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Abp. Viganò endorses Canadian truck drivers, calls for prayers to defeat ‘infernal’ Great Reset

Posted by M. C. on February 9, 2022

‘Your protest, dear Canadian truck driver friends, joins a worldwide chorus that wants to oppose the establishment of the New World Order on the rubble of nation states.’

Help Canadian truckers at the border: LifeFunder.com

(LifeSiteNews) – Dear Brothers and Sisters Canadian truck drivers,

The global coup that in these two years of psycho-pandemic farce has been carried out by the globalist elite appears most clearly if we do not limit ourselves to considering what happened in individual Nations, but broaden our gaze to what has happened everywhere. 

Your protest, dear Canadian truck driver friends, joins a worldwide chorus that wants to oppose the establishment of the New World Order on the rubble of nation states, through the Great Reset desired by the World Economic Forum and by the United Nations under the name of Agenda 2030. And we know that many heads of government have participated in Klaus Schwab’s School for Young Leaders – the so-called Global Leaders for Tomorrow – beginning with Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, Jacinta Ardern and Boris Johnson, and before that Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair. 

It would seem that Canada is – along with Australia, Italy, Austria and France – one of the nations most infiltrated by the globalists. And in this infernal project we must not only consider the psycho-pandemic farce, but also the attack on traditions and Christian identity – indeed, more precisely the Catholic identity – of these countries. 

You understood this instinctively, and your yearning for freedom was shown in all its coordinated harmony, moving towards the capital Ottawa. Dear truck drivers, you are facing great difficulties, not only because you give up your work to demonstrate, but also because of the adverse weather conditions, long nights in the cold, and attempts to be cleared away that you face. But along with these difficulties you have also experienced the closeness of many of your fellow citizens, who like you have understood the looming threat and want to support you in protesting against the regime. Allow me also to express to you my support and my spiritual closeness, to which I join the prayer that your event may be crowned with success and may also extend to other countries. 

In these days we see the masks of tyrants from all over the world fall, and unfortunately we also see so much conformism, so much fearfulness, so much cowardice in people who up until yesterday we regarded as friends, even among our family members. Yet, precisely because of this extreme situation, we discover with amazement gestures of humanity made by strangers, signs of solidarity and brotherhood on the part of those who feel close to us in the common battle. We discover so much generosity and so much desire to shake us from this stupor. We discover that we are no longer willing to passively suffer the destruction of our world imposed by a cabal of unscrupulous criminals, thirsty for power and money. 

In this relentless attack on the traditional world, not only your way of life and your identity have been affected, but also your possessions, your activities, and your work. This is the Great Reset, this is the future promised by slogans like Build Back Better, this is the future of billions of people being controlled in their every move, in all their transactions, in every purchase, every bureaucratic practice, every activity. Automatons without souls or wills, deprived of their identity, reduced to having a universal income that allows them to survive, to buy only what others have already decided to put up for sale, transformed by a gene serum into people who are chronically ill. 

Today more than ever it is essential that you realize that it is no longer possible to passively assist: it is necessary to take a position, to fight for freedom, to demand respect for natural freedoms. But even more, dear Canadian brothers, it is necessary to understand that this dystopia serves to establish the dictatorship of the New World Order and totally erase every trace of Our Lord Jesus Christ from society, from history, and from the traditions of peoples. 

Demonstrate for your rights, Canadian friends: but may these rights not be limited to a simple claim to the freedom to enter supermarkets or not to be vaccinated: may it also be a proud and courageous claim to your sacrosanct right to be free men. But your demonstration should be one of true freedom, reminding you that it is the Truth – that is, Our Lord Jesus Christ – who alone can guarantee you freedom: the truth will make you free.

Let us pray that Christ will return to reign in society, in your hearts and in your families. Take up the spiritual weapon of the Holy Rosary, and pray to the Blessed Virgin, Sainte Ann, Saint George and the Holy Canadian Martyrs to protect your homeland.

I would like to conclude my appeal by asking you to pray with me, with the words that Our Lord has taught us: may they be the seal of this awakening, of this national liberation. Let us all pray it together, out loud, so that our prayer may rise to Heaven, but also so that it may resound powerfully in these squares, in these streets, all the way to the palaces of the powerful:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. Amen.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

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Mass Graves Mystery Shows The Danger of the Politics of Hysteria

Posted by M. C. on February 9, 2022

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/548547-graves-kamloops-indian-school/

When the anthropologist Sarah Beaulieu reported that she had found 215 unmarked graves near Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia last year, the story caused a sensation. A wave of hysteria engulfed the Canadian media and political landscape. But eight months later, mystery surrounds the case, as not a single body has been found – and it is unclear if there are any plans for excavation. 

What Beaulieu’s ground-penetrating radar scan found were 215 areas that showed soil disturbances such as tree roots, metal and stones – but not bodies. One bone and a tooth were discovered, but she acknowledged at the time that without conducting a proper forensic investigation no “definitive” conclusions could be drawn. Nevertheless, the media and the political class were quick to characterise what had been found as mass graves.

Read more

Canada pledges ‘historic reparations’ to indigenous children

Soon it was claimed that Kamloops Indian Residential School was implicated in an act of genocide against First Nation People. Some moral crusaders presented the discovery as integral to the colonisation of Canada by Europeans. From their perspective, the history of Canada is a story of systematic genocide against the native population. The Catholic Church, which ran Kamloops and other residential schools for First Nation children, became the target of media hostility.

The narrative of mass murder was legitimised by the behaviour of the Canadian political class. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to Beaulieu’s claim by describing it as a “dark and shameful chapter” in the nation’s history.

The news that remains were found at the former Kamloops residential school breaks my heart – it is a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country’s history. I am thinking about everyone affected by this distressing news. We are here for you. https://t.co/ZUfDRyAfET— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) May 28, 2021

On 30 May last year, the Canadian Government lowered the flag on its buildings to half mast. It also created a new holiday to honour “missing children” and survivors of residential schools.

As alarmist stories of genocidal behaviour escalated, 65 churches were set on fire and vandalised. The desecration of these places of worship were accepted as fully justified protest. Both Trudeau and Gerald Butts, a political consultant and former principal secretary to the prime minister, described the anti-Christian violence as “understandable”.

Throughout Canada, statues of the nation’s historical figures were attacked. In Montreal, the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, was overturned, his detached bronze head symbolically rolling on the ground. The statue of Queen Victoria in front of the Manitoba Legislature was knocked down. Numerous other statues were defaced and vandalised in an orgy of violence directed at Canada’s historical legacy.

Soon numerous other unsubstantiated claims were made about the discovery of other unmarked graves near residential schools. The historian Professor Jacques Rouillard was one of the few academics who sought to expose the lack of evidence behind the Kamloops story that had sparked the hysteria. He criticised media outlets for further hyping things up “by alleging that the bodies of 215 children had been found, adding that ‘thousands’ of children had ‘gone missing’ from residential schools and that parents had not been informed.”

Those who pointed out that not one body had been found in Kamloops were even denounced as genocide deniers. Writing in The Toronto Star, K.J. McCusker stated that the call for bodies “of residential schoolchildren is nothing more than a racist rant bordering on genocide denial”. And he added that “what happened in residential schools is not about the evidence. This kind of trolling is part of genocide, as are the actual crimes”. From this perspective, not only is evidence unimportant, the very demand for it is integral to the furthering of genocide.

The cavalier use of the term “genocide” to describe an as-yet unsubstantiated claim about an unmarked mass grave is disturbing. The hysterical tone adopted by those who are so free with the term speaks to the moral disintegration of public life in Canada. But it isn’t confined to the use of “genocide”. The behaviour of Catholic Residential Schools was also likened to a Holocaust. In a statement that implicitly insults the genuine victims of the Holocaust, one commentator wrote, “It is hard and painful for me to say that the discovery of the graves of the children in Kamloops may be Canada’s Holocaust moment”.

There is something terrifying about the casual manner with which the memory of the Holocaust is opportunistically plundered to make a point about the discovery of a soil disturbance. To make matters worse, the authority of academic historians has been exploited to legitimate the use of the term “genocide”. In the wake of Kamloops, a statement issued by the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) stated that the “history of violence against indigenous peoples fully warrants the use of the word ‘genocide’.”

Read more

Canada agrees to ‘historic reparations’ for 200,000 indigenous children

In response, a group of historians wrote an open letter criticising the statement in which they admonished the CHA for purporting to “promote a single ‘consensus’ history of Canada,” and adding, “with this coercive tactic, the CHA Council is acting as an activist organization and not as a professional body of scholars.”

But the reality is there has been little concerted effort to counter the alarmist campaign designed to rewrite Canada’s past as a protracted era of genocide. Public figures who ought to know better have become accomplices of the campaign to shame the country’s past. Instead of countering the outburst of anti-Catholic sentiment, leaders of the Church opted for the policy of appeasement.

When Trudeau demanded that the Pope come to Canada and apologise in person, many church leaders nodded in agreement. Father Raymond de Souza was one of the few religious figures who spoke against the grovelling Canadian bishops and pointed out that some of his colleagues had forgotten the meaning of the word sacrilege.

The history of mass hysteria and of witch hunts has shown that unless it is countered, society will fall prey to moral corruption and decay. Looking at Canada and the behaviour of its political leaders and cultural elite, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it has become a nation that has lost its way.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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MCViewPoint: If there was anyone deserving of reparations it is the survivors, yes survivers, of Canada’s residential schools.

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Cruelty | Charles Joseph | The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast S4: E80

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The White House Now Says It Never Really Wanted Lockdowns

Posted by M. C. on February 9, 2022

Instead, these people will move on to pushing their new version of lockdownism: vaccine passports and pariah status for the disobedient. Whether they worked or not, lockdowns have clearly fallen out of favor so much that the Biden administration won’t even admit to supporting the idea. That’s a victory for friends of freedom and human rights. The next stop is to strike a similar blow against vaccine mandates.

https://mises.org/wire/white-house-now-says-it-never-really-wanted-lockdowns

Ryan McMaken

Last Friday, a reporter asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki to respond to the Johns Hopkins covid study showing lockdowns provided no real benefit in terms of disease prevention.

In response, Psaki dodged addressing the study directly, but then pivoted to claiming that the Biden administration had never pushed lockdowns. “We are not pushing lockdowns,” she insisted. “We’ve not been pro-lockdown—most of the lockdowns actually happened under the previous President.”

#BREAKING: | Press Secretary Psaki responds to Johns Hopkins Study that says lockdowns had little to no effect on curving Covid mortality.

“We are not pushing lockdowns, we’ve not been pro-lockdown — most of the lockdowns actually happened under the previous President.” pic.twitter.com/iOKAFciOwX— El American (@ElAmerican_) February 4, 2022

We have now reached the point in the media and political narrative where the party of lockdowns realizes lockdowns are increasingly unpopular and so now claims it never supported lockdowns at all.

But how can Psaki get away with saying this? We all know that Joe Biden has always supported lockdowns. Well, that’s not quite it, and she’s not completely wrong. By the time Biden was actually sworn in as president, he had already stopped pushing for lockdowns as a continued anticovid option.

On the other hand, it is certainly true that as late as early November 2020, high-ranking Biden advisors were still holding up lockdowns as a possibility that fall and winter. For example, on November 11, 2020, Dr. Michael Osterholm, a member of Biden’s Covid-19 Advisory Board, suggested the country might require a “lockdown for 4 to 6 weeks” and recommended the US government spend additional trillions to “pay for a package right now to cover all of the lost wages for individual workers.”

Osterholm also referenced an August 2020 column he cowrote with Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari in which the authors concluded, “To be effective, the lockdown has to be as comprehensive and strict as possible.”

For his part, Biden was keeping lockdowns very much on the table at least as late as August 2020. Biden declared in a joint interview with Kamala Harris that if covid numbers increased again “I would shut it down. I would listen to the scientists…. We’re going to do whatever it takes to save lives.”

By November, however, the administration appears to have shifted to a policy of using lockdowns more as a threat than as a likely plan of action. This position was also reflected in the comments of Zeke Emanuel, a long-time supporter of draconian lockdowns who also remained a Biden advisor in November. Earlier in 2020, Emanuel had advocated for long-term lockdowns, suggesting lockdowns would need to last for eighteen months or more. Yet by November, he instead insisted that whether or not the additional lockdowns would take place would depend “on what we do now.”

In other words, if enough people wore masks and get vaccinated, then the administration wouldn’t be “forced” to push for full lockdowns again. This position was already stated quite clearly by Anthony Fauci in August, when he told an audience:

I believe strongly and I’ll say it very clearly: We do not have to completely lock down if we do things right. And if we do these things right I believe we can open up the economy, get the employment back, get people out of the doldrums of being locked down—if we do it prudently, carefully, and the way the guidelines say.

For Fauci, you don’t need lockdowns if—and that’s a key “if”—everyone does exactly what Fauci tells them to. In any case, Fauci still wasn’t giving up on lockdowns into late November, stating it was “too early to say” if lockdowns could be ruled out.

In spite of this, by November 19—facing a tough election battle—the administration was openly saying it was not planning on trying to implement lockdowns again but with the subtext being that this was contingent on enough of the population getting vaccinated

Indeed, in her own disavowal of lockdowns this past Friday, Psaki pushes this very line of reasoning stating that the “president’s approach has been using the tools we have to prevent [lockdowns].” Translation: So long as vaccines and mask wearing work, lockdowns won’t be necessary. Nowhere in those words, however, is there an admission that lockdowns do more harm than good or that they are unacceptable. No, it appears the administration can have it both ways. It will say it isn’t for lockdowns while simultaneously insisting that lockdowns could be triggered by not “using the tools” that “prevent” lockdowns.

So, Psaki is correct that once Biden had been inaugurated into the White House, there was no general drive from administration officials for lockdowns. The focus had shifted to masks and vaccines.

Today, this fact allows the administration to claim that lockdowns are mostly something that “happened under the previous president.” Indeed, Donald Trump did little to prevent lockdowns and did much to provide political cover for state governors wishing to impose lockdowns. It was on Trump’s watch that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pushed heavily for lockdowns. Trump gave a daily nationwide platform to prolockdown technocrats like Fauci and Deborah Birx. Trump claimed to disagree with these bureaucrats—whom he could have easily fired—but Trump was either too craven or too incompetent to intervene. Instead, dozens of state governors imposed lockdowns on their populations, helped by the fact they could simply say they were following guidelines put out by Trump’s CDC.

Thanks to Trump’s weakness, Psaki is right that lockdowns are something we can all remember from the Trump era.

Legally, of course, it’s unlikely any administration—whether Trump’s or Biden’s—could actually get away for long with directly imposing any sort of nationwide lockdown if it wanted to. The federal courts have already sent a pretty clear message that police actions like lockdowns are prerogatives of the states’ governments.

Moreover, with gubernatorial races in thirty-six states this November, only candidates in the absolutely bluest blue states would even consider telling the voters “as governor I am poised to impose new lockdowns at the first sign of crowded hospitals. Eight weeks to flatten the curve!” That might still work in Europe or China, but it’s hard to see much support from American voters at this point. 

But as we’ve seen, we shouldn’t expect those who supported lockdowns to admit states with lockdowns showed no better results than states that barely locked down at all. Rather, the lockdown party will just split hairs to show they never really pushed lockdowns at all or that “the science changed.”  Instead, these people will move on to pushing their new version of lockdownism: vaccine passports and pariah status for the disobedient. Whether they worked or not, lockdowns have clearly fallen out of favor so much that the Biden administration won’t even admit to supporting the idea. That’s a victory for friends of freedom and human rights. The next stop is to strike a similar blow against vaccine mandates.

Author:

Contact Ryan McMaken

Ryan McMaken is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power and Market, but read article guidelines first.

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Setting Up Crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine

Posted by M. C. on February 9, 2022

Despite crocodile tears that U.S. officials will openly shed for the people of Ukraine, the truth is that U.S. officials couldn’t care one whit how many of them are killed, injured, or maimed in such an invasion, any more than they were concerned about the people of Afghanistan who were killed, injured, and maimed after U.S. officials succeeded in goading the Soviets to invade Afghanistan or, for that matter, after the Pentagon and the CIA invaded and occupied the country in 2001.

Setting Up Crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine

by Jacob G. Hornberger

As I have watched how the U.S. national-security establishment has set up its latest crisis, this one in Ukraine, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how it set up a similar crisis in Afghanistan in 1979. 

Back then, the goal of U.S. national-security state officials was to goad the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan. U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski put it succinctly when he told President Carter, “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.”

What he meant by that was the opportunity of getting Soviet soldiers killed, maimed, and injured for no good reason, just as the Pentagon and the CIA did to tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Additionally, the Soviet Union would have to waste large sums of taxpayer money, just as the U.S. government also did in Vietnam.

To goad the Soviets into invading Afghanistan, U.S. officials began supporting the anti-Soviet resistance that was committed to removing a pro-Soviet regime from power. U.S. officials figured that faced with the possibility that Afghanistan might end up with a pro-U.S. regime, the Soviets would have no choice but to invade.

The scheme worked brilliantly. The Soviets invaded on December 24, 1979, and for the next decade were bogged down in a guerrilla war, much like the United States was when it invaded Vietnam and, for that matter, when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. In the process, many Soviet soldiers were killed, maimed, and injured, just as U.S. officials hoped they would be. Moreover, the war helped to bankrupt the Soviet Union, which ultimately led to its dismantling. 

Needless to say, U.S. national-security state officials were ecstatic over what they had accomplished. As Brzezinski gloated, “We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.” 

Of course, the U.S. government played the innocent and portrayed the Soviet Union as a horrible aggressor. The following year, the U.S. government boycotted the Summer Olympics in Russia to protest Soviet aggression in Afghanistan.

When asked in an interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998 whether he regretted any of this, Brzezinski was shocked that anyone would even ask such a question. He responded, “Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.’ Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.”

The interviewer then asked, “And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?” Brezinski responded, “What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”

Of course, that interview was conducted prior to the blowback of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. I can’t help but wonder whether Brzezinski would have considered his scheme to be worth it in light of what those attacks did to America.

The irony is that the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1989 also brought a sudden and surprising end to the U.S. national-security state’s Cold War racket, which was guaranteeing them a perpetual flow of ever-increasing amounts of U.S. taxpayer money into the coffers of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the CIA, and the NSA. 

That was when U.S. officials went into the Middle East and began poking hornets’ nests, which succeeded in producing terrorist blowback. That’s when we got the “war on terrorism,” which replaced the “war on communism.” That guaranteed the continuous flow of ever-increasing amounts of U.S. taxpayer money into the pockets of the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, and the entire “defense” industry. 

But U.S. officials weren’t about to let go of the Russians so easily. Rather than dismantle NATO, which was nothing more than a Cold War dinosaur, they used the organization to gobble up former members of the Warsaw Pact, with the aim of stationing U.S. troops, missiles, and tanks closer and closer to Russia’s borders. The scheme ultimately called for NATO to absorb Ukraine, which would mean that the Pentagon and the CIA would be able to install their missiles, tanks, and troops on Russia’s border. 

Thus, their latest scheme has placed Russia in the position of choosing between invading Ukraine, which would thereby prevent the Pentagon and the CIA from installing their troops, missiles, and tanks on Russia’s border versus letting NATO absorb Ukraine, which would enable the Pentagon and the CIA to install their troops, missiles, and tanks on Russia’s border.

If Russia invades, there is no doubt that the U.S. national-security establishment will, once again, play the innocent and cry out against those aggressive Russians. And make no mistake about it: Despite crocodile tears that U.S. officials will openly shed for the people of Ukraine, the truth is that U.S. officials couldn’t care one whit how many of them are killed, injured, or maimed in such an invasion, any more than they were concerned about the people of Afghanistan who were killed, injured, and maimed after U.S. officials succeeded in goading the Soviets to invade Afghanistan or, for that matter, after the Pentagon and the CIA invaded and occupied the country in 2001. The people of Ukraine are as much pawns in the evil machinations of the U.S. national-security establishment as the people of Afghanistan.

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Death Wish: Fighting a Cold War With China

Posted by M. C. on February 9, 2022

However, the fact that making a joke about 9/11 being a good thing to these same people would likely be massively offensive to them is a perfect example of the cognitive dissonance that drives American foreign policy. When those people go out and vote, they are voting for politicians who think exactly the same way they do and decide American policy towards China. Thus, the sarcasm becomes reality.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/death-wish-fighting-a-cold-war-with-china/

by Starte Butone

Recently, there has been an increased desire among the military establishment in the United States to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Such a push has been made by politicians, public figures, and talking heads from both sides of the political spectrum. Massive spending bills aimed at “countering” China tend to pass through Congress with ease, with the only real opposition coming from congressmen who don’t think they’re strong enough. Promises by the Biden administration to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion have brought tensions with China to their highest point in generations.

Of course, as anyone reading this article should know, the foolishness of going to war with China over Taiwan is virtually incomprehensible. China, as of the time of this writing, has hundreds of nuclear warheads in their arsenal, the majority of which are fusion weapons. China has promised to declare total war on the United States, even potentially escalating to the use of nuclear weapons, if the U.S. does so much as dock a warship in Taiwan.

To fully understand the way Chinese people look at this topic, one must first understand a little history. In the 1930s, China was involved in a civil war between two main groups: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Mao Zedong, and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), led by Chiang-Kai Shek. The human rights violations perpetrated by Mao Zedong and the Communist Party are well known by most in the West, having starved people to death by the millions in the later “Great Leap Forward” period and executing countless political opponents.

However, the human rights violations of Chiang Kai-Shek are not as well known. Chiang executed his political opponents by the millions during the Civil War period. Additionally, the scorched-Earth policies used by the KMT during the Civil War and World War II killed millions more, in addition to even more millions of people who died as a result of corruption within the agricultural system and mis-allocation of food. Given that the KMT ruled over the majority of China at this point in time, it is reasonable to assume that the Chinese people would be willing to accept any alternative to their rule, even from people as unethical as the Communist party.

At the end of the Chinese Civil War, the U.S. military built up defenses around Taiwan and prevented the PRC from taking the island, leaving it de facto independent to this day. Given the history of relations between the two countries, one can understand just why the Chinese view Taiwan so negatively. In the eyes of most Chinese (and certainly the CCP) Taiwan is as bad as Nazi Germany is to us. Given Chiang Kai-Shek’s human rights record, they weren’t really all that wrong for a time.

China has promised to invade Taiwan as soon as they declare independence.

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The Challenge of Foreign Policy Free Riding: Limited Government for Me, Not for Thee

Posted by M. C. on February 9, 2022

in 8 of 16 European states said they opposed fighting for NATO allies against Russia. In another three countries pluralities rejected defending their neighbors. The overall median result was 50 to 38 percent against. In Poland, where caterwauling about the supposed Russian threat is constant, opponents outpolled proponents by 43 to 40 percent. One can imagine their response if they had been asked about risking life and limb on behalf of Kyiv,

by Doug Bandow

https://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2022/02/08/the-challenge-of-foreign-policy-free-riding-limited-government-for-me-not-for-thee/

Free riding is a constant of international relations. That is evident in Europe today.

The Ukraine crisis understandably has Europe on edge. But no one – Russian, Ukrainian, America, or European – believes that Europeans will fight for Kyiv. To simply raise the issue is to elicit a snicker. Modern Europeans believe their birthright is not to have to fight, that if they are threatened their defense is be provided by Americans.

Ironically, that assumption reflects as much contempt as respect for the US. Many Europeans possess a barely suppressed sense of moral superiority over the colossus of the New World, with its overt capitalist ethos, ragged welfare state, surplusage of guns, widespread religious commitment, rejection of solidarity politics, and ignorance of all things foreign. To be fair, criticisms across the Pond are not without some basis, as is evident from the bitter, increasingly dangerous political divides and policy failures in America today. Still, even those Europeans filled with condescension continue to look westward for protection from the vicissitudes of a dangerous world.

However, widespread disdain for the results of the vaunted American political experiment has done little to diminish the desire to clamber aboard the US defense dole. Europeans who routinely deride Washington’s blundering interventions abroad nevertheless even more loudly insist that American policymakers should constantly reassure them that sufficient American military personnel are always available to die on their behalf should that become necessary. To question this demand is to be denounced as an isolationist and worse.

Consider European military spending. NATO stands for North America and the Others. According to NATO figures, America came in at 3.6 percent of GDP. Of the other 29 members, only Greece devoted more effort than the US – to confront not Russia, but long-term enemy though fellow alliance member Turkey. Another outlier was tiny Croatia, which approached three percent.

France, Great Britain, Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia hit or broke two percent, NATO’s agreed-upon standard. Everyone else, including Germany, Italy, and Spain, fell below. Even two percent is not impressive for nations – most notably Poland and the three Baltic States – which spend every moment of everyday warning about Moscow’s every move, complaining about the unfairness of the world, and demanding a permanent US troop presence. Do they believe their freedom is worth only two cents on the Euro? The gulf in combat capabilities between America and Europe is even greater than the spending differential. But then, as noted before, defense is Washington’s, not Brussels’ job.

Since 2014 Russia’s abusive behavior and Washington’s whining have spurred some European countries to spend more. But not that much more. And Europe’s largest nations with the greatest potential – Spain, Italy, Germany, France, and Britain – are unlikely to do enough to confront the presumed threat they want America to defend them from.

Indeed, Europeans evidence no shame in forever cheap-riding on the US. For instance, in a 2020 Pew Research Center poll majorities in 8 of 16 European states said they opposed fighting for NATO allies against Russia. In another three countries pluralities rejected defending their neighbors. The overall median result was 50 to 38 percent against. In Poland, where caterwauling about the supposed Russian threat is constant, opponents outpolled proponents by 43 to 40 percent. One can imagine their response if they had been asked about risking life and limb on behalf of Kyiv, to which their nation has no legal obligation. Predictably, however, most Europeans said they expected the US to drop everything elsewhere and save them, if necessary. They don’t believe their allies are worth supporting, but no worries: the Yanks, though unsuited for inclusion in polite European society, will take care of everything.

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Alexa Refuses To Play Joe Rogan’s Podcast

Posted by M. C. on February 8, 2022

Watch as this Joe Rogan fan fruitlessly tries to get Alexa to play the Joe Rogan Experience.

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How Empires Die

Posted by M. C. on February 8, 2022

When the state / empire loses the ability to recognize and solve core problems of security and fairness, it will be replaced by another arrangement that is more adaptable and adept at solving problems. Artifice, fantasy, magical thinking, excuses and absurd cover stories are not part of problem-solving. Problems can only be solved if reality is faced directly.

When reality is unacceptable because it negatively impacts those stripmining the system for private gain, the state / empire is already on its fatal spiral to collapse.

https://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb22/empires-die2-22.html

Charles Hugh Smith

When the state / empire loses the ability to recognize and solve core problems of security and fairness, it will be replaced by another arrangement that is more adaptable and adept at solving problems.

From a systems perspective, nation-states and empires arise when they are superior solutions to security compared to whatever arrangement they replace: feudalism, warlords, tribal confederations, etc.

States and empires fail when they are no longer the solution, they are the problem. As the book The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization explains, when the dissolution of the state / empire becomes the pain-reducing solution, the inhabitants withdraw their support and the empire loses its grip and expires.

As I explain in my new book, Global Crisis, National Renewal, states and markets are problem-solving structures. These structures solve problems by optimizing adaptability and beneficial synergies that reinforce one another as evolutionary advances.

The rise of the middle class is an example of beneficial synergies: as this new class gains access to credit, expertise, trade, enterprise and pricing power for their labor, they have the means to transform their labor into capital by saving earnings and investing the capital in assets, new enterprises, etc. which then generate income from capital which fuels synergistic increases in credit, expertise, assets and income from investments.

States / empires fail and expire when they elevate the fatal synergies created by self-serving elites. Rather than encourage the dynamics of adaptation–competition, transparency, accountability, experimentation and dissent– the elites suppresses these forces as threats to their monopolies, cartels and wealth.

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America’s real adversaries are its European and other allies: The U.S. aim is to keep them from trading with China and Russia

Posted by M. C. on February 8, 2022

The success of China’s industrial policy with a mixed economy and state control of the monetary and credit system has led U.S. strategists to fear that Western European and Asian economies may find their advantage to lie in integrating more closely with China and Russia. The U.S. seems to have no response to such a global rapprochement with China and Russia except economic sanctions and military belligerence

America’s real adversaries are its European and other allies: The U.S. aim is to keep them from trading with China and Russia

By Michael Hudson

The Iron Curtain of the 1940s and ‘50s was ostensibly designed to isolate Russia from Western Europe – to keep out Communist ideology and military penetration. Today’s sanctions regime is aimed inward, to prevent America’s NATO and other Western allies from opening up more trade and investment with Russia and China. The aim is not so much to isolate Russia and China as to hold these allies firmly within America’s own economic orbit. Allies are to forego the benefits of importing Russian gas and Chinese products, buying much higher-priced U.S. LNG and other exports, capped by more U.S. arms.

The sanctions that U.S. diplomats are insisting that their allies impose against trade with Russia and China are aimed ostensibly at deterring a military buildup. But such a buildup cannot really be the main Russian and Chinese concern. They have much more to gain by offering mutual economic benefits to the West. So the underlying question is whether Europe will find its advantage in replacing U.S. exports with Russian and Chinese supplies and the associated mutual economic linkages.

What worries American diplomats is that Germany, other NATO nations and countries along the Belt and Road route understand the gains that can be made by opening up peaceful trade and investment. If there is no Russian or Chinese plan to invade or bomb them, what is the need for NATO? What is the need for such heavy purchases of U.S. military hardware by America’s affluent allies? And if there is no inherently adversarial relationship, why do foreign countries need to sacrifice their own trade and financial interests by relying exclusively on U.S. exporters and investors?

These are the concerns that have prompted French Prime Minister Macron to call forth the ghost of Charles de Gaulle and urge Europe to turn away from what he calls NATO’s “brain-dead” Cold War and beak with the pro-U.S. trade arrangements that are imposing rising costs on Europe while denying it potential gains from trade with Eurasia. Even Germany is balking at demands that it freeze by this coming March by going without Russian gas.

Instead of a real military threat from Russia and China, the problem for American strategists is the absence of such a threat. All countries have come to realize that the world has reached a point at which no industrial economy has the manpower and political ability to mobilize a standing army of the size that would be needed to invade or even wage a major battle with a significant adversary. That political cost makes it uneconomic for Russia to retaliate against NATO adventurism prodding at its western border trying to incite a military response. It’s just not worth taking over Ukraine.

America’s rising pressure on its allies threatens to drive them out of the U.S. orbit. For over 75 years they had little practical alternative to U.S. hegemony. But that is now changing. America no longer has the monetary power and seemingly chronic trade and balance-of-payments surplus that enabled it to draw up the world’s trade and investment rules in 1944-45. The threat to U.S. dominance is that China, Russia and Mackinder’s Eurasian World Island heartland are offering better trade and investment opportunities than are available from the United States with its increasingly desperate demand for sacrifices from its NATO and other allies.

The most glaring example is the U.S. drive to block Germany from authorizing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to obtain Russian gas for the coming cold weather. Angela Merkel agreed with Donald Trump to spend $1 billion building a new LNG port to become more dependent on highly priced U.S. LNG. (The plan was cancelled after the U.S. and German elections changed both leaders.) But Germany has no other way of heating many of its houses and office buildings (or supplying its fertilizer companies) than with Russian gas.

The only way left for U.S. diplomats to block European purchases is to goad Russia into a military response and then claim that avenging this response outweighs any purely national economic interest.

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Watch “Facts About SLAVERY They Don’t Teach You at School” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on February 8, 2022

This is an excerpt from ‘Intellectuals and Race’ — https://amzn.to/3rknNP4

https://youtu.be/3_3wyRaCD34

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