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SteveMDFP

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #650 on: February 23, 2017, 12:57:27 AM »
ALSR

A bit of a tweek here.  Just in fun, but with a serious side. 

Since I know how partial you are to AI and its possible positive side.  Here, however, is a real world actual existing early version of another use for AI and it certainly is hard from certain perspectives to think of it as positive.  IN fact it may have been the deciding factor in electing Trump.

Tell me what you think of this.

https://scout.ai/story/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda-machine

That's one of the most disturbing articles I've ever read.  I had noticed in the few days before the US election a big increase in anti-Hillary material online.  This article explains that.

AbruptSLR

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #651 on: February 23, 2017, 01:19:58 AM »
That's one of the most disturbing articles I've ever read.  I had noticed in the few days before the US election a big increase in anti-Hillary material online.  This article explains that.

The truth of the matter is that politics is largely about the manipulation of uncertainty to get what one side wants; which has been going on for a long time.  So as not to dive into ancient history, the linked 2014 article is entitled: "Karl Rove vs. Hillary Clinton: Whisper campaign explodes on Internet", and provides an example of how during the 3rd Industrial Revolution, the internet allowed Karl Rove to effectively manipulate the truth before his target could react.  While the Cambridge Analytica work accelerates this trend by adding 4th Industrial Revolution - AI to Karl Rove's more traditional 'whisper campaigns' (he originally compiled lists of conservative groups and identified the key influencers in the groups to which he fed fake information to just before a key vote, so that the fake information would spread rapidly by whispers within the group before the target could respond).   Rather than expressing 'moral outrage' it is better to use information science to attack the uncertainty associated by fake information in order to mount a rapid response.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-analysis-karl-rove-hillary-clinton-whisper-campaign-internet-20140513-story.html

Extract: "Judged strictly as strategy, and not, say, for its morality, Karl Rove’s blast at Hillary Clinton on Tuesday demonstrated how the game of political trickery manifests itself in the Internet age. Allegation reported, allegation denied, outrage from the victimized party, all bouncing across the Web, the initial accusation repeated each and every time -- a whisper campaign given full baying voice.

The Republican strategist's questioning of Clinton’s health was a joint assault on the minds of voters and the heart of the would-be White House contender, and it probably worked, at least minimally, by injecting into the conversation something no one had been talking about, and spreading a negative assertion without any proof."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #652 on: February 23, 2017, 07:22:06 PM »
My general impression is that after circa 2045 we will see two significantly different tracks for post-collapse society: (1) one dominated by a cyborg approach and (2) one dominated by a species being type of approach.

When I have more time, I will write more.

Best,
ASLR

Just a quick note to expand on my two points cited in the quote above:

(1) The road to the cyborg approach is fairly obvious, when AI can not only be used to manipulate elections but also: (a) the stock market as demonstrated by Robert Mercer's (Renaissance Technologies') Medallion Fund; (b) support cyber-warfare as demonstrated by all major and minor powers in the world; (c) governance as is currently being demonstrated by the alt-right's attack on mainstream media via fake news and alternate facts and (d) Groups like Anonymous can hack private entities like: Microsoft, Facebook, Google and OpenAI to develop coding better than that used by Cambridge Analytica; in order to advance their own agendas.

In this regards, see the linked articles with the first entitled: "What Does the Billionaire Family Backing Donald Trump Really Want?"

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/no-one-knows-what-the-powerful-mercers-really-want/514529/


The second linked article is entitled: "Renaissance Partner Airs Battle With Mercer Over Trump

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-23/renaissance-partner-airs-battle-with-mercer-over-trump-wsj-says

Extract: "A Renaissance Technologies partner went public with his strong objections to top executive Robert Mercer’s support for President Donald Trump, telling the Wall Street Journal of a heated confrontation between the two men that may lead to his firing.

David Magerman has worked at the quantitative hedge fund for 20 years and helped design the firm’s trading systems. A registered Democrat, Magerman, 48, told the paper that Mercer’s “views show contempt for the social safety net that he doesn’t need, but many Americans do.”"

(2) The road to the species being approach could use a combination of mindfulness and electronic monitoring equipment to link the human mind to the holographic universe.  This might be achieved via the phosphorus pathway discussed in the following linked article is entitled: “The strange link between the human mind and quantum physics”.  In a few decades, who knows how much progress will be made into this matter.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170215-the-strange-link-between-the-human-mind-and-quantum-physics

Extract: “The perennial puzzle of consciousness has even led some researchers to invoke quantum physics to explain it. That notion has always been met with skepticism, which is not surprising: it does not sound wise to explain one mystery with another. But such ideas are not obviously absurd, and neither are they arbitrary.

For one thing, the mind seemed, to the great discomfort of physicists, to force its way into early quantum theory. What's more, quantum computers are predicted to be capable of accomplishing things ordinary computers cannot, which reminds us of how our brains can achieve things that are still beyond artificial intelligence. "Quantum consciousness" is widely derided as mystical woo, but it just will not go away.

In a study published in 2015, physicist Matthew Fisher of the University of California at Santa Barbara argued that the brain might contain molecules capable of sustaining more robust quantum superpositions. Specifically, he thinks that the nuclei of phosphorus atoms may have this ability.

In 2016, Adrian Kent of the University of Cambridge in the UK, one of the most respected "quantum philosophers", speculated that consciousness might alter the behaviour of quantum systems in subtle but detectable ways.“
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #653 on: February 26, 2017, 02:39:37 AM »
This post is a follow-on to my last post Reply #652:

The thing that upsets me the most about denalists (including both climate change denalists & Team Trump) is their preference for presenting reasonable logic, that I myself would use, and then at the very end present an answer that is the exact opposite of what I would conclude.  They then disseminate their 'findings' as fast & as widely as possible, in order to catch as many of the unprepared as possible in their nets of deceit.

For this post, I focus on Steve Bannon's use of Nassim Taleb's antifragility concept in his alt-right populist strategy of removing restraints on both Wall Street and the fossil fuel industry as part of an attempt to tear down the managerialist establishment that is suppose to be increasing the fragility of our global socio-economic system.

While decreasing the fragility of our global socio-economic system sound admirable, the way that alt-right populist are going about it by increasing fear, casino capitalism and kleptocratic opportunities is the opposite of what is needed.

Systems that are anti-fragile has a deep culture of experimentation without creating fear that can stifle innovation.  Clinging desperately to the past like Team Trump is doing by trying to turn back the clock to time when Detroit (motortown) and the oil and gas industries (i.e. heavy industries) were dominate in the US culture is only going to increase the fragility of the US socio-economic system.

True anti-fragility can be found in places like Silicon Valley (with its 'disruptive' technologies), which are places that deeply distrust Team Trump.  Merely thinking that you don't like AI and the 4th Industrial Revolution does not mean that they are not going to happen, and indeed thrive in the current and coming periods of chaotic transition.  Thus I recommend studying information science (see the “Systemic Isolation” and the “Adapting the the Anthropocene” threads) before companies like Cambridge Analytica (that is working with Team Trump) not only uses AI (including quantum computing) to deceptively flip elections but also the stock market thus converting crony capitalism into kleptocratic capitalism.

Carlota Perez has shown, advances in new technologies…whether it’s the railways, electricity…are marked by a chaotic transitional phase of wars, financial scandals, industrial mayhem and deep anxieties about the collapse of civilization; and due to the 4th Industrial Revolution we are going through one of those transitions today.

Protectionists, like Team Trump, believe in a system based on financial leverage (i.e. casino capitalism), heft, industries working in silos, banks directing the flow of capital and holding the balance of power (just look at Trump's cabinet appointments).  In such a period of chaotic transition Elon Musk is supporting OpenAI (which is open to everyone) and Facebook is writing to flag bad behavior like 'alternate facts'; in order to fight against companies like Cambridge Analytica that use deceptive AI to take advantage of 'others'.

I am not recommending the cyborg-approach (& prefer the species being approach), I do recommend facing the future with your eyes open instead of with Pollyannaish naivety.

Edit: A significant component of what I am saying here is that in times of change, 'natural selection' leads to systemic cooperation while 'survival of the fittest' leads to systemic isolation (alt-right).

See also:

http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/thank-you-for-being-late/
« Last Edit: February 26, 2017, 04:48:23 PM by AbruptSLR »
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #654 on: February 27, 2017, 02:05:41 AM »
The linked article is entitled: “What if AI Could Lie?”  AI mimics humans and as we now live in a world dominated by alt-right fake news, we should need to watch out for deceptive humans, deceptive machines and soon cyborgs:

https://disruptionhub.com/what-if-ai-could-lie/

Extract: “Artificial Intelligence is constantly fed information from countless channels. If AI can understand deception, then all of these channels would be disrupted. In some ways, this is good news. In order to achieve optimal function, AI needs to handle missing or hidden data. It’s also useful for it to understand lying – for example, AI can pick up on fake news using an algorithm that mimics traditional journalism techniques. As of this month, it’s even used on U.S. borders as an unbiased lie detector. On the other hand, adding the ability to hide or twist data to super-intelligent systems is a recipe for disaster. AI systems have already worked out how to lie to each other, which creates competition rather than collaboration. Imagine what would happen if AI-enabled robots decided to keep information to themselves – in other words, refusing to co-operate with humans? The relationship between humans and technology would be fundamentally altered. Either way, if Artificial Intelligence can learn to be dishonest, it can be programmed to lie for malicious ends. Cyber criminals could hack into machine learning systems and play havoc with vital info, using rogue AI as blackmail or to steal data. It’s even been argued that AI is deceptive by nature because it mimics and imitates.

It’s clear that AI research isn’t going to stop just because Artificial Intelligence could be dangerous. That means that the only thing developers and investors can do is work together to find ways to contain or prevent deceptive AI. This is supposedly what Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, IBM and now Apple are doing with their partnership on AI. . . but if it was difficult to trust AI before, it definitely will be now that machine learning systems can bluff as well as, and better than, humans. Ultimately, if data-saturated AI can lie to us about our own information (and share it within neural networks that we can’t access) then we have a serious problem.”
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

sidd

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #655 on: May 10, 2017, 08:42:09 AM »
Failing wealth pump, so sad. But faraway brown people, not so bad

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/09/puerto-ricos-123-billion-bankruptcy-is-the-cost-of-u-s-colonialism/

sidd

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TerryM

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #657 on: May 10, 2017, 01:50:52 PM »
The Empire goes for broke http://thesaker.is/the-us-bill-h-r-1644-to-kill-russian-food-export-and-chinese-trade/
I had no idea so many of us read the Saker.


If H.R.1644 Passes the Senate, then Trumpster's signature will be all that's needed to make the world subject to America's laws - always assuming that the world accepts being included into the American Empire.


Terry

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #658 on: May 10, 2017, 01:53:23 PM »
Failing wealth pump, so sad. But faraway brown people, not so bad

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/09/puerto-ricos-123-billion-bankruptcy-is-the-cost-of-u-s-colonialism/

sidd


It's not whether America has an Empire, it's why it manages it's Empire so poorly.
Terry

sidd

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #660 on: May 28, 2017, 02:38:33 AM »
Another good article by Bacevich about two of the people who sold the Cold War. And their acolytes Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Zalmay Khalilzad.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/06/mr-and-mrs-fearmonger

sidd

TerryM

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #661 on: May 28, 2017, 10:18:00 PM »
Another good article by Bacevich about two of the people who sold the Cold War. And their acolytes Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Zalmay Khalilzad.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/06/mr-and-mrs-fearmonger

sidd
sidd
I'm afraid that Bacevich himself has become a victim of the very fears that the Wohlstetters promoted. ISIS is represented as a bastard son of Al-Qaeda, not as a CIA proxy along side Al-Qaeda, the product of Brzezinski's manipulations of Afghan clerics and CIA trained and armed warlords.
Putin, he avows will never be a "friend of the West", but this is only true if we continue to demonize him in every way. Putin revived the French ship building industry, only to have his paid for ships remain undelivered. France paid heavily for this in non-completion fines as well as the loss of military sales that had been agreed on - but they did gain America's undying appreciation.


ISIS and Russia are not the monsters in the Castle of the West, but the supposed master, lurking in the shadows behind an organ playing the dirge that so many are forced to dance to, may be suspect. Follow the trail of gore.


Terry

sidd

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #662 on: May 29, 2017, 01:42:04 AM »
Are we reading the same article?

1) In the only mention of ISIS:

"ISIS quite definitely is an enemy of the West and must be destroyed. But its destruction will do little to address the factors that led to the rise of it, al-Qaeda, and other extremist groups in the first place. "

Where do you see Bacevich mention lineage from Al Quaeda to ISIS ? I happen to think the two are quite distinct, but that is another discussion.

2) Putin is mentioned three times

a) The first sentence is

"So too does the threat inflation that, for example, finds various commentators depicting the Islamic State or Vladimir Putin’s Russia as existential dangers. "

I read that as stating that Putin's Russia is an inflated threat, not an existential danger.

b) The second is:

"Putin is not a “friend” of the West and never will be."

Here i agree with you there is a problem with Bacevich's formulation. To begin with, a more careful definition of of "The West" would be nice.

c) The last mention is:

"Yet the onward expansion of NATO has been a needless provocation that plays directly into his hands, reviving among Russians nationalist sentiments that Putin exploits."

I see no problem with that statement.

sidd

sidd

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #663 on: May 29, 2017, 07:07:17 AM »
Engdahl points to tilt to the East by some of Europe:

http://journal-neo.org/2017/05/27/eastern-europe-tilts-to-obor-and-eurasia/

sidd

TerryM

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #664 on: May 29, 2017, 09:01:35 PM »
Are we reading the same article?

1) In the only mention of ISIS:

"ISIS quite definitely is an enemy of the West and must be destroyed. But its destruction will do little to address the factors that led to the rise of it, al-Qaeda, and other extremist groups in the first place. "

Where do you see Bacevich mention lineage from Al Quaeda to ISIS ? I happen to think the two are quite distinct, but that is another discussion.

2) Putin is mentioned three times

a) The first sentence is

"So too does the threat inflation that, for example, finds various commentators depicting the Islamic State or Vladimir Putin’s Russia as existential dangers. "

I read that as stating that Putin's Russia is an inflated threat, not an existential danger.

b) The second is:

"Putin is not a “friend” of the West and never will be."

Here i agree with you there is a problem with Bacevich's formulation. To begin with, a more careful definition of of "The West" would be nice.

c) The last mention is:

"Yet the onward expansion of NATO has been a needless provocation that plays directly into his hands, reviving among Russians nationalist sentiments that Putin exploits."

I see no problem with that statement.

sidd


sidd


I've tried twice to write a response & both times got screwed up with sizing problems. I'll leave it where it is.
Suffice it to say that I regard Putin as a Statesman, not a politician, and therefore as someone who would much rather not have NATO at his back door, no matter his political gain.


Terry

SteveMDFP

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #665 on: May 29, 2017, 10:09:38 PM »
The Empire goes for broke http://thesaker.is/the-us-bill-h-r-1644-to-kill-russian-food-export-and-chinese-trade/
I had no idea so many of us read the Saker.


If H.R.1644 Passes the Senate, then Trumpster's signature will be all that's needed to make the world subject to America's laws - always assuming that the world accepts being included into the American Empire.


Terry

I don't think The Saker or this assessment are accurate at all.  The Saker is clearly written with an ideological bias.  If we look at the actual bill in question, H.R. 1644, the Korea Interdiction and Modernization of Sanctions Act, there's simply nothing that would empower the US to force it's authority directly in Russian ports, nor other of the extraordinary claims.  See for yourself:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1644

It simply seems to add standard US sanctions policies on those entities that refuse to comply with the applicable UN resolution.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.  I don't see any evidence of any of the extraordinary claims.

sidd

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #666 on: May 30, 2017, 06:22:07 AM »
" ... not have NATO at his back door ..."

I entirely agree that NATO eastward expansion was a huge strategic blunder that reversed all those decades of Nixon/Kissinger originated exploitation of Sino-Soviet split, driving Russia into China realliance. Perhaps as bad a strategic blunder as 2003 Iraq invasion. USA backed color revolutions and Ukraine regime change didn't help either. Now the USA is faced with China/Russia westward expansion on the one belt and road initiative. So sad.

Speaking of strategic blunders, I think that USA/France/Italy/UK led Libya destabilization might have hurt Empire as much, losing Africa as well. Another big blunder.

I guess that's what Empires do in decline, screw up.

sidd

« Last Edit: May 30, 2017, 06:34:01 AM by sidd »

magnamentis

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #667 on: May 30, 2017, 01:27:32 PM »
" ... not have NATO at his back door ..."

I entirely agree that NATO eastward expansion was a huge strategic blunder that reversed all those decades of Nixon/Kissinger originated exploitation of Sino-Soviet split, driving Russia into China realliance. Perhaps as bad a strategic blunder as 2003 Iraq invasion. USA backed color revolutions and Ukraine regime change didn't help either. Now the USA is faced with China/Russia westward expansion on the one belt and road initiative. So sad.

Speaking of strategic blunders, I think that USA/France/Italy/UK led Libya destabilization might have hurt Empire as much, losing Africa as well. Another big blunder.

I guess that's what Empires do in decline, screw up.

sidd

hear hear ..... very much truth with such few words, absolutely my own thoughts too and it's obvious for quite some time, all the signs for a declining empire following the path of all previous empires for, even though not identical, but still very similar reasons.

180 years still to go which is part of the problem, the process is so slow and the way down to the bottom so far that once every last illusionist gets the message it will be too late while it's not even sure if that's so bad. i'm not a friend of empires anyways, mostly because they're all based on violence and the entire imaginable spectrum of exploitation.

sidd

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #668 on: May 31, 2017, 09:36:20 PM »
Blumenthal and Pilger lay out the Libyan connection to Manchester:

http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/manchester-bombing-covert-proxy-wars

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/31/terror-in-britain-what-did-the-prime-minister-know/

Teresa May was Home Secretary when MI5 ran the kid's dad and a bunch of other Libyan exiles against Gaddaffi. The kid went to Libya, picked up some on the job training, came back and put it to use.

sidd

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #669 on: May 31, 2017, 11:10:23 PM »
Blumenthal and Pilger lay out the Libyan connection to Manchester:

http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/manchester-bombing-covert-proxy-wars

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/31/terror-in-britain-what-did-the-prime-minister-know/

Teresa May was Home Secretary when MI5 ran the kid's dad and a bunch of other Libyan exiles against Gaddaffi. The kid went to Libya, picked up some on the job training, came back and put it to use.

sidd


But, can they PROVE that Putin didn't pay for his training???

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #670 on: August 09, 2017, 02:55:37 AM »
This should be required reading in schools in the USA:

"Unlearning the myth of American innocence" by Suzy Hansen, or perhaps another title would be "A Fish Learns to See the Water"

--

“It is different in the United States,” I once said, not entirely realising what I was saying until the words came out. I had never been called upon to explain this. “We are told it is the greatest country on earth. The thing is, we will never reconsider that narrative the way you are doing just now, because to us, that isn’t propaganda, that is truth. And to us, that isn’t nationalism, it’s patriotism. And the thing is, we will never question any of it because at the same time, all we are being told is how free-thinking we are, that we are free. So we don’t know there is anything wrong in believing our country is the greatest on earth. The whole thing sort of convinces you that a collective consciousness in the world came to that very conclusion.”

“Wow,” a friend once replied. “How strange. That is a very quiet kind of fascism, isn’t it?”

It was a quiet kind of fascism that would mean I would always see Turkey as beneath the country I came from, and also that would mean I believed my uniquely benevolent country to have uniquely benevolent intentions towards the peoples of the world.

--

She is so young. But at least she's waking up. Read the whole thing.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/08/unlearning-the-myth-of-american-innocence

sidd

TerryM

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #671 on: August 09, 2017, 07:08:12 AM »
A very well written piece.


I couldn't help but to compare her experiences to those of my wife's, when she, in her late thirties, came to realize that other countries might be at least equivalent to the US of A in all respects.
She'd grown up bouncing from one small town to the next throughout the States. Her father worked as an editor for small newspapers who would welcome his wonderful writing style, and then would put up with his alcoholism for up to two years at a time.
Her education was compromised by the rapid shifts in schools, but she was so brilliant that in later years she picked up gobs of national awards writing and editing various American Mensa publications.
She never considered herself a nationalist, but couldn't consider dating, let alone marrying a "foreigner". She simply knew that America represented the best of everything, and believed that her country was the envy of the rest of the world.
Thirty years later she's married to the foreigner, writes wonderful articles of her life in Canada, and apologizes for having once voted a straight Republican ticket.


Every country swamps her citizens with propaganda, the US just does it more thoroughly. Living in more than one country makes it so much easier to spot the discrepancies and hypocrisies. This gives Europeans an edge on those of us in larger, more isolated countries.


She's described the experience of finally seeing through the smoke and mirrors as almost a rebirth, I suppose as a final homage to her religion.


"I find it difficult to believe that I belong to such an idiotic, rotten species -
the species that actually boasts of its freedom of will, heroism on command,
senseless violence, and all of the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of
patriotism."
A Einstein

sidd

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #672 on: August 09, 2017, 07:24:12 AM »
I have noticed some confusion in other threads as to the term "Deep State."  The best recent reference to the origins i have found is the 2014 work by Michael Glennon called "National Security and Double Government" available at

http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Final.pdf

Glennon points out that the all three branches of the "Madisonian" government are impotent against the "Trumanites" who actually exercise the levers of power. The work is extensively referenced and footnoted, and I recommend following those. Ref 38 is as fine an enumeration of liars, thugs and torturers as one might ever wish to see.

For the economic and industrial arms, there are other, more scattered works. I might put together a list of those sometime.

sidd
« Last Edit: August 09, 2017, 07:30:40 AM by sidd »

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #673 on: August 09, 2017, 07:32:20 AM »
Terry:

Regarding reply #671, great post! I can identify with what you're saying in my own life experience and how my own views have evolved.

BudM

sidd

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #674 on: August 09, 2017, 07:42:52 AM »
Re: Suzy Hansen article on unlearning innocence

I have met more and more people recently who have never travelled outside the USA, but have come to her realization on their own. They dont believe the lies anymore. The reaction of the power structure to generalized disbelief is interesting to observe, for they seem to yet rely on Bernays and Goebbels but it dont work no more. The internet has changed the broadcast model to multicast. But they keep pushing the same buttons not realizing the media machine they rely on is broken.

Another set of people who i have met who resist propaganda are the oldest ones, who remember the Depression and the second world war. But they are few. Then of course there are the First Nations, and the non white, who never bought into the dream in the first place.

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TerryM

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #675 on: August 09, 2017, 10:39:58 AM »
Thanx Bud :)


Sidd
There are few left that remember the depression. I learned about it from my parents who were in their 40's when I was born, and I'm now 71. I hope you're right about the internet's alternative news sources making a difference. It's provided a democratization of knowledge that few saw coming, but may be ruining our health and fitness  :-[
It's frustrating to communicate with those still taken in by the propaganda stream and I have to remind myself that if not for the accident of my Canadian upbringing, and my parent's subsequent decision to retire to Southern California, I'd probably be spouting MSM garbage myself.


OT - In the last two years I've seen a few orchards where the apples are being left to rot, and others being bulldozed to make way for solar installations. Just wondered if anyone knows what is effecting to the apple market?


Terry

johnm33

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #676 on: August 09, 2017, 01:29:20 PM »

sidd

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #677 on: August 09, 2017, 09:03:39 PM »
Re: destroyed orchards

I have seen some orchards converted to corn/soy. More money. It was sad to see those trees tipped over and carted off. I recall stopping on some of those stretches of road and picking apples (the owner was a neighbor and a friend.)

But he got old, moved to florida, and the children had no choice, banks,seed/fertilizer dealers, droughts ...
Even after converting to row crops i dunno if they can keep the farm going.

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #678 on: August 10, 2017, 06:50:20 AM »
Re: "I hope you're right about the internet's alternative news sources making a difference. It's provided a democratization of knowledge that few saw coming ..."

Mmm. I never did say that was entirely a "good" thing. For the democratization of knowledge is also the democratization of lies, you see, and that cannot be tolerated by the State, deep or superficial. There Must Be Only Official Lies. How dare hoi polloi make up their own lies!  The State, both "Madisonian" and "Trumanite" as Glennon points out, function on an agreed framework of lies but it only works in absence of competition. But now we have a free market in lies. So sad.

As for the truth, it is not palatable, not marketable, of small importance to most actors in state power.

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #679 on: August 11, 2017, 10:31:07 PM »
Bacevich, as usual, nails it. He poses twenty four foreign policy questions which are completely ignored by the media and politicians in the USA.

Read all about it:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176277/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_what_obsessing_about_you-know-who_causes_us_to_miss/

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #680 on: August 12, 2017, 01:04:26 AM »
Bacevich, as usual, nails it. He poses twenty four foreign policy questions which are completely ignored by the media and politicians in the USA.

Read all about it:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176277/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_what_obsessing_about_you-know-who_causes_us_to_miss/

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24 of the best questions to be asked today!
Like many Canadians I still wonder why the Americans attacked their northern neighbor so often, and so unsuccessfully. 54.50 or fight still resonates in our collective minds.


WRT Rotten apples, in two cases the orchards had been irrigated, and had recently been cared for. In the other, rather than being carefully uprooted and transported, the trees were simply crushed by bulldozers, soon to buried or possibly chipped. It seems as though it didn't pay to pick them before they turned into piles of ooze beneath the trees.


When Russia enacted her reverse sanctions against European crops, Poland at least began flooding the market with her apples. Is it possible that the world market is still so broken that it no longer is worth while to pick apples?
Frozen cider would seem a way to keep the harvest for a considerable time & surely transporting bulk cider to regions suffering starvation or crop failure is preferable to letting them rot.


A perplexed lover of chilled cider
Terry

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #681 on: August 12, 2017, 02:24:08 AM »
[OFFTOPIC] Cider

It's been a while, but i have made stong drink from apples and peaches. Get the juice out, ferment, and

a)do this when it cold, leave the hard cider out, let it freeze, and pour off the almost pure alcohol
or
b)run it thru a still

I get bad, bad hangovers from hard cider, which is why i havent done it for a while. But i have some neighbors who really like it.

The reason people bought into Johnny Appleseed orchard projects is because they wanted liquor. It was long before golden delicious and the like were bred true.

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #682 on: August 12, 2017, 07:14:10 AM »
What the Harvard boys did to Russia, as Zucman says, in one graf:

"From soviets to oligarchs, in one graph"

That graf is Fig 11a in Novokment et al. (2017)

http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/NPZ2017

Which I attach. Such is the logic of empire.

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #683 on: August 16, 2017, 12:53:10 AM »
Whenever "privatization" is offered as a solution to any, or every, problem I think of the Rape of Russia by the Harvard Boys.


I'm fortunate enough to have a home in California where the municipality owns the water, trash and electrical service. Not only are meter readers and trash truck drivers reasonably paid, but reliability is top notch and costs are less than the surrounding towns. If a profit is made, my taxes go down or infrastructure is improved. All the money is kept circulating within the community.
What's not to like?


Before Reagan it was fairly well accepted that governments managed things more equitably than private businesses. They were right and Reagan and his followers were and are wrong.
Privatized passenger rail. Privatized energy companies, (think Enron). Privatized armies. Where does it end?


Remember the Harvard Boys and what they did, and are still doing, to generations of Soviets.
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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #684 on: August 16, 2017, 05:07:11 AM »
I think that the USA was carried away by a fictive account of the Roman Empire. This is sometimes apparent in the writing of the bunch of rich, white slaveholders called the Founders, although they dressed it up in more agreeable language. I imagine they read Virgil with too much credulity.

" ... nec metas rerum, nec tempora pona. Imperium sine fine ..."

Unbounded, eternal, Empire without end, in short, Manifest Destiny.

About four centuries after Virgil wrote that, Alaric showed up. (About four centuries before Virgil, Brennus had showed up ...) And now, unfortunately, the rest of the rising world marches to different drums from different myth. Empire crumbles. So sad.

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« Last Edit: August 16, 2017, 05:30:59 AM by sidd »

TerryM

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #685 on: August 16, 2017, 06:19:18 AM »
While I've my own thoughts re. The Founding Fathers tm. , blaming their fevered thoughts on Virgil opens new, and exciting avenues. :)
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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #686 on: September 29, 2017, 12:20:28 AM »


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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #687 on: October 02, 2017, 10:11:56 PM »
Chris Hedges reviews McCoy: “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power”

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-end-of-empire/

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #688 on: October 03, 2017, 10:58:00 AM »
Possibly OT, but does anyone have a comment on the recent spate of American tariffs?
Over 200% on Chinese steel, the same on Canadian airplanes, and of course the ongoing, increasing tariffs leveled at solar panels. Oops, almost forgot the long time effects of the Jones act.


The costs to American infrastructure must be huge. Is this indicative of America throwing in the towel and admitting that they can't compete fairly with anyone?


As the rest of the world builds solar installations at a fraction of the cost, how will the USofA hope to compete in high value, energy extensive manufacturing. Without low energy short hop airplanes, (or high speed trains), does the US expect to emerge as a leader in transportation? US steel won't find markets outside the country when finished products can be manufactured for less cost than the American costs for the raw steel.


At some point I see the rest of the world simply trading among themselves while America makes do with the few domestic market products they are still able to produce.


Terry

johnm33

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #689 on: October 03, 2017, 11:32:33 AM »
If you have a strong currency you'd best distribute the benefits as widely as possible, allowing every citizen an equal access to cheap money/debt, maybe even at 0%, then having a simple unavoidable transaction tax. The alternative is to burden the poor with all the taxes, allow only the elite to access cheap money, let the Government only borrow from them! and end up paying 40% of your tax take to them, 40-odd% interest 'tax' on upstream debt on all purchases, thus massively inflating the daily living costs of the poor and essentially pricing them out of any work.
Simple choice really, either make it as cheap as possible for people to live or price them out of work.[and blame them]

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #690 on: October 05, 2017, 05:22:28 AM »
Bellum sine fine.

"Three United States Army Special Forces were killed and two were wounded on Wednesday in an ambush in Niger ... "

I recall 1961 in Vietnam. That wall is so low then.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/world/africa/special-forces-killed-niger.html

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #691 on: October 11, 2017, 01:28:45 AM »
A thoughtful look (with an unfortunately misleading title) at the years since 2001 : Moustafa Bayoumi interviews Glenn Greenwald. Topics covered in some detail include expansion of the surveillance state and judicial complicity in the war on terror through three presidents.



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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #692 on: October 19, 2017, 08:49:39 PM »
Quite Orwellian:

"A student guide from the Insider Threat Awareness training includes the McCarthyesque request that employees report on each other for “general suspicious behaviors,” including “Questionable national loyalty” such as “Displaying questionable loyalty to US government or company” or “Making anti-U.S. comments.”

http://original.antiwar.com/Jesselyn_Radack/2017/10/18/insider-threat-program-training-trumps-war-leaks-chilling-combination-whistleblowers/

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #693 on: October 19, 2017, 08:57:31 PM »
A historical look at Empire and it's discontents:
--
Across the ages, the key phenomenon was that the war machine, “created by wars that required it, . . . now created the wars it required.” Schumpeter wrote that of ancient Egyptian imperialism, but he applied the insight widely. Schumpeter spoke of the Roman policy "“which pretends to aspire to peace but unerringly generates war, the policy of continual preparation for war, the policy of meddlesome interventionism. There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome’s allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest—why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted. The fight was always invested with the aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for a breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies.”
--

Read the whole thing:

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/america-empire-22768

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #694 on: October 19, 2017, 09:01:58 PM »
An analysis of the beginnings of he new Cold War:

--
Even Clinton himself seems to have recognized the underlying flaw in that plan. “What the Russians get out of this great deal we’re offering them is a chance to sit in the same room with NATO and join us whenever we all agree to something, but they don’t have any ability to stop us from doing something that they don’t agree with,” Clinton said, as quoted by James Goldgeier and Michael McFaul in their book Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy toward Russia after the Cold War. “They can register their disapproval by walking out of the room. And for their second big benefit, they get our promise that we’re not going to put our military stuff into their former allies who are now going to be our allies, unless we happen to wake up one morning and decide to change our mind.”
--

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-bill-clinton-accidentally-started-another-cold-war/

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #695 on: October 20, 2017, 09:04:27 PM »
Secretary of State Tillerson just made a speech on Indo-US relations. Keeping in mind that he is, like all his ilk, a fluent liar, I read the speech and the Q&A that followed. I have put some of my thoughts in parentheses.

Some points:

1) India is to be used as a catspaw against China:

"This year’s Malabar Exercise was our most complex to date, the largest vessels from American, Indian and Japanese navies demonstrated ... "

"Thousands of Indian security personnel have trained with American counterparts to enhance their
capacity."

"China, while rising alongside India, has done so less responsibly, at times undermining the international rules-based order ... "

"China’s provocative actions in the South China Sea directly challenge the international law and norms that the United States and India both stand for ... we will not shrink from China’s challenges to the rules-based order and where China subverts the sovereignty of neighboring countries and disadvantages the U.S. and our friends."

"India and the United States must foster greater prosperity and security with the aim of a free and open Indo-Pacific."

"The proposals the United States has put forward, including for Guardian UAVs, aircraft carrier
technologies, the future vertical lift program, and F-18 and F-16 fighter aircraft, are all potential
gamechangers for our commercial and defense cooperation. "

2) China's financing of African and South Asian countries is to be countered:

"Earlier this year, instructors from the U.S. and Indian armies came together to build a U.N. peacekeeping capacity among African partners – a program that we hope to continue expanding."

" ... China, and the financing mechanisms it brings to many of these countries, which result in saddling them with enormous levels of debt."

[Dear Kettle, You are black. Pot]

" We think it’s important that we begin to develop some means of countering that with alternative financing measures, financing structures."

"We will not be able to compete with the kind of terms that China offers."

[So sad. This is admission that the USA/IMF/World Bank have lost the financial wars.]

Read all about it:

https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/event/171018_An_Address_by_U.S._Secretary_of_State_Rex_Tillerson.pdf

One bit he let slip was that he had (when still CEO of Exxon) facilitated the Indian ONGC  purchase of part of the Sakhalin Project in Russia.

The USA is now in bed with a dangerous, religious, right wing government in India. And that government is losing support.

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TerryM

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #696 on: October 20, 2017, 10:10:05 PM »
sidd
Just a few thoughts re. your last:


Does the "training" of Indian troops indicate a new eastern branch of the venerable School of the Americas?


How can poor China ever hope to be less responsible and more undermining of international rules-based order than the Exceptional Nation?


Are the Russian S-200s also "gamechangers", for commercial and defense cooperation? This appears to be a very rapidly changing game plan.


Just how will "China's financing of African and South Asian countries" be countered when "We will not be able to compete with the terms China offers".




I fear that when the Silk Road comes near, everyone without an on-ramp will be left in the dust.


There were protracted negotiations a few years back over India's solar expansion, with America gaining some bid to supply panels. With American producers needing gigantic tariffs just to compete, how is it that they were able to land this deal?


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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #697 on: October 21, 2017, 06:13:10 AM »
The School of the Americas gained sufficient oppobrium that it had to be renamed " Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation." The Indian Army probably has people who could teach there.

India buys a large amount of ordnance from Russia, always has, and the USA wants a share. Whether that will actually happen is open to question. Modi is shrewd, albeit evil, and will demand his pound of flesh. The USA can no longer outbid China, therefore you see increased military muscle in Africa. As for solar panels, as in so many other spheres, no one can beat the China price.

But as usual, there is a great deal under the surface. There was mention in that speech of a crude oil shipment from the USA delivered recently. That probably went to the money losing Dabhol refinery in Modi's home state of Gujarat, but I have not yet tracked down debarkation port. That Dabhol refinery is owned by Reliance petro group, no friends of Modi, and has a very interesting history, but I digress.

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #698 on: October 21, 2017, 10:24:26 PM »
The second precept in the third chapter of Sun Tzu is "attack the alliances." Thus:

"Russian warships dock in Philippines as Manila cultivates new ties"

" Three Russian warships, including two anti-submarine vessels, docked in Manila on Friday to unload what navy officials said was weaponry and military vehicles ..."

"Russia and the Philippines are expected to sign a security deal on military logistics next week. "

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-russia-defence/russian-warships-dock-in-philippines-as-manila-cultivates-new-ties-idUSKBN1CP0E6

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Re: Empire - America and the future
« Reply #699 on: October 27, 2017, 12:17:06 AM »
Fascinating glimse into the intertwining of political campaigns and technology companies. Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and Google sent dedicated teams to work with the campaigns in placing advertising and other media across their structures. The fusion of political and corporate power proceeds apace.

"At the same time, staffers at these firms stated that providing tools to candidates to help them get elected was a way to build relationships with the elected representatives who would be in a position to regulate them in the future. Indeed, the political services team within at least one of these firms was not specifically tied to any revenue expectations, precisely in recognition of this government affairs role."

"These firms have partisan teams, often made up of practitioners with backgrounds in Democratic and Republican politics, which work with campaigns and parties of the same political affiliation."

"The Trump model was that they... rented some cheap office space out by the airport, a strip mall, and they said it’s going to be Trump Digital. They had the companies, of the advertising companies, social media companies come down there [San Antonio] and work out of that strip mall. And we did it, Facebook did it, Google did it.... I think they did it for two reasons. One; they found that they were getting solid advice and it worked, and two; it’s cheaper. It’s free labor."

"I think the Clinton campaign had the in-house resources. They had a very large team, and they had their plan on what they were planning to, how they’re going to spend their money.... That’s not to say the Clinton people didn’t ask anyone for help, but they were clearly.... They had more resources and staff, and then dictated."

"The overarching sentiment echoed by representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google was that campaigns such as those of Sanders and Trump worked very closely with these firms, while Clinton’s much larger team dictated their advertising buys and strategy. As one representative of a firm stated, in a quote not for attribution (personal communication, date withheld), “Clinton viewed us as vendors rather than consultants.”

"Sue Halpern (2017) noted, for instance, that despite all the hype around fake news, “Facebook’s real influence came from the campaign’s strategic and perfectly legal use of Facebook’s suite of marketing tools,” which the Trump team spent approximately $70 million on, netting $250 million in donations."

Open access. Read all about it:

doi:10.1080/10584609.2017.1364814

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