Month: March 2017

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: Westphalia, Soft Power, And New … (Part 2)

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powerJoseph P Farrell – Yesterday I began this two-part blog on the following important article that many here sent me: the speech of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the military academy of the Russian General Staff:

Speech of Lavrov at the Military Academy of the General Staff

As I noted yesterday, Mr. Lavrov placed his remarks about the Peace of Westphalia  ‘front and center ‘, toward the very beginning of his speech to the academy, and this, I argued, was a strong clue about Russia ‘s  long term  agenda.

One might summarize that agenda in the form of two propositions: (1) if there is to be a  ‘global world order’ then to ensure it does not become a tyranny, it must be based on some  ‘congress ‘ system or mutual recognition of the sovereignty of states, coupled with (2) the notion that such states are to be wholly secular, with no one religion dominating, or conversely, excluded.

From the standpoint of domestic policy, this is a logical road for Russia to pursue, for though its religious-cultural heritage is Eastern Orthodox, it has significant populations of Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, and so on. And this  ‘Westphalian’ approach has been stressed by Mr. Putin repeatedly in his remarks.

But Mr. Lavrov goes on to mention, in this context, something else quite important: the  ‘soft power ‘ or  ‘culture power ‘ card, and he does so, notably, immediately  after  mentioning the Peace of Westphalia: Of course, it takes more than just the size of a country’s territory for it to be considered “big and strong” in today’s world.  There is also the economy, culture, traditions, public ethics and, of course, the ability to ensure one’s own security and the security of the citizens under any circumstances.

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Now They Want The State To Own Your Organs After You Die…

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organJoseph P Farrell – When I read this article shared by Ms. S.H., I honestly thought we had reached a new low for the utter shamelessness, and utter disregard, for the idea of individual freedom and property rights that usually wafts – malodorously – from the corridors of power, for this one is a stunner:

Connecticut’s Ted Kennedy, Jr. Thinks State Should Own Your Organs

Of course, to make all of this sound acceptable and “compassionate” (favorite terms to bandy around whenever they want to take your property, or make another anti-freedom, anti-human grab for your life or those of your loved ones), this is only being done or advocated for those who have died:

Connecticut State Sen. Ted Kennedy Jr. (D-Branford) — son of former U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) — wants to give state government control over what happens to citizens’ organs after they die.

Kennedy recently introduced SB 750, which would automatically enroll Connecticut’s citizens in the organ donation program.

Organ donation has been traditionally something that one opts into, but under the Kennedy bill, one would have to opt out of the program: Continue reading →

The Deep State’s Dominant Narratives and Authority Are Crumbling

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Charles Hugh Smith – As this chart from Google Trends illustrates, interest in the Deep State has increased dramatically in 2017. The term/topic has clearly moved from the specialist realm to the mainstream. I’ve been writing about the Deep State, and specifically, the fractures in the Deep State, for years.

deep state

In this risible view, there is no Deep State “conspiracy” (the media’s favorite term of dismissal/ridicule), just a bunch of “good German” bureaucrats industriously doing the Empire’s essential work of undermining democracies that happen not to prostrate themselves at the feet of the Empire, murdering various civilians via drone strikes, surveilling the U.S. populace, planting bugs in new iPhones, issuing fake news while denouncing anything that questions the dominant narratives as “fake news,” arranging sweetheart deals with dictators and corporations, and so on.Amusingly, now that “Progressives” have prostituted themselves to the Security Agencies and the Neocons/Neoliberals, they are busy denying the Deep State exists.

For example, There is No Deep State (The New Yorker). Continue reading →

The Disgrace of War

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Paul Rosenberg –  Here’s a simple question. Give me the first answer that pops into your mind: What’s the purpose of the state?

Most people would probably answer, to keep us safe. I can argue that this isn’t the state’s true purpose (and I will, below), but it’s clearly its primary selling point.

And so, every war – and there are generally at least 20 of them under way at any point in time – is a screaming condemnation of the state. War is people dying; it is property being destroyed; it is market processes being torn apart. It’s the precise opposite of keeping people safe.

Yes, war is sold as “fighting bad guys elsewhere to keep us safe here,” but it’s boys and girls from here who must do the killing and dying… and there’s a whole lot of damage contained in just that.

Every war is a massive failure of the “keep people safe” system. For modern Americans, it means “your children will have their feet blown off” more than it does “your children will die,” but is that okay? Is that, somehow, “not a failure”?

A Small War Is Worth 30,000 Crimes

CrimeWar is “unsafeness” on a huge, gigantic scale. Just a small war – perhaps like the invasion of Panama by the US in 1989 – is far worse than garden-variety crime. And Panama, we should note, is a very long way from an enemy of the US… and certainly no threat to Americans.

That little Panamanian war lasted only about a month, including the occupation, and resulted in “only” about a thousand deaths[1] and an unknown (but almost certainly much larger) number of wounded. And as you can see from the photo below, a large amount of property damage.

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