Puppet Masters

Disordering of the world: The rise of Neo-Liberalism

Michael Welton
CounterPunch
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 17:07 UTC

In his melancholic book, Age of Extremes: the Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991 (1995), British historian Eric Hobsbawm states: "The history of the twenty years after 1973 is that of a world which lost its bearings and slid into instability and crisis" (p. 403). American historian Tony Judt (Postwar: a History of Europe Since 1945 (2005) captures a widely expressed sentiment: "After 1945-75, Western Europe's 'thirty glorious years' gave way to an age of monetary inflation and declining growth rates, accompanied by widespread unemployment and social discontent (p. 455). Hobsbawm thinks that it was only in the 1980s that it became clear that the "golden age" of the social welfare state had crumbled and disintegrated.

Comment: Hobsbawm. A lifelong supporter of the Soviet Union. Marxist, leftist intellectual.

In the 1970s and 1980s something new and threatening to human solidarity and well-being was wresting itself free of service to the common good and undermining the "principle of oneness." Its name was Neo-liberalism, the mighty Moloch to whom all must surrender.

Comment: So, the problem wasn't that Communism was alive and well, it was ... neo-liberalism? That's not really even a thing.

It also became undeniable that the "global nature" of the crisis was being uneasily recognized. One part of the world-the USSR and E. Europe-had collapsed entirely. And in Africa, West Asia, Latin America the growth of the GDP ceased as a severe depression settled in the lands like an unwanted damp fog. But from the corporate elite's towering vantage-point, western economies seemed to be thriving even if millions of individuals weren't.

Comment: Ahh, the leftist throw-n-go. Notice the envy generating, injustice tweaking "even if millions of individuals weren't".

Comment: What else would you expect from a Neo-Marxist. Basically they ignore reality and then create paper tiger bad guys that they can pew-pew in their screeds.

Authoritarians who silence those Syria questions

Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook Blog
Tue, 27 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC

I am loath to draw more attention to the kind of idiocy that passes for informed comment nowadays from academics and mainstream journalists. Recently I lambasted Prof Richard Carver for his arguments against BDS that should have gained him an F for logic in any high school exam.

Now we have to endure Brian Whitaker, the Guardian's former Middle East editor, using every ploy in the misdirection and circular logic playbook to discredit those who commit thought crimes on Syria, by raising questions both about what is really happening there and about whether we can trust the corporate media consensus banging the regime-change drum.

Whitaker's arguments and assumptions may be preposterous but sadly, like Carver's, they are to be found everywhere in the mainstream - they have become so commonplace through repetition that they have gained a kind of implicit credibility. So let's unpack what Whitaker and his ilk are claiming.

Whitaker's latest outburst is directed against the impudence of a handful of British academics, including experts in the study of propaganda, in setting up a panel - the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media - to "provide a source of reliable, informed and timely analysis for journalists, publics and policymakers" on Syria. The researchers include Tim Hayward of Edinburgh University and Piers Robinson of Sheffield University.

Comment: Logic built upon illogic is still illogical and truth cannot be built upon a lie. Journalism has a duty to discern these differences.

Doctorow: Putin wants to 'sober-up' the US

Gilbert Doctorow
Russia Insider
Sat, 03 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC

Doctorow was one of the first commentators on the air immediately after Putin's Thursday speech. Here are his comments. A very rough transcript follows below, auto-generated by YouTube. [edited for punctuation]

Anchor: A reaction from Gilbert Doctorow, he's an independent political analyst , good afternoon Gilbert thanks for coming on. Mourad ended his piece there by saying it's we wait and see how the West will react to what President Putin said today how do you think they will react?

Doctorow: Well I think that this is a speech of enormous importance and it will be discussed extensively in all world medium particularly in the States for coming days. Of course there'll be a great deal of attention to the military hardware that he described, but I'd like to put his speech into two contexts. One is part of an electoral campaign because we are in the midst of that, and yesterday on the 28th of February, the seven other candidates had their debates on the PRV Canal [sic Channel], and to what was he saying to the West - besides showing off in a non bluff way what Russia has achieved in military hardware - and coming back to the first point the electoral campaign, he made their other candidates look like a kindergarten.

Comment: Speaks to Putin's openness to lay out Russia's capabilities and terms. Unlikely the US would be as generous.

'Big fat brick into hornet's nest': Trump calls invasion of Iraq 'worst decision ever'

RT
Sun, 04 Mar 2018 23:01 UTC

US President Donald Trump has reportedly scorched former President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq, calling it "worst decision ever made" and compared the war to throwing a "big fat brick" into hornet's nest.

The remarks were made by Trump during a fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Saturday, CNN reported, claiming it obtained a recording of the event. Trump reportedly turned on Bush over his decision on to invade Iraq in 2003.

"Here we are, like the dummies of the world, because we had bad politicians running our country for a long time," Trump said, adding that the Iraq invasion was "the single worst decision ever made," amounting to "throwing a big fat brick into a hornet's nest."

Trump also mocked the Intelligence Community for providing faulty "evidence" that was supposed to prove Baghdad possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). "That was Bush. Another real genius. That was Bush," Trump said. "That turned out to be wonderful intelligence. You know? Great intelligence agency there."

Comment: Insightful, but are there lessons to be learned from this blight of US history that have not translated into today's arena? If Trump is expressing this, he has his work cut out for him given what he thinks and what is diktat beyond his control. Citizens have to lock in support.

Czech PM rejects European Union's migrant quotas

Voice of Europe
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 20:29 UTC

The new Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Andrej Babis, said there's no way the country's government will accept refugees as part of the European Union's quota system.

"We certainly will not accept anybody. We are resolutely against anybody dictating to us who should live and work in our country. These quotas divide Europe and they are not effective", Babis told the Czech parliament.

Comment: See also: Czech PM says no to accepting 'large Muslim community'

Russian senators determine that 'opposition' movement is seeing more funding from foreign sponsors

RT
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 12:18 UTC

© Maxim Blinov / Sputnik
Foreign sponsors boost funding of Russia’s opposition, upper house commission claims
Participants of the opposition procession and rally of protest against the Russian election system in Moscow

Russian senators have registered an increase in foreign funding to various Russian opposition movements and politicians, but added that external sponsors had become more careful in hiding their schemes.

The report from the upper house Commission for Protection of State Sovereignty released on Monday reads that the signals about the increase in foreign donations that various minor and non-registered opposition groups receive from abroad were arriving from all over the Russian Federation - from the westernmost exclave of Kaliningrad to the Russian Far East.

"Western interference programs are being used with much more caution and quite often under disguise so that the recipients of this funding can fail to understand that they are being influenced," the authors of the research noted.

Comment: Washington and it's NGO's are absolutely determined to undermine Russia's sovereignty using any and all means possible; the use of 'soft power' being just one of them:

And in response, Russia has taken the following steps:

Another Naftogaz fail: Ukraine is overpaying for European gas & wants Russia to foot the bill

RT
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 18:00 UTC

Kiev was forced to buy expensive gas in Europe after Russia's state-run company Gazprom severed contracts with Ukraine and refused to deliver the fuel in March. Now, Ukraine is demanding that Russia pays the price difference.

"According to operational data, the average weighted price of gas from European suppliers in March this year exceeded the price of gas from Gazprom (after its decline in accordance with the decision of the Stockholm Arbitration) by 33.9 percent. All this overpayment will be billed to Gazprom," Ukraine's Naftogaz Commercial Director Yury Vitrenko wrote on Facebook.

Previously, Vitrenko said that, because of the gas shortage in Ukraine, the country was forced to buy gas in Europe for four times Gazprom's price.

Comment:

Renzi reportedly to step down as Italian Democratic Party leader after election defeat

RT
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 17:25 UTC

The leader of Italy's Democratic Party, Matteo Renzi, has decided to step down after Sunday's general election rout, Ansa news agency reported. Renzi's spokesman, however, said he can't confirm it.

A center-left bloc led by the ex-prime minister's party scored some 23 percent, according to the election results. It now trails the center-right bloc of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and the Euroskeptic Lega Nord as well as the anti-establishment Five Star Movement.

Renzi's spokesman told Reuters that he had heard nothing about any decision to step down.

"This is a very clear defeat for us," Michele Martina, a top figure in Renzi's party, told reporters earlier on Monday. "We are expecting a result below our expectations... This is very clearly a negative result for us," he said.

Comment: Salvini's rallying cry: "Europe should be rebuilt around people, not bureaucracy."

© Alberico / Fotogramma / Ropi / Global Look Press
Election campaign of the Northern League leader Matteo Salvini (C). Italy, Milan

What sanctions? Trade surges between Russia and Germany

RT
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 17:06 UTC

With EU sanctions against Russia still in effect, trade between Germany and Russia grew significantly for the first time in five years, according to the German Federal Statistical Office, as cited by local media.

German exports to Russia increased to €25.9 billion ($31.9 billion) in 2017, while imports from the sanctioned state grew to €31.4 billion ($38.7 billion) in the same year. The figures represent a 20.2 percent rise in exports and an 18.7 percent growth in imports, according to the Wiesbaden-based agency.

House intel chair Nunes says balanced media 'is dead' in America

RT
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 16:57 UTC

Chairman of the House Intel Committee Devin Nunes (R-California) believes fair media in the US "no longer exists" and that 90 percent of it is "far left" - even calling the media "part of the Democratic Party's network."

Nunes made the comments during a lengthy interview on the Fox News Channel Sunday show Life, Liberty & Levin with conservative host Mark Levin. "The media in this country is dead," he said. "It no longer exists and the American people need to understand this."

Nunes made the criticism when Levin asked him about the media's coverage of a controversial GOP memo written by Nunes and published last month. It contained accusations of bias against President Donald Trump within the FBI and raised doubts about the Democrats' favored narrative of "collusion" between Trump and Russia.

.. .. Is the Brits' Prince Pedo ok? [Link]

Jibrish

.. .. jUS Con gress shid show [Link] Let's go pfhizer [Link]

Jibrish

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Ruth

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codis

Puppet Masters

Disordering of the world: The rise of Neo-Liberalism

Authoritarians who silence those Syria questions

Doctorow: Putin wants to 'sober-up' the US

'Big fat brick into hornet's nest': Trump calls invasion of Iraq 'worst decision ever'

Czech PM rejects European Union's migrant quotas

Russian senators determine that 'opposition' movement is seeing more funding from foreign sponsors

Another Naftogaz fail: Ukraine is overpaying for European gas & wants Russia to foot the bill

Renzi reportedly to step down as Italian Democratic Party leader after election defeat

What sanctions? Trade surges between Russia and Germany

House intel chair Nunes says balanced media 'is dead' in America

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