Recent articles
1. I knew things were bad in Russia, but I had no idea just how bad. The Economist has an excellent article in fascism in Russia. The following is just a very small excerpt:
In the 1930s Walter Benjamin, an exiled German cultural critic, analysed fascism as a performance. “The logical result of fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life,” he wrote. These aesthetics were designed to supplant reason and their ultimate expression was war.
Today the two faces of the war on television, Vladimir Solovyov and Olga Skabeeva, are caricatures of Nazi propagandists. Mr Solovyov is often dressed in a black double-breasted Bavarian-style jacket. Ms Skabeeva, severe and chiselled, has a hint of the dominatrix. They project hatred and aggression. They and their guests decry the West for having declared war on Russia and plead theatrically with Mr Putin to reduce it to ashes by unleashing the full might of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
This fantasy Armageddon is matched by real violence, the basis of the relationship between the Russian state and its people. A Levada poll commissioned by Committee Against Torture (now itself blacklisted) showed that 10% of the Russian population has experienced torture by law-enforcement agencies at some point. There is a culture of cruelty. Domestic abuse is no longer a crime in Russia. In the first week of the war young women protesters were humiliated and sexually abused in police cells. Nearly 30% of Russians say torture should be allowed.
Atrocities committed by the Russian army in Bucha and other occupied cities are not just excesses of war or a breakdown in discipline, but a feature of army life that is spread more widely by veterans.
Read the whole thing, it’s incredibly depressing. (We should be doing much more to help Ukraine.)
Conservatives like to dump on Sweden. And Sweden is indeed a bit too socialist. But there are far worse things than Sweden.
2. This is good news:
Now, Colombia is calling for an end to that war. It wants instead to lead a global experiment: decriminalizing cocaine. . . .
Domestically, Petro’s administration is planning to back legislation to decriminalize cocaine and marijuana. It plans to put an end to aerial spraying and the manual eradication of coca, which critics say unfairly targets poor rural farmers. By regulating the sale of cocaine, Tascón argued, the government would wrest the market from armed groups and cartels.
“Drug traffickers know that their business depends on it being prohibited,” Tascón said. “If you regulate it like a public market … the high profits disappear and the drug trafficking disappears.”
Of course the US government is opposed:
“The United States and the Biden administration is not a supporter of decriminalization,” said Jonathan Finer, the White House deputy national security adviser, who met with Petro here before his inauguration.
3. This is bad news, but not unexpected:
China’s ambitious students and their parents once dreamed of acquiring an American university education. Now that dream is dying.
During the first half of 2022, US student visas issued to Chinese nationals plummeted more than 50% compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to a Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal. The US isn’t directly limiting the number of visas. Rather, China’s Covid restrictions, combined with the increasingly unfavorable opinion of the US held by younger people, are giving the Chinese second thoughts about a US education. . . .
Chinese with experience living and traveling in the US generally have a better opinion of the country than those who don’t. As their numbers decline, the US and China alike lose a crucial means of bridging the bitter relationship between rival superpowers.
We launch a cold war against China, and then wonder why they don’t like us.
The best way to compete against China is to allow tens of millions of their best educated to move here.
4. This article on housing in Amsterdam and London is almost like parody of wokism from The Onion. Progressivism pushed to the point of absurdity:
Although Europe is making far more headway reducing greenhouse gas emissions than the United States, we can’t follow their lead in how they got there. From what I observed, people of color, immigrants, and low-income people are not prioritized in decision making in these two cities. Climate, impeccable design, and engineering are.
These cities have built exceptional infrastructure for the dominant culture, and that is much of what American tourists experience on their visits.
Throughout the study tour, we heard phrases like “I don’t see color”, and “we are taking care of those people so their voices aren’t needed at the table”. These “color-blind” approaches continue to leave people out and are not going to address the stark racial inequities in our society.
5. This caught my eye:
I dunno. Those social psychology studies never seem to replicate.
Tags:
27. August 2022 at 05:24
The systems running our elections were coded by China and stored all of our data in Wuhan.
The 4am “jump” in the early morning hours of Nov 4 were a massive SQL database injection using vulnerabilities from the SolarWinds hack.
The SolarWinds hack (I’m sure you were already aware) originated from China.
Konnech -> Microsoft DPM -> Azure -> SolarWinds hack -> MongoDB -> SQL -> Millions of votes instantly thrown in, with all the info needed to print fake ballots to match.
This also explains the ‘spiral algorithm’ pattern discovered in the NY voter roll database that could only have been instantiated simultaneously.
————
https://rumble.com/v1gt505-the-moment-of-truth-summit-day-2-the-trial-of-the-election-machines.html
Go to timestamp 5h:46min and watch what happened with the real time vote counter (there is one company in NJ that publishes election day reporting for the entire country’s msm) in Macomb County on election day.
THE SOURCE DATA FOR THIS IS OPEN SOURCE, FROM A FOIA DISCLOSURE.
This is what ACTUALLY happened.
27. August 2022 at 05:47
What happened in Macomb County (Edison is the company in NJ) happened in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and all the ‘battleground’ states…
Add this to the fact that FieldForceManager uses XORA tech whose patent is assigned to ClickSoftware which was bought by SalesForce (Marc Benioff)
https://i.imgur.com/VQmz7Zf.jpg
who partnered with Chinese tech giant Alibaba and provides tech to Huawei (Alibaba was founded by CCP member, Jack Ma). Alibaba established a “CCP committee”, and company employees are made up of 30% CCP members. Alibaba also owns the state media outlet South China Morning Post.
Now you know why Trump banned Huawai.
27. August 2022 at 08:00
First of all, the economist is not a reliable source of information.
They exaggerating Nazi influence in Russia, because they are peddling war propaganda. If you haven’t noticed, propaganda exists on both sides.
Secondly, Ukraine has way more Nazi elements than Russia. Ukraine has an entire military battallion dedicated to Hitler’s philosophical ideals, and have used this battallion to terrorize Donbass residents for nearly a decade now. It’s been widely reported by the NYT, Reuters, the Guardian, and other left wing outlets before the war began.
You have this really disturbed, sick, twisted, disgusting bigotry towards anything Russian. It’s bizarre. I’m more worried about you and the totalitarian woke, then I am about Putin.
If you stop the hatred, and the crazy sanctions, then you might actually be able to establish peace.
And I get it. You are a babyboomer. You’ve been brainwashed since birth to hate everything Russian. And now everyone else has to deal with the babybooming hawks, who never served a day in their life, but you’d think an academic could at least try to look at things objectively. Although, I suppose that has been difficult for you in more areas than one.
27. August 2022 at 08:16
“They” should do more.
“They” should stop them.
What Sumner means is people like me.
If you are concerned about Ukraine, then why not sell your home and send your money to Ukraine. I’m sure it will find its way into the pockets of the politicians who receive it.
If you want to fight Russia, then why don’t you put on a helmet, buy a weapon, and go there.
Young people are not toys to be used for your idealistic ends. The U.S. has invaded two countries, and has spent billions to create chaos in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. You do realize how this started right? You do realize a U.S. diplomate, under oath, confirmed that the U.S. spent 5B overthrowing the regime in 2014?
Russia is not really the problem. They are simply reacting to the threats around them. You cannot invade Irag, Afghanistan, bomb the hell out of Nicaragua, Syria, spend billions overthrowing other regimes, then cry when someone powerful decides to respond with equal force.
27. August 2022 at 11:08
“We launch a cold war against China, and then wonder why they don’t like us.”
When Reagan — your favorite president in your lifetime — labeled the Soviet Union the Evil Empire, Russians, especially those in the Gulags, were elated because it meant that the Free World hadn’t forgotten them. Failing to confront tyranny and stand up for liberty is what causes “increasingly unfavorable opinion of the US”, at least among the people whose opinion we should care most about.
“The best way to compete against China is to allow tens of millions of their best educated to move here.”
Agree. I would note though that both welcoming defectors as well as educating foreign nationals that bring American ideas back to their original country are Cold War tactics.
27. August 2022 at 11:31
BC, I agree about speaking out against tyranny, which is why we probably shouldn’t elect presidents that tell Xi Jinping he’s doing the right thing by putting a million Muslims into concentration camps. Or that praise the Philippine president for murdering drug users, or that advocate torture, or that suggest we kill the families of terrorists, or that praise Putin as a great leader, or that say they love the North Korean leader, or that say we should have stolen Iraq’s oil.
28. August 2022 at 07:04
Man, the clown show of the assembled commentariat caricatures … itself. You can’t make that stuff up. The election servers in Wuhan had the Epstein files encoded as pizzas so the woke Praetorians guarding Hillary woudn’t get wind of the fake moon landings. Don’t you get it? It’s all a ploy so Hunter Biden can finally have anal sex with Putin.
On a side note, such fervent believers seem to out-class even the most seasoned cynics in the race to the IQ bottom.
29. August 2022 at 10:10
mbka, You cannot deny that they provide great entertainment.
30. August 2022 at 04:07
It is quite depressing how stupid we Americans are. 40% of us think trump is a great hero… a man who extols no virtue. A man who would cheat on his pregnant 3rd wife anytime and every time he possibly could. A man will throw anyone and anything under the bus so long as it benefits himself. He “loves” America but he is willing burn the whole project down for the opportunity to grift legally for 4 more years. The constitution is no better than toilet paper to him. The only thing that matters to him is himself and yet 25% of the public thinks he is a Christian lol. He is a wolf in a very thin layer or sheep’s clothing. “You shall know them by their fruits”. Indeed, those that have ears to hear and eyes to see anyways.
Legalize all drugs now… why are we so stupid? You can murder your unborn child in the name the freedom, you can give a 10 year old hormones to grow tits, they can cut off their dicks before they can get a tattoo, but you can’t choose to use cocaine if you feel like destroying your heart muscles… wtf.
Both parties have lost their damn minds. It’s depressing. Columbia is ahead of us on this issue of personal liberty and the economics of how black markets work. That’s insane.
We are clinging to 70 years of failed drug policy because our grandparents made a mistake. And it seems this would be an advantage to democrats… what base are they catering to? I don’t get it. Who in the Democratic Party favors the drug war? They would lose almost no voters and would court a willing segment of anti-religionists libertarians. There must be something I am missing, because it makes no damn sense.
Conservative primary voters are almost openly fascist. They are using Christianity right now because it’s useful for tricking dummies that don’t know their own religion well enough to notice. Their great hero, their modern day Cyrus, doesn’t even know the Our Father lol. He has never read a word of scripture in his life. If the fascists win, they will turn on the priests and pastors… just like the nazis did. Their version of the state is their God.. and they won’t allow a religion centered on self-sacrifice and virtue to call their inhumanity. If they win, they will burn down the Church get rid of their critics and their insistence that human beings have inherent divinity and God given rights as free individuals.
We have the worlds libraries in the palms of our hands and we are growing dumber by the day. It’s hard to believe.
30. August 2022 at 04:10
*inherent dignity… not divinity lol.
31. August 2022 at 02:41
So you want a cold war with Russia, but not with China.
That is a contradiction.
And it takes generations to create culture, Scott. It doesn’t happen over night. If you destroy the culture, you will destroy the constitution.
There are many studies, which show that the first three generations of immigrants feel more allegiance to their country of heritage, then the country they were born in. Most double agents have some connection to the old country.
I’m a fourth generation Irish immigrant, and I’d probably still go to war to defend Ireland.
We can handle 10,000 a year. Not 10M a year.
Other than you, most Americans don’t want a CCP 2.0.
31. August 2022 at 08:15
Mark, For years I’ve been saying that Russia’s a bigger threat to world peace than China. Now I’ve been proven correct, but some people absolutely refuse to face reality. If Russia’s invasion of Georgia and Ukraine didn’t open your eyes, then nothing will. How many more countries must Putin invade before you realize there’s a problem?
“There are many studies, which show that the first three generations of immigrants feel more allegiance to their country of heritage, then the country they were born in.”
I’m married to a Chinese immigrant and know many others; you can’t fool me with that sort of nonsense. What do you take me for?
Our policy of refusing to admit China’s most talented people plays right into Xi’s hand. We are strengthening the CCP.
3. September 2022 at 05:46
“Mark, For years I’ve been saying that Russia’s a bigger threat to world peace than China. Now I’ve been proven correct,”
No you haven’t, the fact the fake news selectively includes Russia threat narratives and selectively omits China threat narratives, which is your SOURCE DATA, your resulting conclusions are NOT based on REALITY, they are based on the fake news narrative!
You’re merely defining ‘reality’ as what the lying msm decides to publish.
China is a much greater threat to America and the world, by far. China, not Russia, has infiltrated our election systems (Unicom, Konnech, Solar Winds hack, etc). China, not Russia, owns Huawei spytech. China, not Russia, is the world’s largest Communist force.
“Russia invading Ukraine” didn’t just happen out of the blue, despite the fake news narrative. Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe, Nazi Azovs, Bioweapon labs along the border with Russia, killing ‘dissidents’ in the Republics seeking independence.
Ukraine also happens to be the country that has energy companies with the children of US politicians on their boards.
Ukraine, who must have blackmail over Biden, is siphoning $ BILLIONS from US taxpayers struggling to pay for living expenses with inflation out of control, and NOBODY KNOWS WHERE THE MONEY GOES. True believers like you just see the money go and you have baseless faith it’s going to ‘defend Ukraine against Russia aggression’.
Russia is corrupt, Ukraine is MORE corrupt, China is MOST corrupt.
You’re being proved wrong every day.
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/after-months-of-denial-u-s-admits-to-running-ukraine-biolabs/