Belarus en passant as war resumes in Ukraine. Nothing is no longer an option.
Author Archive for patrickm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVW2QqHUJUw
Game changer!! Just the first cab off the coming rank, so the price will drop very quickly.
and possible eradication if… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bamaEMftg4
where we are now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt7T-26qQH8
update 2nd cab of the rank! Paxlovid. (less than a month) Both treatments are very effective if given in the first few days after testing positive.
All that really remains of this pandemic is to get the world’s people fully vaccinated and treated as required. Aboriginal leaders (who did so well early on with the shutdowns have self evidently gone missing over the vax rates right across the remote parts of the country.) These ‘leaders’ are the problem! Time for some new leaders.
It looks like the 1/2 theorists at 21stC will not be saying much more on this issue either!
World gone Mad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3fpnZSXWjA worth a listen,
just to start a conversation! Brendan Oneil talking to Julia Hartley-Brewer. Refreshingly open honest and above board conversation.
https://www.skynews.com.au/business/media/paul-barrys-failure-to-apologise-for-lack-of-journalistic-integrity-shown-by-abc-over-pascoe/video/a97395bd80a2e6e3c7824046fb4dd4e1
Bolt is spot on in this example!
The nature of the 2 party dictatorships across the Anglo world is that luck plays a very big part. It has to be said that were it not for Covid19 Trump would have romped it in, but if my sister had balls…Covid19 was the only thing that stopped Trump from romping it in!
But now a divide and rule situation has arisen in the US. Whatever was the situation prior to the Capital Hill fiasco, it no longer matters. Disunity is death, is one of the great working maxims to anchor our thinking when pondering what ‘next’ for the Trump show.
If Trump were to run in 2024 then the GOP would not be fit for purpose. He is still very popular but he also unites the democrats and mobilises the woke. The GOP is now his party and there is some buyer remorse over Biden who is so clearly suffering from a cognitive disorder that renders him unfit for the job. The ‘liberal’ mass media are carrying him and it has reached joke level!
But the GOP is now in a state of disunity that’s way past the ‘normal’ bounds of parties being taken over by a different faction or swapping radically different leaders and taking a very different path as a result. It can’t revive with Trump and it probably can’t revive without him so he will have to play kingmaker for the GOP to get anywhere on this cycle -all things being equal and I suppose they won’t be.
If a credible ‘new leader’ were to emerge and Trump swung his supporters behind such a person then the GOP would be fully competitive. On the other hand, if Trump were to take on all comers in the primaries and wipe the floor with them to the point that the party had to put him forward against Harris then even though this election was close and he was well-positioned for another tilt in 2024 it would not now work!
In Australia, Howard was again made leader a ¼ century ago by the Liberal party for a good reason, and he became PM in drovers dog style simply because the voters were going to throw out Keating in 1996! Howard then did a good enough job to win a second term when he took an actual policy to the people in 1998 (and people knew that Keating had also wanted this policy anyway). But then fate stepped in and he became a wartime leader in 2001, (and there were difficult refugee issues) and finally, the people elected him again when the complexity of war got thrown on the table for his fourth electoral win in 2004.
But times up came along and ‘Kevin 07’ saw the end of Howard in a predictable and unavoidable exhaustion of Howard’s luck.
Anyway; Australians saw what a return of disunity meant from both sides when the Howard era ended! The country went through a farcical period of PM swapping Rudd – Gillard – Rudd – Abbott -Turnbull – Morrison; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Australia_by_time_in_office and we ended the period with Scotty from marketing who is however up against Albanese, and so is IMV despite the best efforts of the ABC / ALP / Greens ‘destined’ to win the next election.
So the ALP is looking for a new hope right now!
President Biden’s inauguration today represents a triumph of hope over fear, of common purpose over division. pic.twitter.com/awMh8ZsrPY
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) January 20, 2021
Trump got lucky in 2016 and won against a hated alternative who had insulted GOP supporting workers across America as ‘a basket of deplorables’. His luck has however just run out and from his own actions!
It’s only the fact that it is the looming woke madness of Harris and sleepy Joe that is now underway that could even potentially revive him.
The Dems… well they now have at least enough rope to hang themselves with – president sleepy, plus control of both the House and the Senate. So even though they would get a honeymoon period from most swingers and swingers are all that counts in this game, they also have the women’s vote and color card to play to hold the battleground 3 or so states that count.
But the enemy for the GOP is only theoretically the Democrats.
Trump has however by his own mistaken actions -in pushing beyond what was reasonable to end up in the 5 deaths in the Capital Hill fiasco – despite all the other issues involved buried himself past where a revival is now possible! The GOP will not after a few years struggle again unite behind him. It is split.
It’s far too soon to work out what will emerge from this mess with the GOP and the Trump rump and if that reunified effort can win in 2024 but the Obama style rubbish is going for another four year run and Joe despite all the minding by his wife and family is not going to be there in 3 years time! Harris is on the way! So the question of who will win when the fight is X v Harris is wide open -IF- Trump does not split the vote!
But Trump is NOW not going to win in 2024.
*************
Still no sign of sense from the ½ theorists about Syria, Erdogan, Libya, Ukraine or even Nagorno Karabakh and plenty more besides like Brexit!
The MENA notably is off the comment about list of topics and Trump is about all that’s left and there’s not much sense there either!
Covid19 comment has also been a bit silly and even the Premier of NSW makes more sense on reflection.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6224016703001
And as I have pointed out this is worth a read.
Even if by a conservative sky news presenter!
As the wide eyed woke will remind us there was no president John McCain, instead there were 8 (long) years of dithering Obama. The Syrian people well remember what this dithering meant for them. The liberal media have literally shepherded the do nothing but stop Bernie candidate – Joe I’m losing my faculties fast Biden – passed all pressure and the hounding that is reserved for Trump. But ‘I lasted longest and did less’ Biden is now only a seat warmer for an even more shocking example of woke in the form of the rank opportunist Harris.
Trump upset too many people and the US masses have a short attention span, and the western world’s liberal dominated media has been on a full throttle anti-Trump crusade. I say they have won this round and unfortunately there really is an ‘ impending return of liberal domination of US politics. I also agree that the liberals are both self-serving and fantasizing about Trump, and now are ‘even more thoroughly corrupt and disconnected from the people than ever’! Of course with NO left ALL opposition ‘will still be from the right.’ and it must also be remarked that against this deluge of liberal twaddle the rightists will be far closer to the concerns of working people.
But can or will a defeated Trump…’ retain leadership of a large right wing party loudly convinced that the election was stolen by the corrupt liberal elite.’? Short answer; no.
The first better question I have is why would he – a narcissist- even bother to stick with his supporters and keep a party going? Why wouldn’t he just move on as is usual for such people? What’s in it for Trump? Does anyone think that he will hang around at the top of a political party and conduct a struggle to again contest for the presidency in 4 years time? That’s a possibility of course but a very long shot possibility that I’m not currently buying. I doubt he would win such a long term quest for a second term and I think he will most probably ‘retire’ to just being Trump. There is also, most importantly, no one in the wings to anoint so the party that had really only one purpose ought to just drift and end because it lacks a raison d’etre.
Around what and who would a ‘consolidation of a far right mass based party in the USA’ take place? Pence? Quite obviously not. Trump after the election may well just be yesterday’s man going nowhere and leading nothing as is usual. This is more like his predicament especially at his age but never say never and of course he would take advantage of an opportunity if it looked like being a going concern at the time. Who can say what the world will look like in 3 years time. I may doubt but…
Even if ‘the “stab in the back” legend has a powerful appeal on the right and we will still be stuck with a weak inept ruling class and no left wing opposition.’ my next question is so what? The republican party will have to patch itself together while the Trump party disintegrates.
I didn’t call the last US election correctly, but I have had a good record over the years for picking up on the bigger issues and so I’ll stick my neck out and stay with my earlier prediction. It’s now less than 2 weeks out and I still predict a Trump loss in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, so Biden will win the election; and the win will be quite clear so there will be no drama at all to speak of and a ‘gracious’ hand over will take place as usual. Trump will have got his pick for the court and the Democrats will NOT stack the court in retaliation! It’s all just bluff, because in the long run that would badly damage the Democrat brand.
What I can’t possibly know and yet what my gut is telling me are that the players are assuming this win and now people can only pray and live in desperate hope that enough people can’t be that foolish as to actually vote for the ham sandwich. But that hope is utterly misplaced.
People will find they are waking up ‘free of Trump’ BUT in a woke madness with soon to be POTUS Harris wide eyed and hovering around sleepy Joe on every occasion.
Can’t see Biden lasting 2 years and Harris will be very prominent from the word go. Harris is a shocker like Obama but easily able to fool enough democrats to make that party the plaything of what are now properly considered as the global warming elite whack jobs, and they are going to deliberately destroy Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin! It will be a couple of years before the working class wakes up to the horror; but wake up to it they will.
8 long years of the look off into the distance phony Obama will probably not get a replay!
Give me a narcissistic outsider rocking the boat against this horror outcome any day. Not as clear a choice as that between McCain and Obama but nevertheless just as real. The damage that the woke democrats are about to let loose is head-shaking in its implications.
Biden’s minders have kept him out of the spotlight long enough and the gods of fate have done the rest.
So when the answer is Trump the question is horrible because without a doubt Trump is a better bet than Harris/Biden. This is not Tweedledee or Tweedledum and undoubtedly the world would be better off with Trump than Harris/Biden. The world is faced with the disaster of another term of the Obama types running the US and Harris knows Biden is suffering a worsening dementia condition and that he certainly will have to hand over to her. She is currently ‘measuring up the drapes’.
Right now the biggest threats to the world’s working class peoples’ are Putin style fascism, and ABC/BBC type woke madness. We have seen it with the issues of war and peace that Obama was so useless in dealing with and that Trump continued to be pretty hopeless with. The 2nd time round in the shape of Harris will be even worse!
A comparable period is prior to WW2 or even WW1 as all the powers mill about with regional wars pointing to the bigger issues. Just as the anti-communist aristocrat Churchill was the answer to the vicious and strategically disastrous war-making of the appeasers Trump is a better bet but….
This is the alternative that has always been worthy of thinking about and as we have seen in Victoria has not been. The vulnerable must be protected and that is the key question. We are not all in this together! Over 60 or overweight etc and you (we) are in this in a big way …shelter from this storm. Fit and under 60 carry on.
A 1,000 fold risk difference must be taken advantage of.
Turn off the Air conditioners. Get out in the open. Wash hands. Isolate if your over 60.
I’ve been following the work of this Dr (a very experienced nurse educator not MD)for some time and think he’s one of the better examples that’s been steadily working away at getting a real handle on this mind-numbing virus
I must admit that I’m a little more optimistic than he is but with the experience of Trots and ‘Maoists’ and the Melbourne 1/2 theorists over these last 5 years I honestly can’t imagine why other than it’s a personality quirk of mine.
I haven’t had much to record and what I have is still standing up.
This virus does not like the hot humid conditions; it has a seasonal aspect to it; viral load is important, and so on.
My family were involved for many years in nursing homes and I once worked as a nurse in a major nursing home. So I have a bit of understanding of how these places work. I am not at all surprised that Victoria is now a disaster area for these establishments.
As I said elsewhere Andrews is a walking disaster.
This thread is just a place for me to make public some of the links I regularly collect for anyone who would want to use them.
Naturally, I’ve had virtually no respect and not much use for the ABC / BBC or the rest of the MSM for many years but now I barely look or listen to them as other than background noise while I search the net for some credible material.
I do however find myself increasingly suffering Sky news (in the manner of ‘give me an honest right-winger against a pseudoleftist any-day’) as the Oz MSM of first choice. At least there is an effort to doubt the ALP/Greens/Woke madness and put some form of intellectual opposition on display. At least the Sky hive mind is a slight improvement on the hive mind propaganda streaming out of the -government funded- alarmist headquarters with their pretense of balance over time etc!
Virus watch
If people are not keeping up with Dr. John Campbell all I can say is that they ought to! He’s been talking good sense all through this crazy year. IMV there is no excuse now for a lack of optimism as death rates are currently tumbling as the treatments often very cost efficient are coming on stream at a rapid rate!
NOTE!
labels for these links done here!
p1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q5teMsw2h4
The jury is in on Hydroxychloroquine – ‘it saves lives’: Rowan Dean to Bolt
p2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK4Xm-l0gYA
Coronavirus lockdowns, a good idea says Campbell Sep 9 2020
p3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5fKWr_Dx1A
Russian Vacine and recent research Sep 5 re 4 studies published 3= Viral load important
p4 https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6188159990001
Sky reports ‘Studies show hydroxychloroquine cuts ‘virus mortality in half in high risk groups’
p5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Ks9fUh2k8Vitamin D
Campbell re Vitamin D First clinical trial more positive than I could have imagined! September 6! What gives when the data is so clear!
p6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZRUq3Igf-k
Immunity and vaccine optimism sep 8
p7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-oQI2RoXPI
Pandemic Science, Vaccines soon Sep 2
p8 https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6188680157001
Kenny Melbourne GP says Ivermectin treatment is ‘very effective’ Sep 8
But what is to be done?
p9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XE5FVEzz-U
Turkey watch
Bolt watch
p11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H957CJPmRXI
Climate watch
p12 https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2020/09/climate-trials/
P13 https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6188418470001
P14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPoGoXhFL2E
P15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbjo47fUxRM
Barry recently published a reminiscence about his 1971 trip to China that I very much enjoyed reading.
Nevertheless the following paragraph struck me as just the sort of thinking that people used to get away with in the sheltered land of communist youth groups and perhaps such thinking is still lingering with Barry.
‘3. Who needs a Navy? I’ll never forget meeting with party cadres and discussing the military threats to China from the Soviet social-imperialists (the Ussuri River border being a dangerous hot spot where fighting had broken out in 1969) and from the US imperialists in Indo-China and the Pacific. We were told that China’s military strategy was entirely defensive and based on the Peoples Liberation Army and civil defense. My ears pricked up when mention was made of a coastal naval defense force. I asked, “Why doesn’t China have a conventional Navy – why just a small coastal guard?” The reply, which I’ll never forget, was that “China does not need a Navy because we have no intention of expanding our interests beyond China. We shall never become imperialist! Only imperialists need a large powerful Navy!”’
So now that China has a vast blue water navy and is so obviously a blatantly vicious imperialism Barry recalls the statement and it becomes a sort of ‘ah ha’ moment for him about what the attitude of revolutionary China was in comparison! But it’s clearly not so simple. (I may have misunderstood where Barry was going with this thinking, but it’s worth teasing out…especially given how we fell out so completely over Putin turning up in Syria and what it would mean to the democratic revolution! Having got it completely wrong Barry has never managed to backtrack through the issue, so I’m not hopeful.)
But that statement from the Chinese side was silly at face value. That is to say even at the time it was made it was silly! People that didn’t spot or face up to this type of statement as just a foolish ‘propaganda’ style explanation all those years back might want to think again now. If you can’t spot either the self serving duplicity or actual naivety involved then you might be vulnerable to similar thinking. That’s one thing for a young person but I’d have to question the worth of the wisdom growing years in between if such a view is persisted with now.
So am I building a straw man? I hope so in the narrow sense; but in the broader sense definitely not. The style of thinking involved here is spread right through the progressive element that I have known over the decades. These are people who are not outright pseudoleftists, but are drifting, or have long ago drifted to the methods of the cancel culture and who now – with perhaps the excuse of ‘good’ manners regularly operate on silence when they know full well they ought to speak up. They live a pretence that they as individuals are scientifically minded and open to debate when they are nothing like involved in the search for understanding. They long ago stopped operating in the manner Mao advocated in combat liberalism so that ‘open honest and above board’ is just an old slogan they might remember, but it has no effect, no substance in their current world.
After Putin signed up to some comforting words about democracy and elections in Syria half theorists – who were people that used to regularly post or comment at Strangetimes – totally abandoned the Strangetimes project. In never walking this issue back they demonstrated that they most certainly are vulnerable to a delusionary drift.
Lately we have had the anti Erdogan claptrap from Tom G and silence from all the others who know full well that it is claptrap! Or they ought to! Who can tell with the silence! If based on any draining of the swamp theory then Tom G’s view has no connection to a democratic revolutionary’s standpoint but who can tell with such people. Silence. Cancel culture. Talk to themselves. Drift…
This Chinese blather from 50 years ago is not the sort of thinking that could sink the Bismarck and of course the Bismarck had to be sunk! I don’t think you would get the leftist child of a WW2 sailor making such a comment! But then who would think that someone from Malta could accept such twaddle either. Yet…
Chinese ‘red’ blather was never the sort of thinking that could have occurred to the American revolutionaries like Jefferson. He immediately built a blue water navy to deal with the Barbary pirates. From the very beginning of that revolutionary country the navy was integral to its survival as a beacon for revolution.
Whatever line was being pushed in 1970, in reality Mao would not have accepted such blather any more than Zhou En Lai. (Both had lived through WW2 and both had watched Battleship Potemkin.) China was too poor to build a big blue water navy at the time so it just didn’t matter! China did however build an atom bomb; and they built their bomb despite the Mao stand that atom bombs were in the final analysis ‘paper tigers’! Building of Atom bombs was something that the young communists of the time managed to rationalize and I for one would be keen to learn how those that did so argued about it.
Singers of the Internationale can’t forget seafarers! Shipping is the reality of globalists. The Internationale can’t be sung by anti shipping land-lubbers with ‘a coastal navy’ and make any sense.
In the past, even the suppression of slavery by the British navy would become someone else’s job with this type of no blue water navy thinking! On its face this is rubbish where Japan’s WW2 navy disappears in a puff. It’s ‘other people’s job to deal with that’ is the consequence of this style of thinking. Proletarians have a world to win and we crew big ships that we build and fill and consume the contents of. We are not the slightest bit interested in ‘food miles’ nor with small is beautiful thinking.
Simply speaking the democratic revolution does not go global from the start so revolutionaries do have naval issues to consider! The communist revolution is not yet in sight.
Despite appearances created by the current victories of revisionists, genuine communists are the cutting edge of the democratic revolution, and we are very interested in the navy. In 2020 when there are still no revolutionary countries in some kind of socialist camp to bother us, piracy still creates a stupid thought pattern among pseudoleftists.
Workers crew ships full of cargo, yet are supposed to be left to fend for themselves while these so-called ‘lefties’ condemn the big ships and the multi-national transport conglomerates as well! The greenies even try to stop the coal and other fossil fuels being shipped to save the planet no less. Just consider the green scaremongering when a bulk carrier ran aground the other day! Totally pathetic scaremongering of a very minor mistake made by careless workers. The ship’s crew were responsible for the loss of that bulk carrier. The workers stuffed up!
Of course Barry gets the stupidity of a stand that leaves seafarers at the mercy of pirates, but he might be a bit weak on just how you deal with pirates! I don’t know. I do know the ½ theorists are totally weak on Turkey and the PKK issue. The Mediterranean and MENA issue have just drifted away over these 5 years!
This type of soft thinking from 50 years ago jumps up to bite almost everyone with a leftist disposition when it comes to people sloshing around the world as refugees. The vexed issue of refugees brings on more silence. Not just people being bombed into sloshing around by the current crop of fascists led by the audacious Putin either.
We know there are 3.6 million of these people sheltering under Erdogan’s protection in Turkey and as many more protected by the Turkish army in Syrian enclaves! I suppose 3-400,000 Syrians made it to the safety of the west! The lucky ones who are enjoying the good life! But Putin’s policy was to continue the Assad policy of creating refugees. They had policies of attacking hospitals and making lots more refugees; so what is to be done? Put in troops to resist him and shoot down his aircraft if they come near that is what a modern mechanized army can do. That is what the Turks are positioned to do. That is how the world must deal with Putin’s refugee making policies. That is how Erdogan is dealing with the issue.
The other far more humble entrepreneurial type people smugglers who just know what they want and have the get up and go to go and get it are also audacious in their own way. But are they the solution to the peoples problems? NO and that is obviously so.
Open the borders, let the people of the world roam free is the -quite frankly- dishonest or dim witted easy answer that neither Zhou En Lai nor Mao were themselves prepared to countenance in their day. These real revolutionary leaders faced up to their responsibilities of leading almost ¼ of humanity. They never took charge of China just to issue such a declaration of ‘freedom’. They did exactly the opposite. What is more everybody knows they did and so everybody can see the giant double standard that ½ theorists carry. Stay at your post was the order in China. Do not flood the cities but urbanization was required and proceeded in a measured kind of way. Mao did not betray the peasants or just use them and move on. The historical tasks were not avoided by policies of silence either. China had to be functioning as well as changing as rapidly as possible. What was possible was always at issue but make yourself useful was never in doubt! So those seeking the easy life are simply not first priority when the real problem is millions in poverty.
Being bombed by the fascists to the point where there is for them no alternative but to run to save their lives is one thing. Having for example made it to Turkey ought Turkey shuffle them on to Sweden? Ought all the doctors go to live in Paris? How about all the engineers? Will the emptying countries be left with the old and no one to care for them as parts of many countries actually develop right now?
So to recap. September 2015 was when the Russians turned up with aircraft in Syria! The now silent Australian communists post no current content on what is now several years of important developments in the MENA region. Indeed some comments from as little as a couple of years ago were nothing more than a doubling down on the previous foolishness! We are now about to enter the sixth year after the intervention and Arthur retained his thinking from the last months of 2015 that reality had shattered with Russian barrel bombs in the first 6 months. Since then not much for me to even bother to reply to. I poke a stick at them every now and then, but the corpse doesn’t stir!
Silence from reds is nothing less than a disgrace! If people are to contribute to the world wide people’s revolution that all manner of progressive people and the all important industrial proletariat is interested in, it does matter what ‘we’ theorists think even if revolutionary minded people currently control almost nothing at all.
Big problems requiring revolutionary solutions are in the here and now! No involvement in the political struggle, no involvement in the economic struggle and no involvement in the theoretical struggle is just no involvement at all!
Revolutionary states will maintain blue water naval forces long into the future!
Apparently it’s all a bit of a Minsk up!
‘The crisis in Belarus has developed at a scorching pace and some analysts said Putin had misjudged the momentum of the protests.
“Putin has been surprised, perhaps no less than Lukashenko himself, about what’s happened,” said Gould-Davis. “And they don’t know how to effectively respond to a rapidly changing and inherently unpredictable situation. No one does. But they will want to control it.”’ Duh!
Lukashenko has been on the phone to Putin and in desperation would have said something like; ‘If I go, who do you think will be the next cab off the rank Vlad?’ But that logic won’t impress Vlad the audacious! Anyway a TINA moment has arrived for Vlad or -as he sees this- him on behalf of Mother Russia no less.
A week after the phony elections and the unrest is now peacefully growing but the police after just one death of a demonstrator -from their brutality- have eased up and clearly they are unable to stop the large scale milling around that will now – in the grand tradition of such struggles- become a daily feature of Minsk life as the main square or something has to be occupied immediately.
It may look to the police a bit like visions of the old East German police and look what became of them! They might not see this as a good bet to stay out of jail themselves now.
Lukashenko is clearly finished if the demonstrators press their advantage now! The only thing that could keep him going for even a couple of weeks is a lack of immediate action to send him on his way!
Lukashenko is gone but not in the way that Assad was ‘gone’!
BBC reports from Moscow say Lukashenko is seen by Russian insiders as ‘a dead man walking’ and that seems reasonable enough to me so I wonder why he was congratulated for his ‘win’. Vlad and Jinping, just last week congratulated Lukashenko on his ‘win’. That was a stupid blunder! Silence was a no brainer! What do they look like to the people of Belarus now! Not pretty!
This is now an inevitable turn to the west and a link to the peoples of the Baltics and Ukraine.
So this week all is apparently forgiven from the recent arrests of Russian mercenaries; whatever that was all about.
The world is starkly divided with such idiocy on full display. Previous generations just didn’t hold such elections in the first place! That old form of tyranny makes a bit more sense to me than this farce and that is what it is. Anti democrats of the world unite because you have empires to lose! So just as Jinping is reacting to Hong Kong so will Putin react to his ‘territory’ Belarus! Putin really believes that territory is Russian! He is not going to bow out of this contest. That is not the nature of the little Czar.
Yet there is much more than a little truth in this; ‘While monitoring Belarus closely and discouraging further state violence, U.S. and EU policymakers must start preparing for the potentially much more devastating flashpoint that is Russia. No dictatorship is permanent, and in reaching for an outer empire in Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, Moscow’s inner empire could start to crumble.’
Like everyone else I’ve watched the slow train from Minsk for the last few weeks and so far… no surprises! The week after another election has been blatantly stolen by Lukashenko (as he has done often enough before) and naturally his police state thugs were out beating and arresting anyone who objected. Calling a clear and big election win a gigantic loss is bound to deliver a mass turnout on the streets so they had quite a few to put in the slammer and it just got bigger. But his thug state is only going to hold together for a couple of weeks because the rally’s are just not big and angry enough.. just yet. But events are moving to fast for either tyrant now that me thinks this is starting to get a bit of the Nicolae Ceaușescu feel about it!
So curiously the ½ theory makes some sense in this instance but why not? After all, I have always half thought along the lines of the half theorists!
‘Andrej Babiš, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, tweeted on Sunday: “What happened to us in 1968 must not happen in Belarus. The European Union must act.”’ I wonder what he thinks they will do exactly. They will undoubtedly offer a great deal of revolutionary advice! That will start by; ‘keep up the pressure’, ‘keep the masses on the streets’; all the Lenin and Mao stuff for sure!
There has been an election and this can now only be resolved in a hand over to the real winner; for an eventual re-run under proper free and fair conditions and thus for her husband a very probable 2nd win.
Putin is scrambling because there is no legitimate candidate for him. This is a country that has to go western and that does not fit Putin’s plans in any shape. The new leadership won’t be any ‘worker’ politicians or Marxist types that’s for sure! This struggle is for western style democracy in the same manner as the Iberian peninsular in the seventies but it’s without a workable future! The resolution of this one simple democracy issue is whatever else it is economically doomed from day1. It will fix nothing of the peoples livelihood issues. Capitalism is not capable of fixing the current crisis in Belarus. Putin might have to play the long game to get back in to Belarus but I can’t see that working.
Will a big Russian meddling work and Belarus settle down for decades like a 1968 Russian intervention in Czechoslovakia? Of course not and Putin can’t believe that it would.
On the other hand what else can he do other than meddle? He might ask his advisors the difficult question ‘Does anyone have an alternative?’ He could be met with silence and a perception of TINA resolves a lot of issues for tyrants. Let’s see what turns up might be the shrug of shoulders casting of the die.
The more probable course is a stall in the democratic struggle after a short term hand over and then a much more bloody building-up period being required to even get to the first stage of freedom from the gangster rule. If the army cracks all bets are off. Here’s hoping of course!
So TINA for Russian meddling at some point!
The Russians are making all manner of noises that will either end in some kind of meddling -for the sake of law and order- or the beginning of the end for Putin will have started.
Anita’s aunt lived in a small country town in South Australia. About a fortnight ago the family in Adelaide were contacted with the news that she was going downhill fast and that they had better come and visit; so Anita and her mother did. Aunty was very frail but they had a nice visit. Two weeks later she was dead of pneumonia, aged 90.
Aunty’s death highlights that every day of our short lives we live in a bug soup world. In the last few days of her life her body could not fight off any bugs at all as her immune system was failing with all the other systems. In the end, as many of us do go, an elderly woman was taken out by one of these bugs. Taken out 2 months after moving to the nursing home.
Of course nobody was surprised and nothing much could have realistically been done to prolong her life, nor did she want to. Of course she could have been taken to an even ‘more germ free environment’ and been given more antibiotics while barrier nursed and she may still have lived to next week or the week after; but the point that I’m making is clear; she was in one of ‘God’s waiting rooms’ for a reason; just like those of us who will be lucky enough to live long enough to follow her. On the other hand there are plenty of us that would hope to not quite make that move and instead (perhaps with just a little extra help in our last few years) shuffle off just prior to that short stay.
So here’s the drum. All the authorities that are running this covid19 response and those that are running the ABC/SBS scare-machines have IMV got it fundamentally wrong and that ought not surprise anyone. It’s not just Dan Andrews who is as wrong on this as he is on the litany of issues that make woke people what they are; it’s a case of ‘Wrong Way, Go Back’ for the lot of them! Here is Peta Credlin on the Victorian cock-up and Dan’s refusal to answer questions. https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6178312566001
Sure the second bad result in Victoria was after Andrews had fumbled with the hotels and was busy dodging his responsibility for that stuff-up with the quarantine security. But all along all the politicians in power in Australia have been looking the wrong way.
Dan’s approval drops from 65% to 49% and is still falling but the problem is country wide. They are all following muddle headed policies. This far out and the one thing that is clear is that Dan will not survive as Premier for or at any rate after the next election 27 long months away. The Victorians have fixed terms.
Andrews has been too preoccupied to be critically or creatively thinking about what next, or making any reassessment of what path was adopted. But none of them were or are. Unlike the Swedes the people were not being trusted nor properly worked with; they were just being ordered around by the 2 party state authorities and ‘medical experts’ who the politicians are blindly following, and who are, in Australia, apparently all still in lock step and consequently forcing the people to find the alternate views on what to do from their own research efforts!
Only now -perhaps- are the ranks of the authorities starting to break! Only now ‘the little grey cells’ are stirring.
All along there was an alternative. The Emperor has in this case, almost no clothes. The political class that have been getting issues wrong for years are simply wrong again! But they are so heavily invested in their views and consequent actions despite them being devastating fails, that they are completely deaf to reason. They are quite unable to doubt themselves in any effective manner. They have brought on an economic disaster, and people in their millions in a great many countries are now going to be forced into thinking.
I think we have now reached a hide tide of woke madness. I conclude this because the woke can’t fix what they’ve just smashed! The ruling elites have stuffed up big time so TINA… the peoples’ across the world are going to have to fix this one!
In essence Sweden was and is correct! That’s despite the Swedes not being able to protect their most vulnerable EITHER; their overall methods were sound. Their societal structure is more like the Netherlands and the results they obtained were not that different from any of the comparable countries.
They have not done as well as the Netherlands as yet, (and the smart money would be on a vaccine now so that would be game set match) but it’s still far too soon to tell what the real end result of this is going to be. In the end there will be all manner of deaths that have to be properly accounted for and it might turn out closer than it currently looks.
Most importantly the Swedish authorities accept and are dealing with their failures and that is refreshing; their opponents in countries like Australia have not, and with their world view cannot accept theirs! On the contrary, at this stage they are doubling down! The vaccine and the always developing better treatments might save them or at least appear to.
The Swedes continue to rethink what they are doing, without accepting that what is being done elsewhere is in any way better than what their public policy has managed. The ‘normal’ deaths from the conditions for their ‘flu’ season was expected to be about 2,000, and it has now on August 7 (after what they accept is a very bad run) risen to 5,760 for this corona-19 enhanced viral or ‘flu’ season. That is a better way to think about the issue because it’s really an issue about deaths above usual and authorities are obliged to think about what is happening with THESE numbers.
A case of all lives matter but when you are living in God’s waiting rooms all manner of the normal bug soup we exist in will knock us off our, ‘ever thinning, pedestals.’
Disregarding the anomalous inclusions of San Marino, Andorra and Sint Maarten, Sweden is actually number 6 in deaths per million, but the more you test the more you find and that has produced some interesting results to ponder about;
Here is Sweden a couple of days apart and we can both see issues with the data but also note that critical cases are low and still falling!
649 more cases 3 deaths and no increase in critical numbers. The death rate from cases is now falling and that is not apparent to Australians. Treatments are producing better results as well.
This is the Swedish deaths age profile.
6 Sweden population 10,106,111
Sample 4 (11thAug) 82,972 cases 5,766 deaths
recovered N/A active N/A critical 34 cases p mil 8,210
death pmill 571 total tests 863,315 t pmil 85,425
Sample 3 (8thAug) 82,323 5,763
N/A N/A 34 8,146 570 863,315 85,425
Sample 2 (?) 81,967 5,766
N/A N/A 38 8,111 571 863,315 85,429
Sample 1 (?) 81,540 5,760
N/A N/A 41 8,069 570 863,315 85,431
What about the country they would like to be compared to?
Netherlands population 17,138,756
56,982 6,153
N/A N/A 37 3,325 359 1,079,860 63,007
So far the Dutch who have tested less per mil are well ahead of the Swedes who are well ahead of the Belgians and the Brits for example. But this is still playing out. And the rate of deaths per cases are a different matter! Why so starkly different?
Sweden 82,972 cases 5,766 deaths
Netherlands 56,982 cases 6,153 deaths
on top of that here we are days later (14 August) and the numbers have gone up in Sweden by 880 cases and 4 deaths but in Netherlands 4222 and 12 deaths! So the gap closes a tiny bit.
Sweden 1 dead : for every 1751.5 people V 1:2780 for Netherlands
1028.5 people!
Thankfully, the rapid improvements in treatments and the probable success of a vaccine in the very near future suggests that this gap will not close. What that will work out in average years lost will be very interesting and especially so when then compared to other deaths that must be also accounted for.
Now just as Trump tried to tell the Trump deaf media that the more you test the more you find, (my little spread sheet), and that this is an important point to think about when cases range from no symptoms to death in days; let’s now think about this regardless of who reminded us to do so.
Why are some countries so deadly in their ratio of deaths to total case numbers? Countries like Mexico are just not testing all those non and mildly symptomatic people that Australia and the US for examples are.
Perhaps an intellectual fightback against what is now a manifest stupidity in public health care policies is starting to crank up?
Here are 9 links that people may want to review starting with the 2 researchers in evidence based medicine..
‘Must be motivated by hatred!’ ‘The cruel negligence of the lockdown’, with Dr John Lee. BRAVO!
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May as well post this as well… 
Followed by week 2…and expose others on Monday; expose more on Tuesday, etc.. Yet, in Dan Andrews land, this simple concept was not routinely stamped into the consciousness of every person that turned up for testing! If you went for testing you must have suspected your health. So you must then quarantine UNTIL you get the all clear in a couple of days. And if you get a positive result the period extends. Simple.
It seems to me that the only people that really ‘got it’ in Australia were the Aboriginal leaders who understood that their already isolated communities were full of vulnerable people and that they would lose quite a few if they did not shut the world out! Only supplies were allowed in, not people. They still understand just how vulnerable their communities are. They took firm action and it worked and will continue to for as long as they carry on with it.
This isolation procedure has to somehow work for the vulnerable non isolated town and those in the cities and that last category is where it’s difficult to believe that it can! The elderly who are still living at home and caring for themselves can clearly make it work. It may seem like quite a bit of effort but it’s clearly worth it to make a reasonable attempt at isolation. It seems to me that the well and otherwise healthy elderly and the wealthy in particular have no excuse for not staying isolated. And those that require a bit of help like Meals on Wheels recipients can expect that good procedures have or can be implemented that can give them a fighting chance to still be isolated. But those procedures must be audited.
The missing method in all of this is to appoint someone to do the task and another to check that the task is really being done. People ought to have been designated from the start whose 1 task was to deliberately try to point out the holes in all actions that were underway before the new cases made a ‘hole’ self evident.
As for the nursing homes right across the country NOBODY had a clue what to do and though they are attempting to do barrier nursing NOW it will not work in any long term sense!
Meanwhile the country has been shattered and the just as real but unseen deaths are piling ever higher!
Those that ran the testing in Victoria dropped that ball, just as those who were running the quarantine hotels for returning travelers dropped the one ball they had! Dan Andrews was ultimately running both programs and he couldn’t even get that 2nd message (simple testing and a 3 day quarantine) right.He didn’t have a soldier at the service of a dozen or so of the potentially infectious individuals.
These people had to stay put till the results came a few days later, when most would get the all clear and safely go their way! Whatever was the practical number of short term quarantining people would be effectively served by each soldier. (to ensure they got what they needed etc.) It ought to have been worked out and delivered day 1, it is being done now after the failure BUT it was a predictable action from the start.
Those who got the bad news of a positive result would have to start on the second quarantining period with all of the complications of their various living conditions to be sorted out immediately. These people had either to be quarantined where they were or if that was impractical because of others in their home etc., taken off to a quarantine station/medi-hotel, until they tested negative! Obviously, the very few who then actually did get sick or sicker would just have to progress through the healthcare system till they either got better or died. All of this is such basic stuff that it is astounding how grossly incompetent was the Andrews government..
But even after people got sick enough for a hospital admission they ought never have been taken into a general and multi story hospital with this air borne infection. Emergency isolation hospitals as we had for infectious diseases in the past ought to have been re-activated. Instead the medico’s were wrongly focussed on ICU’s and ventilator machines, and they were never really the issue! Seperate ICU’s ought to have been developed as well. There was a mass hysteria, and a vast over reaction about ventilators was the case even in New York! We all ought to know this and yet months later most people are not thinking about why this happened nor what went wrong next. There was what amounts to a massive misdiagnosis. The experts were stampeding and the ABC type media compounding the problem. Even now as death rates from the hospitalised steadily fall this good news is being missed completely in the woke media.
All of the above control measures are straight forward and well understood quarantine procedures! But not in Victoria under Andrews. Instead Dan was the most ‘woke’, of all our alarmed ‘leaders’ following ‘the science’!! This premier had army people out strolling around with his idiot police force bullying people instead of being in anyway useful! Dan proved to be the biggest idiot bully of them all and he’s up against stiff competition.
Some earlier comments by date from Taiwan thread cartoon and other stuff in the copy here…
Biden https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6179743756001 he can ride a bike! I think that’s quite deliberate hiding in plain sight! Probably the last thing you would forget and he gets through yet another day! And then there is Trump! God and guns! Oh boy this is the leadership of the ‘free world’ no less!
PBS Newshour this week put on Dr Jill Biden with the excuse to talk about her book! NOT interviewing Joe (who is so obviously under wraps) but the wife! The softest interview imaginable! Just a cheer squad! All about how wonderful Joe is and how he is all go go go! So many plans so little time in the day!
Biden is undoubtedly suffering some cognitive issues and it’s perfectly clear that he’s unfit to be POTUS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVDo3BY190Q But there is also no doubt that’s perfectly clear to leading democrats so the question is why is this farce continuing? The democrats have got themselves in this mess because of a ‘we must stop Burnie Sanders’ problem. They could not demand Biden step down months ago because Bernie would have then tried to step up as the 2nd place getter. Even if he didn’t the Bernie followers would be ropeable and unpredictable to the point of perhaps wrecking democrat hopes.
So Biden had to be kept going till either just a couple of months out from the election (a real October surprise) or if he can win then perhaps just a few months after! It’s just that no one collection of party insiders have been able to control this process! The insiders of the party are horror struck that he has gone down hill this fast but he has and this is a typical case of how most stuff ups slowly develop. It was worse than they thought!
The VP is now the great hope and that’s why they are delaying this announcement! The announcement was going to be in the first week in August but it’s been put off till next week and the days tick by. With every day that passes the election is 1 day closer! It’s as simple as that. The fact that Biden is mentally unfit is just not going to stop the democrats from putting him forward nor what is more will it stop him being elected. Everything now is about delay.
Looks like it will be Harris and if it is then this is who they expect will be the Potus within months of Biden being sworn in. He is that far along now that a yr in the role seems far fetched to me even with the example of Regan to demonstrate how it actually can be done.
Biden can’t debate Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVDo3BY190Q so IMV they will find an excuse for not doing so OR perhaps only doing it once or something just as silly. They might say that Trump is just too insulting with his adverts and so on to bother to debate. Who knows.
Will Obama get Michele up as Bidens VP? No…but it must have been run through the focus group type studies. I just can’t imagine it as a serious proposal but look where the world is! So even as silly as this thought is I have to say; possibly! It’s all so unbelievable but true!
Not long now and they will have to tell who is this most important VP since Truman or even Johnson!
Who knows what will unfold but Trump policy wise is undoubtedly a better bet than the Dems and Trump is a shocker!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp_Uuz9k7Os this guy thinks Trump will win
Or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHiczDwhYZk ah Corey..
Why BLM in US was coming for the statues!
Oh well. Here is an update
https://apnews.com/article/robert-e-lee-statue-virginia-removed-92955a351d9fda6319f379ddc28df8a0
HIRISE, is my acronym for the loose ‘coalition’ of forces from Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, Iraqi Shia militias, Syrians still backing Assad, and Egypt that have collectively kept the Assad regime going, and that control various parts of what used to be Syria.
****
The ‘new’ HIRISE developments in Libya point to the spread of the complex region wide wars that are now a permanent state in our current era of a slow-motion great depression.
Egyptian thug ruler Sisi has just threatened to intervene if the Libyan government continue their offensive saying “Sirte and Jufra are the red line.” so naturally there has been a response from the Libyan government
I don’t think a major war is imminent but if a major war eventually breaks out, after the years of slaughter in Syria, it wouldn’t surprise many in the region. I wonder how many Marxists it would surprise?
No doubt ½ theorists are all aware that penniless Putin-not-quite-Tsar of all the Russians, has sent a small ‘mercenary’ (Wagner group) air force contingent to a Libyan base and that those aircraft have overflown Sirte.
Then a couple of days ago the Egyptian coup leader Sisi declared this Jufra air base right at the center of Libya part of his ‘red line’ Club Med Protectorate. This coalition of the willing anti-democrats includes the UAE as a banker for the project and has both Saudi and even French support. This coalition is defying the UN arms embargo, and the UN recognized government, protected as it is by Turkey (supported by Italy).
Having lost the fight for the whole of Libya another enclave ‘solution’ is being established with a foundation of Russian air power. The inland air base and the city of Sirte on the coast splits the country. Libya is currently being broken into chunks -like Syria, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have been from previous renditions of the Putin playbook.
Putin obviously has a belief in Russian ‘greatness’ and the basic method of war fighting that made it a great power. Peter, Catherine even Stalin and now Putin apparently. Grab and hold territory seems to be about as crude as it gets. He knows how the territory he controls was historically established; looks like he didn’t get the memo about this being the 21st century. But I suppose he could reason that if it’s good enough for Israel to annex other people’s land…
In the 21stC, long after it was well known that nation’s want liberation and ‘countries want independence’, the democratic revolution for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is being vigorously resisted by the fascists in a peculiar new COW.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the UAE have got on board with Russia and Egypt and at the same time have backed right off in the case of Syria. The KSA having threatened the country of Qatar (that was then granted complete protection by the Turks as a response) and then after murdering Khashoggi in Turkey have fallen out with Turkey completely. They know that Turkey is serious about bringing their own system -democracy- to Syria. The ruling elite of the KSA and UAE know what’s in their interests and it’s not democracy. Wahhabi extremism is however being wound back in the UAE and the KSA. Even as the hated Shia are still being targeted in the northern parts of the country and down in Yemen.
Predictably, the currently in power cliques are fighting back so that gangster-ism is preserved in these countries just as it is being extended or more accurately deepened across the world in places like Hong Kong. ‘All political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’
Push is at shove and western leadership is not up to the task of effectively resisting the gangster regimes, so western interests that actually start with the spread of the democratic revolution are and will continue to suffer. The ‘west’ is a headless chook and sanctions are virtually all the current western ruling elites are using to push back. Like a Maginot line policy, it can’t work! The US military sits brooding on the sidelines while the enemy flaunts their interventions and simultaneous shameless denials.
Putin started his rule by turning the Chechen capital of Grozny to rubble; and then running the whole region as a gangster region. He couldn’t hold all of the Ukraine so he simply invaded and took what ‘Russian sectors’ he could get hold of. He did the same earlier with Georgia when the Georgians wanted to stop gangsters operating in their country. It’s what he has done in Syria where he has run up against an immovable opponent in democratic Turkey. Putin can’t put in the effort that the democratic Turks can and do, so thankfully, this ‘problem’ of the democracy seeking Syrian peoples -now with a people’s army backstopped by Turkey- won’t go away.
Putin can and does make sure that they do have to put in that huge effort for every square kilometre.
Putin thinks he’s a world scale map maker. He isn’t. He’s a slow acting poison that’s destroying the Russian economy. He makes enemies on every border and he has distant but unstable ‘friends’.
Eventually, Europe will have to accept the price that must be paid for it’s clear self interest and effectively help Turkey as it continues pushing back against Russia. Eventually, so the theory goes, no respectable country will do business with the Russians and a repeat of the collapse of the USSR will unfold. But how long that takes is an unknown known.
How many ‘non-respectable’ countries will do the required business is a relevant factor. How long can the fascists in countries like Egypt and Iran keep their people terrorized and prevent them achieving democratic norms? Democratic revolution for the MENA is underway and will not be stopped because draining this swamp is the big picture. Syria has shown the world what preventing democracy looks like and does so is a direct comparison to the US enabling democracy in Iraq by destroying just the mechanized aspect of the Baathist army. That revolutionary destruction still left the vast bulk of the trained human element of that fascist army still around for the untrained Iraqi masses to take on over a protracted period of war. There had not been the years of systematic fighting comparable to the annihilation of the Nazi troops in WW2 and of course there had to be. These fighters were not just going to vanish. BUT the Iraqi peoples could now realistically deal with them and they did! All through this period the rotten western liberals lamented the new conditions in Iraq. Lamented the terrible mistake of this war of liberation! We can all see the price that dealing with these fascists cost in an inescapable war that democrats must wage and we can all see the comparison with not destroying the mechanized element as Obama who agrees with Trump demonstrated to the world in Syria!
Jump to 2020 and ‘In late May, USAFRICOM reported that at least 14 MiG-29s and several Su-24s were flown from Russia to Syria, their Russian markings were painted over to camouflage their Russian origin! These aircraft were then flown into Libya in direct violation of the United Nations arms embargo.’ https://www.africom.mil/pressrelease/32941/new-evidence-of-russian-aircraft-active-in-li
This is a textbook Russian deployment to oppose democracy. These airplanes are more than ‘ trip wire’ platforms and they will be at work soon enough killing any advancing revolutionaries. The Russian and the Egyptian fascists know they will be fighting ‘soon’. When they eventually start their attacks the danger of a clash with the Turks-or the US-is very real. So they would rather win by bluff. This is push and shove enclave building! But if something does go wrong what then? Would this spread a consequence back to Syria? Who knows. Often enough ‘from little things big things grow’ so we’ll all watch this space with more than just a little interest.
I for one hope something does ‘go wrong’ because it’s better to fight now than to let the Russians and the Egyptians take over half of Libya (and the oil rich half at that).
It seems that the Turkish ‘push’ in defense of democracy has brought on the anti-democratic shove back and the big picture for the MENA is all moving along as not much more than another front to the Syrian adventure for Russia. All just another logical step for the Russian military adventurers. But in 2020 NATO is split and the US is openly in LA LA land with a self obsessed POTUS. The prize for Russia could be seen or imagined to be potentially very big and the UAE and even the KSA is footing the bill no less. That thinking is a total illusion but look at the track record of Russian war making since Putin took charge. His type rather obviously sees the world very differently than I do.
At this point (4 years into the ‘Wagner’ meddling in Libya) it resembles a rerun of the Syrian play of almost 5 years ago. So it looks like Putin is a reasonably predictable gangster and this time he has huge numbers of allied ‘infantry’ from Egypt ready to occupy. This time Russia is fully backed by the neighborhood power who has made everything crystal clear. This time it ALSO includes the KSA and the UAE and has French and even some US support -sort of- yet it’s almost the same beast that has turned vast amounts of built Syria to rubble. Russia is still central to the whole coalition project. Russia is a massive arms dealer! What could be better than another display and the constant rat-a-tat use of the expensive ammo? Not to mention some blood for the oil that Libya is full of, and boy are the Russian and Egyptians keen on that black ‘gold’.
It’s not really a major escalation to this part of this region’s wars at all. It’s as predictable as reminding everyone that Sisi and Putin are world class gangsters. It very effectively lays a godfather’s claim to dominating not just ½ the country of Libya but as time goes on it must be expected to build and eventually present a size 14 footprint in Africa where Russia is already, according to a US report ‘… the number one arms dealer
in Africa. Russia continues to profit from violence and instability across the continent. Russian government backed PMCs, such as the Wagner Group, are active in sixteen countries across Africa. It is estimated that there are about 2,000 Wagner Group personnel in Libya.
These Russian aircraft are being run by so-called mercenaries! Please…the Russian state even orders the murder of people on the streets of England! They have given the US a chance with silly denial to go to war against ‘mercenaries’ but they are dealing with Obama’s replacement, so that is no problem for them. The Russians will get away with this! The Club Med stop over in Syria now has a further purpose for transit movements even further south.
Now you would expect that if say Bolton, were POTUS, he would crush this move right now but HE was on the wrong horse from where he would have had to back flip, and anyway despite Bolton’s errors, alas Trump is POTUS. Macron and Trump! How bad can this get? The world still has 6 months of this farce and then we get Joe Alzheimer!
Speaking of Joe, why NOT select Michelle Obama for VP, and let Mr Charming loose on the Corona restrained campaign trail? After all Bill and Hillary almost pulled it off and there is this big Black Lives Matter movement to exploit. Every 4 years like clockwork, out comes the Democrat race card and they have played it early this time. Now given how much I despise his 8 long years of ‘anti-war’ Syria policies – of turning away from mass murder- I can’t say I’m keen for another dose in the form of Bumbling Joe and Mrs O. I am however fully prepared for it.
2 years into his term Joe Biden might even hand over the baton! Reagan didn’t though and they got through that. I’m keen to see what’s going to unfold over in LA LA land. We will all just have to wait to see the morning come when all these gifts to humanity have been unwrapped. How exciting for the hysterical anti-Trumpers. I expect even more idiocy from the US in the face of aggressive Chinese and Russian fascism. I expect nothing sensible from Boris and the Euro in-breds for a few years yet. In short, the government I expect to carry the burden is headed by Erdogan as has been the case for the last 4 years.
Anyway; so everyone currently knows what is going on in Libya and yet…silence.
The Egyptians are now standing up as a senior member of the messy HIRISE cow.
The US military in the region are furious but so what? The US military leadership are not happy they don’t want advanced Russian weapons systems targeting them from Libya! Trump’s military advisors may even think like Bolton and even be able to execute the back flip, but given Trump’s current anti-war stand they would be very slow to get any progress with him. I’m sure Trump could care less about a major point of conflict developing in Club Med land. He’ll easily resist getting drawn in and is to the extent that he would understand it, opposed to drain the swamp theory because he likes the old policies of backing strongmen. People that he thinks he can understand and do business with! His moves with Israel are the antithesis of a sensible retreat from the failed war for Greater Israel. Trump would rather go with the old policies that kept thugs like al Sisi in power, though even Sisi knows it’s against the US interests as famously spelt out by Condoleeza Rice in Cairo no less.
Something very dramatic would have to happen for Trump to win re-election from here. The only thing he has going for him is that he is up against Biden. But on the assumption that nothing that dramatic unfolds AND that Biden doesn’t just implode in some manner (and that can’t be ruled out) I’m calling Trump gone! Trump’s presidency will have ended before anything dramatic happens unless somebody spectacularly miscalculates and events run well ahead of all expectations.
Unfortunately as far as the next 2-3 year period is concerned this next 4 months is crucial for the MENA’s democratic revolution. Turkey is now carrying a huge load, and Egypt in throwing it’s ‘reserve’ strength on the scale is bound to bring on a cautious next step from Turkey. Actually, Erdogan has always danced this revolution backwards, while the HIRISE take the lead in direct opposition to the masses striving for the ‘Arab Spring’. He’s a conservative and has always behaved like one. No doubt with the rear view mirror he would have done things differently but so would ½ theorists! The real issue is how do we all stand now?
In this global supply chain era, the catastrophic disruption of this interestingly inconsistent pandemic has brought on an inevitable long term economic ‘unwinding’. That’s simply because capitalism in recession is musical chairs and the music has stopped; consequently who owns what is an international issue that is resolved right at the top of countries like Russia and China; just as is on display right now in Syria with their massive falling out at the top of the dung heap. It will take some time, and currently no one knows where this depression is headed off to; but as this all attempts to work through over the next few years the one clear issue that we can predict is that it just can’t be good news for the people’s in countries like Iran, Egypt, Syria etc. They are held in blatant open bondage while mass poverty now spreads in all directions. Once the sullen masses are on the streets again all bets will be off. But these ruling Cabals have focused their minds on how the Syrian tyranny has clung to power, as the alternative is a grim prospect for them. In the end these countries are ‘giants with feet of clay’.
The current gold medal of hanging onto power is the Syrian model. The anti-democrats around the world have learned by this example to resort to mass murder as rapidly and savagely as the Assad regime. Terror is now the first and only choice for Egypt and Iran and similar places. And they need a Godfather gangster supply chain like Russia has been!
A great example of the shrinking Russian play pond is the behavior of the thug leader of Belarus who has just arrested his political opponent prior to upcoming elections. They move on their opponents because they are worried! Police state Russia is rapidly heading in the same direction as Egypt and Iran.
Meanwhile al Sisi has simultaneously drawn a clear and blood red line that divides the ‘former’ country of Libya and denies the right of the current Libyan government to recover the rebellious east! Given the history of Obama and his Syrian red line – that turned out to be no line at all, there ought to be no mistake about what this statement is about. Turkey is standing firm but, without the US and a united NATO, is I think a little overstretched. If Egypt intervenes in a really big way, and I think that they have then Turkey will be stretched in just recovering Sirte. Uniting the entire country is beyond them at this stage. So without the US and Europe, Russia is now putting down it’s footprint!
Egypt and Russia (funded by the UAE) have in a business as usual manner for Putin effectively divided Libya with a small military force and the threat of a much larger one – all while talking about a political settlement. They are (on this front as they are in Yemen once again supported by the Saudi regime that is (or were) at one and the same time opposed to their Syrian HIRISE developments. Welcome to the MENA. HIRISE have established either a ‘state of war OR enclave’s; take your pick!’ This is the situation in another ‘civil war’ that they have been meddling in for 4 years. The Turks had turned up some months back and undone the situation and this is the response to that reversal.
From a revolutionary democrat POV (and in this region that means an Islamist POV) HIRISE elements can’t be permitted to get away with this if the revolution is to make any progress! But note this; the Islamists in the Libyan regime are so infiltrated with Al Qaeda sorts, that the Macron led French are stupidly collaborating with the Russians and the Egyptian thug regimes! Macron in this practice does not accept the drain the swamp theory! This is particularly confusing to me as the French have been involved with fighting Islamofascists all around Libya for some years now, with the Mali intervention being only perhaps the most public.
The Italians are on side with the Turks so NATO is thus divided! Unfortunately the latest nutter attack in England is from a young man with Libyan background! That is going to color public attitudes to Islamist led governments. Erdogan has got a hard row to hoe and is currently (because they are still at war) intervening against the PKK in Iraq. There are however good signs that the Kurds in Turkey want this war ended and the democratic developments they were enjoying under Erdogan resumed. I for one hope the PKK leadership wake up to themselves and stop their collaboration with Assad and return to the productive ceasefire that existed prior to the Syrian war destroying that better situation. The Kurdish peoples’ of the region have much to gain from the democratic revolution and nothing to gain from Assad style tyranny continuing to exist.
Just noticed a comment at 21stC by Steve
IMV the reason Taiwan has dodged the bullet so well is because they do not have much to do with China [should have been are not having much to do with people traffic from China at the moment] and yet their intelligence services are obviously very focused on it and good enough to pick up on this type of issue. They learned early that the Chinese government were frantically dealing with an out of control virus AND that they were contemptibly not saying much publicly about it [but shutting down the people movement between the 2 zones]!
So, the Taiwanese took action themselves to shut down the limited [not really limited at all but they quickly shut down the people movement] connections they did have and then proceeded to do bugger all to warn the rest of the world! So this woman ‘leader’ who knew what was coming, is only one step down in culpability from the rats of the Chinese fascists and the rats in WHO! Not a leader or government to be praised and nothing to do with being a woman! But they looked out for No 1, and in doing so in this manner will be slaughtered in the economic crash that they could have helped to alleviate to some extent (but that is another matter and it now looms for discussion).
Australia, having been saved by the season and the still extended good weather is the 55th country ranked by population at 25.2 million and currently @62 deaths has about 2.46 deaths per million.
Coincidentally Taiwan is ranked 56th at 23.8. and has about .25 deaths per million!
Your other women ‘leaders’ are running countries that are currently seeing deaths at the following rates;
Denmark 5.7Mil @ 52 per million
Germany 83.5 @42
Norway 5.4 @26 (this will rise more I think)
Iceland 0.34 @23
Finland 5.5 @12
Finally and also lucky with the weather and also a bit more isolated than even Australia
New Zealand 4.8 @1.88
There is very little in this between Oz and NZ.. Just 1 cruise ship difference in effect.
The season and weather are notable for the staggering difference in ‘viral load’ conditions across the world.
Even in Finland it seems that they were spared a bit by having so bad weather that they just weren’t mixing as much when it hit compared to Stockholm in Sweden etc.
Now consider Spain, Italy, France and the UK! Then finally the US.
Spain @397
Italy @348
France @241
UK @178 But these figures seem underestimates (France as well) because they are not counting deaths in aged care etc. It’s all we have to go on at the moment. No one believes China, Russia etc and places that mostly can’t test!
Note Sweden for example has @102 (having taken a do almost nothing except protect the vulnerable approach).
U.S. @79 currently looks like
Good weather California @20
Flu season New York @552
So there are radical differences going on and not just when the hospitals are overrun.
Obviously these numbers are just the start (as there is still no treatment that is a clear winner) and till a vaccine or effective treatment there is going to be several waves of this. If a vaccine can be developed soon… we have not yet been able to solve the common cold; so they might not get one for longer than a year etc etc so who knows on that front. Obviously effective treatments are more promising for the short term but still there is nothing really insight just yet and IT will ‘go viral’ when it is effective stuff. So we are looking at a huge issue that is not even started in Nigeria, Egypt etc
Australia is currently just in front of Denmark ranked in Covid19 numbers @ 31 and even Ireland that is ranked 124 in population is worse than Australia! Clearly there will be millions of deaths unless there is a very unexpected early breakthrough. But people are quick to learn now and thankfully this is not going to be as bad as Spanish Flu was. Still all those higher population countries will sail past Australia as they have been doing.
I think for Australia it will soon be policy to ‘effectively protect the old, and let the young take their chances’ but that is a discussion for about 2 weeks time I suppose and that will be right in the middle of the Flu season! Good luck! We’re in the age group that will need it!
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