Distant Realities
Friendly People,
Most of what we seem to know these days comes to us from distant sources, intermediated through electronic channels of communication, which are owned by humans with certain "interests" in profiting from, and controlling, the flows of information in those channels. This may be direct, through advertising, or it may be covert, through CIA-funding, like Operation-Mockingbird, or influence peddling to the government, covert censorship and control-narrative management, like Facebook/Meta has done, and Google does invisibly with search rankings.
These costs must be paid somewhere in the economy, just as all of the costs of compliance, days and weeks trying to make connections within a system which will not work at all without that much of your life and time spent, just to participate at all. It's not really possible to comprehend the costs imposed by bureaucracy until one is paying and paying and paying them personally. They are usually hidden better than that, and we just miss the simpler days we remember.
Bureaucracies used to have responsible people at nodes of communication, responsibility and decision-making throughout any organization, bottom to top, making timely, informed local decisions, solving problems daily as they arose. A lot of problem solving might be done on a land-line telephone between humans.
A lot of information is transferred in such an exchange, efficiently to our human modes of constructive cooperation.
There can be "corruption" at these human nodes. There can be a culture of corruption, a Mafia type culture. It can be criminally profitable to infiltrate a flow of wealth and information. Electronic communications now force all communication and problem solving to rise to the top of a bureaucracy for assessment, which means decision-making. The goal is to contain all value within the system by avoiding corruption, but the cost is to destroy quick and appropriate decision making, and to make any action at all very costly to some entity. The bureaucracy will protect itself by externalizing compliance and documentation costs onto participating users.
All other pathways must be blocked. There can be no competing bureaucracy. The ability to control any bureaucracy centrally destroys its ability to perform its designated function over time. It then mainly exists to keep existing, while presenting a parasitic cost to the rest of the economy.
Within the US we all bear these costs. I am aware of them a lot recently, as I deal with vast and nearly impossible compliance hierarchy in seeking medical employment. What is required may be impossible, but it is required, anyway to proceed, and there is no alternative. I have maintained my Texas medical license since 1987, having graduated med school in 1986, served a year-long internship, and passed multiple examinations, which have been ongoing. The city hospital where I served my internship, and later fellowship, no longer exists, but the forms require current contact information, medical director contact information and so on. At each layer of compliance bureaucracy up the hierarchy, there is a fixed requirement. So many people get paid to assure that each requirement is met and pass the form along or kick it back until it complies.
The US government bureaucracies do this to the rest of the world, as well as to Americans and businesses that serve Americans, including import and export of goods and services. The model of maximizing central control and externalizing costs can only be maintained if it is in a monopoly position. The US, with the global reserve currency for trade, extracts wealth and externalizes costs onto tributary countries. Perhaps half of the funding for thee federal government arises through parasitic extraction of value through creation of currency, which the rest of the world trades real goods and services for, to participate economically.
Banking and finance in the $US regime are further routes of parasitic extraction of wealth and resources.
What will happen when the alternative system, new and more efficient, perhaps user-friendly, is available as a real choice? It seems to me that the last to benefit will be those who are most trapped in the $US system, which are those of us in the "west", especially the USA. The bureaucracies will preserve themselves until "the end".
Big Serge takes the position that there is a lot of ruckus about tactical nuclear weapons, now dirty-bomb false flags in Ukraine, but that such use would not rationally serve the US/NATO or Russia. Ukraine could not coerce the US/NATO into an upgrade by using a dirty bomb, either.
He looks into tactical nuclear weapons, which are roughly the size of what was dropped on Hiroshima, and how they could be used.
Then Serge looks at the Battalion Tactical Group, which is like a Brigade, but with less infantry, and how that has affected Russian battlefield tactics, and why that may soon change.
Less reassuring about the risk of nuclear weapons use is Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences, retired Navy Captain, Konstantin Sivkov. This gentleman is of the opinion that the west, US/NATO has gotten into a situation where it has little useful land army, and really needs to control the world through nuclear coercion, but needs Russia as a client-state to do so. The US/NATO really needs to go nuclear, but is puzzled as to how. He explains a lot of military tactical theory around this. The transcript is in English.
It's not encouraging. Maybe he's drunk. He doesn't look drunk. (He says Neoliberal Capitalism is inefficient. He's Got to be Drunk!) http://thesaker.is/nuclear-blackmail-escalation-scenarios-konstantin-sivkov/
There are a lot of military considerations for both sides, Russia and US/NATO, and those are discussed, but here is the core premise.
NATO Set To Attack Tiraspol?
Transnistria, as an unrecognized breakaway province of Moldova, has been defended by Russia since 1994 or so, and would be seen as fair game by NATO, which doesn’t seem to worry about the rules, anyway.
Just like Azerbaijan and Turkey taking Nagorno Karabakh, if NATO can grab Tiraspol nobody other than Russia is going to squawk about it.
A key military objective for NATO / 101st Airborne is likely to be Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria, which because of its geography, is the most difficult region for Russia to defend. Sandwiched between Ukraine and NATO, Russia has no supply lines to it. And more importantly, the two best bridges over the Dneister on the best-paved route to Odessa from Romania are located at Tiraspol...
..The much-vaunted Kherson offensive may yet prove to be a feint, and the Ukrainian Army’s real attack might well come against Tiraspol from Ukrainian territory, with the 101st Airborne soldiers attacking from across Moldova. Although Moldova is not a member of NATO, I have a feeling that the USA could twist arms hard enough to get permission to overfly Moldovan airspace, especially with the promise of returning Tiraspol to Moldovan control.
Plucking Tiraspol out of Russia’s hands would make Biden look strong just before the midterm election, even though so far he never has been strong. This could be hoped to be a repeat of Joe Biden’s apocryphal poolside triumph over the bully named “CornPop.”
Therefore, if NATO takes action toward Odessa, the 101st’s primary objectives will certainly be the three bridges over the Dniester. Taking these bridgeheads would allow a larger NATO force to cross over and prepare to defend Odessa. http://thesaker.is/nato-set-to-attack-tiraspol/
Vladimir Putin spent a really long time at the Valdai Club, talking and answering extensive questions without notes or a teleprompter.
Several stories about that are worth reading. He said a lot.
The world is entering a decade of tumult as the pursuit of a more just world order clashes with the arbitrary hegemony of the collective West, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, addressing the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club...
..“We are standing at a historic milestone, ahead of what is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade since the end of World War II. The West is not able to single-handedly manage humanity, but is desperately trying to do it, and most of the peoples of the world no longer want to put up with it,” Putin said.
Conflicts arising from this tumult are threatening the entire humanity, and constructively resolving them is the principal challenge ahead, according to the Russian leader.
No one can sit out the coming storm, which has acquired a global character, Putin said. Humanity has two choices, “either to continue to accumulate a burden of problems that will inevitably crush us all, or to try together to find solutions, albeit imperfect, but working, capable of making our world safer and more stable.”
In a truly democratic multipolar world, any society, culture and civilization should have the right to choose its own path and socio-political system. If the US and Europe have that right, so should everyone else. Russia also has it, “and no one will ever be able to dictate to our people what kind of society we should build and on what principles.”
The biggest threat to the political, economic, and ideological monopoly of the West is that alternative social models may arise in the world – and would be more effective and more attractive.
“Above all, we believe that the new world order should be based on law and justice, be free, authentic and fair,” the Russian president said.
“The future world order is being formed before our eyes. And in this world order, we must listen to everyone, take into account every point of view, every nation, society, culture, every system of worldviews, ideas and religious beliefs, without imposing a single truth on anyone, and only on this basis, understanding our responsibility for the fate of our peoples and the planet, to build a symphony of human civilization.” https://www.azerbaycan24.com/en/no-one-can-sit-out-the-coming-storm/
Putin Says Russia Won’t Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine
The Russian president said the world is facing the most dangerous decade since World War II https://news.antiwar.com/2022/10/27/putin-says-russia-wont-use-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine/
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on Thursday that Russia is an “independent” civilization that does not consider itself an enemy of the West. Instead, he sees the “aggressive” and “neo-colonial” liberal elite in charge of the West as a foe.
“In the current conditions of a tough conflict, I will say some things directly,” Putin told a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. “Russia, being an independent, original civilization, has never considered and does not consider itself an enemy of the West.”
Hatred for American, British, French or German people “are the same form of racism as Russophobia and anti-Semitism,” he added.
Putin went on to describe the West as two entities. On one hand, the traditional, primarily Christian West “is close to us in some ways,” he said, noting that “we have in many respects common and ancient roots.”
“But there is another West – aggressive, cosmopolitan, neo-colonial, acting as an instrument of neo-liberal ideas. It is precisely with the dictates of this West that Russia, of course, will never put up with,” he continued.
While Putin undoubtedly sees the conflict in Ukraine as an existential struggle against the West – describing his forces as fighting the “entire Western military machine” and blaming the derailment of peace talks and sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines on the “Anglo-Saxons,” he has drawn a distinction between Western elites and Western society before...
While the West expands primarily to secure its “mercantile interest,” he stated at Thursday’s meeting, it also pushes its cultural exports on an unreceptive world. “If Western elites believe they can launch new trends like dozens of genders and gay parades, they have the right to do so,” he said. “But they don’t have the right to demand that others follow the same direction.” https://www.azerbaycan24.com/en/russia-is-not-an-enemy-of-the-west-putin/
As soon as any market is opened for certain goods, the West seizes it along with all the resources, pushing away local manufacturers, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “They build relationships this way – markets and resources are captured, countries are deprived of their technological, scientific potential. This is not progress, but enslavement, mixing economies to a primitive level” . https://www.rt.com/business/565468-russia-putin-western-economic-model/
Putin calls for ‘dialogue on equal terms’ with the West
Only a world united by common goals can act on the challenges it faces.
The Russian leader said he believes in common sense and is convinced that sooner or later “new centers of power in the multipolar world and the West will have to start talking as equals about our common future.”
He was speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club meeting outside Moscow, in conversation with Russian foreign policy expert Fyodor Lyukyanov.
https://www.rt.com/russia/565460-west-sit-out-crises-caused-putin/
The United States will “retire the B83-1 gravity bomb,” and will “cancel the nuclear-armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM-N) program.”
During a news conference, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin faced questions about retiring the two programs, arguing that “our inventory of nuclear weapons is significant.”
"I do not believe this sends a message to Putin,” Austin told a reporter. “He understands what our capability is.” (Not saying we can be reasonable.) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pentagon-us-scrap-sea-launched-nuclear-missile-program
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced Friday the the end of the partial military mobilization order from last month, having reached the target goal of 300,000 to boost operational support for military action in Ukraine...
"The task set by you — to mobilize 300,000 people — has been fulfilled. No additional tasks are planned,” Shoigu told Putin during the televised meeting.
He specified that among the mobilized recruits, some 82,000 are already in the conflict zone in Ukraine and 218,000 still undergoing training. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-announces-end-mobilization-after-enlisting-300k-new-troops
The late Dr. Luc Montagnier a 2008 Nobel Laureate for the discovery of another pandemic RNA virus, HIV-1; predicted that the vaccinated would be at higher risk of transmission and mortality (implied) once immune escape variants emerged and became dominant.
The data below from the ONS confirms the vaccinated were at higher risk of COVID-19 mortality and also non-COVID-19 mortality due to spike protein toxicity with the mRNA vaccines.
On February 21, 2022, Frontiers in Virology published a report titled MSH3 Homology and Potential Recombination Link to SARS-CoV-2 Furin Cleavage Site. The Furin Cleavage Site is the component of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that enables the virus to dock onto human lung epithelial cells, thereby initiating the viral replication process. It is the key feature of SARS-CoV-2 that made it infectious to humans. Examining the genetic code of this part of the spike protein, the authors noted that part of the sequence was a perfect match to a genetic sequence patented in 2016 by Bancel S. et al. in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Who could possibly have anticipated that mercury preservative in multi-dose vaccine vials could impair immune response, and be implicated as a cause of Bubonic Plague deaths, so long ago? Who could anticipate that the aluminum used as an adjuvant in modern vaccines, to get the immune system to respond to them would also suppress the actual ability to fight infections? Well, there's no going back now. We just have to keep injecting mercury and aluminum into ourselves and each other... Thanks Luc. (It's kind of interesting, though. I wonder if anything might be done about it in time. Single dose flu vaccines don't have mercury preservative in them, at least.)Black Plague Left a Genetic Imprint in Four Genes in Europeans: Specific Genetic Variants Found in Survivors Indicate Plague Deaths Involved Metal-Based "Medical" Treatments
Tessa Lena is Super Squeezed, a feeling we all know far too well. The squeeze of harvest or planting or weeding in season, when the sun shines, is urgent, but it has a natural satisfaction which allows us to sleep well at night, after the sun slowly sets This story is about the syndrome of our times—being super-squeezed—and the civilizational and individual consequences of violating our biological clock. It is also about what happens when we collectively abandon the “claim” to our intimate spiritual space where we stretch and grow our souls at our internal pace.
Getting Squeezed Out (pictured with home-canned Christmas presents this morning)
Thank you, John!!! I approve of the type of squeeze presented in the photo. :)
Observations on the bureaucracy are spot on. Good stuff.