to take detailed pictures.
This mosaic of three frames provides unprecedented detail of the high ridge area including the flow down into a major river channel from different sources. Images captured by the DISR reveal that Titan has extraordinarily Earth-like meteorology and geology. Images show a complex network of narrow drainage channels running from brighter highlands to lower, flatter, dark regions. These channels merge into river systems running into lakebeds featuring offshore “islands” and “shoals” remarkably similar to those on Earth. Other Huygens’ data provide strong evidence for liquids flowing on Titan. However, the fluid involved is methane, a simple organic compound that can exist as a liquid or gas at Titan’s sub-170 degree C temperatures, rather than water as on Earth. Titan’s rivers and lakes appear dry at the moment, but rain may have occurred not long ago.
.
Additionally, the probe took pictures as it descended to the planet (ok, well, moon) surface. These pictures are all very interesting. Here is one such picture…
This image, taken during the Huygens descent to the surface of Titan, shows the boundary between the lighter-colored uplifted terrain, marked with what appear to be drainage channels, and darker lower areas. These images were taken from an altitude of about 8 kilometers with a resolution of about 20 meters per pixel.
Investigating this further…
The decision to remote view Titan occurred in 1986. This was directly after the Hubble Space Telescope took pictures of the moon. If you recall, all that anyone knew about Titan was that there were areas of light and dark under the haze of Titan. Perhaps the team wanted to see if there were any entities under this cloud cover involved in the apparent seasonal changes.
Perhaps.
Or, perhaps this “dove-tails” with other remote viewing efforts also conducted prior to it.
What we do know is that after this viewing (and other viewings that are still classified) that…
The CIA Remote Viewed the “Galactic Federation” presence on the Earth.
One of the CIA’s declassified remote viewing sessions conducted in 1988 targeted the Earth headquarters for the Galactic Federation. (see remote viewing notes here) It’s unclear who the remote viewer is. (Names are usually listed.)
First of all, where would the CIA get the idea to even look for some sort of galactic federation? This implies either joint-efforts alongside MAJestic, or independently obtained information suggestive of this.
Remote viewer Lyn Buchanan describes the four general classification-types of extraterrestrials:
“After the military I was asked by a branch of the government to do a…study paper to compare and contrast ET psychic ability to human psychic ability.
…I was given access to many of the things that never made it into Project Grudge or the Blue Book or anything like that because they couldn’t be denied.
…I found out that we can take the ET’s of all different kinds and species and all that and put them into four main categories.
We’ve got those who are more psychic than us and those that are less psychic than us.
In each of those two categories we’ve got friendly to us and unfriendly to us, the unfriendly non-psychic ones tend to not come here. They don’t like us, they don’t want to be around us.
The non-psychic friendly ones come here for trade.
The psychic friendly ones actually want to help us develop our abilities and become stronger at it.
And the unfriendly psychic ones want us wiped off the planet, they want us dead, period, no questions asked.”
To which I say; “Duh!”
Yeah. Dogs are big and small. Some have long hair and some have short hair. Interesting, but not really (at all) of significance on a practical basis.
Remote viewers Ingo Swann, Pat Price and Joseph McMoneagle also claimed to have remote viewed extraterrestrials and ET bases on Earth, with extreme accuracy.
Buchanan said that there are five extraterrestrial bases on Earth, all inside of mountains. Some of these bases have humans working with these extraterrestrials in various ways.
According to Captain Frederick H. Atwater, a retired US Army officer who was involved in remote viewing experiments for [1] the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command, [2] the Defense Intelligence Agency and [3] the CIA, Pat Price remotely viewed four alien bases on Earth, one of which was located under Mount Ziel, in the Northern Territory (Australia), some 80 miles west-northwest of Pine Gap.
Price believed the base contained a mixture of ‘personnel’ from the other bases, one purpose being to ‘transport new recruits, with an overall monitoring function’. The other bases were said to be under Mount Perdido in the Pyrenees (Spain), Mount Inyangani in Zimbabwe, and in Alaska under Mount Hayes. Price described the occupants as ‘looking like homo sapiens, except for the lungs, heart, blood and eyes.’
And so with this, we enter into the realm of Internet-extraterrestrial-lore…
Conclusion
For undisclosed reasons, the CIA remote-viewed the Saturn moon Titan. They say humans or a species similar to humans working within a base or facility there. Not much of interest can be determined from the event aside than the base appears to be isolated and alone. There isn’t a large city or community there, apparently.
After the viewing the CIA conducted a series of remote viewing sessions to “map out” the extraterrestrial presence on the earth. Of which they determined consisted of five “bases” all underground, and all under mountains.
When you read reports like this our minds tend to go into “over drive” to figure things out and wonder what is going on. Those with a military bent might consider that the extraterrestrials are here to take over the planet. While others with different ideology might have completely different views.
But I will not allow that here.
Instead, I will selectively provide this nugget…
Haim Eshed, former head of Israel’s Defense Ministry’s space directorate, former General and respected professor claimed that the U.S. & Israel have been in contact with intelligent extraterrestrials for quite a long time. He specifically referenced the “Galactic Federation” emphasizing how they are waiting for humanity to evolve, and that we are not quite ready for contact.
To which I must say… YES.
The earth is a sentience nursery, and we will never be permitted to egress from it until we get our collective shit together, sort out the kind of sentience that we want to have, and chill out by discarding the selfish, and disastrous from our societies. If we do not, then they will all consume us and we will see a caste system completed on a global basis.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
If your expecting the American or British press to say anything good about China, you’ve got a long wait. It’s reached a point that they would rather cut off their arms and legs rather than diverge from their anti-China, negative “boogieman” agenda.
"It's not fair to say that Americans are silent about everything. Americans are very vocal about China stealing and China having no freedom and China having the largest concentration camp for Muslims and China having no human rights for Tibetans.
All these must be true because our politicians and free press say so.
Americans are right to stand up against China imperialism of Belt and Road. Americans will never be silent about China trying to take over the world's islands and oceans.
As for the Capitol insurrection, we blame China for poisoning the minds of Americans with their Hong Kong revolution footage. We also blame Hong Kong freedom fighters for taking American money and then messing it up.
In fact, China gave Trump the royal treatment and then suckered him into a trade war which damages America. China is to blame for Trump and his trade wars. China is to blame for discovering the Covid virus.
We now know that it's been all over the world with no one the wiser, but China had to make a big stink and shut down the country. China has few Covid deaths but China also has no freedom and no human rights. What do you prefer?
Don't forget some spokesmen for some secret American agency said that China may have corrupted American elections.
China is to blame for destroying American democracy. Who can we believe if we don't believe in patriotic American elected officials, the free press, and American agencies? Don't worry Jay, Americans will be very vocal about China.
They will support more patriotic wars by any means and sanctions against the great evil China with their democratic elections and tax dollars. God bless America!
-Jay Janson's Blog
Never the less, China is moving forward. Step by step. Pace by pace. Slowly, cautiously, silently.
Just because it is not being reported on does not mean that it is not going on. It’s just that most people in the West (that means you Americans) are kept ignorant of the true and real state of affairs. And this ignorance will, mark my words, come back to bite you.
I (personally) have long held the belief that the COVID-19 was a biological attack on China by the Trump Administration. That it was number 8, of 9 such attacks, all of which were part of the “Annihilate China” strategy by John Bolton / Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump.
This view is not shared with the American media. Who not only ignore it, but also craft highly unlikely articles countering it.
However this belief of mine is actually shared by the governments of Russia, China, India, Iran, and their allies. This view is what China believes, and what they formally announced to the United Nations in a formal complaint. This view is what Russia believes as well, and it was this narrative that brought the two nations together in a joint defense posture. And while Americans might continue to live under their delusions, the rest of the world is pretty much is watching, taking notes, and looking at the USA for what it really and actually is.
Obviously his four years would be topped by a major military engagement with the “evil communist regime” (his words, not mine).
Which was to “provoke” the American military to justify a military excursion into Chinese claimed water. It did not go as planned and Trump fired his military brass as a result of that.
After all, how can you be a “War President” without a war to fight?
Prior to this, the American media had been whipped up into a anti-China frenzy. They were ready to “do what ever it takes” for “the American way of lifeTM“, “democracyTM” and “freedomTM“!
All this is very interesting, but none of the background information is actually covered in the West. Instead it’s the same “song and dance” and a slow slog though the standard “China Narratives” of crowding, poor, downtrodden, polluted underlings under an impressive tyrannical regime.
It’s purpose is to make people hate, loathe, despise and distrust China. It’s also a well-funded narrative, with billions of United States Federal Dollars going towards the creation of this narrative; this image.
Here, in this post we are going to cover another thing that is intentionally omitted from the American “news” and the UK tabloids.
We are going to cover how China dealt with the biological attack, while at the same time, following through with their plans for a new nation built upon social infrastructure, a suppression of crime and poverty and the fruits of a merit-led leadership.
Powerful stuff. But is nothing that you will read about on CNN, MSNBC, the Rush Limbaugh show, and Alex Jones.
This post is about what China has become.
This post is about what China was doing while the rest of the world (namely America, the UK and Australia) were dancing around, kicking it, spitting on it, pissing on it, and screaming insults at it.
America, the UK and Australia “piled on” China relentlessly with a massive anti-China propaganda assault in 2020.
.
It is the story of a beautiful butterfly that is finally flapping its’ bright-colored wings, after a long time being the harassed and despised caterpillar.
The following is an astoundingly excellent article titled “From Terrified to Triumphant — How China Flipped 2020“. It was found on the World Affairs Blog, and all credit to the author. I edited it to fit this venue and for simplification so that the widgets and HTML won’t crash non-compliant systems. Aside from that it is exactly as found.
I urge the readership to visit that blog for more excellent articles, insight and data that is free of my opinions, and hubris. Aside from that, my editing or notes can be found and identified by italics.
From Terrified to Triumphant — How China Flipped 2020
It was the worst way to start a year for China. On the New Year’s eve of 2020, Chinese social media were full of rumors about re-emergence of SARS virus from 2003. Chinese New Year was about to begin in three weeks, which would involve hundreds of millions of people traveling all over the country.
Xi Jinping had already warned officials a month earlier that the US-China trade war and sanctions would make 2020 a very challenging year. Now an unknown virus was about to decimate the economy and shred the “China dream” into pieces.
Worse, as time went on, China was not only left alone to fend for itself, but the anti-China forces piled on with Psy-ops.
Social media attacked the Chinese people and blamed them for “eating bats” — a popular video of a Chinese blogger drinking bat soup went viral, although it turned out that she had the soup three years earlier in an island (Palau) thousands of miles away from China.
US media, filled with Shadenfreude, kept saying “deadly coronavirus” (until it spread to Europe and the US) and shouted out malevolent things to mock and frighten China:
In a highly cynical move, American media and politicians tried to turn a Wuhan eye doctor, Li Wenliang, into a whistleblower and an anti-CCP martyr — he was neither. And Chinese people living in the West were being physically assaulted by xenophobic and ignorant idiots.
It was a lonely, heart-wrenching, and an incredibly frightening moment for China. But the country ignored the judgmental, cruel world and came together as a family. That’s what Confucianism and collectivism (a core principle of socialism / communism) are all about.
The Chinese came together. The Coronavirus emergency brought the Chinese people closer than ever before.
…
China’s Incredible Response
China did the only rational and scientific thing possible: completely shut down Wuhan and even Hubei province (with 57 million people).
California
39,512,223
Texas
28,995,881
Roughly the population size of both California and Texas together.
.
Tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, volunteers, and even PLA soldiers were sent to Wuhan. People were restricted from leaving their homes; and communist party members volunteered to deliver food for millions of people.
Doctors wore diapers and worked 14 hours a day, while sweating inside the suffocating PPE; nurses cut their hair to reduce cross-infection; and healthcare workers stayed in hotels for many weeks to protect their families.
Hi-tech corporations came to the rescue with drones to deliver food, robots to deliver medicines, big data to detect clusters, and AI to read CAT scans.
The inimitable construction workers of China built two new hospitals in two weeks.
People with mild symptoms were quarantined in stadiums and college dormitories to stop the spread of the virus.
People with mild symptoms were quarantined in stadiums and college dormitories to stop the spread of the virus.
Chinese hospital staff inside the rapidly constructed emergency hospital in Wuhan.
.
Hospital beds in the emergency hospital constructed in Wuhan.
.
China mobilized the military to tackle the biological attack / pandemic. During the entire year of 2021, the China military was on a DEFCON ONE alert.
.
Another view from inside one of the two emergency hospitals in Wuhan.
.
MRI machine in one of the emergency hospitals.
.
All hospitals throughout China worked together as one single entity to fight the Coronavirus.
.
Stadiums, and gyms were converted to quarantine areas for the population to be screened within.
.
Medial staff worked long days, under difficult conditions, all wearing full biological protection.
.
The hospitals were not just new, but were modern, equipped with AI and 5G infrastructure, and completely sterile.
.
A tired medial staffer rests upon a mattress in a quarantine holding area.
.
Exercise is a fundamental part of the Chinese daily routine. Both in the morning and in the evening.
.
Taking swabs with the children.
.
Fighting the virus by spraying chemicals in a water fog.
.
Fighting the virus by teams using hand foggers.
.
Exhausted staff.
.
Taking measurements. In the early months everyone used hand temperature scanners. then in mid-year thermal video scanners became available and protected all public places.
.
Hospital staff.
.
Hospital staff cut their hair off to prevent the spread of coronavirus and to avoid cross contamination.
.
Auto-delivery robots were designed and mass-produced to service the Chinese in China.
.
Hotel robots with AI and 5G technology delivered food to the hotel quarantine areas.
.
Drones provided food delivery as well as monitored the streets and neighborhoods for isolation compliance.
.
.
Everyone in China did their part. Corporations built mask and PPE factories in a week; and workers slept in those factories for weeks to ramp up production.
Doctors worked meticulously, exploring different drugs — including Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) — to treat the new virus; and scientists were racing to develop vaccines.
When big cities like Shanghai and Beijing had to shut down for 2-3 weeks, everybody cooperated and followed the guidelines.
Later, when there were mini-outbreaks — like in Qingdao and Xinjiang — China set up mobile, inflatable labs to fo PCR tests for 1-2 millions of people per day.
Test, trace, treat — China diligently followed the principles of science.
Unlike America, when China goes lock-down, it really does quiet. Nothing moves. Everyone complies. In a nation that has six times the population of America, it is a most unified and cohesive collection of citizenry.
.
Beijing during the Coronavirus lock-down.
.
Shanghai during the Coronavirus lock down.
.
Shenzhen during the Coronavirus lock down.
.
When China would shut down and lock down a region, everyone would comply and there were no exceptions.
.
The subways were all quiet during a lock-down.
.
.
During the lock down, nothing moved, and no one was demanding that it was their “Right” to not wear a mask.
.
After 76 days of incredible human drama, Wuhan came out of lockdown. Thanks to China’s “authoritarian”, “draconian” and “human rights-violating” measures, China had contained the pandemic and was ready to roar.
After the lock-down normal life returned to China.
.
A return to normal life and public gatherings.
.
While most of China returned to normal, there still remained pockets of quarantine areas.
.
President Xi Peng worked tirelessly to address this emergency and spend much of his time going town to town working with the people directly. As opposed to the American Donald Trump method of EO decree from the golf course.
.
Throughout China were posters, and banners encouraging people to work together as a one unified family-nation. And it worked. People did come together. People did work as one.
.
Drone fireworks over Shanghai.
.
Meanwhile, the world was just coming out of its delusion.
Having wasted precious three months gloating about China’s suffering, America started plunging into COVID19 lock-downs in April.
The rest is history. By the end of the year, the USA had 20 million confirmed cases and 350,000 deaths.
Looking at COVID-19 deaths per million population, China was 3 and the U.S. was more than 1,000.
This is how China ended 2020 — with celebrations and large parties of Merry Christmas and Happy New Year:
The Chinese celebrate Christmas and the end of 2020.
.
The Chinese saying “good bye” to 2021.
.
All over China, people celebrated 2020 ending.
.
In the local town squares and the mall open spaces, people gathered to say good-bye to 2020.
.
Chinese people went out and celebrated the end of 2020 together.
.
Rather than the flashy neon color light shows, cities celebrated the end of 2020 with reflection.
.
In Shanghai.
.
People celebrated all over China.
.
The end of 2020 was a milestone event for many Chinese people.
.
China’s other impressive achievements in 2020
Xi Jinping and Beijing officials must have spines made of steel.
In spite of the horrifying events of the year, Chinese officials kept working on their individual objectives. Here are some commendable and unbelievable achievements of China in other areas:
In 2020, China’s international trade (exports + imports) was eye-popping $4.8 trillion; and the trade surplus was $500 billion. (link)
China opened up the financial services industry to Wall Street’s delight.
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, BlackRock, you-name-it all eagerly opened up numerous ventures in China.
China signed two landmark trade deals — RCEP and CAI.
RCEP is the world’s largest free trade agreement (FTA) — with 15 Asian countries accounting for 30% of world’s GDP. It’s also the first time that Japan and South Korea have signed FTA with China.
CAI (“Comprehensive Agreement on Investment”) is a China-EU investment deal that was under negotiations for six years. While the incoming Biden team tried to stop the deal, Germany quickly wrapped it up just before the year-end.
The United States no longer is part of many of the trade agreements in the Asian Pacific Rim.
.
In both these treaties, notice that the U.S. is left out.
Now, China is even ready to join TPP, which Trump quit.
China managed 39 space launches, probably making China #1 three years in a row
Had the most number of vaccines in Phase 3 trial; successfully tested in many countries like Brazil, Turkey, UAE etc.
Approved Sinopharm vaccine for use; and promised cheap vaccines for developing nations (while the US and Europe have refused to do the same). This will save billions of lives in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
TikTok became the #1 app in the world
Quantum supremacy: China’s system was 10 billion times faster than Google’s
Nuclear fusion: China turned on its “artificial sun” — HL-2M Tokamak. Still a long way to go for sustained and large scale power generation, but a major breakthrough nonetheless.
Semiconductor: Chinese companies like SMIC and Yangtze Memory made significant progress, in spite of vicious American sanctions. This is the last frontier that China needs to conquer.
Deep-sea submersible (“Fendouzhe”) went 10,000 meters below the ocean to study the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on earth! It ranks second in the world for the deepest dives.
Announced that China will reach carbon neutrality by 2060.
Tested digital Yuan/RMB (DCEP) in many cities. This lays the groundwork for internationalization of Yuan in 2022.
Digital e-yuan.
Environment
China made significant progress in sustainability and climate action.
Beijing had 276 days of “good air quality.” Why? Use of natural gas (instead of coal), more green energy, and proliferation of electric cars. And one didn’t need scientific instruments to measure pollution. Just look at the sky!
China made significant progress in sustainability and climate action.
.
China’s total renewable energy (installed capacity) reached more than 840 GW. (This is 3.5x the US). The breakdown is as follows:
hydropower = 360 GW;
solar energy = 240 GW;
wind power = 220 GW;
and biomass = 20 GW.
China installed more than 40GW of solar capacity in 2020.
Between 2016 and 2020, China planted billions of trees that covered a total area of 350,000 sq km — that’s twice the size of California!
Now more than 23% of China is covered by forests. Such afforestation/reforestation efforts take a lot of money and efforts, but China is serious.
China has been reforesting for decades.
.
Infrastructure
Controlled the massive floods that ravaged vast regions of China for many weeks. (Predictably, western media and many social media citizens drooled about the possibility of the Three Gorges Dam crumbling and destroying China).
Inspite of this, China increased the high-speed rail (HSR) network to about 39,000 Km.
China's High Speed Train network = 39,000 Km / 24233.4 miles
America's High Speed train network = 0km / 0 miles
China’s High Speed Rail is the fastest, most extensive, and the cheapest to ride upon in all the entire world.
.
Xiongan Smart City made tremendous progress, including a new bullet train station
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) kept advancing.
Turkey is now linked to Xian, China.
More than 1,200 freight trains per month link 92 European cities to China.
Here are are some photos of driverless (a.k.a self-driving or autonomous) subway trains, new metro stations/lines, battery-powered trams, highways, and bridges that China built in 2020.
Even Wuhan added a new line and some artistic metro stations — check out the last two photos. (Ask yourself why America can’t afford such luxuries anymore).
Chinese High Speed Rail stations are beautiful, aesthetically pleasing to the eye, functional and also looks like something out of the televisions show “Star Trek”.
.
In the Chinese smart cities the commuter buses and trams are driver-less and rely on 5G and AI technology.
.
Throughout China are new AI controlled transports, quiet electric buses, beautiful stations and well-maintained infrastructure. 5G is everywhere.
.
The interiors of the new transport lines are unique to the cities where they reside and special care and attention has been devoted to ease of maintenance, cleaning and beauty.
.
And least you get the incorrect impression that this is but one singular city within China, you are very wrong. It’s common throughout China with substantial numbers of cities being updated in mass.
Chinese smart cities of 2020.
.
AI controlled public transportation.
.
Station interiors are just beautiful. They are airy, clean and roomy.
.
High Speed Trains all connect to the individual subway lines and other modes of public transportation.
.
Chinese road works are in a class by themselves. They are beyond compare and impressive in every way.
.
Chinese build bridges to an extent that astounds.
.
Another Chinese bridge.
.
The interior of the stations are beautiful.
.
These are public works where the public meets and conjugates.
.
Geopolitics
China quietly stopped Hong Kong’s insurgents and put an end to U.S. shenanigans.
Beijing called out Washington’s bluff about sanctions and passed the National Security Law, which also kicked out American spies and fake NGO’s like NED, which specialize in brainwashing and color revolutions.
In the midst of all these problems, America’s vassal states — India and Australia — saber rattled in ominous ways.
However, the border conflict with India was de-escalated, while letting both sides save face.
Australia was spanked very hard as a warning to other vassals.
If Australia slips into a recession, the next Prime Minister will be a lot less racist and uncouth. And perhaps Australia will be more careful about committing war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The world view of Australia today.
.
China also made a momentous and long-term deal with Iran, cementing China’s influence in the Middle East.
China’s new extradition treaty with Turkey in 2020 should help capture some Uyghur terrorists who are fighting in Syria alongside of ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Trade deals RCEP and CAI have strengthened China’s inclusion and ties with Europe and Asia, thus diminishing America’s chances for proxy wars.
The vision of Eurasia became much clearer in 2020.
Military drills and more strategic alliance with Russia in 2020 should improve china’s security posture.
Russia and China share a common defense against all military threats. They share intelligence data, technologies, and military bases.
…
Conclusion
If your neighbor’s house is on fire, you should help them. In Jan/Feb, the U.S. gleefully watched China burn and bragged about American exceptionalism.
While China was busy fighting the Coronavirus, America was berating it for everything. Anything that China did was bad, wrong or a “threat to democracy”.
.
That’s when the US and the EU should have given generous aid to China to contain the pandemic.
Then, from April on, western societies refused to learn anything from China.
Filled with hubris and undeserved overconfidence, the West kept fumbling for months.
Incompetent governments and irrational public couldn’t agree upon simple things like wearing masks or even if COVID-19 is real.
As the West imploded, China soared to the skies.
To put it succinctly, China had a stellar year.
And with Trump’s loss, the U.S. is more polarized than ever before.
By the time Biden’s administration gets its geopolitical strategy together, everyone from Asia to Europe would see the writing on the wall — that China will inevitably be the #1 economy soon.
2020 started out as a terrifying year, but ended up as the most pivotal year that sealed China’s unique status in the 21st century.
Metallicman comments
Many people who have their eyes open can see the stark differences between China and the United States today. And they are stark. Frighteningly stark. A smart, and intelligent person, would learn from China. A caring person would do what they can to embraces the techniques and lessons that China has successfully implemented.
But that is not going to happen. Is it?
Instead, America and it’s allies are still playing the same-old, same-old game of political Ponzi-schemes, lies and the threats of military backed “color revolutions” if other nations refuse to “toe the line”.
It’s all a big “song and dance” for the sheeple to believe in.
Even intelligent articles written by knowledgeable people don’t get the full extent of the social, societal, generational, and political upset that is going on…
China’s rise reflects a bourgeoning global movement away from U.S. imperialism and toward self-determination.
“China has already closed the gap in many economic sectors and has surpassed the U.S. in others.”
Much of the 2020 presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was spent bashing China. Trump repeatedly called Biden “soft” on China while Biden claimed the same about Trump. In the last debate before votes were cast, Biden stated that Trump “cozies up to thugs” such as China’s president Xi Jinping. Although U.S.-China relations have sunk to their lowest point since normalization under Trump, Biden has made no indication that he wants to reverse course. American exceptionalism will be the ruling ideology of the U.S. state and the preservation of U.S. dominance the primary goal of the ruling class no matter who is elected president in November.
American exceptionalism, however, cannot save the U.S. empire from itself. Hurling slander at China does not change the existing reality of U.S. imperial decline.For one, neither Biden nor Trump can rescue the U.S.’ battered capitalist economy. Negative growth, mass unemployment, and the eventual expiration of moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures are likely to keep U.S. capitalism on a path of slow to no growth for years to come.
China, on the other hand, has no such problem. After mobilizing for three months to contain COVID-19, China’s economy grew at a rate of nearly five percent from July to September despite the decrepit condition of its largest trading partner and the world economy at large.
Many economists have predicted that China will overtake the U.S. in economic scale by 2030 in GDP terms. The pandemic is likely to accelerate this trend. China has already closed the gap in many economic sectors and has surpassed the U.S. in others. Market analysts predict that China’s leadership in electric vehicle production and consumption will dominate the global market in the coming years.
China is already a global leader in renewable energy production. Furthermore, in the much-heralded arena of 5G technology, China is also well ahead of the United States. China possesses twelve times more 5G base stations than the U.S. and the gap grows wider in sectors such as high-speed rail.
"Hurling slander at China does not change the existing reality of U.S. imperial decline.”
The key factor that separates the U.S. and China is austerity.
China’s planned economy and socialist governance system allows for the subsidization of the needs of the people to exist simultaneously with investments in high-tech industries. Upgrades in telecommunications technology and e-commerce, for example, have played important roles in the rising incomes of rural families and therefore have contributed to the overall policy of poverty alleviation in China.
Technology under late stage U.S. capitalism serves as a weapon against the broad masses of people by raising their rate of exploitation as contending tech corporations battle over which can dominate the market faster. Technological development receives no assistance from the state unless in the form of military contracts for the production of weapons, bases, and other installations of war.
U.S. attempts to isolate Chinese technology and trade across the world have failed time and time again, from Trump’s trade war midway through his first term to the more current policy of sanctions against corporations such as Huawei. The U.S. has thus needed to rely upon military aggression to enforce its containment policy toward China.
Nearly half of all U.S. military assets and over sixty percent of naval forces reside in the Asia-Pacific. The U.S. is not satisfied with its influence in the region, however, and has attempted to create an “Asian NATO” comprised of India, Japan, and Australia. Enhanced military aggression fits with the larger U.S. military strategy of “Great Power Competition” which targets Russia and China as the primary threats to U.S. hegemony abroad.
“Nearly half of all U.S. military assets and over sixty percent of naval forces reside in the Asia-Pacific.”
American exceptionalism is the ideological framework for the United States’ anti-China policy. Donald Trump used his first term to increase hostilities with China on the basis that its biggest economic competitor was unfairly undercutting U.S. supremacy in all areas of international relations. China has been singled out as the principle threat to American “greatness” and “exceptionalism. The War on Terror utilized racist imagery of a white civilization under siege from Arab and Muslim savages. “Great Power Competition” depicts the United States as a white civilization under siege by a modern form of Yellow Peril.
However, American exceptionalism and the imperialist ambitions behind the ideology have been a staple of U.S. relations with China since the Chinese Revolution of 1949. U.S. diplomatic, military, and economic strangulation of the People’s Republic in the first two-plus following the Chinese Revolution was justified on the basis that China was a “lost” possession in need of recovery. As Qiao Collective noted, normalization did not necessarily change the U.S. attitude that China’s social system must be overthrown in favor of U.S.-style “democracy.” Debates over China’s Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status within Congress and the White House consistently focused on utilizing the U.S. capitalist economy as an engine of privatization in China that would force its social system to adopt a Western-style model of government.
The case of China bursts asunder the illusion that the U.S. can force nations into political submission simply by exposing the people to the U.S. capitalist economy. China’s political and economic trajectory should be clear to anyone paying attention. Capitalist mechanisms in China act as a springboard for the achievement of poverty alleviation and an elevation of the standard of living of the Chinese people.
China’s adherence to an international governance system based in the U.N. Charter is popular both with capitalist countries seeking to do business in China and Global South nations in need of breathing room from imperialist treachery. China’s economic and political development model is especially popular in China. The Chinese government sports an approval rating of 80-90 percent depending on the poll.
“China has been singled out as the principle threat to American “greatness” and “exceptionalism.”
Too often Western and American eyes are fixated on their isolated hatred of non-white peoples to consider the global implications of China’s rise.
China’s rise reflects a bourgeoning global movement away from U.S. imperialism and toward self-determination. The more that the U.S. attempts to impose its so-called exceptionalist values on the world, the more that the world’s nations harden their struggle for self-determination out of necessity and survival.
The re-election of MAS in Bolivia, the continued struggle of the Syrian governmentagainst U.S. sanctions and war, and the DPRK’s commitment to the reunification and sovereignty of the Korean Peninsula despite constant U.S. threats all fall within a larger resistance movement to U.S. empire. And it should not surprise anyone that these countries also happen to be China’s closest allies in their respective regions.
U.S. imperialism is a social order coming apart at the seams.
For nearly half of the 20th century, economic stability and growth allowed the U.S. political establishment to boast about the exceptionalism of its society even as it used every means at the disposal of the state to repress liberation movements at home and abroad.
The War on Terror soiled the U.S.’ image in the world and further sent capitalism into a tailspin of decline. A New Cold War has been launched against China and its strongest ally, Russia, to reinvent the political terrain of 20th century U.S. dominance.
It won’t work. American exceptionalism cannot save the U.S. empire from itself, nor can the ideology find sufficient traction to thwart China’s rise.
What the U.S. empire will accomplish in the coming months and years is the further spread of mass death and economic misery all over the world.
The Left’s task is not to fear or challenge China’s rise but to stop the U.S. empire from bringing the world to the precipice of a humanity-defeating World War in a ceaseless bid to preserve global hegemony.
-Black Agenda Report
Indeed. America is at a dangerous time. Like a compulsive gambler that now is facing the loan-sharks for his indiscretions, America too must “face the music”. The game is over. The clock has struck twelve, and the time is up.
It’s time for reckoning.
The future belongs to the nations that provide for their citizenry, protect them and invest in THEM and their families. Like China. Exactly like China; nations that make things with factories, and nations that provide good solid educational opportunities for their people and place of employment will do far better…
…than nations (like America) that rely on artificial number games on spreadsheets to support a tiny minority of ultra-wealthy people in their pursuit of greed and military conquest.
The old way of doing things will no longer work. Like an old car that is burning gasoline but is going nowhere, so is the United States beginning to collapse upon itself….
The old world is on the way out. Being lead by America it is kicking and screeching towards the hole dug in the cemetery of ancient empires. The only danger ahead is the crazed extent that a desperate and nuclear armed nation might go to in it’s quest to maintain it’s global dominance. We can only hope that President Biden will keep calm, follow the path laid before him and search for terms of co-existence with other nations, societies and cultures.
Meanwhile…
China is there. It is the shining city on the hill that all nations can look to for guidance and support. They are willing to offer a helping hand. But the real question is this; is the West ready to accept it?
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
Here, we argue that most of the work regarding chemical propulsion technologies for rockets are not only mature, but the calculations for their design and use are public domain. You just don’t need to be a “rocket scientist” like myself to build a missile. Instead, you can research the internet, find what you need and construct a few rockets in the basement or garage in your house. It’s not all that difficult.
I guess that I am obsolete. LOL.
But you know, the use of rockets to travel the heavens really isn’t a viable technology. Instead gravity repulsion technology, and location encoding teleportation are far better ways and means to traipse around the galaxy. Never the less, the United States government is putting billions of dollars in a space program that uses 1950’s rocket technology to explore the moon. And you too can be part of that as long as you meet the necessary diversity criteria.
Here’s a nice write-up on rocket technology from the point of view of a garage tinkerer. I enjoyed it and maybe you would as well.
The following is an article titled “Open source Rocketry” by Tom written on October 2, 2019. All credit to the author. Posted as found with very little editing.
I recently stumbled across some fascinating videos by amateur rocketeer Joe Barnard, whose BPS.space YouTube channel is chock full of interesting projects.
Armed with a 3D printer, model rocket components and some fairly simple custom electronics, he has created some amazing results.
One interesting video series is his model rocket silo project (more video links given later in the article), including the launch of a fin-less vectored-thrust rocket from that silo that reminds one of a submarine-launched ballistic missile.
What really caught my eye, though, was his three-engine vectored-thrust Falcon Heavy model (the center engine did not ignite during this flight). In that pic (taken from a video linked far below), the thrust vectoring for this fin-less model is clearly visible, particularly with the right-most engine.
Other test flights show more dramatic vectoring, more on this later. To his credit, Joe doesn’t filter out his failures, but instead documents his process, warts and all, including crashes, flameouts, fires, control losses and so on.
Joe’s work is a good example of an idea that has been bubbling around in my head for a while:
Modern technology, particularly open-source software and hardware, can allow implementation of advanced weaponry, at a small nation-state level, on par with first-world military weapons, with only about a decade or two lag, and constrained only by the available budget.
Joe’s rockets are missing three things to add smart missile technology to a small nation: scale, power and control algorithms. The first two are merely budgetary issues; scaling his airframes and engines is merely a checkbook problem, as is mass production.
After a certain point, these things (including off-the-shelf warhead and materials science technology) do not improve much with increasing budgets; economies of scale merely make them cheaper.
The third element, control algorithms, is where all the excitement lies, and is almost free, compared to the other two.
Further, with the rise of open source software (such as various guidance and flight control software packages) and computing hardware (particularly with the introduction of the RISC-V platform), this genie has burst completely out of a naive and arrogant arms control bottle.
The United States, particularly its political class more so than the technologists, has a long and well-documented history of arrogance with presuming a special capability with respect to military technology.
The most famous example of this arrogance was the Manhattan Project, where the political leadership believed that the US-UK nuclear axis would retain a nuclear monopoly for decades, despite warnings from the nuclear engineers and physicists who knew better.
Physics and math work the same for everyone, and once German nuclear physicist Otto Hahn published the results of his 1938 fission experiments, that genie was already out of the bottle.
The rest was just budget and engineering.
Even if Hahn hadn’t published those results, physics at the time was ripe for the discovery of fission, so it would have been discovered independently by many other physicists within months anyway.
Science and invention is like that: ideas get ripe when their time comes, and many minds come to the same conclusions very quickly.
Papers and patents only document “first”, and sometimes only by the slimmest of margins, although that distinction usually doesn’t count for very much, given that the US, not Germany, was the first to use nuclear weapons in war.
Espionage makes a difference, but only in terms of cost and schedule, and even so, early adopters usually pay that toll the heaviest.
A demonstrated fact that a thing can be done is usually enough to spark the innovation while early adopters pay for a lot of redundancy and blind alleys that later adopters do not.
Early adopters also pay for development of processes and practical field models, while later adopters are free to innovate on that foundation at much lower cost, usually by simply studying public photos, videos, official statements and observable deployments.
Early adopters must sift through and pay for a large number of options from a practically unlimited menu, while smaller nation-state later adopters can tailor their efforts to al a carte items specific to their needs.
This is why the US spent decades and untold amounts of R&D and fielding costs to produce stealth and drone technology, while later adopters seem to almost flippantly introduce sufficiently capable options at much less cost and much more quickly.
GPS, cruise missiles, phased array radars, data-linked command and control, stealth-piercing radar, you name it. Same, same, same, same, same.
It has been decades since I have held a security clearance, but during my 1980s-era Naval Academy courses for my Control Systems Engineering degree I was often struck by how modern control algorithms, developed predominately during the 1950s and available as public domain well-published knowledge, can be applied in straight-forward ways to practically any control problem one might imagine.
Advancements in computing technology since then have only affected the speed at which control loops can be operated, and the power requirements to accomplish these tasks. In the case of guided missile technology, the required computing power hit about the size of a thumbnail somewhere in 1982 or so.
The physics of guided missile control are relatively low data rate kinds of problems, so the major advancements since then have been reducing power consumption (and thus reducing size and weight, or alternatively increasing range and payload) and improving sensors and actuators (thus increasing accuracy, maneuverability and survivability), all of which matured in the very early 2000s.
From a controls perspective, all that Joe is missing for his multi-engine vectored-thrust rocket is the idea of a state observer model, from which the actions of all his engines can then be coordinated.
He has the computing power, he has the actuators, he has the sensors.
This one idea, which replaces the individual cookie cutter PID loops, as they are known, is like a hot-rodder replacing stock items from under the hood but otherwise leaving most of the car intact.
The actual control loop details, based on a well-studied missile problem known as the inverted pendulum, have been available for about sixty or seventy years now, and can be simulated and tested fairly well using open-source software tools once the state model for his rocket has been determined.
This latter process is also accessible using open-source software tools and some fairly simple bench and flight model testing to determine various state parameters.
The point is not to criticize or arm-chair manage Joe, the point is that going from Joe’s rockets as they exist today to a small nation-state weapons program is a fairly small and open-source step now, despite having at one time been a large and vainly classified leap from Hitler’s crude ballistic and cruise missiles, jet interceptors and other drawing-board concepts such as surface-to-air missiles.
The math was more or less complete by the mid-1950s, the computational power available by the mid-1980s, and the sensors and actuators readily available in the early 2000s.
These things now, quite literally, no longer require rocket scientists.
As promised, here are the links to some of Joe’s rocket project videos. First the silo development project:
Next, launching the fin-less rocket from the silo:
And finally the impressive Falcon Heavy Model flight #2, with lessons-learned:
Conclusions
The point that I am making is a simple one. When one nation discovered steel, they abandoned their bronze tools, and made steel ones. They also made steel weapons. It wasn’t long afterwards, that everyone (on the civilized planet) were suddenly using steel weapons.
When calculators started to be mass-produced the demise of the slide-rule materialized within a year. It was a global phenomenon.
Cars, aircraft, computers, hamburgers and watches. It’s the same. When a new technology is “invented” and is available to the mass public, it is often duplicated with surprising rapidity.
There are many secrets locked down in the United States right now. These secrets are considered “dangerous”, but I am willing to say that they are not actually physically dangerous so much as they are a threat to the power-wielding oligarchy. Nothing more. I remain optimistic, and hopeful, that some day (maybe not soon, no matter what the “news” might lead you to believe) the technologies would be available to the rest of the world and great substantive changes to our cultures and our civilizations will occur in such a way that our species will benefit.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
What kind of life are you living? What kinds of friends do you have right now? What kind of significance are you making in the world around you, now? Today? Or, are you just biding your time… waiting… until life gets better?
Ah.
He was only a cat.
Just… a stray cat.
But he was beloved by the entire community.
…
What did he do that you are not?
The following is a nice little story titled “Cathedral hosts memorial service after ‘enormously popular’ resident stray cat dies” it was written by Sara Spary, for CNN, updated 1756 GMT (0156 HKT) October 29, 2020 and presented as found with no editing aside from fitting within this venue. All credit tot he author.
.
(CNN)London’s famous Southwark Cathedral is traditionally recognized for its architectural significance.But in recent years the Gothic cathedral, which stands on the south bank of the River Thames, became known for another reason — the presence of a stray cat, affectionately named Doorkins Magnificat, who made the building her home for 12 years before passing away on September 30 2020.
In an unusual move, Andrew Nunn, the Dean of Southwark Cathedral hosted a service of thanksgiving, which was live streamed on Wednesday.
“She was enormously popular and had a massive Twitter following — and was also the focus of a lot of people’s visits to the cathedral,” Nunn told CNN, adding that some people who could not have their own cat in central London even saw her as their own pet.
“When she died the response was huge, and we knew we had to do something — there was no way in which we could just ignore the fact — and why would you, we loved her, and she gave a lot to our life,” he said.
“It felt entirely appropriate.”Doorkins Magnificat — or Doorkins for short — made Southwark Cathedral her home in 2008 after visiting between Christmas and New Year in search of food.
Over the years, she became a common site at the church — whether sprawling across the pews, sauntering across the altar during a service, or catnapping in the hay of the nativity scene at Christmas time.
Doorkins, whose age was unknown, first came to the cathedral seeking food in 2008.
Celebrity status
She was even present during a visit by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012, who she looked at nonchalantly before falling back to sleep — much to the Queen’s amusement, Nunn told CNN.
Last year 2019, because she had become blind and deaf, Doorkins was moved into the home of the cathedral’s verger, a church official, who looked after her until she died peacefully.
On social media, many people thanked Nunn for the “wonderful” and “touching” service, and shared fond memories of Doorkins.
Presenter Kate Bottley said the service had allowed her to mourn her aunt, who died last month.
“I hadn’t cried yet, until today. I watched this and cried and cried and cried, because you know what?
This wasn’t about a cat.
It’s ok if you don’t get it, it’s ok if you think it’s silly, but for me this helped, it really helped,” she wrote on Twitter.
However, one bishop asked whether it was a joke, and labeled the service “insensitive,” given the coronavirus pandemic having made it hard for people to have proper funerals for loved ones.
Nunn told CNN he had “no regrets” about the service, and said he was taken aback by how many people had said they had wept watching the live stream.
“There’s such a lot of emotion around at the moment, and sometimes, something like that can just release it for people… It was heartwarming as well as emotional,” he said.
Doorkins reached people he couldn’t have done, Nunn added.
“I got used to the fact that she had more Twitter followers than I did — and that she brought more people to church than I will ever do,” Nunn added.
“People came in and they wouldn’t necessarily be churchgoers, but they’d come in to find the cat — and I think that they found themselves very welcome. Ending up in a sacred space and spending time with a cat was good for people.”
So what?
Dogs and cats and other creatures big and small touch us in ways that we have difficulty vocalizing.
But the feelings and the emotions still exist.
You just cannot ignore that fact. This little cat touched the lives of so many people, and how? By just laying there? By accepting them, as they were? Not trying to change them? By rubbing against them or purring on their lap?
What is that “thing” that this little tiny cat provided that made him so missed?
…
How are you doing? I mean, on a personal level, and you really don’t need to tell me. re you appreciated, have friends…real friends who will drop everything to lend you money if you need it, or allow you to crash in their house if things got bad? Real, honest to goodness friends…
Friends…
If you asked someone for $3,000 how would they react?
A real friend would say, “how do you want it? Can you wait a day until I can gather it up for you?”
An acquaintances would ask “why do you need it“, and ask for a great deal of explanation.
Who do you surround your life with? Are they meaningful people? Are they important in your life, and for your family?
Having a good “time out”
I believe that it is so very easy for us to get all caught up in the life that we are living. And being caught up can be magnified by television, the radio, social media or work. Not to mention, having a baby or working on an intensive project, or starting a business. We can become all caught up, wrapped up, and we forget about what is important.
What will people say when we are gone? When we are no longer around? Will they miss us?
Remember…
…people will not remember what you say, what you do, or how much money you make. People will remember how you made them feel.
Obviously, this cat, made people feel good.
…
I think that if we strive to make other feel good, in what ever they are doing, in whatever role they have…
…we will be doing a good thing.
We will be doing our community and our society a much needed service.
…
I do not know what the immediate future holds for you, your family or your government(s). But, I do know that if everyone tried to be more caring… more considerate… more empathic… more inclusive of the needs of others, then much of the turmoil and problems that we encounter in our lives will just start to dissipate.
We need to get rid of the narcissists, the pathological, the sociopaths and the psychopaths from our communities and from our institutions and start being more concerned about each other.
We, you and I, can make this word a better place to live.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
It’s been one Hell of a year, eh? 2020 sucked big time. And I am sure that I am not the only person to feel this way either. My personal trials and issues were just one headache after the other.
For instance, my little dog is now 13 years old. Which is old for a dog, but not ancient. He’s maybe in his doggie 70’s. He’s an old dog. Well, he’s acting old. And this year it’s gotten really bad. First he lost his teeth, and now his eyesight is on the way out. Which pretty much sucks.
Why?
Well, he just cannot find anything. So he doesn’t know how to get around. And he figured out a work-around. You see, he’s figured out that if he pee’s everywhere that he can smell his way and orient himself in the house
So he’s been peeing everywhere.
Everywhere.
But then he figured out that I’ll pretty much mop up his messes when I discover them. So he’s been getting sneaky about where he pees. He now stealth-pees. He sniffs around and tried to find hard to find, and difficult to reach areas to pee.
But I’ve been finding them out also.
So he’s got a new technique. He has started peeing on things that’s really difficult to clean up. You know, like seat cushions, pillows, blankets, comforters, clothing (especially freshly cleaned clothes), and boxed up food that he can jump on top of.
Ugh!
Yessur! It’s been one fuck of a year.
The last straw was when he liberally saturated my baby’s Coronavirus plushie toy with dog pee. Jeeze! Can I get a break?
.
Any ways, trying to deal with shortfalls in income, raising taxes that Trump has levied on all expats (especially those in China – BTW, what is his fucking problem?), and the other issues that are magnified during a pandemic is just a real headache. And the answer is to start looking for alternative ways to earn a few extra dollars.
So the wife looks on the internet and low and behold are these other chicks. Perfect mothers all. Living in McMansions. Their children all perfectly behaved, and experts playing on the living room grand pianos and other bull shit. I tell her that it’s really obscene and ill-advised to flaunt your wealth, good fortune, or advantage when the entire fucking rest of the world is trying to pull through difficult times.
But she doesn’t care. She looks at me and say’s “why can’t we live like that?“
Sigh.
2020 really sucked.
Anyways. It got me to thinking. Why is everything so fake? Why is there this driving force that says that you MUST climb up to the top of the pile of money and then flaunt it to the rest of your peers? It really pisses me off.
Why is everything so difficult?
Why is it so hard just to make a “getting by” income?
Why did out parents, and our grandparents get by with a single breadwinner, a stay-at-home wife, a mortgage paid off in ten years, with only a high school diploma? What happened?
What the Hell happened?
…
Greed happened.
You too can be RICH!
It’s all over America. “You too can become a Bill Gates, or a Steve Jobs, or start Amazon, or use Kickstarter to become a multi-millionaire.
But it’s just bullshit.
Having patents won’t make you rich. Nor will blogging. Writing books, or being an artist won’t make you rich. Having a pretty set of boobs won’t make you rich, bitcoin won’t make your rich, and having a great APP won’t make you rich either.
Well I am here to pop your bubble and tell you the truth.
You see, the United States today (not what it was founded as) relies on a myriad of lies to exist. These lies are promoted through a government / oligarchy controlled propaganda organization. This organization has three main branches. All of which are controlled, and construct the narratives, that Americans are exposed to. They are…
Alt-Left
Mainstream
Alt-Right
It’s an enormous subject, and understanding it will help to explain why Americans are they way they are and the actions of the American government. But that is not really our focus at this time. Instead, we will discuss a MAJOR lie or theme that is propagated over and over inside of America which is…
“You can become rich all by yourself, alone. It just takes a little bit of work, some effort, and a pinch of luck.“
Now…
Well, we have all heard the stories, haven’t we?
How Steve Jobs started his “shoe string” business in a garage. We hear about Steve Jobs, about Google, about Amazon. We hear all these stories about the small guy, the little guy, who through hard work and scrimping and saving that he (or she) was able to make it BIG!
And I am going to bust your bubble.
Our Society, not our Government, is the driving force behind this kind of action…
If you look at all the lone individuals who became a success, you will notice that they have one thing in common.
They grew during a time of very little government oversight and regulation.
When the computer moguls (Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates) started, the local, state and federal governments didn’t even know what computers were. Let alone regulate them. And in the period of time, their small business enterprises grew…
…and as they grew, so did the need for the government to grow. And to make laws and regulations to control those new enterprises.
Look at how the “Railroad Barons” came into being in the last century. Or look at how the early investors in Fast Food franchises became rich.
Look at the software moguls (Google, Amazon), the same is true for them as well. They became large before the government had time to regulate them and stymie their growth (inadvertently, of course).
Then as soon as the slow sluggish government regulatory agencies, and the slow moving bureaucratic arm of the government got moving, they had all ready established a “home” for themselves in the business world. And the resulting regulations and laws served to keep their franchises alive, while making it extraordinarily difficult for any different new-comers to create competitive alternatives.
…
Ok, well this dynamic is also well understood.
It’s difficult, but not impossible, to create new software alternatives. And the same is true with other industries as well. It’s not not impossible, just difficult.
But the difficulty that one experiences today, in setting up their own business, is quite different than one of the “early pioneers” setting up a new business. And that is the BIG LIE that is functionally omitted by the government propaganda outlets. Instead, they constantly promote the idea that you too can become a mega wealthy oligarch.
You too, can be another Steve Jobs.
It’s not true.
The fundamental structure of the USA government is the culprit
I think the main problem are the two different approaches taken by the US or Chinese, which are diametrically different. The Chinese seem to use a "Cumulative" approach, while the US is based on what I call "Winnowing" as a state. Take their respective attitudes towards the poor.
First the Chinese; Cumulative, we are all in this together. If everyone has a "job" be it ever-so lowly, selling food on a street corner for example, then for the Chinese this is a "plus". The person is more or less responsible for his own well being, is not a burden on the State for handouts, and could be (potentially) taxable etc. The object being that ALL Chinese then become positive factors in the society. They are also more motivated because they have a "place" in society. The recent case of Jack Ma and an IPO is not the opposite, but he was trying to get ahead by means that would have led to more unemployment - on the back of the Chinese Government. He was not adding to the cumulative good of the country. Only his own riches. (The Chinese do have billionaires and riches - but are constrained by Corporate credit ratings as explained on a previous - very interesting - thread. Thanks to: psychohistorian | Jan 5 2021 2:08 utc | 162. The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-001)
The US. The attitude is to beat out the chaff leaving only the "kernel". To "Winnow" the population leaving only the top. ie the poor are sidelined, they become a problem for the Government (needing support, food etc.). A net negative value to US society. (The Rich also get handouts from the Fed. as free money has become an habitude, but that is an another way of winnowing out the chaff - as others do NOT get the trillion dollar handouts) The poor have no "place" in a society that has rejected them and so are less motivated. They must fend for themselves and are expected to obey. If they do not there are always the police to enforce obedience.
"Cumulative = win-win", and "Winnowing = Only the top win".
Posted by: Stonebird | Jan 5 2021 20:26 utc | 11
I argue that the United States has become something else other than what it was intended to be, and like a the big monstrosity that it is has created all sorts of safeguards to keep the people separate. The super wealthy lives a life of protected ease, and the rest, live below in a caste system where everything has a price.
From having to pay for water, to taxes and regulations on your abode, to what you do when you are off work and in the privacy of your home, to even what you think about and read. To watch television to listen to music, there is always a price.
In the 1960’s, and 1970’s watching television, listening to music, and making tapes of what you listen to and watch, were all FREE!
Water fountains might be free, but are typically not filtered. But neither is the bottled water that you buy at the local convenience store either.
.
In the 1970’s water fountains were everywhere. Now if you want a drink of water, you have to buy a bottle of water. In the 1980’s if you wanted to send out a message to a friend you sent out a letter in the mail, and it’s privacy was protected by law. Today, if you want to do the same thing, you use either a “free” email service that collects all your personal information and tracks you, or you pay a yearly fee for that service. A fee mind you, many, many times larger than the cost of a postage stamp. And none of the aforementioned protections of privacy are provided.
This is not “freedom” by any stretch of the imagination. Nor, is it an “improvement”.
It’s the worst form of slavery.
I would add that Chinese Communist Party was great mostly because Mao Zedong and his comrades created a new culture not only for China in the past, but most probably will be for future humanity.
That new culture empowered the ordinary people and created a new social climate in which the officials were supposed to live and work with common people, which is what real democracy should be.
People would eventually realize what has enabled China to develop better is democracy rather than what the western press and politicians called authoritarianism.
-Mr Pan
…
Anyways, we are going to discuss my argument that…
The idea that anyone can become a rich and wealthy person through “hard work” and a little bit of luck, is a fantasy inside of America today.
The basics of this post is what is known as “the bell curve”. And we are going to overlay upon that curve a concept that I like to call “the big lie”.
The Bell Curve.
.
Essentially, people and their abilities (when plotted on a graph) form a nice bell-shaped curve, and you and your friends are somewhere on that curve. This curve is very well known and it is an important indicator on where individuals lie within a group setting.
The “big lie” is that the top 0.1% position on that curve is attainable by everyone. And it is simply not true. Particularly in the United States where there are nine levels of social strata or classes of people.
The “big lie” is the believe that you can duplicate the luck, conditions, skills, and environment of another to achieve their same results.
Here we are going to discuss some stories about all those “rich and wealthy” people that we read about in the internet, the social media and on television.
Confessions Of An Instagram Model
Reprinted as found. Originally titled “Confessions Of An Instagram Model” and written on November 24, 2020. All credit to the authors. Edited to fit this venue.
I am a fitness model with a big Instagram following (no I will not be sharing my IG or other accounts here, please don’t ask). Most people think we make most of our money from sponsorships and affiliate posts – we do make some money that way – but you’d still need a 9 to 5 to make ends meet unless you’re one of the top accounts. The open secret in the industry is that we get hired to spend time with really wealthy men overseas.
A typical Instagram girl. This one has a big chest and extra big pouty lips.
This happens almost entirely with rich men in Dubai, although I’ve been all over the world. Bali is another hot spot for meet ups. Basically they contact you directly offering a price and make sure you agree to what they want ahead of time. You always check their accounts to make sure they’re legit and lots of times they have other models who have already met them verify in case you have any doubts, but I’ve never had an issue.
They want all kinds off different things. The first ones I agreed too were just casual vanilla sex. But once I got comfortable with it and saw how much the money went up, I started doing crazier stuff and soon after that there were no more limits for me, the money was always worth it. I struggled with it at first but the money was so good and there is something liberating about being totally disgusting for someone. I went from an everyday promiscuous but mostly standard sex life to living a life that rivals porn stars. It’s easier to list things I haven’t tried at this point than what I have!
Dubai Rich.
.
How old are you and how long have you been doing this?
I’m in my 20s been doing this about 4 years
Are you one of those big booty instagram models, or the workout in yoga pants one?
I have a booty but I do all around fitness modeling
How much money are we talking?
I made 5k my first time. I made 20k my most recent. I’ve made up to 35k for a week
How much do the men generally pay for different acts? Does the donation matter with the attractiveness/popularity of the model?
It depends on how popular you are and what you do.
What is the craziest thing you’ve done, sexually, that you wouldn’t have even considered before escorting?
Group sex and orgy type of stuff. I’m glad I was exposed to it because it’s beautifully intense and hot, but I was closed minded to it before. There are more extreme things that would be considered crazy too that I liked like BDSM, so it’s hard to pick one. But the one I’m most grateful for being exposed to is the group.
Most guys at once?
Most guys at once was 6
Most surprising interaction (whatever that means to you)?
Most surprising was a young, very short, very skinny guy – when he dropped his pants he was packing a horse dick LOL.
Who are these men?
Some are very wealthy businessmen, some are from wealthy families. Some are related to royalty and occasionally even a well known celebrity
Who was the celebrity?
An American actor staying in Dubai. I can’t share his name but I was totally starstruck!
Was he one of the vanilla ones or one of the disguisting ones?
Not disgusting but he was not vanilla either. He liked being a little rough and kinky
Are you picky with your clientele?
I was at first but not so much now unless what they want is totally off limits to me or if they come across as super weird.
Is there anything that is off limits for your clients no matter the price tag?
Anything that would involve blood, defecation, or being seriously hurt. Other than that I would probably negotiate most things
How do you find the interaction is with most of your clients? By this I mean do then tend to take you out and treat you like there girlfriend showing you off as arm candy or are you generally kept away at a house or resort and used more for sex?
It’s rarely being taken out. You kind of do that on your own time but on their dime
What was your most (positive) exciting experience on these adventures so far?
The overall experience is the most positive. I travel the world getting spoiled making tons of money and having wild sex while enjoying some internet fame. I did get to go skydiving in Dubai for the first time which was crazy exciting
Worst situation you ever found yourself in (in regards to being an escort) and how you handled it?
I was never in a truly bad situation, but some kind of were terrible in other ways. For example, I was booked at the same time as another girl for the same two guys. When I get there, it’s another model I know and we hated each other. It sucked and I wanted to bail because she’s such a bitch. But that would’ve caused issues so I stayed. The funny thing is though, these guys were brutally rough with us, and at one point we were holding each other’s hands as we grit our teeth through some painful rough anal and even cuddled each other for a little bit after. So we aren’t friends now but we kind of bonded.
What causes beef between Instagram models/escorts?
It’s not because of that it’s just because she has a terrible personality and attitude and makes rude comments about people that are supposed to be friends
Where you ever put in a situation where you didn’t feel safe?
It always feels a bit unsafe to tell you the truth, there’s no way to know you’re safe unless it’s someone you’ve been with a bunch of times. Even then, if they’re rough or into really kinky stuff you get nervous. But that makes it exciting too.
Besides talking to other models, how is a potential client vetted?
Honestly the person I pay to run my IG account verifies them for me so idk what goes into it exactly but I know that in some cases it’s an online presence or proof that they are who they say they are.
You’re going to want to contact via email or their managers email or something similar. DMs are rarely even checked when you have a huge account. And we won’t answer directly from our accounts either becuse a single screenshot can ruin our reputation.
How do you funnel the money? Isn’t it suspicious to receive 35k just for a weekend or is it deemed a “shoot” as a model even if nothing takes place?
My manager handles everything
How much do you pay your manager?
He gets 10 percent
How much were you making in your day job?
I was making like 30k a year before I started doing this with my day job.
What do you tell your family?
I just tell my friends and family it’s from my Instagram business
Sounds like you make loads of cash….. the gig wont last for ever, are you investing?
I definitely invest and take care of my money! Remember too that I don’t really pay for anything myself on these trips
Do you have simpler plans, like marrying and stuff?
I would love to get married and have a family one day but I don’t feel ready to settle down yet.
My Metallicman comments on this dialog.
So, here’s a young girl in her 20’s, making wads of cash. Is it really from just posting nice pictures on social media?
No.
She uses social media to advertise her body for sexual liaisons. In other words, she’s a courtesan. And throughout history, courtesans have been known to make good money.
CourtesanCourtesan, in modern usage, is a euphemism meaning a sugar baby, escort, concubine, mistress or a prostitute, for whom the art of dignified etiquette is the means of attracting wealthy, powerful, or influential clients. The term originally meant a courtier, a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.Wikipedia
She’s no different than this…
Blake
.
I am not judging her.
If you are beautiful and you have the ability and skills necessary to become a courtesan, I say go for it. But realize that the amount of money that they get is from sexual activity, and not from pictures on Instagram.
Which is the point in all of this.
For us to grow and live, we need to realize the reality of the world that we live in. Because inside of America is is one lie on top of the other, on top of another, and another… and yet another.
And this all cause people to behave very strangely compared to the rest of the world.
Not quite. You are not going to have people throw money at you because they like your personal stories. Oh, you might make a few dollars, but from your articles alone. No. The money comes from other sources that you advertise from your blog.
These other sources can be…
The sales of books.
Sales of vitamin or herbal supplements (Alex Jones)
Speaking engagements
Paid subscriptions
Videos
Anyways, blogging or having a website as MM can be used as PART of a mechanism for a for-profit venture. Must like the Instagram chick above, the internet is used as a tool to derive profits from.
Hey! You guys, do you see me using MM to sell books, videos, or products? Eh?
Well, truthfully I have been asked to write some books. And truthfully I am considering it. But the books will have to provide more than what I offer for free here. Otherwise I will feel like I am taking advantage of my readership. This is complicated by the fact that there are some things that I am simply not permitted to discuss. Anyways, I am considering it. Maybe something about Prayer and Affirmation Campaigns. Or maybe about one of our benefactor species. Something unique and very different.
Which brings me up to the next subject.
Writing a book
Yes you can make a handful of change; a few dollars writing a book. It’s not much, and it is not going to be something that you can rely upon for a steady source of income.
.
So, unless you are big and famous, and can use it as a method to “launder money”, the odds of you getting wealthy are very slim. Oh, sure there are exceptions. Like the author of the Harry Potter series. But again, the exceptions do not describe the norm.
Oh Vey! What a big lie this one is. You will never get rich on having a patent. Oh sure there are all sort of stories about people who had this patent and became filthy rich. And there might just be one or two guys, but in general forget it.
Heck, I have 11 design patents to my name, and I haven’t even got the mandatory $1 transfer fee from the company. So forgetaboutit.
.
It’s one of those bullshit stories about a friend who knows a guys who… or an article that you once read about a guy who invented…
Just forget about this entire route. It’s a dead-end.
Painting or creating art
Oh, art is a great way to “launder money” because there are no restrictions on the amount and the value of art is subjective. But if you want to become rich doing it, then dream on. It’s a long tall mountain to climb. You must…
…guess what?
Paint because you love painting, and if someone pays you money for it, then that is a big plus. But expect to starve and live at the poverty level while you do so.
How do I know? It’s also one of my loves. And yes, I can paint, in oils. I paint figurines using the Flemish technique. And no. I haven’t made any money of significance out of this love of mine. At best, I broke even. Meaning the cost of the materials equaled the selling price. Labor costs were a loss.
Art is how the oligarchy moves enormous amount of money about legally.
Check out these following examples of using art to launder money. Obviously the oligarchy has been ridiculing the rest of us folk for decades if not much longer. It’s, well, insulting.
Some examples of using art to launder money
So how much money is transferred in this money laundering technique? Let’s start at the low end. You know, “pocket change” for the oligarchy…
Blood Red Mirror by Gerhard Richter – $1.1 Million
Concetto spaziale, Attese by Lucio Fontana – $1.5 Million
Green White by Ellsworth Kelly – $1.6 Million
.
Now, let’s go into the mid-range transactions. Say $2 million to $80 million pop.
Untitled (1961) by Mark Rothko – $28 Million
Untiled (Stoffbild) by Blinky Palermo – $1.7 Million
Peinture (Le Chien) by Joan Miro – $2.2 Million
Untitled (1970) by Cy Twombly – $69.6 Million
Cowboy by Ellsworth Kelly – $1.7 Million
Blue Fool by Christopher Wool – $5 Million
.
All in all, it’s a very common way for the oligarchy to move money around.
Riot (1990) by Christopher Wool – $29.9 Million
Onement Vi By Barnett Newman – $43.8 million
Black Fire 1 by Barnett Newman – $84.2 Million
Orange, Red, Yellow by Mark Rothko – $86.9 Million
Anna’s Light by Barnett Newman – $105.7 Million
.
Disgusted?
Well, you should be.
Well, unless you are a super wealthy oligarchy, painting and selling paintings for hundreds of millions of dollars isn’t in your future.
Well, what is?
Get rich with bitcoin!
Um. Sure.
.
Ugh. maybe if you bought bitcoin in the first couple of months when it was young and just being developed. Today… it is a potential, but highly risky venture. I would mark it as unlikely.
Like anything. There are potentials and avenues of success.
.
Is that part of your pre-birth world-line template? Are you destined to become filthy wealthy?
Only you know.
Selling Snake-oil
In a nation where a person’s value is determined by the size of their bank account, and success is measured in dollar signs and spreadsheet, it’s very difficult for good and stable people to make a difference.
Only those who are adept at making money, manipulating money, stealing money, or getting money become powerful and are considered meaningful.
And in this environment, ONLY those people will obtain positions of power and importance.
I need three hands to count the number of times myself and my design teams were let go from American companies simply because the company wanted to sell a division, down-size to make the value of a company attractive to investors, or discarded good robust designs in favor or low cost, disposable “improvements”. All for money. None for the great breakthroughs and technical innovations that we were working on.
That is the reality.
And it sucks.
There is something fundamentally wrong with exchanging tokens to represent labor, and then using that system to generate debt. I know it’s a difficult thing to consider. It will change your entire world-view upside down.
The United States is currently $25 trillion dollars in debt.
In the American culture, you must be the “lone wolf” and climb up that mountain of success alone. “You can do it” we are told. It’s just a matter of hard work, perseverance and maybe a little luck.
Maybe.
Maybe.
But you know, in the American society (and the other societies in the West who have adopted this kind of culture) it’s difficult to break out and through the class barriers that surround your social class. It’s true and YOU KNOW IT. So let’s forget about the government’s propaganda narrative.
Instead let’s focus on looking at things from a completely different perspective. It’s a perspective that can be found in both China, Japan and Russia, as well as Brazil and parts of Europe. Which is…
…find your niche and become the best at it as you can.
Maybe you will get rich. Maybe you won’t.
But the issue about making money never enters the equation of the value of what you provide to your community or your society. And this is what is important.
Conclusion
The world needs, yes NEEDS, to move away from the primitive model of money for labor, and rather embrace the concept of participation within a society for the good of all. Instead of the selfish “me, me, me” of previous traditions.
Which is curiously…
…exactly the world as described by “time traveler” John Titor.
For he described a world (at least in America) where everyone was part of a community, and you needed to apply to become part of that community. Where no one was automatically a member, and once in a community, you needed to contribute to the good of all. No slackers, no welfare queens, and no lazy bums were permitted.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
A comparison between contemporaneous reality and the John Titor narrative and what we can probably expect in the next few years
Here, in this article, we look at the John Titor narrative (or predictions) and compare them to what we are currently experiencing on our own (shared) time-lines.
Obviously the dates and the events that he described are at variance with what is going on in the world today.
This is to be expected after all. He entered our world-line template with a 2% deviance from his, AND both of his two presence(s) altered our general trajectory for mass consciousness migration. So of course, what we are experiencing today and what we can expect, will be different from what his time-line described.
Two John Titors entered our time stream (world-line template)
.
I argue that while his narrative differs from our reality, there are enough similarities to be able to predict GENERAL TRENDS in our domestic and geo-Political future.
However, it is our shared consciousness that is driving the variances on the shared world-line template, and anything can happen.
Here, I will try to make some predictions on what I am observing and how they vary from the John Titor narrative.
Quick Review of terminology
Here’s a quick handy-dandy illustration to help you all from getting confused with unfamiliar terms or confusion.
The pre-birth world-line template is that surface that our travels tend to follow. We can “slide off” that surface template by techniques that I have discussed in other posts as part of the Prayer / Affirmation Campaign posts. In which case we enter a new world-line template.
.
Of course the John Titor narrative uses none of these terms.
We, here on Metallicman, use these terms to explain movement in the MWI. And it is with these terms that we will continue to discuss the similarities, the trends and the variances from what we observe and what John Titor reported.
Who is John Titor?
From the late 1990’s until around 2001, the Internet was “rocked” by the sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance of a Mr. John Titor. This person claimed to be a “time traveler” by using inter-dimensional travel.
He was rapidly dismissed as a hoax, in unity, by all the major debunking organizations, and his posts mysteriously disappeared off the Internet. Since then, all the sources that he posted on all found that their files related to John Titor were all corrupted and could not be reclaimed.
That was the case for over a decade.
Then, in 2014, a number of private individuals managed to piece together independently saved dialogs relating to John Titor. They constructed numerous websites that hosted these reclaimed dialogs, and posted them on the Internet for others to view.
It is the official belief here on Metallicman that the narrative by this John Titor fellow has much more validity...
... than the claim that it is simply a fictional story designed to amuse internet readers.
However, our belief is that the John Titor time-line is substantially different from the one where most (of the MM readership) reside.
This significant difference is very important to understand the validity and accuracy of his descriptions.
Thus you cannot, and should not, take his narrative as a 100% accurate predictor of events on our world-line template.
But instead, rather look at the TRENDS that he recounted and compare them to what we are experiencing.
If you wish to read his posts, and MM evaluations of his technology, you might find visiting the Metallicman Index on this subject enlightening.
I have no problems with the physics involved in his dimensional travel, or his “time travel” mechanism and mounting vehicle. It’s a method and a technique. It also solves certain problems that he did not get into because his readership was unaware of these other issues that crop up in dimensional travel.
One of the problems with world-line travel is the great diversity of world-lines. You can "clamp down" and lock onto very similar world-lines without much problem with his gravity sensors. But that is where you are stuck. If you wanted to go to a specific types of world-line, such as one where all Pizza has pineapple on it, you will be out of luck.
Not that it would be a problem mind you. Pizza with pineapple? Yuck!
The way around this is to additionally measure other criteria other than gravity. The obvious is <redacted> but also <redacted> and other features similar to that are also important and can be used and are actually easy to measure. Obviously, you just need to use the appropriate filters on your sensors, and then the complete sensor kit would allow for a great deal of latitude in your world-line adventures.
His “predictions” are descriptive of [1] a completely different time-line and [2] a completely different world-line template. Therefore, it is like comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruits, but that is where the similarities end.
You simply cannot say that the future he described awaits us on this time-line. It simply does not.
But you CAN say that the same trends that he has described would be the same.
Trends stay the same while the specific details differ.
Why would our world-line template be different from his world-line template?
If both of our time-lines are different, how could the trends be the same?
It’s actually very simple. A change in trends are variances and deviations from world lines in excess of 4-5%. And he flatly described a similarity to our time-line or world-line template in the 1-2% range. Thus while the individual events, and times might be quite different, the trends would stay the same.
And what trends would stay the same?
Well, I would say that the trends that would stay the same, but manifest differently would include…
An American second Civil War
A major war with an Asian nation or two or three simultaneously.
Cultural evolution and changes such as social media.
Now that being said, we KNOW that the world-line template and time-line differs substantially from ours.
His provided dates are off by ten years or more.
Certain events that he described evolved differently.
The Geo-political relationships differ substantially from his descriptions.
Our shared world-line template compared to John Titor’s.
What I know in my role with MAJ
Now for the good news.
Yes, I shouldn’t admit this. But, I do have an idea of what lies ahead – in general. Not much. Just a few, a precious few, glimpses of the future. And none of the glimpses are really bad. Meaning that, for me personally, and for my life my post-MAJestic retirement will be pleasant and tranquil.
How do I know this? Well, it's a long and complicated story, and I will write about my retirement sequence in ADC Pine Bluff in later articles. But for now, just know that my future as I have seen it, does not in any way, resemble the John Titor narrative personally.
I know that my location within China will be a safe one. And that (for the most part) where I live and retire within will avoid most all of the turmoil that the United States will go through.
I know that that is selfish, but it’s all that I have to go on. I was promised a “safe place’ from which to retire. And here I am in China. So I am assuming that all things that are said and done, that maybe the entire world will go through changes. But my “neck of the woods” will be relatively calm and stable.
But…
…I might be wrong.
Of course, there could be changes that might whisk me away from here, and go somewhere else. And maybe then this period in my life is not what I think it is. Who knows? But my “gut feeling” for what ever it is worth is that China is where I am retiring to and where I will spend the rest of my life.
We will see how correct I am. You do realize that I am often wrong. A full 50% of the time, don’t you know. LOL.
Of course, a nuclear explosion in my city could also end my life, but still fulfill the personal prophecy. LOL.
So, yeah. The John Titor narrative does not match what I have personally experienced on this world-line template, nor does it match the projections of my future.
But that is just me.
Now, what this tells me is that the John Titor narrative the Russia goes “ape shit” and starts wiping out the entire globe; Europe, America, The Middle East, and China just does NOT HAPPEN. Not on this shared world-line template.
And while we (our template and John Titor’s) share the same trends they manifest quite differently. And we will discuss that here…
Comparing some of the things that I anticipate will happen to the John Titor narrative
On the assumption that the knowledge that John Titor imparted in regards to his temporal displacement mechanism is beyond that of a casual hoaxer…
… we can assume that he is what he said he was, but that is of little use to us at all. Two different world-lines and time-lines and world-line templates have very little bearing and connection to each other.
But the trends do.
And here we will concentrate on the trends. Those 2.5% to 4% deviations that both of our world-line templates share.
And using that comparison we can extrapolate certain predictive trends.
Much the same way that we use the generational theory of the fourth turning writings to develop predictive trends as well.
And in this post we will be using both tools to look at our comparatively shared futures.
What John Titor said…
John Titor said many things that do not match the world as we see it today. In his world, way back twenty or so years ago he viewed the world as a mixture of independent nations all pretty much duplicating the trends in American (with the exception of South America).
And while his domestic and social trends seem to parallel the events that have followed since, they are often wildly wrong.
7DEC21. Trump supporters storm Congress and take over the building.
.
Certainly, today 7JAN21, it seems that the United States is getting embroiled in the very stirrings of a Civil War, that is not guaranteed. But it certainly does seem that way, doesn’t it?
But I can tell you’se guys personally that these kinds of details vary substantially from one world-line to the next. They mean nothing. Though the TRENDs might be maintained. Trends…
A disputed election.
A President that refuses to leave the White House.
Riots or rallies for one party or the other.
The news media freaks out.
So let’s look at what he said, then compare that to what we know, and then extrapolate from there…
John Titor made this statement…
The year 2008 was a general date by which time everyone will realize the world they thought they were living in was over. The civil war in the United States will start in 2004. I would describe it as having a Waco type event every month that steadily gets worse. The conflict will consume everyone in the US by 2012 and end in 2015 with a very short WWIII.
The only way that you can possible reconcile these dates with our time line is to add ten years to the dates. Creating this…
The year 2018 was a general date by which time everyone will realize the world they thought they were living in was over. The civil war in the United States will start in 2014. I would describe it as having a Waco type event every month that steadily gets worse. The conflict will consume everyone in the US by 2022 and end in 2025 with a very short WWIII.
Which pretty much makes sense and does agree with the Generational Theory of the Fourth Turning Cycles…
Yet, you know, if you forget the details and the dates you just look at the trends. And the trends are what is being duplicated.
Trends…
A point in time when people realize that America is not what they thought it was.
The start of a Civil War at some level of activity.
America gets involved in a World War III.
But then what?
I can, and will argue that anyone can massage any information to make it fit into what ever form one wants to justify their arguments. And that is something that we just don’t want to do here.
Let’s see some of the other things that he has said…
The United States is still a representative republic in 2046 but it was touch and go for a while.
After the war, the U.S. had divided into 5 general areas based on their economic and defensive strengths. Many people blamed the government organization for the war and the last Constitutional Congress was held in 2020 to officially scrap the Constitution and start over.
Fortunately, this exercise in anger pointed out how hard it was to come up with anything better. It was decided the document wasn’t at fault.
As a result, there have been a few small changes to the Constitution and the executive branch but you would easily recognize it. The average citizen is more educated about the Constitution and aware of the rights and responsibilities it gives them.
Federal power has been decentralized and the focus of daily politics is in the state senates. Federal law has also been streamlined but much harder to change or make additions to.
Well, who knows what will happen? In my mind, however, this is overly optimistic given our contemporaneous events. The idea that the Federal Constitution would be maintained, and that all the State Constitutions would regain their power back from the federal government is a long-shot.
I cannot say what any TRENDS that this might represent, but rather that this little bit of trivia describes an evolutionary result within his origination life-line. And that the division of power on the many other world-lines could very dramatically diverge from this point outward.
John Titor described his “future”
Though, this sounds like is a very strong parallel with contemporaneous events.
“This is one example of a theory involving “time shells” progressing in size and intensity around a gravitational point from all matter. The more massive the object, the larger and more influential the time shells around it (like an onion). —Like an isobaric map of potential time lines and “intentions”.“Perhaps I should let you all in on a little secret. No one likes you in the future."
He predicted the “Federal Police”, which was the DHS that was established by President George Bush after 9-11.
From the age of 8 to 12, we lived away from the cities and spent most of our time in a farm community with other families avoiding conflict with the federal police and national guard. By that time, it was pretty clear that we were not going back to what we had and the division between the “cities” and the “country” was well defined.
The John Titor future does not resemble our world-line template at all…
And he pretty much said that Russia would go “ape shit” and blow the shit out of American, Europe and China…
The civil war ended in 2015 when Russia attacked the U.S. cities (our enemy), China and Europe. As unusual and bad as my childhood might seem, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Africa is not a pleasant place to be in 2036 although I would characterize it as recovering.
But the thing is, on our world-line, not only isn’t Europe and China enemies with Russia, but they actively trade with Russia. The BRI from China goes into Western Russia.
While U.S. trade relations with China have soured, as each slap billions of dollars' worth of tariffs on each other's goods, trade relations between China and Russia are blossoming.
The Russian military and the Chinese military have officers in all of their HQ’s, and Europe while pretty much aligned with America has been breaking away from that tight binding alliance and getting more autonomy to trade with it’s neighbors.
Missile Notice Pact Extension is Proof That Russia, China ...
https://sputniknews.com/world/202012291081600910...
Dec 29, 2020 · MOSCOW (Sputnik) -Russia and China’s mutual extension of the missile launch notification agreement earlier this month is an indication that the two Eurasian giants do not see each other as threats, Moscow’s ambassador in Beijing Andrey Denisov said on Tuesday.
And the John Titor narrative does not match contemporaneous situations on our shared world-line template.
Russia and China have always had a very strange relationship. Even the news I see now indicates that continued weapons deals to allies, border clashes and overpopulation will lead to hostilities.
The West will become very unstable which gives China the confidence to “expand”. I’m assuming you are all aware that China has millions of male soldiers right now that they know will never be able to find wives. The attack on Europe is in response to a unified European army that masses and moves East from Germany.
Also, please be aware that from my viewpoint, Russia attacked my enemy who was in the U.S. cities. Yes, the U.S. did counter attack.
Me thinks he reads too much American propaganda. There are some seriously invalidated statements here. They do not match the reality of modern contemporaneous China one bit.
There are no border classes between Russia and China.
Overpopulation in China does not exist. It is crowded, but the extreme bullshit that you read in America of starvation, lack of housing and infrastructure are all lies.
“Men cannot find wives.” Total and complete BULLSHIT.
There is no “unified” EU army.
“China is going to expand outward” Never happen. This is not in their 5, 10, 50 and 100 year plans.
The John Titor narrative describes a world that does not resemble anything that exists today on our present shared world-line template. making the John Titor narrative hilarious in it’s inaccuracies.
I guess you could say that. Taiwan, Japan and Korea were all “forcefully annexed” before N Day.
I don’t remember a great deal about media coverage during the civil conflicts. I would probably characterize it the same way you see coverage of Waco, Ruby Ridge and Elian Gonzalez.
.
Again. This has very little resemblance to our reality.
He continues on about the World War
And it makes interesting reading.
The “pattern” of exchange in the war will not be a surprise.
Many people will perish as a result of starvation and disease. I would also submit that you already know if you’re safe or not.
The trick is to not turn off your fear when you’ll need it the most.
Australia is sort of interesting in what is unknown. After the war, they were not very cooperative or friendly (can’t blame them really).
It is known they did repulse a Chinese invasion and most of their cities were hit. They have a trading relationship with the U.S. but I would characterize them as reclusive and ticked off.
When people use phrases like “See what I mean”, “You’re not hearing what I’m saying” or “Something smells fishy”, they are indicating the primary sense they use to process information about a situation.
I find it interesting that my credibility and the phrases that describe it hinge on economic terms and whether or not I have something to sell. I don’t. I also don’t know how to clarify my position any better so I would suggest that if what I say angers you, it might be best to just consider it fiction.
Soon you’ll get bored and I will leave in a few months. Either way, it won’t be an issue. The “enemy” that was attacked by Russia in the U.S. was the forces of the government you live under right now.
He said that the US attacked Russia, and Russia responded.
He said that an aggressive China invaded Australia. I find that completely and wholly at odds with our present reality. It is so far-fetched and unrealistic that it makes me embarrassed that I even post on of his “predictions” on MM.
.
But the distrust that Australia has with America is understandable. This trend is understandable if you are at the very least paying attention to the relationship between Australia and China. Mike Pompeo and Trump worked with Hon Scott Morrison MP to sever ties with China, and trash trade while ramping up the military This has most assuredly tarnished the trading relationship. When Trump left, the ties remained severed and the wounds hurt.
There is a great deal of distrust in the Asia-Pacific rim regarding America right now.
Yes, I think the New World Order idea tried to establish itself. I would consider them the combination of the old U.S. federal system, Europe, Canada and Australia.
He said that…
South America went relatively unharmed. However, there is still a great deal of internal conflict with conventional arms
In regards to the World War III event…
Yes, EMP took out a great number of electronic devices. That’s one of the reasons why we don’t have reliable technology laying around.
However, in the opening hours of N Day, the Russians did not launch any high altitude detonations. They knew we would most likely clean up after them so they wanted everyone outside the cities to be able to communicate.
Most of the warheads that hit the cities came in threes and exploded close to the ground. The heavy EMP damage was isolated to those areas.
Scary stuff.
I’ve noticed that when most Americans think about Canada in this time, they think about pine trees, chooks and back-bacon. It may interest you to know that most Canadians in 2036 are some of the most efficient, ruthless and dangerous people I know. God help Quebec.
Interesting.
The animal Kingdom is alive and well. I’m sure it suffered but there fewer people infringing on animal’s habitats now.
Nuclear war is a very undesirable thing but it is not the end of the world.
There are areas and cities we can’t enter and the environment did suffer a great deal of damage but we are recovering.
Isn’t Hirroshima a thriving city today? The major physical affects include skin cancer, infertility, infection, etc. Almost everyone has some sort of physical remnant from the war.
The entire country was affected, not just the cities on the coasts.
(5) Were only cities along the Eastern Sea port hit in the Nuclear War, or all over the country?
Mostly cities and large military areas in the entire country.
He continues that the War affected the entire world in one way or the other.
(16) Which country gets the worst in the war?
Again, the entire world is affected. Even if you don’t take a direct hit, dying crops and no water can ruin your day.
Well, that is interesting, but the lead up does not match what our current reality actually is…
What our current reality describes
Our current reality describes something quite different.
And these differences will shape what the TRENDS will lead us all towards.
I believe, that I cannot prove, that there are elements in the Chinese, the Russia and the American governments that do not want the John Titor scenario to occur, and to this end, they have placed “fail safe” mechanisms in place.
For instance, using China, for I am most familiar with it, the election of Mr. Deng back in the 1970’s completely changed the path and course that China was on. And the ideal for the idealistic fervor for “spreading communism” all over the world ended in the late 1970’s. Of course, no one told that to any Americans. Who still have this terribly distorted idea of what China is like. Which, of course, propagated by endless lies and distortions.
What we see today is a unified Asia falling into place.
Russia and China are teaming up. They have strong agreements with the SE Asian nations, and both the European and Middle Eastern nations.
So let’s look at this.
Firstly, what Americans think about Geo-Political relationships after four years of trump and company…
.
Yes, I know it sounds and looks really bad, but isn’t this the exact way it is? The declared “enemies” of the United States are Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea. And the United States is fighting eight (x8) “hot” wars in the middle east, has over 800 military bases world-wide and is involved in all sorts of hidden wars sponsored by the CIA assets; the NID and NED.
This world view is in complete alignment with the John Titor narrative. It describes how an American conservative might view the world.
Which explains why the United States has so many military bases everywhere
You know “for democracy”.
Here is a map showing where all the military bases are all over the globe.
This map gives a distorted illusion. It provides the illusion that everywhere there is an American base, that that nation, country or territory is aligned socially, politically and militarily with the United States. Which isn’t even remotely true.
Now, let’s look at the world differently. Let’s see it as it actually in irregardless to what America or Americans might think about it or now.
The “real” reality 2021
Now this is a very simplified map. And I did so intentionally.
First off, I did not include any of the 8x eight nations that the USA is fighting wars in to be American allies.
Were America to be embroiled in other issues (Civil War, nuclear war, etc.) these nations could quickly flip to neutral or even align with one of America's "enemies". So I did not identify them as American-client-nations.
Taiwan is colored the same color as China, because after all, by UN treaty, and by Taiwanese law, it is a State of China. So this map accurately reflects the world as it is today, not what the USA wants it to be.
Taiwan stopped being an independent nation, and became a Chinese client state in 1972 by [1] The Shanghai Communiqué and the 1982 [2] Joint Communiqué and [3] the August 17 Communiqué. It's the 23rd province of China.
All of this his was codified and made permanent on October 1971, when the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 2758, which recognized the government of the People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate representative of China at the United Nations and established the One-China Principle.
Smaller nations, too small to color are not colored in. This includes Israel and Hawaii.
Nations in blue are the EU.
They try to be neutral, but their leanings over the last four years has been with their Asian neighbors Russia and China. This is true irregardless to what the American media might try to portray.
Likewise, even though America has military bases in Korea, and Japan, and throughout the SE Asia, these nations align with their larger neighbors, not with far-away America. North Korea might have US bases and an American military presence, but it’s largest trading partner and economic, racial (Han Chinese) and cultural heritage is with China.
Other nations that try to be neutral or independent such as Greenland, or African nations are left uncolored.
India is trying to stay neutral, although it’s ruling class and media are firmly aligned with the United States, but it is large enough to have it’s own yellow color.
Leaving the world, more or less, resembling this kind of map if you cut away all the bull-shit, and look at things from a social-economic perspective. Instead of one related to military might and military activities.
This is the world today, 2021…
.
So what do we see?
Look at the map. Can you see something interesting there?
America is pretty isolated in the world today.
Major, hard and consistent, American allies include Canada, the UK, and Australia.
The rest of the world is dominated by Russia and China which hold the lion share of factories, military weapons, political agreements, trade relationships and technology.
Europe is trying to be neutral, but leans East. Poland is an exception.
Australia should flip red in the next few years with all the problems that the PM Morrison caused though his alignments with Trump and company.
This is all very interesting. Eh.
It’s not what is being told to Americans through the American media. Instead America is being told to fear the rest of the world or else they will “steal our democracy”, and that America is the biggest, the toughest and the best in the world.
Of course, you could "nit pick" my assumptions and argue that the American neocons are actually correct, and that economic and technological and manufacturing capabilities are over-rated. You could argue that nothing has changed, and that national strength is a function of real and actual strength. If you believe this then maybe you should leave Metallicman and start reading the National Review.
Now, let’s imagine the world in the next four to five years.
The world in 2025.
In this we will follow existing trend lines. We will [1] assume that the USA will spend a significant amount of time, money and resources on domestic issues and problems . Which might include a civil war, or barring that, a civil disturbance.
[2] We assume that there will be repercussions for Morrison siding with Trump in his anti-China stance. And we will see Morrison and his nationalistic party lose the Australian elections.
[3] We will see the Chinese BRI expanding, and trade opening up to Europe.
[4] We will witness a complete pull-out and withdrawal of American troops out of Afghanistan.
[5] We might as well see a changes in political opinion regarding China and India relations. India will then wish to participate in the BRI rather than isolate and trust in the “goodwill” of America.
All of these are all just assumptions and extrapolations from what we are observing.
Resulting in this map…
.
Thus creating a situation of a combined Asia against the United States Empire.
Now, of course this is all extrapolations with some pretty major assumptions, and of course, anything can change in the future. So we will keep things simple…
A united Asia is rising in power with global reach. It controls most of the world’s factories, a sizable and competitive technological base, and a whole lot of people.
And how America will react to these changes will determine what the future for America and Americans will be.
American reactions to a changing world
Well, we already have seen how a neocon administration (Trump) would react to a changing global situation. But their actions were not very popular. Donald Trump lost his reelection, and the global community has looked askance at the United States ever since.
What will happen in the future is unknown, but if the trends continue as they seem to be doing, then we can expect the following…
Continued unrest in the United States.
Depending upon how the various State and Federal government handle this unrest will determine whether [1] the unrest will end, or [2] get much worse. My experience with the American government is one that indicates lack of originality, an arrogance and a true lack of creative understanding of the deep and substantive issues that America is embroiled in.
My guess is that…
The unrest will get worse, and it will be aggravated by cold, uncaring reactive measures taken at the State and Federal level.
Which pretty much means that at some point in time, that…
Some kind of Second Civil War will occur in the United States. Whether organized in sides, or balkanized, or just manifest as terrorism, there will be shootings and deaths.
And I sincerely hope that this does not happen. If it does it means that the same-old same-old playbook by the oligarchy will continue to play out. Two sides will fight each other, while the rulers watch from the ramparts.
And if the various governments are not able to suppress the domestic unrest, they will “pull out the old playbook”, and attack or try to create some kind of major foreign war as a distraction. Usually, in the past this has typically resulted in the unification of the nation against a foreign foe. However this time, the conditions are quite different. And the results of this action will be terrifying.
World War III. Russia / and or China will respond to American aggression with a preemptive nuclear salvo.
Conclusions
While the specifics regarding the John Titor narrative have no actual bearing on the realities on this world-line template that we share, the trends and the trend line does. If the current situation DOES NOT CHANGE then we can well expect a gloomy outlook.
It WILL NOT be like John Titor described.
But it will be awful.
What I can say that is the severity of the war that America will be embroiled in will be directly proportional to the arrogance of the American ruling oligarchy.
We will need to watch and see what will happen.
I like to believe that the promises made to me at the ADC Pine Bluff during my retirement has validity. And if so, then what ever occurs in the future will not be as horrible as our fears believe. There will be changes, and in the long term, for our children and for our descendants, the world will become a better place for everyone.
Do you want to see similar posts?
I hope that you found this post curious. Please take care. You can view other similar posts in my SHTF Index, here…
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
This post is about people. It’s about families. It’s about relationships. It’s about cultures, societies, and life. It’s about lifestyle. And I want to start the year with a good humane post that discusses these elements in our life.
Unlike previous years, there seems to be an increase in videos and movies about humanity. Sure there’s the action videos, and lots and lots of guns. There’s monsters and super heroes, but a new kind of video is emerging from the old. It’s a video about people and their humanity. And these videos are becoming more an more common.
This article, this post, highlights those videos.
Please kick on the picture to see the video. It will open up in another tab. Allow some time for it to load. Most videos are in the 20MB range, but one is 65MB. I do hope that you all will enjoy them as much as I have.
A Chinese video about a father and his daughter..
The night before my father died, he left me an email message. It was a stupid one-sentence email along the likes of “do you have the link for the website we talked about?” And I kept that message. It’s still there, sitting in a dusty file folder on my long disused Yahoo! account. And account I only refresh every year or so to keep my old archives and records intact.
The following is a video. It’s a Chinese video. It’s about a man, now an old man. He’s a man, a father, who likes to listen to the voice-mail message left by his (now dead) daughter. We don’t know how she died, or what their personal situation is. But we do know that they had a relationship, and hearing her voice was very important to him. So important that he has paid for her cell-phone account to stay active for years and years.
But then suddenly, her voice-message disappears. And a story ensues…
.
I hope that you all enjoyed this video as much as I have. You don’t need to understand Chinese. Just watch what is going on.
So what might the oligarchs think of Chinese people with their resounding support for the Communist Party of China?
They will hate them with every bone in their body, they will be furious that this country resists and denies them a chance to plunder it - yet again.
The oligarchic death cult will be extremely angry that a single country presents an excellent and achievable system of government and financial management and community betterment to all the other nations on earth.
-Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 5 2021 20:48 utc | 14
Two strangers in Europe
This next video is about two strangers. It’s a European video. And they get stuck in an elevator. You know those places where you just stand and focus on the lighted numbers, the buttons or the advertisements on the walls. never communicating with the other people that you share that brief moment of time with.
Enjoy, it’s actually a little cute.
.
That was good. Right? A nice fun and kind of cute video. But the message is important.
How are you going to behave this month?
A sense of community.
In the next video we have a typical small family run business. These places are everywhere in China. You can get a breakfast for under $1. Usually some hot Jiu (which is a rice porridge soup), some Baozi (which is a small roll with meat or vegetables inside), some noodles, and some sweet bean drink. The business is thriving…
…but there is an emergency and the entire family must leave now. And all the people are stuck with no one to serve them, and the family devoid of income for the say. What is going to happen? As these establishments typically don’t have doors, are out in the open, with the family living in the back room watching the store.
What is going to happen?
It’s all about community.
.
It’s all about community and our role in it.
Lets look at what China plans to do over the next 5 years. The article provides a very broad explanation then links to some specifics at the bottom, the item about the Yangtze River Economic Belt being most important. I found this bit of reporting highly important:
"More specifically, these days the government uses the five-year plans to reinforce and complement the market dynamic by providing regulation and guidance. That includes providing the legal and social framework, such as issuing monetary and fiscal policies, providing public goods and services, such as building high-speed rails, and correcting for market failures like pollution."
There's a vast difference in focus between China and the West--China's sharply focused on its development in ways the West isn't whatsoever, and it makes certain its citizenry knows that and everyone's working as a team--every job has its own value and is important.
The best explanation I have is that China is doing while the West is watching and not doing; therefore, China continues to grow ahead of those standing watching with their jaws agape.
China outnumbers the Outlaw US Empire by more than one billion people. That's a huge team working together to advance their nation and themselves.
Within the US Empire, at least 30% of the labor force is idle and not even counted for unemployment purposes since they aren't actively looking for non-existent jobs while about 24% of the active labor force is unemployed. That's 54% of your human capital that's not being used at all to better themselves and their nation. Honestly, which one has the better outlook?
- Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 5 2021 22:57 utc | 28
Bravery, sacrifice and respect
The next movie consists of excerpts from a Chinese war drama.
Most Americans haven’t a clue to the fact that China has been embroiled in centuries of very, very bloody warfare. People have suffered well enough, and one of the great polices of modern Communist China is to avoid war and get off that “bandwagon” of exporting “communism”, or “democracy” to the rest of the world.
Instead, China has adopted a “live and let live” attitude, and all of China, from the laws, to the media play this narrative over and over.
Never the less, if you need to fight, you fight to the best of your ability. And you do your best. You fight for family, and your die for family. For in China your community is who you are.
Which is the opposite of what it is in America.
In America, it is “every man for himself“, it’s a “dog eat dog” world and you need to “carve out a life for yourself“, or you are a failure. So in America you don’t have teams. You don’t have families. Instead you have successful individuals.
Instead of Huawei’s leadership committee supported by the Huawei engineering group, you have Elon Musk.
In Chinese movies the emphasis is on being the best you can be as part of something bigger. While in American movies it is the individual that fights against all odds.
This next clip is a Chinese war drama. Notice the depictions of bravery for the community of friends. It’s all very Chinese, but maybe…
…just maybe…
…it’s that we are all part of something bigger, and we need to contribute to it.
.
War is not going to help humanity grow.
It’s working together, not fighting apart.
The tale of the thermos
In our culture, well in most cultures, it seems very odd to open up to strangers. It’s difficult to meet them, to talk to them without feeling a jerk. For in most societies the people that tend to come up to you are typically undesirable…
And so we avoid others. We stare at our shoes. We read our cell phones, we look at the scenery, we stare off into space. We do anything and everything possible to not engage into inter-personal contact with others. We self isolate. We go home to our dark home and there we stare into the flickering blue glow of the monitors until the next day, when we get up and drive alone to our destination.
This is undesirable.
Humans are social creatures. We need society. We need to communicate with each other. We need that inter-personal level of relationship.
The next story, is a cute one. It’s about a boy who wants to strike up a communication with a pretty girl, but there is nothing to “break the ice with”, just his thermos.
.
This is the central theme behind the first Howard and Kumar movie; Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (plus a heady dose of smoking that marijuana.)
Help others by active participation…
The next video is from the Middle East. And a man decides to help a beggar out. And maybe the point is clear. Rather than pass by, or rather than just give him a coin. Perhaps assisting in a more active way…
…even if it seems trivial…
…is important.
I personally believe that every action that we perform has meaning and substance. Everything that we do, and every thought that we have, all combine towards the reality that we create for ourselves. Maybe the fellow in the video cannot change this beggars life, nor does he want to. He just wants to help him out a little bit more.
The world would be a much nicer place to live in, if everyone stopped thinking about themselves and instead abandons the “for-profit” model embraced by the capitalist oligarchy out of Washington DC and starts going on the local level ….
…helping each other out.
.
And from Europe we have a similar themed movie. And in this one the same type of action is performed. The point should be clear, you all…
…all over the world…
…most especially in Asia…
…people are waking up to the realization that we all must contribute to the well being of each other, and that the greedy “mine, mine, mine…” oh, you are “bad and evil, we must destroy you“, and all the bans, the nonsense and the hate must end. It is a time that is long over due.
.
Funny thing about all these videos.
I pulled them off of DouXing which is the Chinese version of Tiktok. You know, the one that Donald Trump banned in the United States for “natural security reasons“.
Perhaps, if you are an American, you will need to destroy your computer now because you watched these dangerous videos with their dangerous ideas. You don’t want the American thought police to come banging in your door and arrest you.
Do you?
It always gets me when the American press says that there can't be peace without "democracy" and "liberalization."
Huh ... try 20 million dead in America's wars since WW II.
And as for "democracy," living in America I would love to see some of it.
Posted by: Mike from Jersey | Jan 5 2021 20:41 utc | 12
Conclusion
I think the main problem are the two different approaches taken by the US or Chinese, which are diametrically different. The Chinese seem to use a "Cumulative" approach, while the US is based on what I call "Winnowing" as a state. Take their respective attitudes towards the poor.
First the Chinese; Cumulative, we are all in this together. If everyone has a "job" be it ever-so lowly, selling food on a street corner for example, then for the Chinese this is a "plus". The person is more or less responsible for his own well being, is not a burden on the State for handouts, and could be (potentially) taxable etc. The object being that ALL Chinese then become positive factors in the society. They are also more motivated because they have a "place" in society. The recent case of Jack Ma and an IPO is not the opposite, but he was trying to get ahead by means that would have led to more unemployment - on the back of the Chinese Government. He was not adding to the cumulative good of the country. Only his own riches. (The Chinese do have billionaires and riches - but are constrained by Corporate credit ratings as explained on a previous - very interesting - thread. Thanks to: psychohistorian | Jan 5 2021 2:08 utc | 162. The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-001)
The US. The attitude is to beat out the chaff leaving only the "kernel". To "Winnow" the population leaving only the top. ie the poor are sidelined, they become a problem for the Government (needing support, food etc.). A net negative value to US society. (The Rich also get handouts from the Fed. as free money has become an habitude, but that is an another way of winnowing out the chaff - as others do NOT get the trillion dollar handouts) The poor have no "place" in a society that has rejected them and so are less motivated. They must fend for themselves and are expected to obey. If they do not there are always the police to enforce obedience.
"Cumulative = win-win", and "Winnowing = Only the top win".
Posted by: Stonebird | Jan 5 2021 20:26 utc | 11
The world is changing, and it is a good thing. Awareness of it, and awareness of our role in the world is very important. And we do not need to subscribe to any service, pay any fee or provide any user login information to participate. All that matters is to smile, and be more open to the world around you.
Who knows what interesting people you might meet?
Do you want some more of this?
I have more posts along these lines in my Rufus index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
The Uyghurs have managed to create a very old and deep culture. Most of them are good, law abiding citizens of the PRC. Also the great majority of followers of Sunni Islam are peaceful people.
The purpose of this article is to address the terrible problems related to fundamental extremism and terrorism. Most of which has been crafted and then fueled by the Oligarchy in the West and its allies. Their over-riding goal has been to damage China for their very own personal advantage. This article introduces the Uyghur people and society to Westerners (Americans) who know only of them by the black & white cardboard cutouts that the American (and Western) media prefers to present them as.We cover their great proud history and how they are being used as pawns by Western oligarchs and the Neocons in America.
What inspired this post
Several years ago, I foresaw this manufactured issue becoming a spearhead for US imperialism to attack the Chinese government. Hence I decided to travel to Xinjiang in 2018 to see things for myself. I commented previously about my experience on this MOA comment thread (comments 36 & 48).
-Posted by: Maracatu | Dec 5 2020 18:14 utc | 5
Yeah, I have known for years that the Uyghur people are not what the Mike Pompeo and the other neocon conservatives loudly proclaim it to be. The big difference between myself and Joe Average in America is that I have traveled to XinJiang, and I have met these people and seen things first hand.
But every now an again, one of the insane and outrageous lies (out of Langley Virginia) irks someone the wrong way and they fire off a rebuttal. This is one such rebuttal…
Today i saw someone (most likely a fake profile as they only posts anti-china posts daily and nothing else) posted an article about Xinjiang Uyghurs detention camp. The article got me curious with their outlandish claims using fake pictures (some artist renderings, some stock images from Getty Images ! etc.)
I did some simple search on Google Earth and i found the site of the so-called detention camp is actually a "Zhaosu Lvyuan Breeder Chicken House". This is obviously a propaganda article aimed at spreading lies and misinformation. see the Google Earth link here https://lnkd.in/gN-K3P9
99% of articles you read about China written by western media are lies and fake. There are lots of such fake profiles posting propaganda materials on LinkedIn. Stay vigilant folks.
For the truth shall set you free.
read the fake article here
https://lnkd.in/gxXJ_pi
The so called Uyghur Detention camp is actually a chicken farm.
.
But it’s more than that. This “person” who is spreading all this “information” and cluttering up my feed with lies, distortions and a “fire hose” of hate-China nonsense is herself (or itself) a liar. Who is this person?
Who is this person really?
.
And so, concerned people want to know…
Elena_MYL @Elena_MYL - 2:28 UTC · Dec 29, 2020
I search a bit about #ZhangZhan online and here’s what I found. She was detained several times before, from 10 days to 65 days since 2019. She got warning for the first time in 2018.
Pic. She’s holding an umbrella says” End socialism, take down CPC”.
She’s a Christian zealot with a strong tendency towards martyrdom. She made hunger strike several times during the detention.
She had psychiatric assessments during the detention since she kept talking Jesus, Bible, God, etc.
Here’s video from her YouTube channel. She spoke in a very slow speed. “I preached gospel to her : The cross of Jesus Christ bears the sins of everyone, salvation is found in no one else, but Jesus. Actually I’d prefer to preach gospel to those cops and ppl who quarantined her.
Here is an article she wrote accusing Chinese government acting like god. She used the word “神” (God) 62 times.
#ZhangZhan regards herself undertaking God’s mission. Somehow reminds me of Adrian Zens who fabricated Uyghur genocide claiming he’s been led by God against Beijing. ...
What is Xinjiang like?
Well, I have written about this, but you know, nothing is better than a short video. So check it out… Click on the picture to watch the video.
The propaganda gets thicker, and thicker, and more intense…
And the anti-China march continues on and on. It has billions of dollars in funding, and it owns the Western news media. And the articles are just ridiculous.
This morning at the VRT, our (government owned) National Radio Station:
BREAKING NEWS:
“All the FFP2 face masks that the belgian government bought In China to distribute to the army, government services and government owned hospitals
are made by forced labour in Xinjiang.”
There, you got it. For sure, 98% of the Belgian population will believe it.
So then, I can write whatever I want, exposing their lies. But I have the 98% against me.
-Bill Brockenblock
It doesn’t matter if Trump failed to win reelection, the propaganda onslaught continues, and will gradually be phased out over the next six to nine months. Right now, the articles and attacks are still funded for, and the literary assets must continue to pump them out until the funding-well dries up.
The torrent of nonsense continues…
The Uyghurs are worse off than slaves picking cotton
I mean, this kind of propiganda is pretty nasty. It paints the image that America must launch world war III against China to “free the slaves”.
Half a million Uyghur Muslims 'marshalled and coerced ...
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/uyghur-muslim-china...
Xinjiang is one of China’s largest cotton production areas with about 1/3 of the total output of cotton in China. This Uyghur woman is picking cotton as part of paid labour (Photo: Chien-min ...
About 20% of the world’s cotton comes from China, and about 85% of that comes from the Uyghur region. “Ample sunshine, arid weather and large temperature differences between day and night make Xinjiang an ideal place to grow the natural fiber,” says state news agency Xinhua. It’s also an ideal place to take advantage of coerced labor:
“Factories of Turkic Muslim internment, part of China’s reeducation camp system, are subsidized and directed by the state, and employ many former detainees at a fraction of minimum wage,” wrote our Xinjiang columnist, Darren Byler, in 2019. He added that companies, both Chinese and foreign, are taking advantage.
The scale of abuse is even greater than previously thought, according to new research from scholar Adrian Zenz, who has trawled through government websites and state media reports that show that systemic forced labor is affecting the entire cotton industry in Xinjiang.
Zenz has been one of the most prolific researchers of abuses in Xinjiang, which has earned him character attacks from China’s defenders, including the Foreign Ministry, which today accused him (in English, Chinese) of “making a living from fabricating rumors and slanders against China” in response to his new report.
And oh… of course, Yahoo! has picked up on this article and is promoting it.
Over 570,000 Uighurs involved in China cotton coerced ...
https://news.yahoo.com/over-570-000-uighurs-involved-072620224.html
1 day ago · China has strongly denied allegations of forced labour involving Uighurs in Xinjiang and says training programmes, work schemes and better education have helped stamp out extremism in the region. When asked about the report on Tuesday, Beijing said workers "of all ethnicities in Xinjiang sign labour contracts with enterprises based on their own ...
And the evil Chinese Communists are breaking up familiestoo…
Uyghur Family Kept Apart by China’s Xinjiang Policies ...
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/10/uyghur-family...
Dec 10, 2020 · A Uyghur family in Sydney, Australia is happily reunited today after three years of forced separation. Like many ethnic Uyghurs in China’s northwest region of Xinjiang, Chinese authorities in ...
And the lonely women are forced to sleep with government officials…!
China forces Uyghur Muslim women to sleep with govt …
https://www.opindia.com/2019/11/china-uyghur...
Nov 08, 2019 · Han Males are sleeping on the same bed as Uyghur Muslim women in China whose male family members, often husbands, are locked up in ‘reeducation camps’ in conformity with a diktat by the Chinese regime, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported last week. The information comes from government officials who spoke to them on the condition of anonymity.
And another article on this propaganda angle!
Report: China Sending Han Chinese Men to Sleep with Wives ...
https://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/report...
Nov 06, 2019 · Breitbart – by John Hayward. A report by Radio Free Asia (RFA) on Thursday said that Han Chinese men have been assigned to monitor the homes of Uyghur Muslim women while their husbands are held in Chinese re-education camps. These men, portrayed as “relatives” of the Uyghurs, “regularly” sleep in the same beds as the women they monitor.
Chief Rabbi launches scathing attack on China's ...
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/chief-rabbi...
The Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province are being tortured – and those who manage to flee are still not safe. OPINION: Volkswagen needs to be whiter than white on slave labour in China.
And they are being forced to eat pork!
Uyghur Muslims Forced to Eat Pork Every Friday in Chinese ...
https://themuslimvibe.com/muslim-current-affairs...
Dec 07, 2020 · Human rights groups and Uyghur activists across the world continue to campaign against China’s ongoing genocide, however, with the power of China’s political and economic leverage, it seems that the majority of the international community will continue to turn a blind eye to the abuses being conducted against Uyghur Muslims.
Uyghur Children are being hurt and harmed!
A Uyghur Muslim Child Beaten And Abused By Chinese …
https://discover-the-truth.com/2015/04/26/a-uyghur...
Apr 26, 2015 · Home › News › A Uyghur Muslim Child Beaten And Abused By Chinese Adults A Uyghur Muslim Child Beaten And Abused By Chinese Adults ... Atheism, China, Islamaphobia, Islamophobia, Muslim, Persecution, religion, Theft, Uighur, Uyghur, violence « Islamophobic Attack On Sunderland Mosque.
And the Chinese have made a mockery of the Uyghur culture and religion!
Let’s take just one of these articles that flow out of the “firehose” of anti-China bullshit…
“Uighurs forced to eat pork” – Horror Stories Told By Chinese Defector Seem To Evolve
Pretty typical expat story. Moves to the west and makes her living by "bearing witness" to the horrors she's endured. We saw that with Iranian and Iraqi exiles, We've seen and and still do with Syria and before that with Yugoslavia. Once in awhile they tell the truth, but most of the time they just tell tales and obtain benefits.
-Posted by: erik | Dec 5 2020 18:33 utc | 8
Al Jazeerah, the propaganda outlet of Qatar, has published a remarkable anti-China propaganda piece which echos claims made by dubious CIA affiliated outlets:
Uighurs forced to eat pork as China expands Xinjiang pig farmsFormer detainees claim that the forcible feeding of pork is most rampant in re-education camps and detention centres.
It has been more than two years since Sayragul Sautbay was released from a re-education camp in China’s westernmost region of Xinjiang.
Yet the mother of two still suffers from nightmares and flashbacks from the “humiliation and violence” she endured while she was detained.
Sautbay,a medical doctor and educator who now lives in Sweden, recently published a book in which she detailed her ordeal, including witnessing beatings, alleged sexual abuse and forced sterilization.
In a recent interview with Al Jazeera, she shed more light on other indignities to which the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities were subjected, including the consumption of pork, a meat that is strictly prohibited in Islam.
“Every Friday, we were forced to eat pork meat,” Sautbay said. “They have intentionally chosen a day that is holy for the Muslims. And if you reject it, you would get a harsh punishment.”
When I read the above I remembered that I had previously read about Sayragul Sautbay (or Sauytbay). But the story back than had sounded much different.
The woman had moved from China under disputed circumstances but had never been a detainee. So, this version of her story is new.
According to all previous and prior articles, she had illegally entered Kazakhstan. There, the Kazakhstan police put her in front of a Kazakhstan court. Luckily for her, she only got a mild sentence.
Kazakhstan
After highly questionable circumstances, Sautbay was granted asylum in Sweden. And it is from there where she runs a “cottage business” propagandizing for an CIA affiliated Uighur exile group.
Over the years Sautbay has given several interviews.
In each interview the articles evolve. The story changes. And the anti-China aspect becomes more and more sinister.
In early interviews Sautbay claimed to have been an instructor working in a re-education camp. In later interviews she claims to have been a detainee.
In more recent interviews she claims that she had seen torture and violence in the camps. In earlier interviews she had refuted such claims.
In one story she claims to have observed mass rape. In older interviews she insisted that she had observed no violence at all.
While she now claims that detainees in the camp were forced to eat pork she had earlier claimed that no meat was served in the camps.
The trial of an ethnic-Kazakh Chinese citizen accused of illegally entering Kazakhstan has taken on implications far beyond whether she will be reunited with her family near Almaty or deported back to China.
That's because 41-year-old Sayragul Sauytbay has testified about the existence of a network of "reeducation camps" in western China where she says thousands of ethnic Kazakhs are incarcerated for "political indoctrination."
Unlike others who've fled abroad, saying they'd been forced to endure dehumanizing indoctrination at such camps, Sauytbay was not a camp detainee. She was a camp employee.
Before crossing into Kazakhstan on April 5, Sauytbay had been the head administrator of a kindergarten -- a position that, together with her membership of the Communist Party, technically made her a Chinese state official.
She says Chinese authorities had forced herto train "political ideology" instructors for reeducation camps in western China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Wow! So a non-Chinese Muslim woman was a kindergarten administrator and a member of the Chinese communist party. Wow!
So according to that report Al Jazeerah’s ‘former detainee’ had actually claimed to have been an trainer for “political ideology” instructors for reeducation camps, not a trainer for the detainees.
Shades of 1947 Communist Soviet Union!
A “political ideology” instructor! Wow, oh wow, oh wow!
That, she says, gave her access to secret documents about China's state program to "reeducate" Muslims from indigenous minority communities across western China -- mainly Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, ethnic Kyrgyz, and Hui.
She says she also witnessed the inner workings of the program while employed at a camp for ethnic Kazakhs in the region's Mongol-Kuro District.
And being a very important kindergarten instructor, she ended up in possession of top secret documents. Documents that show that the evil Chinese are out to inflict genocide on all the Muslims in Asia!
…
A few days after the RFE/RL story the Globe and Mail published an interview with Sayragul Sauytbay. While the basic story she tells is basically the same some significant details differ:
It was a place of silence, forced learning and fear. It was called a “transformation centre” hidden in the mountains of far western China, bereft of any obvious sign indicating its purpose. But it looked and felt like a jail. For months, Sayragul Sauytbay worked inside, teaching Mandarin and propaganda to Muslim detainees swept up in a broad Chinese campaign to eradicate what Beijing calls extremism.
Then, facing internment herself, she fled to neighbouring Kazakhstan – where she was arrested after China sought her deportation. But her lawyers argued that she could face torture if returned, and on Wednesday, a Kazakh court declined to send her back, giving her a six-month suspended sentence.
Sautbay tells how she, a party member, was ordered to teach in a camp:
A primary school teacher who became a kindergarten administrator, Ms. Sauytbay was ordered last November to work in a new place. “They said I must go. I think if I refused them, I would have ended up being locked in that re-education centre as well,” she said.
She had been chosen to teach inside the internment camp because she could speak both Kazakh and fluent Mandarin. Often, she was driven to work at night, to a distant place in the mountains of Zhaosu County, on the far western border between China and Kazakhstan. The facility was surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. It looked “very, very scary. Just one glimpse would frighten you,” she said.
Her “access to secret documents” seems to have been more limited than claimed in the RFE/RL piece:
Inside were roughly 2,500 people, all of them Muslim, most of them ethnic Kazakhs. None were Han Chinese, the dominant group in China. “They were all ethnic minorities,” she said, ranging in age from their upper teens to their 70s. She received no explanation for why they were there, nor the purpose of the instruction she was ordered to deliver.
“They told us nothing,” she said. “Even as a teacher, the knowledge we had about that place was very limited. They had many of their own highly confidential secrets.”
Work in the camp had no fixed schedule, each day a mix of teaching and “special tasks.” The latter might be training students to sing the Chinese national anthem, or Communist standbys such as “Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China.”
Mostly, though, she was told to teach Mandarin.
Back then her description of the conditions in the camp differs a lot from the “made to eat pork” claims in the recent Al Jazeerah piece:
She did not personally see violence, although she did see hunger. Detainees had only three kinds of food: rice soup, vegetable soup and nan bread. “There was no meat. There was never enough to eat. People were malnourished,” Ms. Sauytbay said.
Sautbay’s husband version of the story, published in 2018 as part of a longer Washington Post piece, likewise makes no mention of violence or pork eating:
Sauytbay, who had a government job in education, had her passport seized by local officials, her husband [Uali Islam] said.
...
In 2016, officials asked for the passports of Sauytbay’s husband and children, and they decided it was time to leave for Kazakhstan. Sauytbay would follow. “She said, ‘I’m a woman and member of the Communist Party — they won’t do anything to me. Maybe things will settle down and I can join you,’ ” Islam recalled.
In early 2017, she told him, she was informed that she was being transferred to what was described to her as an “education center.” That spring, she arrived to see that it was actually an internment camp housing thousands of Kazakhs.
Sauytbay told her husband the “education” was “all about the party.” Guards locked everyone in a room, blasted propaganda from speakers and made them sing Communist Party songs.
Eventually, Sauytbay fled to Kazakhstan. “She said,” he recalled, “ ‘I came here; I saw my children — now I can die.’ ”
After she had gained asylum in Sweden Sautbay joint up with a U.S. financed Uighur organization. Her story then changed dramatically. The party member and language teacher had became a detainee. There was suddenly extensive violence in the camp and people who earlier never got meat were suddenly made to eat pork. In 2019 she told such horror stories for a Haaretz feature:
Torture – metal nails, fingernails pulled out, electric shocks – takes place in the “black room.” Punishment is a constant. The prisoners are forced to take pills and get injections. It’s for disease prevention, the staff tell them, but in reality they are the human subjects of medical experiments. Many of the inmates suffer from cognitive decline. Some of the men become sterile.
Women are routinely raped.
Such is life in China’s reeducation camps, as reported in rare testimony provided by Sayragul Sauytbay (pronounced: Say-ra-gul Saut-bay, as in “bye”), a teacher who escaped from China and was granted asylum in Sweden. Few prisoners have succeeded in getting out of the camps and telling their story.
Sauytbay’s testimony is even more extraordinary, because during her incarceration she was compelled to be a teacher in the camp. China wants to market its camps to the world as places of educational programs and vocational retraining, but Sauytbay is one of the few people who can offer credible, firsthand testimony about what really goes on in the camps.
So a year after explicitly claiming to have been an CCP teacher, not a detainee, Sautbay has now morphed in one. Where she earlier saw no violence she now reports of plenty.
The circumstances of the Haaretz interview make it obvious that she is shopped around as part of a propaganda campaign:
I met with Sauytbay three times, once in a meeting arranged by a Swedish Uyghur association and twice, after she agreed to tell her story to Haaretz, in personal interviews that took place in Stockholm and lasted several hours, all together. Sauytbay spoke only Kazakh, and so we communicated via a translator, but it was apparent that she spoke in a credible way.
The Swedish Uyghur association is part of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, a CIA affiliated organization that has in recent years gained prominence as part of the U.S. driven anti-China campaign.
That such an organization organized the interview and that a translator was minding the correctness of the story is enough to let one doubt the credibility of the tale. But then come details that are so far off from her previous claims that one is sure that these are all outright lies:
“In November 2017, I was ordered to report to an address in the city’s suburbs, to leave a message at a phone number I had been given and to wait for the police.” After Sauytbay arrived at the designated place and left the message, four armed men in uniform arrived, again covered her head and bundled her into a vehicle. After an hour’s journey, she arrived in an unfamiliar place that she soon learned was a “reeducation” camp, which would become her prison in the months that followed. She was told she had been brought there in order to teach Chinese and was immediately made to sign a document that set forth her duties and the camp’s rules.
In the earlier stories CCP member Sautbay was “often driven to work at night”, not abducted and forced to stay in the camp for months.
Mindful of her new sponsors Sautbay then contradicts her “no meat” and “no violence” claims from the earlier Globe and Mail interview:
“There were three meals a day. All the meals included watery rice soup or vegetable soup and a small slice of Chinese bread. Meat was served on Fridays, but it was pork.
...
The camp’s commanders set aside a room for torture, Sauytbay relates, which the inmates dubbed the “black room” because it was forbidden to talk about it explicitly. “There were all kinds of tortures there. Some prisoners were hung on the wall and beaten with electrified truncheons. There were prisoners who were made to sit on a chair of nails. I saw people return from that room covered in blood. Some came back without fingernails.”
On wonders who wrote the script for this laughable “mass rape” scene for her:
Tears stream down Sauytbay’s face when she tells the grimmest story from her time in the camp. “One day, the police told us they were going to check to see whether our reeducation was succeeding, whether we were developing properly. They took 200 inmates outside, men and women, and told one of the women to confess her sins. She stood before us and declared that she had been a bad person, but now that she had learned Chinese she had become a better person. When she was done speaking, the policemen ordered her to disrobe and simply raped her one after the other, in front of everyone. While they were raping her they checked to see how we were reacting. People who turned their head or closed their eyes, and those who looked angry or shocked, were taken away and we never saw them again. It was awful. I will never forget the feeling of helplessness, of not being able to help her. After that happened, it was hard for me to sleep at night.”
She was also pressed to offer bridges for sale …
In March 2020 Secretary of State Mike Pompous and First Lady Melanie Trump ‘honored‘ Sayragul Sautbay with the State Department’s International Women of Courage (IWOC) Award:
Sauytbay become one of the first victims in the world to speak publicly about the CCP’s repressive campaign against Muslims, igniting a movement against these abuses. Her testimony was among the first evidence that reached the broader international community of the CCP’s repressive policy, including both the camps and the coercive methods used against Muslim minorities.
At the end of the propaganda onslaught the Haaretz piece closes with an official Chinese comment on Sautbay’s stories:
Asked to respond to Sayragul Sauytbay’s description of her experience, the Chinese Embassy in Sweden wrote to Haaretz that her account is “total lies and malicious smear attacks against China.” Sauytbay, it claimed, “never worked in any vocational education and training center in Xinjiang, and has never been detained before leaving China” – which she did illegally, it added.
Furthermore, “Sayragul Sauytbay is suspected of credit fraud in China with unpaid debts [of] about 400,000 RMB” (approximately $46,000).
In Xinjiang in recent years, wrote the embassy, “China has been under serious threats of ethnic separatism, religious extremism and violent terrorism. The vocational education and training centers have been established in accordance with the law to eradicate extremism, which is not ‘prison camp.’”
As a result of the centers, according to the Chinese, “there has been no terrorist incident in Xinjiang for more than three years.
The vocational education and training work in Xinjiang has won the support of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang and positive comments from many countries across the world.”
Given the multitude of inconsistencies in Sautbay’s ever changing stories and the obvious propaganda purpose they have I am inclined to believe the Chinese government’s version.
What is really going on…
China is constructing an internal trade system known as the Belt and Road Initative (The BRI) that will use roads and rail to tranport trade between Europe and China. This will greatly reduce the shipping traffice, and it completely defangs the US Navy threat to totally shut off China by Naval Blockade.
This BRI runs right though the Chinese provence of XinJiang. The Xin Jiang provence has a very large percentage of Uyghur Muslims there.
By creating destabilization in that area, the CIA (using NED and NID assets) can create a war-torn battle zone in Xinjiang. Thus preventing the successful implementation of the BRI.
Which is very selfish. The truth is that the BRI will make every person, every Uyghur Muslim in that area rich. Not just America Rich, but Dubai / Singapore Rich.
The Radicalized Uyghurs
Another key point from Xi's speech that resonated with the rest of the world was the transition of China to a moderately prosperous society. By kicking extreme poverty out of its borders, Beijing has shown that the war against poverty, as outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, is attainable.
-Xi Peng's speech set clear goals for 2021
They are everywhere. Well, at least, where their Western, Gulf states and Turkish handlers want them to be.
Handler
A handler is a member of the American CIA, or other Western Intelligence Agency (NED, NID) that uses native people to perform disruptive tasks, often of a military nature against their own nation. The handler provides instructions, training, funding and direction.
The need to gather intelligence to protect American interests, combat international terrorism, and keep informed about international developments is as great today as it ever was. Though technology has made it possible to gather intelligence electronically, there is no substitute for the operatives who go into potentially hostile countries and recruit foreign nationals to share confidential information. Developing relationships to the point where people share government secrets is a daunting challenge, but that is the job of a CIA operations officer.
In this case, with the Uyghurs, the primary handlers that operate in this remote section of China are the American CIA, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Iran, under agreement with China, has stopped their radicalization efforts.
Since the Ugyhurs are used as “cats paws”, their combat command and control operations, as well as their political cells, are all based outside of China.
With primary locus of control at bases in Syria, Indonesia, Turkey and occasionally in Egypt.
When they are told to kill, they murder with unimaginable brutality; decapitating, or cutting to pieces priests, infants, old women without mercy or discrimination.
They are China’s worst nightmare.
But I thought that America hates Muslims?
After all, America is currently waging eight (x8) wars against Muslim dominated nations currently. In fact it is a running joke that while officially Muslims are just another protected religion, they are pretty much despised within America. And if you search the internet you will find many such examples of ridicule.
Muslim meme.
What is going on?
At a press conference held by the government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Saturday, Elijan Anayit, a spokesperson for the Information Office of the Xinjiang government, condemned the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which in September published a report titled "Documenting Xinjiang's Detention System," falsely claiming that China is persecuting ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
Anayit said the claims are totally fabricated and don't hold water. He explained that from 2010 till the end of 2018, the Uygur population in Xinjiang increased by 25.04 percent, rising from 10.1715 million to 12.7184 million, whereas the Han population increased by just 2.0 percent, rising from 8.8299 million to 9.0068 million.
-Former Xinjiang trainees share their training center experiences
news.cgtn.com
This article takes a comprehensive and serious look at the abuse of the Uyghur Muslims at the hands of the dastardly Chinese Communists. We look at who this group of people are, and their culture, and what is going on regarding their relationship with the Chinese central government in Beijing. We also take a good hard look at how they are being used as pawns in a global wide game of geopolitical politics.
“1 million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps!” ...
“Ethnic Cleansing and Cultural Genocide!” ...
PBS NewsHour: Inside China's brutal persecution of Uighur Muslims - Season 2019 Episode
Yikes! These emotional phrases are very effective in geopolitical arguments. Often they are used as excuses to acquire money and funding out of the United States Congress towards one or more "efforts at spreading democracy".
You know, just like the (so called) "successful" pro-democracy movements in Libya, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Iran, and now Venezuela. Look at just how successful American tax-dollars are promoting democracy around the world!
It's a better way to spend the money, don't you know, than rebuilding Baltimore... Right?
Why rebuild Baltimore?
We shouldn’t spend tax money on Americans in America. No! The money should be spread out all over the globe to fight for Democracy! Yessur!
So what’s the real story about the Chinese Uyghur Muslims? Let’s look at this issue in detail. Let’s go beyond exaggeration, distortion and sensationalism.
What the Uyghurs have become
The Uyghurs are naturally a very peaceful people. But due to their geographic location, they have become an important tool for American interests. Like Pol Pot was for the CIA in Cambodia. And like the CIA sponsored Taliban, or the CIA sponsored ISS, they are busy unleashing religious fundamentalism and foreign-sponsored militant nationalism and separatism.
They are potentially the greatest obstacle and danger to President’s Xi Jinping’s marvelous BRI (Belt and Road Initiative). Which is a real shame as every single one of the Uyghur Muslims are set to become rich. Not “American rich” mind you “Dubai rich”.
The BRI will turn this XinJiang enclave into a cross between Singapore, and Dubai. All manufacturing trade will pass through this over-land route to Europe. Anyone living in this region is going to be very wealthy.
Historically this is what happened on the old ancient "silk road" before Genghis Khan destroyed all the cities on that route.
And to promote the growth of this region, Beijing if pouring billions of dollars worth of investments and construction in this area. A visitor would be surprised to see all the stunning and brand new mosques in the area, the thriving commerce and the beautiful public works.
Both the West and Turkey are glorifying them; the most extremist of Uyghurs.
They are financing and arming them.
They are labeling them as victims.
The Uyghurs are now a new ‘secret weapon’, to be used against Beijing’s determined march forward, towards socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The West and its allies are doing all they can, to smear China (PRC), to derail its progressive course, and to arrest its increasingly positive and optimistic influence on all the corners of the world.
They invent and then support/finance all imaginable and unimaginable adversaries of the Communist Party of China.
Religious sects are the favorite ‘weapon’ used against China by both North America and Europe. That is true about [1] the extremists who belong to Tibetan Buddhism, (concentrated around an agent and darling of the Western intelligence agencies, the Dalai Lama.) Or yet [2] another radical Buddhist/Taoist extremist sect –The Falun Gong.
The West does everything in its power to destroy China.
Former CIA Agent Reveals What It's Really Like to Be a Spy
Rule #1: Learn to live a lie.
I was a Central Intelligence Agency Case Officer who served in the Directorate of Operations (DO) with multiple tours in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East. I was in Afghanistan throughout President Obama's 2010 Afghan Surge, during which time I worked on eliminating the most deadly improvised explosive device (IED) network in the world; as well as the removal of numerous al-Qaeda and Taliban High Value Targets from the battlefield.I was in Kandahar, Afghanistan during Operation Neptune Spear which resulted in the death of UBL in Abbottabad, Pakistan. My final assignment was with a top secret task force operating amidst the Syrian Civil War.
So for context, since you asked about family - I classify that as solely my mom and dad. And I kept it from them by telling them I was a low level sales guy - which I also told everyone else - and since that's pretty boring, their truthfully weren't a whole lot of other follow up questions. I just told my mom and dad last week. It's also a gigantic weight off my chest that I have been carrying for the past ten years.
There are no skills that you can learn per se prior to joining the Agency that will make you a stronger candidate. Yes, the military would help to a degree but in order to be a case officer, which is what I did, you really can't prepare for it ahead of time. Which is a good thing. That way everyone is starting on a level playing field. Which, for me especially, was a good thing given that I was just an average guy from the Midwest.
Well I was a warzone Case Officer (C/O) so you can imagine that it is already dangerous by proxy of being in a warzone. Then you add in the idea that you are CIA and that puts a tremendous target on your back. Which is why it is so important to maintain sound tradecraft and stay off the radar. Add to that the fact that Afghanistan in and of itself is trying to kill you every chance it gets. Whether that be via the terrain or a virus (which I got and almost killed me) that is not common for a midwest guy like me.
What is tougher? The mental or physical toll?
Mentally. Because I kept it turned up to 11 the entire time I was there. I was generally pretty safe physically during my time there with a few exceptions but nothing that left me debilitated or maimed. That said, I have an entire chapter in my book called The Downward Spiral which talks about my trying to cope with the stress through drugs and alcohol. Not my best stuff but it happened and I thought it was integral to share because lots of guys come back and have a hard time adjusting.It is hard to replace that adrenaline and its also hard to deal with petty shit not being so petty back home. But I have come around.
Do you really track your targets, like in the movies? How about avoiding being trailed and losing those trailing you?
Great question. Let me answer your first question by referring you to Zero Dark Thirty. That is highly authentic movie, and as we learned yesterday via Vice.com, it is because the Agency helped them along the way to ensure its authenticity. As for the second question, I refer you to the Billion Dollar Spy by Bruce Hoffman which lays out the tradecraft involved with surveillance and counter-surveillance.
Silliest thing I ever did was take a huge dip of Redman chewing tobacco trying to fit in with some of the hard core door kickers we employ. I turned green, puked in the trash can, drank a coke, then took another even bigger dip to prove to the guys I wasn't a pussy. Turns out, I am. Puked again. Went home early. Sleep tight America.
Do you use a fake name?
That is 100% true. Most of my friends still call me by my fake name even though they know my true name. Wild huh?
Was it all worth it?
I ask myself the same question every goddamn day. Was any of it worth it? Will the Taliban retake Afghanistan? They very well might. Will ISIS continue to grow? I think they are starting to decline but, will someone else readily take their place depending on the raison d'etre of the day? Absolutely.
Question.
What was a kid from the Midwest of America doing in the Middle East working with revolutionaries fighting the governments there? At what point in time was it important for the people of Columbus Ohio to go ahead and start killing people in Afghanistan?
…
Well?
…
And what makes you think that all the CIA efforts ended there, and not in other areas, against other nations?
The CIA (through the proxies NID and NED) are busily trying to destabilize both China and Russia. And don’t think that they aren’t the only places where America is trying to destabilize…
It was clearly detectable 30 years ago during the so-called Tiananmen Square Incident (an event supported by the West, and later twisted by Western mass media), as it has been obvious during two recent ‘rebellions’ in Hong Kong, fully sponsored by Western organizations (NGOs) and governments.
I wrote all about this is great detail. You can find post after post in my Trump Trade War Index.
The latest chapter of the anti-Chinese attacks, conducted by the West, is perhaps the most dangerous. It is one that is gearing up to use powerful military weapons, direct air support, and military intervention. It is the ‘best crafted’ multi-national onslaught against the interests of both China (PRC) and the developing world. And it is not just against China, but it is also against the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
Go ahead, look it up, it is the so-called Uyghur issue.
The Uyghurs
Uyghurs
live predominantly in the northwest of China. They were recognized as
‘native’ in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s
Republic of China. They belong to one of the 55 officially recognized
ethnic minorities of China, and are predominantly of Muslim faith.
Recap for those that skim-read
The Uyghurs are a ethnic Chinese minority.
They are protected under law as a recognized minority.
As such they enjoy free education, generous bank loans, and support.
They are of the Muslim Faith.
For
decades, some Uyghurs fought for independence from China (before the
Communist PRC was declared on October 1, 1949, there were at least two
Uyghur independent states declared in the region, the one most known –
the First East Turkestan Republic – with the help of the Soviet Union).
Since the formation of the PRC, China has offered equal rights and constantly improving standards of living to the Uyghur minority.
However, several extremist Muslim factions have kept fighting, brutally, for a Turkic independent state.
Extremist Muslim
They have not been representing the majority of Uyghurs, but being against the PRC, have enjoyed moral and financial support from the West, its allies in Gulf states, and from Turkey.
To repeat.
These people do not want the liberties, the financial benefits or the government of the Chinese. They want an independent land; a place where they can enact the strictest Muslim rules and laws.
Extremist Muslim
.
Dr. Gaye Christofferson, wrote in September 2002, in her work “Constituting the Uyghur in U.S.-China Relations: The Geopolitics of Identity Formation in the War on Terrorism” how divisive the actions of the Uyghurs were on the territory of the PRC:
“Uyghur separatists and independence movements claim that the region is not a part of China, but that the Second East Turkestan Republic was illegally incorporated by the PRC in 1949 and has since been under Chinese occupation.
Uyghur identity remains fragmented, as some support a Pan-Islamic vision, exemplified by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, while others support a Pan-Turkic vision, such as the East Turkestan Liberation Organization.
A third group would like a “Uyghurstan” state, such as the East Turkestan independence movement.
As a result, “[n]o Uyghur or East Turkestan group speaks for all Uyghurs, although it might claim to”, and Uyghurs in each of these camps have committed violence against other Uyghurs who they think are too assimilated to Chinese or Russian society or are not religious enough.”
This
was before the big propaganda push from the West; during the years when
even Western academia was still relatively free to assess the situation
in Xinjiang.
But soon after, the North American and European policy changed and radicalized.
In the West, the Uyghur issue was designated as ‘central’ and ‘essential’ to achieve three main goals:
To smear and humiliate China, portraying it as a country that ‘violates human rights’, ‘religious rights’ and the rights of minorities.
Uyghurs were literally inserted by NATO countries, including Turkey, into several violent combat zones: in Syria, Afghanistan and Indonesia, to name just a few, with one sole purpose: to train and to harden its fighters, who could be later deployed as de-stabilizing factors in China, Russia and former Soviet Central Asian Republics.
To sabotage great infrastructural projects, particularly the BRI.
BRI is the brainchild of China’s President Xi Jinping. High-speed rail links, highways and other infrastructural arteries would be going through Xingjian, towards east.
If brutal terrorist attacks backed by the West and its Islamist allies, and perpetrated by the Uyghur terrorists, would shake the region.
As well as the entire project. A project which has been created in order to help to improve life for the entire humanity, (by wrestling various poor and developing countries from deadly Western neo-colonialist embrace), could be jeopardized, even collapse.
But what is really happening?
This issue has been extensively investigated. Tis “issue” involves more than just China. It involves Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Indonesia.
It is one of the most important, and one of the most dangerous issues our planet is now facing.
We have benn able to trace patterns, and to find roots. What I discovered is disturbing and threatening. For China and for the world.
The
“March of Uyghurs” is backed by “useful idiots”, all over the Western
world, but also in Turkey, and elsewhere. They want to “defend victims”,
but in this case, the ‘victims’ are actually ‘victimizers’ and
usurpers.
First, let’s point out how enormous the hypocrisy of the West is: The TIP (Turkistan Islamic Party, which is the militant wing of the Uyghur’s separatist Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM)), has been designated as a terrorist organization by China.
But not by China alone; also, by …
The European Union.
Kyrgyzstan,
Kazakhstan,
Russia,
United Arab Emirates,
The United Kingdom,
Pakistan.
The United States.
Yet, this is a “head scratcher”.
What is the US Congress fully funding a terrorist organization? For goodness sakes! The terrorists supported by the West and at least by part of its public, is designated as a terrorist organization by London, Brussels and Washington.
Using Western logic, it is obviously quite acceptable to train terrorists in Syria or Indonesia, for the horrible mass killing of Chinese people, but it is not acceptable to have them operate on the territory of European Union, or the United States to kill Europeans or Americans.
This hypocrisy is sickening to me.
Way back in the 1950’s…
Separatists and Terrorists
What is not mentioned in the mainstream media is that the West has been stroking separatism in Xinjiang since the 1950s!
Addressing the National Press Club in Australia's capital Canberra on Tuesday, the chairwoman of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) lied again, right to the reporters' faces.
Kadeer accused Chinese authorities of removing Uyghur-language lessons from schools and forcing the Uighurs to learn Chinese.
"I think the Chinese government should stop its invasive policy of single-language (Chinese) education and allow students and their parents to choose whatever language they aspire to learn," she said through an interpreter.
Interestingly though, Kadeer made her remarks in Uyghur, the language she would not have been able to speak should the Chinese government have deprived her of her right to learn it.
China, Kadeer said, has adopted "biased policies towards ethnic minorities" in the past 60 years, exploited the Uyghurs and pushed all of them into a "state of extreme poverty."
But she herself was once a "millionairess" in Xinjiang and stood as a strong testament to China's preferential policies toward ethnic minorities there.
Starting from a small business in the 1980s, Kadeer worked her way up to become the richest woman in Xinjiang before she broke Chinese law and was sentenced to jail.
Still, during her appearance at the press club, Kadeer continued to tell lies in a vain attempt to cover the bare facts and her separatist intentions.
Throughout her "speech," Kadeer called China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region "East Turkistan," and publicly proclaimed that Xinjiang was an "independent country" before 1949 and that Chinese troops "invaded" and "annexed" the region.
Books compiled by Western historians never said Xinjiang was an independent country before 1949, not to mention that there was no such ridiculous record of it in Chinese history.
- Rebiya Kadeer lies again
When the Chinese communists won in 1949 (by defeating US-supported faction, which went on to establish Taiwan), the US started arming/funding separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang.
Notice the signs. Who do you think the signs are directed towards? The Chinese government? Or, Americans? And why are they in American English, and not (say) British English. Who wrote the signs, when they are supposedly illiterate? Why aren’t the signs in Chinese, the national language? Who are the signs directed towards?
The US brought in a lot of these extremists into Germany in the 1970s and helped them foment a movement for “East Turkestan.”
Currently, the so-called “World Uyghur Congress” (WUC) is funded and glorified by the US government through NGOs such as National Endowment of Democracy (NED) — which also played a major role in the Tiananmen Square clashes in 1989 (see this article).
By the way, the story of “1 million Muslims in concentration camps” (sometimes it’s 2 or 3 million!) comes from testimonies of WUC members.
However, to the dismay of propagandists, no Muslim country is buying the “concentration camps” narrative. They are ALL on the side of China.
In 2005, Rebiya fled to the US after being released on bail for medical treatment and now lives in Fairfax, Virginia, south of Washington DC. Before going abroad, she had repeatedly promised the Chinese government that she would never participate in any activity that might jeopardize national security.
Once she arrived in the US however, she has been committed to "Xinjiang independence" activities. In the same year, she founded the US-based International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation (IUHRDF). In 2006, she became president of the Uyghur American Association (UAA) and was elected as president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) at its Second General Assembly in the same year.
As soon as Rebiya arrived in the US, the "renowned" National Endowment for Democracy (NED) came to visit her, expressing a willingness to offer financial support. The sponsor behind the foundation is the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
It has been disclosed that the NED annually grants 200,000 USD to the UAA. In 2007, East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) organizations, including the WUC and IUHRDF led by Rebiya, received a total of 520,000 USD of financial support from the NED.
In addition, some anti-China US congressmen have become guests of honor for Rebiya, and frequently invited her to deliver speeches at the so-called "Congressional Human Rights Caucus Meeting."
Even former president George W. Bush met with Rebiya twice in 2007 and 2008 prior to the Beijing Olympics, calling her a freedom warrior. Members of the CIA often disguised as reporters and non-government organization (NGO) volunteers expressed their concerns to her, keeping close touch with her on the issue of ETIM prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Since the beginning of 2009, the WUC had prepared for its third General Assembly, which also received support from American congressmen and the NED.
Rebiya once said they would plan some penetration and sabotage activities at the third General Assembly targeting the grand celebration for the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China; and formulate a plan of "three phases for Xinjiang independence in 50 years."
The WUC website impressively showed that the WUC Third General Assembly was unexpectedly held in the South Congressional Meeting Room with the participation of nearly 10 US congressmen. Most of these congressmen are veteran anti-China politicians.
On the second day following the July 5 incident, Rebiya made a speech at a press conference held at the National Press Club, saying that the Chinese government's accusations were "completely false." However, the club is an institution under the US Department of State.
Some US-based media have also become a "megaphone" for Rebiya. On June 1, US-based WPFW Pacifica radio interviewed Rebiya, in which she even claimed that historically, Tibet and Xinjiang were not part of China, and stated that "repression, imprisonment, and executions" in Xinjiang "had actually increased dramatically since 9/11."
She claimed that the best way to make the outside world understand the situation in Xijiang was to inform foreign officials, especially those of the US, "Because they had always been very concerned with the human rights situation in China. The Uyghur people always have this strong faith in the United States."
The New York Times disclosed on April 23 that Rebiya had said, "Politicians and human rights organizations from all over the world were active on behalf of Tibet. The conditions in the Uyghur nation were much the same. But interest from abroad in the two...could not have been more dissimilar." Rebiya also tried to smear China by writing articles for the Washington Post, attempting to gain sympathy from the West by means of the so-called pursuit of democracy and human rights.
- Rebiya Kadeer's funding sources
Turkey is the closest to Uyghurs, who are of Turkic origin. Turkish leader Erdogan was in China few days ago and said that the Uyghur re-education centers won’t affect China-Turkey relations.
Turkish leader Erdogan was in China few days ago and said that the Uyghur re-education centers won’t affect China-Turkey relations.
Indonesia — the largest Muslim country in the world —has also said that it understands China’s predicament of dealing with separatists.
Similarly Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and even Saudi Arabia have dismissed the sensational stories. Many diplomats and reporters have visited these camps and have come out reassured.
One more historical perspective: After the Mujahideen war in Afghanistan ended in 1989, many of those fighters went to Central Asia. And the disease of Wahhabism spread to Xinjiang as well.
One more historical perspective: After the Mujahideen war in Afghanistan ended in 1989, many of those fighters went to Central Asia. And the disease of Wahhabism spread to Xinjiang as well.
From 2009 to 2015, there was a significant number of terrorist attacks by the Uyghur jihadists (here’s an example). That’s when China decided to really crack down.
Let’s wind back the clock to when Donald Trump came to office, back in 2017, and staffed his entire administration with neocon war-hawks. His MAGA narrative was directed towards China and the march of war was placed on the shoulders of Mike Pompeo…
The frontal Western attack against China and its actions in Xingjian began in 2018. Propaganda salvos were fired long before, but the ‘semi-official’ beginning of the ideological combat came in August 2018, when Reuters…
Reuterspublished a story with the title “UN says it has credible reports that China holds million Uighurs in secret camps.”
It went like this:
“GENEVA (Reuters) – A United Nations human rights panel said on Friday that it had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uighurs in China are held in what resembles a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.”
Gay McDougall, a member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited estimates that 2 million Uighurs and Muslim minorities were forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in the western Xinjiang autonomous region.
“We are deeply concerned at the many numerous and credible reports that we have received that in the name of combating religious extremism and maintaining social stability (China) has changed the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy, a sort of ‘no rights zone’,” she told the start of a two-day regular review of China’s record, including Hong Kong and Macao.China has said that Xinjiang faces a serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists who plot attacks and stir up tensions between the mostly Muslim Uighur minority who call the region home and the ethnic Han Chinese majority.”
F. William Engdahl, lashed at the Reuters report on pages of 21 Century Wire:
“In August Reuters published an article under the headline, “UN says it has credible reports that China holds million Uighurs in secret camps.”
A closer look at the article reveals no official UN policy statement, but rather a quote from one American member of an independent committee that does not speak for the UN, a member with no background in China.
The source of the claim it turns out is a UN independent advisory NGO called Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
The sole person making the charge, American committee member Gay McDougall, stated she was “deeply concerned” about “credible reports.” McDougall cited no source for the dramatic charge.
Reuters in their article boosts its claim by citing a murky Washington DC based NGO, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD).
In an excellent background investigation, researchers at the Grayzone Project found that the CHRD gets hundreds of thousands of dollars from unnamed governments.
The notorious US government NGO, National Endowment for Democracy, is high on the list of usual suspects.
Notably, the CHRD official address is that of the Human Rights Watch which gets funds also from the Soros foundation.”
This is how the new chapter of anti-Chinese ideological attacks (and attempts to stop them) began.
The CIA started to pump money towards the distabilization of XingJian.
And soon, they intensified. The Western propaganda apparatus unleashed dozens of articles, which, while claiming that China has been building several detention centers for Uyghurs in Xingjian…
… they all failed to provide any proof that extreme harsh measures were being applied against the religious and political extremists in Northwest China.
The most amateurish, speculation-based one, was printed on June 1, 2019, by The Telegraph (“China’s Uighur Muslims forced to eat and drink as Ramadan celebrations banned”):
“Beijing has long sought to arrest control of this resource-rich region where decades of government-encouraged migration of the Han – China’s ethnic majority – have fuelled resentment among Uighurs.
The biggest outburst erupted in 2009 in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, resulting in 200 deaths.Now, the ruling Communist Party has launched a propaganda campaign about snuffing out “criminal” and “terrorist” activity.
All across Xinjiang – meaning “new frontier” – are bright red banners reminding people to fight illegal, “cult” behaviour, listing hotlines to report suspicious activity.“
Love the Party, love the country,” hangs a streamer at one mosque, just above the metal detector.
A highway billboard proclaims, “Secretary Xi is linked heart-to-heart with Xinjiang minorities,” referring to Chinese president Xi Jinping.The government is working to present an image of a happy, peaceful Xinjiang, in efforts to boost tourism and attract investment; this is the linchpin for Mr. Xi’s Belt and Road initiative.”
Many thinkers, however, have been bravely putting this kind of ‘reporting’ into context. Author of the book “China and Ecological Civilization”, a leading U.S. philosopher and progressive theologian, John Cobb Jr., has many years of involvement in China. He wrote for this reportage:
“A standard tactic of the U.S. government is to create situations in which another government has little choice but to use violence.
Its use of violence is then treated as proof that “regime-change” is needed.
Sometimes it even justifies war.
The Iranians shooting down an American spy drone, for example, almost led to an overt American attack on Iran.
China has been placed in such a situation with regard to one of its Islamic minorities. There is real danger that the Uighurs will use violence against China.
China thus far has responded by an effort at massive, compulsory re-education which can be depicted as forcing citizens to spend much of their time in “concentration camps.”
That the minority is Islamic is then used in American propaganda to imply that China persecutes religion.
Propaganda can also create anti-Chinese feeling among religious people all over the world, and especially among Muslims both in China and elsewhere.
If we think that anything that weakens those who refuse American domination is good, then we can admire the skill of the CIA. If we care for truth and justice, our task is to bring to light the cruelty and injustice of the subversion and the lies.”
United States, Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s hatred of China is only surpassed with his hatred of Muslims.
Training the Uyghurs inside of Turkey
The
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ‘fell in love’ with Uyghurs when
he served as the mayor of the country’s largest city – Istanbul. He
erected a monument to them, and declared that the Turkish nation had
roots in “Turkestan”.
He allowed hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs to migrate to Turkey.
Being
a NATO-member country and at least in the past, one of the closest
allies of the United States, Turkey readily helped the West with its
colorful anti-Chinese campaign.
But
that was not all. Far from it. NATO nations and their ultra-religious
allies in the Gulf, decided to overthrow the Arab-socialist government
in Damascus, Syria. Turkey readily participated in the ‘project’ from
the very beginning, sacrificing its historic ties with the Assad family.
In 2012, an investigation of the refugee camps in the border area of Hatay (with its ancient capital of Antakya) turned up some interesting truths. While several camps were truly serving as refugee centers, others like Apaydin, were training Syrian terrorists, as well as foreign jihadi fighters.
And who were training them?
American military, NGO’s, and American English speaking experts.
In those days, Serkan Koc, a leading Turkish left-wing documentary filmmaker, who has produced several groundbreaking works on the subject of the “Syrian opposition”, explained in Istanbul:
“Of course, you do realize that those people are not really ‘Syrian opposition.’
They are modern-day legionnaires collected from various Arab countries, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, paid by Western imperialist powers.
Some are members of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
Most are militant Sunni Muslims. One could describe them as rogue elements hired to fight the Assad government.”
With help of the Mr. Koc’s contacts in Hatay, it was easy to establish, as early as in 2012 and 2013, that some of the ‘legionnaires’ were actually Uyghurs. it was also confirmed that they were being smuggled from the Hatay area ‘camps’ directly into Syria, fully armed and equipped.
Terrorists
were also trained at the NATO air force facility ‘Incerlik’, near the
city of Adana. Exactly how many Uyghurs went through that air base, has
so far not been established.
NATO air force facility ‘Incerlik’
.
On the Syrian war front, the toughest, the most brutal and the most dangerous assassins in the presently terrorist-controlled area of Idlib, are Uyghurs.
In Istanbul, Erkin Oncan, a leading Turkish journalist and thinker, who presently works for Sputnik. For years, he has been reporting on the movement of the Uyghurs.
He visited the Zeitinburnu neighborhood on the outskirts of Istanbul, where we met Erkin’s colleagues, who took us on a ‘tour’ of significant Uyghur ‘landmarks’, including the office where Uyghurs have been recruited, allowed to work semi-legally, and then, many of them, sent to Syria and Iraq.
There
are approximately 50,000 Uyghurs living in Turkey (10 million live in
China and all over the world). Zeitinburnu, has the greatest
concentration of Uyghurs in the country. Here they own businesses,
restaurants. Old people enjoy a relaxed life, drinking tea and leading
endless conversations in public places.
But
this tranquil mood is only a façade. Here is where many Uyghurs arrive.
From here, they get injected abroad, where they learn their deadly
‘trade’, how to become hardened and merciless fighters. They go to
Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or as far as Indonesia.
How the American NGO’s operate…
As early as on April 9, 2015, BGNNews.com in Istanbul, reported:
“The network is based out of Zeytinburnu, a district on Istanbul’s European side which is home to a community of Uighurs who live in Turkey.
It is headed by Nurali T, a businessman who has been facilitating the movement of Uighurs from China to Syria and Iraq via Turkey since 2011.
He is known by his code name Abbas.
An individual who works for him, AG, says that a total of 100,000 fake Turkish passports have been produced, 50,000 of which have been shipped to China to be handed to fighters recruited to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
According to the article Uighurs are joining the fight, traveling from China through Thailand and Cambodia before reaching Malaysia, which has no visa requirements with Turkey.
A fee of USD 200 is taken from the recruits.
The fighters then spend a night in Istanbul in motels, hotels or safe-house apartments before heading to Turkey’s Southeast and East the next day to cross into Syria and Iraq.
The individuals carrying fake passports are often caught at the airport in Istanbul.
As to why they have been able to enter Turkey and not get deported, AG says, “Turkey has secret dealings with the Uighurs. The authorities first confiscate the passports but then release the individuals.”
Erkin and his friend talk about the present situation in Turkey. And about what Uyghurs are expected to achieve:
“Members of TIP – Turkistan Islamic Party – are repeatedly saying that ‘in Syria we are training for jihad, and we will go back to China, and fight.”
The question is, how would Uyghur fighters be moved back to China; from both Turkey, but especially from Syria?
Erkin replied:
“My theory is, that China is on high alert, and if the fighters would be sent first from Syria to Turkey, and then to China, it could be done only if the ID’s were changed and falsified.
Because China has names, it has lists, and it has information.
If Turkey decides to secretly change their ID’s, and sends them to China, it could be possible, but, as you said yourself earlier, the Afghan route is also possible.
The IS fighters are also gathering there, the TIP is gathering there, in Afghanistan; some parts of the Western Afghanistan tip, which is not far from the border with China.
I think that TIP will try to go directly to China, but most of the attempts will fail.
They will attack from Afghanistan.
As you know, Russia recently declared that the IS has formed a new caliphate in Afghanistan, which would fortify the jihadi climate in the country.
Turkey will try to send a number of Uyghur fighters there, although I don’t know how many.
I also think that Turkey will try to divide Uyghurs into two groups.
You know that Uyghurs always travel with their families.
Sending them anywhere with the families is very hard.
But sending fighters first, and then ‘deporting’ the families, is another thing. Deporting the families could be done under ‘humanitarian cover’. So, I think, the fighters will go first, secretly, and then, families will be deported.”
But where would the families be ‘deported’ to?
To China?
“Yes, because in Izmir and Hatay, Uyghurs are taken care of by the Turkish government. There are always, exclusively, women and children, but no men.”
On June 2019, he went back to both Hatay and Izmir, just to confirm what I was told in Zeitinburnu.
But before that, he traveled to Aksaray in Istanbul; to one of the notorious Uyghur restaurants, owned by an AKP member.
Uyghurs are managing the place. It is the place where separatist leaders meet, regularly; every month, or at least every second month. The former boss of this place was arrested on charges of human trafficking.
“We have no idea what charges, exactly, or what happened to him? If he was still in prison, we would definitely know.”
The Police HQ is very close to this eatery. Paradoxically, some members of the police force who are supposed to be tracking down human trafficking, regularly gather here.
So too, naïve Chinese tourists in search of good spicy Chinese food from the Northwest of their country.
It is told:
“According to my source here, police once spotted a human trafficking cell here, but did nothing…
Police is actually controlling these cells, even giving new names to those who are supposed to be sent to Syria.
Police is in charge, and the government officials actually know who is going to Syria, name by name.
Some profits from this, and from other restaurants like this one, are going directly to the Uyghur separatist association.”
Actually,
there are many restaurants like this, but this one is the HQ for the
Istanbul area. It tries to stay humble, not flashy, with hardly any
signs in Arabic.”
It is also explained to:
“All of our sources confirm the same: ‘Police and the state/government know everything, and they make sure to control the action.”
Governing
and mainly right-wing nationalist and pro-Western opposition parties in
Turkey are all supporting the Uyghurs. The Opposition even more than
the ruling AKP, so there is very little chance that the policy will get
reversed anytime soon.
Most of the Turkish media outlets echo Western sources, and are openly hostile towards China.
However,
the government does not want to antagonize China, openly. It has some
cooperation, at least when it comes to the tracking of criminal
activities.
One thing has changed, as was told by Abdulkadir Yapcan, who covers legal issues related to Uyghurs:
“If China provides IDs and names, Turkey will investigate and press charges. If China fails to provide detailed information, Turkey will do absolutely nothing. This is at least some change, since 2016. Although, so far, there was only one case…”
Uyghurs have gone violent, even in Turkey, on several occasions.
The most documented ones were an attack against the Thai consulate in Istanbul in 2015, and an attack on a nightclub in Zeitinburnu, in which 39 people lost their lives, mainly Turkish and Saudi citizens.
Uyghur fighters in Afghanistan
On the outskirts of Kabul and Jalalabad in Afghanistan, you can regularly encounter people who are escaping from the increasing presence of ISIS in various parts of the country. Some are now forced to live in the camps for internally displaced people, like that in Bagrami, just on the outskirts of the capital.
Sources in the country are speaking clearly about the movement of the jihadi cadres (mostly ISIS) from Syria to Afghanistan. Among them are, as expected, Uyghurs.
These
individuals arrive after being fully trained. They are battle-ready,
indoctrinated and extremely brutal, even by the standards of
Afghanistan; a country which has been battered by civil wars and
invasions.
The
proximity of Afghanistan to China, with which it has a short border in
the east, but also to the former Soviet Central Asian Republics
(Afghanistan has borders with Turkmenistan Tajikistan and Uzbekistan),
is making it an ideal group to be used for subversion against China,
Russia and the Central Asian republics.
China’s BRI.
.
It is essential to understand, that China’s BRI is designed to connect China with the entire world, using several infrastructural corridors, some of which would be following the old Silk Roads.
Thiese routes, pass through Central Asia, cutting through Iran, Pakistan but also Afghanistan.
The city of Urumqi, and Xingjian Province generally, will be some of the most important hubs.
Those in the West who want to disrupt this, perhaps, the most important global project, are strategically using Uyghur separatists, terrorists and religious fanatics, to bring uncertainty, even chaos, to this part of the world.
Several top al-Qaeda members such as Abu Yahya al-Libi, and Mustafa Setmariam Nasar ─ who had met Uyghurs in Afghanistan where they trained as mujahidin ─ have expressed personal support to their cause’. The Uyghurs East Turkestan independence movement was also personally endorsed in the serial “Islamic Spring’s 9th release” by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the chief of Al-Qaeda.
It
is also important to recall that during the Battle of Kunduz in
Afghanistan (in 2015), foreign Islamist militants joined both Taliban
and ISIS, in an assault on the city. Among them were Uyghur as well as
Chechen, Rohingya, Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Uzbek.
TIP is fighting in Syria and elsewhere, but the organization’s leadership is based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but with most of its members operating illegally on the territory of People’s Republic of China.
Uyghurs obtain “hands on” training in Syria
A
lady, a mother of three, is sitting on the porch of her temporary home,
in the Syrian city of As Suqaylabiyah. She slowly recounts the horrors
she had to live through, before escaping from her village in the Idlib
area:
“The terrorists who committed mass murder in my town, are Uyghurs. My cousins and other relatives, were killed. By Uyghurs; yes, by them. In April, 2014. They were shot. We stood against them, trying to defend ourselves. Then they began killing us, first in the fight, then in revenge. After that, they cut off heads of those they murdered.”
“Were they the most brutal of the terrorists,”
“Yes. From north to south, from east to west of Idlib province. They are monstrous. They are under the command, under control of Nusra Front. They kidnap soldiers, and kill them brutally. They kill entire families and kill them in a way I cannot even describe. The easiest death is when they shoot and then behead you. They are like monsters.”
She knows. She escaped them by a miracle:
“I still remember; I fled with what was left of my family, at 4am. Uyghurs were killing, and so were Indonesians; totally brainwashed, mad. You know, my family consists of teachers; teachers of Arabic language. I have 3 children. They were not going to spare anyone…”
Consider Ms. Noora Al Khadour and 17 years old daughter, Naia, from the Kafer Nboudah village:
“We are terribly scared of Uyghurs; of their crimes. I don’t even want to remember what has happened. Although I know that I have to speak to you; to people like you… in order to stop all that madness. You know, I had to flee with my four children, on a motorbike, like in some crazy movie…”
She tries to find words, how to begin:
“First: we had to switch off our brains, in order to survive. What was happening was far from ‘normal’.
It was horror. It is almost impossible to describe…
I am just a simple woman.
They entered our town and began beheading. Shooting…
Their faces; their expressions – your heart stops thinking about them. I am so lucky that during that night I did not lose any family members, because we escaped almost immediately.”
Asked whether Uyghurs and their TIP are using narcotics, when they attack villages. My question triggers a huge discussion.
“Definitely, They could not act like this, if they were in a ‘normal’ state.”
Another, Anas, chips in:
“My friend from the SAA (Syrian Arab Army) told me that the pockets of the jackets of the terrorists are always full of drugs. Uyghurs are using captagon.”
Soldiers standing by, confirm that whenever a terrorist is captured, his pockets are full of ‘combat drugs’.
I am wondering, in horror, what would a well-trained platoon of TIP terrorists do if it were to overrun a village in China. In the two last decades, Uyghur separatists carried out hundreds of terrorist attacks in China, killing countless people.
But they never held an entire village anywhere in the PRC.
Consider this narrative…
In As Suqaylabiyah I sit across a table from the commander of NDF (National
Defense Force), Nabel Al-Abdallah. We speak Russian. He takes me; drives me, to the frontline, all the way to the edge, where Al Nusra positions are clearly visible. Then he invites me back, to this beautiful part of Syria, when “all this madness is over”.
Back at his command center, he explains:
“We are not afraid of Uyghurs, but we are taking their threat very seriously. Look, inside the Idlib area which is controlled by them, terrorism ‘grows’.
If, after improving his combat skills here, a fighter returns to China, it would represent a tremendous danger.
Uyghurs are the worst fighters; the toughest fighters.
And right in front of us – Idlib – is the world capital of terror. It is a laboratory of terrorism. There are terrorists from all over the world. There, Uyghurs are learning the deadliest trades.”
He pauses, offers me aromatic Syrian tea. Then continues with his thoughts:
“Uyghur terrorists are targeting our people. They are brutalizing them.
If we do not have solutions, soon, terrorists will damage the entire world.
Our problem is not just Uyghurs and ISIS, not only TIP or Nusra.
Our problem is the ideology which they represent.
They use Islam, they commit barbarity in the name of Islam, but all this is backed by the United States and the West.
The Syrian Army and National Defense Forces are sacrificing their soldiers for the world, not just for this country.”
There
are conflicting reports, as for how many Uyghurs fighters are still
inside Syria. The generally accepted number is around 2,000, but that
includes families.
Commander Nabel clarified:
“400 to 500 fighters are now in Idlib area. And all international terrorists based in Idlib are under Al-Nusra Front command. They are supported by Qatar, United States, Saudis, and Turkey.
Officers of the U.S. intelligence are there – inside my country. There are Turkish observation points, Turkish military forces.”
The narrative continues…
Again, I am being driven along the front line. I visited several Syrian positions and towns, including As Suqaylabiyah. It is still war here, around Idlib – real, tough war. Mortars are exploding not far from us, and landmines are being discovered and defused in the vicinity. People are dying; they still are.
And…
Near Muhradah, at the Mahardah Power Station which was recently liberated by the SAA, soldiers discovered several charred bodies. I was told, they were most likely “Asian” terrorists. But were they Indonesians or Uyghurs, nobody could tell.
The leader of the National Syrian Defense in Muhradah, clarified:
“Uyghurs are tough fighters. They are under Al-Nusra front. They are very evasive, operating under different names. They are all there – inside – in Idlib. When Idlib falls, they will fall together with it.”
Then he is shown maps.
Most likely, when all this is over, the Uyghurs will be “moved” elsewhere.
Back to Turkey, to Afghanistan, or, if nothing is done to stop them, back to China.
A Syrian analyst who does not want to be identified, wrote:
“Danger of Uyghurs operating in Syria is multi-faceted:
“First of all, they can form no part of any integral solution, because they do not belong to Syria. One way or the other, their presence is harmful; dividing the country.
The latest information about their deployment here is clearly showing that they are intentionally being used by Turkey, in order to prevent the SAA from regaining control over Idlib.
Back in 2016, the SAA tried to infiltrate the territory all the way to Jisr ash-Shugur, in Idlib, from Latakia countryside.
But all military actions failed, due to the might of the TIP (Turkistan Islamic Party) which is operating in the area.
It is good to mention here that the TIP spearheaded the attacks on all SAA posts in Jisr ash-Shugur and committed massacres there.
The second issue is: a direct threat to the Chinese interests in the region.
With intimidations being spread online and posted via the accounts linked to “Malhama Tactical” (The group, founded by a pseudonymous Uzbek jihadist called Abu Rofiq, operating in Syria, supporting anti-government terrorist forces* note of the author).
There is also great danger of the Uyghurs returning back to China and recruiting hundreds of youth extremist, separatist fighters, who could then decide to initiate attacks against the PRC.
For the reasons mentioned above, China has to be involved in all the efforts to neutralize such threats. And the world has to understand its defensive actions.
Uyghurs in Indonesia and SE Asia
Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country, has been, since the 1965 US and UK backed right-wing military coup, a staunch ally of the West.
Communism and atheism are banned there, and the most extreme and grotesque forms of capitalism are practiced all over the archipelago. Racism in Indonesia is fabled; the country has committed three genocides since 1965, including the on-going one in the occupied West Papua.
The
Chinese minority was always the target of countless pogroms and
discrimination. This began in the era of Dutch colonialism, and
continues until now.
On
top of it, most of the Indonesian Muslims are practicing the
increasingly intolerant, radical Sunni Wahhabi Islam, with roots in
Saudi Arabia (Wahhabism was developed with the substantial help of the
British imperialists).
Right-wing, religious, pro-business Indonesia has generally seen China (PRC) as an enemy.
Right after the 1965 coup, tens of thousands of Chinese people were murdered in cold blood, hundreds of thousands were enslaved, countless women gang-raped, millions forced to change names, abandon their native language, character and culture.
Many elements in the Indonesian regime and apparatus have enthusiastically joined the West in its new crusade to destabilize Beijing and its internationalist vision for the world.
The Uyghurs have become the perfect tool for the anti-Beijing combat.
According to Pak Wawan from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia (not his real name), some Uyghurs began commuting from China to Turkey and eventually Syria with the fake Turkish passports, as early as one decade ago.
This bewildered some Indonesian immigration officers, at the main international airport in Jakarta.
But the ‘confusion’ was soon clarified, and the Uyghurs were allowed to proceed; to continue on their deadly march.
“There were ‘friendships’ forged between the Uyghurs and local, Indonesian, Islamist radicals.
Some Indonesian people even traveled to Urumqi.
Connections have been forged, and eventually many traveled to Indonesia, for ideological work, fundraising and combat training.
These contacts and links go way back to the times when both sides were based in Mecca, Medina, Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia.
The visa regime between the two countries (Indonesia and China) is relatively lax, and so, people from TIP have been able to enter Indonesia hassle free.
Once here, most of them became imams, but others went on to join camps and get training as jihadi fighters, particularly in the middle of the Island of Sulawesi.”
Pak Wawan continues:
“These people have a huge network.
They also have networks in Thailand and Malaysia.
Recently, they deported them from Pattaya, Thailand.
Most of their cadres had studied at various religious universities, mostly in the Saudi Arabia, or at least somewhere in the Middle East.
When they come to Indonesia, they carry with them a book of propaganda, as well as videos, with the aim of boiling mistrust and hate towards China.
Among other things, the book says that the Chinese people are: kafir (“ingratitude” (toward God)), and that they are najis (dirty).
The book is calling for the banning (again) of all symbols of Chinese culture.”
It
is a tremendously racist, violent book. Similar texts have been
distributed in Indonesia against Shi’a Muslims, with the predictable
help of Saudi Arabia.
According to Pak Wawan:
“In Indonesia, it is estimated that there are some 200 Uyghur students, with the main purpose, to work as ustads/imams (religious clerics), and to infiltrate the system.
Some are simply trapped here.
Some of them are involved in subversive activities, together with the members of the Indonesian jihadists. Their goal is to go back to Syria, and eventually to China.”
In the restive island of Sulawesi, there are expected to be several Uyghur fighters, still on the loose. Although four of them were caught, tried and sentenced to lengthy terms in prison (in 2015). Their crimes were for joining the radical terrorist group Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT or East Indonesia Mujahedeen) with its leader Santoso aka Pakde aka Abu Wardah.
The Santoso group has already pledged allegiance to ISIS under the leadership of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
The imprisonment of 4 Uyghurs in Indonesia in 2015, could be interpreted as a change of course by Jokowi’s administration. The same as Turkey, Indonesia has been the victim of deadly terrorist attacks, and begins to see the Wahhabi jihadi cadres as a danger.
Also, the attitude towards China is starting to change, as least in the recent years. China is seen as a partner, mainly when it comes to investment into the collapsing Indonesian infrastructure.
But it is still a confusing situation.
Some Uyghurs are arriving, lately via the International airport in Manado, Sulawesi. Others are traveling by boat, from the Muslim part of the Philippines.
What is significant is that the delegations from two major Indonesian Muslim organizations…
NU (Nahdlatul Ulama – the largest independent Muslim organization in the world)
Muhammadiyah
…were invited to Urumqi in China, shown around, and at the end declared publicly, that there is no oppression of the Muslims in China.
It
became clear that those who were continuing to spread anti-Chinese
rumors in Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia, were financed and
supported from abroad.
Of course, the hardened Islamist organizations never changed their tune.
Mr. Atip Latiful Hayat, Chairman of the Expert Council of ANNAS Indonesia (Anti-Shia National Alliance), spoke to Ms. Rossie Indira about ‘human rights’ and the oppression of Muslims by the PRC. ANNAS Indonesia openly declared that “Balikpapan Muslims will support both morally and materially any strive for the liberation of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province of China.”
Mr.
Okta, from the program department of ACT, an NGO from West Java, which
used to be heavily involved in collecting money and goods for the
Uyghurs, declared that the issue is not their priority, anymore.
Dina Suleiman, a legendary Indonesian academic and writer, who regularly defends both Syria and Iran, stated for this report:
“ACT published its yearly report, but we could not find details on where all the money went.
They only published that a certain amount was donated to countries outside Indonesia, but no details.
An accountant friend of mine looked into their published reports and said that they (ACT) used all kinds of terminology to validate using the percentage of donations for their own needs.
He told me that it could be that up to 60% of the donations were used for their own needs.”
A typical case of endemic Indonesian corruption?
In this case: good. Better if money gets stolen, than if it was to reach Uyghur extremists!
Mr. Inas N. Zubir, the Chairman of the Hanura Faction in the House of Representatives is part of the faction in the Indonesian political system, that is openly questioning what is behind the smearing of the Chinese government in connection with the Uyghur ‘issue’.
He spoke to Ms. Rossie Indira, recently, for this report:
“Indonesian people have to be careful when they hear about the problems related to Uyghur Muslims, because the news about the alleged discriminatory treatment by the Chinese government that has been lately circulating, only came from the international media and a number of western NGOs.
Meanwhile, a number of western countries were later found to have less harmonious relations with China.”
“The Central Committee of Muhammadiyah (by its Chairman, Haedar Nasir) met with the Chinese Muslim Association (Vice President of the association: Abdullah Amin Jin Rubin) in September 2018.
Abdullah Amin Jin Rubin had denied the above allegations.
He stated that Muslims in China as a whole, including Uighurs, had the same freedom and received good treatment from the government.
The proof is: in Xinjiang, where the Uighurs are located, there are 28,000 mosques and more than 30,000 imams to lead prayers.
Even in Xinjiang, the government participates in supporting the establishment of Islamic College.
So, the religious life of Muslims is good.”
“I suspected that the issue of discriminatory treatment of Uighur Muslims was deliberately raised by certain parties in the country to discredit Joko Widodo’s government.
I think the opposition intentionally portrays Joko Widodo’s government as a government that does not care about the suffering of Uighur Muslims.”
Several jihadi cells in the Philippines and Malaysia are also pledging support to the Uyghur extremists.
During the year 2017, the jihadi cadres (mainly ISIS) attacked and overran the city of Marawi, on Mindanao Island, Philippines.
What followed was a prolonged battle between the military and the terrorists.
It has been told by the army commanders that among the dead militants, there were several “foreign fighters”. Some were Indonesians, others came from Malaysia. It was indicated that there were ‘others’, particularly from China, although there was no concrete confirmation about the Uyghurs.
The “March of Uyghurs” must be stopped
Excerpted and First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook. All credit to the author. Note that it was edited to fit this venue.
And what is it that the Chinese media, and the Chinese people have to say on the subject?
Naturally, it is not easy to find much of non-Western voices, in the propagandist anti-Chinese cacophony carried by outlets such as Yahoo News or Google. American “news” consists of what Washington DC says it is.
As early as in 2013, China Daily published an article by Li Xiaoshuang named “Western media’s coverage on Xinjiang worthless”.
It passionately expressed what the North American and European mass media has been trying to silence, for over a decade:
“The Western media has become the propaganda machine for the Uyghur separatists.
As a Xinjiang native, I am outraged by the false reports in Western press about what has happened in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region during the month of Ramadan, a time of fasting for Muslims all over the world…
Citing just a singular Uyghur "activist" as the sole news source, the reports accuse Chinese authorities of banning Muslims from fasting and praying in mosques...
... coupled with biased commentary that the Chinese government is suppressing Uyghur ethnic groups...
... and transferring huge numbers of Han Chinese into Xinjiang to dilute the Uyghur culture.
All on hear-say, without any first-hand accounts.
Not mentioning repeated clarifications from the Xinjiang government, how dare these media outlets be so irresponsible?
How can the world learn the whole truth?
It reminds me of the riot in the region on June 26, leaving 27 people dead.
It was definitely a massacre, but some Western media, as they have done so before, described the attacks as part of an ethnic conflict.
They portray terrorists who betray their religion by killing innocent people as “heroes”, seeking religious or political freedom…”
On March 20, 2019, Xie Wenting and Bai Yunyi of Global Times reported with much more urgency:
“Misleading headlines, groundless accusations, obscure interviewees, double standards are not hard to spot in many articles covering China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Western media outlets.
Recent months have seen an intensive outburst of such reports which have tainted China’s anti-terrorism efforts in the region by adopting tactics including using words with a negative connotation, providing incomplete information and stirring readers’ emotions.”
It is not often mentioned in the West, but there are some 20 million Muslims living in China. According to the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), there are more than 21 million Muslims in the country.
According to SARA there are approximately 36,000 Islamic places of worship, more than 45,000 imams, and 10 Islamic schools in the country.
In China, Islam has some interesting nuances: for instance, there are mosques led by female imams, there. All over China, halal food is available, and actually very popular. Many people show great interest in Muslim culture, at least theoretically.
During my 2018 visit to the Chinese city of Xian, I was impressed by the great
effort the Chinese government has been making, to support Muslim culture in this historical center of multi-culturalism, from which, centuries ago, the legendary Silk Road had been initiating. Islamic civilization, its music, food, centers of worship and architecture are now the greatest magnet, bringing tens of millions of visitors from all over China.
I clearly saw that there was no discrimination in Xiang. My conclusions
were the same as those of the emissaries of two Muslim mass movements of Indonesia, who were allowed to visit Xinjiang. We found no brutal treatment of the Muslim and their religion in China.
It
often appears to me, and to other experts on China, that the Chinese
people and even the Chinese government, do not know how to defend
themselves against the vicious and totally unfair attacks against their
country; attacks which are coming from abroad.
China “wants peace”. It is offering friendship.
But it is insulted, constantly attacked and humiliated in return.
The truth is obvious: The West does not desire peace. It does not care about justice. It never did. It only wants to control.
For as long as China is doing well; better than the West; for as long as its political and social system are becoming more and more popular, all over the world, and particularly in developing countries, Washington, Paris, London, Berlin, but also Tokyo, will never stop, attacking and provoking Beijing.
In order to prosper, and even in order to survive, the Chinese Dragon will have to fight.
Only a defeated, humiliated and conquered China would be ‘accepted’ by the West. A China which respects itself and helps others, will be attacked and brutalized by the West.
The great Chinese poet, Su Shi (1037-1101) once wrote: “The scenery varies when people watch from close or far, or from different sides.” What he meant was that Mount Lushan will not show its true features just because we are right in the mountains.
The same could be written about politics.
Just because one lives in China, it does not guarantee that he or she would be able to fully understand the viciousness and determination of the anti-Chinese attacks, which are conducted by the foreign adversaries. Also he or she would not necessarily realize why they are being conducted.
The
attacks against China are not only of an economic or military nature.
Religions are some of the mightiest weapons of the China’s foes. Be it
radical Buddhism, evangelical Protestant Christianity, or, as now,
radical Islam.
China has to defend itself, by all means.
Extremist Uyghurs are marching.
Many of them are brutal, and extremely dangerous. They have already murdered thousands of innocent people, in various countries. Their goal is to break the integrity of China and its great internationalist projects. They are determined, well-funded, and thoroughly selfish. Their desire for ‘independence’ has been ignited and financed by foreign powers.
The
plan of the extremist Uyghurs is simple: to perfect terrorist and
extremist tactics, and combat skills abroad, then return to China and
begin spreading the nightmare at home.
The
West is readily “helping” to fuel their deadly march. China’s
Ecological Civilization, the end of poverty in the most populous country
on earth, and BRI, are seen as a danger to Western supremacy, at least
in places such as Washington, London and Brussels.
China has all the right to defend itself. It has a full obligation to do so.
It
is the duty of thinkers from all over the world to tell the truth. If
they stay silent, or if they sell their dignity for money and
privileges, as so many in the West are doing right now, they will be
condemned by future generations.
Uygurs not ‘persecuted’, Xinjiang spokesman says
By YANG ZEKUN | China Daily | Updated: 2020-12-11 08:59 Reprinted as found. All credit to the author.
Uygurs enjoy the same legitimate rights as all other ethnic groups in China, and it is groundless to label them as “persecuted people”, a spokesman from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region’s government said on Wednesday.
Ilijan Anayt said at a news conference held in the autonomous region that a claim in Pope Francis’s new book calling Uygurs in China “persecuted people” was not supported by facts or evidence.
Ilijan said that China protects the lawful rights and interests of all ethnic groups. He added that Uygurs enjoy the same legal status and rights as all other ethnic groups in China, including the right to vote and stand for elections, the right to participate in the administration of State affairs and freedom of religion.
The Xinjiang government devotes 70 percent of its annual general public budget to improving people’s livelihoods through a series of projects in employment, culture, education and medical care, ensuring that all ethnic groups in the region enjoy full rights to subsistence and development, Ilijan said.
Unlike America where the military budget dominates.
The government has formed a mechanism to guarantee that at least one person in every family gets employed, he said. It has also conducted the integrative development of rural-urban education, bringing the enrollment rate of children in compulsory education to 99.9 percent.
In terms of healthcare, all residents in Xinjiang can access free physical examinations, and all impoverished people also have basic medical insurance, major illness insurance and an old-age pension.
For free.
Moreover, Xinjiang has lifted all rural people out of poverty, and all people in the region, including Uygurs, have shared the fruits of development, Ilijan said.
All citizens in Xinjiang enjoy the same rights to policy, economy, society, culture and more, and citizens are completely free to believe in any religion. In addition, the laws and regulations in China provide sound legal grounds for protecting all citizens’ freedom of religion rights, he said.
For free.
Ilijan explained that Xinjiang now has 10 Islamic institutions and 103 Islamic associations, which are in charge of coordinating and resolving Islamic affairs. All normal religious activities conducted by believers in accordance with customary religious practices at venues or their own homes, including attending religious services, fasting and celebrating religious festivals, are protected by law, with no organizations or individuals able to interfere.
The Uyghur people have their own laws and courts based upon Muslim law.
Efforts made by Xinjiang to protect freedom of religion have won acclaim across the international community, including from Islamic countries. Everyone who respects the facts cannot deny that, he added.
Here’s an interesting article (and video) that talks about the real people inside of XinJiang.
Selfies from Xinjiang workers show real stories
Found on chinadaily.com.cn and last updated: 2020-11-13 16:27 . Reprinted as found with all credit to the authors.
Some foreign media outlets have said the Xinjiang government forces ethnic minorities to work in other parts of the country, depriving them of their rights. Some migrant workers from Kashgar, Hotan, Artux and Aksu have taken selfies to record their real daily lives and work. Please watch this video, and get the real story.
Written and posted by Carlos Martinez on Tuesday, January 28, 2020. Reprinted as found, with minor editing to fit this venue. All credit to the author.
Between 27 December and 7 January, I joined a China Silk Road Tour led by former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and organised by Chinese-American activist Lee Siu Hin.
There were various strands of political ideology to be found among the 20 delegates, but we were united in our opposition to the growing US-led Cold War, which is directed primarily at China and which seeks to prevent the emergence of a multipolar world.
He was referring to the “Make America Great Again”, nationalism headed by Donald Trump and his neocon administration.
We spent around three days each in Beijing, Xi’an (capital of Shaanxi province, and one of the oldest cities in China),
Dunhuang (a small oasis city that served as an important stop on the ancient Silk Road) and Ürümqi (capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region).
China is enormous, but this itinerary – stretching across the north of the country – allowed us to develop some understanding of its diversity.
Housing
Walking around in Beijing, Xi’an, Dunhuang and Ürümqi, one thing that immediately strikes you is how clean, modern, safe and well-organised Chinese cities are.
The metro is cheap, extensive, efficient, and easy to navigate.
There are public toilets everywhere.
The streets are spotless.
People come across as friendly and confident.
Remarkably, you don’t see beggars or people sleeping on the street. Those in the delegation who live in London or New York all commented on the contrast.
In meetings with the Chinese Academy of Marxism and the Beijing People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, we were able to find out more about the housing situation in China.
Around 90 percent of Chinese families own their own homes (and the majority of these homes are owned outright, without a mortgage).
Compare that to the United States. - MM
The remaining 10 percent live in heavily subsidised social housing, or in accommodation provided to migrant workers by their employers.
The latter group – migrant workers from rural areas – also benefit from the fact that the Chinese Revolution wiped out feudalism and the landlord system in the countryside, so if work dries up in the city, migrant workers have the option of going back to their land.
As a result, there are none of the urban slums that are so commonplace in a lot of Asian countries.
The housing situation is by no means perfect – significant inequality has opened up, particularly between urban residents (who were able to buy their apartments at very low cost during the first phase of housing reform) and villagers and migrants;
However, the government is working hard to resolve various housing-related problems: preventing speculation, liberalising the hukuo (household registration) system, building millions of units of low-cost social housing, and investing heavily in the development of smaller inland cities so as to even out the imbalance between the big East Coast cities and the rest of the country.
To basically solve the problem of homelessness in an enormous Asian country of 1.3 billion people is a remarkable accomplishment.
It’s extremely difficult for most other countries in Asia and Africa – those that didn’t have thoroughgoing land revolutions – to meaningfully tackle homelessness.
Meanwhile in the developed capitalist countries, the resources exist to address the problem, but the political system is built around the needs of the rich and therefore homelessness is simply never a priority.
In short, it’s one of the huge socio-economic problems that only socialism has solved.
Addressing inequality
Housing inequality is connected to the broader issue of inequality between urban and rural areas, between coastal and inland zones, and between city residents and migrant workers.
The Chinese development model in the 1980s and 1990s was based on allowing the major trading cities on the south-eastern coast to develop first, attracting foreign capital and new technology by offering a huge pool of low-cost, well-educated and diligent workers.
Many of these workers were migrants – typically people in their 20s – who would come from the countryside because they could earn more in low-paid factory work than they could from their land (with 20 percent of the world’s population but only 6 percent of its arable land, overpopulation of the countryside has been an intractable problem in China for many centuries).
The migrant worker system is particularly attractive for foreign capital, because it means companies can base their pay scales on the costs of a single worker rather than a whole family, and because it’s consistent with seasonal or casual work (since migrant workers simply go back to the village when labour supply exceeds demand).
The Chinese government recognises that this system has fomented inequality and that the millions of migrant workers have benefitted far less from China’s rapid growth than most of the rest of the population.
However, in a situation where it had practically zero capital and desperately needed to attract investment to develop its technology and integrate into the global economy,
China had little choice but to implement pro-capital policies. From the late 1990s, China has had the material base to deliver much improved living conditions for all workers.
In terms of protecting the rights of migrant workers in the big cities, the two major policy strands are [1] to mandate higher pay and better conditions, and [2] to gradually replace the hukuo system with a residency permit. This permit will allow long-term migrant workers access to the full range of rights and services provided to city residents.
The government is also pursuing a broader rebalancing strategy, promoting the development of smaller cities in the west, north and centre of the country.
Towards this aim, there has been incredible infrastructure development over the last decade.
The whole country is connected via high-speed rail and road.
Modern energy is available everywhere, and internet access is practically universal.
Although Xinjiang has historically been the poorest region of the country, we found it to be almost as modern and developed as Beijing, with good quality roads, 4G internet, plentiful housing, and a newly-opened metro system.
In Dunhuang, a small city of around 180,000 people, we travelled on the local network of electric buses, which run regularly through the city.
We also happened upon the Gansu Dunhuang Solar Park, one of the big new industries in the area.
It’s utterly enormous, with an annual net energy output of around 80 GWh.
China was responsible for 32 percent of global renewable energy investment last year, and is increasingly recognised as the world leader in preventing climate catastrophe.
Its move to green development fits perfectly with its rebalancing strategy, and solar parks and other alternative energy plants are being set up throughout the country.
We took the high-speed train from Beijing to Xi’an, and from Liuyuan (Gansu) to Ürümqi.
The Beijing-Xi’an journey was cheap, comfortable and fast, taking a little over four hours to cover a distance approximately equal to that between New York City and Chicago – which journey would take at least 19 hours by train and cost several times more.
China’s state-owned high speed rail network is by far the largest in the world; in fact it accounts for two-thirds of global HSR capacity.
CRRC, the state-owned train manufacturer, is currently working on magnetic levitation trains that will travel at 600km/h – approximately twice the speed of current HSR.
China high speed rail map.
.
China’s vision for the coming 20-30 years focuses on continuing this process of rebalancing, spreading prosperity throughout the country, and moving to a model of development that’s highly innovative, technological, ecological, localised and networked.
Air pollution
Many people associate China with terrifying levels of pollution. Our experience was that the air pollution in Beijing is noticeable but not terrible. Residents all say it’s improved massively in recent years.
We learned at the Beijing People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries that the current mayor of Beijing, Chen Jining, is an environmental engineer who got his PhD at Imperial College London and who was China’s environment minister from 2015 to 2017.
He has been strongly focused on reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and establishing Beijing as a global innovator in the fight against environmental catastrophe.
One recent innovation has been to ban the purchase of internal combustion-based cars – that is, if you buy a new car, it has to run on new energy.
Similar processes are taking place throughout China, as the government tries to simultaneously tackle air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Although China’s rapid economic growth has been based in no small part on its abundant supply of cheap coal, coal takes up an ever-decreasing share of its energy mix (down from 80 percent to 60 percent in the last decade), and China is by far the biggest investor and innovator in solar and wind energy.
Mistreatment of Muslims
Western media has built a powerful narrative of Chinese oppression of its Muslim minority. Most notably, we’re told of the existence of ‘concentration camps’ in Xinjiang, where millions of people are denied their religious and human rights.
The US House of Representatives recently passed the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, calling for sanctions to be imposed against China because of the alleged detention of millions of Uighur Muslims.
Ürümqi
.
Our delegation wasn’t a fact-finding mission; we didn’t have a specific aim to verify the truth of these various allegations.
We did however walk freely around Ürümqi and the Muslim quarter in Xi’an, and failed to see any evidence of religious or ethnic oppression.
In Ürümqi one sees mosques everywhere; indeed Xinjiang has one of the highest number of mosques per capita in the world.
Walking well off the beaten track, we saw hundreds of Chinese Muslims, wearing their distinctive Uighur dress (including headscarves for many women) and going about their lives without any indication that they were living in fear of persecution.
We ate in Uighur restaurants, in which halal food was served and alcohol wasn’t available.
What’s true is that the levels of security in Ürümqi are much higher than the other places we visited – you walk through metal detectors and have your bag x-rayed when going into any tourist spot, train station or major shopping area.
This is a response to a wave of terrorist attacks conducted by al Qaeda-aligned groups since the 1990s.
China has attempted to tackle terrorism through a holistic approach involving security, poverty alleviation and education.
It is the latter part which has been most controversial within the western human rights community.
Where China is attempting to tackle religious extremism with what it considers to be a fairly soft touch – requiring people to attend courses on religious tolerance (as opposed to, say, holding people captive for years on Guantanamo and subjecting them to vicious torture) – this has been portrayed as a system of arbitrary mass incarceration.
Such far-fetched Cold War propaganda has been helpfully debunked by investigative journalists Ajit Singh and Max Blumenthal.
The success of the anti-terrorism campaign is indicated by the fact that there hasn’t been a terror attack in Xinjiang for the last three years.
Public square dancing in XinJiang.
Human rights
He continues…
Soon after the end of our trip, the news came out that Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth had been denied entry to Hong Kong, where he was planning to release a report “spotlighting Beijing’s deepening assault on international efforts to uphold human rights”.
This led to a chorus of protests in the media about Chinese abuse of human rights.
One thing that’s fairly obvious as you travel around China and talk to ordinary Chinese people is that the Chinese government is very much focused on human rights.
First and foremost among these is the right to life: to eat, to work, to get an education, to receive good quality healthcare, to live in a secure home, to enjoy leisure time, to pursue one’s interests.
In terms of these crucial rights, no state in history has made as powerful a contribution as that of the People’s Republic of China – no state in history has lifted so many out of poverty, or provided education and housing for so many, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion and income level.
The enormous popularity of the Chinese government within China is down to its record in delivering on people’s needs.
Meanwhile there’s very little demand for a western-style parliamentary system, because the particular configuration of political forces that prefigured the parliamentary system in the early days of European capitalism doesn’t prevail in China.
The activities of Human Rights Watch in relation to China must be considered in terms of the overall geopolitical situation.
US capital is leading a ‘full-court press’ against China, with the aim of preventing (or at least decelerating) its rise.
Ultimately the western capitalist countries would like to see the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party government and its replacement with a regime that’s willing to put the Chinese people and resources at the service of multinational capital.
They want a neo-colonial relationship with China, which ultimately would constitute a disastrous blow of untold proportions for the human rights of the Chinese people.
This is the context of the ‘Pivot to Asia’, of Trump’s trade war, of the media frenzy about Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and of the endless reports issued by the likes of Kenneth Roth.
What Washington DC wants China to look like.
The future for Xinjiang.
In the 1980’s, when China first opened up to the West, the two points of entry were Taiwan and Hong Kong. Of that, Hong Kong was the primary entry point to the Chinese resources and market. Thus, from the 1980’s to today, Hong Kong grew exponentially. It went from a small, forgotten, British back-water colony to the major financial and banking center that it is today.
You can attribute it’s rise to the role that it had as the entry port for trade with the mainland.
In a like way, the Chinese government is planning a similar role for their “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI). Those people who now live in Xinjiang are completely poised to become the next generation super-wealthy of China. It will benefit the local Xinjiang people, the neighboring nations, and the Chinese nation as whole.
To this end, the existing global structure is being bypassed, and they do not like that
Thus, the future of Xinjiang also has a lot of economic implications.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has 1000s of freight trains and trucks carrying goods between China and Europe every year; and most of these trains and trucks go through Xinjiang. There are also many oil/gas pipelines from Central Asia that go through Xinjiang to power China’s industrial economy.
The Uyghur people are expected to become “Dubai Wealthy” in the next few decades. Provided of course, that the United States stands aside and let’s them live in peace and prosperity.
An unstable Xinjiang will wreak havoc on the Chinese economy.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has 1000s of freight trains and trucks carrying goods between China and Europe every year; and most of these trains and trucks go through Xinjiang. There are also many oil/gas pipelines from Central Asia that go through Xinjiang to power China’s industrial economy.
The Chinese government is trying to help the poor people and fight the jihadists at the same time.
The US really needs to fix its foreign policy, which is now based on chaos, confrontation, wars, Machiavellian divide-and-conquer strategies, and endless propaganda. The US needs a positive approach that’s based on cooperation, friendly competition and ethical policies.
Statement that the UN supports China on Xinjiang
Valentin Rybakov, center, permanent representative of Belarus to the UN, makes a joint statement on behalf of 54 countries in firm support of China’s counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang during the discussion on human rights at the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday at the UN headquarters in New York. Liao Pan/CNS
Belarus made a joint statement Tuesday on behalf of 54 countries in
firm support of China’s counterterrorism and de-radicalization measures
in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
During a discussion on human rights at the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, Belarus made the statement on behalf of countries including Pakistan, Russia, Egypt, Bolivia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Serbia. It praised China’s people-centered development philosophy and development achievements.
The statement spoke positively of the results of counterterrorism and de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang, noting that these measures have effectively safeguarded the basic human rights of people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang.
The statement said that terrorism, separatism and religious extremism have caused enormous damage to all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, which has seriously infringed upon human rights, including the right to life, health and development.
“China has undertaken a series of counterterrorism and de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers,” the statement said, adding that safety and security have returned to Xinjiang now and “the fundamental human rights of people of all ethnic groups there are safeguarded”.
The statement also supported China’s commitment to openness and transparency, mentioning it has invited a number of diplomats, international organizations, officials and journalists to Xinjiang to witness the progress of the human rights cause and the outcomes of counterterrorism and de-radicalization.
“What they saw and heard in Xinjiang completely contradicted what was reported in the (Western) media,” it wrote.
The statement expressed opposition to relevant countries politicizing the human rights issue and called on them to stop baseless accusations against China.
“We express our firm opposition to relevant countries’ practice of politicizing human rights issues, by naming and shaming, and publicly exerting pressures on other countries,” it wrote.
“We call on relevant countries to refrain from employing unfounded charges against China based on unconfirmed information before they visit Xinjiang,” it wrote.
At the meeting, more than 30 countries, including Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Cuba and Nicaragua, voiced support for China’s position and measures on human rights.
The Kyrgyzstan representative said the Kyrgyzstan Republic considers Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region affairs to be purely an internal affair of China and “appreciates the efforts of the government of China to preserve the Uygur culture and religious freedom and freedom of nationalities of Xinjiang and supports the measures taken by the Chinese side to ensure Xinjiang’s security, stability and development”.
“The measures taken by China to address the situation and continue the economic development in Xinjiang are fundamental for the people of China, which is supported and appreciated by the international community,” said the Cambodia representative.
“We commend China’s efforts to combat terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang in accordance with the laws. We would like to reiterate our opposition to any countries to use human rights as an excuse to interfere any country’s internal affairs and attempts to put pressure in the name of human rights should be avoided,” said the representative from Myanmar.
Zhang Jun, permanent representative of China to the UN, refuted the “baseless” comments on Xinjiang made by the United States and some other countries.
Zhang said that the US and a few other countries made “groundless accusations” against China, which is “gross interference in China’s internal affairs and a deliberate provocation of confrontation”.
“China firmly opposes and rejects it,” he said.
He reiterated that Xinjiang’s preventive measures of counterterrorism and de-radicalization are based on law and consistent with the will of the people.
“This is not about human rights and has nothing to do with racial discrimination,” he said. “China wants to tell the United States and other countries not to confront the international community and not to go any further on the wrong path.”
“This is not about human rights and has nothing to do with racial discrimination,” he said. “China wants to tell the United States (and other countries) NOT to confront the international community and NOT to go any further on the wrong path.”
The CIA declined to comment.
Say no to the New Cold War
The Uyghur “situation” in the Xinjiang state of China is a “red Herring” designed to create friction in that area to destabilize China. It is a way to interfere in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative that is creating a strong and unified Asia.
Chinese President Xi Jinping six years ago launched New Silk Roads, now better known as the Belt and Road Initiative, the largest, most ambitious, pan-Eurasian infrastructure project of the 21st century.
Under the Trump administration, Belt and Road has been utterly demonized 24/7: a toxic cocktail of fear and doubt, with Beijing blamed for everything from plunging poor nations into a “debt trap” to evil designs of world domination.
Now finally comes what might be described as the institutional American response to Belt and Road: the Blue Dot Network.
Blue Dot is described, officially, as promoting global, multi-stakeholder “sustainable infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”
It is a joint project of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation, in partnership with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
Now compare it with what just happened this same week at the inauguration of the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.
As Xi stressed:
“To date, China has signed 197 documents on Belt and Road cooperation with 137 countries and 30 international organizations.”
This is what Blue Dot is up against – especially across the Global South. Well, not really. Global South diplomats, informally contacted, are not exactly impressed. They might see Blue Dot as an aspiring competitor to BRI, but one that’s moved by private finance – mostly, in theory, American.
They scoff at the prospect that Blue Dot will include some sort of ratings mechanism that will be positioned to vet and downgrade Belt and Road projects. Washington will spin it as a “certification” process setting “international standards” – implying Belt and Road is sub-standard. Whether Global South nations will pay attention to these new ratings is an open question.
- A “Blue Dot” Barely Visible from China’s “New Silk Roads”
As China’s only threat to the current global power-balance is economic, the United States is threatened by China’s rise. Thus there are numerous efforts made to create strife and destabilize Asia.
Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
Millennial youth in Hong Kong.
Pork producers in Guangdong.
Western markets for Huawei products.
Taiwan “independence”.
To this end, neocons have been active with the CIA and NED / NID to create strife in the region. This includes a full-on propaganda onslaught, where most Americans are becoming conditioned for yet another proxy war in a far-off land.
This is welcomed by the neocons as [1] a magnificent source of personal (tax free) revenue, and [2] it’s “just” another in a long series of proxy wars. The thing is, China is not a third-world country and they will only accept CIA “pro-democracy” regime change activities only for so long.
It is possible that continued CIA psyops within China could result in a backlash of Nuclear Armageddon on American soil.
This is what New York City will look like if America tries to initiate another proxy war with a major nuclear-armed superpower. They are a serious, serious nation. They DO NOT PLAY. Do not be under the misguided impression that an American nuclear armed cruiser could sit off the coast of Taiwan and lob nuclear tipped missiles into China. China and Russia would both team up to bitch-slap America into the stone age. Take heed.
Another great link showing just who is behind this CIA narrative…
Claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims are based largely on two studies. A closer look at these papers reveals US government backing, absurdly shoddy methodologies, and a rapture-ready evangelical researcher named Adrian Zenz.
By Ajit Singh and Max Blumenthal
Anyone who WANTS a war for whatever reason, is a very sick person.
While our delegation was in Gansu, on 3 January, we received the news that Iranian general Qasem Soleimani had been murdered by US forces in Iraq. This reckless and illegal act marks a significant escalation against Iran.
It’s almost certainly not a coincidence that, just a few days previously, Iran, China and Russia launched their first joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman.
An alliance of China, Russia and Iran – working closely with progressive Latin America, South Africa, Vietnam, Syria, Iraq, Belarus and others – is a real threat to US attempts to reassert its global dominance.
Trump’s murder of Soleimani should therefore be seen not only as an attack on the people of Iran but on the entire multipolar project, on the right of nations to determine their own development paths.
With the new Cold Warriors going all out to demonise and undermine China, it’s more important than ever to build solidarity and friendship with the People’s Republic.
Perhaps this message from the people of Hong Kong might put things into perspective…
During the United States attempt at a “color revolution” in Hong Kong during 2019 and 2020, not one person was shot. Compare that to the United States.
Conclusions
Expect more heavy-handed efforts by the United States in a full-scale onslaught against China. All being done short of a “hot war”. (That looks like it will fall on the shoulders of Australia, since India decided to opt out.)
Um. Sure. LOL. It’s not “new” here in China. It was implemented all over China, way back in 2015. It’s just that Americans are all unaware of how advanced technology is in China, and they always direct it as something evil and bad.
American propaganda is for Americans.
It just doesn't compute, or make sense, for the rest of the world. Most people, especially the Chinese who have grown accustomed to face recognition, have these big "floating question marks" above their heads. What's the big deal?
Imagine the Chinese writing an article in a similiar vein...
"Americans worried about the ATM Machines".
There will be much more coming on in the following months. It will all be China=Bad, and a big military drum-roll “We must DO SOMETHING!!!!!” Calling for a build up towards war.
Total and complete silliness.
American Sheeple.
.
And the American “leadership”
Nothing is more crazy than the outgoing pompous Secretary of State:
BREAKING: Huge announcement from @SecPompeo: “I have determined that the PRC, under the direction and control of the CCP, has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.”
“I have determined …” Who does the guy think he is?
I think Pompous is wasting his time with that Uighur stuff. Nobody cares that much. He'd get more mileage out of the dog-meat trade.
-Posted by: dh | Jan 19 2021 23:56 utc | 54
Keep in mind…
It’s no longer the US against smaller fractured nations. It’s developing into the USA against the world.
Asia is now uniting.
China and Russia are combining foreces and are pairing on all levels. Not just economically, but militairly as well.
Wang Yi said: China corporation with Russia is a world stabiliser, and China corporation with Russia has no upper limit or restricted zone. And that such corporation is for long term...
State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi
accepts a joint interview between Xinhua News Agency and China Central Radio and Television on the international situation and diplomatic work in 2020
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/web/wjbzhd/t1844078.shtml
Well, I do hope that the new administration isn’t going to be so rabid and warlike with the Trump administration has been. For they were insane war-hawks. And we have covered that elsewhere extensively. But no one knows the full picture. Just some of the puzzle pieces.
We will see…
But I have some hope.
Biden has decades of experience with China.
.
Phew! This has been a real long post. You all must be so very tired. But you know, I have to ask…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you enjoy what you see, it would be helpful if you could assist in hosting this forum. A donation would be appreciated.
This is a detailed response to a question that was asked of my on 1JAN20. It is not the only person who has asked this. Many people, most especially those in America are very concerned. The Trump supporters see a looming civil war, and the Biden supporters see a fractional America being town by extremism on both sides of the political spectrum. Everyone is concerned, and the news media are running just as amok as the American government. Not to mention that a sizable portion of the American population are just hopeful for a major war with either China or Russia. Naturally, people are worried, concerned and upset.
Let me try to provide insight.
This is the question…
You said in a few posts that you still have an active connection with them (Our extraterrestrial benefactors). Could you ‘ask’ or ’emote’ our problem with the elites having been gifted this technology and what their opinion of it is? Was it a mistake? Could they resolve that mistake if so ?
It’s a straight-forward question. Using what communication skills that I maintain, can I query the “other side” of the PTB about the current terrifying condition in the world? Can I ask them if the believe that they made a mistake in gifting technology to the global elite?
My Answer
Yes, I still have contact. Yes, I am still connected via the EBP. Yes. They still monitor me. I am on a list of contacts. We (all MAJestic members in my cell) still have activity that we are all involved in.
While MAJestic retired me. Our benefactors did not.
But it is not like everyone thinks.
Now there are many things that I simply CANNOT TALK ABOUT. It’s not like I took an oath or something like that. When I try to type sentences, my fingers top working, my words get all jumbled, I get “foggy brain”, and personal emergencies” crop up. Like the dog shitting on my pillow, or the water heater blowing up, or the window on the porch suddenly fractures and collapses in a heap.
And talking about the future in detail is one such trigger. Which is strange as I really don’t know much in the way of specifics.
But I can answer this question in a round-about manner. Please bear with me.
A Farm.
Imagine a farm.
And on the big farm is a wide open spaces for the cattle to run around in. It’s a massive pasture. One with many hills and low areas and ponds for the cattle to drink from. This pasture is further subdivided into smaller regions. All separated by electric fences. The farmer, and his dogs, use these fences to isolate the herd into groups.
But as big and as open it seems, it is actually all a specifically fenced in area. For around the entire farm is this massive heavy steel bar fence. It’s not like the electric fences on the inside. It is sturdy and heavy. It is made out of both steel pipe and bricks and cement.
And guess what, there are only one or two gates, and the cattle are not able to open them. Additionally there’s a small troop of barn dogs. These dogs monitor the cattle and do tasks for the farmers.
The farmers spend most of the time in their house. They rarely go out. When they do it is to check on the cattle, examine them, and see that they are healthy. The barn dogs, however, are periodically permitted inside the farm house but only when called for by the farmer.
But they are never permitted in the kitchen. The dogs can smell the food cooking, and watch the farmer and his wife and kids do things, but most of it is really incomprehensible.
Yet, when the farmer calls the dogs in, the dog automatically and instinctively knows what the farmer wants. It’s really amazing. There is this connection. No words need to be spoken. The dog is happy, and the farmer sees the dog wag his tail. The farmer is upset, and the dog put his tail between his legs.
The farmer summons the dog.
He arrives and the farmer dispatches him out to do a specific task. The dog of course, brings in the newspaper, the mail, and snaps at the mailman. But has no concept of what mail, and news is all about.
The dog sees a little what is going on inside the farmhouse, and watches the cattle. The dog dances and runs around with the cattle, but they really do not care about what the dog has to say. They know that he goes into the farmhouse. They understand that occasionally he gets the newspaper, but all that is uninteresting to them. The cattle don’t care, and couldn’t comprehend the relationship between the dog and the farmer and family.
The farmer has tracking chips on everything in the farm. The most advanced chips are on the dog collars. But all the cattle also has tracking chips. These are rudimentary GPS systems, showing ownership and location.
Now, lately, the largest bulls in the pen of cattle are starting to use their identity collars to rub up against the electric fences that border the inner fields.
This is normally not a problem. But in doing so, there is a chance that the electrical fence wire will come undone. And there, lying on the ground it could be dangerous. The wire could start shocking groups of cattle. Obviously this is not desirable. Some cattle might die, others might get damaged and become useless.
Now the dogs see this and watch this. So they start barking at the bulls. They tell them to stop. But those pesky bulls are fucking idiots. They see but don’t understand. Or maybe they think that they are invincible.
They haven’t a clue to anything, really.
The bulls, and the cattle, have no idea what they are doing or how their actions will manifest. They have at their fingertips a great power. And they think that THEY are in control. They are not.
.
Now the farmer hears the barking dogs. He knows what is going on. And he has even gone out to inspect the damage.
On numerous occasions.
In fact, the farmer knows of other farms where entire herds of cattle died off for just this kind of thing. So the farmer must go out and inspect. He sees that many of the fence posts are damaged, and are weak.
He also sees that the bulls are getting really out of control. He is concerned, maybe even alarmed. However he knows things that the dogs don’t know.
The farmer knows that after a hurricane, or big storm that the farm land is refreshed and super fertile afterwards. He also knows, from prior experience and from other farmers that when the herds are culled by this kind of electrical wire fence damage, that eventually the herd is better culled.
It is much easier to manage the herds and the cattle. The big bad bulls tend to be gone, and the rest of the cattle end up (after a long spell) stronger, more adaptable, and better. So while the dog might panic and worry, the farmer sees everything as following a path that other farms have experienced. And so he takes the necessary actions and precautions.
He starts to move the herds into certain groups. Some he keeps safe away from the wire. While others, he just lets them bang against the shabby electrical fence. All the time knowing full well and good that no matter what happens none of the cattle will ever leave the corral and the farm fields.
The dogs don’t know what the farmer knows. But they see the confidence and understanding on the faces of the farmer and the family. Especially after they have observed the damage up close. The dogs see that everything is going according to plan, and they watch the farmer take special care to groups of cattle, and to specific fields on the farm.
It is almost like the farmer has selected certain groups of cattle to be safe and tended to, while others he allows to get unruly and get into trouble. He is obviously doing this intentionally. So that most, almost all of the bad bulls, are now in a certain penned in area on the vast farm pasture. And the farmer is permitting them to run amok.
…
Of course, not all cattle are the same. There are smart ones, alert ones and the exact opposite. Many cattle follow the more popular cows. They follow behind them not paying attending where the popular cows are going. Many are just heading straight towards the downed electrical lines. And their herd of following-cows are as happy as can be. They moo loudly “Make our grass green again!”. Other cows follow other noteworthy cows. These other cows moo such things as “cow milk matters!” while they tear up the grass and shrubby.
The dogs watch this with a degree of curiosity.
Certainly, it’s a good thing for the grass to be green and healthy. And yes, it is also true that cow milk is important. But is that all going to be the result of the stampeding herd? Or is it just a mechanism for the more popular cows to obtain bull-level grass and pleasures?
Right now, the farmer and the family are not panicking at all. All is good. In fact, it is almost like they have expected this event to occur for a long, ling time. They are not buying new cattle, sending teams out to fix the fence, or doing anything like that. They are just behaving normally without any kind of concern or panic.
Just because the bulk of the herd is happily munching on grass and following the well-promoted cows-of-importance, does not mean that the MM cattle are destined for the same fate.
I like to think of MM readership NOT as the cattle on the pasture, but actually as the protected puppies of the guard dogs. I mean this in a good way and not as an insult.
The farm guard dogs have an idea what is going on and the puppies can sense this. They know not to leave their kennel and stray too far. They know to avoid the big bulls that are all a snorting and roaring. They know not to follow the popular cows to the downed electrical fence. And why they do agree that the grass needs to be greener and that cow milk is excellent, they are not willing to follow the herd in that regards.
So…
Do not worry.
Yes, [1] there will be some SHTF events in America in the future. But [2] the events will not be homogenized. They will not be uniformly distributed. [3] There will be pockets of calm, and [4] even in the areas of danger, there will be areas of peace.
Avoid large clusters and groups of people. Become known within your community. Be beneficial and significant.
.
MM readers will know by now to avoid any large collections of people or big urban areas in the USA.
Find your niche inside of the community that you live within.
[1] Know who your neighbors are, [2] obtain skills. Not just what you do for a living, but other skills that might benefit your community. Be conservative in what you do meaning [3] have a nice well-stocked larder (just in case), and [4] have a nice small garden if you can.
If you all followed this advice that I gave back in 2018 and 2019, you would have been best prepared for the 2020 “pandemic”. Wouldn’t you have? Yes?
My advice has not changed.
The situation described above still holds true. There will be good areas, and dangerous areas. There will be spewed nonsense out of the news media, and the real facts will be denied to you. The ruling oligarchy is running amok, and since there are no brakes on their behaviors, they are only going to get worse.
While it appears that there will be a SHTF, and I most certainly strongly think this will happen, it is NOT CERTAIN.
I have been musing with the thought that it will more likely resemble a very controlled implosion with some violent elements thrown in.
When the dust settles, Americans will be better, stronger for all of it. Though the resultant America might not resemble anything that we know about today. It might not even be called “America” or the “United States”. It will continue to be isolated from the rest of the world. This is a good thing – for the world as a whole, and up until the USA gets it’s collective shit back together.
…
Back to the farm analogy…
From the farmer’s point of view, the identification tags that the bulls are using to tear up the farm isn’t really all that advanced. It might be “high tech” for the bulls, but from the point of the view of the farmer, it’s just old mechanical things that they buy in bulk, apply with a tool, and forget about it. The technology is not going to permit the cattle from breaking out of the farm, or go through the outer perimeter fence. At worst it might take down some of the internal wire electrical fences, but that’s about it.
And they won’t certainly have any influence on access to the farmhouse, and the farmer and his family.
Still…
The farm guard dogs are getting nervous. The bulls are huge! They are a roaring and carrying on with crazy abandon, and with each day they seem to get stronger, more embolden, and the damage that they are making is getting really noticeable. They are doing what they have always done, only larger, nosier, and more aggressively.
So the guard dogs sit on the farmhouse porch, or even the better trained “house dogs” who actually allowed outside the kitchen (like myself) are all whimpering and shivering. And to tell you all the truth the farmer’s family has noticed, and the farmer has come out and petted the “house dogs”. He offered soothing calm, kind words, and a tasty nugget. But then he was gone. He was busy on other things that the guard dogs haven’t any concept of.
The bulls are still out there. They are really unruly, and the guard dogs are wondering how to deal with the problem. As the bulls are not afraid of any barking or really anything at all.
But now, the puppies are all worried.
As are the cats, the sheep, the horses, and the chickens on the farm. Everyone seems afraid and very concerned.
The guard dog has an idea of where the bulls are, and where the damage of the fences will be the worst. They cannot predict the future, of course, but they have a pretty good idea of the relatively “safe” areas on the farm, and where the really potentially dangerous areas are.
They are slowly telling their puppies, who are just beginning to walk, to avoid the dangerous areas, and stick to the safer areas. They tell the puppies not to drink the anti-freeze that the bulls knocked on the garage floor, and not to go snap at the legs of any of the gathering herd cows or their leadership. They tell the puppies to keep to themselves, lie low, keep a safe distance and be on their best behavior, and they tell them that everything will be all right.
The farm dogs do not have the power nor the ability to “speak directly” to the farmer or anyone in the household. But they are trained, they are special. They do have access to things and understandings that the general cattle does not have.
They have insight.
They have understanding.
The dogs have insight and understanding.
.
They might not know how the electronic devices and ID tags that the farmer puts on the cattle work. But they do know the general reason why they are there. They also have an understanding of the limitations of the farmer. They know that the farmer, if he wanted to, could walk out onto the farm pasture and shoot the troublesome bulls dead. And what’s more, the bulls wouldn’t even see it coming. The farmer would just sit on his porch, drinking his cup of coffee and shoot his Winchester .303.
The dogs know just how powerful the farmer is. The cattle do not.
Heck! The farmer could just as easily instruct the dogs to herd the troublesome cattle into a certain part of the pasture, and then load them all into trucks and cart them off to the rendering plant.
But no. The farmer is not doing this.
The farmer WANTS the upcoming turmoil to happen. And the dogs and the puppies are a little surprised at this. Doesn’t he value his cattle? Doesn’t he care for the other barnyard critters? It’s almost like the turmoil will yield a far better grade of beef, and higher quality milk. It’s almost like permitting the upcoming turmoil as a kind of passage of growth that it very important.
Like an IPO stock going public, or when the percolator pot of coffee starts to perk in the morning.
All this being said…
The dogs have some bones that they can throw out to their puppies…
Throwing out a bone
Most rural states, in the United States, those known as “Red States” are safe areas. Never the less, within those areas are military bases. Stay away from the bases that store, launch, or maintain nuclear delivery systems.
If you have a military base near you, and it is not devoted to the strategic delivery of nuclear or biological weapons, then that is a plus in your favor. It’s of great advantage to you. When (and if) the SHTF, these areas will provide a strong degree of safety when the rest of the nation goes to shit.
Make the most of your time NOW. The future is very uncertain. There are certainly dangerous trends, but you have the power to thwart the worst elements yourself.
.
Just living near a large metropolitan city is not to be considered a problem either. It really depends on the primary constellation of threats that are presently developing in the United States;
Intentional domestic civil strife or war.
The US poking either the Russian Bear, or the Panda Bear.
In other words, you do not need to live off in a cabin in the woods of Alaska to avoid any potential future chaos. You can live in a suburb of Chattanooga, Syracuse, State College, even a large city like Atlanta, Tampa, or Pittsburgh…
…provided that the local city and state governments are not pushing domestic discord like Portland, Detroit or Baltimore are, and you and your families will end up safe.
I strongly believe were any civil discord to evolve…
…avoid the areas infected. Like stay fucking away. Do NOT get involved. It does not matter which side that you agree with. Stay out of it. All of it.
I strongly believe that if the USA tries to provoke a major Asian nation…
…a flood of nuclear tipped missiles will strike the USA.
Of course, you all don’t have to agree with my assessment. The National Review, Rush Limbaugh, Hall Turner and Alex Jones most certainly don’t. They believe that the USA can go anywhere in the world and instigate a regional conflict far away, and the only impact that it will have on Americans will be a positive one; one that will help corral the citizenry towards one objective or the other.
But…
…I am telling you that the louder they promote this fantasy, the greater the likelihood of nuclear conflagration.
For Pete’s sakes, The USA has been involved in a full-scale biological warfare against China for the last four years, and you all think that the PTB aren’t going to stop; to give up now?
Some considerations
Is it really a bad thing if all the big bad bulls are blown to smithereens?
Is it a bad thing if the big fenced in pen where the big bad bulls live becomes a big crater?
Is it a bad thing if the herd of cows follow the attractive cows into an electric fence?
Is any farmer bad for culling his herd?
Conclusion
The dogs want their puppies to play, learn and be safe. Don’t get all caught up in the bullshit made by the crazed bulls. The day of reckoning is fast approaching. It’s only a precious few years away. If you are a puppy, then listen. Stay away from dangerous areas in the pasture. Ignore the Bulls, and don’t follow the attractive herds.
Play and enjoy life now.
You will thank me later.
Being happy and being active in your prayer affirmation campaigns will be your best guards against what is brewing on the horizon. Happy thoughts. Happy memories. Friendships. Productive community activities, and a feeling of belonging will do WONDERS for your personal protections against what might happen in the future.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Error! Missing PayPal API credentials. Please configure the PayPal API credentials by going to the settings menu of this plugin.
If you believe this narrative, and it is a narrative, then you fit into an entirely new classification for “stupid”.
Elections are how “democracies” get to change direction, policies, laws and rules. There are no other formal ways aside from a Constitutional Convention. And every four years, the citizens of America look at their lives, and their leadership and vote to either continue on the current path or divert from it and go into new directions.
That’s how democracies work.
Yet, the media is flowing with all sorts of articles that says that Biden is going to be a real “war hawk” and that he is not only going to continue with his neocon polices, but become more aggressive with them (as if that is even possible). And this narrative is cropping up here and there, and it is really irritating to me.
Hell.
It makes me want to dust off the old turntable, and put some Lobo on and dream of what might have been. Let me off. This world has gone ape-shit.
Lobo from Big Tree Records
.
For those of you who don't know, Lobo was an American music group from the early 1970's. The singer / songwriter was a Florida folk rocker kind of guy. His songs become rather well known with "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo". (travelin' and ah livin' off the land, how I love being a free man.)
Me and you and a Dog Named Boo.
.
Ever since it appeared that Biden might overtake Trump in the election, the entire propaganda machine inside of America (and England) has been spewing forth this narrative…
Of course, this is the narrative that is being fed to the mindless masses; the “Joe Sixpack” in “Flyover country”.
Meanwhile, all the neocon war-loving publications inside of America are horrified that Biden might ease up on the war-stance and instead embrace the idea of co-existence…
Ah yes… not going to war with China is “hysterical”. It is horrific, dangerous and inattentive.
Sure.
What ever you say.
.
Now we are going to talk about Trump
Ugh!
Hey! You just cannot avoid talking about this fellow, he has been President for the last four years, and has been very active in many areas. There are people who love him and who hate him. In fact, I will go as far as to say that he is the most polarizing figure since Hillary Clinton.
And she is VERY polarizing.
So, all you Trump supporters, don’t get all hot and bothered about bad things being said, and that goes double for the Biden supporters. Keep in mind that both Presidents, and all of their minions are but actors. Nothing more. The purpose of this post herein is to take a look at media manipulation of Americans. Just like we did in the earlier post of media manipulation of American views on China.
Just what is this particular neocon publication anyways?
TheNationalReviewis a right-leaning, semi-monthly magazine founded by author William F. Buckley, Jr. in 1955. Buckleystartedthemagazinewiththegoalofmakingconservativeideasrespectableatatimeinwhichhebelieved “literateAmerica [had] rejectedconservatisminfavorofradicalsocialexperimentation.”
-National Review Media Bias | AllSides
Yeah. They are neocons. These are the folk that cheer on the eight simultaneous wars the USA is fighting today, and who push for mega-expensive military hardware. Fun fact, one “Hellfire” missile is the cost of a hospital. These guys think that having a hundreds of thousands of them…
…isn’t enough.
But boy, oh boy, do they HATE being referred to war-loving neocons…
I think I need a beer. If you, the reader were here with me, I’d buy you all a beer. That’s the truth, and that’s a fact Jack.
It’s time for a beer, you all.
.
I am getting off the subject. Oh yes. So what is all this about? What is going on, why is the American media so geared up to convince Americans that Biden is going to be just like Trump on international matters?
Why?
Hold that thought.
Why do I (and others) defend China?
Yeah. I am swimming up river. It’s just a lone lonely voice out in the wilderness while hundreds, if not thousands, of anti-China articles are being cranked out of the American media machine daily. What the fuck is going on?
Here is a quote from Bill Brodenblock…
…concerning whether he was going to waste his time retorting to some bullshit from the Wall Street Journal.
Right. A well-argued rebuttal will take you much more than a day. There’s a lie, a half-truth or impeachment in every sentence.
No, it is not worth the effort. They have the resources to produce every day another “article” or “report” on China, again bursting with lies and fabrications.
They are stronger than we, they have almost unlimited resources and much more experience in making up lies than anyone else.
Their readership is thousands of times more than ours.
A new Global Times poll in China has shown that over 70 percent of respondents believe that the "wolf warrior diplomacy" is the diplomatic attitude that China should take, with 78 percent of interviewees believing that China's global image has improved in recent years.
The outspoken example of the new Chinese wolf Warrior diplomacy is 赵立坚 (Zhào Lìjiān) the one of the cartoon, showing the Australian hypocrisy on its war crimes in Afghanistan (Brereton report).
I became a “Wolf Warrior”, not in the first place because I was living in China, also not because I feel I should defend China’s legitimate viewpoints
but because I can’t stand lies.
I can’t stand it to see politicians, journalists, teachers or whoever with some power lying to people, often people who’re helpless and unable to defend themselves.
Both my grandfathers were in politics; they knew and used all the famous tricks as so common today in politics. I, as a little boy have seen them developing their strategies at our kitchen table. My father was a teacher and a deacon. He strongly disapproved the hypocrisy of his father and father-in-law. My father taught me that lying is a sin. I feel lying it is more than just a sin, it is a crime.
My pro-China stances are motivated by my disgust for lies.
That’s why I am doing it, not in the first place to help China.
Nevertheless, I feel that China, the Chinese government or whoever with some political power in China, should at least take the effort to send me a “thank you” or to show some recognition for my efforts. That’s the least they can do.
Every day at the local social media, I get the full load of shit over me. In my meetings at business associations and service-clubs (now often on-line), there are people who start scolding, some even yelling at me, just because they know my China viewpoints. Last year, during a speech/presentation, someone was trying to prevent me from finishing my presentation.
It’s not just Bill, don’t you know.
I hate being lied to as well.
And when I think about all the lies, and the deceptions, and the tricks, and “the rug getting pulled out from under my feet” I get really angry. I just want, no NEED, to go out and get a beer.
Office party before the fleet of lies out of Washington DC suppressed drinking at work-related events via insurance restrictions.
.
And I hate it even more when others actually believe the lies. Hey! Have you died from “Mad Cow Disease” yet? What about Y2K? What about “Back Masking” on Rock and Roll music? How has that “Domino Theory” panned out?
Domino TheoryThe domino theory was a theory prominent in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s that posited that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world.Wikipedia
I hate it when the government is lying so obviously and so blatantly. It just riles up my skivvies.
It makes me want to go to the fridge, pop open a beer and watch some Golden Girls. Anything to get my mind off this bullshit.
The Golden Girls
NBC was already a monster by 1985 thanks to programs like "The Cosby Show", "Cheers" and "L.A. Law" (all part of that unbeatable Thursday lineup). In 1985 it appeared that Beatrice Arthur (who struck gold with "Maude", a spin-off of "All in the Family") was going back to television in a new show called "The Golden Girls".
Along with Arthur (a smart-mouthed Brooklyn native) was her old-world Sicilian mother (Estelle Getty), a bubble-headed Minnesota native (Betty White) and a sex-crazed belle from Georgia (Rue McClanahan). This quartet of actresses would create the finest core of performers to ever star in a television series.
"The Golden Girls", unlike "Cheers", was a hit from its first episode.
It dominated with vigor and spunk on Saturday nights. NBC was worried that the show would never find an audience big enough to make a dent in the ratings, but for a time "The Golden Girls" was as excellent as anything else the networks had to offer.
The four women, all obviously over 50, lived, laughed and cried together in Miami for nearly a decade from 1985 to 1992.
The series pushed the envelope on everything that dominated headlines during its run (AIDS, homosexuality, sexism, ageism, political unrest, abortion and an endless list of other topics too long to go into at length). The episodes went for comedy, but usually almost always had a deep meaning to them about love and friendship.
All four actresses shared the spotlight equally for the most part.
Arthur and McClanahan had hit gold with "Maude" and White had been along seemingly at the advent of television programming. Getty was relatively unknown, but fit in well with more-established performers immediately (her character got away with more than the others as she was written as a lady who had suffered a major stroke which affected the relationship between what she said and thought).
Herb Edelman (who made a name for himself in "The Odd Couple") was always a consistent element as Arthur's two-timing ex-husband and Harold Gould (who was a key player in "The Sting") also became a fixture during the series' latter episodes as White's love interest.
The great thing about this show is that it took a chance by starring four actresses in their mid 50s to 60s and showed that just because you're old, it doesn't mean that life is over and you can't have fun anymore. The humor reaches to all age demographics and the characters each have such distinct, hilarious traits that watching them try to get along is a hoot.
If you're a boy or adult man that feels embarrassed to watch this show, DON'T. It's a pure classic that will never be forgotten in my life and will always be one of my favorite shows! This show proves that hilarity doesn't just come from younger folks, but that it can come from older people just as much!!! Long live The Golden Girls!!! 10 out of 10 EASILY!!!
The Golden Girls learn how things were done in “the old country”.
.
Yeah. I get it. I’m too old a fogy to appreciate the new understandings about how Mr. Trump ran things. For he was brilliant.
He brought factories back to America… …almost.
He built a wall… almost.
He put Hillary Clinton in jail … almost.
He lowered taxes … not quite, he actually raised them.
He balanced the budget … nope. He sent the debit into orbit.
He protected the USA… we see how well that is panning out with COVID-19.
He made America respected around the world … absolutely NOT.
Not.
Not. Not. Not.
Jeeze Man!
I need a beer.
You need a beer to slug through all the bullshit that exists int he USA today.
.
America today is terribly disrespected around the world. And I attribute it to Donald Trump and his inability to master the prerequisite laws of power necessary for his position as President of the United States.
What do I mean?
I mean this…
The 48 Laws of Power
To best understand my point of view as to why his international policies stank you need to learn the basics of the laws of power. This is especially true in global politics. Consider the following laws that Trump routinely violated.
For starters, he violated Law #3.
3. Conceal your intentions.Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelop them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.
I: Use decoyed objects of desire and red herrings to throw people off the scent:
If at any point in the deception you practice people have the slightest suspicions to your intentions, all is lost. Do not give them the chance to sense what you are up to: Throw them off the scent by dragging red herrings across the path. Use false sincerity, send ambiguous signals, set up misleading objects of desire. Unable to distinguish the genuine from the false, they cannot pick out your real goal.
Hide your intentions not by closing up, but by talking endlessly about your desires and goals - just false ones.
II: Use smoke screens to disguise your actions:
Deception is always the best strategy, but the best deceptions require a screen of smoke to distract people attention from your real purpose. The bland exterior—like the unreadable poker face—is often the perfect smoke screen, hiding your intentions behind the comfortable and familiar. If you lead the sucker down a familiar path, he won’t catch on when you lead him into a trap.
A helpful or honest gesture can divert from a deception.
Patterns will also help mask a deception.
Often the key to deception is being bland and acting with humility.
When you conceal your intentions, you can allow others to drop down their guard. They don’t groan and say “oh, it’s that Donald Trump again”. You don’t say “I demand that you do this or I will bloody well blow the shit out of you”.
Geeze!
I really do need a beer.
Times have changed, but humans haven’t.
He violated Law #4.
4. Always say less than necessary. When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.
Silence generally makes people uncomfortable - they will jump in and nervously fill the silence.
Generally saying less makes you appear more profound and mysterious.
Be particularly careful with sarcasm - rarely is it valuable.
Be careful with arousing suspicion or insecurity by being silent. At times it is easier to blend by playing the jester.
Donald Trump was never the one to keep his mouth shut. I think that many Americans grew weary (though obviously not everyone) and tired of the 70 tweets per night, and the horror of waking up to find yet another contract torn up and more discord and chaos.
Christmas Party at the office, 1970’s style.
He violated law #18.
18. Do not build fortresses to protect yourself - isolation is dangerous.The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere—everyone has to protect themselves. A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it Protects you from—it cuts you off from valuable information, it makes you conspicuous and an easy target. Better to circulate among people, find allies, mingle. You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd.
Retreat to a fortress and you lose contact with your sources of power, and your knowledge of what is going on.
If you need time to think, then choose isolation as a last resort, and only in small doses.
That was the sole primary element in the MAGA plan; to Make America Great Again; it was to isolate America from all foreign trade, build a wall around it, and then just attack all non-Americans everywhere. In addition, kick all Chinese out of the country, ban all Chinese applications, and if possible sink all Chinese ships.
I mean when you are on a roll… you are on a roll.
When you are on a roll, you are on a roll.
He violated Law #19.
19. Know who you’re dealing with - do not offend the wrong person.There are many different kinds of people in the world, and you can never assume that everyone will react to your strategies in the same way. Deceive or outmaneuver some people and they will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge. They are wolves in lambs’ clothing. Choose your victims and opponents carefully, then—never of fend or deceive the wrong person.
Being able to recognize the type of person you’re dealing with is critical. Here are the five most dangerous:
The Arrogant and Proud Man: any perceived slight will invite vengeance. Flee these people.
The Hopelessly Insecure Man: similar to the proud man, but will take revenge in smaller bites over time. Do not stay around him if you have harmed or deceived him.
Mr. Suspicion: sees the worst in others and imagines that everyone is after him. Easy to deceive - get him to turn on others.
The Serpent with a Long Memory: if hurt, he will show no anger, but will calculate and wait. Recognize by his calculation and cunning in other areas of life - he is usually cold and unaffectionate. Crush him completely or flee.
The Plain, Unassuming, and Often Unintelligent Man: this man will not take the bait because he does not recognize it. Do not waste your resources trying to deceive him. Have a test ready for a mark - a joke, a story. If reaction is literal, this is the type you are dealing with.
Never rely on instincts when judging someone; instead gather concrete knowledge. Also never trust appearances.
Perhaps if Trump drank alcohol, he would be more open and sensitive to how his actions affected others. But he seems to be completely and totally oblivious to it.
.
He violated law #24.
24. Play the perfect courtier.The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the most oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.The Laws of Court PoliticsAvoid Ostentation: modesty is always preferable.
Practice Nonchalance: never appear to be working too hard; your talent must appear to flow naturally, with ease. Showing your blood and toil is a form of ostentation.
Be Frugal with Flattery: flatter indirectly by being modest.
Arrange to be Noticed: pay attention to your appearance, and find a way to create a subtly distinctive style and image.
Alter Your Style and Language According to the Person You’re Dealing With: acting the same with all will be seen as condescension by those below you, and offend those above you.
Never Be the Bearer of Bad News: the messenger is always killed. Bring only glad news.
Never Affect Friendliness and Intimacy with Your Master: he does not want a friend for a subordinate.
Never Criticize Those Above You Directly: err on the side of subtlety and gentleness.
Be Frugal in Asking Those Above You for Favours: it is always better to earn your favours. Do not ask for favours on another person’s behalf.
Never Joke About Appearances or TasteDo Not Be the Court Cynic: express admiration for the good work of others.
Be Self-Observant: you must train yourself to evaluate your own actions.
Master Your EmotionsFit the Spirit of the Times: your spirit and way of thinking must keep up with the times, even if the times offend your sensibilities.
Be a Source of Pleasure: if you cannot be the life of the party, at least obscure your less desirable qualities.
Yes. Like him, love him or hate him, Mr. Trump was certainly unique. Most Americans, trapped within the media and informational bubble there, were never given insight to his faults. Only endless praises and glory. He, in a way, had a following that rivaled both Bill Clinton, and Barrack Obama, and at that you MUST give him credit.
You just MUST.
He, like Bill Clinton, is a master manipulator.
But those of us who sit outside of the American echo-chamber tend to have a different point of view.
.
He violated law #43.
43. Work on the hearts and minds of others.Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction. A person you have seduced becomes your loyal pawn. And the way to seduce others is to operate on their individual psychologies and weaknesses. Soften up the resistant by working on their emotions, playing on what they hold dear and what they fear. Ignore the hearts and minds of others and they will grow to hate you.
Remember: The key to persuasion is softening people up and breaking them down, gently. Seduce them with a two-pronged approach: Work on their emotions and play on their intellectual weaknesses. Be alert to both what separates them from everyone else (their individual psychology) and what they share with everyone else (their basic emotional responses). Aim at the primary emotions—love, hate, jealousy. Once you move their emotions you have reduced their control, making them more vulnerable to persuasion.
Play on contrasts: push people to despair, then give them relief. If they expect pain and you give them pleasure, you win their hearts.
Symbolic gestures of self-sacrifice can win sympathy and goodwill.
The quickest way to secure people’s minds is by demonstrating, as simply as possible, how an action will benefit them.
All this talk about politics, manipulation and likes makes me want to drink. And drinking makes me hungry.
Some New York style pizza would really hit the spot.
And the laws that he actually used…
To be fair, President Trump DID actually follow certain rules of power. And he does deserve full credit for that. Don’t you know.
His entire presidency was Law #17.
17. Keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability.Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.
Unsettle those around you and keep the initiative by being unpredictable.
Predictability and patterns can be used as a tool when deceiving.
As well as… Law #27.
27. Play on people’s need to believe to create a cult like following.People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise ; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.How to create a cult in 5 easy steps:Keep It Vague, Keep it Simple: use words to attract attention, with great enthusiasm. Fancy titles for simple things are helpful, as are the use of numbers and the creation of new words for vague concepts. All of these create the impression of specialized knowledge. People want to hear there is a simple solution to their problems.
Emphasize the Visual and the Sensual over the Intellectual: Boredom and skepticism are two dangers you must counter. The best way to do this is through theatre, creating a spectacle. Appeal to all the senses, and use the exotic.
Borrow the Forms of Organized Religion to Structure the Group: create rituals, organize followers into hierarchy, rank them in grades of sanctity, give them names and titles, ask them for sacrifices that fill your coffers and increase your power. Talk and act like a prophet.
Disguise Your Source of Income: make your wealth seem to come from the truth of your methods.
Set Up an Us-Versus-Them Dynamic: first make sure your followers believe they are part of an exclusive club, unified by common goals. Then, manufacture the notion of a devious enemy out to ruin you.
People are not interested in the truth about change - that it requires hard work - but rather they are dying to believe something romantic, otherworldly.
The most effective cults mix religion with science.
I’m out of beer, and I need to drain the lizard.
Hold on.
Doesn’t all this make you hungry? It does me. That’s for certain.
A hamburger might be nice.
Where he has indeed… Law #32.
32. Play to people’s fantasies.The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.
Never promise a gradual improvement through hard work; rather, promise the moon, the great and sudden transformation, the pot of gold.
The key to fantasy is distance - the distance has allure and promise, seems simple and problem free. What you are offering, then, should be ungraspable. Never let it become oppressively familiar.
I think that this is more my speed. Seriously.
.
And who can forget his amazing MAGA rallies? Law #32.
37. Create compelling spectacles.Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power—everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then, full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.
Words often go astray, but symbols and the visual strike with emotional power and immediacy.
Find an associate yourself with powerful images and symbols to gain power.
Most effective of all is a new combination - a fusion of images and symbols that have not been seen together before, but that clearly demonstrate your new idea, message, religion.
Um…
Brilliant?
Hardly.
Like I said. I need a beer.
I say that it is time for a beer.
.
Let’s pause on the “why is the news media so focused on Biden continuing Trumps policies”, and take a look at what I mean when I say that his international polices stink.
For after all NO ONE in the USA thinks that his international policies were bad.
Americans gleefully accepted a 25% increase in the price of almost all manufactured products. Not a peep from the serfs. And of course, FOX and El’ Rushbo were absolutely gleeful in every action that he took.
But functionally… yeah. His international policies stank.
Trumps international policies
Yes his international policies stunk. No, I take that back, they were an unmitigated disaster. But you all don’t need to believe me. Check out this opinion…
He has cozied up to right-wing nationalist dictators and autocrats at a moment when citizens of faltering democracies and the many peoples around the world aspiring to freedom most need an advocate on the international stage.
He has rejected the honorable American presidential tradition of seeking unity and instead has indulged in the politics of division, willfully alienating a large segment of the American electorate while among his own supporters drumming up hatred for and suspicion of others.
He has transformed the White House, which should promote policies based on reality, into the world capital of ignorance, dishonesty and misinformation by reciting verifiable falsehoods, from the size of his inauguration crowd to the direction of a hurricane to the (disproven) prevalence of election fraud.
He has been a particular antagonist to California, seeking to undermine this state’s forward-looking policies on auto emissions and environmental preservation, spreading falsehoods about the causes of its deadly wildfires, disparaging its rational and humane approach to immigration challenges, demeaning it for its struggles to deal with homelessness, and offering instead purported solutions that are unworkable, nonsensical or cruel.
He has denied the existential challenge of climate change and has promulgated policies that weaken the nation’s role in fighting it and scuttle the nation’s ability to take economic leadership in low-emission and carbon-capturing technology.
He has made the United States unreliable, erratic and foolish in international affairs by disparaging its diplomatic corps, engaging in frequent and jarring changes in foreign affairs and defense advisors and repudiating international allies and partners.
Trump has cheapened his office, instilled distrust in essential institutions of justice and democracy and replaced knowledge and professionalism with ignorance and amateurism.
He has made light of verified Russian assaults on U.S. elections, and at his notorious and shameful Helsinki news conference last year said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin over his own nation’s intelligence agencies.
He failed to elicit from the Russian leader an apology for past intervention or a promise not to intervene in other elections. In so doing, he invited further, more comprehensive attacks — and failed in the most basic duty of any U.S. president, which is to protect and defend the United States.
He has reduced or eliminated independent science advisory panels in a quest to remove fact from policymaking when it collides with damaging policies he wishes to pursue.
He has demeaned the presidency with foul, angry language hurled at his political adversaries, replacing fireside chats and presidential addresses with cable-TV-fueled, stream-of-consciousness tweets that attack his critics and stoke fear and outrage in his supporters.
He has undercut the nation’s moral standing by his shrugging response to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi operatives.
He has sullied the office of the presidency by using it to express his personal contempt for people he does not like or who do not support him. The most egregious example may be his treatment of Sen. John McCain, a much-decorated former Vietnam War prisoner whose honor Trump questioned even after McCain’s passing.
He has appealed to the basest part of our culture, lifting into the mainstream chords and currents of racism that had long been left to fester in only our darkest corners. He commented on the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., with an equivocating speech that shrank from condemning violent racism and promoted false equivalency among demonstrators for and against white supremacy. He put in place a program to deny visas to visitors from majority Muslim nations. He disparaged Latinos; called Haiti, El Salvador and African nations “shithole countries”; and expressed his preference for immigrants from Norway. He promoted the notion that one’s American-ness is a function of descent and not birth or naturalization, by saying U.S.-born members of Congress should “go back” to the countries “from which they came.” He has issued statements that in the aggregate define an America united not by law, the Constitution, liberty or justice but by racial heritage.
More than any president in living memory, Trump has cheapened his office, instilled distrust in essential institutions of justice and democracy and replaced knowledge and professionalism with ignorance and amateurism. This partial list represents a mere slice of what makes Donald Trump unacceptable as president of the United States and what makes it of utmost importance that Americans of all political parties and positions reject and replace him.
-LA Times
Of course, that is just someone’s opinion.
I like to think that he meant well. That he tried, he really tried.
It’s just that his ideas are from another time, an outdated time, when nations ruled by paper and separated by cultural differences fought over swatches of rock and desert. But that age is long gone. This is a new age, and for the human species to propagate and grow we need to discard those childish ideas behind and accept that we are all biologically the same. That we are not different. And that fighting over territory, or advantage is a undesirable pursuit.
Times have changed.
.
For one thing, I was fighting for Trump. I really wanted him to stop that Obama trademark of non-stop progressive social re-engineering. I was tired of all the bullshit, and the people being forced to bake cakes against their beliefs, and other such nonsense. I wanted it to STOP. And you know what?
It did.
What’s more, I wanted factories to return to America, and people to start working again, and all that nonsense about HR Diversity officers to go away, and cheaper affordable health care to return (yes, return to pre-1980 levels).
They didn’t.
But you know, I wasn’t inside of America when he was the reigning head honcho. I was outside of America. I was sitting on the front row watching him represent the United States to the rest of the world. And precious little of what he did was covered by the American domestic press.
He was a God-damn train wreck.
In hindsight, it is no wonder that Trump was gloating that 2020 would be a “banner year” for America, and that there would be victories abound. His plans, were they to manifest would have put America back on top, and the rest of the world opposition crippled for decades to come. Even though…
People! 2020 was the year that the USA was to destroy China, first by starvation and internal revolution, then by biological weapons, and finally by military confrontation on the Chinese shores. The only reason why American cites are not radioactive ruins right now is because the Chief of Staff of the Defense department disobeyed his orders to attack China in the Summer of 2020 with the mega-flotilla of aircraft carriers.
Ah, but no one is talking about that.
Nor are they talking about his plan to destroy China through starvation with eight (x8) types of selective biological weapons targeting crops and livestock, some of which (in the more remote areas) were deployed by drones, and then a full-on assault on the Chinese people (a nation four times larger than the United States) by COVID-19B, and having Americans get “herd Immunity” though COVID-19A. With a follow up with the far more lethal vomit-to-death virus unleashed in October 2020. No wonder Trump pretended to get sick while scurrying to the airborne command post when the Chinese PLA discovered and isolated the virus..
How’s that all working out you-all?
No one is talking about that.
Of course not.
Americans know (after four years of propaganda) that China is vile and evil, and that 5G technology is bad, and that the world would be a better place if China were completely and utterly destroyed due to the superiority of American “democracy”.
American NEEDS the rest of the world to adopt the “great American way of life“. So that everyone can enjoy that great delicious, lip-smacking “democracy” and American “way of life” like this lithe young lass does.
American NEEDS the rest of the world to adopt the “great American way of life“.
But, seriously, how has President Trump’s international policies been?
Well, if you read the conservative websites, Trump has been almost God-like. He has single-handedly made America strong (again), stopped terrorism in it’s tracks, built walls around America to keep out bad guys, and almost put Hillary Clinton in Jail. To some, his tenure as President has been a resounding success.
Most conservatives do not believe in “climate change” or that humans have a responsibility to shepherd and manage our natural resources. Instead, they believe that while there are limits, they are near infinite in practicality, and thus all the issues about care for the earth is yet another way to skim money out of the pockets of Americans.
Well, both sides are right and both sides are wrong. But that doesn’t matter. What we are talking about here is the Trump policies concerning climate regarding international treaties.
Since the Trump administration took office, it has been fighting what they call an “anti-growth” agenda put in place by the Obama administration. Regulations that required businesses to spend time and money to meet the former administration’s environmental standards were swiftly reviewed and, in many cases, rolled back.
States, municipalities, and NGOs have responded to these changes by filing lawsuits to block the administration. Some, like lawsuits against the Keystone XL pipeline, have successfully kept public land closed to additional development.
This aspect of his policies has been covered substantially by National Geographic Magazine.
Clean air
1. U.S. pulls out of Paris Climate Agreement
This is perhaps the decision that set the tone for the Trump administration’s approach to the environment: when he moved to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement in June of 2017. To many, it signaled less U.S. leadership in international climate change agreements. (Read more about this decision.)
2. Trump EPA poised to scrap clean power plan
The Clean Power Plan was one of the Obama’s signature environmental policies. It required the energy sector to cut carbon emissions by 32 percent by 2030, but in October 2017 it was rolled back by Trump’s EPA. Among the reasons cited were unfair burdens on the power sector and a “war on coal.” (Read more on why Trump can’t make coal great again.)
3. EPA loosens regulations on toxic air pollution
This regulation revolved around a complicated rule referred to as “once in, always in” or OIAI. Essentially, OIAI said that if a company polluted over the legal limit, they would have to match the lowest levels set by their industry peers and they would have to match them indefinitely. By dropping OIAI, the Trump EPA forces companies to innovate ways to decrease their emissions, but once those lower targets are met, they’re no longer required to keep using those innovations. (Read more about air pollution.)
4. Rescinding methane-flaring rules
Under the Affordable Clean Energy rule issued in August 2018, states were given more power over regulating emissions. In states like California, that means regulations would likely be stricter, whereas states that produce fossil fuels are likely to weaken regulations. The following month, the EPA announced they would relax rules around releasing methane flares, inspecting equipment, and repairing leaks. (Read more about methane.)
5. Trump announces plan to weaken Obama-era fuel economy rules
Under the Obama administration’s fuel economy targets, cars made after 2012 would, on average, have to get 54 miles per gallon by 2025. In August 2018, the Trump Department of Transportation and EPA capped that target at 34 miles per gallon by 2021. The decision created legal conflict with states like California that have higher emission caps. (Read more about speed bumps in the way of super-efficient cars.)
Water
6. Trump revokes flood standards accounting for sea-level rise
In August 2017, President Trump revoked an Obama-era executive order that required federally funded projects to factor rising sea levels into construction. However, in 2018, the Department of Housing and Urban Development required buildings constructed with disaster relief grants do just that. (Read more about how rising sea levels may imperil the internet.)
7. Waters of the U.S. Rule revocation
What are the “waters of the U.S.?” President Trump issued an executive order in 2017 ordering the EPA to formally review what waters fell under the jurisdiction of the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers according to the 1972 Clean Water Act. The proposed change narrowed the definition of what’s considered a federally protected river or wetland. (Read more about Trump’s plans to roll back the Clean Water Act.)
Wildlife
8. NOAA green lights seismic airgun blasts for oil and gas drilling
Five companies were approved to use seismic air gun blasts to search for underwater oil and gas deposits. Debate over the deafening blasts stem from concerns that they disorient marine mammals that use sonar to communicate and kill plankton. The blasts were shot down by the Bureau of Energy Management in 2017 but approved after NOAA found they would not violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act. (Read more about how scientists think seismic air guns will harm marine life.)
9. Interior Department relaxes sage grouse protection
The uniquely American sage grouse, a bird resembling a turkey with spiked feathers, has become the face of the debate between land developers and conservationists. In both 2017 and 2018, the Trump administration Department of Interior eased restrictions on activities like mining and drilling that had been restricted to protect the endangered bird. (Read more about how the sage grouse become caught in the fight over who owns America’s west.)
10. Trump officials propose changes to handling the Endangered Species Act
In July of 2018, the Trump administration announced its intention to change the way the Endangered Species Act is administered, saying more weight would be put on economic considerations when designating an endangered animal’s habitat. (Read more about the rollbacks facing endangered animals.)
11. Migratory Bird Treaty Act reinterpretation
Companies installing large wind turbines, constructing power lines, or leaving oil exposed are no longer violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act if their activities kill birds. This controversial change was declared by the Trump administration in December of 2017. (Read more about why legally protecting birds is important.)
Opening public lands for business
12. Trump unveils plan to dramatically downsize two national monuments
Unlike national parks, which have to be approved by Congress, national monuments can be created by an executive order, which the president said means they can be dismantled just as easily. Such was the case for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, which President Trump reduced and opened for mining and drilling companies in 2017. Tribes and environmental groups are challenging that interpretation in court. (Read more about the impacts of downsizing these two monuments.)
13. Executive order calls for sharp logging increase on public lands
Just a day before the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, President Trump issued an executive order that called for a 30 percent increase in logging on public lands. The decision was billed as wildfire prevention, though environmental groups say it ignores the role climate change plays in starting wildfires. (Read more about California’s historic wildfires.)
Security & Enforcement
14. Trump drops climate change from list of national security threats
The Trump administration’s decision to delist climate change from national security threats in December of 2017 meant less Department of Defense research funding and a nationalistic viewpoint on the potential impacts of wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. (Read more about how climate change is forcing migration in Guatemala.)
15. EPA criminal enforcement hits 30-year low
The size and influence of the EPA has shrunk under the Trump administration, and it’s illustrated by their diminished prosecuting power. Criminal prosecutions are at a 30-year low, and many violations that would have been prosecuted in the past are now being negotiated with companies. The administration says this is streamlining its work, but environmentalists have warned it could lead to more pollution. (Read more about the scientists pushing back against President Trump’s environment agenda.)
But it’s more than that…
Donald Trump does not have a foreign policy; he has moods regarding international affairs. Underneath the volatility of his moods, however, are some convictions:
That other countries are robbing the U.S. through trade;
U.S. allies are at best incapable of defending themselves.
Our allies are unwilling to spend resources in order to do so;
multilateralism is for the weak.
In many respects, these convictions are fundamentally wrong: over the long term, the U.S. has benefited enormously from …
A commitment to open trade,
From alliances beyond immediate transactional quid-pro-quo,
A multilateral international order,
U.S. global power projection.
The real tragedy of Trump’s inability to recognize these facts is the negative consequences that his failed foreign affairs beliefs and choices frequently have for those affected by them.
It makes me want to eat, and drink…
It makes me want to go away, far away from all this nonsense.
.
Trump simply makes a lot of bad foreign policy decisions that hurt everyone from U.S. domestic consumers to businesses with international supply chains to leaders of U.S. allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
And for some foreign policy decisions—such as the abrogation of the Iran deal, or engagement with North Korea—the jury is still out. We still do not know how those decisions will pan out, and whether or not they are good or bad.
Nonetheless, occasionally, Trump’s convictions feed instincts leading him to decisions that are fundamentally right. Ironically, however, even when Trump makes ostensibly good foreign policy choices, he executes them so badly, or approaches them from such a chaotic and skewed vantage point, that even those who normally would support the policy in question end up obliged to reject it.
A cursory examination of three of Trump’s major international priorities— [1] relationships with allies, [2] the war in Syria, and [3] U.S.-China trade relations—is indicative of this incongruous dynamic.
[1] Trump’s Treatment of Allies
Arguably, the most enduring of Trump’s foreign policy blunders will be his alienation of U.S. allies, particularly in Europe. He has alienated everyone.
Trump is not viewed with favor on the international scene.
.
It’s one thing to raise some long-overdue points about the commitment of allies, but it is another thing to be insulting to them, to cause them to lose face, and to create havoc . His rhetorical antagonism and extortionate attempts to compel their increased defense spending (both on burden-sharing and purchases of U.S. technology) portend a change to less cohesion and more conflict between the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
This behavior is pushing forward a new normal in which the U.S. and its allies consider themselves to have different approaches to international affairs and fewer overlapping interests.
This is dangerous for U.S. security, as the U.S. National Defense Strategy identifies the U.S. alliance network as an asymmetric strategic advantage vis-à-vis competitors such as China or Russia.
If abandonment fears on the part of the U.S.’s European and Indo-Pacific allies could be leveraged for greater alliance investment and strengthening in the long run, then some pressure would make sense.
But Trump has undermined this potential outcome by going too far:
By stoking right-wing, illiberal nationalism in European states’ domestic politics;
Fundamentally calling into question NATO,
And questioning the EU, and U.S. commitment to Indo-Pacific hub-and-spoke allies;
Browbeating and humiliating European and Asian allies.
And failing to acknowledge the strategic advantages that U.S. basing rights overseas represent for U.S. global power projection.
Moreover, Trump seems to misunderstand basic facts about alliance burden-sharing (both multilateral and bilateral) and couples his distaste for alliances with a general destabilization of the internationalorder.
Yet, for all that, his instinct that U.S. allies—particularly in NATO—should meet their defense funding obligations (such as the 2% of GDP threshold for NATO countries) is a good one…
The open hostility of his rhetoric and the malformed reasoning behind extortionate demands (such as the recently unveiled “Cost plus 50” concept) weaken the persuasiveness of the serious voices who have pushed (and continue to push) for greater commitment from U.S. allies.
At the very least, it makes allied advocates for greater defense spending seem aligned with a U.S. president who apparently does not care about the interests of allied states.
This dynamic hurts their public credibility.
At worst, it undermines these voices’ ability to broker political deals necessary to overcome headwinds on an issue that is sensitive throughout Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
[2] Trump’s Withdrawal Decision
If you want to withdraw from the world stage, then do it. And initially it looked like that was exactly what Trump was doing. And then he started to expand the global military presence. It was confusing and confounding.
There are many good arguments for why the U.S. should not have an armed forces presence in Syria, and thus why Trump should withdraw U.S. troops from that war-ravaged land. To begin with, Trump campaigned on the promise to leave Syria, and a (small) majority of the U.S. population supports the withdrawal policy.
There is also little evidence that the U.S. military role in the country has led to better security outcomes for Syria.
American military in Syria.
.
As many have argued from the political right, left, and center (as well as from both realist and institutionalist perspectives), U.S. military participation in the Syrian conflict [1] arguably violates international law, [2] is unconstitutional under U.S. law, [3] remains hampered by undefined goals, and [4] has not successfully advanced core U.S. strategic interests (indeed there are legitimate arguments that it undermines U.S. security).
A cynic might even argue that the best strategy for the U.S. in Syria would simply be to let U.S.’s enemies—Iran, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, Islamic State and sundry terrorist organizations, Russia, etc.—kill each other. And yet, despite there being a relatively sizable group against the U.S. presence in Syria, Trump botched the withdrawal decision.
Nor was the decision supported by sound strategic or political reasoning; rather, it was sold on the basis of patent lies about the status of defeat of the Islamic State. Indeed, ISIS carried out a lethal attack shortly after Trump’s announcement of the organization’s defeat.
As if these self-inflicted wounds to Washington’s reliability and credibility weren’t bad enough, Trump apparently reached the decision after being dubiously convinced by discussions over the phone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A man whose ulterior motive is clearly not to finish off elements of remaining terrorist groups in the region (thereby aiding the U.S. in the war on terror)…
… and much less to provide for regional stability…
… but rather to weaken, and, if possible, destroy the U.S.’s Kurdish allies.
To boot, Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria cost him his Defense Secretary, James Mattis, for whom the policy changes were the last straw.
Given their deteriorated relationship, Trump probably considered Mattis’s resignation a blessing.
But for most experts and allied governments, it was unsettling to see him leave, not only because of his reputation as the last, preeminent “adult at the table” in Trump’s cabinet, but also because, of all things, Mattis left in protest of a failed policy, thus slightly tarnishing his sterling image as the wise warrior-monk.
In the end, this group even undermined partially the withdrawal decision, as both National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo walked back parts of the withdrawal commitment during their visits to the Middle East in early 2019.
Regarding Syria, rather than a well thought-out planned withdraw, the decision was conducted on a whim and implemented without any foresight. This kind of decision is what has historically caused nations to collapse, invasions to occur, and people to riot.
[3] The Trade War fiasco
I have written about this in great depth.
As for China, Trump’s instinct to confront it as a strategic competitor is an overdue corrective to the West’s negligence in realizing that China is a rising power.
But how he has dealt with this matter has been catastrophic.
Yet, a trade war, which Trump imagines will solve the U.S.-China trade imbalance, is not the right answer to these issues.
The fact that many economists do not believe the U.S. trade deficit with China is a problem in the first place.
In fact, trade wars to repair trade deficits do not lead to progress on structural issues.
The tariff-based trade war with China only acts as a tax on U.S. businesses and consumers.
It has also caused disruption in global supply and production chains.
It has caused instability in global markets.
It has fundamentally created a weakening of the free trade norm that underpinned U.S. economic strength.
And so far, China has hardly budged on “structural reform“, as U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer recently conceded. But they don’t need to implement any changes to their government, their society or their inherent way of life. China is not what the neocons think it is, much to America’s chagrin. China is doing splendidly.
Why throw away your cut of prime steak and eat dog food instead?
.
It’s not a popular view point, but that is because 99% of Americans haven’t a clue as to how backwards, and repressed that they have become. Further that they have absolutely no idea of what China is, how it works, or what the Chinese people think.
Americans think that the Chinese are poor, downtrodden and living in a repressive / suppressive horrible dark and gloomy place. And that America represents the best place in the world.
But…
The Chinese are happy with their government, their way of life, and view America as a crazy place that is fat, unhealthy and rather dumbed down.
Anyone who counters with the crazy (well, insane) idea that China NEEDS to make substantive changes to their government; “structural reform“, a very successful one at that, seriously needs their fucking head fixed.
If you are driving a Porsche 911, you aren’t going to trade it in for forty year old Pacer.
American policy makers often draw a sharp distinction between what the historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom has termed “big bad China and the good Chinese people,” stressing that today’s more hawkish China policy is directed against the CCP and not the ordinary people who “dream of freedom.”
Yet China contains multitudes — not just dissidents, democrats, and human rights defenders — and many Chinese are vocal supporters of their government.
Indeed, various multinational opinion surveys consistently find a “high level of regime support” in China, even after factoring in the possibility that some people hide their dissatisfaction for fear of political repercussions. In 2014, Pew Global Research found that a staggering 92% of respondents had “confidence” in their country’s leader, Xi Jinping.
In addition, Trump is a poor, untrustworthy messenger, the optics of the trade war rollout—such as using dubious national security grounds to justify tariffs—have allowed China to plausibly appear a victim of U.S. economic aggression in general and Trump’s bad faith in particular.
Ironically, remaining locked into a trade war with negative spillover effects to other countries, especially allies, potentially pushes them away from the U.S.’s position. Indeed, the U.S. is having difficulty convincing allies—including France and Germany—not to purchase Huawei’s 5G technology, despite the unproved security risks that Washington says they have.
In the end, the consequences of Trump’s poor foreign policy choices go beyond the irony that analysts, pundits, and policymakers are compelled to abjure policy directions that they otherwise support.
Good policy choices need solid execution and messaging to have their intended effects.
Unfortunately, even Trump’s good ideas—increased allied financial commitment to security and defense burden-sharing, extricating the U.S. from some of the messiest and most hopeless aspects of Middle East conflict, and pushing back against Beijing’s violations of trade norms—are undermined by his approach to concretizing policy.
Trump is the anti-Midas—even the gold he accidentally touches turns to dirt. This warps debate about future policy choices and will restrict future options because we will have “tried that before.”
Global nuclear conflict was avoided in 2020 just narrowly. There is no doubt in the halls of MM that that would have been the result of the planned “hot war” in the South China Sea by Trump.
How can you believe anything out of the American media?
So why all this propaganda directed towards Americans that Biden will be “tough on China”?
I have identified numerous reasons.
Keep in mind that the "President" has limited powers and range of abilities. That they are all playing a role and are puppets controlled by higher forces hiding behind the scenes.
To convince the donors who funded the Trump campaign, that their investments will not be wasted.
To convince the American citizenry to keep on hating China, until a new villain can be established, and the anger and disgust siphoned away and redirected towards it.
To keep Wall Street positive and in the black.
And my thoughts on the media narrative…
While limited war, using nuclear weapons, was avoided. The (8 +1) bio-weapon assaults were not, and the globe is now dealing with the spillover from the bio-weapons attacks on China by the Trump administration.
Well, I’m still glad that we gave Trump a chance.
.
That being said, MM anticipates a Biden Presidency to right some wrongs and correct some of the damage that the Trump administration inflicted on the global stage. But it will not be complete. There is much that remains raw and that will boil and fester into other issues down the road in the future.
Trump has completed his role. He has successfully isolated America from the global stage, and much of the internal discord and turmoil that will occur in the next five years will be geographically limited to the North American continent.
Biden can do anything, but I anticipate a redirection of hostilities towards Russia. This is a very dangerous turn of events. But if you know the whole and real story it makes sense.
Were Trump to actually successfully enact a “hot war” with China, it would have been a Waterloo moment (for America) with a minimum of three aircraft carrier groups sinking in internal Chernobyl fires, and uncountable submarines as well.
At that, you can pretty much expect a limited nuclear response and all of the top 20 largest American cities would be in radioactive ruins today. New York, Washington, LA, Chicago, Houston, Boston, San Francisco… all would be gone.
But this world-line did not run this way, did it?
Now…
You can say “phew” and wipe your forehead. Yay!
But…
…like I have stated in regards to [1] start, [2] end and [3] signposts on a person’s lifeline, the same is true for groups of people and societies. The end of the USA was not prevented.
It was only postponed.
Things were only postponed.
Do you want to see similar posts?
I hope that you found this post curious. Please take care. You can view other similar posts in my SHTF Index, here…
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.
