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Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

The FIB

Posted by M. C. on February 2, 2023

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Russia’s “Sanction-Proof” Trade Corridor To India Frustrates The Neocons | ZeroHedge

Posted by M. C. on February 2, 2023

Unforeseen by the warparty wizards, the pentagram and their puppet, NATO.

The point of trade sanctions is to make the intended victims (civilian men, women and children) suffer so much that they rise up against their government. Didn’t work, again.

CIA textbook definition of Blowback.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russias-sanction-proof-trade-corridor-india-frustrates-neocons

Tyler Durden's Photo

BY TYLER DURDEN

Authored by Conor Gallagher via NakedCapitalism.com,

Russia, Iran, and India are speeding up efforts to complete a new transport corridor that would largely cut Europe, its sanctions, and any other threats out of the picture. 

The International North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) is a land-and sea-based 7,200-km long network comprising rail, road and water routes that are aimed at reducing costs and travel time for freight transport in a bid to boost trade between Russia, Iran, Central Asia, India.

For Russia, the “sanction-proof” corridor provides a major export channel to South Asia without needing to go through Europe. But Brussels and Washington, frustrated by their losing in Ukraine and inability to put much of a dent in the Russian economy, could lead them to take more desperate measures.

Lately, Estonia, which has a population smaller than Russia’s armed forces, has been making noise about causing problems in the Gulf of Finland, Estonian Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur is talking about how Helsinki and Tallinn will integrate their coastal missile defense, which he says would allow the countries to close the Gulf of Finland to Russian warships if necessary. Estonia is also floating the possibility of trying to inspect Russian ships. From Asia Times:

 It is unlikely Estonia can carry out any inspections given that it only has two patrol vessels (EML-Roland and EML-Risto) and no other warships except some mine layers. But if Estonia even tried, it would create another friction point that Russia could exploit if it chose.

There is also a strategic element. With Finland joining NATO and already a de facto member, the Gulf of Finland becomes significantly more hostile for Russia and there will be growing pressure on Russian political leaders to take action against a rising threat to Russian security.

While Ukraine is far away, the Russians see NATO’s “ganging up” on Russia as a key issue for Russian security and stability. This brings the Baltic region into sharper focus because Russians see NATO trying to surround them and undercut their economic and military advantages.

It’s hard to take Estonia’s bluster seriously but equally difficult to put anything past the neocons in Washington and their adherents in the Baltics. Regardless, Russia would prefer a trade route with India that saves time and money and avoids Europe.

©Peter Hermes Furian

While NATO’s war against Russia has sped up the cooperation between Moscow, Tehran, and New Delhi, India and Iran are coming under various types of pressure that could delay full implementation of the corridor. And Azerbaijan, a key nexus in the INSTC, is a wildcard as it grows increasingly confrontational with both Iran and Armenia.

First the recent developments on the INSTC:

  • India is helping to develop the Shahid Beheshti Terminal at Iran’s Chabahar Port in cooperation with the Iranian government.
  • Iran and Russia recently signed a contract for Russia to build a cargo vessel for Iran to be used at the Caspian port of Solyanka, which is being developed jointly by the two nations as part of efforts to strengthen the Caspian Sea transportation network.
  • RZD Logistics, a subsidiary of Russian railway monopoly RZD, has begun regular container train services from Moscow to Iran to serve growing trade with India by transloading.
  • Rezaul Hasan Laskar, the foreign affairs editor at Hindustan Times, says the strategic Chabahar Port in  southeastern Iran has “become more important following its growing use” but that “it needs to be connected to Iran’s railway network.” Iran has accelerated that project, and with an investment boost from Russia, is speeding up the completion of the Astara-Rasht-Qazvin railway, another transport corridor that will connect existing railways of Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran to the INSTC.

In the meantime, most of the goods that Russia normally transported across the Baltic Sea to reach the North Sea port of Rotterdam now sail instead to India. Oilprice reports:

Russian crude oil loadings from Baltic ports are on track for a 50% hike from December to January, Reuters reports, citing its own data combined with trader insights.

Russian Urals and KEBCO crude oil loadings specifically from the ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga will experience the increase, Reuters said, adding that the bulk of those loadings (some 70%) will head to India.

In December, Russia loaded 4.7 million tonnes of Urals and KEBCO from the Baltic ports, Reuters said, citing Refinitiv data.Russia now accounts for approximately 25% of India’s crude purchases, while some sources put it closer to 30%.

The increased trade with Russia is a primary driver bringing New Delhi and Tehran closer together – largely a result of Europe severing itself from Russia. According to Reuters, at the end of November Moscow sent India a list of more than 500 products it wants India exporting to Russia, “including parts for cars, aircraft and trains.” The report added:

Indian imports from Russia have grown nearly five times to $29 billion between Feb. 24 and Nov. 20 compared with $6 billion in the same period a year ago. Exports, meanwhile, have fallen to $1.9 billion from $2.4 billion, the source said. India is hoping to boost its exports to nearly $10 billion over coming months with Russia’s list of requests, according to the government source.

And with all the increased trade, New Delhi and Moscow are looking for more efficient supply lines.

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Why Is The U.S. So Openly Advertising A Ship Carrying Tanks To Ukraine?

Posted by M. C. on February 1, 2023

Perhaps to make it easy for the ship to be attacked, affording a convenient opportunity to declare war.

https://rumble.com/v27vhfm-why-is-the-u.s.-so-openly-advertising-a-ship-carrying-tanks-to-ukraine.html

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Lump of Labor Fallacy Shouldn’t Guide Retirement Decisions

Posted by M. C. on February 1, 2023

As long as there are human beings out there, there will be scarcity, and, hence, plenty of job openings for people, young and old.

https://open.substack.com/pub/walterblock/p/lump-of-labor-fallacy-shouldnt-guide?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android

By Walter E. Block

It is difficult to know when to retire. Do it too early, and you might well be bored for the rest of your life, bereft of your workplace friends, not to say a bit of money. Do it too late and you miss out on the joys of a bit of well-earned relaxation. There are motives galore for going in either direction on this matter.

But there is one that is predicated upon an economic fallacy: retiring, so as to allow a younger person to take your job. All too many people in the sixties and older leave their jobs for this reason. They are, to be sure, well intended. But they are in thrall to what economists call the “lump of labor” fallacy. This is the view that there only so many jobs to be had, and if some people “hog them up” there will be just that many fewer for others to take. The thought is that if elderly workers stay on the job, younger ones will be precluded from employment; that if they leave, more youthful laborers will for the first time be able to land on the employment ladder.

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The cabin with the roses by the door

Posted by M. C. on February 1, 2023

A great old tune from Dick Burnett of kentucky who recorded in the 1920s with fiddler Leonard Rutherford. Burnett also penned man of constant sorrow, later made known by Ralph Stanley and the obrother soundtrack. As always, i encourage you to listen to the originals too!

Brett Howland

The Gatekeeper of Traditional Music

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TGIF: Don’t Blame Wokeism on the Unfinished Liberal Revolution | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on February 1, 2023

Contrary to Hazony, liberalism doesn’t says it has the one true way for everyone to live. Rather, it says all people ought to be free to decide how to live. Liberalism, which seeks to limit state power, doesn’t entail imperialism because that would expand state aggression both domestically and abroad. Thus “liberal imperialism” is a contradiction in terms. Nationalist imperialism, however, is not.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/tgif-dont-blame-revolution/

by Sheldon Richman 

hazony

The National Conservatives are not only wrong about genuine liberalism — that is, libertarianism — they also apparently haven’t bothered to read up on what they think they’re attacking. Take Yoram Hazony, author of Conservatism: A Rediscovery, who recently appeared on the YouTube show Triggernometry. As Hazony makes clear, for him it’s straw men all the way down.

Throughout the interview he uses the word liberalism for the philosophy he blames for saddling the West with wokeism. That’s unfortunate because people use that term in many ways. What definition does he have in mind? I think we can infer that he means something like libertarianism (and not, say, Nancy Pelosi’s “liberalism”) since he faults the philosophy for its powerful commitment to free markets. Although he’s not thoroughly opposed to free enterprise, he favors a government strong enough to step in when the “national interest” (ascertained by whom?) requires it. National conservatism without a commitment to government power to override the free market would be like a square circle.

Like other right-wing critics of libertarianism, Hazony believes that Western societies are in the woke soup because Enlightenment liberalism is intrinsically prostrate before its leftist adversaries. Why would that be? In his eyes, it’s because liberalism’s only message is this: do your own thing. He told Frances Foster and Konstantin Kisin:

If you [liberals, presumably] raise children and you tell them, “Look, do whatever you want. Do whatever feels good. Use your own reason, exercise your own thinking, and come to your own conclusions, and you don’t give them anything else, a great many people, maybe the majority, end up stuck and unable to make the decisions among, you know, what exactly is it I’m supposed to do and what is it I’m supposed to believe.

I have no idea why Hazony thinks that liberalism teaches people to do whatever feels good, or that, as he says elsewhere, that freedom is “all they need.” One of the first things liberal parents would teach their children is to respect other people’s rights: specifically, don’t hit other kids and don’t take their stuff without asking.

By the way, “do whatever feels good” is hardly the same as “use your own reason, exercise your own thinking, and come to your own conclusions.” How does Hazony not see that?

Further, using your own reason does not mean: don’t read history, don’t learn from others’ experiences, don’t absorb the moral and political lessons of those who came before. Liberalism is not about the individual’s starting from scratch and reinventing the wheel. Rather, it means that you shouldn’t blindly accept what others tell you. Use your head. We have much to learn from other people and other ages. So what’s Hazony’s real beef with liberalism?

As this makes clear, he clearly doesn’t know what liberalism is, but he’s certain he knows what it has wrought:

See the rest here

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NATO’s ‘war against Russia’ inches ‘closer to direct conflict’

Posted by M. C. on February 1, 2023

After all, it is mainly Ukrainians paying the price of the “war against Russia” fueled from afar.

https://mate.substack.com/p/natos-war-against-russia-inches-closer

Aaron Maté

(US M1 Abrams tanks at a training site in Germany, 2018. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Sharon Matthias / 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment)

Since the first week of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron has repeated a mantra on behalf of his NATO partners: “We are not at war with Russia.”

Nearly one year in, that notion has officially been dispelled.  

“We are fighting a war against Russia,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said this week.

Baerbock was trying to assuage NATO allies’ frustration over German reluctance to send Leopard 2 tanks into Ukraine. She can now claim vindication. In a reversal of its initial position, the German government has announced it that will deliver Leopard 2 tanks to the Ukrainian army.

To overcome German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s jitters, the White House engaged in an about-face of its own, approving the shipment of 31 US-made M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. Scholz had insisted on conditioning any German tanks to a similar US commitment. Up until this week, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin was “dead set against providing” the M1s, and declared there to be “no linkage between providing M1s and providing Leopards.” Austin had argued that the M1s are too cumbersome for Ukraine, requiring costly jet fuel, heavy maintenance, and lengthy training.

Just last month, a senior US defense official declared that “even one M1 was out of the question,” according to the Washington Post. When used by US troops in Iraq, the M1s were “hard for us to sustain and maintain,” the official noted. For Ukraine, “it would be impossible.” Even last week, senior Pentagon official Colin Kahl dismissed the prospect of sending the “very complicated” M1, because “we should not be providing the Ukrainians systems they can’t repair, they can’t sustain, and that they, over the long term, can’t afford.”

As Gen. Mark Milley learned when he came out in favor of diplomacy with Russia to end the fighting, the Pentagon’s outlook is no match for Washington’s proxy war fever. The White House reversed course, Politico notes, after “a parade of Democrats and Republicans” in Congress “pressured the Biden administration to grant Berlin’s request to send U.S. tanks first.” What the Pentagon “was not taking into enough account,” the New York Times reports, citing a US official, “was the intense fear among European governments of doing anything to provoke Russia without having the cover of the United States doing the same thing first.” When it comes to provoking Russia, the US is undoubtedly first.

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Social Contract Theory Idiocy: What Contract? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on February 1, 2023

Have you voluntarily and knowingly delegated by active and legal contract all your decisions about your life, family, war, taxation (theft), government mandated schooling, health care, employment, property ownership, self-defense, licensing, and every other aspect of life to this illegitimate government? Are you just a slave and a resource element of the state? Do you have any real desire to be free? The state does not work or rule by contract, it does not have the consent of all the governed; it is the epitome of force, violence, extortion, torture, theft, and murder.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/01/gary-d-barnett/social-contract-theory-idiocy-what-contract/

By Gary D. Barnett

“And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract—the Constitution—made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three generations of men, consisting of many millions, and which (it is claimed) will be binding upon all the millions that are to come; but which nobody ever signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed, or acknowledged; and which few persons, compared with the whole number that are claimed to be bound by it, have ever read, or even seen, or ever will read, or see.”

~ Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority

The very idea of any ‘social contract’ for any large group of individuals is asinine on its face. It is an impossibility to be sure if freedom is considered, and that is why constitutions, (‘social contracts’) which supposedly require individual explicit or ‘tacit’ consent, neither of which are valid in this context, are completely worthless, and only deceit by the state. Social contracts require that some or most freedoms be relinquished, and submission to the false authority of a ruler or ruling class be accepted for the ‘common good.’ This is usually based on only a majority ‘decision,’ or not, due to the corrupt and evil nature of voting, for the purpose of gaining protection for only those rights considered remaining, and state-supported in the bogus contract. In other words, natural rights are eliminated in favor of ‘legal’ rights created and administered by the state for the sole purpose of monetary gain and mass control. This can only mean that all natural rights are disallowed and non-existent’ in this lie called a social contract.

The assumed starting point for social contract creation in theory is to examine the human condition absent a political order. From here, social contract supporters would seek (assume) to argue that ‘rational’ individuals would voluntarily give up their natural freedom in favor of consent to a governmental (political) ruling system. Thomas Hobbes’ approach to the “state of nature” circumstance and social contracts was telling of his desire to see humanity ruled over by counterfeit documents shifting power from the individual to the state. Hobbes said that in a state of nature, or freedom of the individual, would be a horrible situation where everyone would have unlimited rights to pillage, plunder, rape, and murder, and endless war of all against all would be the result. His solution to his made-up claims, was for all to establish what he called “civil society” through a social contract in order to gain security by giving up natural rights and accepting an absolute sovereign made up of one man (king) or an assembly of men (oligarchy). He saw absolute government as the only option.

The meaning of the term “contract” in its most basic form, is an agreement between two or more parties that defines the terms of an exchange. The five major characteristics for any contract to be valid are:

1) An offer and terms: One party makes an offer to another, which includes a description of terms that the offering party makes to the other, that he is legally bound to honor.

2) An acceptance of an offer is necessary for any contract to be valid.

3) For any contract to be valid, every single individual involved needs to know,

comprehend, and fully understand the entire agreement and every obligation associated with such contract.

4) Some form of consideration (something of value) is necessary for a contract to be legally valid. Any consideration has to be legal, as illegal consideration or activity nullifies the contract.

5) All parties involved in any contract must enter this contract with the clear intent to set up a formal agreement and accept all terms as legally binding.

With this in mind, attempt if you can, to fathom the idea of a magical contract, completely unsigned and legally unaccepted by each party, without a full description of exact terms to be followed. Consider that this contract has to be fully understood by each and every individual involved, and that some form of legal consideration must be present and accepted by each party agreeing to this document. This contract in order to be valid must be set up with clear intent, and with acceptance of each and every term as binding on all parties.

Now consider the fake contract called the law of the land, and described as the U.S. Constitution. This is simply an invalid social contract that does not meet any definition of a legal contract whatsoever, and is assumed to have been accepted, understood, with valid consideration, by 330 million individuals. No one has signed it, no one has legally accepted it, few if any understand it, it can be changed arbitrarily by the so-called contract offeror at any time without approval of each (or any) of those involved, and no accepted consideration is forthcoming. There is no clear intent, actually no intent at all, of any formal agreement and acceptance. In fact, it is completely illegal, and therefore not binding in any regard on any individual.

The state in fact is a scam. It is based on this false notion of an illegal ‘social contract,’ written and forced on society over 240 years ago. It is as illegal now as it was then, and should be, at least in any free society, completely unenforceable. But this is not a free society, and even though in past centuries, freedom was more prevalent, this has never been a truly free country. If government and rule exist, freedom cannot exist.

The entirety of rule in this country and many others, is based on the evil and fraudulent concept of ‘tacit’ (implied without question) approval of an illegal and fictitious social contract called a constitution. “This theory of an implicit social contract holds that by remaining in the territory controlled by some society, which usually has a government, people give consent to join that society and be governed by its government if any. This consent is what gives ‘legitimacy’ to such a government.” Nothing could be more ridiculous and underhanded than such a concept as this one.

The very idea of government in this country is completely dependent on the false illusion that the social contract called the Constitution solidifies and justifies that ‘consent’ for this heinous government is legitimate, because blind ‘consent’ is assumed by that same government. 

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Bad Russians

Posted by M. C. on January 31, 2023

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Revealed: Mass Media Complicity in “Russian Disinformation” Fraud, w/ Matt Taibbi | SYSTEM UPDATE #30

Posted by M. C. on January 31, 2023

https://rumble.com/v27doi6–system-update-30.html

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