FRIDAY MUSIC: Max Richter, by JD

A time for quiet reflection; music by Max Richter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Richter

Max Richter - Never Goodbye

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.” - Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī

...... for Anne, 27/3/08:

Max Richter - Meeting Again

The new MULTIPOLAR world order, by Sackerson

The US/NATO hegemon is coming to an end, if conservative historian David Starkey is correct. Here he discusses the new doctrine according to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, whom he compares in terms of diplomatic stature to Kissinger and Bismarck.

Against the West's ambition to impose its values on the world - democracy, human rights - stand Lavrov's realpolitik principles: non-interference in the internal affairs of nations; each nation to develop in its own way according to its own national, cultural and religious traditions; the world to be not 'unipolar' (US supreme), not bi-polar as in the days of US vs USSR, but multipolar - America, Russia, China and a handful of other major States.

Starkey points out that only 20% of the world's population lives in a full democracy. Many other countries have different ways of doing things, so only 11 of the G20 nations have joined in sanctions against Russia. The US hasn't yet woken up to the real world as it is now.

This notion of a watershed in the world order is echoed in the thoughts of Sergey Glazyev, an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Putin's former special adviser. He takes a long-historic view, saying that advances in technology, economic changes and the introduction of more flexible, market-based systems of management are ushering in a new, ideologically socialist world economic order in which, as in the example of India, the State seeks to maximize growth rates in order to combat poverty.

http://thesaker.is/events-like-this-happen-once-a-century-sergey-glazyev-on-the-breakdown-of-epochs-and-changing-ways-of-life/

In the 2008 financial crisis America and Europe, says Glazyev, wasted their monetary stimulus on financial bubbles and inflated budget deficits, whereas in China the money was 'completely directed to the growth of production and the development of new technologies.' Failing to defeat China in a trade war, the US turned to using Ukraine 'as a weapon of war to destroy Russia, and then to seize control of [Russian] resources in order, I repeat, to strengthen their position and weaken the position of China.' 

Following WWII, says Glazyev, the British Empire 'collapsed like a house of cards, because the other two winners — the USSR and the United States — did not need this empire and considered it an anachronism. Similarly, the world will not need American multinational corporations, the US dollar, US currency and financial technologies and financial pyramids. All this will soon be a thing of the past. Southeast Asia will become an obvious leader in global economic development, and a new world economic order will be formed before our eyes.'

Glazyev may understimate the degree to which China still depends on its trade with the US and the West, but it's clear which way Eurasia and the Far East think the wind is blowing.

Ukraine: the big picture, by Sackerson

PM Johnson said a month ago https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38005282 that President Putin had committed a war crime by bombing innocent civilians. Why would Putin put himself so clearly in the wrong with his aggression towards Ukraine?

He has rightly earned our condemnation but securing a legal judgment against him is a different matter. Following the International Criminal Court’s ruling that the annexation of Crimea counted as an armed conflict with Ukraine, Russia withdrew from the ICC in 2016 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38005282 ; but then, the US itself rejected the ICC’s jurisdiction in May 2002, ahead of Congress’ October vote giving President Bush the discretion to attack Iraq. Peace is of no account when sovereign nations adopt an à la carte approach to the rules-based international order.

What could Putin’s motives for the invasion have been?

An appeal to Russian nationalism? One of the reasons for Putin’s continuing domestic support is that he cultivates the mythos of protector of his people, and according to Article 69 (3) of his revised Constitution of 2020, that includes ‘compatriots living abroad… exercising their rights, ensuring protection of their interests and preserving all-Russian cultural identity.’ https://rm.coe.int/constitution-of-the-russian-federation-en/1680a1a237 In Article 79, the statement ‘Decisions of international bodies, taken on the basis of provisions of international treaties of the Russian Federation in their interpretation that contradicts the Constitution of the Russian Federation shall not be executed in the Russian Federation’ means, says Russian political analyst Elena Galkina https://bylinetimes.com/2020/03/11/the-true-goals-of-putins-new-constitutional-amendments/ , that ’The Kremlin wants to show that regardless of the decisions of any international authorities and courts, it will consider the [Crimean] peninsula a part of Russia.’

Defence? Putin has been referencing the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis since 2019 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-putin-idUSKCN1QA1A3 , when Washington withdrew from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_Forces_Treaty#US_withdrawal_and_termination . The US nuclear missiles at Izmir, Turkey (removed in 1963) were 1,500 miles from Moscow; Kyiv is a thousand miles closer. President Zelenskyy is now, at last, talking about accepting Ukrainian neutrality and non-nuclear status https://www.ft.com/content/c5aa8066-715d-43dd-8a3c-b6907d839a36 ; this could potentially save us all from the horrors of nuclear war; yet surely no major nation would be so lunatic as to provoke Russia into using its weapons of last resort?

Resource wars? Ukraine, whose citizens are the poorest in Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita , is rich in agriculture and minerals. That said, Ukraine is a vast country and much harder to hold than to invade, as the Russians are discovering; and Russia is already the world’s biggest exporter of wheat and boasts huge mineral reserves of its own. That is not to say that the West is not tempted, and finance plays its part: Professor Prabhat Patnaik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prabhat_Patnaik argues that the IMF, once simply an international rescue-bank, is now used to enforce ‘investor-friendly’ economic restructuring on the borrower https://peoplesdemocracy.in/2022/0306_pd/imf-connection-ukraine-crisis ; in Ukraine’s case this entailed reforms such as cutting spending on education and health and slashing the gas price subsidy to its consumers. Patnaik claims that the IMF deliberately loaned more than Ukraine could ever repay, so paving the way for taking land and mineral resources in lieu; it will end, he says, by turning Ukraine into Greece and the economy will be smashed as masses emigrate for better pay abroad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDkkGvKtlVg .

There is, perhaps, an even bigger picture, in which geography is key.

Locally, assuming negotiated peace is possible, Lt Gen Riley has sketched out a possible end position here https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/if-ukraine-rejects-a-deal-there-could-be-much-worse-to-come/ : Russia to control the Donbas (including the western coast of the Azov Sea), Crimea (plus its water supply from the Dnieper) and a land corridor linking the two. It would be a partition akin, say, to the creation of South Sudan in 2011.

However – and this is not to defend Russia’s actions - foreign minister Lavrov sees his country as embroiled in the implications of the Wolfowitz Doctrine. He refers to ‘the United States’ desire – which has been much more manifested by the Biden administration – to come back to a unipolar world’ http://thesaker.is/foreign-minister-sergey-lavrovs-interview-with-rt-moscow-march-18-2022/ and says ‘the West has repeatedly attempted to stall the independent and autonomous development of Russia.’ http://thesaker.is/foreign-minister-sergey-lavrov-leaders-of-russia-management-competition-moscow-march-19-2022/

The development he mentions has a maritime dimension. Until the Soviet Union collapsed, the Black Sea was very largely a Red lake, except for the shores of north-eastern Greece and northern Turkey. Since then, EU/NATO has gradually encroached and if we look at the map and visualise both Ukraine and Georgia within the fold (still under consideration), Blue is certainly crowding what is left of (what was once) Red.

Russia has long been working on strengthening its facilities in the Black Sea. The Sochi Olympics served a dual purpose: in 2014 America’s The Nation magazine https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/what-did-sochi-get-51-billion-highways-railroads-and-lot-white-elephants/ scoffed at Putin’s $51 billion dollar ‘white elephants’, missing the greater potential of the new Sochi airport, and of the development of the ports there, at Novorossiisk (in preparation for oil and gas shipping https://tass.com/economy/718145 ) and at Port Kavkaz - which faces Port Crimea across the Kerch Strait, the two linked (road and rail) since 2019 by Russia’s Crimean Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Bridge , Europe’s longest. South Stream, the planned undersea gas pipeline to Bulgaria, jinking through Turkey’s zone to avoid Ukraine, had to be scrapped because of political fallout from the Crimea annexation, but it is clear that the Black Sea is a hugely important trade nexus for Russia.

The Sea of Azov is also a keystone in Russia’s plans for growth and it is likely no coincidence that Ukraine’s hardest-line regiment is named after it. Until 2014 the Sea was jointly controlled by Russia and the Russophile eastern Ukraine. The River Don empties into it, and is connected to the Volga, which flows into the Caspian, by the Volga-Don Canal, which strains to accommodate modern shipping needs. One proposal is/was for a vast  Eurasia Canal linking the Caspian to the Azov and so on to the Black Sea; in 2007 Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbayev enthused that the canal ‘would make Kazakhstan a maritime power and benefit many other Central Asian nations as well’  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasia_Canal#Recent_developments ; an alternative Russian plan is to widen the Volga-Don Canal. Either way, a hostile Ukrainian force on the western shore of the Azov would again pose a threat to Russian trade and prosperity in the area, and indirectly to long-term plans for a Eurasian trading bloc such as Damir Ryskulov’s 2008 dream of a Trans-Asian Corridor of Development https://en.paperblog.com/trans-asian-corridor-of-development-russia-s-super-canal-to-unite-eurasia-734226/ .

It could be argued that Russia has been provoked into a hot-headed, deeply wrongful act, one that any empowered independent tribunal would condemn, by an outdated geopolitical policy originally aimed at containing the spread of Communism.  The mystery is why the US continued to foster China’s ascendancy after the Soviet collapse; Professor John Mearsheimer https://www.mearsheimer.com/ , who in 2015 blamed America for the Ukraine crisis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 , sees this as a ‘colossal strategic blunder’ https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/U.S.-engagement-with-China-a-strategic-blunder-Mearsheimer , saying we should settle with Putin and ‘pivot’ towards Asia.

Is it not time to stop the war, care for and compensate its innocent victims and negotiate a fresh approach to international relations that allows for peaceful global economic growth?

EMAIL FROM AMERICA (3): misinterpreting the Founders and the Bible, by Paddington

Tracking the chaos...

This week brings the confirmation hearing of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. The GOP members in the Senate have vowed to vote against her, even though she is more qualified than most of the more junior members on the Court. At stake is her refusal to embrace 'originalism', a philosophy that we should do EXACTLY as the Founders said, not necessarily what they intended. In support of this onerous and odious idea, the conservatives repeatedly make up quotes by people such as Madison, and simply lie about the rest.

Via Heather Cox Richardson, US historian: A 2019 speech by then–attorney general William Barr at the University of Notre Dame offers an explanation.

In that speech, Barr presented a profound rewriting of the meaning of American democracy. He argued that by 'self-government' the Framers did not mean the ability of people to vote for representatives of their choice. Rather, he said, they meant individual morality: the ability to govern oneself. And, since people are inherently wicked, that self-government requires the authority of a religion: Christianity.

WEEKENDER: Changes Afoot, by Wiggia

I have not been the only one to quote the phrase ‘never let a good crisis go unused’ or versions of, and I did mention how the Net Zero brigade had reinforced their objectives under the guise of Covid, two years in the formation and now being unleashed into the general narrative.

The video of the unprepared Nigel Farage being unable to counter Dale Vince on his own program was not a unique occasion but it was a relatively high profile one and a missed opportunity to debunk the whole push for Net Zero that Boris despite evident minor concessions is still pushing ahead with.

Even in a week when Ukraine naturally dominates the headlines the Greens are still issuing statements on how we should be looking to live in the not too distant future; some of it is trivial and unnecessary nonsense but it still keeps the whole Net Zero train on the tracks when it should be in a siding.

While taking the wife shopping this week to Waitrose, a bastion of all things Green, I picked up their free Weekender magazine; you may well ask why, but those that know are aware that I read anything, no catalogue that plops onto the mat goes unscanned and reading women's magazines in the dentists waiting room is de rigueur, all the while picking up snippets of useless and sometimes very interesting information on things that would normally pass me by.

In the aforementioned Weekender, after scanning pages of politically correct photos of various ethnic people dominating the images I saw an article on saving water. We have done this one and the fact that water companies have totally failed to increase capture and storage despite an ever-rising population; doubtless it is still all our fault for having the temerity to use the stuff in the first place. So we get a lifestyle change piece on how to save water and if possible not even use it.

But the article is not quite as innocent as it appears. Anna Shepard is the author ‘My Year of Living Sustainably’ and this is No. 11 in the series; I have not seen any of the others but would think this one is par for course. Anna also wrote for the Times under her Eco Worrier tag and has written books on green living plus naturally she is a go-to for the BBC radio and TV. I mention all this because this type of eco approach is everywhere: women's magazines (see, I told you it would come in useful) for some reason are full of articles on sustainability and green living.

Anyway in this piece, No. 11, she talks about her family's way of dealing with water usage. Water for some reason is no longer a basic necessity but a power-using commodity that should be used sparingly (see earlier note on water companies): heating water increases carbon emissions and the evil gas boiler is the culprit here.

Showers by nature are evil incarnate if you shower and actually use the thing more than the seven to eight minutes which we are told is standard, which I don’t actually believe; we should take a minute less and save the world. She supplies all sorts of tips like using a timer and a hardly-get-you-wet shower head, and turn it off if washing hair in shower whilst soaping; her husband, being a good boy, turns the temperature down, which evidently boosts his immune system - lucky him, no Covid in that house.

And finally she excuses her love of a long soak in the tub, for which she would normally lose brownie points for admitting such a heinous act, by sharing or leaving the water for someone else to get into; and finally, a gold star for having days when they don’t wash at all.

I am with Anna on this one, or would have been, though I doubt it would have saved any water - after all, who would want to leave the shower in a situation like that !

The detail from this one article is in line with the endless shelves in supermarkets that have pretend meat on them as the push to cut meat out entirely from diets goes full steam ahead. Meat of course is a prime (!) mover in producing emissions and so should be cut as rapidly as possible along with the inevitable removal of all dairy products as a natural consequence. Lab grown meat is already an item and will be with you soon; soya milk is a substitute for dairy milk - though soya production uses lots of water so cross that one off; strange how avocados are bad, needing lots of water in production, but soya is fine as indirectly it gets rid of meat.

The banning of the use of plastics continues apace, being a by product of oil which today is the devil itself, though no one has addressed how we will replace items like plastic piping and everything else which we take for granted in the modern age; the alternatives, should there be enough natural materials to make some of these items, are all very expensive which will in turn mean that the man on the Clapham omnibus (for that is all that there will be left to travel on) will be further impoverished, not only will he have to use less water, it will probably be rationed and a communal standpipe will be the local gathering point as in Africa, all those toxic plastic delivery pipes having been banned.

Polyester clothing will follow the route of extinction, we will return to use of pure cotton - no, that's out, its links to slavery make it a no-no; so wool will return to the top of the clothing tree, except that sheep have by then been eliminated as meat is also a no-no, banished to the past as when we were hunter-gatherers. Are there enough silk worms in the world to take up the slack?

Anna even manages to get in on another article on the following page, following the well-worn path of 'cars are bad so don’t use them.' This time she manages to find a fellow eco convert in Emma, who is stressed by driving and the bus is relaxing and convenient (not round here, on the reduced services of one an hour), but still Emma has joined the carless society. The reduction in petrol driven vehicles as EVs take over is to be applauded, but wait a minute, Sandra from We Are Possible! says EVs only ‘lower’ emissions and that is not enough: we need to reduce all cars on the road. Emma is a rent fanatic, she believes renting cars plus everything else will save the world, and the lockdowns showed the way with emissions being down by around 50%; Emma would like that figure to remain: people working, travelling etc. is such a dated concept, the magic money tree will take care of any problems arising.

As Emma so succinctly puts when signing off, ‘Do I need to do so much?’ even though it appears she is doing very little now.

No doubt Emma will be delighted when all cars are finally banned and we take to public transport; could this be the future?...

On the same page Matthew McNulty, actor, has a question and answer session. If you could eat anywhere in the world today where would you go? Now a decent modern progressive would say ‘my local Chinese’ as we can walk there and cut emissions, but McNulty makes a statement that will turn Greta apoplectic should she read it, how dare you indeed, by declaring ‘The Arctic. I’d catch fish then cook and eat it in the cold, appreciating hot food in a cold place is the ideal.' I have news for McNulty: appreciating hot food in any climate may soon be a luxury at home, never mind the Arctic.

The Weekender as with all newspapers and journals knows which side its bread is buttered when it comes to advertising: no anti Covid items when the NHS (us) was paying for the non stop advertising and no irony in having articles on sustainability on the page before the travel section starts with exotic holidays in all points of the globe being pushed - it’s funny how they have to accept advertising which goes against their eco agendas as a means to survive, but the little people will have to choose to heat or eat!

So there it is in a nutshell, actually Waitrose's Weekender: we have the current viewpoint on all things eco. All these sage words are apparently uttered by people who not only have no concept of what it is like to not be able to put the heating on but actively encourage it. Another cashmere jumper, an extra duvet, take the dog for a walk several times a day (naturally the dog will be fed with one of the new non meat pet foods) and light small fires in the living room with non-emission-emitting copies of Weekender - as they say, today’s newspaper is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper, or in this case firelighter; it’s all we have.

I am not convinced that dogs really want a vegan diet, this chap certainly has reservations:

I am not totally without sympathy to the cause, we all have to make an effort however small to save the planet. I have already gone out on a limb and got rid of all my petrol-engined mowers and strimmers and replaced with an eco version I found in the local paper; it may just be a way of saving livestock from their impending demise at the same time:

An addendum:

Dale Vince, mentioned in my piece last week on Nigel Farage, is another who does not want the truth about himself made any more public than necessary. He denied he had made a fortune when asked on Nigel’s program and claimed his company is a not for profit organisation, yet for all that he is a major shareholder and chairman at Forest Green Rovers, who are about to make it into the football league (even small football clubs do not come cheap), and he settled an old divorce case with a payment of half a million pounds in court costs. He is a vegan, naturally, and supports the Green Party (ditto) and donated to the Greens and the Labour party; he also endorsed Caroline Lucas. The gory details are all here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Vince

As can be seen he is a full on eco zealot, something that Nigel could have found out by clicking the same link as I did. As with so many of these people, give them the smallest opportunity and they will force their ideals on you without asking - note he has banned all meat products at the football ground and all his players are vegan.

So I think we can take his rather biased view on wind and solar power with a pinch of salt as he is no different from anyone else jumping on the eco wagon. He is fully entitled to his view but his answers were not quite the full story when he appeared on Talk Radio on Thursday giving more biased reasons for not following any other route other than wind and solar (despite the obvious shortcomings and the costly need for a parallel back up system or the lights go out.)

And once again the presenter was not on the ball with the questions and answers.

They should have let those who commented from the public afterwards interview him, they had most of the facts about this scam.

FRIDAY MUSIC: The Brothers Comatose, by JD

"Whether traveling to gigs on horseback or by tour bus, Americana mavens The Brothers Comatose forge their own path with raucous West Coast renderings of traditional bluegrass, country and rock ‘n’ roll music. The five-piece string band is anything but a traditional acoustic outfit with their fierce musicianship and rowdy, rock concert-like shows.

"The Brothers Comatose is comprised of brothers Ben Morrison (guitar, vocals) and Alex Morrison (banjo, vocals), Steve Height (bass), Philip Brezina (violin), and Greg Fleischut (mandolin, vocals). When they’re not headlining The Fillmore for a sold-out show or appearing at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the band is out on the road performing across America, Canada, Australia, and hosting their very own music festival, Comatopia, in the Sierra foothills."

https://www.thebrotherscomatose.com/

EMAIL FROM AMERICA (2): exploiting 'States' rights', blamestorming on energy price hikes; by Paddington

Tracking the chaos...

GOP Senator Mike Braun of Indiana was questioned by reporters today, and expressed his opinion that rights to abortion, interracial marriage and contraception should be left up to each state, to avoid the homogeneity that Roe v. Wade produced.

Attacking the LGBT population is clearly the next step, but why stop there? How about we go back to slavery, which has been proposed by groups such as the Dominionists, who want the US to be ruled by the Old Testament rules?

In other news:

Responding to the high gas prices, GOP politicians are blaming the Biden administration for cutting US oil production, and the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline extension. These cries are echoed by their supporters, based on the feeding of the fires by Newsmax, Fox and other right-wing sources.

The fact that the Trump administration stated that the pipeline in question would do nothing to change the price of gas, and that the Biden administration has sold lots of drilling permits is, of course, not considered.

Meanwhile, Democratic politicians in Ohio are pushing to suspend the state and federal gas tax for a period to bring down the price and increase their chances of election. There is, of course, no way to guarantee that such a price decrease would make its way to consumers.

Quietly buried is an item reported by the Wall Street Journal that several oil companies have announced to their shareholders that they are restricting production to keep the prices elevated.