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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
We hammered a few domestic politics topics hard yesterday, but left the topic of Europe and Ukraine largely unaddressed. Russia's invasion of Ukraine grinds on, Ukraine's harvest is piling up because Russia controls their access to the Baltic, and energy prices are not coming down. In fact, they have increased almost ten-fold for some European nations.
Blogger buddy Geeez wrote a great post yesterday featuring comments from her stepchildren living in Germany. It is an eyewitness report: Real news from MUNICH
Vlad has finally pinched off Europe's gas pipe.
What now? Putin knows European 'powers' are weak sisters. This may be his gambit to end his bumbling Ukraine invasion. Europe is stocked up, but they will still have to impose severe restrictions and rationing on homes and businesses.
Our heating bills here in the US will bite hard, and look for worldwide riots and food shortages in poorer countries as Ukraine's war-shrunken harvest cannot export through Russian controlled ports.
Western nations will make it through, but this may be our own winter of discontent, and to what end? I don't see Europeans and Americans coming out the other side of this a happier people.
What say you?
Z's update from Munich is grim. It should serve as a warning about the failings of "green energy."
ReplyDeleteThe above said, I don't see the Biden Administration changing anything here.
Until the ridiculous "Green" government system collapses, nothing will change. After that, people will laugh at EU bureaucratic solutions, and each individual and country will go it's own un-coordinated way again. It'll take another century for the bureaucrats to recover control, cuz all the victims of this calamity will have to be dead before they'll let the "experts" control it again.
ReplyDeleteRemember the "snowy house scene in Dr. Zhivago? Yep... they'll be burning the furniture once again.
DeleteOn the bright side, we should get some great new poetry out of it.
DeleteYou know the kind, petit bourgeois, and in a good way.
DeleteThe new normal for green socialism.
DeleteAs President Trump predicted four years ago. The contingent from Germany laughed. They are not laughing now, are they?
ReplyDeleteThat clip says it all.
DeleteThey are all so far up their own asses right now, no way they will climb down, or give any credit to El donaldo
DeleteThey've been passing the ganja around at their 'invitation only UN drum circle' for far too long. :(
DeleteThis thought occurred to me on the way to work this morning:
ReplyDeleteWhere is the UN on the Ukraine crisis? I haven't heard a peep.
If it's a sign of their increasing irrelevance.....I'm good with not hearing from them. Preferably never again.
DeleteSounds like all the UN needs to do is update the Minsk Agreement II to recognize the new borders and instill "penalties" for artillery use violations. Also, the "foreign troops withdrawl clause" should probably be stricken.
DeleteAgain, I want to ask about alternatives. It seems as if Z's stepson is arguing for no involvement, sanctions or and military response. First, is this accurate?
ReplyDeleteThen, if that is the desired response, when should a country respond to military aggression on their doorstep?
Look, I know this all gets into the realm of "international order" many ppl reflexively resist, but does a country have a right to invade another country, take their land, murder civilians, rape their women, etc.?
And if the answer is no, how should the rest of the world respond?
And bonus points if that response is applied equally to rich and poor countries. Or to put it another way, is it enough of a universal value so that it applies to countries regardless of their importance to the US.
One question, do you want the question answered with or without a "vanishing mediator"?
DeleteRemember when Marx said that when Communism had achieved it's ultimate end, Government would "disappear"? Do you think, along similar veins, that at some point in history a "mediating organization" like the United Nations could ultimately "disappear" as well?
And what, if any, is the roll of the "Just War Theory" in any of this?
Or is the Hegelian thesis/ anti-thesis/ synthesis approach not applicable?
Delete...for there are no "universal values".
DeleteAll values require a level of abstraction (and then forgetfulness) that allows for a "vanishing mediator".
Delete:P
DeleteOn that day, mankind's unique feature (language) will disappear and like the cows who chew their cuds all day outside Nietzsche's Zarathustra's "Town of the Motley Cow", we'll no longer need but the "discourse of the hysterics".
DeleteThere is no "Big Other" who judges all with universal values and non-subjectivity.
Delete...where every man will be his own Master, and no man again shall be a Slave.
DeleteWhere the "horde leader" is killed by his "democratic" sons, and "the law" replaces him... and the law continues to mutate and change until the sons themselves get replaces (ala pigs on George Orwell's "Animal Farm".)
DeleteAs Lacan said to the protesting students in Paris '68, "“What you aspire to as revolutionaries is a master. You will get one.”"
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DeleteToday's lesson... (bad link in first comment on vanishing mediator).
DeleteI guess I was just wondering what people think. I have/had no clear answer to all of this, and perhaps they don't exist. So... however you get there, it matters not to me.
DeleteNo Hegel, Jameson, Augustine... perse. Just an answer.
Then how about this. America conquers the world, assumes all governmental authority, and our US Constitution becomes the "universal values" that every one in the world now must abide by. That way we'll never have to again "invade" another country, and the issue becomes "moot".
Deletebtw - What do you think of the concept of "Divine Justice"?
DeleteDave, I think you asked a good question. In the past, the stock answer would be, concerned nations go to the United Nations and get some kind of mandate to take some kind of action, from sanctions, to authorization of military force.
DeleteFor some reason, the US and the European nations didn't go that route this time.
Russia sits on the permanent member security council and has a permanent veto, so that's probably why the UN was a no-go.
DeleteThis is why some will tell you that there is no such thing as international law, outside of specifically negotiated treaties between nations.
It really is a hobbsian jungle out there
Well, Russia has veto power at the UN. It's like we've always lived in a multi-polar world or something.
DeleteI don't see Russia voting to condemn themselves any more than I see the United States or any other nation doing that.
DeleteChina and India also abstained..
DeleteApparently, their selfish "national interests" didn't quite coincide with our rich, first world progressive neo-liberal "universal" values.
Delete...you know the ones I'm talking about... the white gaze.
DeleteFortunately, some of us afflicted with the white gaze wear "polarizing glasses" that permit us to look Up and Down instead of universally Left and Right. It helps being multi-temporal in addition to multi-cultural. Our vanishing "whiteness" hasn't entirely "disappeared" like other vanishing mediators" into "global capitalism" yet.
Delete...because when we speak of "national interests", we're generally not speaking about our shared humanity. We're usually talking about our pocket books and how global events like "invasions" affect them.
DeleteLike whether Europeans will pay more for gas, or whether the sons of American politicians can collect salaries for their no-show Ukrainian oil company jobs.
Delete...Sudanese or Ethiopian civilians dying of famine from interrupted grain supplies from the Steppes become mere "justifying arguments" for bolstering decisions already made concerning "economic" arguments.
DeleteSome of the great Goods are incommensurable. You can't just weight them with 'Util' equivalencies and perform a numerical systems or operations analysis in the Society of Control's computers.
I've got a feeling that Europe's about to learn what Napoleon learned on his long back back to Paris from Moscow in 1814...
Deleteerratum -"march" for the 1st "back" above.
DeletePutin's gotta be loving it!
Delete...although Biden probably still vainly imagines a different ending...
Deletefrom CTH today:
DeleteAccording to analysts for Goldman Sachs, the current energy crisis in Europe has increased electricity prices at a rate that is increasing almost daily. Within the data it is now estimated that households within the EU will pay an additional $2 trillion for electricity in the next year.
Put that $2 trillion into context with their GDP, and that scale of energy cost would be wiping out 12% of the purchasing strength within the total EU economy. Forget about buying anything else, if this analysis is correct Europeans will be buying food and energy, nothing else.
If you consider what that means, it is bordering on full economic collapse of western Europe."
Perhaps we often value the 'economic' aspects of 'national interests' more than the human ones because they are so much easier to 'calculate'. Dollars... calculable. The worth of a human life is hard to put a dollar figure on Hence the Systems Analysis unit of "Utils"... a blend of dollars and human "utility".... of thinking of humans in terms of "means to general ends" instead of moral "ends unto themselves"... an amoral/immoral calculation.
DeleteSilver... and here we are. Perhaps the leaders of Germany felt it was in the ultimate national interest to make the decisions they did. I don't know.
DeleteBut we still don't have, even here, anyone willing to say whether a country has a right to invade another, for whatever reason.
If we won't respond, or can't make a decision, because of all the other "issues" how hard must it be for the ppl who really must do so?
Europe made the decisions it did because of their own multi-polar ambitions. "We're not Americans, we can tolerate the foxes in the henhouse and accept the barbarians at the gate. Look, we even made a welcome mat out of our gate."
DeleteTurns out some prejudices are justified. Funny that.
What would Dudley Do-Right do if women gave up their fetish with Snidely Whiplash tying them to train tracks?
My hypothesis is Europe went (kinda) all in on Ukraine after being strong-armed by the US.
DeleteFarmer mentioned this could end up costing European nation $2 trillion.
My first thought was, the Snooty western Europeans (snotty scions inhabiting the decaying family mansion) would gladly pay that to see every last Eastern European (and Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Finns) flushed down the toilet.
Dave,
DeleteThis is not a criticism, but you sound like you've become a progressive hawk.
WWII was the last time we intervened in a major way and produced a good outcome (with the major help of the USSR)
Yeah, we has some small-bore "successes," like Panama, but that was just us taking down our CIA-created monster.
I don't think USA was a prime mover on this, although I appreciate that yours is the largest contribution to Ukraine's defence. Nevertheless, IMO Europe needs no external prompt to take the Putin threat seriously. Anti-eastern-european sentiment, at least in Britain, is reserved for immigrants and confined to a political wing. Most of us feel pretty fraternal towards our European neighbours. Myself, I take eg Hungary's descent into fascism personally: it feels nearby, geographically and culturally. And Poland occupies a special place in our national mythology, thanks to its importance in our entry to WW2.
DeleteMy hypothesis (untested) is that USA and Russia negotiated limits to engagement to avoid nuclear escalation and USA is enforcing those limitations on western Europe.
Jez,
DeleteFrom a European's pov, in the first week of the Ukraine invasion, what exactly was the 'Putin threat?'
I know he poisons dissidents, etc, but what is his threat to Europe? Invasion?
I think he's just unleashed his greatest damage against Europe in shutting off the gas supply, but I'd be interested in your point of view.
Invasion is in my unconsidered opinion unlikely -- he has too many willing allies in the populist authoritarian wings of most European countries -- although I am bound by our mythology to compare the invasion of Ukraine with Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland. As things stand he already exerts his influence quite immoderately throughout Europe and further afield. It's the clumsy assassinations, the cyber attacks, the social media bots, the state-sponsored crime, money laundering, "political contributions" etc. I'm not following it closely, but it's dirty, dirty stuff and you don't have to be a student of QAnon to be open to the hypothesis that russian elites are systematically traffiking in people and narcotics. A successful campaign in Ukraine would only make Putin and his kleptocrat buddies feel even more emboldened. Not only them, but I think the Chinese too, who IMO do have invasion on their mind.
DeleteOkay, I get you. That was a good summary. The West should be countering those malign actions with a shadow war. I'm pretty sure they probably are, don't know the state of the battle, but I hope we are quietly behind the scenes pushing back on that stuff.
DeleteI'm sure we are, but Putin has entropy on his side: it's easier to create chaos than clean up after it.
DeleteIndeed
DeleteQ:. What do the US Senate and the United Nations general Assembly have in common?
ReplyDeleteIt's members both accept foreign graft and corruption as an acceptable means of conducting business?
DeleteGood one! I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking useless debating society where nothing is accomplished. And if something is accidentally accomplished, it is to the detriment of the rest of us
DeleteThey seem to go hand-in-glove at both venues. :(
DeleteNot exactly what H.G. Wells envisioned
Deleteroflmao!
DeleteIt's all fun and games until one side loses their bishops...
DeleteI'm happy the three of us have enjoyed a rare moment of agreement.
DeleteBTW, we now learn that the 'nuclear secrets' El Donaldo was hording was intel on nuclear capabilities of another nation. That doesn't make light of it, but does reveal a pattern of the press taking info from government leakers (a felony) and hyping that for maximum sensationalism.
DeleteWe probably all agree that the UN can't hold a permanent Security Council member accountable. It's one of those situations where Thomas Shelby gets the Peaky Driders family leadership together to hear from each about how they want peace, he counts the votes, and tells them they're going to war.
DeleteThere's no Thomas Shelby in the Biden Administration nor Europe.
;)
DeleteEurope may bicker with each other over who makes the real Feta cheese, but there's an alliance, and most of the members of that alliance are lead by right-wing nationalists who remember histories of both being under Russia's thumb for 45 years and being free of that for 30 years. And they remember Russia never pushed west or drove any occupier out in centuries of their own wars until the US and Britain bombed a path of dead Nazis for them to step over.
DeleteThis is a chess game where the four center squares are occupied by pawns glaring at each other while knights jump out and back to their starting position over and over, both sides afraid of being accused of trying to win.
BTW, we now learn that the 'nuclear secrets' El Donaldo was hording was intel on nuclear capabilities of another nation.
DeleteWell, that couldn't possibly damage America's insight into foreign nuclear weapons and proliferation efforts or get any of our spies and informants killed or expose sources and methods.
::sarcastic eye roll::
Fry the bastard at halftime during the Super Bowl.
TC, I said I wasn't making light of it, but rather what it says about government leakers and the Infotainment Media Complex.
DeleteRevealing sources is gravely serious and criminal. I never said otherwise.
You didn't want Trump to know about what he was dealing with in North Korea? Please. How stupid are you?
DeleteHow OMINOUS. Trump should have been "in the blind" about NORTH f'n KOREA.
DeleteNext time just blindfold and hogtie Trump and toss him out of a Caddy at the border at Pyongyang.
DeleteHe and Kim can then expertly discuss NY real estate prices.
DeleteWhen was the last time Sleepy Joe negotiate face-to-face with lil Rocketman?
Delete:P
DeleteFormer President Trump……yeah, I don’t want him to know. Because he doesn’t have the need-to-know.
Delete- CI
You didn't want Trump to know about what he was dealing with in North Korea? Please. How stupid are you?
DeleteTrump's been out of office since January 20th, 2021. There is no legitimate reason whatsoever for the documents to have remained in Trump's possession after he was no longer President. He is no longer dealing with North Korea. He is no longer President.
How stupid am I? It took me longer than it should have, roughly a third of a second, to consider and dismiss the idea of voting for Trump in 2016. I didn't consider it at all in 2020.
So, probably not stupid at all. You potatoes need to catch up.
You don't know if the documents had to do with North Korea, or Pakistan, or Iran, or France, or Zimbabwe, or whoever. And none of us do, and none of us need to know. All we need to know is Trump had documents he said he didn't have, that said documents were seized from his home, and now there's a special master testing them for meth residue or whatever.
DeleteHave John Barron tell Trump to go F himself. Credibility is like virginity, you can only lose it once. And Trump lost that long before he was President.
There is no legitimate reason whatsoever for the documents to have remained in Trump's possession after he was no longer President.
DeleteYep. While a former POTUS can be given clearance, access and need-to-know.....if he or she is requested by the Executive Branch to assist in some manner (i.e. special envoy to Bumcracksitan)......documents of national security are still the property of the government. Period.
To me, Trump's request for a "special master" is a tacit admission that he knowing mishandled and stole classified materials.
DeleteIt's like a drug dealer busted with pounds of marijuana demanding each nug be tested to make sure it's not oregano.
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DeleteWith his ever-revolving defenses since 8 August....he's been admitting culpability all along.
DeleteTrump can't even keep his OWN correspondence with Kim il? Wow. Do you really think Kim's going to call Sleepy Joe when he want's to talk to the US. Hey, maybe Biden should just send the Korean nuclear secrets to Dennis Rodman and allow him to consult in negotiate future arms reductions instead of the Don
DeleteOoooops!
DeleteTrump can't even keep his OWN correspondence with Kim il?
DeleteIs that the classified correspondence, the declassified correspondence, the correspondence he didn't have, or the correspondence that made him fall in love with the guy that executes dissidents with anti-aircraft cannons and salute his generals? Let's nail this down.
Meanwhile shirtless Putin is buying 70 year old surplus artillery shells from North Korea because Ukraine is going to crack any minute now LOL
Delete@TC - C'mon.....clearly it has to be the correspondence that the FBI planted....right?
DeleteI thought they planted the pill crusher and psuedoephedrine and starting fluid and Gatorade bottles... Fruit of the poisoned meth lab...
DeleteIt's a letter that Trump wrote to lil Kim. It says, "You get rid of your Hwasong-15's and agree not to put one of your repackaged Teller-Ulam warheads on it, and we'll talk. -Don"
DeleteThe Teller–Ulam design was for many years considered one of the top nuclear secrets, and even today, it is not discussed in any detail by official publications with origins "behind the fence" of classification. The policy of the US Department of Energy (DOE) has always been not to acknowledge when "leaks" occur since doing such would acknowledge the accuracy of the supposed leaked information. Aside from images of the warhead casing but never of the "physics package" itself, most information in the public domain about the design is relegated to a few terse statements and the work of a few individual investigators.
Delete...aka - DOD Overclassification paranoia.
Deleteps - I worked on a proposal once to run Savannah River for DOE for $1 a year. I worked on another one to clean up Pit-9 @ INEL.
DeleteGot tritium?
DeleteI've heard that QAnon once had a Q level clearance.... but I never had one of those. ;)
DeleteQ&I is BS. Probably a Russian operation.
DeleteDefinitely a trolling operation.
Delete4Chan does make the best memes.
DeleteAre 4chan and qanon related?
DeleteI'm not in on all the cool kids stuff. All that crap is background noise to me.
from Wiki: Although it has its origins in older conspiracy theories, the first post by Q was in October 2017 on the anonymous imageboard website 4chan. Q claimed to be a high-level government official with Q clearance, who had access to classified information involving the Trump administration and its opponents in the United States.[16] Q soon moved to 8chan, making it QAnon's online home.[17] Q's often cryptic posts became known as "drops", which were later collected by aggregator apps and websites. The conspiracy theory expanded into a viral phenomenon and quickly went beyond Internet culture, becoming familiar among the general population and turning into a real political movement. QAnon followers began to appear at Trump reelection campaign rallies in August 2018,[18] and Trump amplified QAnon accounts on Twitter through his retweets.[19] QAnon's conspiracy theories have also been relayed by Russian and Chinese state-backed media companies, social media troll accounts,[24][20][25] and the far-right Falun Gong-associated Epoch Media Group.[31]
DeletePersonally, I think that Q is either Pepe the frog, or Shia LeBeouf
Delete:)
DeleteThere. You've caught up to me. ;)
DeleteYou can all return to your Nickelbackesque hatred of DJT now. Call it, the power of the AV Club vs. cool kids.
DeleteCuz nothing today brings out the snark like the very mention of anyone so inauthentic as DJT...
Delete...for he is not of this global capitalist corporatist world.
I'm sure there are Russian agents on 4- and 8-chan, but yeah it's mostly kids larking about. Amazing, the damage that can wreak.
Delete