by Pepe Escobar : posted with permission
US-Australia-Japan alternative to Belt and Road helps explain why the US sent a junior delegation to Thailand and why India opted out of RCEP
China’s President Xi Jinping waves during the opening ceremony of the China International Import Expo in Shanghai on November 5. Photo: AFP/Hector Retamal
Chinese President Xi Jinping six years ago launched New Silk Roads, now better known as the Belt and Road Initiative, the largest, most ambitious, pan-Eurasian infrastructure project of the 21st century.
Under the Trump administration, Belt and Road has been utterly demonized 24/7: a toxic cocktail of fear and doubt, with Beijing blamed for everything from plunging poor nations into a “debt trap” to evil designs of world domination.
Now finally comes what might be described as the institutional American response to Belt and Road: the Blue Dot Network.
Blue Dot is described, officially, as promoting global, multi-stakeholder “sustainable infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”
It is a joint project of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation, in partnership with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
Now compare it with what just happened this same week at the inauguration of the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.
As Xi stressed: “To date, China has signed 197 documents on Belt and Road cooperation with 137 countries and 30 international organizations.”
This is what Blue Dot is up against – especially across the Global South. Well, not really. Global South diplomats, informally contacted, are not exactly impressed. They might see Blue Dot as an aspiring competitor to BRI, but one that’s moved by private finance – mostly, in theory, American.
They scoff at the prospect that Blue Dot will include some sort of ratings mechanism that will be positioned to vet and downgrade Belt and Road projects. Washington will spin it as a “certification” process setting “international standards” – implying Belt and Road is sub-standard. Whether Global South nations will pay attention to these new ratings is an open question.
The Japanese example
Blue Dot should also be understood in direct comparison with what just happened at the summit-fest in Thailand centered on the meetings of East Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
The advent of Blue Dot explains why the US sent only a junior delegation to Thailand, and also, to a great extent, why India missed the RCEP train as it left the pan-Asian station.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still between a rock – Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy – and a hard place – Eurasia integration. They are mutually incompatible.
Blue Dot is a de facto business extension of Indo-Pacific, which congregates the US, Japan, Australia – and India: the Quad members. It’s a mirror image of the – defunct – Obama administration Trans-Pacific Partnership in relation to the – also defunct – “pivot to Asia.”
It’s unclear whether New Delhi will join Blue Dot. It has rejected Belt and Road, but not, finally and irrevocably, RCEP. ASEAN has tried to put on a brave face and insist differences will be smoothed out and all 16 RCEP members will sign a deal in Vietnam in 2020.
Yet the bottom line remains: Washington will continue to manipulate India by all means deemed necessary to torpedo – at least in the South Asian theater – the potential of Belt and Road as well as larger Eurasia integration.
And still, after all these years of non-stop demonization, the best thing Washington could come up with was to steal Belt and Road’s idea and dress it up in private bank financing.
Now compare it, for instance, with the work of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia. They privilege the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, an original Indonesian idea, instead of the American version. The institute’s president, Hidetoshi Nishimura, describes it as “a guideline for dialogue partners” and stresses that “Japan’s own vision of the Indo-Pacific fits very well with that of ASEAN.”
As much as Nishimura notes how “it is well known that Japan has been the key donor and a real partner in the economic development of Southeast Asia throughout the past five decades,” he also extols RCEP as “the symbol of free trade.” Both China and Japan are firmly behind RCEP. And Beijing is also firmly stressing the direct connection between RCEP and Belt and Road projects.
In the end, Blue Dot may be no more than a PR exercise, too little, too late. It won’t stop Belt and Road expansion. It won’t prevent China-Japan investment partnerships. It won’t stop awareness all across the Global South about the weaponization of the US dollar for geopolitical purposes.
And it won’t bury prevailing skepticism about the development project skills of a hyperpower engaged on a mission to steal other nation’s oil reserves as part of an illegal Syrian occupation.
The tide has turned on the Hegemon. Too many leaders in too many nations have seen the maleficence the US embeds in its relationships with others. Using Finance is the current weapon system the US employs. Investment in infrastructure is laughable. The US isn’t even rebuilding its own infrastructure. The US destroys infrastructures; it doesn’t build them.
Blue Dot is like a SNL skit.
Modi and India’s elite business persons have got to wake up. The US will cripple it forever if it joins in this scam to stop BRI.
The developmental future for India is with the Eurasian Integration.
Larchmonter, Blue dot and bri are evil twins. The only reason the US and EU banksters object to the BRI scam is they want an exclusive monopoly on imposing debt slavery on small resources rich underdeveloped countries. “How dare China try to impose debt slavery on other countries (to offset the massive internal chinese debt and unbalanced over capacity in heavy industry and infrastructure supply they’ve stupidly misplanned) ?” The banksters in the West can’t stand the fact that China is trying to spread their bad debt onto the 4the world in same way they, the West, have been doing for years.
BRI cannot be taken seriously unless the issues of usury chinese loan interest rates and inflating of project costs after the project has started (to make it impossible for the client county to pay off the loan,so that the chinese can foreclose on the infrastructure and own it for pennies on the dollar), are addressed.
In general BRI loans carry very reasonable rates of interest. See for example this from the OECD:
“By the end of 2015, EXIM Bank had supported 1000-plus projects in 49 countries along the Belt and Road Initiative, with loan balances exceeding CNY520billion(i.e.USD80billion). The projects include roads, railways, electricity, ports, communications and other fields. For example, EXIM Bank provided a USD800millionlow-interest rate loan to Malaysia to build the 22.5 kilometresecond Penang bridge, the longest cross-sea bridge in Southeast Asia. Contribution to the USD7billionLao People’s Democratic Republic railway (5% GDP), provided at a low 3% interest rate.Exim Bank lends to foreign governments, foreign companies and Chinese corporations. ”
As the projects seems beneficial and the interest rates are low it does not seem reasonable to talk about usury Chinese loans.
No it does not, aside from the interest rates the Chinese inflate the costs of the build out during the build out while the client state is still on the hook for a much larger liability’s than they originally signed up for. The experience of Sri Lanka, the Maldives and even the Pakistanis (who showed some backbone recently and stopped CPEC (China-Pak Economic Corridor) until they had a chance to renegotiate certain conditions) all have had a bad experience with Chinese predatory practices.
Sven burst your Sinophobic lies with facts, so why come back for further embarrassment? As well China often simply forgives debts.
Oh I forgot to add: thank God India rejected rcep. It is a multilateral free trade disaster that allows japan, Australia and China to enter the Indian market with their fraudulent low cost of capital (based on fiat currency printing and a debt ponzi scheme) that gives them a trade dumping advantage over economies that are fiscally more responsible like Russia and India, which have higher repo rates than negative interest rate moribund japan and China’s fiat printing press banking system which mandates an artificially low interest rate that has allowed massive bad debt to build up.
Until India cleans up their idiotic Nehru era mathulsian socialist labor laws and still bureaucratic heavy regulatory system And cuts industrial loan rates to the same as China, Japan or the OECD, they will not be able to price manufactured goods at the same range as the Chinese and certain members of ASEAN.
As Pepe points out, India already has a free trade agreement with ASEAN, therefore they don’t need to open a backdoor for China to dump their poor quality cheap goods that India just recently shut out: (for the uneducated, India has recently reduced their trade deficit with China from $90Billion to $57Billion, an excellent and welcome move for Indians SME sector). Why would India allow this progress in curtailing chinese mercantile exploitation to be thwarted by jumping in RCEP? It’s bizarre that pepe didn’t pick up on this fact.
India is going down. The economy is tanking. The ecology collapsing, with far worse to come. The fascist Modi Hindutva regime is startlingly incompetent and vicious, and controlled by the overseas Indians and, therefore, the USA and Israel, who both detest Indians. This is a very great tragedy, typical of that which ‘liberal democracy’ produces, but will just be one of the earliest and greatest of the cataclysms about to engulf humanity.
Mulga…. and they have nuclear weapons. Should I also mention Jammu & Kashmir? How about Pakistan? As well as sharing a house with a raving Aussie Islamophobe who had a visceral hatred of Muslims, and also Sudanese; in the same house was an Indian man who had a great admiration for Modi, and who was also a raving Islamophobe.
These two got on tremendously well. Bestest buds. I got out of there ASAP.
I visited Kashmir some years ago, in winter. There were no tourists about, and at Pahalgam I was grabbed by an old chap who said that he’d be my guide. The younger ones were ‘unreliable’ he said. A few months later a couple of Germans trekking around Pahalgam were kidnapped and decapitated by jihadists. My old guide was a jolly fellow, chain smoking bidis and running up hills I laboriously ascended. Everyone we encountered greeted him with affection, and I stayed one night in his house with his family. That’s was about the start of the Kashmiris’ unending torment under Indian rule. Compare the treatment of the Kashmiris, and Gazans with the Tibetans, living in a comparative Arcadia and then wonder at the filthy, evil, hypocrisy of the Western fakestream presstitutes and their agit-prop.
Larchmonter, you have to see Modi and Amit Shah’s priorities. It’s the RSS vision. You have a billion and a half people of hundreds of ethnicities, languages and religions. The promise of building a nation out of this salad is to blend it by beating the Muslim bogie. Modi needs the enmity of Pakistan. He needs to squash the Kashmiris and to do it as nastily and publicly as possible. Indians are Hindus, and what are Hindus? They are those whose greatness was destroyed by Muslims. Hindus, under this new definition are anti-Muslims. This is all they have to hang on to. If they give it up they are nothing. So how can Modi get on with life, promoting peace and development in the region? Besides, Hindutva is a great cover for looting, and who is a better friend at that than the West?
What the smart Indians, the successes with bright minds, know is that India will fall behind, never to develop, never to grow, never to compete.
There are several sectors of the economy which will make certain that Modi does not retreat from the future or totally ruin the destiny of India as a great nation among great nations. Now they have every impetus to act soon.
Modi may have won a large election victory, but either he leads correctly or he will be in a world of trouble.
Too much is at stake for too many people inside India and outside to allow the population to suffer interminably because Modi has a rearview image for his nation.
Retreating from RCEP, retreating from BRI and showing fear to engage with China and President Xi are geopolitical cardinal sins.
So far, the Modi plan has gotten him nothing, achieved nothing, projects a potential vacuum for financing infrastructure, and has his potential partners in Eurasia and ASEAN laughing at him and scratching their heads at his foolishness.
India is large and complex, but it also is fragile. Modi is wasting valuable time and looks like he will miss the greatest opportunity he could ever hope for.
Hindutva is fascism, and fascism is simply ‘corporatism plus State power’, ie capitalism. As capitalist parasites, if you’ll forgive the tautology, loot societies, they need to produce scapegoats for the exploited to hate, rather than the true architects of their suffering, the rich blood-suckers. In India it is Moslems, Kashmiris, low-caste and tribals, Leftists and other ‘trouble-makers’.
@sarz,
In some respects I think your posting (with the exception of the last sentence) is quite good. Removed – no patronising comments to others – please make your own observations without attacks on other comments. Any further like this will go to trash. Mod.
However, it is the conclusions that you draw: Modi increased his super majority in the last election and his take of the popular vote increased by a whopping 11%. The underlying “Hindu” culture is obviously unifying the country, the data supports it, and that is precisely why snakes in the Anglo empire vipers nest known as the UK have hysterical hatred of Hindu nationalists but strangely genuflect in front of the alters of Zionism and wahabism.
All chauvinisms and supremacist fundamentalisms, whether American Exceptionalism, Zionazism, Hindutva or Wahhabism are deranged, harmful and self-destructive, particularly morally. Modi promises much and delivers little but Divide and Rule hate-mongering and service to the rich, while the hundreds of millions of poor go backwards. The contrast with China is tragic and indicative of the insanity of ‘liberal democracy’.
Yes that includes the faith religion of carbon based climate change and it’s poor blinkered fanatical followers.
Pure inversion of reality and psychological projection, typical denialist behaviour. Believers in anthropogenic climate change have science, rationality and the facts, ie the opposite of denialist fanaticism, which rejects reality, science and truth, in a religion that requires billions of human sacrifices.
Quite often people don’t look at the big picture, and quite often this blog focusses on MENA, so its good to look at Asia. So let’s look
First lets talk about USA proxy’s
1.) Japan, since ww2 a usa client
2.) Taiwan same
3.) Philipine, USA controlled still, more so than controlled by China
4.) Indonesia ( CIA ) controlled
5.) Burma(myanmar) old UK colony, still influenced by CIA
6.) Laos, more China, but a little CIA influence
7.) Cambodia, still under CIA
8.) Vietnam-South is CIA, north is Chinese; it could go either way
9.) Singapore, Chinese money, but lots of Malay-muslim, tons of Indians, and lots of whites, and english is official language, this place is proof cats&dogs can live together when CIA is kept at bay
10.) India-An old UK colony, that still emulates its masters, its religions hold it back to the dark-ages, not unlike Saudi, a true mess; Hopeless IMHO,
11.) CHINA – Current GOV (MAO) put into power in 1940’s by BIS, zio-nazi bankers, to cover their bet, with the taiwanese ownership failing; Today Israel works closely with Beijing, HUGE Jewish populations in China since +4,000 years ago.
Then there is Malaysia, the only place that is really NOT CIA in SE-ASIA, its Chinese money, like everywhere else but Muslim government.
So virtually every GOV in ASIA
“We will suck the life-blood out of the USA, until the blood blows the dust away” – Netanyahu
IMHO the outcome is Chinese control of ALL ASIA including MENA, probably with Russian partnership, but the OWNERS will still be the people (Zio-Nazi) @BIS, most like Israel ( tel-aviv) will be sacraficed to create a new holocaust, and the oil lands will be glassed over, but the oil still recoverable.
USA is a mercenary army for zio-nazism, and the USA is almost KAPUT, Saudi oil is almost kaput; The useful idiots running the PEDO-DOLLAR complex are no longer needed ( Note Pedo-Dollar, When gold window closed, USA started providing children to Saudi )
The New World Order is coming,
Lastly, dTrumpfs wall is to keep the pissed off, armed and mad as well American People contained in their own prison of their making, to keep the world safe, but just safe enough that zio-nazism can unleash the zombie army’s as needed anywhere on earth.
Before the NWO arrives, a New Educational Order has to be created, this could take some time to not only set up, but for results to be seen. I dont expect to hear much from the NWO for quite some time. B/c they have yet to hear from me.
Well sadly “Hollywood Movies”, still rule supreme everywhere in ASIA :(
Thus zio-Nazi edoooOcation is on course
IMHO NWO will not announce itself until its 100% in control, that’s why they continue to denounce Syria, N-Korea, Iran; Once all is good and zio-nazi own 100% of earth surface, then real owners of earth will step forward in public, and become ‘leaders’ for perpetuity.
The long-game to date has been secrecy, and having secret agents doing the work of the rich, like peeling the onion, one can go many layers, even the GAWDS of BIS in Switzerland are just agents, Mossad man-whores like dTrumpf & Sheldon-Adelson are just agent-pimps
Yes, NWO will remain silent, but they have no choice but to bring forward their “RESET”, its got to happen, once Saudi implodes & USD becomes toilet-paper, they can’t just sit on their hands, but never fear the AGENTS will step forward with their solutions to every crisis.
NEO ( new educational order ) is here its Hollywood, its LGBT, its pedophilia normalization, its Nirvanna for zio-nazis, where every place on earth becomes a whore-house like Tel-Aviv.
I have always thought while attending burning-man, if I had to entertain millions of people, and corral them, but keep them happy, “Burning-Man” is how I would do it, just need porta-potties, ice, and lots of drugs;
Lastly lots not confuse NEO ( NEO-CON/LIB ) with NEO ( edooocational odor )
…
Lastly, lets also remember that SE-ASIA and ASIA right now are like 1920’s USA, prosperous, and comfy, and nothing like USA right now which is feces, drugs, and hopelessness.
I don’t see any reason here to be celebrating the downfall of “HEGEMONY”, when in fact the real rules of the USA, also own the world outside of Syria, Iran, and N-Korea. If anything current events show that NK is moving to the dark-side, and Syria is on life-support, and IRAN doesn’t want to be the last-man standing.
Don’t drop your guard folks, the battle has not even begun.
A few smoke screens on this blog, jumbling things together.
NWO already own the whole earth, stepping forward is not only unnecessary but would damage their cause. The imaginary bogeyman (Russia, China, Iran, NK…) is always required to entrench the global MIC and supernatural profit.
The battle is lost. Most will continue to eat popcorn until they starve when their augmented leaders have capable AI machines to replace the useless eaters.
The NEO will be based on the laws of nature, a indisputable, heart wrenching, life changing, conscious raising way of life . And a necessary nutrient for a more healthy society, w/o it the human race stands no chance of survival, for polluting the human body is no way to run the human race.
Australia is also a USA proxy.
As AFTINET (aftinet.org.au) points out, the RCEP text remains secret and will not be released until after governments sign the agreement in early 2020.
Yes, sorry so sorry, I mean we all know this subject is without limits.
USA, Canada, Austrailia, New-Zealand 5 eyes, just spys all are just old anglo-zion (deBeers,rhodes,Windsor UK zionist elite ) colonys, USA/Austrailia were just slave-colonys where white trash was bred by Jewish slave traders, as often natives were not trainable. Not much has advanced in reality, post civil war, USA became a slave colony, rather than a prison colony.
I sometimes think that the elite OWNERS may end up in New-Zealand as their “New Israel”, having destroyed all else on earth.
Vietnam, Laos were all French colony’s; But the French bailed and the USA filled the void; Burma, India, Paki were all British. Every single country in ASIA was once a Zionist-Colony, all except Thailand, the only place to have held the Zionist occupiers at bay.
USA occupied Shanghai China in the 1920’s, beautiful old buildings “BANKS” were built in Shanghai that still stand today, that mirror 1920’s Heyday’s, when I first started living in Shanghai in early 1980’s I would hang with old chinese guys who spoke perfect english, talking of the day when all of Shanghai was whore-houses and opium dens and good-times, and big money it was all business. The Chinese hated the Japanese, they raped and murdered, Shanghai was their first target. So the Chinese HATE the Japs, but love the USA, go figure. In my first travels in China early 1980’s I used to get hugs from Chinese for “Dropping bomb on Japan”, I mean that had been 40 years earlier, and they still in their mind thought that USA had saved them, CHEW ON THAT!!!!!!!
Here we are today, and HOLLYWOOD-dTrumpf want americans to hate Chinese, but Chinese in fact want to be Americans :)
In the past 40 years I have seen everybody in China go from Poor to Rich, just amazing place.
…
I think Austrailia will go the way of USA, albeit without the firearms ( I’m talking about drugged out zombies ); NZ becomes a mecca for elite last-men standing.
The worlds business will be conducted in ASIA, which is why taking over INDIA is critical, but UK left such a horrible mess, like Africa in every way. Sort of the old “Herding Cats” problem.
Well you can be sure whatever the outcome of RCEP it will not advantage the people of Austrailia. Historically Austrailia has limited “ASIANS”, it will continue to do so, probably they only way ASIA can open Austrailia is an open war with the West, that would be a very interesting outcome, lots of land in Austrailia, but not much arable land :(
I keep reading here that the Hegemon is dead or Dying, not its not, and its probably stronger now than ever before, having destroyed the USA, and having created infinite-fiat, having generated 1,000’s of Zio-Nazi billionaires in the past twenty years, most all below 40, I think the HEGEMONY is just starting.
There is a movie titled “Once were warriors”.
Download and watch it, read a bit a bout the two predominate Maori gangs, Black Power and Mongrel Mob, and come back with your more informed prediction about the future of NZ as an elite bolt hole. Your perspective lacks and awful lot of understanding about kiwi character.
Thanks, I have spent time with Maori’s both in NZ, and OZ
Great people,
So tell me, now that the worlds elite have all built the shelters in NZ, what have the Maori’s done to prepare for the feast?
IMHO the Maoris, while giants, and certainly stronger than asians or caucasians, they’re essentially samoans, and thus they got walked around not unlike the biggest & baddest slaves that got transferred by zionist slave traders from africa to usa-penal-colony
I think what I said was Australia will go way of USA, because it essentially being a ‘hairlip nation’
NZ is educated and the money of the elite will spill over, to everyone in NZ, they have already made it hard to get residence, in the future it will require non-natives to be super-rich to enter NZ.
The Maori are a minority, but other than muscle please tell us how they’re going to draw&quarter the rich zionists who now own their country.
A long time ago the Zionists were given three wishes by the GAWDS, and never once did they wish to be tall, or strong; They only wish to be the Master’s and everybody else be the slave.
The Zionists never have a hard-time controlling the ‘gangs’ any where on earth. You wish to know how they do it? Same as in Africa, when you arrive in a new village, you find out who is the biggest baddest guy in town, and you pay him to watch your rig&convoy;
All the zionists ( owners of NZ ) have to do is hire mongol-mob to kill black-power, and pay black-power to kill mongol-mob; Then step back and watch the fun. This is how its always done everywhere on earth, including LA.
IMHO life will not change much for the Maori in the future post reset, NZ will continue to be an elite enclave, if anything most Maori’s will never even see how the Elite live.
Just like the big island of Hawaii the Samoans there tend to stay together, I think the Maori pretty much do the same in NZ. But nobody ever talks about the Samoans ruling the Zionists in Hawaii. It’s a subject that never comes up.
Most NZ white people being educated, tend to respect the Maori’s. Unless the Maori’s adopt full Nazi-ZIonism and become tribe in Israel I don’t see how they’ll be much of a threat to the zionist owners of NZ. Have the Maori’s been sending their daughters to Israel to marry? Like Trump & Clinton have done?
Nice work. I , having 4 maori children and 3 maori /japanese grandchildren, greatly enjoyed your perspective.
But , in the situation that you posit, we NZers are all maori; we have taken the battlefield together for a long time.
And these elites stick out like sore thumbs. Should be interesting. :-)
“having created infinite-fiat, having generated 1,000’s of Zio-Nazi billionaires in the past twenty years, most all below 40,”
I think you have hit the nail on the head. That is the reword for working with the NWO. Those get togethers in Davos are not just for talking about how good the chocolate in Switzerland is. The meetings are to solidify and coordinate slow moves necessary to ensnare the World in their web. These drones then fly off to their command centers to execute the given assignments. It’s a slow process that the average working man/woman will not notice.
I also think they are anything but finished.
Yes, anybody that say’s “THE HEGEMON is KAPUT” is a liar & a traitor to the GOYIM Majority.
These 1,000’s of New billionaires all younger than 40 and the majority are in China, will be the future leaders, just like Trumps kids, Clintons kids, and Obama’s kids; All being groomed for the role.
Just like Zuckerberg, or the Twitter-ZIOBOY, … Just like Buffet, & Gates are today, all zionism, yet all admired by the GOY
Long ago Simpsons predicted Trump as president, and following Trumps destroying the US economy, Chelsea Clinton is elected POTUS.
Zionism always tell’s you exactly what they intend to do, if you bother to listen.
I mention Clintons (Billionaires), because don’t forget the “Clinton Foundation” walking with $6 billion USD cash, all sitting in a QATAR Bank.
Hell even the Kardashians now have Billionaires in their tribe.
Huge Jewish population in China? Yup, 2,500 out of 1,3 billion is really yuuuge!
Good points, Mortimer…I note you assess Southeast Asian nations on an individual basis (instead of as ASEAN member states). In any case the importance of ASEAN is grossly overestimated.
Regarding point 4 (the Company running Indonesia). True… with the appointment of (losing) election contender Prabowo Subianto as Minister of Defense the Company has re-ensured its control over Indonesia, even while the Widodo government can be expected to continue leaning on Chinese infrastructure contracts.
The completely sycophantic, bootlicking, poodle Australian Govt is just an embarrassment. This ‘Blue Dot’ thing yet again shows the complete subservience to United States Diktats. Even if it means losing out on billions of dollars in investment and trade. Pathetic.
‘The Lackey Country’, Gezzah, just starting to get its comeuppance.
Buckle up Mulga. Things are going to get very interesting. Couple of my random customers today thought things were going to get a lot worse economically; and that the media are just straight out liars, and they don’t read papers or watch TV news! This, was in a hardcore Liberal seat btw. Some people are aware of the storm approaching.
Gezzah, the economy is shot, our debt is the greatest anywhere, our leadership is comically stupid and incompetent, sub-psychopathic and God-bothering (Heaven ‘elp us!)but it is the ecological cataclysm that will do us in, quick-smart. Just listen to the poor schmucks from Coffs Harbour etc, talking of the sky burning bright orange, the fires spotting twelve kilometres from the fire front, the very ground burning and then look West, to Perth, with its hottest ever November (early November) day in prospect today. For at least twenty years it has been plain that the ‘forecasts’ of climate destabilisation have been downplaying the disaster, and, now, finally, you hear some Establishment climate scientists whining that ‘We seem to have under-estimated the rapidity and extent of climate change’. No excrement, Sherlock!!
Pretty soon the next phases of the collapse will set it. Mass panic as people realise that they and their children are toast. Protests no longer peaceful and restricted to blocking traffic. Vicious repression from the regime, already actively planning to ban demonstrations and boycotts. Apartheid is one cause, racism in a far off land, but actual physical survival is another thing entirely, so the repression will not succeed. And hatred for those, the businessmen and women, the coal-miners, the denialist industry and the denialist politicians who are still screeching that nothing is happening, will grow into fury. I am gob-smacked at the restraint of the victims-so far. But the pips are squeaking. Smell the air-that’s not just smoke. It’s fear and rage, too.
Mulga…. Pretty much agree. As I said, some of my customers know what’s coming, I see it too. Yeah, even Labor politicians are screaming about ‘violent extremist protestors’ – who are merely blocking traffic. My god, you couldn’t get a more morally & ethically bankrupt bunch of cretins as the Labor hierarchy.
Yeah, I’m aware of the active plans to heavily criminalise protests, incl. prison terms. This will be implemented right thru out the West, not just Australia.
They are no longer wearing their velvet glove. The iron fist is coming out. Look at the heavy repression of the Gilets Jaunes in France. Australians have been way too apathetic in my opinion, tho granted, the presstitutes have had a huge part to play in this.
I saw the horrendous Bush fires in NSW and the Sunshine Coast on ABC last night. Awful.
My parents were both die-hard Labor supporters. But after Hawke and Keating introduced neo-liberalism, as Hawke cosied up to the Hungarian crook, Abeles (my old man knew all about him and the Hungarian Mafia in Sydney, as a journo)the old man gave them the flick. Me Mum stuck to it for a few years more, but was completely demoralised when she went. They were spared the horror of Rudd and Gillard, let alone Shorten, Carr, and now the wretched Albanese, and the transmutation of the Party into Another Liberal Party, thus pushing the Libs ever further to the Evil Right, and doing nothing to counter the moral and intellectual disintegration of the country, and the working class in particular. I’d head back to NZ myself-I wish I had the dosh to do so myself.
Mulga: the pips are squeaking. Brilliant! Pithy and nice historical reference to an arguable parallel situation. Your wisdom is always worth while. But that witty word usage soars above.
Yeah, I know. Not really much to celebrate right now. So we take it while it’s available.
The pips are squeaking is something I saw long ago, in an age when the pipsqueak was an unfortunate in need of help, not the national archetype. Wannabe tough-guy pipsqueaks, who get their jollies from terrorising refugees, welfare recipients and the disabled. How low we have sunk, yet the descent simply accelerates.
My dear Mulga,
(Removed.Yes it was a joke.But still please don’t insult fellow posters.MOD)
No. Australia is not any different than it has been for many thousands of years – well before the motor car. The temperature in the 19th century was higher than it is at present.
I suggest your read some of what the real expert have to say:
http://joannenova.com.au/
The BMO keeps on lowering the temperatures of the past. They keep on building new meteo stations in the bush and using their temperatures to get at new “averages” – skewing the data. I suggest you as any farmer whose family has been around for a long while his opinion.
Here are some of the fiddles they have done in the main cities of Australia:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/06/a-mess-of-adjustments-in-australian-capital-cities-the-inexplicable-history-of-temperatures/
joannanova is one of the worst denialists going around. A ‘real expert’ only for those with no idea. One really hopes that the laws against crimes of ecocide get enacted soon. The temperatures in the 19th century were not higher than today in Australia. Pure disinformation, as always from denialists. Temperature records before 1908 were unreliable, thermometers being placed in the open, or where re-radiated heat from surfaces could affect them. After 1908, the positioning and protection of thermometers was standardised, and since then January 2019 was the hottest ever month in Australia, December 2018 the hottest December and summer 2018-9 the hottest summer. And the proof is in the pudding-record drought, megafires raging over vast regions, dying rivers and wetlands, and 46.6 Celsius in Adelaide, in January 2019, the hottest capital city temperature ever ecorded in Australia. Yet the denialist fanatics still carry on, regardless.
Yeah, it’s true that austfailia is a lackey colony that even grovels before Adani and swill they pour down the throats of the naive bogan. This is not surprising given that Austfailia is a primitive resource base economy that is controlled by putrid mining oligarchs who descended from murderous genocidal robber baron thieves (that boasted about how they stole the land their mines stand on by driving off the native aborigines). A great example of the kind of people that own Australia is Gina Rinehart, go look her up, even the Australian propaganda msm admits that she’s repulsive. I wonder how the rinehart family acquired their wealth?
No wonder nobody in Asia trusts austfailia.
Rinehart’s father, Lang Hancock, ripped off his business partner in iron ore prospecting, then prevailed on the Federal regime to lift the ban on iron ore exports (Austfailia was thought poor in iron ore resources at that time)and made squillions. Hancock, like his spawn, was a true self-made fascist, and Rinehart is a prime financier of the denialist industry in Austfailia, has big coal interests and is, therefore, in my opinion, a genocidal criminal.
Gina Rinehart is also a cow with a vicious and open contempt for the poor and she is typical of the kind of human garbage that carried out the genocide against the native aborigines and she and her father are a great example of the in born thieving nature of austfailia’s founding angloempire elite.
Rinehart is a typical Rightwinger-no more need be said. The Evil end of the human spectrum. Even her own children hate her.
Yes I believe her son refers to her as “fatty” in court evidence of correspondence between him and his sister. No doubt they despise her.
But I have to tell you that her overt hatred and contempt of the poor was surprising for me even after witnessing the extreme behavior of NeoNazis in Europe, Russia and Ukraine.
The Right in Austfailia maintain power through a number of mechanisms. Compulsory voting helps, because the sub-median 50% in intelligence are forced to vote, and they vote Right, out of brainwashing, ignorance and stupidity. The working class have been screwed by Rightist regimes for c.forty years, so they must be persuaded to vote against their own interests and those of their spawn, like turkeys looking forward to Christmas. This type is persuaded to vote out of greed (plus stupidity as they will only ever go backwards economically)hatred (of refugees, Moslems, unions, Greens, feminists, welfare recipients, the poor, gays, the homeless etc and fear. The total control of the fakestream media by Rightwing thugs has aided this process greatly over the decades. A particular emphasis is brainwashing to adore the rich parasites who own and control the country. At the last election the morons voted for the hard Right regime’s tax cuts skewed heavily to the rich, and against the other Rightwing party’s tax cuts targeting the poor and middle. And, in a delicious irony, that I should have expected, the $1000 promised to the cretins by the winners turned out, in reality, to average $400 when tax returns were filed. How do you beat greedy imbecility like that?
Canada is not different. Completely taken over and moving is the most destructive social direction possible. I guess it is “All in the Family”.
Great stuff, Pepe! A little blue dot, indeed. A smudge of blue on the islands of Japan, and look!, there it is in Australia! Both of these nations must conclude that their economic futures depend heavily on good relations with China. Both in a way already bow down to American foreign policy dictates while pursuing economic benefits from trade with China The blue dot appears and then disappears in India, another nation whose trade with China is growing and growing. Meanwhile, serious analysts are wondering how this is going to amount to a threat or parallel project to the BRI, which aims to connect Asia, Europe and Africa and already has the cooperation of over 100 countries. Maybe they plan a little blue dot transporter, which will magically send products, people and raw materials to and from their nations into global markets.
frankie, the secret sauce for the Blue Dot and other US efforts to ‘bring China down’ is the usual mixture of bullying, thuggery, threats, subversion, sabotage and sanctions. The Austfailian regime is viciously enthusiastic because they are nothing if not racists, who detest the idea of a ‘Yellow Devil’ who refuses to bow and scrape in the presence of a White Man.
” because they are nothing if not racists, who detest the idea of a ‘Yellow Devil’ who refuses to bow and scrape in the presence of a White Man.”
Oh yehhh. Many do not appreciate how ingrained this is in the upper class of Oceania.
As the late, unlamented, ‘Bulletin’ had as its front-page banner until the 70s or thereabouts- ‘Australia For The White Man’.
Thanks Mulga for all the insights about Australia from the ground level. I know a few Assies from work but that can hardly be called a good population sample. However the few that I know fall in the 50% dislike Asians and the other being neutral. The 50% that dislike Asians just give me the vibes that they maybe in the majority in Australia. Not good to generalize but if you don’t you might miss the forest for the trees.
We had a Chinese boy from Kuala Lumpur lodge with us when I was in high school. A rich kid, we went to the same private school, where many of the inmates detested him for being Asian. Not all, of course, but plenty. One thug tried to bully him early on, but after a kick in the face (his father had had him and his sister trained in martial arts, to deter kidnappers)they left him alone. I’ve never felt any racist animus towards people, but do detest many people for their attitudes and opinions, although even those are often not really their fault. Some people are just so dumb that they lack the nous to realise just how stupid they really are. I have always really hated Rightists, but even there I could see no great benefit in that detestation, even as they killed millions and treated other people with such cruelty. There seemed no way out, my youthful belief in the ascent of man to some sort of perfected moral state having died in my 20s, and I rather expected human self destruction, sometime far off, after my demise. Imagine my shock as, over the last twenty years, I came to appreciate that the ecological Holocaust will take us out sometime before 2050, probably decades before. And even more confronting is the knowledge that many Rightist ‘religious’ psychopaths are actually looking forward to it, as part of their twisted ‘religion’.
The Chinese have nothing to worry about. Any group that includes the Austfailian Morrison (our bunyip Bolsonaro, a congenital Pentecostal imbecile and sadist)regime will be a farce. Just look up our NBN ‘fraudband’ network, or our efforts to build high-speed railways, or our efforts to ‘save’ the Murray-Darling River, or ‘preserve the moribund Great Barrier Reef, or our message to South Pacific nations terrified by climate destabilisation (‘Get stuffed, and don’t dare have anything to do with China’) or ‘meet our Paris commitments in a canter’-translating from the gibberish, record emissions year after year, etc, to see just how this sad little effort will go. If India ties itself to these stooges of the USA, then the Hindutva fascists must be even more stupid than I imagined.
I should really not trigger you, Mulga :)
but now they recude the cash transaction from 20K to 10K???
whats wrong with those stupid dumb F*CKS!
So now no one can buy a used car with cash? or a hot water system with cash??
What is it now? I pay with diamonds?!
So much for the citizen rights to freedom loving country right?
and when they “stole” billions from the AustCB focilities?
I am begining to thankgod I was strike with “personal crisis” and left decades ago
When competing who has more brain cells – They make ameaba look like super gods!
OMG!!! Vomitting is not an overreaction here!
Sigh :(
Surely you have smth to say too, Mulga?
“whats wrong with those stupid dumb F*CKS!”
Not even the best sycophant dip-shits money can buy: Very average!
And I spent almost 40 years in the civil service watching the show degenerate from negligently pathetic to criminally incompetent … and sometimes just criminally…
The BIG inter-generational change since the 1970’s has been from London Puppets to Washington Muppets.
Can’t even get the UK flag off the corner and dismiss that old queen, Betty Windsor. Capacity for independent critical thought and foreign policy is below zero.
… and I should have added that apart from a handful of local mining barons flogging dirt and coal to China, and a Rabbi Joseph Isaac “Diamond Joe” Gutnick funding Israel, the real Overlord of the colony ‘down under’ is now a little ageing gnome from Adelaide — a Mr Rupert ‘media empire’ Murdoch. Calls the shots, pulls the strings, and lives and works in the USA. Go figure…! When Pentecostal Morrison talks to Jesus in the morning over breakfast it really is Rupert channeling his daily news agenda items.
Murdoch is literally Satanic.
Forty years, from Whitlamesque optimism, competence, ambition and decency, to Morrisonian vulgar, materialistic, God-bothering incompetence, bullying thuggery, sadism, inveterate lying, insatiable greed and a Philistinism so deep and broad that it is truly comic, particularly when most of the idiots see themselves as truly, madly, deeply clever (the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon as the prime modus vivendi). That’s the story of Austfailia as it dessicates, burns and blows away in the cruel winds of ecological collapse.
Always! Austfailia’s ‘elites’ are entirely fifth-rate. They adhere to Every dogma of US Imperial diktat, including the bizarre imbecility of neo-liberal capitalism. That includes kissing any Yankee or Zionazi backside in reach, preaching the wonders of ‘The Magic of the Market’, or even, hilariously ironically in our debt-ridden situation, ‘The Magic of Compound Interest’ and, naturally, the elimination of cash, as part of the move to the Nirvana of ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ by the international financial Mafia. There is No dissent in public discourse, just 100% Groupthink among Morons, pig ignorant imbeciles, who would not dare have an original thought, ever, lest they be ostracised. Just now I am listening to the ABC interviewing an Israel Likudnik fascist, spewing hatred at Iran, Hezbollah and the victims of the Oded Yinon Plan in general, with a geriatric ABC Goodthinking feminazi, tossing up lobs, as they say, to allow the repulsive creature to blather his hatred-his suicidal belligerence, in Israel’s case. The thought of ever speaking to an Israeli non-Likudnik, non-Zionazi commenter, would never occur to these Murdochised scum. The further Right, on any topic, the better.
Mulga, as a fellow Australian I’d like to congratulate you on the best description of Morrison so far!
“Bunyip Bolsonaro, a congenital Pentecostal imbecile and sadist” — true classic.
He is a thug masquerading as a part time Christian.
His election “victory” is proof — non-stop marketing really works!
Thanks-Morrison is the final catastrophe, the real tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying less than nothing. We cannot sink any lower, unless-Dutton!
Sounds like Blue Dot = bureaucracy from Aus, Jap and US gov’s + wrangling with an assortment of private corporations vs BRI = negotiate with a single gov.
I wonder which one will be more appealing?
As an anti-globalist, and knowing a brief history the last time that Ghengis Kahn built the silk road, it is extremely alarming to me that any nation would consent to it! Xi has already demonstrated the capacity of tyrant, through acts of tyranny in Africa and in Brazil. Xi is also quite a bully that pushes for one way deals. The globalists in general, not specific to Xi have left a trail of tears in their wake. The average amount of time for a nation to prosper under them is roughly 30 years. After they create population increases, and saddle the citizens, nations, and corporations with debt, they MoveOn to the next nation to exploit, when inflation and rising production costs lead them to look for cheaper labor, and less government regulation and taxes. Naturally, war, civil war, poverty, over population, and destruction of the environment and natural resouces are always involved.
The Silk Road pre-dates Ghengis Kahn by at least a millennium!!
Sorry for the error. The ladt time that the silk road was unified inyo political cohesion by Genghis Kahn, the Mongoluan invasions ensued leaving many be-headed for disloyalty and non conformity to the will and demands of Genghis Kahn.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_and_conquests
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan
Above, in addition to many of my other comments have apparently been revenge hacked either in transmission, or on the server, since I checked for errors and there were none.
Not sure what you are saying.Which of your comments were “hacked”.Either you did say “and knowing a brief history the last time that Ghengis Kahn built the silk road,” or not.And if you meant the other one,what would be different there?
Yep! You’d be right on that one. I suspect you would enjoy reading Arthur Koestler’s “Thirteenth Tribe” which gives quiet a good overview of the Eurasian space from early in the current era. (The Thirteenth Tribe referred to are the Kazarians who were from Turkic stock and as nomads they would have covered the same stomping ground Ghengis conquered, but they settled around the Black Sea and converted to Judaism in the 8th century while most of their northern and eastern neighbours were still pagans, and their southern and southwestern neighbours were Muslims and Christians.)
”Xi has already demonstrated the capacity of tyrant, through acts of tyranny in Africa and in Brazil.”
At long last a supercilious Empire loyalist that doesn’t post as ’Anonymous’ here, hats off.
”Acts of tyranny” by the Chinese in Brazil. When was that? I never heard of any social protests in Brazil targeting China — if there were, it must have been among the upper middle classes. The second piece of slander, involving Africa, is quite infuriating already as it stands. It’s precisely the Chinese ”tyranny” in the southern part of that continent which has spared the countries Libya’s fate and brought them industrialization without God-awful ”European values”.
The Zionazi trolls get brownie points for invention and hysteria. Boy, do they hate and fear China.
“Under the Trump administration, Belt and Road has been utterly demonized 24/7”
Keep that in mind when viewing spam by trumpettes claiming trump is some sort of “rebel”.
they say a picture is worth a thousand words. this one is worth billions:
https://twitter.com/HenryMakow/status/1193143168713347073
Even better when accompanied by an illustration of contemporary Libya:
https://www.albawaba.com/news/pictures-libyan-hell-where-migrants-are-kept-after-failing-reach-europe-1017858
That’s really existing ‘Freedom’, boyo. Pass me the fries! That, and so much more, is the true consequence of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the event that signified humanity’s final rush to the abyss.
It’s often the case that when Reaction looks unstoppable on its way to final, total victory, there is a crucial setback happening at about the same time that may or may not seem like one. 5 months before the Berlin Wall came down, the colour revolution stunt in Beijing was resoundingly defeated. 10 years later, Russia — due to her enemies’ fanaticism and pure evil — had been united silently in total hatred and contempt of ”Western democracy”. Since then, Putin has pulled Russia out of the squalor.
Today’s India and Ukraine have the governments it takes to make Yeltsin’s Russia look not too bad.
Excellent, insightful understandings by commenters here of how the US is driven by $$$$$ and power.
Just this year, in the US, you can sense and feel the desperate measures these massive corporations are taking to further impoverish millions of citizens via personal debt: mortgage loans and car/credit card & university debts.
With very few full-time, well paid jobs left, the American people are sinking more and more into debt servitude.
It’s only a matter of a few years when food, housing, medical care shall grow more and more scarce.
A pitiful end to a nation of zombified millions who still DON’T want to see who’s behind it all.
@ rubicon
Here in western Canada just car insurance for young drivers is reaching the absurd $6300. a year and if one gets into an accident kiss your driving life goodbye. ICBC when first implemented was meant to provide affordable insurance for all as it was government funded and controlled. Today its a behemoth that is costing the tax payer billions. It is bleeding money and they can’t stop it though I figure the death throw will come soon enough. All of this however, was and is not the result of massive corporations impoverishing millions. Mostly its the result of an economy that can’t afford the increasing cost of everything. There are many other factors at play. Consider since when does a new light fixture on a car cost 1400.00 dollars? That’s for just one light left hand side on a 2008 audi?
Yeah, debt and no well paying jobs is going to be the end literally! We are already taxed to death in this country and what’s next is the big question.
Gail Tverberg over at ourfiniteworld I believe got it right about energy and the economy. If the wages of non elite workers could rise high enough to pay for the increasing cost of everything then likely we wouldn’t have a problem. That of course is clearly not happening and I should know the company I work for can’t afford raises and we are busy then ever. At one of our last meetings one of the men complained that he was making less money now then when he was first hired 6 years ago! Get this to I was sent out to find and buy screws specialized of course and got the shock of my life they were 3.99 each but we got them for 2.99! 27 cap screws $80.00!
For growth to work we need low energy prices and that I’m afraid is over.
The reason that wages cannot rise for workers in the West is because such a move would be ‘antisemitic’. As one of the Rabbis spewing hatred and false denunciations at Corbyn, in the UK, let slip, the reason the Zionazi elite hate him is blah, blah, blah…and ‘…his Leftwing policies’. The learned heirophant got carried away in his ecstasy of hatred, and spoke the truth. Unforgivable!
Another reason stated here is that at $15/hr the incentive to robot the job away gets enough momentum to start constructing, like automobile bot welds. They have now created a machine to lay a wall of bricks, the big mac in a vending machine is being tested. It takes the phrase be careful what you wish for to a whole new level, b/c you may get it and lose your job shortly afterwords.
@ Mulga
Wow, that’s the first time I ever heard anti-Semitic applied like that. Can you send me any link to this outburst.
In any case it is not my experience with what we are facing here. I can only reply that perhaps with that fiasco that was the fast ferries and the BC government blowing 500 million dollars on 3 boats only to turn around and sell them for 30 million is keeping our people in debt slavery. Is this the way it works? As for ICBC here is an article about the enormous amount of money going to not only lawyers but now even the insurance companies and their brokers. Are they perhaps owned by the Jews and are milking us all for their own profit?
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/mike-smyth-you-cant-renew-icbc-online-so-its-costing-you-a-fortune/ar-BBWwkU4?ocid=spartandhp
US, Japan and Australia are geographically outside the MaCinder triangle of influence which is roughly denoted as running from Moscow to Tehran to western China.
Even India is outside of this area consequently should India join the US they will sink with the US in to oblivion.
The neocon west has already lost. Every would be contender for world domination…the US, Japan, the UK, the EU, India and Africa along with South America are all lost.
All they can do is be disruptive or destroy everything by nuclear war.
The great thing about the MaKinder concept is that this geophysical centre is impossible for any oceanic nation to invade because almost all of the rivers drain in to internal lakes or the Artic Ocean.
Once the Russian, Iranian, Chinese infrastructure is in place the rest of the world will be third world countries in 100 years time no matter what they try to do.
Even I don’t believe they would be afforded 100 years, I’m guessing 50-78 at best, after that the gods get upset b/c you are now interfering with their ability to sustain themselves in a timely manner.
The head of Huawei said that he was not too worried about the Five Eyes frenzy to derail Huawei’s 5G networks-they are too busy constructing their own chips and operating systems, because of US sanctions, and working hard on 6G.
Good article. The US is trying to steal the BRI idea, but unfortunately it is too little too late.
Blue Dot?????
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/americas-richest-1-now-own-much-wealth-middle-and-lower-classes-combined
The US has 800 bases world wide our economy is based on war and selling weapons. War is death and destruction and neither are good long term investments. As long as the CIA is funding and controlling the media we will not change. Eisenhower warned us of the “military, congressional, industrial complex. I found it interesting that both Clapper and Brennan went to work for CNN after leaving government. CNN is the lead anti trump pro war propaganda group.
@ Nolan Cox
yes no long term investments lol:
Only in Hollyweird cartoon world is the United States a potent military presence in terms of the quality of its personnel recruiting pool. The country would be well advised to abandon all neocon pretenses and foreign military adventures. The reality is in stark contrast and speaks to the truth about the American gutless wonder. According to 2017 Pentagon data, 71 percent of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are ineligible to serve in the military. That’s 24 million of the 34 million people of that age group.
“I would argue that the next existential threat we have,” Army Major Gen. Malcolm Frost, the commander of the Army’s Initial Military Training Command, said, “is the inability to man our military.”
https://www.winterwatch.net/2019/11/is-military-recruiting-the-canary-in-the-coal-mine-america-dumb-fat-sick-criminal-and-girlie-boy/