Open Thread

Thank you, NGG. All correct. ICE is being trained in breaking into homes. Will the Courts come to ‘Muricans rescue? Maybe eventually, but not too soon if ever. Even those of us who are citizens are now Palestinians, or soon will be.. The Killing Fields are being prepared. Being Left, being gay, being non-white and numerous other markers will be utilized. No Justice, “Just Us”, Proud Boys, Bully Boys, Americans are natural Killers, as DH Lawrence observed.

Capitalism and the Corporations will target any and everyone who doesn’t want to serve in the Death project. Thus dies the obscenity that USA has become, not with a whimper, but with a bang and a scream.

Pinochet must be watching from Hell with a big, wide smile on his melting face.

The super-rich in China are sat on by the government, and are not allowed to do weird rearrangements of the economy (.c.f. Jack Ma, who was imprisoned to discourage him from doing a payday loan company).

What if someone in China is running a corner of the silver market, à la the Brothers Hunt?

(shoutout SPK the OG China silver fan)

Here is a new little news-tube item I just read.

” BREAKING: Trump Threatens 100% Tariffs On Canada ‘If Governor Carney’ Makes Trade Deal With China “.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3CFJ7-oeaI

I hope Canada makes this deal with China. And then I hope that Trump imposes the tarriffs. They will drive Canada towards middle-power independence a little faster. They will also make economic conditions a little worse here in America. Hopefully that will make all the ‘neutrals’ and ‘undecideds’ hate Trump a little, or even a little more.

Hopefully people will call the White House phone-answering service to beg Trump to not give in . . . to actually impose the tariffs . . . to think of his reputation and not get himself called TACO all over again.

Who are you talking to señor L&S, or is it señorito? Maybe señorita. One can never be too sure these days.

hmmm . . . ” Paul Allen, radio voice of the Vikings, mocks Minnesota protestors, says protesters are PAID. ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/sports/comments/1qm8u0n/paul_allen_radio_voice_of_the_vikings_mocks/

One hopes that every football-fan who disapproves of that sentiment can bring themselves to boycott every Minnesota Vikings related until this radio-voice of the Vikings has been fired. One further hopes that every place of business within the largest possible radius of where he lives which disapproves of his sentiment will deny him entry into their business . . . that every bank he banks at will de-bank him, that no new bank will permit him to sign up, etc. etc. etc. People who recognize him on the street could say in the most politely Minnesota-nice way . . . ” You know, that wasn’t a very nice thing to say. Maybe you aren’t really happy here in Minnesota. Maybe you would be more happy in a MAGA shithole state like Arkansas or Florida. I/we would be happy to buy you a one-way ticket to the MAGA shithole state of your choice.”

He has a face which looks very easy to recognize and remember. His face could be made into huge posters in the FBI-wanted style, only they would say : Unwanted! Anywhere in decent society.

Hey Carborundum, I didn’t quote Lawrence to say I am one of the killers or that I admire or aspire to that attitude. Quite the opposite, so your straw manning does not land. And like the Zionists, both the Dimmies and even moreso the ReThug political class love them some DHS, ICE, “Patriot Act,” etc. That is the systemic issue.

Also I noted the likes of Miller and the rest are not stoic, so you inadvertently agree with me. I certainly don’t whine about “how nothing can be done” either, 2 summers ago I was active in a Gaza Peace Camp in my home town, eventually the cops used the presence of homeless people sleeping in the Camp to shut it down and roust everyone. And even though I was well over 60 and had a hernia at the time, when there was a violent, mentally ill person threatening others, especially a pregnant woman in the camp, I helped others roust this person.

About 9 months ago, I also attended one No Kings rally, 2,000 people+, reported on it here. My review was mixed, obviously, the majority had no demands beyond “Remove Trump” but there was some good, actually radical energy there. Dunno if the Mexico thing is an ad hominem against me, I do currently live in New Mexico, which is not Mexico Viejo. For whatever reason, ICE is not big here, so I am lucky that way. I haven’t seen any. I did have a nightmare about witnessing an ICE raid yesterday, but that doesn’t mean much beyond I read the news.

If you think sharing opinions about how bad things are is pointless, you could just leave the site. And please feel free to share what you are doing to make things better, if anything?

the united states revolution was really never settled. we see that today. the civil war was to settle it, but after the rich and powerful bumped off lincoln, and set up a nation wide the terrorist organization known as the police and a system of immunity and limited liability, the counter revolution went into full swing again till FDR broke their backs, and truman to nixon stopped the repeated attempts for counter revolution.

why was the russian and chinese revolutions so successful, and have managed to outlive the capitalist suckups gorbachev/yeltin/deng and all after him, till XI?

russia never gave up majority ownership of their country, same with china, and most important, they did what franklin and paine did in the north, stalin and Moa burned out and drove out capitalists.

they are responsible for modern china and russia.

to bad what franklin and paine did in the north, was not done in the free trading south.

this is a good over view.

why we can’t compete. the disastrous hideous policies that came out of the era from 1993-2001.

the russians kept most of their manufacturing, civil society and safety net, whilst bill clinton stripped america of everything that made us rich, just to extend and goose a stock market bubble for a few financial parasites.

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/globalist-apparat-sells-forever-war

November 7th was an anniversary that passed quietly: it was the famed October revolution, or Red October—which actually happened on November 7th; the October date was using Russia’s old style Julian calendar. Here’s a powerful and thought-provoking reflection on the occasion from a Russian thinker named Gleb Kuznetsov:

November 7th is a date no longer celebrated in Russia, but one that cannot be forgotten either. The October Revolution created a country that still defines Russia’s global positioning. The paradox is that modern Russia lives on the reputational capital of the USSR, but is unwilling to acknowledge this due to the unresolved trauma of the 1980s.

Russia’s significant partners in the world—from Beijing to Caracas, from Pyongyang to Luanda—are a Soviet legacy. Ties were built over decades on the basis of anti-imperialist solidarity and genuine partnership in industrialization. Kim, Xi, Ortega, and Lula work with Moscow not because they are inspired by “traditional values,” but because they remember the Soviet alternative to American hegemony.

Today, official ideology speaks of “conservative values” and “spirituality,” which are exported to a very limited extent and, by and large, have been appropriated by those who are not our friends. A modern secular state cannot become “holier than the Pope” or a Midwestern Protestant pastor.

Russia’s real model is a functioning Soviet-style welfare state. Free healthcare and education, a pension system, maternity capital—the entire social infrastructure is not just preserved, but is being developed. Life expectancy has increased from 65 to 73 years, infant mortality has fallen dramatically, and Moscow is building “the best free healthcare system in the world”—but it attributes this to “effective management” rather than the development of Soviet principles of universal access.

The elites prefer to talk about the “bankruptcy of the Soviet project” while simultaneously investing in Soviet social infrastructure. This is a dichotomy at the level of state ideology: within the country, the Soviet legacy is rebranded as “tradition,” while abroad, we eagerly embrace the Soviet “credit of trust.” To acknowledge the effectiveness of the Soviet model, even in some way, is to return to the traumatic state when it seemed the West had won decisively.

The result: a country with a functioning welfare state model, with a real alternative to the neoliberal dismantling of the welfare state, neither articulates nor “sells” this model.

The crisis of self-evidentness manifests itself in the constant question at all levels: “Why are we doing this?” In the Soviet project, this question was impossible—the answer was embedded in the system of meanings, from school political information to the Politburo. Aid to Angola was a logical continuation of the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed, for global justice.

“Resistance to the West” is not an end, but a means. For the sake of a “more just world”? Okay, but where did this desire for justice come from? To be honest, it was 1917, the Bolsheviks, and 70 years of Soviet history. It was the Soviet period that created the logic of global solidarity with the oppressed.

But acknowledging the Soviet origins of this meaning is impossible, so we have to talk about a “millennial tradition.” Thus, the essentially Soviet style received a new packaging that didn’t entirely suit it. Explanations became phantom, like the pain of a missing tooth. A nagging “why?”

As a result, the external representation functions like an empty box with Soviet labeling—there’s no content, but the capital of recognition holds the entire structure together.

November 7th recalls the revolution that gave Russia global ideological subjectivity. The Empire was a superpower, but the real alternative history to other projects was still the USSR. Modern Russia can neither reject this legacy nor appropriate it. This is the price of trauma—the difficulty in understanding and, consequently, in packaging into a product what exactly works and why it matters to the world.

PS. The USSR created its own internal Orientalism: party leaders of the “national republics” were expected to adopt a distinctive style—exaggerated praise of Moscow, oaths of allegiance, emotional intensity, the artificial flourishes of Leonid Solovyov’s books about Hodja Nasreddin, uncharacteristic of living languages.

Today’s Central Asian leaders are reproducing the same model with Trump that their predecessors used with Brezhnev. Even the language remains the same—yesterday at the White House, most participants sang Trump’s praises in Russian.

—

At the same time, tomorrow Russia begins an interesting exhibition on the Red Square called “The City of Living Stories”:

Starting tomorrow and until November 9, Red Square will present “The City of Living Stories,” dedicated to the 84th anniversary of the legendary 1941 military parade.

They, at least, do not change history: they recall it!

ah, for the sanity of a political party that would embrace the goal of avoiding a civil war over the dopamine hit of cheering and cosplay — wouldn’t that be lovely?

as usual, instead of prudent political judgment, we have competing video replay analyses — like this was the NFL where the refs are suspected of being gambling addicts. got to get clicks, I guess.

I am told MSNow is embracing the sacred 2nd Amendment, while the usual Republican suspects are working out the protocol for a protestor or self-appointed “legal monitor” bringing a pistol to a riot. Does anyone actually believe in anything they say? In the U.S.A., the political narcissism of investing all in a Manichean narrative concocted on the fly is “normal” and has been throughout the 21st century. The memory of a goldfish augmented by a social media algorithm amplifies the war of narratives.

I know I am likely to be ragged on for not taking sides. It seems inevitable, built-in to a politics of being manipulated by competing teams of corrupt propagandists. The thing is, I think I am taking the side of practical idealism and populist democratic governance. Except that entire “side” could be packed into a driverless Waymo perpetually stuck in traffic, it is so underrepresented and so without leadership.

What’s the political goal here? What political principle is being offered?

I can see what the Republicans are pushing. It is a little weak, imo, in the face of straight-to-streaming-video homicide, and I am not sure I can believe in their competence for obvious reasons. But, what is the Dem response? Open borders? Medicaid fraud? How can I possibly align with that?

I am pretty cynical at this point. U.S. political discourse is breaking down as the war of narratives looks like pure kayfabe, while real power may or may not be in the hands of a few oligarchs of dubious mental health and Zionists who have stared too long into the abyss.

It may seem unrelated to Minnesota, but I don’t think it is, in the frame of political degeneration at the meta level: I watched as a narrative in support of another war to overthrow the Iranian regime was rolled out on social media only to flop. Apparently, the revolution — at least not that revolution — will NOT be televised after all, though new episodes may be in production. What shocked me a bit was how many prominent “influencers” could be mobilized in support of an Israeli-sponsored color revolution at this late date. Or, maybe the number of voices did not shock me (how do you count on social media?) as much as the brazen moral confidence. Plus, they had statistics of the number of dead! Are these assholes all on some ancient listserv delivering talking points?

I don’t know much about Iran, despite knowing some Iranians, but I have lived thru how many Mideast wars? I can’t argue the fine points and maybe that reflects a useful inoculation against the brain worms diet being fed thru my “For You” page. I feel that way about the contest of narratives over events in Minnesota: I can feel myself being herded and my credulity being tested. And, I don’t really know what game is being played or by whom, exactly.

could that have been Douglas MacArthur, not Black Jack Pershing?

Thanks to spud for the well-informed deep-dive on Russia, very interesting granular history which I was not aware of. Why is Bruce W surprised that MSN is singing the praises of the 2nd Amendment and guns? The Multiple Sclerosis Network (as Russell Dobular calls it) is a hard Right org, like most of the Dimmies, Dobular named it that way because it is for elderly boomer shut-ins who can’t think and want their wealth and white privilege stroked.

Joe Scarborough, “former” Republican, is their big hero. Some great hits from Morning (Sundowning) Joe: Due Dissidence plays a piece for laughs where he declares “They surrendered to the Communists!” Not specified who they is, maybe when the “Squad” presented their fake Green New Deal fantasy, forgotten days later. “This is the best Biden ever” just weeks before his complete dementia revealed in the “debate” with Donnie. Endless long tirades about how the Monster Vlad Putin is “killing people” (he’s fine with any/all US heads of State doing so), needs to be kidnapped and tortured. Even his dad-in-law Zbig Brzenski once basically called him an ignoramus on camera when he was fulminating on camera about wanting some stupid World War that Zbiggy knew would be the end of humanity. And digging back into his record a bit, when he was still an R, there was the young woman aide in his office who “suddenly” died, the official story was she had a “stroke”, “fell” and bashed her head onto a table, died instantly. About as credible as Seth Rich being targeted and murdered by a “mugger” in Chicago, no money, watch, etc. stolen . . . And going to another “progressive” Dimmie, I saw a Ro Khanna Tweet where he was screaming for Donald and Bibi to succeed at mass-bombing and regime-change in Iran to oust “the mullahs.”

Nothing Left, nor nothing kind and sane, is allowed in US political discourse. But in places like Minneapolis, the peasants are getting a little bit restive about being culled in the streets. Btw, I just learned that like even New Orleans, Louisiana, in the 80s, Minnesota had a large Central American Solidarity and Refuge movement. There was a lot of labor Socialism in the late 19th and early 20th century across the upper Midwest, Michigan, Wisconsin (even), Minnesota, even the Dakotas. As bad as things are getting, we might see history rhyme/repeat here.

sad and contrite on a frigid night
viewing hatred chaos confusion
while keeping an open heart and mind
dreaming of better days and ways
while we all fall down