Welcome to Sott.net
Sat, 06 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

V

Remember: The goal is always to make dissident ideas mainstream

rally
It's amazing how many people confuse egoic masturbation for revolutionary political activism.

We talk a lot about how you can discern the real intentions of a given politician, plutocrat or official by ignoring their words and watching their behavior, but this principle can be applied equally to everyone. And if you were to ignore the words of the people you see sharing dissident ideas in revolutionary-minded circles today and watch their behavior instead, you'd come away with the impression that most of them are actually interested in drama, conflict, social climbing, accolades, and scoring points on social media.

They want dominance and approval from their tribe, in the same way our evolutionary ancestors wanted dominance and approval in theirs. It's the same primitive, hardwired impulse. The majority of the people who find themselves moving in circles that are dedicated to upheaving the status quo in some way are primarily motivated first and foremost by this impulse, no different from anyone else in any other clique.

Blue Planet

Eastern Europe's emigration crisis

Latvia

Latvia
In recent years, most of the debate around the global migration of people has focused on the movement into developed countries and the political battles that ensue. Most famously, Trump has overturned the wisdom of the American political establishment by saying the unsayable on immigration. Politicians from Riga to Rome have won votes (and office) by exploiting similar anxieties. But we seldom talk about the places which, year after year, see more people leave than arrive, and the consequences of countries saying goodbye to some of their best and brightest — often for good.

Nowhere is this concern more pressing than in Eastern Europe. According to the UN, of all the countries that are expected to shrink the most in the coming decades, the top 10 are all in the eastern half of the continent, and seven of those are in the European Union. One cause for concern among many of these countries is the EU's freedom of movement, one of the four "fundamental freedoms" of goods, capital, services, and people that bind the 28. Although most press coverage of the bloc's easternmost nations has focused on the rise of anti-immigration populism, there is mounting concern about the brain drain of its most highly qualified citizens to better jobs abroad. In at least six of the EU, the people leaving have become as controversial as those arriving, with some countries now favouring emigration controls.

Comment: France and Germany have seen a significant influx of migrants, the UK's NHS is kept afloat by foreign born staff, yet these countries are seeing a deterioration in living standards, and so evidently the crisis throughout Europe that isn't simply down to demographics.

Should these foreign workers ever choose to return home, as many are want to do, should the conditions improve in their homeland, then these Western European countries could suffer a similar fate as those in the East. Clearly there are some fundamental flaws in the current structure, no society can truly benefit in the long term, and until these imbalances are addressed the potential fallout only increases: Also check out SOTT radio's:


Heart - Black

Police officer charged with repeatedly raping 16-year-old homeless girl while on duty

Officer Kevin Garneau
© AP
Officer Kevin Garneau
A 49-year-old Massachusetts police officer was arraigned Thursday on two charges of rape after he allegedly sexually assaulted an underage homeless girl multiple times while on duty.

Officer Kevin Garneau, a 19-year veteran of the Lowell Police Department and well-known bicycle patrol officer, was serving as a member of a community homeless outreach program in 2016 when he met the victim, who was 16 years old at the time.

The girl, whose identity has not been released, was then living in a tent in an area of Lowell set up to offer shelter to the town's homeless population, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan.

Info

Judge Amy Coney Barrett strikes a major blow against 'woke' universities & their kangaroo courts

Judge Amy Coney Barrett
© C-SPAN
Judge Amy Coney Barrett testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee, September 6, 2017
Whenever I read a court opinion describing a campus sexual-assault proceeding, I routinely find myself shocked at the staggering unfairness and ridiculous bias of campus kangaroo courts. Driven by the need to find more men guilty — and rationalized by a #BelieveWomen ideology — campus administrators have systematically discarded every fundamental notion of due process in American law.

Across the nation, courts on the right and on the left are saying no. They're blocking biased sexual-assault adjudications, protecting basic fairness, and restoring a degree of sanity to colleges' procedures. On Friday it was the turn of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to protect the Fourteenth Amendment, and an all-woman panel, led by Judge Amy Coney Barrett, established a precedent that could be used against woke college administrators nationwide.

Gold Coins

Bitcoin's sharp rise and its fight within the hard money camp

blooming flowers in famous Keukenhof park in Netherlands

Landscape with beautiful blooming flowers in famous Keukenhof park in the Netherlands. Tulips and hyacinths with trees at sunrise. Nature background
It was quite a week in money. Gold popped above $1430. The spectacular pump and dump of Bitcoin on Wednesday was something to behold.

No sooner had I published a post about it then the market seized up while I was taking my normal Wednesday evening sabbatical from the grind of politics and markets.

Coinbase went down. The price plummeted 25% and my blood pressure didn't even move. I've been a gold and crypto guy so long 'heart-stopping' volatility is for other people.

That said, Bitcoin's volatility is real and that's because it is an asset in the process of becoming fully capitalized. It's an asset that goes through the most extreme emotional roller coasters because it is also trading in immature and unregulated markets.

That volatility is used by some in the hard money/Austrian economics community to argue against Bitcoin and/or cryptocurrencies as potential money. But that is simply specious argumentation.

MIB

The Syrian refugee terror plot in Pittsburgh and the long list of FBI-manufactured terrorism cases

An FBI Evidence Response Team

An FBI Evidence Response Team
On the surface, the story of 21-year-old Syrian refugee and Pittsburgh resident Mustafa Mousab Alowemer has the elements to strike fear in many Americans and give ammunition to the Trump administration for its war on immigrants and refugees, especially those who would dare to flee violence in countries like Syria.

With much fanfare but no apparent imminent danger, the FBI announced on Wednesday last week that it had foiled a purported plot by Alowemer, an accused ISIS supporter, to bomb a local church in Northview Heights on the north side of Pittsburgh. To increase the spectacle of Alowemer's arrest, police shut down the entire block on which he lived and even knocked on neighborhood doors to alert residents to stay inside.

The results of the months-long FBI investigation was the indictment of Alowemer, who was charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to ISIS and two counts of distributing information about making explosives.

Although Alowemer's alleged plot to bomb the Legacy International Worship Center was set for July, the arrest was carried out on June 19, the eve of Global Refugee Day. This year's theme encouraged people to stand in solidarity with refugees.

Arrow Down

Austria passes smoking ban in bars and restaurants following take down of populist government

no smoking signs

An employee shows no-smoking signs in the a printing shop in Vienna, Austria.
Parliament on Tuesday passed a ban on smoking in Austria's bars and restaurants, extinguishing a flagship policy of the recently collapsed right-wing government which had scrapped the measure after it was already on the statute books.

Conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, launched in December 2017, imploded in May after FPO leader Heinz-Christian Strache was caught in a video sting apparently offering to fix state contracts at a meeting with a woman posing as a Russian oligarch's niece.

The coalition had thrown out an impending ban on smoking in bars and restaurants passed under the previous centrist government.

Comment: The shady take down of the populist Austrian government is the gift that just keeps on giving: NATO 'Deep State' and Israeli interests both served by the collapse of the Austrian government

See also:


Ice Cream Bar

Merkelstan: German public pool closed after swarm of Muslim migrants harasses family, attacks police

swimming pool migrants germany
© Global Look Press / DPA / Gerhard Berger
Police cars seen outside the Rheinbad pool in Dusseldorf, Germany on June 29, 2019.
A public pool is surely a nice way to cool yourself off, yet one in Dusseldorf, Germany was not enough to stop several hundred of hot-heads from causing trouble. Over the weekend the pool was closed twice thanks to rowdy visitors.

The Rheinbad public pool was plagued by ugly incidents this weekend, amid a record heat wave in Europe. There was even a large-scale police operation to calm-down rowdy swimmers on Saturday. The explosive situation involved "several hundred" people, primarily young men, the police said.

Local media put the number of the rowdy pool-goers at 400, reporting that the crowd primarily consisted of people of North-African origin.


Comment: That's another one to add to the list of new rules in Germany: don't offend migrants when they're having fun.

Merkel has done a good job speeding up the end of liberalism in Europe.


Fire

Explosion that destroyed home under investigation in Ballantyne, US

ballantyne explosion
Charlotte firefighters are responding to a Ballantyne house destroyed by an apparent explosion Tuesday afternoon.

It happened just before 2 p.m. according to WSOC.

The Charlotte Fire Department confirmed to WSOC the house collapsed due to a fire.

The home is located in the 11800 block of James Jack Lane off Ballantyne Commons Parkway.

Firefighters said a man made several calls to 911 to say he was trapped in the home after the explosion. They said the man was rescued and airlifted to the hospital.

Comment:






Dollars

During their 'smashing' success, Hong Kong protesters politely paid for drinks and protected cultural artifacts

HongKong protesters
© Reuters/Tyrone Siu
Protesters break into Hong Kong's Legislative Council building
While protesters in Hong Kong smashed their way into the city's parliament building and daubed anti-Chinese slogans on its walls, they were apparently polite enough to pay for drinks and protect "cultural artifacts" inside.

A mass of demonstrators used a metal trolley to breach the Hong Kong Legislative Council building after a standoff with riot police on Monday afternoon. Once inside, they occupied the main debating chamber, spray-painting anti-Chinese graffiti on the walls and hanging a British colonial flag - a visual thumb on the nose to Beijing.

However, according to a series of viral pictures circulating online, the seething masses deliberately avoided damaging books and antiquities within the building. The unverified pictures apparently show signs hung by the protesters warning that "cultural objects should be preserved." Near the Legislative Council library, barricades were put up, and another sign read "Preserve books. Don't destroy."

Comment: See also: