There is a Reuters report citing Boris Johnson claiming that the Ukraine won the Second World War and some Japanese diplomat is hinting that it was the Russians who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Aside from sports results and most weather reports, it is only be exception that anyone could trust the veracity of mainstream media reports.

"Just Two weeks to flatten the curve?'

On election night, I had some money placed on the result. When the vote count paused, I jotted down the interim count numbers for the key states. Below are the numbers when the count stopped and then the final result.

Pennsylvannia Votes when the election count paused
Total counted 5,250,192 - 78% of count complete
Trump 2,964,097- 56.5%
Biden 2,286,095 - 43.5%


Counting Resumes
Total Counted 1,511,630 - 22.4% after Resumption
Trump 385,070 -25.5%
Biden 1,125,560 - 74.5%

FINAL RESULT
TOTAL ALL VOTES 6,761,630 - 100%
Trump - 3,349,167 - 49.55
Biden - 3,411,655 - 50.45

Something like the same occurred in Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia

Putting aside the inexplicable pause, the official argument is that the mail in ballots favoured Biden heavily and must have been counted last. The problem with this argument is that in all these states, the mail in vote was something close to or over 50% of the total vote. But at the time of the pause 78% of the total vote had been counted already in Pennsylvania, meaning over half the mail in ballots had already been counted and the counting up to the moment of the pause had revealed no sudden shifts either way.

The odds of this happening in one state is akin to winning the lottery - so it's possible.
For this to occur in 4 states is like winning the lottery four weeks in a row with the same numbers.

There is evidence a plenty, but you need to want to look

The courts didn't give him standing, they didn't hear the substance of the claims.

Imagine you saw an election in another country where the people counting the votes are screening the view from official scrutineers using cardboard? Imagine, just the 6 states that will decide the vote all cease counting at exactly the same time - just as one candidate is about 10 minutes from winning if the trend continues - and then after the inexplicable pause - the trend miraculously reverts to the other candidate? In any other country, at almost any other time in history, there would have been an insurrection. But in our modern USA, in the land of the free and independent not the anomalies were memory holed. This is a farce of democracy.

What happened? Biden received the most votes in history. A man barely coheren,t who could not fill a town hall , is claimed to have received a record number of votes. And when the vote was challenged, not a single mainstream media outlet wanted the ratings bonanza of turning it into a scandal. No court would hear it. But the same courts were eager to elevate a guided tour of the Capitol building as something akin to the storming of the Bastille.

Whatever all this is, it is not a democracy.

The integrity and trust the public has in the election process is crucial and implicit in the idea of a Democracy. It follows that there is a fundamental right that every citizen is entitled to question the integrity of the result, to protest, to pursue any and every administrative and judicial means to ensure the result is fairly conducted.

Not permitting elections to be challenged is that which is anti-democratic. This is what neurotic pseudo democracies, tin-pot dictatorships do. Pursing legal action against Trump or anyone who challenges an election is the crime. This is Democracy in name only.

It does not matter how Trump said it. There are thousands of ways to interpret everything anyone might say. This type of argumentation belongs on the schoolyard - which is pretty much the standard of our collective public discourse. The partisanship is just f... insane.

Notice, how the actual detail and substance of Trump's claims are never discussed. The irregularities are too large to cover. They are dismissed because "the courts dismissed them" But the courts did not dismiss the claims - the courts refused to hear them.

It is clear that the Public is easily manipulated by its media. We are all it's victims. The truth is the collective media refused to take the myriad of real anomalies in the 2020 election seriously. On the other hand, following the 2016 result, the very same media decided to make the Russian election interference into an issue when it lacked any facts at all to support the claim. And although that Russian myth has been repeatedly substantiated as complete nonsense our collective brains remain addled with Russian hysteria.

At this point I'm convinced all of us, including myself, are not just confused but mentally deranged. We increasingly believe completely illogically nonsense about just about everything. Forget turtles its nonsense all the way down.
It all began when we discovered that buildings could collapse in defiance of physical laws, Mosques hid terrorists, Bombing countries became virtuous, GDP could be increased by printing money, Carbon is toxic, we all have repressed memories of sexual abuse and that all our white impoverished, illiterate, poor ancestors were really privileged racists.

Thank god for porn and butt toys.

MAGA is losing the culture wars at all levels. Despite being overwhelmingly Christian, MAGA is very much "of the world" and obsessed with their idealized 1950's view of when America was "great". They're so emotionally invested in this, they can't think straight and let a man like Trump become their champion. — RogueAI

Who is this MAGA, what are these Culture wars, and this Christian 1950s view of the world. All of this resembles a theatrical pastiche that defies a rational definition. What we have is two sizeable proportions of the electorate in opposition holding increasingly juvenile, antagonistic and irreconcilable views.

Only in this schoolyard scrap the faculty have decided to cheer it on. They've opened a book on the result. There is a daily newsletter detailing every blow.

The saddest part to all of this is observing so many people ,for whom I've held the highest esteem, abandon their intellectual honesty, ethical mores, and personal dignity to star-jump into this sewer.

If these last few strange years have proven anything at all, it is that belonging to a group is no less primal than our need for food, shelter and procreation. Perhaps, the best proof of our physical evolution is just this raw herd survival instinct.

It is hard to understand how this self-aggrandising jokester troll, this white Don King, this boxing promoter became President. It is even harder to understand the degree to which his victory caused the entire world to lose its' mind.

Short of a bullet to his skull, the efforts to remove and keep the boxing promoter from power have not been constrained by any norms of morality. As a result, the already hollowed out shell of US democracy circa 2016, is so damaged today that even the performative constitutional rituals are beyond its ability.

If would be one thing If the wild animus were directed solely at just his one odd man. The hate is not really for him it is towards that sizeable portion of the electorate that persistently supports him and will not be budge.

The mutual contempt between those that hate this man and for those who support him is not reconcilable.

It has always been both a fools errand and somewhat of a rhetorical facade this search for absolute truth. Truth is simply that which is most relevant and most functional to us - nothing more. This is sufficiently difficult to define but the effort does offer insights and practical wisdom.

The mistake - thinking it might be something fully definable forever unchanging - emerges from the ever present ambitious charlatan - who is always conjuring fears and simultaneously ready with the most certain god prescribed remedies. These are political and religious extremists offering us little pantomimes where they play god. Humans are very impressionable, they love a god that can offer them something solid unchangeable, certain.

But in practice we don't live with much that is all that certain or absolute. Our world is too complex and changeable for that. This absolute business was just meant to be a bit of entertainment for kids around campfire. No body was meant to really believes it.

The best we get is patterns that seem to work, that we follow and improve thru trial and error. Those things that help us are true, those that don't are false.

Whilst, Julian Assange lies in Prison because he revealed crimes committed by our Democracies, every elected Representative is an accomplice to this crime. The whole electorate, acquiescent, robotic and morally reprehensible.

.

In a recent conversation with the esteemed Duran team, Attorney Robert Barnes argued that the myriad indictments paraded before us are nothing more than a grand theatrical performance, devised for the up coming election. Barnes observed that the labyrinthine nature of these cases renders their completion prior to the 2024 election an insurmountable feat.

Hence, should Trump emerge triumphant in the electoral arena, the entire spectacle becomes inconsequential, for he wields the power to grant himself a pardon. Conversely, should he taste defeat, the pursuit of these indictments would be abruptly abandoned. Barnes postulated that the most plausible outcome involves the Democrats nominating an alternative candidate, owing to the grave concerns surrounding President Biden's health. The dread of his well-being faltering during the campaign, thereby unwittingly ceding victory to Trump, or the prospect of Vice President Harris assuming the mantle of the presidency, both present intolerable choices.

Thus, in these peculiar circumstances, Biden may relinquish his position to someone like Newson, perhaps enticed by the assurance of receiving a pardon from future prosecution. This maneuver would effectively render Trump's further prosecution untenable even for the Democrats. Consequently, the indictments serve no purpose beyond their endeavor to derail Trump's pursuit of the GOP Presidential nomination.

One has to marvel at the media's prowess— to successfully ring the same Pavlovian Bell for a span of seven years. It's an unwaveringly consistent collective outcry, replete with breathless exclamations, uncontrolled spittle, and a voracious yearning for Trump's imminent demise.

Such too is the allure of predicting Armageddon or any calamitous event—regardless of how frequently one's predictions falter, the tantalising prospect, the fervent hope, of being proven right tomorrow never wanes. Yes, this time, Wild Coyote has finally caught the Roadrunner! ...beep beep...

Or the US occupied NATO countries back in 1945 and never left. After the war, Western Europe embraced US leadership, economic support, and military presence. It was a bargain that served them well but would ultimately compromise their sovereignty. Western Europe enjoyed benevolent servitude for half a century. Following the fall of the USSR, hubris would soon replace US scruples.

Washington no longer resembles anything like the Bartlett Administration from West Wing. It really never did. But West Wing is the image that we love to portray of Washington to ourselves. And when that myth jars against reality, then of course some Frank Underwood type must have temporarily usurped power. With just a little help from our media we quickly memory hole the jarring truth and reanimate the warm glow of Bartlett's Camelot.

Regular people just aren't equipped to deal with that kind of malevolence. — Tzeentch

I think there is a lot to this. People have to sense in their bones that their own government is gaslighting them - it's been over 20 years now of relentless fabrication. We must censor our own lying eyes and ears.

Consciously confronting and acknowledging these doubts and perceptions is - as you say - hard for people. Their entire world will shatter and something of themselves will die.

When I visited the Eastern Bloc back in the 1980s, People en masse understood that everything official and everything on TV and Radio was all a crock. People dealt with it by never talking about politics. They talked about anything and everything else. At work and amongst officials they would echo the official line. Only with the very closest of friends might they have a candid political discussion but they would have the TV volume up, the curtains drawn before they would whisper to each other.

More than a hint of this kafkaesque atmosphere threatened to become normalised during the Pandemic restrictions where sinister heavy handed policing, censorship on social media and 24/7 fear porn.

Imperial Russia?
Despite recently closing hundreds of bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US still maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad.

Here is a list* of the countries bombed and/or invaded by the United States from the end of the Second World War to 2020:
Afghanistan 1998, 2001-
Bosnia 1994, 1995
Cambodia 1969-70
China 1945-46
Congo 1964
Cuba 1959-1961
El Salvador 1980s
Korea 1950-53
Guatemala 1954, 1960, 1967-69
Indonesia 1958 Laos 1964-73
Grenada 1983
Iraq 1991-2000s, 2015-
Iran 1987
Korea 1950-53
Kuwait 1991
Lebanon 1983, 1984
Libya 1986, 2011-
Nicaragua 1980s
Pakistan 2003, 2006- Palestine 2010
Panama 1989
Peru 1965
Somalia 1993, 2007-08, 2010-
Sudan 1998
Syria 2014-
Vietnam 1961-73
Yemen 2002, 2009-
Yugoslavia 1999
Note that these countries represent roughly one-third of the people on earth.


Behold the scores of military coups and color revolutions, the manipulations of elections, where senior figures of the United States openly reveled in their memoirs, boasting of their achievements in Iran, Pakistan, Bolivia, Guatemala... Or witness the economic sanctions that swiftly follow whenever some impoverished nation dares to nationalize its infrastructure.

With the disintegration of the USSR, the compassionate American Empire no longer deigns to offer a rational pretext for the annihilation of nations. Amateur scriptwriters conjure up fairy stories of chemical attacks, yellow-cake deliveries, and terror cells.

Karl Rove, in his succinct elucidation to the esteemed New Yorker Magazine back in 2004, unveiled the truth: "We are now an empire, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you study that reality—judiciously, I might add—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study as well, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and all of you will be left to just study what we do."

Our record stands as testimony. Even to this day, the United States maintains an extrajudicial penal facility in Guantanamo Bay. Openly celebrated is the fact that the enemy combatants held there are exempt from the protections of the Geneva Convention. For those with the fortitude, perusing the Wikileaks files on Guantanamo Bay will lay bare the depth of depravity to which those acting on our behalf have sunk. History shall not be kind. It takes an extraordinary level of projection and self-delusion to believe that the villain isn't the figure in the mirror, but rather someone "out there" who might begin emulating your example.

The development and sustenance of the standard of living we have come to expect in the Western World demanded toil and intelligence, but let us not forget that it has been built upon a foundation of organized pillage, exploitation, and the perpetual impoverishment of the rest of the globe. Whatever flaws or ambitions Russia may possess, they are but a low-level, monotonous hum in comparison. And what sin does Russia truly bear, other than its resistance to Western attempts at exploitation? What is Putin's sin, except for his refusal to let mad oligarchs infiltrate politics, unlike our own, who have entirely subverted and corrupted our democratic institutions?

As for Ukraine, the vast majority of Westerners would not have been able to locate it on a map prior to the war. Just as most of us cannot pinpoint Sudan, Liberia, or the myriad warring African countries. Even now, when a Ukrainian soldier falls in a forest, he makes no sound. The reason the war in Ukraine persists is solely due to Washington's intervention. It was Washington who scuttled a drafted peace agreement that had been initially agreed upon by both Russia and Ukraine back in March 2022. Cease the flow of Western weaponry and money, and the conflict will dissipate within a week.

Who can discern the cause of our collective psychopathy? Perhaps it is the overabundance of social media, prescription drugs, something lurking in our sustenance, or the fluoride within our water... All I know is that we have become incapable of engaging in rational discourse. Decency is jettisoned when the prevailing narrative is challenged. It is met with outrage, hysteria, shunning, witch hunts, ad hominem attacks, or the hollow invocation of emotional platitudes—anything but a reasoned exchange.

This pattern of behavior first emerged in response to Trump's electoral triumph. Yet, it has transcended the Orange Man: we witnessed it in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, it pervaded the BLM movement, the # metoo movement, the reaction to Jordan Peterson's ascent to prominence, and the condemnation of those who refused COVID vaccines. It instinctively emerges when anyone dares to question climate change or suggests that Putin, too, may possess human qualities or that Russia may be gaining ground.

To resolve complex issues, one must honestly identify and analyze obstacles and problems as they arise. It is impossible to emerge victorious in war or overcome any peer competitor if one is incapable of acknowledging uncomfortable truths. We have become what the USSR was, what the Ottoman Empire became, what every empire inevitably devolves into—ossified! Like those lost empires, we too are trading on the mythology of past glories. Sadly, the world has changed, the myths have lost their lustre. Our ardour for Freedom and Human Rights have gone the way of Jesus - empty unfashionable platitudes. The Empire now wears no clothes. The world should rejoice but for the fact that this Weekend at Bernie's Administration could well decide to take the whole world down with it.

The Russians have a narrative about the war and their narrative is different to our narrative! It's narratives and turtles all the way down. But the Russian Turtle is offical, whereas ours is organic and trans-renewable.

Thus we are not witnessing an "NATO-US Conflict with Russia over Ukraine" what we are really witnessing is the opening gambit of an unprovoked Russian Imperialist expansion. Any other interpretation is an example of the kind of propaganda that Putin's bots propagated during the 2016 Presidential Election.

We in the West are motivated solely by the truth, our love for freedom and human rights.

Greetings from Julian Assange - HMP Belmarsh London UK

Agree!
we maybe able to outline the general trends but how this plays out is not clear me. A myriad of unpredictable twists and turns are likely before a new multi-polar world settles down. The one thing we can say for certain is that Fukuyama's End of History is postponed.

In the absence of a critical media that challenges the policies of the government, the average distracted citizen, in any given land, becomes a vessel of prescribed thoughts. Western perceptions of Russia, tainted by decades of motion pictures portraying Russians as routine villains, infect the collective consciousness. The consistent messaging is of villainous acts—poisonings, bombings, and the like.

What truly matters lies in the minds of decision-makers and influencers in Washington and Brussels—the architects of policy. The leaders of industry, the projected economic indicators for the next 10, 20, or 30 years. The subsequent policies formulated in think tanks, the ensuing fears informing the neo-conservatives policies, and the envy of multinational energy companies who stare begrudgingly across the eurasian steppes.

There is a news report from the year 2015 —where the Secretary of State, then aspiring to the Presidency, Hillary Clinton, publicly bemoans the supposed injustice of Russia's possession of vast untapped resources. While it may be conceivable, it is highly unlikely that someone in her position would spontaneously make such an observation without the guidance of expert assessment.

That graph has the unique attributes of being both correct and irrelevant. Much, if not quite all, Russian resources continue to reach the EU via third party countries. The really significant difference is that the Europeans are paying more for the same resources to pay for the additional layers of middle men and shipping.

But even if that were not the case, the EU and the USA is not the world. It is merely 12% of the world's population. There are new market opportunities for Russia. India is 17% of the world's population. China is another 17% and China has every reason to shift its trading relationship in Russia's favour - as has already happened during this period..

Humans can live without Prada Bags, French Champagne and German Cars. It is more difficult to live without fuel for your transportation systems, very uncomfortable without heating and impossible without food.

The Russian population is barely 2% of the world, but its borders constitute 20% of the world's land mass. Only chronic indolence, corruption, and incompetence can explain why a country possessing this fundamental advantage would be incapable of sustaining a robust economy. Those three attributes have riddled Russia throughout its history. But not only have those riches not gone away but with the advance of technology there are even more unparalleled stretches of previously inaccessible and unexploited territory beckoning.

The popular Western description echoing that Russia is a gas station impersonating a country is entirely a product of envy. And it is the manifestation of this envy, not Ukraine sovereignty, that drives this conflict.

These are an impressive set of numbers for a country about to collapse under the weight of the Empire's unanimous enmity. All the more so when you consider the volume of money sent to prop up Ukraine, the training of their troops for the last 18 months, the elite NATO advisers, the volunteer mercenaries, the most advance detection systems, the equipment and ammunition stores depleted from Western Europe.

But all of that is but a drop in the ocean compared to the creative choreography directed at portraying a heroic Zelensky and an innocent Ukraine valiantly defying and outsmarting those Russian villains who strangely resemble the vilest of humanity as portrayed by Hollywood films for the last 20 years.

Russia's inflation rate is not only only lower, but multiple levels lower than either the USA or the EU: Russia 2.5% USA 5% plus EU 8% plus

https://www.statista.com/statistics/276323/monthly-inflation-rate-in-russia/

GDP growth -2.1% (2022) 0.7% (2023f) 1.3% (2024f)

Russia’s significant trade surplus of over US$ 330 billion. Despite western Ukraine-related sanctions, Russia’s exports surged by nearly 20% in 2022.

Much of the trade surplus is driven by grain exports. Russia produces almost 12% of the world’s wheat, all non-GMO. Total world wheat production for this period is estimated at about 781 million tons.

The combined BRICS-plus Iran output is almost half of global production. That of China (18%), India (13%), and Russia (12%), account for a combined 43% of total world production. Almost half of one of the world’s key food staples is produced by just three BRICS countries.

Food leverage is not in Western hands.

Russia’s overall trade increased by 8.1% in 2022 over 2021, to US$ 850.5 billion equivalent. The bulk of Russia’s exports were energy products, gas and petrol, amounting to about two thirds of all exports, US$ 384 billion equivalent.

This is an almost 43% annual increase despite western sanctions
And it's currency reserves have been restored to pre-war levels.

Having said all that, if I was the Russians I would be very very nervous because, in the immortal words from the opening scene in Patton : "Americans are winners, we hate to lose and love to win" And in this instance winning is going to require something from left field.

"Moreover, if Bakhmut was Ukraine's 'last stand', then Russian strategy since its taking would be completely absurd: instead of pushing forward, they went back to lick their wounds, squandering any advantage they might have."

In the absence of overwhelming support from the local population, the occupation of a hostile territory by a military force may be achieved, but sustaining that occupation becomes a formidable challenge. This timeless lesson was vividly reinforced a mere 18 months ago with the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan. It is also worth noting that the conquest of enemy territory, while historically significant, was not an essential feature of the cold war. The ramifications of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine extend far beyond its geographical confines, permeating multiple global dimensions of paramount importance.

Merely considering the modest territorial gains Russia has attained on the eastern fringes of Ukraine obscures the profound transformation in Russia's economic prospects. The Eurasian expanse has witnessed a remarkable tapestry of trade alliances and investments involving Russia and its eastern neighbours; colossal joint ventures encompass the expansion of rail and road networks, the escavation of harbours, and the construction of pipelines that span the vast Euro-Asian continent, reaching as far as Vladivostok. Notably, for the first time in history, these initiatives unfold independent of the influence and oversight of either EU member states or the United States.

To put it succinctly, the attempts by the US and the EU countries to isolate Russia from the global community have backfired. Countries from Africa, South America, and the Euro-Asian continent, though often quietly, are progressively and openly challenging the policies dictated by the US and the EU. Western political leaders have revealed a disconcerting disconnect from reality, their inherent hubris rendering them oblivious to their own fallibility. Accustomed to exerting influence and power over others, they believe their actions to be consistently well-intentioned, freedom-loving, compassionate, and just, while perceiving the rest of the world as less developed and impoverished solely due to their divergence from Western ideals.

But every action, including progress itself, begets both positive and negative outcomes. Until a few decades ago, despite the numerous missteps of the Western world, it could be argued that our technological and cultural influence on a global scale propelled humanity towards a brighter future. However, the equilibrium has dramatically shifted. Technological advancements continue unabated, but our cultural fabric has deteriorated into a kind tragicomedy. We find ourselves detached from reality, perhaps a consequence of decades of unprecedented abundance, or perhaps not. What remains indisputable is the hollowness of our democratic systems, values, and institutions, now reduced to theatrical rituals.

Western critics are not celebrating the ascendancy of Russia or China. Rather, they stand astonished at the erosion of Western culture, thought, and ethics. Our actions, not our words, reveal our values. Once, like China today, the West was driven by the pragmatic pursuit of building and progress, guided by an ethical compass oriented toward improving the human condition. Yet, now we speak grandly of these values while our deeds betray them. We prioritize the trivial and the irrational, elevating them to prominence, while crucial matters go unaddressed or unspoken.

We find ourselves indebted to the generations before us for the privileges we enjoy, yet we, like spoiled children, fail to appreciate our inheritance. Our problems—economic, social, health-related, mental health, justice, geopolitical, poverty, inequity, and beyond—are products of our self-indulgence.

If the diagnosis is clear, so too is the remedy.

Russia's actions, whether right or wrong, can be understood within the context of a nation perceiving its security to be under threat. While many non-Western countries strive for a roadmap to peace between Russia and Ukraine, it is the Western world that zealously adds fuel to the conflict, embroiling itself in a precarious dance with a nuclear superpower.

In the process, just as the cause of the destruction of the nordstream pipeline remains a mystery, so have we become an enigma to ourselves, lost within labyrinthine of our lies . Meanwhile, the best of what once defined us languishes forgotten and forsaken in the dark confines at Belmarsh prison, in the once-great city of London.

Washington's minimum objective in this Ukraine conflict was to manufacture a scenario where relations between Russia and Europe but particularly Germany could be severed. This mission is complete; Nord Stream is dead, eleven rounds of economic sanctions and an endless convoy of European armaments supplied to Kiev have poisoned relations. What's more, Russia has shifted its entire economic and cultural focus from Europe and towards the East.

The alignment of German technical capacity with Russia's unlimited reserves of cheap resources has long been feared by USA strategists. This is the Realist perspective, often detailed by Professors of political science like John Mearsheimer, as the guiding principle of US foreign policy for over 100 years.

Having outlived its purpose, the war is now an unnecessary political, economic, and strategic liability. The ostensible goal of defeating Russia or triggering regime change was a long shot. but it was a crucial narrative to lure and secure European support.

As for the war itself, the battle for Bakhmut represented Ukraine's last stand. It is clear that the Ukrainian military had no realistic capacity and/or a genuine objective of defeating or defending itself against Russia. Otherwise, it would not have wasted tens of thousands of soldiers on this one settlement. But Bakhmut was more than that, it was the heart of the Ukraine's defence strategy. Sitting above 120 miles of deep underground salt mine tunnels, Bakhmut offered a defensive advantage that cannot be replaced.

And so the promised great Ukraine offensive will did not come. The Biden administration presses for an offensive it knows will fail. The aftermath of this failure presents the administration the opportunity to abandon the project, claiming what more can we do? It's Afghanistan reloaded.

Notably, both President Zelensky and General Zaluzhnyi, the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, are fully aware of the implications behind the administrations fixation. So increasingly we see Zelensky traveling the world, avoiding Kiev, as he plans for life after the war. While General Zaluzhnyi disappears for weeks at a time, randomly posting videos of himself inspecting the front lines and chanting perpetually that he still needs better and more weapons before any offensive can be contemplated.

The loss of men and equipment has left the Ukraine with little offensive capacity. Whilst, Russia continues to relentlessly shell and kill from a distance, preserving its military capacity. The Ukraine has turned to Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine intelligence, Budanov's grand idea is to conduct something akin to a guerrilla marketing war: bizarre and random drone strikes destroying street signs in Moscow paired with lightning hit and run cross border incursions into defenceless Russian villages. Neither of these serve any strategic military purpose, but they do inspire dramatic headlines in the Western media.

Which part: the decline of Western Culture? US over-reach? China's rise?
Or all of the above?

True! The non-western world is not a monolithic entity, and you rightly observe, even within the Western NATO bloc, dissension infiltrates the ranks. Nevertheless, there are discernible patterns and tendencies.

The nucleus of the Collective West may be identified as the USA, UK, Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and NZ. Though occasional ripples may emanate from the psyche of Macron, all these nations move in unison with Washington.

Adjacent to them, South Korea and Japan, though resolute adherents of the collective West, grapple with the gravitational pull of geography position, traditions, and economic self-interest, which inexorably draw them closer to the embrace of China and Russia.

Poland, with fervour is anti-Russian, but its more orthodox family and Christian principles do not seamlessly integrate with core contemporary Western thinking. Nonetheless, Poland derives solace from its membership within the EU, providing scant reason to anticipate a serious deviation.

Hungary and Turkey wield the Damocles sword .

Hungary, is a nation that strives to march in step with the collective West, but does not the bear enmity towards Russia. Its resolute commitment to family and Christian traditions mirrors those evident in Poland. Countless attempts by Brussels to undermine the indomitable Orban have come to naught, failing to quell his popularity or his penchant for publicly censuring both NATO and EU policies. Hungary pursues a policy of nonalignment with this anti-Russian crusade, it advocates peace, abjuring further provision of armaments, whilst venturing to explore alternative avenues that foster the expansion of energy imports from Russia.

From Turkey, the enigmatic Svengali Erdogan, dances the intricate web of self-interest, pitting one side against the other. An ill-fitting member of NATO, a restless aspirant to the EU, Turkey straddles both Europe and Asia. Its western edges brush against Europe, its inner core is quintessentially Eastern. Erdogan will gift weapons upon the Ukraine whilst simultaneously inking pipeline and MIR Card contracts and welcoming surging Russian tourism. When Sweden and Finland wish to enter NATO, Turkey asks, "What profits shall I reap?" The Turkish populace harbour resentment for Erdogan's indifferent domestic policies, but they revel in his audacious foreign strutting.

Turkey, is the underbelly of NATO, it is a prize the West can not relinquish, and Erdogan, along with all of Turkey knows it. The seductive call of the BRICs and SCO beckon. If China's Road and Belt project is half successful, Turkey's destiny is pre-ordained but for now it is happy teasing all suitors.

The solitary antidote to sin and folly lies in the resolute abandonment of censorship. A democracy, poised on the precipice of descent into oligarchy and tyranny, can be salvaged solely through the steadfast rejection of the censor. Since the renaissance, every stride towards human advancement has hinged upon the unrestrained dissemination of thought. Conversely, every regression, genocide, and unspeakable atrocity has sprouted from the seeds of suppression. Absent the heavy veil of censorship, the specters of Hitler and Stalin would wither in obscurity. Neither criminal enterprise nor corruption can thrive sans censorship, for their sustenance emanates from its very shackles. The price exacted for human progress is the ardent tolerance of unpalatable discourse, however offensive, however jarring.

In our era, a solitary tragedy unfolds, wherein we, the unified West, bear the mantle of champions for this notion of free expression. It stands as the bedrock of our triumph, yet we find ourselves mired in the depths of treachery. While we espouse the virtues of tolerance, our shared culture has transmuted into an abhorrent bastion of insufferable intolerance.

Since 1945, the USA has initiated armed conflicts in over 120 countries. If we add to this record the various contrived regime change operations, the funding of separatists, colour revolutions, covert operations and economic sanctions and there is hardly a country in the world that has not directly experienced US aggression.

A generous interpretation might be something like the old idea of the white man's burden. To be fair not every war, uprising or regime change since 1945 can be attributed to US foreign intervention. It is even possible that this bellicose foreign policy has prevented the emergence of other conflicts.

But this now unmentionable narrative overshadows the global zeitgeist. Sadly, since the end of the cold war and the advent of unipolarity this topic is verboten. Our media has become incapable of challenging the official collective western foreign policy, the ensuing absence of critical analysis has so elevated the baseline level of corruption and incompetence that it has now reached a velocity that escapes the gravitational pull of reality. Our entire political class and our culture - across the collective west - is literally, technically and undeniably insane.

The Ukraine war coverage is a succession of choreographed stunts and ghost stories. Russia or Putin's demise is always weeks away. The Russians are short of ammunition. their economy is just about to tank. Any day now, there will be a coup or a spontaneous something. Each successive self serving claim is replaced and memory holed with the fresh promise that this time it really is true.

The non-western world is no longer buying it. They've had it with our compassion for human rights. They've had 70 years of empty rhetoric of democracy and human rights. They see the freedom of the press that Julian Assange enjoys. They've seen one self serving suspect crisis after another evaporate conveniently: wars on drugs, wars on terror, wars on viruses. wars on climate... They are no longer buying it.

Western media has not reported Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles destroyed 5 Patriot Systems in Kiev last week or that a Russian Missile destroyed a large cache of depleted Uranium shells sent by the UK to the Ukraine - in Khmelnytsky. They can't even concede that Bakhmut is entirely in Russian hands. Any day now there will be great Ukraine counter-offensive that will crush Russia. Watch out F16s are coming.

For 15 months, we have watched Zelensky and the Ukraine military kick Russian butt. The rest of the is watching something else. They cheer Russia as it deflects and depletes US/NATO military and economic power. 11 rounds of NATO led sanctions have not only failed to hurt the Russian economy, but the signs are that decoupling from the west, reinvesting in its own industry and realigning with the rest of world is elevating Russia towards becoming an economic powerhouse.

No number of successive disastrous economic or military escapades can dampen Western Supremacy. Not only has the recent US humiliation in Afghanistan already been forgotten - the defeat of the US project in Syria is barely acknowledged. Yet, Syria, with Assad still at the helm, has this week been welcomed back into the Arab League. The entire middle east (excluding Israel) is in rapprochement with Iran! - These are historic events.

The non-western world understand the central role that Russian military played in Syria. Russia's decision to intervene in Syria against the USA occurred in 2015 - shortly after the Ukraine Maiden colour revolution. The slow but successful Russian approach deployed in Syria is the same approach now evident in the Ukraine. War is not a board game, but if it is to be compared to a board game, then it is much less the kind of poker game or crab shoot the USA likes to play, and much more the chess game that Russians thrive at.

World War 3 Production and Supply

Our more extravagant profit based, just in time, agile, globally distributed production models work extremely well in meeting consumer demand for Smart Phones. It is perhaps an optimal model when there is peace and co-operation between countries. But it doesn't seem to possess the necessary volume grunt required to win a war.

To state the bleeding obvious - the USA is not the manufacturing powerhouse that helped win WW1 and WW2. That is China. Today, China's manufacturing capacity exceeds that of the US, the UE and japan combined. Yet, the USA chooses to goad China over Taiwan when it is at war with Russia?

Whilst the US remains addicted to bombing countries and running trillion dollar ponzi schemes, China is busying building bridges, dams, and cities all around the world. China capacity to rapidly gear up to produce billions of any kind of goods is unprecedented. Now add to China's manufacturing capacity and population, Russia's resources and military prowess. Russia who since 2015 has revived its soviet military production capacity anticipating just this conflict. The soviets never had focus groups, and so could never satisfy consumer needs. But this vertically integrated command based model arguably does suit the demands of war. It is a model that doesn't suffer from pesky efficiency requirements to deliver shareholder value. No lengthy plans and contract negotiations with disparate globally dispersed suppliers. For both Russia and China there is no profit based war industry bleeding the public purse. Production of tanks, missiles and ammunitions is determined by national needs not profits.

The relative rise of China and the rest of the non-western world is a good thing. The regression of the Western World towards delusion and tyranny is a catastrophe of biblical proportions.

Those familiar with Plato and Aristotle should not be surprised that democracy can become so corrupted. At least we know the cure, even if we aren't quite ready to take our medicine.






.

In the land down under and you?

A democratic nation like the USA, where the media is uncensored, journalists are protected from imprisonment, elections are beyond reproach, protestors are hailed as heroes and the individual is free to decide what medicine they choose to consume?

I've heard that place is a fiction .

An American asked a Chinaman:
What do you think of our constitution - it's great isn't

The Chinaman responded:
Yes! It is a great document. When do you think it will be implemented?

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

I wish I was faster or smarter, blonder or darker, stronger or taller. I wish I was richer not poorer.

I would like to be funnier and prettier but most of all I want to to be sexier.

Everything strong or beautiful tear it down;
Anything inspirational or natural, uplifting to meaningful tear it down
Wise or honest, logical or reasonable tear it down, tear it down.

Everything weak or odd lift it up
Anything demoralising or corrupt, demeaning or meaningless lift it up
Superficial or deceitful, irrational or dim lift it up, lift it up.

Hardly surprising when NATO-bellends target the messenger to avoid the message.

No people in human history have enjoyed the abundance we enjoy.
There has never been less violence, less poverty, or less misery. Technology offers the poorest child from the least developed corner of the world instant access to the entire corpus of human knowledge.

And yet no people have ever bitched and moaned as much as we do today. Increases in abundance may well have created a cyclical loop of rising expectations, Only, there is something in the nature and content of our dissatisfaction that doesn't match an elevated demand for just further abundance. Rather, what is increasingly manifest is a kind of war against reality itself.

Our economic and political institutions - however flawed they may be - have proven themselves to be sufficiently functional to satisfy our physical needs but in so doing appear to have created some sort of psychological, existential crisis.

Our economic and political systems evolved to find solutions to scarcity. Overcoming scarcity is the singular narrative theme that cuts thru human history. Super abundance is hereto an entirely absent political, economic, philosophical or cultural consideration.

Our problem is something akin to that of super lottery winner. Suddenly, acquiring the resources to do anything at all requires an altogether different wisdom.

Let us rise above our unconscious pre-suppositions and examine more closely the premise that the western mono-culture is less authoritarian than China and Russia i.e. Putin and Xi. After we strip away the platitudes and propaganda what remains is an argument based solely on a more rapid periodical rotation of political leaders.

If the last 3-7 years have proven anything, it is that all political parties throughout western democracies on any substantial matters are globally in lock-step. We saw this with the management of COVID, we saw it with the global financial crisis, the war on terror, we see it with refugee policies, trade agreements, climate change policies and we see it with the war in Ukraine. Diversity no longer applies to substantial policies.

Every single western democracy affords the same advantages to the largest global corporations and in the same way. Where any differences appear it is a matter of style, a rhetorical flourish that may descend into a public trolling fest for our entertainment but is essentially a vacuous form or performance art.

When we label governments or their leaders as authoritarian, we impute that the government or leader heavily restricts citizens rights, and the influence those citizens may have in the political decision making. If this is what we mean, then it is not apparent at all that western democracies are less authoritarian than either China or Russia. Opinion polls may have caused the UK to rotate 4 different prime ministers during the last 3 years but it has led to no substantive change in policy. On all substantive matters, war, economics, health policy et al the western public is not asked but told what to think. The platforms of descent, the politicians with differing views are marginalised.

The citizens of Western Democracies have been quietly disenfranchised. The world's largest corporations together with traditional media and social media now manage the political system. Those corporations manage campaigns and lobbyists to determine policy, and often enough the lobbyists - not the politicians - even write the legislation. The allied media then carefully script the narratives, monitor and adjust the messaging to manufacture sufficient public consent. If politics is meant to be a public debate, a battle of ideas to formulate policies that are for the greater good of the populace then Western Democracies have reached a post-democratic, post-political stage. Here, words like authoritarianism are useful for formulating powerful talking points for the publics consumption but in reality they have devolved into meaningless anachronisms.

It should be clear to us all, that economic prospects not political systems determine whether a government - of whatever constitutional form - tends towards repressing its citizens or deigning to endow them with freedoms. When economic prospects are buoyant those who are in power graciously indulge the public and allow them the appearance of agency. When threats re-appear on the horizon, the chimera of public power is revealed. What follows is always the control narrative, censorship, wars, and policies that serve to protect and sustain those in power. The once sacrosanct civil freedoms that flourished in good times instantly become disposable indulgences.

Because In Western Democracies, the last 50-70 years have been so uniquely prosperous, it is probably impossible for us to appreciate that what is now occurring is a dull reversion to the norm. We enjoyed something very special but we took it for granted and permitted it to become hopelessly corrupted.

The Ukraine War is perhaps not the War we think it is.

The rich, often obese, post-white, post-christian mega-mono-culture represents little more than 15% of the Earth's human population. During the last 300-400 years, the core of this 15% was Western European and more lately North American. They have enjoyed total hegemony over the rest of the world. They created and control all the worlds global institutions. Any country that has refused to bend the knee to its demands has been destroyed, humiliated, impoverished, bombed, bought and sold. This is the genealogy of the current mega-mono-culture that still dominates our world today.

When you live you entire life within a mono-culture you cannot help but to acquire ways of thinking, attitudes, beliefs, narratives that are unexamined. When that mono-culture enjoys unparalleled supremacy over successive generations its citizens will inevitably acquire an unconscious hubris. No matter how hard they may try to be impartial, how hard they try to consider counter-narratives, the language and ideas they inherited are already infected by its cultural-genealogy. To a western mind the range of political concepts such as justice, democracy, freedom, rights, capitalism... all arrive confined within very narrow narratives. As the formation of any nation-state by necessity requires a mythology for it to sustain its identity, it follows that each citizen is infected by that mythology.

So the Ukraine war is not about Russia invading or annexing land from a neighbour. This narrative can only be sustained by the presence of an unconscious genealogy of hubris. The ingrained blindness enables Western Media to entirely memory hole the Minsk agreements; frame all human-rights abuses as committed only by Russians; portray Zelensky is the heroic leader of the French Resistance and Putin as something inhuman.

In reality the war is about Russia refusing to bend the knee to the hegemon. We already know that when you refuse to bend the knee the mega-mono-culture is coming to destroy you by any means necessary. So the interesting question is really not the war on the ground but what is Russia's plan to avoid its own destruction?

The obvious Answer is that Russia is determined to win overwhelming support from 85% of earths nations that are not part of mega-mono-culture. The primary calculus for the Kremlin is that the conduct of the war in the Ukraine does not alienate potential allies and especially China. To defend yourself against the mega-mono-culture you need lots of resources and lots of allies to buttress yourself against the inevitable series of measures designed to destroy you. With 20% of the world's land mass, Russia has all the resources it needs. So all that Russia really needs is Allies and China.

How successful has Russia been in acquiring those allies? Well, the successive sanctions proposed by the mega-mono-culture have not acquired majority support in a series of UN votes, with the majority of countries abstaining and more recently a growing number openly coming out opposed to the proposals. We have also witnessed a growing number of countries receiving a good dressing down by the Mono-culture for being too friendly with Russia or insufficiently supportive of the Ukraine.

Given the strength of Russias economy and its continuing resilience against the mother-load of sanctions deployed, it is apparent that Russia has acquired sufficient allies to help mitigate the damage that was intended.

The Thucydides Trap
Thucydides Trap is a term popularized by American political scientist Graham T. Allison to describe a tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon. This theory suggests that China is the emergent power and the United States led mono-culture is the waning power.

From this perspective, the newly developed special relationship between China and Russia is perhaps the most significant story of the last 14 months - or perhaps the last 300 years. The ostracisation and sanctions against Russia have forced Russia to seek out China. The economic advantages this offers to China can not be over stated.

China's industrial capacity is already larger than the USA and the EU combined. Now, thanks to the sanctions against Russia, China has special access to 20% of the worlds resources at below market price. In other words, No one can hope to compete with such an input price advantage together with the economies of scale China already enjoys. Little wonder both Japan and South Korea are increasingly trying to wiggle around the Russian Sanctions and have obtained various exemptions - they can see the writing on the wall.

As goes the mother-load of sanctions against Russia, so goes US global authority. China has played a pivotal role in using its economic might to mitigate the expected damage that the sanctions were expected to cause Russia. As a result Russia's foreign reserves were restored, its inflation rate is at historical lows and its' GDP virtually at prewar levels. This stare-down, more than any results on the battlefield has fractured the aura of Western invincibility. The non-western world has gleefully enjoyed seeing, for once, the schoolyard bully and his puffed up cronies thoroughly humiliated.

There is something uniquely dynamic now happening. From Beijing to Moscow, Tehran to Riyadh, Ankara to Delhi, through South America and Africa, all over the non western world, the last 12 months have witnessed an unprecedented succession of bi-lateral and multi-lateral initiatives and investments involving large infrastructure projects, landmark trade and finance deals, and unexpected peace agreements. The non-western world may have reached an event horizon. Whilst, over in Washington and throughout the advanced western world we struggle with systemic racism, equity, inclusion, gender dysphoria and argue over how the climate is changing.

The Duran team recently aired an interesting show with India's ambassador to Russia - Mr Varma. He touched on Moscow's fear of becoming an unequal partner with China. He highlighted that India too has similar concerns with China and that China is also sympathetic to both those concerns. In short, Mr Varma - perhaps not in so many words - was suggesting that a tripartite relationship could mollify those concerns. Either way, Russia and India are actively striving to deepen their relationship further with significant joint development projects on Russia's Pacific coast.

We may well be witnessing the early stages where the economies of India, China and Russia coalesce into a single economic bloc. Such an alliance, undeniably offers advantages that are irresistibly compelling.

Nice read. An analysis that is both rational and not corrupted by the typical cartoon narratives that immerse all our collective sources of information.

But why stop short of following your own rational arguments to their logical conclusion?

Not only was this war against Russia never ever winnable but...

The only conceivable path to some kind of victory for the USA was a vague hope that the combination of kinetic war and economic sanctions might cause a coup in Moscow and a coup that by chance was compliant to western demands.

This theoretical possibility was always a reckless gamble. And yet, this calculus was the singular rational idea underpinning the western strategy in this war. But by May/June of 2022 it was clear that there was not going to be any coup that might favour western interests. The Russian public was not only not in revolt but had displayed a distinctly anti-western fervour - so that even if a coup did occur it would likely be something hardline and more militaristic.

Thus, for the US/NATO to persist with this post-June of 2022 reveals something fundamentally dysfunctional had infected the western political class and its populace:

A ten-year-old understands that it makes no sense to continue with Economic and Financial sanctions against a country that has less than 2% of the world's population but over 20% of the world's commodities. A twelve-year-old could tell you that 1.5 billion people must be relying on those commodities and that the demand for those commodities are not satiated because of a press release in Brussels. A fourteen-year-old might plot out how this would cause inflation everywhere - except in Russia.

Yet this is sadly only a tip of the iceberg. There is really no end to the incompetence and miscalculations. It is evident that the US and EU combined did not anticipate that they could be overwhelmed by Russian Military Production Capacity. We've sent to the Ukraine 16 different varieties of tanks, artillery, etcetera all requiring as many different types ammunition and spare parts. A sixteen-year-old is likely to understand why this is a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately we have not been demoralised by any of these setbacks, US/NATO leadership is champing to expand the war. It figures, If you are going to lose a war and lose your empire you don't want to lose to a mid-range power, you want to give the rightful challenger the opportunity. If you lose a war against China, who possess more industrial capacity than the EU and USA combined, the leading trade powerhouse in the world - well then - that would be at least an honourable loss.

Now whether the war does expand to China or whether it remains contained in the Ukraine and Russia is really academic. If the NEO-CON dream came true and somehow the Ukraine military did actually threaten to defeat Russia does anyone doubt China would be sending military aid to Russia. And if that occurred, the entire Western World placed on a total war footing could not conceivably compete with the production levels required.

If you can handle it, take a cursory visit to anyone of the many telegram channels covering this war in the Ukraine, then imagine how anyone could believe that the privileged western world has the stomach for this kind of fight. Aside from an excess of reserve commodities, the one thing the Russians excel at, throughout their history, is the level of suffering they will endure.

What this all amounts to is that the US empire and some 500 years of Euro hegemony is history. A new multipolar world has arrived. China, India and Eurasia are again assuming a status reflective of its size, and rightful historical importance in the world. The advantages gifted to the early adopters of mass industrialisation have all but evaporated.

Understandably, the US empire and its vassal states - the beneficiaries of those advantages - are not prepared to quietly relinquish the privileges they have acquired. The increasing levels of nonsense that we are experiencing in the world: the war in Ukraine, the rolling Financial Crisis, Assange, Snowden, the emergence of Trump, Brexit, Biden, PC, Identity polltics, Black lives mater, cancel culture, refugee crisis, the transgender trope, the War on Terror trope, Climate Change hysteria and even Covid - all of this is a direct manifestations of refusing to accept this fundamental power re-alignment.

Those on top of the food chain - whether that's the MIC, or what ever the deep-state is, our political class or our billionaires - they naturally don't want to accept a multi-polar world where the power they now enjoy is certain to diminish or possibly worse. So they continue to invent and create any and every chaos that might serve to distract and preserve their current status.

At some point, we will collectively accept reality, wake up and wonder WTF we were thinking. Or the prevailing irrationality, the troll storm we currently enjoy will escalate and the current simulation climaxes in a glorious symphony of mushroom clouds.

The New York prosecutors performed legal gymnastics to pretzel the misdemeanor counts into felonies, claiming the falsified records were meant to conceal another crime without stating in the indictment what that crime was.

One potential crime would be a violation of federal campaign finance laws — Bragg has no jurisdiction over federal proceedings. The Department of Justice does, but it has already passed on this case, as has the Federal Election Commission.

As no felony is stipulated in the indictment, the grand jury could only indict on the misdemeanour? Therefore, Bragg could only obtain a felony indictment by misleading the Grand Jury. This is the only crime here. And it doesn't require legal training to understand.

It continues to beggar belief, that when it comes to Donald J Trump otherwise sensible people consistently lose their ethical compass. Depressingly, this phenomena was evident during COVID and this war in the Ukraine and strongly suggests that many if not all of those otherwise sensible people are merely proficient at mimicry; what they are is ethical blank slates ready to unconsciously prostrate themselves in whatever direction is necessary to fit in..

In other words, for many if not most people, no matter how well educated they might be, their morality is really a keenly developed sense of fashion. Drop these people into the 19th century mid-west or 1940 Germany and in a New York minute, they turn into Supremacists.

On one level this is all misanthropically cynical. But on the other, it's liberating. Because if the masses of people and our authorities are this hopelessly fallible, then the intuition of the humble authentic self conscious individual - the organic self - is elevated to the locus of meaning and the only cure to this suicidal nihilism.

Now that the rubber is hitting the road, we will discover the truth. Personally, I doubt we in the western world can actually give up our exceptionalism and actually share power in a multipolar world of equals. The habit of patronising people from China, Africa, Middle East and Russia is at least 500 years old. It is entirely alien for us to allow other states to determine their own destiny without interference.

For all our outrage at anything resembling racism - which we are now incapable of defining - when push comes to shove, it seems we would sooner blow the whole earth to kingdom come before we ever forgo our privilege to decide the "rules based international order." Like the proverbial reprobate catholic, we are happy to confess our past sins and even self flagellate ourselves, provided that outside the confessional we can continue do exactly what we have always done.

Wild as it might sound, I'm inclined to think that this psychology - outlined above - far better explains current events, whether that be the Ukraine War, Taiwan, the sanctions against Russia, Covid, Trump hate, Assange's imprisonment, woke culture or even the hysteria around global warming. We are a culture whose ethics is in terminal decline. Collectively, the Western World (the USA and us satellites) make up less than 15% of the world's population and increasingly as the rest of the world has become comparatively more powerful, they've had enough of our mendacious Hollywood nonsense.

I don't know the truth, but I do know when I'm being lied to. And right now and for sometime, everything I read or watch is little more than click bait featuring cartoon scripts designed to create adolescent spats. All the while those in power - government or oligarchs - can go on doing whatever crazy thing takes their fancy whilst the public watches on confused, guilt ridden, self flagellating and hopelessly acquiescent.

That is a matter of opinion. Athens lost the territorial war but then founded an empire of the mind that is arguably far more lasting and important.

If we assume that this war is not itself scripted with a motive we can't clearly grasp (which can't be dismissed, but let's set it aside for now as it's not relevant to our current discussion), then it becomes easier to understand what's happening, why it's happening, and what the potential consequences might be.

This war in the Ukraine has miraculous parallels with the Peloponnesian War or what has been called the Thucydides trap. Now this might give us good cause to be cautious but none to be ignorant. The American Empire like the Athenian Golden age of the 4th Century BC is exceptional. Where the charge of hubris could be levelled against ancient Athens it can be more justifiably be charged against our USA. The theatre of action may have expanded from a corner of the east mediterranean to the entire globe and the actors have different names but the action appears almost mystically destined to follow the same sequence.

Set in the early part of the 21st Century, this tragedy of Empire reloaded has the following cast: the US playing the role of Athens; NATO the Delos League, Russia as Sparta, China as Persia, Ukraine as Sicily. History often offers parallels but rarely do they rhyme so tightly.

It's bewildering. When, by any rational assessment, Trump has been a rather benign but lightweight talent, who's worst quality is perhaps his incredibly over inflated ego; yet, he continues to consistently cause many rational people to entirely lose their dignity and continues again to trigger widespread public tantrums.

There just has to be some unconscious element to all of this. It is like he is some kind of cultural mirror: when he reveals his shallow crassness, the obvious lies and obfuscations, something about the way he does it - reveals us to ourselves - us content westerners - and we can't face it.

His vileness is obvious to us - because, in our rare moments of honesty - we remember and recognise ourselves. The MAGA crowd lacks our sophistication, and our refined duplicity and so they don't see what is obvious to us: He will say anything to get ahead - as we all do and must - in a culture which increasingly demands and rewards compliance.

Postmodernism is a big category, as is marxism. For instance, there is cultural postmodernism, which focuses on economic, political and social dynamics affecting large numbers of peoples. A TV show can be postmodern in this sense. Then there is philosophical postmodernism, also a very broad category, which is my interest. Summarized very generally , it includes much more than critique. As far as its practical applications , there an emerging movement of scientific thinking that applies postmodern ideas to the understanding of the nature of scientific practices , as well as to specific theoretical approaches within psychology( perception, neuroscience, schizophrenia ,mood disorders, autism), biology and even physics. This is anything but ‘pseudo-religious’. On the contrary, it reveals the remnants of religious thinking still influencing modernist forms of science. — Joshs

I have been wondering whether Euripides Play - MEDEA - written circa 500 BC - isn't essentially post-modern? We see Medea directly attack Greek assumptions concerning Patriarchy, Heroism, Hierarchy, Gender, Status... The poor woman, in her personal despair, fights singlehandedly against the entire classical greek narrative. A narrative that was not very different from our own until very recently.

Medea continues to be a difficult play to read even to our modern sensibilities. For what it is worth, Euripides was not as well admired by his contemporaries as Sophocles and Aeschylus. The later two tended to reinforce and glorify the prevailing myths, gods and heroes. Whereas, Euripides liked to reveal the shadow side of things the culture did not readily perceive of itself.

Postmodernism during the 20th and 21st Century has confronted many of the same themes as those dramatised by Euripides, so long ago. But this later version of Postmodernism has come to eschew the clarity of language that Euripides used so powerfully in favour of obscurity, where only those initiated into something like the Delphic Mysteries can hope to decipher its meaning and profundity.

If Medea is not a timeless exemplar of the essence of the postmodern project, then what is it? And if Medea does indeed contain the essence of PoMO, then, postmodernism is not something new but something with an ancient history.

Consider how Early-Christianity, challenged Roman Imperial sacred cows over 2 centuries before its ascension to the state religion.. That was some clash: Roman aristocratic honour against Christian forgiveness. This is not completely dissimilar to the project that postmodernism undertook to challenge Anglo-European Cultural assumptions during the 20th and 21st Century.

Whether marxist or postmodernist they are pseudo-religious ideologies. Both have something valid to offer as critiques but neither offers anything practical. They aren't even preventative but act merely as a kind of cultural post traumatic therapy. Well done to Martin for making it so clear.

Consequently, when I insist on the necessity of protection and
calculation, I am not advocating a ‘purely calculated hospitality’ or a
morality that insists on suspecting strangers (this being the two charges
Attridge makes against my position). Rather, I take into account that
the openness to the other is the source of every chance and every threat,
which is why openness may give rise to the most generous welcome as
well as the most paranoid suspicion and why there can be no such thing
as a purely calculated hospitality. The task of deconstructive analysis is
not to choose between calculation and the incalculable, but to articulate
their co-implication and the autoimmunity that follows from it. It is not
only that I cannot calculate what others will do to me; I cannot finally
calculate what my own decisions will do to me, since they bind me to a
future that exceeds my intentions, and in this sense I am affected by my
own decisions as by the decisions of an other. — Tom Storm

Eureka! Post-Modernism revealing itself as a philosophical Stream of Consciousness. There is no refuting this kind of writing - it is sublime and invalid at the same time. The tone is something confessional, psycho/religious