The topsy-turvy world of America trying to clumsily dance upon the global stage

This is America today.

I just read through the headlines on RT. It's incredible the West's relentless pounding of war drums in Ukraine. 

I suspect there will be some kind of Mukden/Gulf of Tonkin false flag, with which the BLPM will brainwash the world that it was the evil Vlad Putin who started it. 

If it happens, I hope the Russian army rolls all the way to the EU's borders. 

Jeff J. Brown

www.chinarising.puntopress.com
www.chinatechnewsflash.com

Eh?

More like, roll to Washington and Langeley.  And say…

" So, you thought you could pull another WWII, destroy Europe and Russia, and pick up the pieces unscathed, Huh?

Yeah.

They are THAT stupid and ignorant.

From Z-Man blog…

The American media has brought down the cone of silence. Drudge has a government issued warning to Canada at the top. The New York Times and Washington Post are busy peddling their latest Russia fantasies. Soviet media was more informative that the American media is now. If you want to know anything about anything you have to dig around in Substack and independent sites. The American media is now a blanket of darkness thrown over the public square.

The other thing that comes to mind is how blatant the authoritarianism is now. I see the Canadian dictator just ordered the funds for the truckers frozen. He just made up some new rule apparently or his handlers did. Trudeau is most likely illiterate, so he has to rely on others to do these things. The US government is flying surveillance aircraft over the protest to intercept communications. They will then “share” this intel with their “partners” in the Canadian secret police.

This is the new game now. We saw this with Trump. The CIA asked Australia and Britain to spy on the Trump campaign. That got around the rule against the CIA spying on Americans and gave the FBI an excuse to do their own spying. Five years ago, they made up a phony story as cover, but now it is out in the open. We live in a country that has secret police that spy on people with impunity. America is becoming East Germany with better consumer goods.

That last bit is always the undoing of authoritarians. You can run a police state or you can have a happy productive society that has nice things. With posted inflation approaching double digits and real inflation much higher, the economic reckoning is quickly approaching. There is no easy way to tame inflation. It always means a recession and usually an ugly one. People are unhappy now. Imagine where things are when the economy is in the dumper.

The world is moving forward, and the United States is sitting still and pouting. They have their arms folded across their chest, and staring at the game board deciding whether or not to tip it all over and let the pieces crash all over the room.

Numerous people (obviously outside of the mainstream media) have noticed various aspects of the global Geo-Political situation and have written about it. Here, in this article we will look at some of those writings.

And…

Throw in some fine MM comment, thoughts and distractions to round out the presentation.

Let’s start off with some fine Rufus action to set up a positive mood…

Rufus behaviors are what the world needs today

Be the Rufus. This is China today. People are all part of the community and they all work together as one.  video 20MB

Some Geo-Political chat

Always interesting to listen to. This is about the fiasco meeting between the USA and China in Alaska.

video 3.6MB

Race to 6G: Chinese researchers declare data streaming record with whirling radio waves

  • Experimental wireless line set up in Winter Olympics compound could stream over 10,000 high-definition live video feeds simultaneously, says Beijing research team
  • ‘It is about introducing a new physical dimension, which can lead to a whole new world with almost unlimited possibilities,’ according to 6G researcher.

Things used to be so difficult…

Now for a pretty Chinese girl

I just want to remind everyone who these people are that those neocons in Washington DC want to destoy, kill and turn destitute. It’s people like you and me. video 2MB

Not really Geo-political or Chinese but fun anyways.

Sorry, I can’t help but want to lighten up the mood here, don’t you know. It’s about cats, and music and it’s really kind of cute.

It’s videos like this that caused President Trump to ban Tictoc from the United States. It was listed as a “National Security” issue, when the truth was that they cut into the profit margins of the Trump political donor class.

Warning: Watching this video will corrupt your mind! And change you (gasp!) into a  dreaded evil communist. Yikes!

Video 9MB

Again. The future belongs to those who have Rufus behaviors

This is a key point that all long-time MM readers will certainly recognize. The way out from the life that we endure is though our behaviors and our thoughts. We msut be better people, and we must all work together for the greater good of all. video 2MB

Well, you know this is after the Beijing Winter Olympics. And The Western media has flooded the media with the most outrageous things. Such as this…

Like this screen shot from the American “news” aggregator “DrudgeReport” 8FEB22.

Nonsense.

Crying?

Seriously. Crying?

Well, the Olympic athletes have made all sorts of videos of their experiences, and the vast, vast bulk of them have been overwhelmingly positive.

Well, you know that that just doesn’t go well with the American (and Western) narratives.

Thus bringing out this article…

YouTube’s Olympics Highlights Are Riddled With Propaganda

The platform’s search engine is funneling sports fans into watching political content about China.
.
From Wired. HERE
.

The Earth Belongs to America

It’s not something it can come out and directly say, because admitting it sees itself as the rulers of the world would make it look tyrannical and megalomaniacal, writes Caitlin Johnstone.

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

The Wall Street Journal has an article out titled “U.S. Aims to Thwart China’s Plan for Atlantic Base in Africa“, subtitled “An American delegation wants to convince Equatorial Guinea against giving Beijing a launchpad in waters the U.S. considers its backyard.”

The article quotes the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy saying, “We’d really, really not like to see a Chinese facility” on the Atlantic, and discusses “American concern about China’s global expansionism and its pursuit of a permanent military presence on waters the U.S. considers home turf.”

The Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi has discussed the irony of WSJ yelling about China’s “global expansionism” over a potential military base in Equatorial Guinea without applying that label to the U.S., when the U.S. has hundreds of times the number of foreign military bases as China.

Antiwar’s Daniel Larison wrote an article back in December eviscerating the ridiculous claim that a military base some six thousand nautical miles from the U.S. coastline could be reasonably framed as any kind of threat to the American people.

A massive threat to America!

But what really jumps out is the insane way the U.S. political/media class routinely talks about virtually every location on this planet as though it is a territory of the United States.

The Wall Street Journal referring to the entire Atlantic Ocean as “America’s backyard” and “waters the U.S. considers home turf” follows a recent controversy over the U.S. president proclaiming that “Everything south of the Mexican border is America’s front yard.” This provoked many references to the so-called “Monroe Doctrine”, a nineteenth-century imperialist assertion that Latin America is off limits to any power apart from the United States, effectively declaring the entire Western Hemisphere the property of Washington, DC.

It also follows another incident in which Press Secretary Jen Psaki remarked on the ongoing tensions around Ukraine that it is in America’s interest to support “our eastern flank countries”, which might come as a surprise to those who were taught in school that America’s eastern flank was not Eastern Europe but the eastern coastline of the United States.

The Chinese government’s strategic ambition has expanded so that it now aims to dominate the entire world in military and economic power, according to Antony Blinken, whose country has 800+ bases around the world to China's four.https://t.co/OX3SmCYA7k

— Consortium News (@Consortiumnews) February 10, 2022

The casual way these people say such things reflects a collectively held worldview that you won’t find on any official document or in any schoolchild’s textbook, but which is nonetheless a firmly held perspective among all the drivers of the modern empire: that the entire world is the property of the U.S. government. That the U.S. is not just the most powerful government in the world but also its rightful ruler, in the same way Rome ruled the Christian world.

It’s not something they can come out and directly say, because admitting they see themselves as the rulers of the world would make them look tyrannical and megalomaniacal. But it’s certainly something they believe.

They’re about as obvious about it as could be. They make almost no effort to conceal it. And yet you’ll still get empire apologists like Michael McFaul saying nonsense like this:

There was a time, not long ago, when imperial powers like UK, France, Portugal etc claimed their colonies as their "sphere of influence." Thank God we didn't listen o them back then. So why now is it ok to let Russia exercise a sphere of influence over its former colony, Ukraine?

— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) February 7, 2022

McFaul knows very well that the U.S. is an imperial power and that it demands a very large “sphere of influence”.

Would you like to see a picture of America’s sphere of influence? Here you go:

To live in the western world is to be constantly inundated with made-up stories about tyrants who want to terrorize the world, while living under a globe-spanning power structure that is actually terrorizing the world. It’s just so bizarre watching these imperial spinmeisters try to frame nations like China and Russia as freakish and backwards while working to literally rule the world like a comic book super villain.

The U.S.-centralized empire is quantifiably the single most destructive and evil power structure in today’s world. We shouldn’t want anyone to rule over the entire planet with an iron fist, but these monsters are the very least qualified among us to do so.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium.  Her work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast on either YoutubesoundcloudApple podcasts or Spotify, following her on Steemit, throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of her sweet merchandise, buying her books Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative MatrixRogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com

Yes. America really is exceptional.

Exceptionally bad, evil, corrupt, self-serving and selfish.

Now for a pretty Chinese girl

I just want to remind everyone who these people are that those neocons in Washington DC want to destoy, kill and turn destitute. It’s people like you and me. They way they do this is to keep videos and pictures of their targetted enemies away from the American people. Like this gal.

video 18MB

Be the Rufus

I just cannot stress hard enough, how important it is for everyone to behave better, nicer and kinder; to be more considerate and to call out and cite psychopaths, sociopaths and the evil greedy folks that cause so much turmoil in our lives today. Be that Rufus! video 7MB

Caitlin Johnstone: Just Run the News Media Out of Langley

That way nobody needs to pretend they’re doing news reporting instead of intelligence agency stenography and the public is clear they’re being fed whatever story about reality the C.I.A. wants them to believe.

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

I think it would be a lot more efficient and straightforward if all English-language news media were just run directly out of C.I.A. headquarters by agency officials in Langley, Virginia. This way news reporters could eliminate the middleman and drop the undignified charade of presenting unproven assertions by western intelligence agencies as “scoops” that they picked up from “sources”.

I mean, right now the mass media are churning out stories about “intelligence” which says Vladimir Putin has decided to invade Ukraine very soon, citing government officials and anonymous sources. We are never shown the “intelligence”, and we are never shown any evidence of its veracity; we’re simply told what opaque and unaccountable government agencies want us to believe about a foreign government.

We’re not even reminded by the publishers of these C.I.A. press releases that western intelligence agencies have a very extensive history of lying about exactly this sort of thing, and we’re certainly not informed that Kiev appears to be ramping up aggressions in eastern Ukraine.

Seriously, look at this absurd tweet by CNN’s Natasha Bertrand:

Scoop: US and allies have new intel that suggests Russia could be planning to attack Ukraine prior to end of Olympics, contrary to previous assessments. New intel comes as officials have dramatically ramped up the urgency of public warnings related to Ukraine in past 24 hours.

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) February 11, 2022

That’s not a “scoop”. That’s just a news media employee repeating something she was told either directly or indirectly by the western intelligence cartel. She’s literally just telling us what an immensely powerful spy intelligence agency told her to say. And that’s become the norm for mass media reporting on all nations the western power alliance doesn’t like, especially Russia.

So why mess around? Why not just move CNN’s office into the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley and have the C.I.A. just publish its reports directly from there? I hear CNN needs a new president anyway. That way nobody needs to pretend they’re doing news reporting instead of intelligence agency stenography, the general public is clear that they’re being fed whatever story about reality the C.I.A. wants them to believe, nobody feels like they’re being treated like a fool, plus it saves a commute for all the intelligence agency insiders who already work in the mass media.

Because it must get pretty tedious, right? Where instead of just having your C.I.A. employer tell you to run a story you have to go through this whole song and dance where an agency officer contacts you and says “Ooh buddy, have I got a scoop for you!” and then you type up what they say in newsy-sounding language citing “sources familiar with the matter” and present it as a news story.

Clearly that’s not news reporting.

Clearly it’s nothing other than garden variety state propaganda.

So why not just be forthright about it? I know the C.I.A. has a lot going on right now, but surely it can make some space in all its domestic surveillancelying, torturingdrug traffickingcoup-stagingwarmongering and assassinations for a little more state media news punditry?

Ukraine Defense Minister: Russia is not invading anytime soon

Ukraine President: Russia is not invading anytime soon

Russia: We have no plans to invade Ukraine

The US: https://t.co/YbyyNA40p5
— Radio Free Amanda ??? (@catcontentonly) February 11, 2022

And of course we already know the answer.

Propaganda doesn’t work if its targets know they are being propagandized. It needs to be administered by institutions who the public trusts to tell them the objective truth about what’s going on in the world.

If the U.S. and its Five Eyes allies simply controlled all media through the government like overtly totalitarian regimes, their propaganda would actually be far less effective than the systems of domestic perception management they have in place currently.

The C.I.A. is officially forbidden from operating in the United States (though as we’ve seen many times since its creation and up to the present day this is treated more as a guideline than a restriction), but what it is not officially forbidden to do is contact the media directly or through a proxy under the pretense of feeding them a news story which just so happens to advance the interests of the agency. The plutocratic media who benefit from the same status quo that the C.I.A. protects then uncritically funnel that information into the minds of the unsuspecting public, and before you know it they’re rending their garments over a foreign government they’d previously not thought much about.

In an actual free society with an actual free press, the very idea of this would be outrageous and if such a thing ever occurred it would be immediately condemned as journalistic malpractice with severe consequences for everyone involved. In an inverted totalitarian dystopia with the most effectively propagandized population on earth, it’s just treated as normal.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium.  Her work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast on either YoutubesoundcloudApple podcasts or Spotify, following her on Steemit, throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of her sweet merchandise, buying her books Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative MatrixRogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com

Now for a pretty Chinese girl

I just want to remind everyone who these people are that those neocons in Washington DC want to destoy, kill and turn destitute. It’s people like you and me. What is the matter with the peopl ein Washington DC? What drugs are they on? What mental illnesses do they have?

video 4MB

How the Establishment Functions

Just as Jimmy Savile was to be protected over actual sex crime, Keir Starmer knew that Julian Assange was to be persecuted over fake sex crime, writes Craig Murray.

By Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.uk

I suggested in my last post that the British Establishment may be looking for a way out of the terrible Assange debacle without raising difficult truths about the United States justice and penal system. The functioning of the Establishment, the way it forms a collective view and how that view is transmitted, is a mystery to many. Some imagine instructions must be transmitted by formal cabals meeting as Freemasons or Bilderbergers or some such grouping. It is not really like that, although different fora of course do provide venues for the powerful to gather and discuss.

I have a bit of a feel for it all, having been a diplomat for 20 years and member of the Senior Civil Service for six. And if I was advising someone who wanted to think of it seriously, I would say human nature doesn’t change; read Thackeray and Trollope, Harold Nicolson and watch the amazing Brian Cox in Succession. All these sources give genuine glimpses of insight.

Former Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan appears to fancy himself as something of a Harold Nicolson, though sadly lacking the wit or writing ability. Duncan has published his diaries. Duncan is the former Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister “for the Americas” who cooperated with attempts to have Julian Assange removed from the Ecuadorian embassy, and was the point man for the CIA’s various illegal schemes around Assange. Duncan referred to Assange in Parliament as a “miserable little worm.”

And who was Alan Duncan’s best friend at Oxford? Why, none other than Ian Duncan Burnett, now lord chief justice of England and Wales, the judge who heard Assange’s High Court appeals. As Alan Duncan’s diary entry for 14 July 2017 tells us:

“At Oxford we always called him ‘the judge’ and they always called me ‘Prime Minister’ but Ian’s the one who got there.”

On Alan Duncan’s birthday on June 7, 2017, Ian Burnett and his wife were part of the dinner celebration, alongside former Tory leader William Hague, and the arms dealer Wafic Said and wife.

Wafic Said was central to the largest bribery scandal in British history, the Al-Yamamah BAE contract for arms to Saudi Arabia, where an 80 billion pound contract involved hundreds of millions in corrupt bribery payments swirling around Wafic Said and his friend Mark Thatcher.

The only reason several very rich people did not go to prison is that Tony Blair — another Oxford University man — and Jack Straw, the recipient himself of BAE largesse, made a historic decision that the Serious Fraud Office investigation must be stopped “in the public interest.”

The Serious Fraud Office subsequently “lost” all the thousands of documents proving the corruption. Thus enabling the central fixer, arms dealer Said, to enjoy a jolly dinner and banter with the new lord chief justice of England and Wales, rather than eat his dinner in Ford open prison.

That, my friends, is how the British Establishment functions. It also of course enabled the continuing relationship that means British planes, missiles, bombs, mechanics, trainers and special forces are every single day involved in eviscerating women and children in Yemen. I do hope they are proud.

Everyday Milieu

On May 27, 2018, Lord Chief Justice Burnett and Alan Duncan were at Chequers having lunch with Prime Minister Theresa May, Michael Gove and “journalist” Sarah Vine and — to quote Duncan — “two financier couples.”

Thus do politics, the law, the media and big money mix, dear reader. These are not special events. It is the everyday milieu. Nobody needs to phone a judge and tell him what to think; they know what their circle thinks from constant experience and interaction, and they can extrapolate from the general to the particular.

The judges know what they are expected to think about Assange. The Scottish judges certainly know what they are expected to think about me.

The politicians freeload — Duncan’s birthday bash had been paid for by Tory party donor, Carphone Warehouse’s David Ross, whose unethical business practices I outlined two years ago. Some of us may feel distaste at the idea of having, or attending, birthday parties gifted by a businessman; but we are not politicians. Or judges.

There is no doubt that Jimmy Savile’s ability to mingle freely at precisely these kind of social gatherings, hosted by royalty and prime ministers down, provided him with the cloak of Establishment protection which enabled his decades of crime.

To deny it is ridiculous. It is also very interesting how unanimously the Establishment has decided to protect Keir Starmer. They faced a real danger for a few years with one of England’s two main parties under the control of genuinely radical figures. Having managed to get the big-money friendly Sir Keir Starmer into place and neutralize any possible threat to their wealth, the ferocity of the Establishment’s defense of Starmer is fascinating.

There is no doubt that Starmer was indeed director of public prosecution and head of the Crown Prosecution Service in 2009 when it was decided that credible allegations against Jimmy Savile should not be prosecuted (after they had reached that stage already decades too late). Of course, the director of public prosecutions does not handle the individual cases, which are assigned to lawyers under them. But the director most certainly is then consulted on the decisions in the high profile and important cases.

That is why they are there. It is unthinkable that Starmer was not consulted on the decision to shelve the Savile case – what do they expect us to believe his role was, as head of the office, ordering the paperclips?

When the public outcry reached a peak in 2012, Starmer played the go-to trick in the Establishment book. He commissioned an “independent” lawyer he knew to write a report exonerating him. Mistakes have been made at lower levels, lessons will be learnt… you know what it says. Mishcon de Reya, money launderers to the oligarchs, provided the lawyer to do the whitewash. Once he retired from the post of DPP, Starmer went to work at, umm,

Delighted to be joining Mishcon de Reya and to remain with Doughty Street Chambers under new dual capacity rules http://t.co/ejoBDIxImK

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 23, 2014

It is remarkable that the media has never got as excited about any of the lies told by Johnson, as they have done about what is in fact a rare example of Johnson saying an interesting truth. Starmer was indeed, as director of public prosecutions, responsible for the non-prosecution of Savile.

But just as Savile was to be protected over actual sex crime, Starmer knew that Assange was to be persecuted over fake sex crime. Starmer’s conduct of the Assange case was entirely corrupt.

Assange Never Charged in Sweden

It is important for you to understand that Assange was never charged with any sex crime in Sweden. He was wanted for questioning, after Stockholm’s chief prosecutor had decided there was no case to answer, but a prosecutor from another district had taken up the case. Assange always believed the entire thing was a ruse to get him sent from Sweden to the United States. His legal team had offered the Swedish prosecutors the chance to interview him in the Swedish embassy back in 2011, which should have enabled the case to be closed.

Under Starmer, the Crown Prosecution Service told the Swedish prosecutors not to come to London. The emails in which they did this were destroyed, and only recovered by an FOI request at the Swedish end. You will recall that, when after a further seven long years Swedish prosecutors finally did interview Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, it resulted in the Swedish investigation being dropped.

Had Starmer not prevented it, the Swedish investigation could have been closed in January 2011 following interview.

Then in October 2013, while Starmer was still DPP, his staff emailed Swedish prosecutors in response to reports that they wished to drop the case, saying “Don’t you dare get cold feet.” The Swedes responded explaining they did indeed wish to drop it. The Crown Prosecution Service again dissuaded them.

Why was Starmer intervening to insist a foreign state continue an investigation that state itself wished to stop, and which involved no British nationals?

I am very confident there is no other example of the British director of public prosecution interfering in an overseas investigation in this way. It certainly was nothing to do with the ostensible subject matter of the Swedish investigation, which doesn’t rate a mention in the email correspondence. There can be no doubt that Starmer’s motive was entirely ulterior to the Swedish investigation, and almost certainly is related to the illegal CIA activity against Assange and the current U.S. extradition effort. Starmer is revealed as a highly unscrupulous and mendacious character.

That has of course been confirmed by the downright lies Starmer told in seeking election by the Labour Party membership, when he stated he would maintain former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s popular left-wing economic policies, particularly on rail and utility nationalization. Once in power Starmer simply ditched these pledges in favor of billionaire-enabling policies, and started a purge of the left of the party on an epic scale.

The British Establishment likes Starmer. They can’t allow Boris Johnson — who is fast becoming a liability to them — saying true things about Starmer which they wish to be buried. Watching their propaganda apparatus act in unison to defend Starmer, and reconfirm in the popular mind the binary choice between their blue puppet and their red puppet, has been fascinating viewing.

As I frequently state, I don’t mind if you agree or do not agree, and I certainly want everybody to think for themselves. My aim is to point out facts that are insufficiently considered and project a different perspective to that commonly promoted in the mainstream media. I am not always right about everything. But I hope that you found reading this gave you some ideas to think through.

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. His coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

This article is from CraigMurray.org.uk.

This is a great Chinese military commercial

The Chinese citizenry will always be HERE. You-Tube video. Watch it please.

Now for a pretty Chinese girl

I just want to remind everyone who these people are that those neocons in Washington DC want to destoy, kill and turn destitute. It’s people like you and me.

video 13MB

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second row – far right – winner!

About time!

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— adidas (@adidas) February 9, 2022

Caitlin Johnstone: Wanting Russian Peace to Attack China

Some Republicans don’t want war with Russia, not because it’s the sane thing to do, but because they insanely want to go to war with China instead.

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

 

Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz criticized the Biden administration’s dangerous escalations against Russia on the House floor on Monday, not because he thinks needlessly ramping up cold war brinkmanship with a nuclear-armed nation is an insane thing to do, nor because he believes the U.S. government should cease trying to dominate the world by constantly working to subvert and undermine any nation who disobeys its commands, but because he wants U.S. aggressions to be focused more on China.

“While the Biden administration, the media, and many in congress beat the drums of war for Ukraine, there is a far more significant threat to our nation accelerating rapidly close to home,” Gaetz said. “Argentina, a critical nation and economy in the Americas, has just lashed itself to the Chinese Communist Party, by signing on to the One Belt One Road Initiative. The cost to China was $23.7 billion — a mere fraction of a rounding error when compared to the trillions of dollars our country has spent trying to build democracies out of sand and blood in the Middle East.”

While the Biden Admin, the media, and many in Congress beat the drums of war for Ukraine, there is a far more significant threat to our nation.

China is a rising power. Russia is a declining power. Let us sharpen our focus so that we do not join them in that eventual fate. pic.twitter.com/VUQwfUFCZ7

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) February 7, 2022

“China buying influence and infrastructure in Argentina to collaborate on space and nuclear energy is a direct challenge to the Monroe Doctrine and far more significant to American security than our latest NATO flirtation in the plains of Eastern Europe,” Gaetz continued. “China is a rising power. Russia is a declining power. Let us sharpen our focus so that we do not join them in that eventual fate.”

For those who don’t know, the “Monroe Doctrine” refers to a decree put forward by President James Monroe in 1823 asserting that Latin America is off limits to European colonialist and imperialist agendas, effectively claiming the entire Western Hemisphere as U.S. property.

It essentially told Europe, “Everything south of the Mexican border is our Africa. It’s ours to dominate in the same way you guys dominate the Global South in the Eastern Hemisphere. Those are your brown people over there, these are our brown people over here.”

That this insanely imperialist and white supremacist doctrine is still being cited by high-profile politicians to this day says so much about what the U.S. government is and how it operates on the world stage. This is especially true given that Biden himself just articulated the same idea in so many words last month when he declared that “Everything south of the Mexican border is America’s front yard.”

U.S. maintains its Monroe Doctrine as Biden assures that Latin America is "America's front yard" pic.twitter.com/VhNxIVdV4Z

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) January 20, 2022

So on one hand Gaetz is opposing warmongering against Russia and condemning the trillions spent on U.S. wars in the Middle East, which by itself would normally be a good thing. But the fact that he only opposes doing that because he wants to focus imperialist aggressions on another part of the world to preserve U.S. unipolar planetary domination completely nullifies any good which could come from his opposition to aggressions somewhere else.

This is a very common phenomenon on the right end of the U.S. political spectrum; you’ll hear a politician or pundit saying what appear to be sane things against the agendas of D.C. warmongers, but if you pay attention to their overall commentary it’s clear that they’re not opposing the use of mass-scale imperialist aggression to preserve planetary domination, they’re just quibbling about the specifics of how it should be done.

Tucker Carlson has been making this argument for years, claiming that the U.S. should make peace with Russia and scale back interventionism in the Middle East not because peace is good but because it needs to focus its aggressions on countering China. He inserts this argument into many of his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy on a regular basis; he did it just the other day, criticizing the Biden administration’s insane actions in Ukraine and then adding “Screaming about Russia, even as we ignore China, is now a bipartisan effort.”

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp summarized this dynamic well in response to a recent Reason article making the same “Make peace with Russia to focus on taking down China” argument, tweeting “Unfortunately, a lot of the opposition to war with Russia is rooted in this idea that the U.S. needs the resources to eventually fight China. We need more people to view war for Taiwan as dangerous and foolish as war for Ukraine.”

Unfortunately, a lot of the opposition to war with Russia is rooted in this idea that the US needs the resources to eventually fight China. We need more people to view war for Taiwan as dangerous and foolish as war for Ukraine. https://t.co/MDUBYCN9dY

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) January 27, 2022

Do you see how this works? Do you see how wanting to refocus U.S. firepower on a specific target is not actually better than keeping that firepower diffuse? The difference between “Let’s have peace” and “Let’s have peace with Russia and stop making wars in the Middle East so that we can focus on bringing down China” is the difference between “Stop massacring civilians” and “Stop massacring these civilians because you’ll need your ammunition to massacre those other civilians over there.”

And it’s especially stupid because it’s the exact same agenda. One imperial faction believes it’s best to preserve U.S. hegemony by focusing on bringing down the nations which support and collaborate with China, while the other imperial faction wants to go after China itself more directly. They both support using the U.S. war machine to keep the planet enslaved to Washington and the government agency insiders and oligarchs who run it, they just manufacture this debate about the specifics of how that ought to happen.

This is what Noam Chomsky was talking about when he said, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

Liberal NPCs Hate Russia, Conservative NPCs Hate China

"The frenzied, shrieking hysteria I’m witnessing right now among Trump’s base regarding China looks and moves in the exact same way the mental zombification of Russia hysteria looked and moved"https://t.co/QdUl2canc8

— Caitlin Johnstone ? (@caitoz) March 19, 2020

That strictly limited spectrum of debate is known as the Overton window, and imperial narrative managers work very hard to keep shoving that window further and further in the favor of the oligarchic empire they serve. In order to prevent us from arguing about whether there should be a globe-spanning capitalist unipolar empire in the first place, they keep us arguing about how that empire’s interests should best be advanced.

The longer the drivers of empire can keep us debating the details of how we should serve them, the longer they can keep us from turning toward them and asking why we should even have them around at all.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium.  Her work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast on either YoutubesoundcloudApple podcasts or Spotify, following her on Steemit, throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of her sweet merchandise, buying her books Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative MatrixRogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com

For those of you in stress right now…

Now for a pretty Chinese girl

I just want to remind everyone who these people are that those neocons in Washington DC want to destoy, kill and turn destitute. It’s people like you and me.

video 2MB

A new world will include Rufus’s

One of the reasons why the West is fearful of Asia is that they cannot understand non-selfish people. It terrifies them, and they must fight them and destroy them before their ideas about life go mainstream. video 12MB

Now for a pretty Chinese girl

I just want to remind everyone who these people are that those neocons in Washington DC want to destoy, kill and turn destitute. It’s people like you and me.

video 2MB

China & Russia Throw Down Gauntlet

Benjamin Norton reports on the meeting in Beijing between China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin designed to deepen the integration of the two Eurasian superpowers.

By Ben Norton
Multipolarista.com

(Se puede leer este artículo en español aquí.)

Feb. 4, 2022 may very well be remembered in history textbooks as an important date in the shift of global politics.

That day was not only the inauguration of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games in Beijing; it also saw a historic meeting between the presidents of China and Russia.

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin signed a series of important economic and political agreements, deepening the integration of the two Eurasian superpowers.

Among these was a major 30-year deal in which Russia will supply gas to China via a new pipeline, with both sides of the energy transfers managed by state-owned companies. And in a sign of their mutual efforts to challenge the dominance of the U.S. dollar, they decided to settle the sales in euros.

Following the Xi-Putin reunion, the Chinese and Russian governments released a lengthy joint statement declaring a “new era” of multipolarity, proposing a new international political model that will leave behind the unipolar hegemonic order dominated by Washington.

At more than 5,000 words in length, the joint declaration was in some ways a kind of manifesto. It was obviously carefully drafted before the meeting, and it clearly defined the contrasting ideological lines of the new cold war: On one side is the United States and its NATO allies, which are defending a status quo based on unilateralism and interventionism (that is to say, imperialism); on the other side are China, Russia, and their allies, which are building a new system rooted in multilateralism and sovereignty.

“The world is going through momentous changes, and humanity is entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation,” the joint statement declared.

In this “new era,” a “trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world,” the Eurasian powers wrote. That center of power is no longer concentrated in the capitals of trans-Atlantic Western colonialist powers; the East and the South have risen.

Beijing and Moscow could hardly have been any more straightforward in what they were proposing as an alternative: they “condemn[ed] the practice of interference in the internal affairs of other states for geopolitical purposes,” and instead called “to establish a just multipolar system of international relations,” using the word “multipolar” four times, and “multilateral” 11 more.

Message to NATO 

The historic Chinese-Russian statement was marked by its appeal for de-escalation, and its insistence that NATO must stop expanding and “abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries.”

The fact that the joint statement employed such language (it warned three times of the U.S.-led bloc’s “cold war” mentality) is an obvious acknowledgement by the Eurasian powers that Washington is waging a second cold war, and that it seeks nothing less than the overthrow of the governments in Beijing and Moscow.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made this goal clear as day in a bellicose 2020 speech at the Richard Nixon library, in which he declared, “We, the freedom-loving nations of the world, must induce China to change.” The former CIA director insisted, “Securing our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party is the mission of our time.”

Then in 2021, NATO’s de facto think tank the Atlantic Council published “The Longer Telegram,” modeled after the “long telegram” of cold warrior George Kennan, who crafted U.S. containment policy toward the Soviet Union. The Longer Telegram stated that Chinese President Xi must be replaced and Beijing should be forced “to conclude that it is in China’s best interests to continue operating within the U.S.-led liberal international order rather than building a rival order.”

The governments in Beijing and Moscow are closely following these developments, and can see where they are headed. The statement they released on Feb. 4 was their joint response, calling “for the establishment of a new kind of relationships between world powers on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation,” instead of conflict.

It is no coincidence that this meeting between Xi and Putin in Beijing — their first face-to-face reunion since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic — and the accompanying joint statement also came at a time of heightened tensions between NATO and Russia.

The manufactured crisis in Ukraine in late 2021 and early 2022, coupled with the Western bloc’s flagrant refusal to acknowledge any of Moscow’s security concerns, showed that NATO believes it has the right to permanently expand and militarily encircle Russia.

So while the joint declaration requested de-escalation, “reiterat[ing] the need for consolidation, not division of the international community, the need for cooperation, not confrontation,” it also emphasized that Beijing and Moscow are prepared to defend themselves.

The Eurasian powers stressed “that the new inter-State relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the [first] Cold War era.”

 ‘Well-Being for All’

In an unambiguous reference to the foreign policy of the United States, the Chinese-Russian joint statement declared that Washington’s policies of unilateralism and interference only represent a “minority” and must end:

“Some actors representing but the minority on the international scale continue to advocate unilateral approaches to addressing international issues and resort to force; they interfere in the internal affairs of other states, infringing their legitimate rights and interests, and incite contradictions, differences and confrontation, thus hampering the development and progress of mankind, against the opposition from the international community.”

Beijing and Moscow juxtaposed these interventionist practices of U.S. imperialism with a proposal of multipolarity and “well-being for all”:

“[China and Russia] call on all States to pursue well-being for all and, with these ends, to build dialogue and mutual trust, strengthen mutual understanding, champion such universal human values as peace, development, equality, justice, democracy and freedom, respect the rights of peoples to independently determine the development paths of their countries and the sovereignty and the security and development interests of States, to protect the United Nations-driven international architecture and the international law-based world order, seek genuine multipolarity with the United Nations and its Security Council playing a central and coordinating role, promote more democratic international relations, and ensure peace, stability and sustainable development across the world.”

The declaration’s use of the phrase “international law-based world order” was important, because it was a rejection of the vague “rules-based international order” that the U.S. government has tried to impose on the world.

China’s and Russia’s ambassadors to the United States published a joint article in November 2021 that emphasized a similar point, writing:

“There is only one international system in the world, i.e. the international system with the United Nations at its core. There is only one international order, i.e. the one underpinned by international law. And there is only one set of rules, i.e. the basic norms governing international relations based on the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter. Flaunting the “rules-based international order” without referencing the U.N. and international law and attempting to replace international rules with the dictums of certain blocs falls into the category of revisionism and is obviously anti-democratic.

The February Chinese-Russian statement echoed much of what the ambassadors wrote in November, while further fleshing out the Eurasian perspective.”

Both declarations strongly defended democracy, but in a more comprehensive, expanded definition of the term that reflects real people’s democracy, not just a superficial system in which “people are only awakened when casting their votes and sent back to hibernation when the voting is over.”

In a strident rejection of the “liberal interventionist” ideology of the U.S. government, the Chinese-Russian statements condemned the cynical “abuse of democratic values and interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states under the pretext of protecting democracy and human rights.”

Strengthen International Institutions

Beijing and Moscow hope to defend concepts like multilateralism, non-interference, and respect for national sovereignty by democratizing and strengthening international institutions such as the U.N., BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Eurasian Economic Union.

While calling “to protect the United Nations-driven international architecture and the international law-based world order,” the February Chinese-Russian statement urged a democratization of the body, to “seek genuine multipolarity with the United Nations and its Security Council.”

Beijing and Moscow likewise wrote that they “aim to comprehensively strengthen the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and further enhance its role in shaping a polycentric world order based on the universally recognized principles of international law, multilateralism, equal, joint, indivisible, comprehensive and sustainable security.”

Moreover, the Eurasian powers said they “support the deepened strategic partnership within BRICS,” the framework bringing together Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, to “promote the expanded cooperation in three main areas: politics and security, economy and finance, and humanitarian exchanges.”

Part of this global realignment also involves merging China’s massive global infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative, with the Eurasian Economic Union, the Russia-led economic bloc.

Beijing and Moscow wrote:

“The sides are seeking to advance their work to link the development plans for the Eurasian Economic Union [EAEU] and the Belt and Road Initiative with a view to intensifying practical cooperation between the EAEU and China in various areas and promoting greater interconnectedness between the Asia Pacific and Eurasian regions.

The sides reaffirm their focus on building the Greater Eurasian Partnership in parallel and in coordination with the Belt and Road construction to foster the development of regional associations as well as bilateral and multilateral integration processes for the benefit of the peoples on the Eurasian continent.”

Countering External Interference

Following the meeting between Presidents Xi and Putin on Feb. 4, China’s Foreign Ministry published a readout summarizing the main points of their discussions.

Implicitly criticizing the U.S. government’s superficial claims to support multilateralism and democracy, Beijing wrote,

“The two sides have taken an active part in the reform and development of the global governance system, followed true multilateralism, safeguarded the true spirit of democracy, and served as a bulwark in mobilizing global solidarity at these trying times and upholding international fairness and justice.”

The Chinese readout stressed this call for “international fairness and justice,” repeating the phrase three times.

Emphasizing the importance of “upholding sovereignty” and “defending sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Beijing added that the Eurasian powers must “effectively counter external interference” — an obvious reference to U.S. meddling and regime-change operations.

The message of the statements published by Beijing and Moscow could not have been clearer: the era of U.S. unipolar hegemony is dead, and the world is now in a “new era” with an international order based on multipolarity and principles of non-interference.

In making these declarations, the Eurasian powers were drawing an ideological line in the sand. The world already knew what political and economic model Washington, Brussels, and NATO are offering, but now it can clearly see what China and Russia are posing as an alternative.

Benjamin Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the founder and editor of Multipolarista, and is based in Latin America. // Benjamín Norton es un periodista, escritor, y cineasta. Es fundador y editor de Multipolarista, y vive en Latinoamérica.

This article is from  Multipolarista.com.

The End Of Empire

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The question that has not been given much consideration over the last few decades is how exactly will the Global American Empire end? All empires come to an end, but not all of them end the same. Usually, they dissolve into their constituent parts like we saw with the Soviet Union. This may or may not bring with it a spasm of violence, but the unnatural combination eventually returns to its nature. What makes each empire unique is its birth and its death.

Like every empire before it, the Global American Empire will end. This may be what we are seeing with the current crisis in Europe over Ukraine. Russia is well past the dissolution of the Soviet Empire. Europe has also evolved past the old arrangements made necessary by the Cold War. The only player stuck in the past is the Global American Empire, which is carrying on like it is 1960. We are now seeing the hints of the end for the American empire in Europe.

The starting place is the fact that the stuff coming from Washington is so bizarre that not even the Ukrainians understand it. The rhetoric has gone well beyond the normal sort of moralizing that has distinguished the American empire. Washington and now London have conjured a reality in which the Russians are ready to launch into Ukraine while the Russians and Ukrainians are happy to find a peaceful solution. The whole thing is making Washington look a bit nuts.

All of this happening against the reality that if the Russians want to invade Ukraine there is nothing NATO can do about it. If the Russians wanted to move onto Berlin there is not much NATO could do to stop them. Over time, the West would be able to rally and cripple the Russians economically, then roll them back militarily, but in the short term everyone gets that NATO is a paper tiger. It is also a pointless vestige from a bygone era that should have been scrapped a generation ago.

This is one entry point into the crisis. The Germans want to finish Nord Stream 2 and build closer economic ties with Russia. The Russians want to restore their ancient relationship with Western Europe. They will not accept the American conditions that they must embrace the religion of the West. There will be no rainbows and transsexuals in the Russian culture. There will be no scenes of Russian soldiers walking around in pumps claiming to be sorry for their ancestors.

The Germans and the French seem to be ready to make the deal with the Russians and begin a new era for both sides. The Russians can maintain their traditional model for organizing themselves and Europe will begin to normalize economic relations with the rest of Eurasia. This leaves little room for the Global American Empire, which is based on an assertion that there is only one moral way to organize a society. This potential new arrangement is a rebuke of the very idea of empire.

Another entry point into viewing the current crisis as a stage in the dissolution of the Global American Empire is in the reaction itself. Even the American media has lost track of how many times the Biden people have claimed an invasion is imminent. It feels like it is a weekly thing now. The State Department swears the tanks are revving their engines and then nothing happens. European leaders have to be wondering if the empire is losing its grip on reality.

The hysteria could very well be the only thing left. Again, if Russian draws the line on NATO expansion and takes over Ukraine, there is very little Washington can do about it other than make a lot of noise. The promise of crippling economic sanctions is as ridiculous as the rest of the bellowing. Europe needs to buy important stuff from Russia in order to exist. Germany and France will go along with superficial stuff to please Washington, but they are not committing suicide over Ukraine.

What we may be entering is a final phase of the Global American Empire in which conflicting realities create a lot of friction. One reality is that America’s dominion over Europe was always unnatural for both sides. In the Cold War it was seen as a necessity, so it was a tolerable contradiction. Those conditions have not existed for over a generation now and reality is reasserting itself. Western Europe will be dominated by France and Germany and Eastern Europe by Russia.

Another set of conflicting realities is that the heritage stock of America never wanted to be a major player in world affairs. The sales pitch by the imperial leaders was always based on this assumed reluctance. The Global American Empire was a necessity born out of war and tragedy. That necessity is long over and yet the managerial elite of the empire insists on maintaining the empire. Meanwhile the public is dealing with cultural and economic collapse.

There has never been a time when the average American has felt more divorced from his government than now. The guy the empire counts on to wave the flag and respond to war drums is not sure which side to support. This is one of those unspoken truths about this Ukraine affair. The reservoir of patriotism is now dry among the cohort of Americans who have always been the most patriotic. The response from these people over Ukraine is a shrug or maybe a wry smile.

This may be what the end empire is like from the inside. We will have spasms of bellowing and shouting from Washington, but the world will slowly crawl out from under the shadow of Washington. Meanwhile, domestic politics will grow increasingly untenable, with populist revolt replacing electoral organizing. The system simply stops working as the reason for it to keep working no longer makes sense. The end of empire is a million small breakdowns in the system.

One final thought, before the closures to this article…

It all began with peasant revert of the serfs inside of Canada. The Biden Administration TOLD Canada to suppress the revot immediately before it spills into the USA. Watch the Video HERE.

Two days passed.

So Canada obeyed. Canada did it first, but the United States will be next in line.

Watch this second excellent You-TUbe video about how the “democracy” in Canada just now turned into a dictatorship. Watch it HERE. Then come back for final MM closing statements.

Notice…

Notice how the people talk about community. How they talk about their freedom and how they no longer want to be ruled by elitists who live a life of ease insulated from the general population. And notice how the elites reacted.

Coming to America next.

Now for a pretty Chinese girl

I just want to remind everyone who these people are that those neocons in Washington DC want to destoy, kill and turn destitute. It’s people like you and me.

video 2MB

Be the Rufus!

No, I’m not going to ignore this most important aspect of change today. It’s one where everyone strives to be a better person and contribute inside their communites for the betterment of all. video 12 MB

Do you want more?

You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.

New Beginnings 3

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Articles & Links

Master Index

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

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Law 7 of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene; Get others to do the work for you, you always take the credit (Full Text)

Here is another law from the 48 laws of power by Robert Greene. This is Law 7. Get others to do the work for you. We can see how this law is practiced throughout the United States. Steve Jobs. Bill Gates. Jeff Bezos. Eric Schmidt. Donald Trump. Can you name their “right hand men”? I’ll bet you cannot. For they are the figurehead and they get all the credit for the system that they are part of.

LAW 7

GET OTHERS TO DO THE WORK FOR YOU, BUT ALWAYS TAKE THE CREDIT

JUDGMENT

Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you.

TRANSGRESSION AND OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW

In 1883 a young Serbian scientist named Nikola Tesla was working for the European division of the Continental Edison Company. He was a brilliant inventor, and Charles Batchelor, a plant manager and a personal friend of Thomas Edison, persuaded him he should seek his fortune in America, giving him a letter of introduction to Edison himself. So began a life of woe and tribulation that lasted until Tesla’s death.

IIII TORTOISE THE LELP AND THE HIPPOPOI

One day the tortoise met the elephant, who trumpeted, “Out of my way, you weakling—I might step on you!” The tortoise was not afraid and stayed where he was, so the elephant stepped on him, but could not crush him. “Do not boast, Mr. Elephant, I am as strong as you are!” said the tortoise, but the elephant just laughed. So the tortoise asked him to come to his hill the next morning. The next day, before sunrise, the tortoise ran down the hill to the river, where he met the hippopotamus, who was just on his way back into the water after his nocturnal feeding. “Mr Hippo! Shall we have a tug-of-war? I bet I’m as strong as you are!” said the tortoise. The hippopotamus laughed at this ridiculous idea, but agreed. The tortoise produced a long rope and told the hippo to hold it in his mouth until the tortoise shouted “Hey!” Then the tortoise ran back up the hill where he found the elephant, who was getting impatient. He gave the elephant the other end of the rope and said, “When I say ‘Hey!’ pull, and you’ll see which of us is the strongest. ”Then he ran halfway back down the hill, to a place where he couldn’t be seen, and shouted, “Hey!” The elephant and the hippopotamus pulled and pulled, but neither could budge the other-they were of equal strength. They both agreed that the tortoise was as strong as they were. Never do what others can do for you. The tortoise let others do the work for him while he got the credit. 

-
ZAIREAN FABLE

When Tesla met Edison in New York, the famous inventor hired him on the spot. Tesla worked eighteen-hour days, finding ways to improve the primitive Edison dynamos. Finally he offered to redesign them completely.

To Edison this seemed a monumental task that could last years without paying off, but he told Tesla, “There’s fifty thousand dollars in it for you— if you can do it.”

Tesla labored day and night on the project and after only a year he produced a greatly improved version of the dynamo, complete with automatic controls. He went to Edison to break the good news and receive his $50,000.

Edison was pleased with the improvement, for which he and his company would take credit, but when it came to the issue of the money he told the young Serb, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor!,” and offered a small raise instead.

Tesla’s obsession was to create an alternating-current system (AC) of electricity. Edison believed in the direct-current system (DC), and not only refused to support Tesla’s research but later did all he could to sabotage him.

Tesla turned to the great Pittsburgh magnate George Westinghouse, who had started his own electricity company.

Westinghouse completely funded Tesla’s research and offered him a generous royalty agreement on future profits. The AC system Tesla developed is still the standard today— but after patents were filed in his name, other scientists came forward to take credit for the invention, claiming that they had laid the groundwork for him. His name was lost in the shuffle, and the public came to associate the invention with Westinghouse himself.

A year later, Westinghouse was caught in a takeover bid from J. Pierpont Morgan, who made him rescind the generous royalty contract he had signed with Tesla.

Westinghouse explained to the scientist that his company would not survive if it had to pay him his full royalties; he persuaded Tesla to accept a buyout of his patents for $216,000—a large sum, no doubt, but far less than the $12 million they were worth at the time.

The financiers had divested Tesla of the riches, the patents, and essentially the credit for the greatest invention of his career.

The name of Guglielmo Marconi is forever linked with the invention of radio. But few know that in producing his invention—he broadcast a signal across the English Channel in 1899—Marconi made use of a patent Tesla had filed in 1897, and that his work depended on Tesla’s research.

Once again Tesla received no money and no credit. Tesla invented an induction motor as well as the AC power system, and he is the real “father of radio.” Yet none of these discoveries bear his name.

As an old man, he lived in poverty.

In 1917, during his later impoverished years, Tesla was told he was to receive the Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. He turned the medal down. “You propose,” he said, “to honor me with a medal which I could pin upon my coat and strut for a vain hour before the members of your Institute.

You would decorate my body and continue to let starve, for failure to supply recognition, my mind and its creative products, which have supplied the foundation upon which the major portion of your Institute exists.”

Interpretation

Many harbor the illusion that science, dealing with facts as it does, is beyond the petty rivalries that trouble the rest of the world.

Nikola Tesla was one of those.

He believed science had nothing to do with politics, and claimed not to care for fame and riches. As he grew older, though, this ruined his scientific work. Not associated with any particular discovery, he could attract no investors to his many ideas. While he pondered great inventions for the future, others stole the patents he had already developed and got the glory for themselves.

He wanted to do everything on his own, but merely exhausted and impoverished himself in the process.

Edison was Tesla’s polar opposite.

He wasn’t actually much of a scientific thinker or inventor; he once said that he had no need to be a mathematician because he could always hire one. That was Edison’s main method.

He was really a businessman and publicist, spotting the trends and the opportunities that were out there, then hiring the best in the field to do the work for him. If he had to he would steal from his competitors. Yet his name is much better known than Tesla’s, and is associated with more inventions.

To be sure, if the hunter relies on the security of the carriage, utilizes the legs of the six horses, and makes Wang Liang hold their reins, then he will not tire himself and will find it easy to overtake swift animals. Now supposing he discarded the advantage of the carriage, gave up the useful legs of the horses and the skill of Wang Liang, and alighted to run after the animals, then even though his legs were as quick as Lou Chi’s, he would not be in time to overtake the animals. In fact, if good horses and strong carriages are taken into use, then mere bond-men and bondwomen will be good enough to catch the animals. 

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HAN-FEI-TZU, CHINESE PHILOSOPHER, THIRD CENTURY B.C.

The lesson is twofold:

First, the credit for an invention or creation is as important, if not more important, than the invention itself. You must secure the credit for yourself and keep others from stealing it away, or from piggy- backing on your hard work. To accomplish this you must always be vigilant and ruthless, keeping your creation quiet until you can be sure there are no vultures circling overhead.

Second, learn to take advantage of other  people’s work to further your own cause. Time is precious and life is short. If you try to do it all on your own, you run yourself ragged, waste energy, and burn yourself out. It is far better to conserve your forces, pounce on the work others have done, and find a way to make it your own.

Everybody steals in commerce and industry. I’ve stolen a lot myself. But I know how to steal. 

-Thomas Edison, 1847-1931

KEYS TO POWER

The world of power has the dynamics of the jungle:

There are those who live by hunting and killing, and there are also vast numbers of creatures (hyenas, vultures) who live off the hunting of others. These latter, less imaginative types are often incapable of doing the work that is essential for the creation of power.

They understand early on, though, that if they wait long enough, they can always find another animal to do the work for them.

Do not be naive: At this very moment, while you are slaving away on some project, there are vultures circling above trying to figure out a way to survive and even thrive off your creativity. It is useless to complain about this, or to wear yourself ragged with bitterness, as Tesla did.

Better to protect yourself and join the game. Once you have established a power base, become a vulture yourself, and save yourself a lot of time and energy.

A hen who had lost her sight, and was accustomed to scratching up the earth in search of food, although blind, still continued to scratch away most diligently. Of what use was it to the industriuus fool? Another sharp-sighted hen who spared her tender feet never moved from her side, and enjoyed, without scratching, the fruit of the other’s labor. For as often as the blind hen scratched up a barley-corn, her watchful companion devoured it. 

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FABLES, GOITCHOLD LESSING, 1729-1781

Of the two poles of this game, one can be illustrated by the example of the explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Balboa had an obsession—the discovery of El Dorado, a legendary city of vast riches.

Early in the sixteenth century, after countless hardships and brushes with death, he found evidence of a great and wealthy empire to the south of Mexico, in present-day Peru.

By conquering this empire, the Incan, and seizing its gold, he would make himself the next Cortés. The problem was that even as he made this discovery, word of it spread among hundreds of other conquistadors. He did not understand that half the game was keeping it quiet, and carefully watching those around him.

A few years after he discovered the location of the Incan empire, a soldier in his own army, Francisco Pizarro, helped to get him beheaded for treason. Pizarro went on to take what Balboa had spent so many years trying to find.

The other pole is that of the artist Peter Paul Rubens, who, late in his career, found himself deluged with requests for paintings.

He created a system: In his large studio he employed dozens of outstanding painters, one specializing in robes, another in backgrounds, and so on. He created a vast production line in which a large number of canvases would be worked on at the same time. When an important client visited the studio, Rubens would shoo his hired painters out for the day. While the client watched from a balcony, Rubens would work at an incredible pace, with unbelievable energy. The client would leave in awe of this prodigious man, who could paint so many masterpieces in so short a time.

This is the essence of the Law: Learn to get others to do the work for you while you take the credit, and you appear to be of godlike strength and power.

If you think it important to do all the work yourself, you will never get far, and you will suffer the fate of the Balboas and Teslas of the world.

Find people with the skills and creativity you lack.

Either hire them, while putting your own name on top of theirs, or find a way to take their work and make it your own. Their creativity thus becomes yours, and you seem a genius to the world.

There is another application of this law that does not require the parasitic use of your contemporaries’ labor: Use the past, a vast storehouse of knowledge and wisdom.

Isaac Newton called this “standing on the shoulders of giants.”

He meant that in making his discoveries he had built on the achievements of others. A great part of his aura of genius, he knew, was attributable to his shrewd ability to make the most of the insights of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance scientists.

Shakespeare borrowed plots, characterizations, and even dialogue from Plutarch, among other writers, for he knew that nobody surpassed Plutarch in the writing of subtle psychology and witty quotes. How many later writers have in their turn borrowed from—plagiarized—Shakespeare ?

We all know how few of today’s politicians write their own speeches.

Their own words would not win them a single vote; their eloquence and wit, whatever there is of it, they owe to a speech writer. Other people do the work, they take the credit. The upside of this is that it is a kind of power that is available to everyone. Learn to use the knowledge of the past and you will look like a genius, even when you are really just a clever borrower.

Writers who have delved into human nature, ancient masters of strategy, historians of human stupidity and folly, kings and queens who have learned the hard way how to handle the burdens of power—their knowledge is gathering dust, waiting for you to come and stand on their shoulders.

Their wit can be your wit, their skill can be your skill, and they will never come around to tell people how unoriginal you really are.

You can slog through life, making endless mistakes, wasting time and energy trying to do things from your own experience. Or you can use the armies of the past. As Bismarck once said, “Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others’ experience.”

Image: The Vulture. Of all the creatures in the jungle, he has it the easiest. The hard work of others becomes his work; their failure to survive becomes his nourishment. Keep an eye on the Vulture—while you are hard at work, he is cir cling above. Do not fight him, join him.

Authority: There is much to be known, life is short, and life is not life without knowledge. It is therefore an excellent device to acquire knowledge from everybody. Thus, by the sweat of another’s brow, you win the reputation of being an oracle. (Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)

REVERSAL

There are times when taking the credit for work that others have done is not the wise course: If your power is not firmly enough established, you will seem to be pushing people out of the limelight. To be a brilliant ex ploiter of talent your position must be unshakable, or you will be accused of deception.

Be sure you know when letting other people share the credit serves your purpose. It is especially important to not be greedy when you have a master above you. President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to the People’s Republic of China was originally his idea, but it might never have come off but for the deft diplomacy of Henry Kissinger. Nor would it have been as successful without Kissinger’s skills. Still, when the time came to take credit, Kissinger adroitly let Nixon take the lion’s share. Knowing that the truth would come out later, he was careful not to jeopardize his standing in the short term by hogging the limelight. Kissinger played the game expertly: He took credit for the work of those below him while graciously giving credit for his own labors to those above. That is the way to play the game.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my 48 Laws of Power Index here…

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Some selected favorite artworks by Lord Frederick Leighton

Lord Frederick Leighton was an amazing painter from the days of true classic art. He painted a total of 518 artworks. All told, he is considered to be “English Aesthetic, New Sculpture (19th Century British), Olympian Classical Revivalist painter, sculptor, illustrator and writer”. He was Born in 1830 and Died in 1896. He was only 66 years old.

You can see all of his works at the Art Renewal Center here.

Music Lesson

We will start with this very pleasant piece.

Pay attention to the kind and amazing details in this remarkable piece of work. It’s art like this that puts a smile on my face. And that is the truth. First, here is the painting. It’s hard to appreciate all the work and beauty that went into it…

Music Lesson

It’s a pretty amazing painting.

Please check out the details up close to really appreciate the art, and the form…

Music Lesson detail.

Elijah in the Wilderness

Next up is a story from the Bible.

Elijah (ēlī`jə) or Elias (ēlī`əs) [both: Heb.,=Yahweh is God], fl. c.875 B.C., Hebrew prophet in the reign of King Ahab. 

He is one of the outstanding figures of the Bible. Elijah's mission was to destroy the worship of foreign gods and to restore exclusive loyalty to God. His zeal brought about a temporary banishment of idolatry (see Jezebel). 

Incidents in his life include his raising the widow's son from the dead; his contest of faith with the priests of Baal, resulting in his triumph and their death; his being fed by ravens; his experience of the still, small voice on Mt. Horeb (Sinai); and his departure from earth in a chariot of fire enveloped in a whirlwind. His disciple was Elisha. 

Unlike other great prophets, Elijah and Elisha left no written records. In Jewish tradition, Elijah is the eschatological herald of the Messiah. John the Baptist and Jesus were asked if they were the incarnation of Elijah, who appeared at the Transfiguration. The prophet is prominent in the Qur'an. Mendelssohn composed an oratorio, Elijah.

-The Free Dictionary

Translated from Hebrew, the name Elijah means “My God.” The prophet was a devoted follower of the Christian religion in Israel. Using his preaches and working miracles, he faithfully fought for the elimination of idolatry and disgrace. In different religions, including Christianity and Judaism, it is believed that Elijah was taken to Heaven alive, conquering death.

The saint was among the first religious figures worshiped by Orthodox Christians in Russia. A few churches were built to honor his life path. Believers continue to regard Elijah as one of the most revered Biblical personalities.

Many religious people consider the “Elijah in the Wilderness” icon their most beloved miraculous painting.

Elijah in the Wilderness
Elijah in the Wilderness

Dante in Exile

Next up…

Poet and politician Dante Alighieri is exiled from Florence, where he served as one of six priors governing the city.

Normally, I don’t give a rat’s ass about politicians. But this fellow was a writer and a poet, and this guy was chased out of his home and “on the lam” while being hunted down by the rival political forces of the day.

And this painting is beautiful.

He wasn’t virginal. He did bad things too.

Dante’s political activities, including the banishing of several rivals, led to his own banishment. It was during this banishment that he wrote his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, as a virtual wanderer, seeking protection for his family in town after town.

You might think of him as a “blue blood”; a member of the “elite”.

Dante was born to a family with noble ancestry that had fallen in fortunes.

He began writing poetry in his teens and received encouragement from established poets, to whom he sent sonnets as a young man.

He had fallen in love with another fine young lass, and the combination of poetry and love, infatuated forbidden love is a story in itself.

At the young age of nine, Dante first caught a glimpse of Beatrice Portinari, also nine, who would symbolize for him perfect female beauty and spiritual goodness in the coming decades. Despite his fervent devotion to Portinari, who did not seem to return his feelings, Dante became engaged to Gemma Donati in 1277, but the two did not marry until eight years later.

The couple had six sons and a daughter. I am sure that it was a lively household. Six boys! Lord have mercy!

He made his money from his poetry…

About 1293, Dante published a book of prose and poetry called The New Life, followed a few years later by another collection, The Banquet. It wasn’t until his banishment that he began work on his Divine Comedy.

In the poem’s first book, the poet takes a tour through Hell with the poet Virgil as a guide.

Virgil also guides the poet through Purgatory in the second book. The poet’s guide in Paradise, however, is named Beatrice.

The work was written and published in sections between 1308 and 1321. Although Dante called the work simply Comedy, the work became enormously popular, and a deluxe version published in 1555 in Venice bore the title The Divine Comedy.

Dante died of malaria in Ravenna in 1321.

Dante in Exile
Dante in Exile

The Painter’s Honeymoon

Another beautiful painting. I particularly love the tender embrace with the hands, and the way the two lovers cheeks press together. From a fellow painters point of view, I am really impressed with the details on the dress and the clothing folds. Just look at it all. Impressive!

The Painter's Honeymoon
The Painter’s Honeymoon

Mother and Child

Another stunning painting.

Take a look at the vase of flowers. What detail and what perfect shading. Look at the tapestry of a crane behind the mother, and the details on her hands. The folds in both of the dress are exquisite. This is a marvelous work. It is stunning and just wonderful.

Mother and Child

Hercules Wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis

Greek history can be very interesting, as long as you can adjust to the names, and the cultural differences. Here is a great write up about the story of Alcestis and our Hero Hercules…

The following is from the ancient network...

For the ancient Greeks, the quality of arete (personal excellence) and the concept of eusebia (social duty) were most important.

Aristotle discusses both of these at length in his Nichomachean Ethics and relates arete to eudaimonia – translated as “happiness” but actually meaning “to be possessed of a good spirit”.

To have arete, Aristotle claims, one must associate oneself with those striving for the same goal.

I really can agree with that. Can't you?

If one wanted to become an excellent musician, one should associate oneself with excellent musicians and the same if one wished to be a star athlete or carpenter or doctor.

The Greek concept of eusebia is often translated into English as “piety” (as, for example, in Plato’s dialogue of the Euthyphro), but the concept is actually much closer to “duty”, particularly social duty.

Eusebia dictated how one interacted with one’s husband, wife, parents, servants, and those of higher and lower classes. Eusebia also touched on how one understood the gods (though not on how one interacted with the gods, which would be the concept of housia, much closer to “piety”).

Detail 1.

The gods, and especially the all-powerful Fates, controlled and directed the lives of human beings and one needed to accept that fact and live one’s life accordingly. If one suffered some tragic loss or financial set-back,  it was the will of the gods, or the Fates whom not even the gods could sway, and by accepting this as the order of the universe, one could better accept such loss.

The stories the Greeks told – which today are referred to as their myths – played a part in understanding arete and eusebia in that they illustrated for the listeners these virtues of Greek civilization.

In hearing how heroes and kings and even gods behaved, one was provided with a model for one’s own behavior. Among the many myths the Greeks told, one that exemplifies the virtues of personal excellence and social duty is the story of Hercules and the Queen Alcestis. There are two versions of the myth, one in which Hercules plays no part at all, but thanks to the playwright Euripides (480-406 BCE), and his play Alcestis, the version featuring Hercules is the better known.

The Story of Alcestis & Admetus

Both versions begin the same way and emphasize the importance of loyalty, love, and kindness in informing one’s social duty.

Once upon a time, as the story goes, there lived a gentle king named Admetus who ruled over a small kingdom in Thessaly. He knew each of his subjects by name and so, one night when a stranger appeared at his door begging for food, he knew the man must be from a foreign land but welcomed him into his home anyway.

He fed and clothed the stranger and asked him his name but the man would give no answer other than to ask Admetus if he could be the king’s slave. Admetus had no need for another slave but, recognizing the man was in distress, took him on as shepherd for his flocks.

Apollo thanked Admetus for his kindness and offered him any gift he desired.

The stranger stayed with Admetus for a year and a day and then revealed himself as the god Apollo. He had been sent to earth by Zeus as punishment and could not return to the realm of the gods until he had served a mortal as a slave for a year.

Apollo thanked Admetus for his kindness and offered him any gift he desired; but Admetus said he had all he needed and required nothing for what he had done. Apollo told him he would return to help him whenever he needed anything in the future and then vanished.

Detail.

Not long after this, Admetus fell in love with the princess Alcestis of the neighboring city of Iolcus. Alcestis was kind and beautiful and had many suitors but only wanted to marry Admetus.

Her father Pelias, however, refused Admetus’ request for her hand and stipulated that the only way he would give his daughter to him would be if he rode into the city in a chariot pulled by a lion and a wild boar. Admetus was despondent over this situation until he remembered the promise of Apollo.

He called on the god who appeared, wrestled a lion and a boar into submission, and yoked them to a golden chariot. Admetus then drove the chariot to Iolcus and Pelias had no choice but to give him Alcestis in marriage.  

Apollo was among the wedding guests and gave Admetus an unusual gift: a kind of immortality. Apollo told them how he made a deal with the Fates who governed all so that, if ever Admetus became sick to the point of death, he might be well again if someone else would volunteer to die in his place.

The couple lived happily together for many years and their court was famous for their lavish parties but then, one day, Admetus fell ill and the doctors said he would not recover. The people of his court remembered the gift of Apollo and each felt that someone should give their life to save so kind and good a king; but no one wanted to do so themselves. Admetus’ parents were old and so it was thought that one of them would volunteer but, even though they had only a short time left on the earth, they refused to surrender it. None of the court, nor any of Admetus’ family, nor any of his subjects would take the king’s place on his death bed – but Alcestis did.

At this point the two stories diverge.

In the older version, Admetus wakes on his bed feeling better and runs to tell Alcestis he is cured – only to find it was she who took his place. He then sits by her body in mourning and refuses to eat or drink for days.  As this is going on, Alcestis’ spirit is led down into the underworld by Thanatos (death) and presented to Queen Persephone.

Persephone asks who this soul is who has come willingly to her realm and Thanatos explains to her the situation. Persephone is so moved by the story of Alcestis’ love and devotion to her husband that she orders Thanatos to return the queen to life. Alcestis and Admetus then live happily ever after.

Hercules & Alcestis

In the version popularized by Euripides in his play Alcestis (written c. 438 BCE), however, Hercules plays the pivotal role in bringing Alcestis back from the dead.

In this version, as in the first, no one will take Admetus’ place in death except for Alcestis.

Admetus is informed of this, accepts her sacrifice, and begins to recover as his queen grows weaker. The entire city falls into mourning for Alcestis as she hovers on the brink between life and death.

Admetus stays by her bedside and she requests that, in return for her sacrifice, he should never marry again and so keep her memory alive. Admetus agrees to this and also swears he will never throw another of their parties again nor allow any merrymaking in the palace once she has gone; after these promises are made, Alcestis dies.

Hercules was an old friend of the couple and he arrives at the court knowing nothing of Alcestis’ death.

Admetus, not wishing to spoil his friend’s arrival, instructs the servants to say nothing about what has transpired and to treat Hercules to the kind of party the court was known for. The servants, however, are still upset over the loss of the queen and Hercules notices that they are not serving him and his entourage properly.

After a number of drinks, he begins to insult them and ask for the king and queen to come remedy this poor performance on the servant’s part, when one of the maidservants breaks down and tells him what has recently happened.

Hercules is mortified by his behavior and so travels to the underworld where Thanatos is leading Alcestis’ spirit toward Persephone’s realm. He wrestles death and frees the queen, bringing her back up into the light of day.

Hercules then leads her to where Admetus is just returning from her funeral. He tells the king that he must depart on other business and asks him to take care of this lady while he is gone.

Admetus refuses because he promised Alcestis that he would never marry again, and it would be unseemly for this woman to reside at the court so soon after his wife’s death.

Hercules insists, however, and places Alcestis’ hand in Admetus’. Admetus lifts the woman’s veil and finds it is Alcestis returned from the dead. Hercules tells him that she will not be able to speak for three days, and will remain pale and shadow-like, until she is purified, after which time she will become as she always was.

Euripides’ play ends there while other versions of the myth continue the story further and conclude with everything then happening as Hercules has said, and Alcestis and Admetus living a long and happy life together until Thanatos returns and takes them both away together.

Personal Excellence & Social Duty in the Tales

The characters of Admetus, Alcestis, and Hercules, all at some point in the story exemplify – or fail to meet – the values of personal excellence and social duty.

Admetus exemplifies the value of hospitality (which would be considered part of social duty) in taking in the stranger at the beginning of the story and would fall short of that value when he allows festivities in his home directly after his wife’s death.

These two incidents are directly related to each other, however, in that, when Hercules arrives at his home, Admetus is under a social obligation to entertain his friend according to the custom he is used to.

Even though Hercules would have certainly understood the house being in mourning after Alcestis’ death and is embarrassed when he finds out he has been drinking and carrying on in the palace so soon after a death, Admetus values social obligation to such a degree that he fails to keep his promise to his wife – and so fails in arete and, because he neglected the promise he had made to Alcestis, eusebia as well.

Alcestis epitomizes the loyal, loving wife who is so devoted to her husband that she would literally die for him.

In this, she exemplifies both arete and eusebia.

A modern-day reader may feel uncomfortable with the version of the story in which Admetus accepts his wife’s sacrifice, but this would have been completely understandable to an ancient Greek audience.

The husband, especially the husband who was a king, was responsible for the well-being of more people than the wife or queen.

Alcestis’ virtue in taking Admetus’ place is admirable in that she not only sacrifices herself for the man she loves but also for the people who depended upon Admetus for their continued well-being.

Her personal excellence is illustrated in her willingness to die for the good of others and the value of eusebia through her understanding of the social order and how she could do her best to maintain it. In all ways, Alcestis stands as a model for proper behavior.

Hercules exemplifies the values of arete and eusebia and provides the story with its heroic climax.

In his drunken behavior in the house of mourning, he fails in both, of course, and yet he cannot be blamed for this in that he was not told of Alcestis’ death.

The more important – and interesting – breach in social conduct is his wrestling Thanatos for Alcestis’ soul.

The Fates were all powerful to the ancient Greeks, and Apollo had made a deal with them for Admetus’ continued life.

The Fates had kept their part of the deal and restored Admetus to life, once someone else agreed to take his place. By wrestling Alcestis’ soul away from death, Hercules was breaking the deal.

If one made a deal with the supernatural powers, one was expected to honor that deal. This can be most clearly seen in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, where Orpheus makes the deal with Hades that he will not look back on his way up from the underworld but then breaks that deal, and so loses Eurydice.

Detail.

Unlike that story, at no point in any version of the Alcestis story is Hercules portrayed in any way but admirably for rescuing the queen from death. Further, by placing himself in danger by physically wrestling death, Hercules embodies the personal excellence of courage and heroism and, by doing so, he restores order to the kingdom by bringing the queen back to her king and rewarding the selflessness of Alcestis.

The story operates on many levels, of course, which is why it has resonated so strongly with audiences for over 2,000 years but, on the simplest level, it would have transmitted the values of the society to those who heard it sung or recited or watched it performed.

How one balances one’s personal excellence with one’s place in society and, further, in the universe, would have been illustrated through Hercules and his confrontation with Thanatos.  

In defeating death, Hercules is shown as the ultimate hero who defies even the will of the Fates in order to do what he feels is right.

In the version of the story where Persephone sends Alcestis back to life, it is eusebia which is emphasized through Alcestis’ selfless gesture while, in the Hercules’ version, it is arete through Hercules’ decision to fight with death, and yet both versions highlight the importance of both of these values to ancient Greek society.

The popularity of the Hercules’ version indicates that, while the ancient audience would have understood the value of social duty and conduct, they also valued personal achievement and, of course, heroism, which is the embodiment of personal excellence.

Scholars have long been divided on the Alcestis play by Euripides regarding why he wrote it and even what he was trying to say in it but, perhaps, it was as simple as promoting the concept that one should do what one feels one must to right a wrong no matter what societal rules may stand in the way and, in doing so, one can actually restore order instead of upsetting balance.

Cymon and Iphigenia

Iphigenia was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology.

While the Greek army was preparing to set sail for Troy during the Trojan War, Agamemnon caused the anger of the goddess Artemis, because he killed a sacred deer. So, she decided to stop all winds, and the ships would not be able to sail. The seer Calchas realised what the problem was, and informed Agamemnon that to appease the goddess, Agamemnon had to sacrifice Iphigenia to her. 

Reluctant at first, Agamemnon was forced to agree in the end. He lied to his daughter and his wife by saying that Iphigenia was to marry Achillles before they left. The mother and daughter happily went to the port of Aulis, only to find out the horrible truth.

 Achilles, unaware that his name was used in a lie, tried to prevent the sacrifice, but Iphigenia utterly decided to sacrifice herself in honour and of her own volition. The most popular version of what happened afterwards is that on the moment of the sacrifice, the goddess Artemis substituted Iphigenia for a deer, but Calchas who was the only witness remained silent. Iphigenia was then brought by Artemis to the city of Tauris where she became the goddess' priestess.

Years later, after Orestes, Iphigenia's brother, had killed his mother and her lover Aegisthus, he was hunted by the Erinyes for committing matricide. He was then advised to go to Tauris, take the carved wooden image of Artemis and bring it back to Athens. 

In Tauris, where he went with his friend Pylades, he was taken captive by the locals, and the two men were brought before Iphigenia. Although initially the two siblings did not recognise each other, they finally realised the truth and managed to escape the city. They then returned to Greece, where Iphigenia continued to serve Artemis as a priestess in her temple.

-Greek Mythology

According to a story published in 1897, Leighton spent six months searching throughout Europe for a model to match his imagined ideal of Iphigenia for his intended portrayal of Cymon and Iphigenia.

He saw a young actress, Dorothy Dene, in a theater in London and his search was over. Possessing a classical Greek style beauty, Dene had golden wavy hair with excellent skin texture and coloration on her face; she was taller than average with graceful arms and legs together with an “exquisitely molded bust”.

She appeared in several other of Leighton’s works, including Greek Girls Playing Ball and Summer Moon.

Lena, one of Dene’s younger sisters, appears in the painting as the child slave.

Other paintings by Leighton featuring Dene are: The Bath of Psyche, Clytie, Perseus and Andromeda, Solitude, The Return of Persephone and The Vestal.

The painting took eight months to complete; a succession of line drawings were done first as Leighton tried to capture the position he wanted for the central figure, around 56 – including several of foliage and other elements of the piece – of these are known to exist.

The English art critic Peter Nahum describes the painting as “central among Leighton’s later works”, an opinion Mrs Russell Barrington considered was shared by Leighton.

Leighton’s painting Idyll dating from a few years earlier has some similar elements but lacks the complexities of Cymon and Iphigenia. The two compositions each highlight the difference between the fair complexion of a female with a dark skinned male; both feature a full-length woman reclining beneath a tree and similar lighting techniques are used.

Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna

Lord Frederick Leighton would paint these amazing enormous paintings. In it would be crammed such detail that you could spend hours admiring every little morsel. Such as in this work.

This painting celebrates the Madonna painted by Cimabue. It is known as the “Madonna in Majesty.”

The picture originally stood on the high altar of Santa Trinità church in Florence. The iconography is frequent in medieval painting and represents the Madonna enthroned with Child and angels, a pattern commonly said Maestà as shows the Virgin as Queen of Paradise. In the lower part are four biblical figures, symbolizing foundations of Christ's kingdom: the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah under lateral arches, Abraham and King David under the chair of the throne.

This Madonna, which is similar in structure to the same artist's Madonna at the Louvre and Duccio's Ruccelai Madonna, still shows the influence of the Byzantine tradition. There is, however, an unprecedented tension in the profiles and in the attempt to create spatial depth, which is rendered by superimposing the figures and in the concave structure at the base of the throne behind the figures of the prophets. The architectural structure of the throne becomes a sort of robust spatial scheme which creates a three-dimensional effect, while the edges of the painting seem to compress and hold in the bodies. There is an intense vitality in the figures and the same dramatic force that characterizes all Cimabue's work.

-Web Gallery of Art

Here, we have Lord Frederick Leighton painting a celebration of that painting in public display for all to admire. The emotions on the people’s face and the scenes depicted are both fascinating and curious at the same time.

Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna
Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna

Faticida

This is a lovely painting. I truly enjoy the art and the skill that went into painting it.

Faticida
Faticida

Others, not so enthralled, have used this image to profit from it, or to make some kind of contemporaneous statement. As an example, here is a work by Alexey Kondakov titled “Kyiv, bus station at “Nauki Ave.” , 2015″.

Nice and progressive…

Kyiv, bus station at “Nauki Ave.” , 2015
Kyiv, bus station at “Nauki Ave.” , 2015

The Spirit of the Summit

One of the things about art by “masters” is that they are able to convey emotions within certain specific scenarios. If you have had a very private event, one that evoked the same kind of emotions, then the art would resonate with your.

I love the woman’s hand, and the upturned face, and the details of the folds on the dress. But that is just me. This painting speaks to me…

Idyll

Another fine painting.

Idyll
Idyll.

A Condottiere

Condottiere, leader of a band of mercenaries engaged to fight in numerous wars among the Italian states from the mid-14th to the 16th century. The name was derived from the condotta, or “contract,” by which the condottieri put themselves in the service of a city or of a lord.

-Condottiere | Italian history | Britannica

I cannot help but think that this painting was part of an inspiration for a movie made in 1972…

He reminds me of Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972).

Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (Werner Herzog, 1972) Full time force of nature and part time filmmaker Werner Herzog has a career filled with eerily atmospheric masterpieces of almost every style, genre, and form.

Yet, if ever we find ourselves in some sort of movie apocalypse and only one Herzog movie can be saved, that title must be Aguirre, The Wrath Of God.

Herzog’s career was up and running by the time he descended into the jungle to make this his first genuine masterpiece and when he emerged on a raft surrounded by monkeys he was a legend.

It’s an encapsulation of everything that the filmmaker does well (including a collection of insane and possibly fictionalized behind the scenes stories) and also boasts quite possibly the finest performance Klaus Kinski’s career.

Aguirre is a brutal, thoughtful, poetic, and terrifying work of art that never possibly could have existed unless Herzog decided to point a camera at his twisted imagination. The director might have equaled the remarkable achievement of Aguirre several times in his career, but he never topped it.

Aguirre is a brutal, thoughtful, poetic, and terrifying work of art .
Aguirre is a brutal, thoughtful, poetic, and terrifying work of art.

The story is deceptively simple.

It follows Kinski’s Spanish conquistador Aguirre who recently triumphed with his army in battle and has now been ordered to trek through the jungle in search of the mythical city of El Dorado and the untold riches therein.

The journey is treacherous from the start, with an unforgiving jungle offering little more than immense physical and philosophical difficulties challenging the journey.

Eventually a death toll mounts and Aguirre’s mind becomes as lost as his quest.

Forever caught between stoic silence and volcanic explosion, Kinski is a wild and unpredictable beast at the center of Werzog very deliberately paced and hypnotic film.
Forever caught between stoic silence and volcanic explosion, Kinski is a wild and unpredictable beast at the center of Werzog very deliberately paced and hypnotic film.

That’s pretty much it and yet the film is as complex thematically as it is simplistic in narrative.

Herzog was clearly influenced by Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness and Aguirre would quickly inspire Francis Ford Coppola to make Apocalypse Now. It’s hard to say which work explores those shared themes better, but given that one of the major concepts of all three is an exploration of the cold brutality of nature, you can assume that Herzog nailed that one.

After all, give Herzog 30 seconds and a microphone and he’ll be sure to let you know how horrendous nature can be. 

Aguirre’s mind becomes as lost as his quest.
Aguirre’s mind becomes as lost as his quest.

Like Fitzcarraldo, the most immediately striking aspect of Aguirre, The Wrath Of God is the physical brutality of the production.

From the astounding opening shots of an army wiggling down the edge of a mountain, it’s clear that this production was as dangerous as the journey it staged. Filth, grit, pain, and exhaustion radiates from the screen and at times it blurs the lines between fiction and documentary.

The second most striking aspect is Klaus Kinski’s devastating performance.

Forever caught between stoic silence and volcanic explosion, Kinski is a wild and unpredictable beast at the center of Werzog very deliberately paced and hypnotic film. He’s a constant element of danger and a physical embodiment of insanity that’s impossible to take your eyes off of (which was important given that mood and spectacle easily could have dominated the picture).

Beyond the surface dangers and central performance, the movie is filled with layers of meaning and moments of visual poetry that Herzog never fully explains.

It’s a mystery of a movie to be experienced and interpreted in many different ways. At times it’s terrifyingly real, at other times is archly stylized. Some scenes are quietly contemplative, others viscerally thrilling.

The project was a bold announcement of a new filmmaking voice from Werner Herzog and has lost none of its power in the decades that followed. Love or loath it, Aguirre: Wrath Of God is one of those movies that everyone needs to see to even consider themselves a cinephile.

The rich colors of the jungle and filthy details of the period costumes pop off the screen like never before. The production might have been rough and tumble, but the beauty of Herzog’s images here have rarely been equaled.

Beyond the surface dangers and central performance, the movie is filled with layers of meaning and moments of visual poetry that Herzog never fully explains.
Beyond the surface dangers and central performance, the movie is filled with layers of meaning and moments of visual poetry that Herzog never fully explains.

The Hit

Most people have never heard of this man, and he is rarely mentioned in art schools. And that, is a shame. For all that most people can read about him is found in obscure Wikipedia listings.

Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, (3 December 1830 – 25 January 1896), known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was a British painter, draughtsman and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subject matter in an academic style. His paintings were enormously popular, and expensive, during his lifetime, but fell out of critical favour for many decades in the early 20th century.

Leighton was the bearer of the shortest-lived peerage in history; after only one day his hereditary peerage became extinct upon his death.

-Frederic, Lord Leighton 1830–1896 | Tate
The Hit.

Modern Art

Most lovers of “modern art”, raise their noses to this kind of art. They say that it is old, tired, and out of date. That instead, one needs to be “progressive” and “enlightened” to see and appreciate the art with no form.

Something like this…

Onement Vi By Barnett Newman
Onement Vi By Barnett Newman

And…

Untitled (yellow and blue) by Mark Rothko sold for $46.5 million dollars.

And apparently this Mark Rothko is considered to be an acclaimed genus in the modern, progressive art world. Here’s another one of his “breathtaking” and “astounding” works of art.

Orange, red and Yellow by Mark Rothko sold for $86.9 million dollars.

Modern art is no longer about art for the sake of beauty and appreciation.

Modern art is just a convenient way to launder money, as it is difficult to put a price tag on art. Thus in the modern art world, money is the king, and emotions, passion and beauty have no place in the modern art world.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my Art Index here…

ART

Articles & Links

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