Moveable Feast Cafe 2017/06/28 … Open Thread

Finally, I watched Adam Curtis’ documentary HyperNormalisation (2016):

This is a significant and thought-provoking film, and though you may not agree with all of Curtis’ claims, it can still serve as a point of departure for thinking about the political situation we face in the present.

Curtis takes the titular concept from Alexei Yurchak’s book about the last two decades of the Soviet Union — Everything was Forever, Until it was No More (2006) —, and uses it to tell a story of the last four decades of political history, culminating in our present-day world dominated by fake news and pseudo-events.

His basic claim is that Western political, social, and financial institutions have retreated into a “carefully constructed fake world”, because the real world became too complex and did not conform to the order that the elite, managerial classes wished to pursue. The political Left also became part of this hypernormalised discourse, in part because it abandoned collective action for a new politics of self-expression, and in part due to a failure of its political imagination.

The general condition Curtis tries to describe is a world in which millions of people collude in the maintenance of a status quo, either passively or actively, because they can no longer imagine any alternative. Their understanding of the world is shaped by fake narratives constructed by the elites, supported by a docile media, and uncontested by would-be progressives. Nothing ever changes, because nobody is ever allowed to destabilize the political order.

Although the narration seems to ramble, Curtis weaves together two broad stories that begin in the mid-1970s: the first concerning the role of Washington in the unfolding political conflict in the middle East, with an emphasis on Syria and the rise of terrorist suicide bombing; and a second story concerning the expansion of information technology, the Internet, social media, etc. as an effect of the neoliberalisation of the West. Curtis uses these stories to frame what he sees as a new kind of hypernormalised politics, that is, a new form of “post-political” power, that we (in the West, at least) experience in the present day. Curtis argues that we, today, live in “a world without power” insofar as there is no significant collective opposition to the NWO, and the only goal of the present order is to maintain itself at all costs, via outright propaganda and deception as necessary. In place of politics, we have shadowy systems of “perception management” and “managed outcomes”.

His points of reference for elaborating the concept of hypernormalisation — Alexei Yurchak, the Strugatsky brothers, William Gibson, Patti Smith, John Perry Barlow, et al — are brought together in an intriguing synthesis.

Curtis is quite critical of the duplicity and cynicism with which the Washington consensus presented the conflict in the Middle East, especially the treatment of Colonel Gaddafi, and although he tries to place Syria in historical context, he also stops short of trying to actually explain the present conflict there. Significantly, he doesn’t really account for Israel’s role in the MENA conflicts, nor that of the various intel agencies. He speaks a lot about terrorism but never broaches the question of false flag attacks, e.g., on 9/11, which lands in the middle of his story. To be fair, instead of trying to ascribe causes, he focuses on the manipulation of effects.

There is also a sense in which Curtis’ interpretation remains perhaps too narrowly focused through an Anglo-American optic. Although he paints a broad picture that encompasses the US, Europe, Russia, and the Middle-East, he doesn’t view Russia as offering a socio-political paradigm in meaningful opposition to that of the West. Rather, Curtis appears to presuppose a certain continuity between the final decades of the Soviet Union and present-day Russia, insofar as he depicts Putin as a leader who also rules through a hypernormalised discourse.

The treatment of Putin in this documentary is brief, but Curtis evidently believes that VVP’s power has been solidified with the help of a group of “political technologists” whose attitude towards reality bears a strong resemblance to the perception managers of the Western elites. In particular, Curtis identifies Vladislav Surkov as the technologist who has worked (with Putin’s blessing) to create a hyperreal landscape of political happenings that confound many observers trying to understand present-day Russian politics. Curtis’ view of Russia thus assumes that Putin is fully onboard with Surkov’s brand of political theater, and “sovereign democracy” yields a condition of hypernormalisation.

If any of you have seen this documentary, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts about it.

Nostalgia – so sad nothing has changed in the decades since this song was recorded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntLsElbW9Xo

Barry McGuire -Eve of Destruction

The eastern world it is explodin’,
violence flarin’, bullets loadin’,
you’re old enough to kill but not for votin’,
you don’t believe in war, what’s that gun you’re totin’,
and even the Jordan river has bodies floatin’,
but you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

Don’t you understand, what I’m trying to say?
Can’t you see the fear that I’m feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no running away,
There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave,
take a look around you, boy, it’s bound to scare you, boy,
but you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’,
I’m sittin’ here, just contemplatin’,
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
handful of Senators don’t pass legislation,
and marches alone can’t bring integration,
when human respect is disintegratin’,
this whole crazy world is just too frustratin’,
and you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

Think of all the hate there is in Red China!
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama!
Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space,
but when you return, it’s the same old place,
the poundin’ of the drums, th pride and disgrace,
you can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace,
hate your next-door-neighbour, but don’t forget to say grace,
and you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

In an example of how the Russian military is getting tired of,(even if their government isn’t) the Western “smart-mouth” taunting of them. We see the Russian MOD response to the British defense minister “clown’s” saying the Russians are envious over the new British aircraft carrier:

“Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that Fallon’s “exalted” statement shows “blatant ignorance of naval science.”

“In the same way as bees, the British aircraft carrier alone is only able to release aircraft from its belly, while she is densely surrounded by a hive of warships, logistics vessels and submarines protecting her.”

He also added that the Russian vessel is equipped with anti-aircraft, anti-submarine, and – most importantly – with Granit anti-ship cruise missiles.

“Unlike the flagship aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, the British HMS Queen Elizabeth is just a big convenient marine target,” Konashenkov said.

The defense ministry spokesman also advised the Royal Navy not to “demonstrate the ‘beauty’ of its aircraft carrier closer than several hundred miles from her ‘distant relative.’”

https://www.rt.com/news/394537-hms-queen-elizabeth-big-target/

If Hillary had’ve one.
Who knows – would world war 3 have already now begun?

In truth, and in absolute honesty,
I truly would like to see
A woman *win* the Presidency.
But not, and never, HRC.

Aww, you say, that’s so unfair o ya.
And I say:
Libya

We came, we saw, he died.
She cackled.
Witch.
I, along with so many, grimaced and twitched.

Gadaffi. He’s a Madman they said.
I read.
All about it, in Murdoch’s paper,
He, Murdoch, of the phone-hacking caper.

Gaddafi. What, exactly was his crime?
I dunno. His independent central bank, it held a lot of gold.
And
He would not do what the Powers That Be, ordered and told.
So suddenly, he was out in the cold.

Sodomised was he, mercilessly.
A bayonet, and a crowd.
CIA on site, with camera; oh we the West can be so proud.

And Hillary!
The debauchery
It gave her such a thrill, or three.

Gaddafi, the butcher, they said.
Must be true, because in Murdoch’s paper, I read.

Over at Reddit, at the_donald, they say:
Bill Clinton, “therapist”.
Decrying his decades of shameless, prurient adulteries,
Seriously now, how can this marriage with HRC persist?
Black-is-white and white
why – we white-out any negative narrative; give it a bleach-bit and a twist.

If Hillary hadda won.
Would world war three have begun?
Each day I wake and salute the sun
I make sure there’s a part each day for joy and fun
and why not?
Has anyone here actually ever bothered to read United Nations Agenda 21?

The future _ is it mapped?
I like to think not, or else my energy, my will, is zapped.

Is 2030 “The End”,
Or is it just a bend,
A glitch in the space-time compend-ium

I know little, if nothing, it is true.
What little I know, I don’t want to misconstrue
Right now, today, there’s no ww3
And I don’t care if I never again see HRC.

Dostoyevsky alert:

My younger friend, a social democrat who still loves Bernie Sanders because “he is sincere”, is reading Brothers Karamasov also this summer . ” Have you gotten the names straight yet?’ I teased.

“arrrgh”… was the response. Then she asked me why I liked the novel so much. (It is in my top 10 of the books of world literature but I have no idea about its lyrical quality etc. because I can’t read it in Russian.)

“Because it is about redemption” I said.

She raised an eyebrow, “The redemption of Russia?”

“Not just Russia–but personal, familial, community and generational.”

We took a side tour into Melville at that point. Moby Dick was about hubris and only one man lives to tell the tale which, tellingly enough, takes place in an environment sans la femme, unless you count the whale and some do. Actually Smerdyakov and Ahab are kindred souls. And pertinent to the times we are in now in the West, the Ahabs are running the ship–may G-d have mercy on our souls. Ironic, is it not, that we are all drinking e coli laced coffee called Starbucks?

We talked it bit about the ending lines of Dicken’s Christmas Carol ( a story of redemption) and Kolya’s ” And eternally so, all our lives hand in hand, Harrah for Karamazov.”

“You need to watch the parade on May 9 in Red Square to really understand that Hoo-rah!, Hoo-rah! Hoo-rah! ” and I made a note to myself to remind her come next May 8th 2018. It will have to do since she admitted to skipping through the Gran Inquisitor scene and the monk’s story—both very key to understanding the novel’s denouement in the scene of ” Ilyushechka’s ( another name change!) Funeral: The speech at the Stone.”

patronymics, last names, nick names, diminutives,….arrrrgh! and two Katarinas…There is one paragraph where the bloviating Papa Karamazov addresses Alyosha in 3 different ways but ,as the tone and subject matter changes in his tirade, it does make sense.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/06/29/saudi-arabia-handed-emir-qatar-opportunity-redirect-history/

” Al Jazeera’s problem is that it covers the actual news and tells the truth. ”
Er, no, I don’t think that’s always the case and certainly not regarding Syria.

So the Vatican “#3” ranking cardinal – Australian George Pell has been charged with child sexual abuse.
Australia conducted a widespread Royal Commission into institutional sexual abuse (churches, orphanages, scouts,….)

Georgie was particularly dismissive when called to give evidence of what he knew of a particularly virulent offender who was a priest in the Bendigo diocese when George was living in the presbytery with him.

Tim Minchin wrote this particularly scathing, (but musically very beautiful) piece that just eviscerated Pell.

And “people” were so outraged at the song, _ but seemingly not equally concerned about the actual abuse of children. Strange perspectives!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EtHOmforqxk

Not getting any traction on this one elsewhere and it all sounds phoney to me, unless Turkey is dropping out of NATO. But that would have huge impications:

““We discussed the possibility of selling S-400s [to Turkey]. We are ready for this,” Putin said. “We are ready to deliver these newest and most efficient systems. President Erdogan and our countries’ militaries are aware of it.””

https://www.rt.com/news/394604-turkey-russia-s-400-contract/

Selling S-400 to a NATO country??? Does anyone understand this?

Good afternoon, fraternal and sororal vineyarders,

I’m losing interest in war as such–same old thing over and over. I’m more concerned with the causes of war and actions that actually stop it. I’m here mainly because of the vineyard’s position of stopping the war on Russia, a condensation of stopping war as such.

I’m aware of being perceived as an outsider who holds to strange views which do not fit the received narrative. Lately, I’ve been feeling like a child or teen intruding on an adult world which is strange to me. If I didn’t have an idealistic teen in me and a lover anima within urging me to express my romantic-semantic vision of truth, I would depart in peace, and leave you in peace.

However, by now I am bonded to this vineyard with something stronger than super-glue. For my own peace of mind and sense of closure, allow me to address some unresolved squeaky wheels within.

OBOR. Bro assesses my mind well. I don’t like obor, despite its sales pitch of saving the world from the nasty empire. Have any of these “one-world” dreams delivered on their promises to bring us together in peace? If so, why do we have wars all over the place, not to mention the other three horsemen of the end times, famine, disease and death? Did the old railroads bring peace or just facilitate troop movements and weapons delivery? Fast trains will better police the world so here they come.

For some, life could not be more splendid. But for too many others, the OBOR dream train has left them behind, after they laid the rails and slaved in the supply factories to make it happen. More and more consumer goods and weapons to ensure that the trains run on time have got us what?

The Love Army with its Ten New Commandments of Love is all the protection I need, and I can walk to the Love Bower, thank you. OK, OK, I use the services of the New World Order too, but I do it sparingly, carefully.

I admire strong women like teranam who can read Crime and Punishment and live to tell about it. I tried it twice and had to give it up at one-third through. She’s a stronger woman than I. She agrees with Bro about the “inner enema (anima not) of the dennis. Dennis Dostoevsky anyone? She sweetens the jest with “you will always be a prophet unhonored, dear Dennis.”

Maybe it’s the childhood with the Sioux in North Dakota, eating kill in -40 F, which I did as well in Wisconsin in my younger, colder days, that results in “Nature does kill, my dear boy,…especially those who lack will, discipline and respect (humility).” Who? Me? Or is it reading Dos near a main E-W railroad switch yard in Northern California. Try the Ojai LA area, with all our military facilities. But not to fear, OBOR is coming here at 300 mph, not quite as fast as those Russian rockets though.

Mundomaniac seconds teranam with an “Amen, sister.” Btw, mundo, I did not censor your comment of 6/21. Just a bit slow. Nor was I “still musing love to ‘hear’ about it.” I was just busy like Bro. Also, my idea of “communal sex” is not just something for the youth, existing in ancient tribes…” It’s also for 77 year youngsters like me, existing in current times–I can do it mentally and spiritually without the physical prowess. You said: “love is an existential, not a political truism…I find your politics boring.” You can certainly see it that way but I find love quite political. Jesus surely took it so.

It amazes me that men of the world like Bro so easily confuse what I’m talking about with the likes of Gracie Slick. Bro, I think you must have missed my post about Gracie. I was out of the loop in her heyday, ensconced in a monastery and later in a parish. I did not know of her Jefferson Airplane riding until listening to her at your link. I knew nothing of her until you brought her up, when I looked her up at Wicki. Nevertheless, it was because of that one word, Love, in her song, that “somebody to love” inspired me.

Don’t get me wrong. Spending time with vineyarders has been the most educational experience of my life, much of it remedial. I value most your negative critique of my shortcomings. May the mods never censor your ad hominems and non sequiturs regarding me, for they are my teachers. As sister teranam said: “sigh, re martyrdom to the suffering mother…no, you cannot heal her by trying to heal the world, or picking fights with bad patriarchy, or making others agree with you…think as an adult…love the selfish, sadistic parent, love the drama queen…wounded child, the world.” Words of wisdom; they are embedded in my heart.

There’s so much wisdom here in this microcosm of the macrocosmic sea and starry skies. Last evening I was pleasantly surprised and nurtured by a golden crescent moon, attended by Venus, sinking into the western sea. I hope to see them again tonight. “Seen a shooting star tonight, and I thought of you.”

I just did a video on the Love Bower a couple of hours ago. A vineyard is a kind of bower. Sometimes I’m in a love bower mood and sometimes in a love army mood. Sometimes I’m missing you and in a moody blues mood. But then I come here and you blow my blues away, and make my day.

War has its brief day. Thanks to the Love Army, the Love Bower is here to stay. Sometimes I’m glad and sometimes I’m sad. When I’m blue, I think of you and all your stories of ancient glories, and I’m then made new.
—————-
Starry Crown

Rockets break free of gravity
Ships sail the boundless sea
I see eternity inside of me
An exponential trajectory
Time stretching endlessly
Infinity upon infinity
A thousand doors open wide
Shooting stars up inside
The speed so fast
The future’s past
The space so vast
The first are last
Reaching out in each direction
Filling up every connection
Horizons explode
Again to behold
What they enfold
And cannot hold
The rockets shot up overhead
Will you look at that she said
The way they turned white and red

Love, Dennis

“Reputable sites like snopes.com also vet viral images”

Reputable? Surely you jest, BBC/MI6?

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170629-the-hidden-signs-that-can-reveal-if-a-photo-is-fake

A source of very well prepared essays that Saker and Comrades may be delighted to read”’

http://adeyinkamakinde.blogspot.com/

Interesting man as well, a QC at the Bar and a prescient mind. He also writes about…get this…boxing.

Some may want to read his essay at: http://adeyinkamakinde.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-pan-islamic-option-wests-part-in.html , which, having to do with the relationship between “the west” and “Pan-Islamic”… and so on.

July 4th song:

http://www.myvidster.com/views/video.php?gtype=video&id=100867536&url_title=Neil_Young_Promise_of_the_Real_-_Children_of_Destiny_Official_Music_Video

Dear guest at the Cafe, and the handsome waiter — I need something strong (a shot of vodka or two), then settle down with a cup of expresso and some nice conversation!

Breaking news: It seems that NATO has decided the recent cyber-attack is sufficient for invoking Article 5 (the Musketeer Oath – attack on one is an attack on all). The reasons, as is stated, is the “work of a state power” – though they have been very careful not to name this state!

We have, in the past year or so, seen crazy accusations about “russian hackers.” This is dangerous, very dangerous! Obombo authorized use of force (at a cyber-level), and even it if has not (yet) been inacted, it still holds! If the United $nakes really do launch an attack, it surely will receive a blow-back!

The vasals of U$ will not refrain from acting, on orders from the “Overlords” from across the Ocean! Germany, who might have another agenda, has no say – they are defacto occupied. France is the only power left with the potential to resist, but not with Macron at the helm (Oh, where is de Gaule when we need him?)

Look at the evidence, who benefited from the cyber-attack? Who was not affected? Yes, that’s right! The U$ and Israhell! There might have been some small nuisance, but nothing major. Russia, on the other hand, was hit (easily repaired, but still). The other possible culprits – China or North Korea – did not stand to gain anything!

Danger Alert!! Big Time!! If they launch an attack on Russia with a full scale Cyber Attack, there will be a severe and serious counter attack – naturally, in defence and with the aim of precluding further disruption and attack! This can get very ugly with alarming speed and intensity!

Hopefully sane minds will prevail (knowing the ‘intelligence’ ruling the Hegemon, there is seriously doubt), but soon such digital attacks can (will) turn into use of real weapons! How long will a full scale lethal exchange of force last, before someone, either misguided that it’s possible or because it’s the only option left, decide to launch Thermonuclear weapons??

I know, it might be that I scream ‘wolf’ when it all is a storm in a glass of water! But, realistically, this might just be the terrible ‘foreplay’ to the ultimate and final ‘orgasm!’

Waiter, can I please have another shot of vodka, and some nice music? What about Pink Floyd’s album “Wish you were here”?

Please explain why versions of German Panzerlied is sung in France and in the US. What is going on? The song is great for those who understand German, but why this?

The German original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v30PWoApTMs

Légion Étrangère – Kepi Blanc (chanson)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw-qI-aSg-I

American Panzerlied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDgOYTvx60M

Take a look at NATO:s crooked cross.