Centering the Earth

omething remarkable is happening in the US in 2020 in terms of public awareness of race .
The George Floyd uprising , two months in duration so far , has brought formerly fringe ideas into the mainstream , shifting the entire frame of discourse to the left .
The breakthroughs we are experiencing this summer might feel sudden , but they follow decades of activism , with all its labor , learning and dedication .
People have been pushing for awhile .
The murder of George Floyd was a “ last straw ” event .
One notable change is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cities have been made up of diverse crowds that are led by people of color , with whites taking the backseat .
This change in centering has been very welcome .
In the last couple weeks , a new element was added to the mix when Trump sent federal law enforcement officers to Portland , Oregon , to attack protesters .
Nightly demonstrations in that city , which—though continuous since May—had dwindled to a hundred or so participants , then exploded into the thousands when these officers began nabbing people off the street @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This is the stuff the fascist regimes are made of , and people have been rightly alarmed .
The Feds have had their hands full as new waves of protesters have faced off with them in defense of the George Floyd / Black Lives Matter protesters .
The “ Wall of Moms ” gained national attention , as did the “ Dad-archists ” with their leaf blowers for repelling tear gas .
A Wall of Vets is the newest addition .
All these efforts have been explicitly in support of Black-led actions .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ who are white defer from talking to the press , as I found out when seeking an interview for my podcast .
All speak of “ centering ” POC .
I put the word “ centering ” in quotation marks not to disparage it , but to draw attention to the concept it denotes .
The term wasn ’ t in circulation that I know of ten years ago but now it ’ s common currency .
In part for being visual , it effectively captures the essence of the act of deliberately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much of our settler-colonial culture is about coasting along in ignorance , the emphasis on cultivating attention is desperately needed .
One “ centers ” through an act of conscious will , purposely shifting one ’ s perspective , as a way to provide one ’ s support meaningfully and effectively .
“ Centering ” —and much else of what we ’ re seeing that ’ s positive—is being brought to the fore in large part by young people , and this too is very welcome .
The leadership class of the US @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fide gerontocracy at this point , like the last days of the Soviet Union .
A major housecleaning is needed .
( Or a new house .
Or no house at all . )
The young people definitely know this , and if we ’ re going to center people by age , we ought to be centering them .
Alas , that we have more “ olders ” than “ elders ” in the US , to quote a teacher I once had .
Regardless , shifts are happening , with our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I am personally encouraged because it feels like some energy is moving in the right direction for the first time in a long while .
If we continue in this direction , further lessons will be learned , and more old baggage will get dropped .
What we center will also develop ; we will go deeper , and the circle of liberation will grow .
What will it look like to center Native Americans in the US ?
How about when the world ’ s “ developed ” countries center the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That last step leads to centering the earth .
Centering humans , as too many of us have done for too long ( since at least the agricultural revolution ) , has led to unmitigated disaster all around .
The oceans are full of plastic and over-fished .
The land is deforested , drained , ranched , farmed and mined .
The air ’ s altered chemistry is changing the climate .
Overall , domestication has been a real killer and we ’ re among the victims .
The George Floyd uprising was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The original crime was recorded on a cell phone and then spread by social media , which is designed for the device .
Millions viewed it and took to the streets .
Thanks to the cell phone , and to years of work by activists , police brutality became a mainstream issue and POC are becoming centered as the leaders to follow .
The cell phone is an invention of a culture centered on humans , so the effects to the earth are written off as the cost of doing business by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people of color in other countries , centering one class of humans over another .
The mines destroy habitat for living creatures both on-site and off , centering humans above nature .
If we were centering the earth , we would not have cell phones or cops or class , and we ’ d undoubtedly be better off .
Farmworkers have suffered especially bad living and working conditions during the COVID pandemic , which again is centering one class of humans over another .
Agriculture is the leading cause of habitat destruction worldwide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the planet ’ s habitable land is used for farming .
That ’ s all habitat that ’ s impacted or wiped out , centering humans above nature .
If we were centering the earth , we would not be farming and we ’ d undoubtedly be better off .
There ’ s no jobs on a dead planet .
And no justice or peace either .
Yet our collective death cult continues .
The fact that the dominant culture is centering humans might seem impossible to change , but that seemingness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and what is presented as inevitable is actually aberrational .
This is one of the lessons of 2020 .
Change happens when ’ s there ’ s critical mass .
One person filming the cops in Minneapolis ended up moving the ground under our feet as a nation .
But such sparks are unpredictable and probably impossible to trigger on purpose .
So , it ’ s all about being ready when the wave hits , with a willingness change ourselves most of all .

S
omething remarkable is happening in the US in 2020 in terms of public awareness of race.
The George Floyd uprising, two months in duration so far, has brought formerly fringe ideas into the mainstream, shifting the entire frame of discourse to the left. The breakthroughs we are experiencing this summer might feel sudden, but they follow decades of activism, with all its labor, learning and dedication. People have been pushing for awhile. The murder of George Floyd was a “last straw” event.
One notable change is that the street actions in Minneapolis and other cities have been made up of diverse crowds that are led by people of color, with whites taking the backseat. This change in centering has been very welcome.
In the last couple weeks, a new element was added to the mix when Trump sent federal law enforcement officers to Portland, Oregon, to attack protesters. Nightly demonstrations in that city, which—though continuous since May—had dwindled to a hundred or so participants, then exploded into the thousands when these officers began nabbing people off the street and packing them into unmarked vehicles. This is the stuff the fascist regimes are made of, and people have been rightly alarmed.
The Feds have had their hands full as new waves of protesters have faced off with them in defense of the George Floyd / Black Lives Matter protesters. The “Wall of Moms” gained national attention, as did the “Dad-archists” with their leaf blowers for repelling tear gas. A Wall of Vets is the newest addition. All these efforts have been explicitly in support of Black-led actions. For example, Wall of Moms members who are white defer from talking to the press, as I found out when seeking an interview for my podcast. All speak of “centering” POC.
I put the word “centering” in quotation marks not to disparage it, but to draw attention to the concept it denotes. The term wasn’t in circulation that I know of ten years ago but now it’s common currency. In part for being visual, it effectively captures the essence of the act of deliberately choosing to prioritize. Given that so much of our settler-colonial culture is about coasting along in ignorance, the emphasis on cultivating attention is desperately needed. One “centers” through an act of conscious will, purposely shifting one’s perspective, as a way to provide one’s support meaningfully and effectively.
“Centering”—and much else of what we’re seeing that’s positive—is being brought to the fore in large part by young people, and this too is very welcome. The leadership class of the US at the federal level is a bona fide gerontocracy at this point, like the last days of the Soviet Union. A major housecleaning is needed. (Or a new house. Or no house at all.) The young people definitely know this, and if we’re going to center people by age, we ought to be centering them. Alas, that we have more “olders” than “elders” in the US, to quote a teacher I once had.
Regardless, shifts are happening, with our without the acquiescence of those in charge. I am personally encouraged because it feels like some energy is moving in the right direction for the first time in a long while.
If we continue in this direction, further lessons will be learned, and more old baggage will get dropped. What we center will also develop; we will go deeper, and the circle of liberation will grow. What will it look like to center Native Americans in the US? How about when the world’s “developed” countries center the planet’s remaining indigenous cultures?
That last step leads to centering the earth. Centering humans, as too many of us have done for too long (since at least the agricultural revolution), has led to unmitigated disaster all around. The oceans are full of plastic and over-fished. The land is deforested, drained, ranched, farmed and mined. The air’s altered chemistry is changing the climate. Overall, domestication has been a real killer and we’re among the victims.
The George Floyd uprising was brought to us by cell phone culture. The original crime was recorded on a cell phone and then spread by social media, which is designed for the device. Millions viewed it and took to the streets. Thanks to the cell phone, and to years of work by activists, police brutality became a mainstream issue and POC are becoming centered as the leaders to follow.
The cell phone is an invention of a culture centered on humans, so the effects to the earth are written off as the cost of doing business by virtually everyone. Rare earth mining harms people of color in other countries, centering one class of humans over another. The mines destroy habitat for living creatures both on-site and off, centering humans above nature. If we were centering the earth, we would not have cell phones or cops or class, and we’d undoubtedly be better off.
Farmworkers have suffered especially bad living and working conditions during the COVID pandemic, which again is centering one class of humans over another. Agriculture is the leading cause of habitat destruction worldwide. Between crop-growing and animal-pasturing, half of the planet’s habitable land is used for farming. That’s all habitat that’s impacted or wiped out, centering humans above nature. If we were centering the earth, we would not be farming and we’d undoubtedly be better off.
There’s no jobs on a dead planet. And no justice or peace either. Yet our collective death cult continues.
The fact that the dominant culture is centering humans might seem impossible to change, but that seemingness is itself a feature of the culture, and what is presented as inevitable is actually aberrational. This is one of the lessons of 2020.
Change happens when’s there’s critical mass. One person filming the cops in Minneapolis ended up moving the ground under our feet as a nation. But such sparks are unpredictable and probably impossible to trigger on purpose. So, it’s all about being ready when the wave hits, with a willingness change ourselves most of all.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-01--Rashida Tlaib Refuses to Endorse Joe Biden & Nina Turner Compares Biden To “Shit”

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thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-07-31--Caleb Maupin on dialectical materialism, the rise of Communist culture

Caleb 's chats are the ideal tool for those who wish to acquire a solid understanding of contemporary history in an easy , accessible manner .
In this episode Caleb discusses the importance of understanding the truths underscored by Dialectical Materialism , among which the fact that everything changes all the time , that NOTHING stays the same , not even from one second to the next , is central .
This means anything is possible , that the past , even the immediate past , does not need to rigidly determine the future .
That A ≠ A. Caleb @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a communist culture from the late 1920s through the 1940s and the immediate postwar , when the standard of living began to rise for working families .
Communist culture included unions , neighborhoods , theaters , children 's camps ( i.e.
, WO-CHI-CA camp ( 1 ) ) , musical organizations , schools , and much more .
The chat also dwells on how people 's `` high '' events , highly romantic things they participated in—Vietnam war , the Great Depression , the struggle for unionism , the McCarthy period and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what is possible , providing them with a single lens to view history .
PRECIS : An informal chat with Caleb Maupin as guide to the multitude of news , lies , distortions , rumors , idiocies , hypocrisies , and ideologies that shape our world .
( 1 ) Wo-Chi-Ca camp was birthed in 1934 amidst World War II , McCarthyism , The Great Depression , and the Cold War .
Wo-Chi-Camp is short for Workers Children ’ s Camp .
It was an interracial co-educational summer vacation camp found in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from summer vacation homes designed for people with ties to the Communist Party .
Originally , these spaces were inter-generational , but the adults began to realize that the youth needed their own summer community as well .
In 1934 , a New Jersey farmer and his wife donated 127 acres of land to start Camp Unity , the first interracial camp supported by the communist party in the United States .
Camp Unity would then be called Workers Children ’ s Camp or Wo-Chi-Ca for short .

Caleb's chats are the ideal tool for those who wish to acquire a solid understanding of contemporary history in an easy, accessible manner. In this episode Caleb discusses the importance of understanding the truths underscored by Dialectical Materialism, among which the fact that everything changes all the time, that NOTHING stays the same, not even from one second to the next, is central. This means anything is possible, that the past, even the immediate past, does not need to rigidly determine the future. That A ≠ A. Caleb talks about the rise and fall of a communist culture from the late 1920s through the 1940s and the immediate postwar, when the standard of living began to rise for working families. Communist culture included unions, neighborhoods, theaters, children's camps (i.e., WO-CHI-CA camp(1)), musical organizations, schools, and much more. The chat also dwells on how people's "high" events, highly romantic things they participated in—Vietnam war, the Great Depression, the struggle for unionism, the McCarthy period and the fight against anti-communism—seem to freeze their perception of what is possible, providing them with a single lens to view history.
PRECIS: An informal chat with Caleb Maupin as guide to the multitude of news, lies, distortions, rumors, idiocies, hypocrisies, and ideologies that shape our world.
Addendum
(1) Wo-Chi-Ca camp was birthed in 1934 amidst World War II, McCarthyism, The Great Depression, and the Cold War. Wo-Chi-Camp is short for Workers Children’s Camp. It was an interracial co-educational summer vacation camp found in New Jersey.The emergence of this camp came from summer vacation homes designed for people with ties to the Communist Party. Originally, these spaces were inter-generational, but the adults began to realize that the youth needed their own summer community as well. In 1934, a New Jersey farmer and his wife donated 127 acres of land to start Camp Unity, the first interracial camp supported by the communist party in the United States. Camp Unity would then be called Workers Children’s Camp or Wo-Chi-Ca for short.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-01--National Security Law for Hong Kong: Bane to Subversives, Boon for Citizens

n the eve of the passage of Beijing ’ s National Security Law , Global Times asked me for a commentary on the subject .
Here it is ( link below ) .
The Standing Committee of the National People 's Congress , China 's top legislature , will imminently enact a National Security Law ( NSL ) for Hong Kong .
For many in the Special Administrative Region , especially patriots , this will be the most hopeful day in the life of Hong Kong since its return to China in 1997 .
It could mark the start of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ -- and of Hong Kong 's ‘ second return to the motherland .
The reason : The new law will likely end systematic subversion by local Beijing-haters and their Western allies .
It was the lack of such legislation that allowed these forces of darkness to riddle Hong Kong 's civic ecosystem with Sinophobia and paralysis .
Their most dramatic depredations were the Occupy Central uprising of 2014 , the Mongkok riots of 2016 and , of course , the 'Black Terror ' campaign of demonstrators wearing black-shirts that began last summer… The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their ‘ special trading status ’ for Hong Kong and threatened to bar Chinese officials involved in the NSL from the US .
But those are largely toothless measures , more bark than bite .
Any anti-trade moves would hurt America more than Hong Kong .
The SAR has been running an annual average trade deficit of US $ 30 billion with the US over the past decade , and provides America with its single biggest bilateral trade surplus .
In Hong Kong , the move toward a security law immediately set the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politicians denounced it .
For the zillionth time , they pronounced the death of ‘ One Country , Two Systems ’ .
Some extremists frantically speculated in online forums about horrors to be unleashed by ‘ the Communists.
’ The cost of a smuggled seaborne passage to Taiwan reportedly soared tenfold , to more than HK $ 1 million .
The ‘ democrats ’ tried to make the general public as fearful as they were .
But that 's merely more of their usual deceit .
Rather than curb Hong Kong 's ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do the opposite .
Certainly , the vast bulk of citizens who have no interest in committing secession , subversion , terrorist acts or colluding with outside forces would lose no freedoms .
Instead , they will be freed of the depredations of the democracy thugs -- political intimidation , personal threats , doxxing , random violence , vandalism , disruption of daily life and so on .
To sum up , National Security Law for Hong Kong will be a bane to the subversives , but a boon for the long-suffering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ veteran journalist based in Hong Kong .
He writes a blog titled 'Hong Kong , China ' and contributes to the '21SilkRd ' group in Facebook .

O
n the eve of the passage of Beijing’s National Security Law, Global Times asked me for a commentary on the subject. Here it is (link below).
Excerpts:
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, will imminently enact a National Security Law (NSL) for Hong Kong. For many in the Special Administrative Region, especially patriots, this will be the most hopeful day in the life of Hong Kong since its return to China in 1997. It could mark the start of the SAR's long-delayed process of decolonization -- and of Hong Kong's ‘second return to the motherland.
The reason: The new law will likely end systematic subversion by local Beijing-haters and their Western allies. It was the lack of such legislation that allowed these forces of darkness to riddle Hong Kong's civic ecosystem with Sinophobia and paralysis. Their most dramatic depredations were the Occupy Central uprising of 2014, the Mongkok riots of 2016 and, of course, the 'Black Terror' campaign of demonstrators wearing black-shirts that began last summer…


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-01--Debate: Is ‘Russiagate’ a CIA Hoax?

Debate: Is ‘Russiagate’ a CIA Hoax?

Another important dispatch from The Greanville Post .
Be sure to share it widely .
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches by historian Eric Zuesse here now is a public debate regarding whether or not ‘ Russiagate ’ was/is a CIA-generated hoax , instead of ( as it has been reported ) a Russian Government hacking operation .
Whatever it was , did spark massive U.S. economic and other sanctions against Russia , and is therefore important in today ’ s U.S. international relations .
Had the CIA actually created the “ evidence ” ?
Were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraud ?
That is the question here .
On July 30th , the former Technical Director of the NSA — America ’ s top position on cyber intelligence including computer-hacking — Bill Binney , , by a ten-minute presentation , the latest up-to-date information that exists regarding , and discussing , the actual sources of the various unauthorized releases , to the public , of emails and other documents from the computers of the Democratic National Committee and of John Podesta who headed the Presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton .
Binney alleged there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not just speculatively — that the CIA tampered with the evidence , in order to become enabled to accuse Russia as having been involved in those unauthorized information-releases .
He further alleged that Robert Mueller ’ s report on the Democratic Party ’ s charges that Russia and Trump were involved in these matters was false when it unquestioningly accepted the CIA ’ s assertions against Russia and on that basis accused the Internet Research Agency , in Russia , as having “ hacked ” the data .
Consequently : if Binney ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. history is based upon fraud by the U.S. Government itself .
This would be a case like America ’ s 2003 invasion of Iraq , but perhaps even worse .
One of the news-sites that published his presentation was One of the news-sites that published his presentation was Silver Doctors .
A reader-comment there , from an anonymous “ Fred , ” challenged Binney ’ s reconstruction of what had occurred .
Here below is Fred ’ s reader-comment , and Binney ’ s response to it : • None OMG , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ video and as a cyber security professional , the man knows spews a lot of terminology but really knows nothing .
First , time stamps can change every time files are moved to a new source .
Of course they would be very close to each other when copying in bulk .
Emails are mostly text if they do n't have attachments which takes up very little space .
Depending on the system all the emails can be contained in one file , so when that 1 file is transferred and of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
2nd , of course data can be transferred at much high rates than 19mbs , what is he living in the 20th century ?
We have gigabyte internet now.
, data can be transferred well over 100 mbs .
3rd .
he presents no evidence directly linking CIA other than to say , who else could have done it .
His whole theory is just an opinion , absolute rubbish .
No wonder he 's not taken seriously .
• None `` Fred , '' I sent your comment to Bill Binney @ @ @ @ @ @ @ response included an attachment , which probably wo n't be able to be included here , bu I now am pasting here his reply to you : • None Eric , here are my comments to this “ professional.
” • None When people don ’ t have any substance to address , they throw labels out to try and prejudice the issue .
• None `` I watched the video and as a cyber security professional , the man knows spews a lot of terminology but really knows nothing.
” • None @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Technical Director of the World Geopolitical and Military Analysis and Reporting at NSA by knowing nothing .
Sure !
This is a typical baseless assertion that • None Sophists make all the time .
And our country has thousands of people like this .
• None `` First , time stamps can change every time files are moved to a new source .
Of course they would be very close to each other when copying in bulk .
Emails are mostly text if they do n't have attachments which takes up very little @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the emails can be contained in one file , so when that 1 file is transferred and of the contents would be the same time stamp.
” • None The last modified times on the DNC emails had different times all rounded to the nearest even number .
See attachment .
For comparison , this file contains the DNC email last modified times ( LMT ) showing FAT file • None properties and the Pedesta emails LMT ’ s that do not show FAT file properties .
• None `` 2nd , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Eric Zuesse ( continued ) : • None `` 2nd , of course data can be transferred at much high rates than 19mbs , what is he living in the 20th century ?
We have gigabyte internet now.
, data can be transferred well over 100 mbs .
: ” • None While the ISP standard is Mbps = mega bits per second and MBps = mega bytes per second , I believe Fred is referring to mega bytes per second .
What he says is true but only for shorter distances - @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Europe let alone Russia .
In our testing , the further east we went ; the lower speeds we got .
In other words , assuming there was a hacker , he/she would have to have a high speed line • None all the way from the target to the hackers location .
The WWW does not support that .
If Fred thinks it does , he needs to illustrate/prove where and how that can be achieved .
So far , no one has done that - • None not even NSA/CIA/FBI or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 3rd .
he presents no evidence directly linking CIA other than to say , who else could have done it .
His whole theory is just an opinion , absolute rubbish .
No wonder he 's not taken seriously.
” • None Does Fred work for CIA ?
Or , is he just an advocate for them ?
In either case , I pointed out what evidence we have which is circumstantial and not absolute .
But , in terms used in the ICA of CIA/NSA/FBI , • None I have “ high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ • None Note : all this data including Guccifer 2.0 files and speed calculations have been provided to lawyers in several currently on-going court cases .

Another important dispatch from The Greanville Post. Be sure to share it widely.
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches by historian Eric Zuesse
T here now is a public debate regarding whether or not ‘Russiagate’ was/is a CIA-generated hoax, instead of (as it has been reported) a Russian Government hacking operation. Whatever it was, did spark massive U.S. economic and other sanctions against Russia, and is therefore important in today’s U.S. international relations. Had the CIA actually created the “evidence”? Were those sanctions based upon a U.S. Government fraud? That is the question here.
On July 30th, the former Technical Director of the NSA — America’s top position on cyber intelligence including computer-hacking — Bill Binney, summarized , by a ten-minute presentation, the latest up-to-date information that exists regarding, and discussing, the actual sources of the various unauthorized releases, to the public, of emails and other documents from the computers of the Democratic National Committee and of John Podesta who headed the Presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. Binney alleged there that the raw data prove conclusively — not just speculatively — that the CIA tampered with the evidence, in order to become enabled to accuse Russia as having been involved in those unauthorized information-releases. He further alleged that Robert Mueller’s report on the Democratic Party’s charges that Russia and Trump were involved in these matters was false when it unquestioningly accepted the CIA’s assertions against Russia and on that basis accused the Internet Research Agency, in Russia, as having “hacked” the data. Consequently: if Binney’s case is correct, then recent U.S. history is based upon fraud by the U.S. Government itself. This would be a case like America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, but perhaps even worse.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-01--Russiagate, Nazis, and the CIA

Russiagate, Nazis, and the CIA

he political success of Russiagate lies in the vanishing of American history in favor of a façade of liberal virtue .
Posed as a response to the election of Donald Trump , a straight line can be drawn from efforts to undermine the decommissioning of the American war economy in 1946 to the CIA ’ s alliance with Ukrainian fascists in 2014 .
In 1945 the NSC ( National Security Council ) issued a series of directives that gave logic and direction to the CIA ’ s actions during the Cold War .
That these persist despite the ‘ fall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always just a placeholder in the pursuit of other objectives .
The first Cold War was an imperial business enterprise to keep the Generals , bureaucrats , and war materiel suppliers in power and their bank accounts flush after WWII .
Likewise , the American side of the nuclear arms race left former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA to put their paranoid fantasies forward as assessments of Russian military capabilities .
Why , of all people , would former Nazi officers be put in charge military intelligence if accurate assessments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Soviets more than the Americans did .
The ideological binaries of Russiagate— for or against Donald Trump , for or against neoliberal , petrostate Russia , define the boundaries of acceptable discourse to the benefit of deeply nefarious interests .
The U.S. has spent a century or more trying to install a U.S.-friendly government in Moscow .
Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 , the U.S. sent neoliberal economists to loot the country as the Clinton administration , and later the Obama administration , placed NATO troops and armaments on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not to do so .
Subsequent claims of realpolitik are cover for a reckless disregard for geopolitical consequences .
The paradox of American liberalism , articulated when feminist icon and CIA asset Gloria Steinem described the CIA as ‘ liberal , nonviolent and honorable , ’ is that educated , well-dressed , bourgeois functionaries have used the ( largely manufactured ) threat of foreign subversion to install right-wing nationalists subservient to American business interests at every opportunity .
Furthermore , Steinem ’ s aggressive ignorance of the actual history of the CIA illustrates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and attitude with an imagined gentility .
To the point made by Christopher Simpson , the CIA could have achieved better results had it not employed former Nazi officers , begging the question of why it chose to do so ?
On the American left , Russiagate is treated as a case of bad reporting , of official outlets for government propaganda serially reporting facts and events that were subsequently disproved .
However , some fair portion of the American bourgeois , the PMC that acts in supporting roles for capital , believes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nationalist party line in the American fight against communism , without the communism .
Charges of treason have been lodged every time that military budgets have come under attack since 1945 .
In 1958 the senior leadership of the Air Force was charging the other branches of the military with treason for doubting its utterly fantastical ( and later disproven ) estimate of Soviet ICBMs .
Treason is good for business .
Shortly after WWII ended , the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi military officers , including former Gestapo and SS @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of thousands of human beings , to run a spy operation known as the Gehlen Organizationfrom Berlin , Germany .
Given its central role in assessing the military intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Union , the Gehlen Organization was more likely than not responsible for the CIA ’ s overstatement of Soviet nuclear capabilities in the 1950s used to support the U.S. nuclear weapons program .
Former Nazis were also integrated into CIA efforts to install right wing governments around the world .
By the time that ( Senator ) John F. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ with the Soviets in 1958 , the CIA was providing estimates of Soviet ICBMs ( Inter-continental Ballistic Missiles ) , that were wildly inflated— most likely provided to it by the Gehlen Organization .
Once satellite and U2 reconnaissance estimates became available , the CIA lowered its own to 120 Soviet ICBMs when the actual number was four .
On the one hand , the Soviets really did have a nuclear weapons program .
On the other , it was a tiny fraction of what was being claimed .
Bad reporting , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ budgets , appears to be the constant .
Under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act passed by Congress in 1998 , the CIA was made to partially disclose its affiliation with , and employment of , former Nazis .
In contrast to the ‘ Operation Paperclip ’ thesis that it was Nazi scientists who were brought to the U.S. to labor as scientists , the Gehlen Organization and CIC employed known war criminals in political roles .
Klaus Barbie , the ‘ Butcher of Lyon , ’ was employed by the CIC , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the murder of Che Guevara .
Wernher von Braun , one of the Operation Paperclip ‘ scientists , ’ worked in a Nazi concentration camp as tens of thousands of human beings were murdered .
The historical sequence in the U.S. was WWI , the Great Depression , WWII , to an economy that was heavily dependent on war production .
The threatened decommissioning of the war economy in 1946 was first met with an honest assessment of Soviet intentions— the Soviets were moving infrastructure back into Soviet territory as quickly as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ budget-friendly claim that they were putting resources in place to invade Europe .
The result of the shift was that the American Generals kept their power and the war industry kept producing materiel and weapons .
By 1948 these weapons had come to include atomic bombs .
To understand the political space that military production came to occupy , from 1948 onward the U.S. military became a well-funded bureaucracy where charges of treason were regularly traded between the branches .
Internecine battles for funding and strategic dominance were ( and are ) regularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ‘ military industrial complex , ’ adopted was to exaggerate foreign threats in a contest for bureaucratic dominance .
The nuclear arms race was made a self-fulfilling prophecy .
As the U.S. produced world-ending weapons non-stop for decades on end , the Soviets responded in kind .
What ties the Gehlen Organization to CIA estimates of Soviet nuclear weapons from 1948 – 1958 is 1 ) the Gehlen Organization was central to the CIA ’ s intelligence operations vis-à-vis the Soviets , 2 ) the CIA had limited alternatives to gather information @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Organization and 3 ) the senior leadership of the U.S. military had long demonstrated that it approved of exaggerating foreign threats when doing so enhanced their power and added to their budgets .
Long story short , the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi officers who had the ideological predisposition and economic incentive to mis-perceive Soviet intentions and misstate Soviet capabilities to fuel the Cold War .
Where this gets interesting is that American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was working for the Rand Corporation in the late 1950s and early 1960s when estimates of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ JFK had run ( in 1960 ) on a platform that included closing the Soviet – U.S. ‘ missile gap.
’ The USAF ( U.S. Air Force ) , charged with delivering nuclear missiles to their targets , was estimating that the Soviets had 1,000 ICBMs .
Mr. Ellsberg , who had limited security clearance through his employment at Rand , was leaked the known number of Soviet ICBMs .
The Air Force was saying 1,000 Soviet ICBMs when the number confirmed by reconnaissance satellites was four .
By 1962 , the year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CIA had shifted nominal control of the Gehlen Organization to the BND , for whom Gehlen continued to work .
Based on ongoing satellite reconnaissance data , the CIA was busy lowering its estimates of Soviet nuclear capabilities .
Benjamin Schwarz , writing for The Atlantic in 2013 , provided an account , apparently informed by the CIA ’ s lowered estimates , where he placed the whole of the Soviet nuclear weapons program ( in 1962 ) at roughly one-ninth the size of the U.S. effort .
However , given Ellsberg ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the time of the missile crisis , even Schwarz ’ s ratio of 1:9 seems to overstate Soviet capabilities .
Further per Schwarz ’ s reporting , the Jupiter nuclear missiles that the U.S. had placed in Italy prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis only made sense as first-strike weapons .
This interpretation is corroborated by Daniel Ellsberg , who argues that the American plan was always to initiate the use of nuclear weapons ( first strike ) .
This made JFK ’ s posture of equally matched contestants in a geopolitical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Should this be less than clear , because the U.S. had indicated its intention to use nuclear weapons in a first strike— and had demonstrated the intention by placing Jupiter missiles in Italy , nothing that the U.S. offered during the Missile Crisis could be taken in good faith .
The dissolution of the USSR in 1991 was met with a promised reduction in U.S. military spending and an end to the Cold War , neither of which ultimately materialized .
Following the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 , the Cold War @ @ @ @ @ @ @ logic was repurposed to support the oxymoronic ‘ humanitarian wars ’ — liberating people by bombing them .
In 1995 ‘ Russian meddling ’ meant the Clinton administration rigging the election of Boris Yeltsinin the Russian presidential election .
Mr. Clinton then unilaterally reneged on the American agreement to keep NATO from Russia ’ s border when former Baltic states were brought under NATO ’ s control .
The Obama administration ’ s 2014 incitement in Ukraine , by way of fostering and supporting the Maidan uprising and the ousting of Ukraine ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ties to the U.S. strategy of containing and overthrowing the Soviet ( Russian ) government that was first codified by the National Security Council ( NSC ) in 1945 .
The NSC ’ s directives can be found here and here .
The economic and military annexation of Ukraine by the U.S. ( NATO didn ’ t exist in 1945 ) comes under NSC10/2 .
The alliance between the CIA and Ukrainian fascists ties to directive NSC20 , the plan to sponsor Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis in order to install them in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This was part of the CIA ’ s rationale for putting Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis on its payroll in 1948 .
That Russiagate is the continuation of a scheme launched in 1945 by the National Security Council , to be engineered by the CIA with help from former Nazi officers in its employ , speaks volumes about the Cold War frame from which it emerges .
Its near instantaneous adoption by bourgeois liberals demonstrates the class basis of the right-wing nationalism it supports .
That liberals appear to perceive themselves as defenders ‘ democracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unelected military leaders more than seven decades earlier is testament to the power of historical ignorance tied to nationalist fervor .
Were the former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA ‘ our Nazis ?
’ The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act came about in part because Nazi hunters kept coming across Nazi war criminals living in the U.S. who told them they had been brought here and given employment by the CIA , CIC , or some other division of the Federal government .
If the people in these agencies thought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the secrecy ?
And if it wasn ’ t justified , why was it done ?
Furthermore , are liberals really comfortable bringing fascists with direct historical ties to the Third Reich to power in Ukraine ?
And while there are no good choices in the upcoming U.S. election , the guy who liberals want to bring to power is lead architect of this move .
Cue the Sex Pistols .

Rob Urie
T
he political success of Russiagate lies in the vanishing of American history in favor of a façade of liberal virtue. Posed as a response to the election of Donald Trump, a straight line can be drawn from efforts to undermine the decommissioning of the American war economy in 1946 to the CIA’s alliance with Ukrainian fascists in 2014. In 1945 the NSC (National Security Council) issued a series of directives that gave logic and direction to the CIA’s actions during the Cold War. That these persist despite the ‘fall of communism’ suggests that it was always just a placeholder in the pursuit of other objectives.
The first Cold War was an imperial business enterprise to keep the Generals, bureaucrats, and war materiel suppliers in power and their bank accounts flush after WWII. Likewise, the American side of the nuclear arms race left former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA to put their paranoid fantasies forward as assessments of Russian military capabilities. Why, of all people, would former Nazi officers be put in charge military intelligence if accurate assessments were the goal? The Nazis hated the Soviets more than the Americans did.
The ideological binaries of Russiagate— for or against Donald Trump, for or against neoliberal, petrostate Russia, define the boundaries of acceptable discourse to the benefit of deeply nefarious interests. The U.S. has spent a century or more trying to install a U.S.-friendly government in Moscow. Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the U.S. sent neoliberal economists to loot the country as the Clinton administration, and later the Obama administration, placed NATO troops and armaments on the Russian border after a negotiated agreement not to do so. Subsequent claims of realpolitik are cover for a reckless disregard for geopolitical consequences.
The paradox of American liberalism, articulated when feminist icon and CIA asset Gloria Steinem described the CIA as ‘liberal, nonviolent and honorable,’ is that educated, well-dressed, bourgeois functionaries have used the (largely manufactured) threat of foreign subversion to install right-wing nationalists subservient to American business interests at every opportunity. Furthermore, Steinem’s aggressive ignorance of the actual history of the CIA illustrates the liberal propensity to conflate bourgeois dress and attitude with an imagined gentility. To the point made by Christopher Simpson, the CIA could have achieved better results had it not employed former Nazi officers, begging the question of why it chose to do so?
On the American left, Russiagate is treated as a case of bad reporting, of official outlets for government propaganda serially reporting facts and events that were subsequently disproved. However, some fair portion of the American bourgeois, the PMC that acts in supporting roles for capital, believes every word of it. Russiagate is the nationalist party line in the American fight against communism, without the communism. Charges of treason have been lodged every time that military budgets have come under attack since 1945. In 1958 the senior leadership of the Air Force was charging the other branches of the military with treason for doubting its utterly fantastical (and later disproven) estimate of Soviet ICBMs. Treason is good for business.
Shortly after WWII ended, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi military officers, including former Gestapo and SS officers responsible for murdering tens and hundreds of thousands of human beings, to run a spy operation known as the Gehlen Organizationfrom Berlin, Germany. Given its central role in assessing the military intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Union, the Gehlen Organization was more likely than not responsible for the CIA’s overstatement of Soviet nuclear capabilities in the 1950s used to support the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Former Nazis were also integrated into CIA efforts to install right wing governments around the world.
By the time that (Senator) John F. Kennedy claimed a U.S. ‘missile gap’ with the Soviets in 1958, the CIA was providing estimates of Soviet ICBMs (Inter-continental Ballistic Missiles), that were wildly inflated— most likely provided to it by the Gehlen Organization. Once satellite and U2 reconnaissance estimates became available, the CIA lowered its own to 120 Soviet ICBMs when the actual number was four. On the one hand, the Soviets really did have a nuclear weapons program. On the other, it was a tiny fraction of what was being claimed. Bad reporting, unerringly on the side of larger military budgets, appears to be the constant.
Under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act passed by Congress in 1998, the CIA was made to partially disclose its affiliation with, and employment of, former Nazis. In contrast to the ‘Operation Paperclip’ thesis that it was Nazi scientists who were brought to the U.S. to labor as scientists, the Gehlen Organization and CIC employed known war criminals in political roles. Klaus Barbie, the ‘Butcher of Lyon,’ was employed by the CIC, and claims to have played a role in the murder of Che Guevara. Wernher von Braun, one of the Operation Paperclip ‘scientists,’ worked in a Nazi concentration camp as tens of thousands of human beings were murdered.
The historical sequence in the U.S. was WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, to an economy that was heavily dependent on war production. The threatened decommissioning of the war economy in 1946 was first met with an honest assessment of Soviet intentions— the Soviets were moving infrastructure back into Soviet territory as quickly as was practicable, then to the military budget-friendly claim that they were putting resources in place to invade Europe. The result of the shift was that the American Generals kept their power and the war industry kept producing materiel and weapons. By 1948 these weapons had come to include atomic bombs.
To understand the political space that military production came to occupy, from 1948 onward the U.S. military became a well-funded bureaucracy where charges of treason were regularly traded between the branches. Internecine battles for funding and strategic dominance were (and are) regularly fought. The tactic that this bureaucracy— the ‘military industrial complex,’ adopted was to exaggerate foreign threats in a contest for bureaucratic dominance. The nuclear arms race was made a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the U.S. produced world-ending weapons non-stop for decades on end, the Soviets responded in kind.
What ties the Gehlen Organization to CIA estimates of Soviet nuclear weapons from 1948 – 1958 is 1) the Gehlen Organization was central to the CIA’s intelligence operations vis-à-vis the Soviets, 2) the CIA had limited alternatives to gather information on the Soviets outside of the Gehlen Organization and 3) the senior leadership of the U.S. military had long demonstrated that it approved of exaggerating foreign threats when doing so enhanced their power and added to their budgets. Long story short, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi officers who had the ideological predisposition and economic incentive to mis-perceive Soviet intentions and misstate Soviet capabilities to fuel the Cold War.
Where this gets interesting is that American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was working for the Rand Corporation in the late 1950s and early 1960s when estimates of Soviet ICBMs were being put forward. JFK had run (in 1960) on a platform that included closing the Soviet – U.S. ‘missile gap.’ The USAF (U.S. Air Force), charged with delivering nuclear missiles to their targets, was estimating that the Soviets had 1,000 ICBMs. Mr. Ellsberg, who had limited security clearance through his employment at Rand, was leaked the known number of Soviet ICBMs. The Air Force was saying 1,000 Soviet ICBMs when the number confirmed by reconnaissance satellites was four.
By 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the CIA had shifted nominal control of the Gehlen Organization to the BND, for whom Gehlen continued to work. Based on ongoing satellite reconnaissance data, the CIA was busy lowering its estimates of Soviet nuclear capabilities. Benjamin Schwarz, writing for The Atlantic in 2013, provided an account, apparently informed by the CIA’s lowered estimates, where he placed the whole of the Soviet nuclear weapons program (in 1962) at roughly one-ninth the size of the U.S. effort. However, given Ellsberg’s known count of four Soviet ICBMs at the time of the missile crisis, even Schwarz’s ratio of 1:9 seems to overstate Soviet capabilities.
Further per Schwarz’s reporting, the Jupiter nuclear missiles that the U.S. had placed in Italy prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis only made sense as first-strike weapons. This interpretation is corroborated by Daniel Ellsberg, who argues that the American plan was always to initiate the use of nuclear weapons (first strike). This made JFK’s posture of equally matched contestants in a geopolitical game of nuclear chicken utterly unhinged. Should this be less than clear, because the U.S. had indicated its intention to use nuclear weapons in a first strike— and had demonstrated the intention by placing Jupiter missiles in Italy, nothing that the U.S. offered during the Missile Crisis could be taken in good faith.
The dissolution of the USSR in 1991 was met with a promised reduction in U.S. military spending and an end to the Cold War, neither of which ultimately materialized. Following the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Cold War entered a new phase. Cold War logic was repurposed to support the oxymoronic ‘humanitarian wars’— liberating people by bombing them. In 1995 ‘Russian meddling’ meant the Clinton administration rigging the election of Boris Yeltsinin the Russian presidential election. Mr. Clinton then unilaterally reneged on the American agreement to keep NATO from Russia’s border when former Baltic states were brought under NATO’s control.
The Obama administration’s 2014 incitement in Ukraine, by way of fostering and supporting the Maidan uprising and the ousting of Ukraine’s democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, ties to the U.S. strategy of containing and overthrowing the Soviet (Russian) government that was first codified by the National Security Council (NSC) in 1945. The NSC’s directives can be found here and here. The economic and military annexation of Ukraine by the U.S. (NATO didn’t exist in 1945) comes under NSC10/2. The alliance between the CIA and Ukrainian fascists ties to directive NSC20, the plan to sponsor Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis in order to install them in the Kremlin to replace the Soviet government. This was part of the CIA’s rationale for putting Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis on its payroll in 1948.
That Russiagate is the continuation of a scheme launched in 1945 by the National Security Council, to be engineered by the CIA with help from former Nazi officers in its employ, speaks volumes about the Cold War frame from which it emerges. Its near instantaneous adoption by bourgeois liberals demonstrates the class basis of the right-wing nationalism it supports. That liberals appear to perceive themselves as defenders ‘democracy’ within a trajectory laid out by unelected military leaders more than seven decades earlier is testament to the power of historical ignorance tied to nationalist fervor. Were the former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA ‘our Nazis?’
The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act came about in part because Nazi hunters kept coming across Nazi war criminals living in the U.S. who told them they had been brought here and given employment by the CIA, CIC, or some other division of the Federal government. If the people in these agencies thought that doing so was justified, why the secrecy? And if it wasn’t justified, why was it done? Furthermore, are liberals really comfortable bringing fascists with direct historical ties to the Third Reich to power in Ukraine? And while there are no good choices in the upcoming U.S. election, the guy who liberals want to bring to power is lead architect of this move. Cue the Sex Pistols.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-01--The heart of the matter in the South China Sea

When the Ronald Reagan and Nimitz carrier strike groups recently engaged in “ operations ” in the South China Sea , it did not escape to many a cynic that the US Pacific Fleet was doing its best to turn the infantile Thucydides Trap theory into a self-fulfilling prophecy .
The pro forma official spin , via Rear Adm. Jim Kirk , commander of the Nimitz , is that the ops were conducted to “ reinforce our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific , a rules-based international order , and to our allies and partners ” .
Nobody pays @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real message was delivered by a CIA operative posing as diplomat , Secretary of State Mike “ We Lie , We Cheat , We Steal ” Pompeo : “ The PRC has no legal grounds to unilaterally impose its will on the region ” , in a reference to the Nine-Dash Line .
For the State Dept.
, Beijing deploys nothing but “ gangster tactics ” in the South China Sea .
Once again , nobody paid attention , because the actual facts on the sea are stark .
Anything that moves in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s crucial maritime trade artery – is at the mercy of the PLA , which decides if and when to deploy their deadly DF-21D and DF-26 “ carrier killer ” missiles .
There ’ s absolutely no way the US Pacific Fleet can win a shooting war in the South China Sea .
A crucial Chinese report , unavailable and not referred to by Western media , and translated by Hong Kong-based analyst Thomas Wing Polin , is essential to understand the context .
The report refers to US Growler electronic warplanes rendered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ devices positioned on islands and reefs in the South China Sea .
According to the report , “ after the accident , the United States negotiated with China , demanding that China dismantle the electronic equipment immediately , but it was rejected .
These electronic devices are an important part of China ’ s maritime defense and are not offensive weapons .
Therefore , the US military ’ s request for dismantling is unreasonable.
” It gets better : “ On the same day , former commander Scott Swift of the US Pacific @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had lost the best time to control the South China Sea .
He believes that China has deployed a large number of Hongqi 9 air defense missiles , H-6K bombers , and electronic jamming systems on islands and reefs .
The defense can be said to be solid .
If US fighter jets rush into the South China Sea , they are likely to encounter their ‘ Waterloo.
’ ” The bottom line is that the systems – including electronic jamming – deployed by the PLA on islands and reefs in the South @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the total surface , are considered by Beijing to be part of the national defense system .
I have previously detailed what Admiral Philip Davidson , when he was still a nominee to lead the US Pacific Command ( PACOM ) , told the US Senate .
Here are his Top Three conclusions : 1 ) “ China is pursuing advanced capabilities ( e.g.
, hypersonic missiles ) which the United States has no current defense against .
As China pursues these advanced weapons systems , US forces across the Indo-Pacific will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) “ China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.
” Implied in all of the above is the “ secret ” of the Indo-Pacific strategy : at best a containment exercise , as China continues to solidify the Maritime Silk Road linking the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean .
The South China Sea is and will continue to be one of the prime geopolitical flashpoints of the young 21st century , where a great deal of the East-West @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I have addressed this elsewhere in the past in some detail , but a short historical background is once again absolutely essential to understand the current juncture as the South China Sea increasingly looks and feels like a Chinese lake .
Let ’ s start in 1890 , when Alfred Mahan , then president of the US Naval College , wrote the seminal The Influence of Sea Power Upon History , 1660-1783 .
Mahan ’ s central thesis is that the US should go global in search of new markets , and protect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of naval bases .
That is the embryo of the US Empire of Bases – which remains in effect .
It was Western – American and European – colonialism that came up with most land borders and maritime borders of states bordering the South China Sea : Philippines , Indonesia , Malaysia , Vietnam .
We are talking about borders between different colonial possessions – and that implied intractable problems from the start , subsequently inherited by post-colonial nations .
Historically , it had always been a completely different story .
The best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for instance ) define the semi-nomadic communities who really traveled and traded across the South China Sea from time immemorial as the Nusantao – an Austronesian compound word for “ south island ” and “ people ” .
The Nusantao were not a defined ethnic group .
They were a maritime internet .
Over centuries , they had many key hubs , from the coastline between central Vietnam and Hong Kong all the way to the Mekong Delta .
They were not attached to any “ state ” .
The Western notion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exist .
In the mid-1990s , I had the privilege to encounter some of their descendants in Indonesia and Vietnam .
So it was only by the late 19th century that the Westphalian system managed to freeze the South China Sea inside an immovable framework .
Which brings us to the crucial point of why China is so sensitive about its borders ; because they are directly linked to the “ century of humiliation ” – when internal Chinese corruption and weakness allowed Western “ barbarians ” to take possession of Chinese land @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immensely complex problem .
It was invented by the eminent Chinese geographer Bai Meichu , a fierce nationalist , in 1936 , initially as part of a “ Chinese National Humiliation Map ” in the form of a “ U-shaped line ” gobbling up the South China Sea all the way down to James Shoal , which is 1,500 km south of China but only over 100 km off Borneo .
The Nine Dash Line , from the beginning , was promoted by the Chinese government – remember , at the time not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the law in terms of “ historic ” Chinese claims over islands in the South China Sea .
One year later , Japan invaded China .
Japan had occupied Taiwan way back in 1895 .
Japan occupied the Philippines in 1942 .
That meant virtually the entire coastline of the South China Sea being controlled by a single empire for the fist time in history .
The South China Sea had become a Japanese lake .
Well , that lasted only until 1945 .
The Japanese did occupy Woody Island in the Paracels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Spratlys .
After the end of WWII and the US nuclear-bombing Japan , the Philippines became independent in 1946 and the Spratlys immediately were declared Filipino territory .
In 1947 , all the islands in the South China Sea got Chinese names .
And in December 1947 all the islands were placed under the control of Hainan ( itself an island in southern China . )
New maps duly followed , but now with Chinese names for the islands ( or reefs , or shoals ) .
But there was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meaning of those dashes ( which were originally eleven . )
In June 1947 the Republic of China claimed everything within the line – while proclaiming itself open to negotiate definitive maritime borders with other nations later on .
But , for the moment , there were no borders .
And that set the scene for the immensely complicated “ strategic ambiguity ” of the South China Sea that still lingers on – and allows the State Dept .
to accuse Beijing of “ gangster tactics ” .
The culmination of a millennia-old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of semi-nomadic peoples to the Westphalian system spelled nothing but trouble .
So what about the US notion of “ freedom of navigation ” ?
In imperial terms , “ freedom of navigation ” , from the West Coast of the US to Asia – through the Pacific , the South China Sea , the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean – is strictly an issue of military strategy .
The US Navy simply can not imagine dealing with maritime exclusion zones – or having to demand an “ authorization ” every time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this case the Empire of Bases would lose “ access ” to its own bases .
This is compounded with trademark Pentagon paranoia , gaming a situation where a “ hostile power ” – namely China – decides to block global trade .
The premise in itself is ludicrous , because the South China Sea is the premier , vital maritime artery for China ’ s globalized economy .
So there ’ s no rational justification for a Freedom of Navigation ( FON ) program .
For all practical purposes , these aircraft @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nimitz showboating on and off in the South China Sea amount to 21st century gunboat diplomacy .
And Beijing is not impressed .
As far as the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN ) is concerned , what matters now is to come up with a Code of Conduct ( COC ) to solve all maritime conflicts between Philippines , Vietnam , Malaysia , Brunei and China .
Next year , ASEAN and China celebrate 30 years of strong bilateral relations .
There ’ s a strong possibility they will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ status .
Because of Covid-19 , all players had to postpone negotiations on the second reading of the single draft of COC .
Beijing wanted these to be face to face – because the document is ultra-sensitive and for the moment , secret .
Yet they finally agreed to negotiate online – via detailed texts .
It will be a hard slog , because as ASEAN made it clear in a virtual summit in late June , everything has to be in accordance with international law , including the UN Convention on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If they can all agree on a COC by the end of 2020 , a final agreement could be approved by ASEAN in mid-2021 .
Historic does not even begin to describe it – because this negotiation has been going on for no less than two decades .
Not to mention that a COC invalidates any US pretension to secure “ freedom of navigation ” in an area where navigation is already free .
Yet “ freedom ” was never the issue .
In imperial terminology , “ freedom ” means that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China Sea open to the US Navy .
Well , that ’ s possible , but you got ta behave .
That ’ ll be the day when the US Navy is “ denied ” the South China Sea .
You don ’ t need to be Mahan to know that ’ ll mean the imperial end of ruling the seven seas .

When the Ronald Reagan and Nimitz carrier strike groups recently engaged in “operations” in the South China Sea, it did not escape to many a cynic that the US Pacific Fleet was doing its best to turn the infantile Thucydides Trap theory into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The pro forma official spin, via Rear Adm. Jim Kirk, commander of the Nimitz, is that the ops were conducted to “reinforce our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, a rules-based international order, and to our allies and partners”.
Nobody pays attention to these clichés, because the real message was delivered by a CIA operative posing as diplomat, Secretary of State Mike “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Pompeo: “The PRC has no legal grounds to unilaterally impose its will on the region”, in a reference to the Nine-Dash Line. For the State Dept., Beijing deploys nothing but “gangster tactics” in the South China Sea.
Once again, nobody paid attention, because the actual facts on the sea are stark. Anything that moves in the South China Sea – China’s crucial maritime trade artery – is at the mercy of the PLA, which decides if and when to deploy their deadly DF-21D and DF-26 “carrier killer” missiles. There’s absolutely no way the US Pacific Fleet can win a shooting war in the South China Sea.
Electronically jammed
A crucial Chinese report, unavailable and not referred to by Western media, and translated by Hong Kong-based analyst Thomas Wing Polin, is essential to understand the context.
The report refers to US Growler electronic warplanes rendered totally out of control by electronic jamming devices positioned on islands and reefs in the South China Sea.
According to the report, “after the accident, the United States negotiated with China, demanding that China dismantle the electronic equipment immediately, but it was rejected. These electronic devices are an important part of China’s maritime defense and are not offensive weapons. Therefore, the US military’s request for dismantling is unreasonable.”
It gets better: “On the same day, former commander Scott Swift of the US Pacific Fleet finally acknowledged that the US military had lost the best time to control the South China Sea. He believes that China has deployed a large number of Hongqi 9 air defense missiles, H-6K bombers, and electronic jamming systems on islands and reefs. The defense can be said to be solid. If US fighter jets rush into the South China Sea, they are likely to encounter their ‘Waterloo.’”
The bottom line is that the systems – including electronic jamming – deployed by the PLA on islands and reefs in the South China Sea, covering more than half of the total surface, are considered by Beijing to be part of the national defense system.
I have previously detailed what Admiral Philip Davidson, when he was still a nominee to lead the US Pacific Command (PACOM), told the US Senate. Here are his Top Three conclusions:
1) “China is pursuing advanced capabilities (e.g., hypersonic missiles) which the United States has no current defense against. As China pursues these advanced weapons systems, US forces across the Indo-Pacific will be placed increasingly at risk.”
2) “China is undermining the rules-based international order.”
3) “China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.”
Implied in all of the above is the “secret” of the Indo-Pacific strategy: at best a containment exercise, as China continues to solidify the Maritime Silk Road linking the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean.
Remember the nusantao
The South China Sea is and will continue to be one of the prime geopolitical flashpoints of the young 21st century, where a great deal of the East-West balance of power will be played.
I have addressed this elsewhere in the past in some detail, but a short historical background is once again absolutely essential to understand the current juncture as the South China Sea increasingly looks and feels like a Chinese lake.
Let’s start in 1890, when Alfred Mahan, then president of the US Naval College, wrote the seminal The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783. Mahan’s central thesis is that the US should go global in search of new markets, and protect these new trade routes through a network of naval bases.
That is the embryo of the US Empire of Bases – which remains in effect.
It was Western – American and European – colonialism that came up with most land borders and maritime borders of states bordering the South China Sea: Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam.
We are talking about borders between different colonial possessions – and that implied intractable problems from the start, subsequently inherited by post-colonial nations.
Historically, it had always been a completely different story. The best anthropological studies (Bill Solheim’s, for instance) define the semi-nomadic communities who really traveled and traded across the South China Sea from time immemorial as the Nusantao – an Austronesian compound word for “south island” and “people”.
The Nusantao were not a defined ethnic group. They were a maritime internet. Over centuries, they had many key hubs, from the coastline between central Vietnam and Hong Kong all the way to the Mekong Delta. They were not attached to any “state”. The Western notion of “borders” did not even exist. In the mid-1990s, I had the privilege to encounter some of their descendants in Indonesia and Vietnam.
So it was only by the late 19th century that the Westphalian system managed to freeze the South China Sea inside an immovable framework.
Which brings us to the crucial point of why China is so sensitive about its borders; because they are directly linked to the “century of humiliation” – when internal Chinese corruption and weakness allowed Western “barbarians” to take possession of Chinese land.
A Japanese lake
The Nine Dash Line is an immensely complex problem. It was invented by the eminent Chinese geographer Bai Meichu, a fierce nationalist, in 1936, initially as part of a “Chinese National Humiliation Map” in the form of a “U-shaped line” gobbling up the South China Sea all the way down to James Shoal, which is 1,500 km south of China but only over 100 km off Borneo.
The Nine Dash Line, from the beginning, was promoted by the Chinese government – remember, at the time not yet Communist – as the letter of the law in terms of “historic” Chinese claims over islands in the South China Sea.
One year later, Japan invaded China. Japan had occupied Taiwan way back in 1895. Japan occupied the Philippines in 1942. That meant virtually the entire coastline of the South China Sea being controlled by a single empire for the fist time in history. The South China Sea had become a Japanese lake.
Well, that lasted only until 1945. The Japanese did occupy Woody Island in the Paracels and Itu Aba (today Taiping) in the Spratlys. After the end of WWII and the US nuclear-bombing Japan, the Philippines became independent in 1946 and the Spratlys immediately were declared Filipino territory.
In 1947, all the islands in the South China Sea got Chinese names.
And in December 1947 all the islands were placed under the control of Hainan (itself an island in southern China.) New maps duly followed, but now with Chinese names for the islands (or reefs, or shoals). But there was a huge problem: no one explained the meaning of those dashes (which were originally eleven.)
In June 1947 the Republic of China claimed everything within the line – while proclaiming itself open to negotiate definitive maritime borders with other nations later on. But, for the moment, there were no borders.
And that set the scene for the immensely complicated “strategic ambiguity” of the South China Sea that still lingers on – and allows the State Dept. to accuse Beijing of “gangster tactics”. The culmination of a millennia-old transition from the “maritime internet” of semi-nomadic peoples to the Westphalian system spelled nothing but trouble.
Time for COC
So what about the US notion of “freedom of navigation”?
In imperial terms, “freedom of navigation”, from the West Coast of the US to Asia – through the Pacific, the South China Sea, the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean – is strictly an issue of military strategy.
The US Navy simply cannot imagine dealing with maritime exclusion zones – or having to demand an “authorization” every time they need to cross them. In this case the Empire of Bases would lose “access” to its own bases.
This is compounded with trademark Pentagon paranoia, gaming a situation where a “hostile power” – namely China – decides to block global trade. The premise in itself is ludicrous, because the South China Sea is the premier, vital maritime artery for China’s globalized economy.
So there’s no rational justification for a Freedom of Navigation (FON) program. For all practical purposes, these aircraft carriers like the Ronald Reagan and the Nimitz showboating on and off in the South China Sea amount to 21st century gunboat diplomacy. And Beijing is not impressed.
As far as the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is concerned, what matters now is to come up with a Code of Conduct (COC) to solve all maritime conflicts between Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and China.
Next year, ASEAN and China celebrate 30 years of strong bilateral relations. There’s a strong possibility they will be upgraded to “comprehensive strategic partner” status.
Because of Covid-19, all players had to postpone negotiations on the second reading of the single draft of COC. Beijing wanted these to be face to face – because the document is ultra-sensitive and for the moment, secret. Yet they finally agreed to negotiate online – via detailed texts.
It will be a hard slog, because as ASEAN made it clear in a virtual summit in late June, everything has to be in accordance with international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS).
If they can all agree on a COC by the end of 2020, a final agreement could be approved by ASEAN in mid-2021. Historic does not even begin to describe it – because this negotiation has been going on for no less than two decades.
Not to mention that a COC invalidates any US pretension to secure “freedom of navigation” in an area where navigation is already free.
Yet “freedom” was never the issue. In imperial terminology, “freedom” means that China must obey and keep the South China Sea open to the US Navy. Well, that’s possible, but you gotta behave. That’ll be the day when the US Navy is “denied” the South China Sea. You don’t need to be Mahan to know that’ll mean the imperial end of ruling the seven seas.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-08-01--Olivia de Havilland, star of Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” dead at 104

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible .
Share with kin , friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise .
ctress Olivia de Havilland died in Paris , France on July 25 at the age of 104 .
She was the last of a generation of actors who starred in the Hollywood films of the 1930s .
From the middle of that decade through the early 1950s in particular , de Havilland distinguished herself as an intelligent and even elegant performer in a number of valuable films .
De Havilland was born July 1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tokyo , Japan .
Her father was a successful patent attorney and her mother was a music teacher and stage performer .
According to Victoria Amador ’ s biography of de Havilland , the couple were well-integrated into the high society of foreign businessmen and diplomatic officers .
They also had a troubled home life , and the combination of outward success and private disappointment appears to have had a profound effect on the lives and artistic personalities of both de Havilland and her sister , the actress Joan Fontaine ( 1917-2013 ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relocated to the United States and de Havilland ’ s mother was soon raising her daughters on her own .
By the time she was a teenager , de Havilland had followed her mother onto the stage .
In 1935 , she transitioned to film with Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle ’ s version of A Midsummer Night ’ s Dream ( with an unlikely James Cagney as Bottom ) .
While her relationship with the studio would eventually sour , de Havilland had the good fortune to find herself at Warner Brothers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more socially critical works of the period , and in the regular troupe of actors associated with the important director Michael Curtiz ( Casablanca , Mildred Pierce ) .
De Havilland quickly embarked on a famous partnership with actor Errol Flynn , with whom she made eight films , several of which Curtiz directed .
Of these , Captain Blood ( 1935 ) , The Adventures of Robin Hood ( 1938 ) and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex ( 1939 ) may be the strongest .
In other hands , these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ amounted to little more than escapist fantasy or stolid period pieces , but Curtiz and his performers were able to rise above the limitations of these genres .
Their films contain a healthy contempt for social inequality and attacks on basic rights by a corrupt elite .
De Havilland and Flynn had an appealing chemistry as well .
Their characters typically made the convincing journey from open dislike of one another to sympathy and affection .
Class barriers often stood in the way .
In The Adventures of Robin Hood , Flynn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Lady Marian of his virtue , and she , a noble lady , must convince his outcast merry men of her own .
In Captain Blood , their characters literally owned one another at various points of the story .
In addition to the films made with Curtiz , de Havilland worked with several of the more interesting and talented directors of the 1930s and 40s , including Raoul Walsh , John Huston , Robert Siodmak , William Wyler , James Whale , Mitchell Leisen and Anatole Litvak .
The film @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recognized in recent tributes , the four-hour Lost Cause epic Gone with the Wind ( 1939 ) , does not exemplify her best artistic achievement , however capable her performance and the overall technical achievement of the work may have been .
Interested viewers would do better to watch de Havilland in the disturbing William Wyler film The Heiress ( 1949 ) , in which the plain heiress to the fortunes of an abusive father is pursued by a gold-digging suitor ( the excellent Montgomery Clift ) , or the Raoul Walsh-directed They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dramatically rises above the limitations of its own invented history of General Custer .
If a performer rejected the roles selected for them , as de Havilland sometimes did , they could be suspended , and the amount of time spent suspended was added to the overall length of their contracts .
When de Havilland prepared to leave Warner Brothers at the end of her seven-year contract , the studio attempted to force her to stay by adding time to her contract .
She sued the studio in 1943 and won .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The De Havilland Law was established , preventing the extension of contracts for personal services beyond seven calendar years .
De Havilland won two Academy Awards for Best Actress , for her work in The Heiress and To Each His Own ( 1946 ) , during the period following the suit , when she had greater artistic freedom .
Regrettably , de Havilland also played a more troubling role in Hollywood .
By the end of the Second World War , she was an enthusiastic supporter of Roosevelt and the New Deal .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she joined the Independent Citizens ’ Committee of the Arts , Sciences and Professions , an organization which promoted a number of liberal policies .
Among its ranks were several members and supporters of the Communist Party .
Prior to and during the Second World War , the Communist Party , in accordance with Popular Front tactics , entered into subordinate and politically suffocating political alliances with the liberal bourgeoisie—in the US , with the Democratic Party .
When the war ended , and with it the temporary partnership between the US @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and their supporters were viciously targeted by their erstwhile liberal allies .
( NB : Like all writers for wsws.org , the author is a Trotskyist who despises Stalin and the US Communist Party .
We do not share such position , believing a far more nuanced approach is needed to evaluate various policies pursued by different political currents at the time and since.—Eds . )
De Havilland was among the liberal anticommunists who shifted significantly to the right .
She joined with another member of the ICCASP—future US President Ronald Regan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guts as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee—to oppose the Stalinist elements within the organization .
She later testified about the experience in a private session before HUAC .
De Havilland moved to France in the early 1950s .
She appeared in fewer films .
The elegant and formal quality of her acting was somewhat out of place in postwar cinema .
Despite this , her films of the 1930s and 40s remain .
Her behavior during the period of the witch hunts does not alter that .
Her best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and pull quotes by the editors not the authors .
Puke if you must

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.
A
ctress Olivia de Havilland died in Paris, France on July 25 at the age of 104. She was the last of a generation of actors who starred in the Hollywood films of the 1930s. From the middle of that decade through the early 1950s in particular, de Havilland distinguished herself as an intelligent and even elegant performer in a number of valuable films.
De Havilland was born July 1, 1916 to British parents living in Tokyo, Japan. Her father was a successful patent attorney and her mother was a music teacher and stage performer. According to Victoria Amador’s biography of de Havilland, the couple were well-integrated into the high society of foreign businessmen and diplomatic officers. They also had a troubled home life, and the combination of outward success and private disappointment appears to have had a profound effect on the lives and artistic personalities of both de Havilland and her sister, the actress Joan Fontaine (1917-2013). By 1919, the family had relocated to the United States and de Havilland’s mother was soon raising her daughters on her own.
By the time she was a teenager, de Havilland had followed her mother onto the stage. In 1935, she transitioned to film with Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle’s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (with an unlikely James Cagney as Bottom). While her relationship with the studio would eventually sour, de Havilland had the good fortune to find herself at Warner Brothers, responsible for producing some of the more socially critical works of the period, and in the regular troupe of actors associated with the important director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, Mildred Pierce).
De Havilland quickly embarked on a famous partnership with actor Errol Flynn, with whom she made eight films, several of which Curtiz directed. Of these, Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) may be the strongest.
In other hands, these swashbuckling adventures and historical dramas might have amounted to little more than escapist fantasy or stolid period pieces, but Curtiz and his performers were able to rise above the limitations of these genres. Their films contain a healthy contempt for social inequality and attacks on basic rights by a corrupt elite. De Havilland and Flynn had an appealing chemistry as well. Their characters typically made the convincing journey from open dislike of one another to sympathy and affection. Class barriers often stood in the way. In The Adventures of Robin Hood, Flynn’s Robin Hood must convince de Havilland’s Lady Marian of his virtue, and she, a noble lady, must convince his outcast merry men of her own. In Captain Blood, their characters literally owned one another at various points of the story.
In addition to the films made with Curtiz, de Havilland worked with several of the more interesting and talented directors of the 1930s and 40s, including Raoul Walsh, John Huston, Robert Siodmak, William Wyler, James Whale, Mitchell Leisen and Anatole Litvak.
The film for which de Havilland has been most recognized in recent tributes, the four-hour Lost Cause epic Gone with the Wind (1939), does not exemplify her best artistic achievement, however capable her performance and the overall technical achievement of the work may have been. Interested viewers would do better to watch de Havilland in the disturbing William Wyler film The Heiress (1949), in which the plain heiress to the fortunes of an abusive father is pursued by a gold-digging suitor (the excellent Montgomery Clift), or the Raoul Walsh-directed They Died with Their Boots On, which dramatically rises above the limitations of its own invented history of General Custer.
During the period in which de Havilland was a major star, the studios maintained strict control over their performers. They had the final word on the roles in which a performer would appear, whether or not an actor could be “loaned out” to a competing film studio, and how the performer was to be presented to the public. During the period in which de Havilland was a major star, the studios maintained strict control over their performers. They had the final word on the roles in which a performer would appear, whether or not an actor could be “loaned out” to a competing film studio, and how the performer was to be presented to the public.
If a performer rejected the roles selected for them, as de Havilland sometimes did, they could be suspended, and the amount of time spent suspended was added to the overall length of their contracts. When de Havilland prepared to leave Warner Brothers at the end of her seven-year contract, the studio attempted to force her to stay by adding time to her contract. She sued the studio in 1943 and won. As a result of her legal victory, The De Havilland Law was established, preventing the extension of contracts for personal services beyond seven calendar years.
De Havilland won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her work in The Heiress and To Each His Own (1946), during the period following the suit, when she had greater artistic freedom.
Regrettably, de Havilland also played a more troubling role in Hollywood. By the end of the Second World War, she was an enthusiastic supporter of Roosevelt and the New Deal. Like many others in the film industry, she joined the Independent Citizens’ Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, an organization which promoted a number of liberal policies. Among its ranks were several members and supporters of the Communist Party.
Prior to and during the Second World War, the Communist Party, in accordance with Stalinist Popular Front tactics, entered into subordinate and politically suffocating political alliances with the liberal bourgeoisie—in the US, with the Democratic Party. When the war ended, and with it the temporary partnership between the US and the Soviet Union, the Communists and their supporters were viciously targeted by their erstwhile liberal allies. (NB: Like all writers for wsws.org, the author is a Trotskyist who despises Stalin and the US Communist Party. We do not share such position, believing a far more nuanced approach is needed to evaluate various policies pursued by different political currents at the time and since.—Eds.)
De Havilland was among the liberal anticommunists who shifted significantly to the right. She joined with another member of the ICCASP—future US President Ronald Regan, who was then preparing to spill his guts as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee—to oppose the Stalinist elements within the organization. She later testified about the experience in a private session before HUAC.
Whatever she thought she was doing at the time, de Havilland contributed to the purge of left-wing and socialist elements from Hollywood and cultural life more broadly—indeed, the very elements that provided the best qualities of the films in which she had herself appeared up to that time. It is a stain on her legacy.
De Havilland moved to France in the early 1950s. She appeared in fewer films. The elegant and formal quality of her acting was somewhat out of place in postwar cinema. Despite this, her films of the 1930s and 40s remain. Her behavior during the period of the witch hunts does not alter that. Her best work should be seen.
all captions and pull quotes by the editors not the authors.
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