[This analysis was written for the Unz Review]
The West is rotting!
Yes, maybe, but what a nice smell…
Old Soviet joke
The word ‘catastrophe‘ has several meanings, but in its original meaning in Greek the word means a “sudden downturn” (in Greek katastrophē ‘overturning, sudden turn,’ from kata- ‘down’ + strophē ‘turning’). As for the word “superpower” it also has several possible definitions, but my preferred one is this one “Superpower is a term used to describe a state with a dominant position, which is characterized by its extensive ability to exert influence or project power on a global scale. This is done through the combined-means of economic, military, technological and cultural strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence. Traditionally, superpowers are preeminent among the great powers” this one, “an extremely powerful nation, especially one capable of influencing international events and the acts and policies of less powerful nations” or this one “an international governing body able to enforce its will upon the most powerful states“.
I have mentioned the very visible decline of the USA and its associated Empire in many of my articles already, so I won’t repeat it here other than to say that the “ability to exert influence and impose its will” is probably the best criteria to measure the magnitude of the fall of the USA since Trump came to power (the process was already started by Dubya and Obama, but it sure accelerated with The Donald). But I do want to use a metaphor to revisit the concept of catastrophe.
If you place an object in the middle of a table and then push it right to the edge, you will exert some amount of energy we can call “E1”. Then, if the edge of the table is smooth and you just push the object over the edge, you exercise a much smaller amount of energy we can call “E2”. And, in most cases (if the table is big enough), you will also find that E1 is much bigger than E2 yet E2, coming after E1 took place, triggered a much more dramatic event: instead of smoothly gliding over the table top, the object suddenly falls down and shatters. That sudden fall can also be called a “catastrophe”. This is also something which happens in history, take the example of the Soviet Union.
The fate of all empires…
Some readers might recall how Alexander Solzhenitsyn repeatedly declared in the 1980s that he was sure that the Soviet regime would collapse and that he would return to Russia. He was, of course, vitriolically ridiculed by all the “specialists” and “experts”. After all, why would anybody want to listen to some weird Russian exile with politically suspicious ideas (there were rumors of “monarchism” and “anti-Semitism”) when the Soviet Union was an immense superpower, armed to the teeth with weapons, with an immense security service, with political allies and supporters worldwide? Not only that, but all the “respectable” specialists and experts were unanimous that, while the Soviet regime had various problems, it was very far from collapse. The notion that NATO would soon replace the Soviet military not only in eastern Europe, but even in part of the Soviet Union was absolutely unthinkable. And yet it all happened, very, very fast. I would argue that the Soviet union completely collapsed in the span of less than 4 short years: 1990-1993. How and why this happened is beyond the scope of this article, but what is undeniable is that in 1989 the Soviet Union was still an apparently powerful entity, while by the end of 1993, it was gone (smashed into pieces by the very nomenklatura which used to rule over it). How did almost everybody miss that?
Because ideologically-poisoned analysis leads to intellectual complacence, a failure of imagination and, generally, an almost total inability to even hypothetically look at possible outcomes. This is how almost all the “Soviet specialists” got it wrong (the KGB, by the way, had predicted this outcome and warned the Politburo, but the Soviet gerontocrats were ideologically paralyzed and were both unable, and often unwilling, to take any preventative action). The Kerensky masonic regime in 1917 Russia, the monarchy in Iran or the Apartheid regime in South Africa also collapsed very fast once the self-destruction mechanism was in place and launched.
You can think of that “regime self-destruction mechanism” as our E1 phase in our metaphor above. As for E2, you can think of it as whatever small-push like event which precipitates the quick and final collapse, apparently with great ease and minimum energy spent.
At this point it is important to explain what exactly a “final collapse” looks like. Some people are under the very mistaken assumption that a collapsed society or country looks like a Mad Max world. This is not so. The Ukraine has been a failed state for several years already, but it still exists on the map. People live there, work, most people still have electricity (albeit not 24/7), a government exists, and, at least officially, law and order is maintained. This kind of collapsed society can go on for years, maybe decades, but it is in a state of collapse nonetheless, as it has reached all the 5 Stages of Collapse as defined by Dmitry Orlov in his seminal book “The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivors’ Toolkit” where he mentions the following 5 stages of collapse:
- Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost.
- Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost.
- Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost.
- Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost.
- Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in “the goodness of humanity” is lost.
Having personally visited Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s, and seen the Russia of the early 1990s, I can attest that a society can completely collapse while maintaining a lot of the external appearances of a normal still functioning society. Unlike the Titanic, most collapsed regimes don’t fully sink. They remain about half under water, and half above, possibly with an orchestra still playing joyful music. And in the most expensive top deck cabins, a pretty luxurious lifestyle can be maintained by the elites. But for most of the passengers such a collapse results in poverty, insecurity, political instability and a huge loss in welfare. Furthermore, in terms of motion, a half-sunk ship is no ship at all.
Here is the crucial thing: as long as the ship’s PA systems keep announcing great weather and buffet brunches, and as long as most of the passengers remain in their cabins and watch TV instead of looking out of the window, the illusion of normalcy can be maintained for a fairly long while, even after a collapse. During the E1 phase outlined above, most passengers will be kept in total ignorance (lest they riot or protest) and only when E2 strikes (totally unexpectedly for most passengers) does reality eventually destroy the ignorance and illusions of the brainwashed passengers.
Obama was truly the beginning of the end
I have lived in the USA from 1986-1991 and from 2002 to today and there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the country has undergone a *huge* decline over the past decades. In fact, I would argue that the USA has been living under E1 condition since at least Dubya and that this process dramatically accelerated under Obama and Trump. I believe that we reached the E2 “edge of the table” moment in 2018 and that from now on even a relatively minor incident can result in a sudden downturn (i.e. a “catastrophe”). Still, I decided to check with the undisputed specialist of this issue and so I emailed Dmitry Orlov and asked him the following question:
In your recent article “The Year the Planet Flipped Over” you paint a devastating picture of the state of the Empire:
It is already safe to declare Trump’s plan to Make America Great Again (MAGA) a failure. Beneath the rosy statistics of US economic growth hides the hideous fact that it is the result of a tax holiday granted to transnational corporations to entice them to repatriate their profits. While this hasn’t helped them (their stocks are currently cratering) it has been a disaster for the US government as well as for the economic system as whole. Tax receipts have shrunk. The budget deficit for 2018 exceeds $779 billion. Meanwhile, the trade wars which Trump initiated have caused the trade deficit to increase by 17% from the year before. Plans to repatriate industrial production from low-cost countries remain vaporous because the three key elements which China had as it industrialized (cheap energy, cheap labor and low cost of doing business) are altogether missing. Government debt is already beyond reasonable and its expansion is still accelerating, with just the interest payments set to exceed half a trillion a year within a decade. This trajectory does not bode well for the continued existence of the United States as a going concern. Nobody, either in the United States or beyond, has the power to significantly alter this trajectory. Trump’s thrashing about may have moved things along faster than they otherwise would have, at least in the sense of helping convince the entire world that the US is selfish, feckless, ultimately self-destructive and generally unreliable as a partner. In the end it won’t matter who was president of the US—it never has. Among those the US president has succeeded in hurting most are his European allies. His attacks on Russian energy exports to Europe, on European car manufacturers and on Europe’s trade with Iran have caused a fair amount of damage, both political and economic, without compensating for it with any perceived or actual benefits. Meanwhile, as the globalist world order, which much of Europe’s population appears ready to declare a failure, begins to unravel, the European Union is rapidly becoming ungovernable, with established political parties unable to form coalitions with ever-more-numerous populist upstarts. It is too early to say that the EU has already failed altogether, but it already seems safe to predict that within a decade it will no longer remain as a serious international factor. Although the disastrous quality and the ruinous mistakes of Europe’s own leadership deserve a lot of the blame, some of it should rest with the erratic, destructive behavior of their transoceanic Big Brother. The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional affair, unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes for Washington, which is going to either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get chased out from much of the world. The departure from Syria is inevitable whether Trump, under relentless pressure from his bipartisan warmongers, backtracks on this commitment or not. Now that Syria has been armed with Russia’s up-to-date air defense weapons the US no longer maintains air superiority there, and without air superiority the US military is unable to do anything. Afghanistan is next; there, it seems outlandish to think that the Washingtonians will be able to achieve any sort of reasonable accommodation with the Taliban. Their departure will spell the end of Kabul as a center of corruption where foreigners steal humanitarian aid and other resources. Somewhere along the way the remaining US troops will also be pulled out of Iraq, where the parliament, angered by Trump’s impromptu visit to a US base, recently voted to expel them. And that will put paid to the entire US adventure in the Middle East since 9/11: $4,704,439,588,308 has been squandered, to be precise, or $14,444 for every man, woman and child in the US. The biggest winners in all of this are, obviously, the people of the entire region, because they will no longer be subjected to indiscriminate US harassment and bombardment, followed by Russia, China and Iran, with Russia solidifying its position as the ultimate arbiter of international security arrangements thanks to its unmatched military capabilities and demonstrated knowhow for coercion to peace. Syria’s fate will be decided by Russia, Iran and Turkey, with the US not even invited to the talks. Afghanistan will fall into the sphere of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And the biggest losers will be former US regional allies, first and foremost Israel, followed by Saudi Arabia.
My question for you is this: where would you place the USA (or the Empire) on your 5 stages of decline and do you believe that the USA (or the Empire) can reverse that trend?
Here is Dmitry’s reply:
Collapse, at each stage, is a historical process that takes time to run its course as the system adapts to changing circumstances, compensates for its weaknesses and finds ways to continue functioning at some level. But what changes rather suddenly is faith or, to put it in more businesslike terms, sentiment. A large segment of the population or an entire political class within a country or the entire world can function based on a certain set of assumptions for much longer than the situation warrants but then over a very short period of time switch to a different set of assumptions. All that sustains the status quo beyond that point is institutional inertia. It imposes limits on how fast systems can change without collapsing entirely. Beyond that point, people will tolerate the older practices only until replacements for them can be found.
Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost.
Internationally, the major change in sentiment in the world has to do with the role of the US dollar (and, to a lesser extent, the Euro and the Yen—the other two reserve currencies of the three-legged globalist central banker stool). The world is transitioning to the use of local currencies, currency swaps and commodities markets backed by gold. The catalyst for this change of sentiment was provided by the US administration itself which sawed through its own perch by its use of unilateral sanctions. By using its control over dollar-based transactions to block international transactions it doesn’t happen to like it forced other countries to start looking for alternatives. Now a growing list of countries sees throwing off the shackles of the US dollar as a strategic goal. Russia and China use the ruble and the yuan for their expanding trade; Iran sells oil to India for rupees. Saudi Arabia has started to accept the yuan for its oil.
This change has many knock-on effects. If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in reserve. Consequently, there is no longer a need to buy up large quantities of US Treasury notes. Therefore, it becomes unnecessary to run large trade surpluses with the US, essentially conducting trade at a loss. Further, the attractiveness of the US as an export market drops and the cost of imports to the US rises, thereby driving up cost inflation. A vicious spiral ensues in which the ability of the US government to borrow internationally to finance the gaping chasm of its various deficits becomes impaired. Sovereign default of the US government and national bankruptcy then follow.
The US may still look mighty, but its dire fiscal predicament coupled with its denial of the inevitability of bankruptcy, makes it into something of a Blanche DuBois from the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire.” She was “always dependent on the kindness of strangers” but was tragically unable to tell the difference between kindness and desire. In this case, the desire is for national advantage and security, and to minimize risk by getting rid of an unreliable trading partner.
How quickly or slowly this comes to pass is difficult to guess at and impossible to calculate. It is possible to think of the financial system in terms of a physical analogue, with masses of funds traveling at some velocity having a certain inertia (p = mv) and with forces acting on that mass to accelerate it along a different trajectory (F = ma). It is also possible to think of it in terms of hordes of stampeding animals who can change course abruptly when panicked. The recent abrupt moves in the financial markets, where trillions of dollars of notional, purely speculative value have been wiped out within weeks, are more in line with the latter model.
Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost.
Within the US there is really no other alternative than the market. There are a few rustic enclaves, mostly religious communities, that can feed themselves, but that’s a rarity. For everyone else there is no choice but to be a consumer. Consumers who are broke are called “bums,” but they are still consumers. To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in their possession. Such a culture can die by becoming irrelevant (when everyone is dead broke) but by then most of the carriers of this culture are likely to be dead too. Alternatively, it can be replaced by a more humane culture that isn’t entirely based on the cult of Mammon—perhaps, dare I think, through a return to a pre-Protestant, pre-Catholic Christian ethic that values people’s souls above objects of value?
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost.
All is very murky at the moment, but I would venture to guess that most people in the US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions to pay much attention to the political realm. Of the ones they do pay attention, a fair number of them seem clued in to the fact that the US is not a democracy at all but an elites-only sandbox in which transnational corporate and oligarchic interests build and knock down each others’ sandcastles.
The extreme political polarization, where two virtually identical pro-capitalist, pro-war parties pretend to wage battle by virtue-signaling may be a symptom of the extremely decrepit state of the entire political arrangement: people are made to watch the billowing smoke and to listen to the deafening noise in the hopes that they won’t notice that the wheels are no longer turning.
The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue—the fracas between the White House, the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller—has taken center stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses, such as the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire or of the fall and the consequent beheading of Louis XVI. The fact that Trump, like the Ottoman worthies, stocks his harem with East European women, lends an eerie touch. That said, most people in the US seem blind to the nature of their overlords in a way that the French, with their Jillettes Jaunes movement (just as an example) are definitely not.
Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost.
I have been saying for some years now that within the US social collapse has largely run its course, although whether people actually believe that is an entire matter entirely. Defining “your people” is rather difficult. The symbols are still there—the flag, the Statue of Liberty and a predilection for iced drinks and heaping plates of greasy fried foods—but the melting pot seems to have suffered a meltdown and melted all the way to China. At present half the households within the US speak a language other than English at home, and a fair share of the rest speak dialects of English that are not mutually intelligible with the standard North American English dialect of broadcast television and university lecturers.
Throughout its history as a British colony and as a nation the US has been dominated by the Anglo ethnos. The designation “ethnos” is not an ethnic label. It is not strictly based on genealogy, language, culture, habitat, form of government or any other single factor or group of factors. These may all be important to one extent or another, but the viability of an ethnos is based solely on its cohesion and the mutual inclusivity and common purpose of its members. The Anglo ethnos reached its zenith in the wake of World War II, during which many social groups were intermixed in the military and their more intelligent members.
Fantastic potential was unleashed when privilege—the curse of the Anglo ethnos since its inception—was temporarily replaced with merit and the more talented demobilized men, of whatever extraction, were given a chance at education and social advancement by the GI Bill. Speaking a new sort of American English based on the Ohio dialect as a Lingua Franca, these Yanks—male, racist, sexist and chauvinistic and, at least in their own minds, victorious—were ready to remake the entire world in their own image.
They proceeded to flood the entire world with oil (US oil production was in full flush then) and with machines that burned it. Such passionate acts of ethnogenesis are rare but not unusual: the Romans who conquered the entire Mediterranean basin, the barbarians who then sacked Rome, the Mongols who later conquered most of Eurasia and the Germans who for a very brief moment possessed an outsized Lebensraum are other examples.
And now it is time to ask: what remains of this proud conquering Anglo ethnos today? We hear shrill feminist cries about “toxic masculinity” and minorities of every stripe railing against “whitesplaining” and in response we hear a few whimpers but mostly silence. Those proud, conquering, virile Yanks who met and fraternized with the Red Army at the River Elbe on April 25, 1945—where are they? Haven’t they devolved into a sad little subethnos of effeminate, porn-addicted overgrown boys who shave their pubic hair and need written permission to have sex without fear of being charged with rape?
Will the Anglo ethnos persist as a relict, similar to how the English have managed to hold onto their royals (who are technically no longer even aristocrats since they now practice exogamy with commoners)? Or will it get wiped out in a wave of depression, mental illness and opiate abuse, its glorious history of rapine, plunder and genocide erased and the statues of its war heros/criminals knocked down? Only time will tell.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in “the goodness of humanity” is lost.
The term “culture” means many things to many people, but it is more productive to observe cultures than to argue about them. Cultures are expressed through people’s stereotypical behaviors that are readily observable in public. These are not the negative stereotypes often used to identify and reject outsiders but the positive stereotypes—cultural standards of behavior, really—that serve as requirements for social adequacy and inclusion. We can readily assess the viability of a culture by observing the stereotypical behaviors of its members.
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Do people exist as a single continuous, inclusive sovereign realm or as a set of exclusive, potentially warring enclaves segregated by income, ethnicity, education level, political affiliation and so on? Do you see a lot of walls, gates, checkpoints, security cameras and “no trespassing” signs? Is the law of the land enforced uniformly or are there good neighborhoods, bad neighborhoods and no-go zones where even the police fear to tread?
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Do random people thrown together in public spontaneously enter into conversation with each other and are comfortable with being crowded together, or are they aloof and fearful, and prefer to hide their face in the little glowing rectangle of their smartphone, jealously guarding their personal space and ready to regard any encroachment on it as an assault?
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Do people remain good-natured and tolerant toward each other even when hard-pressed or do they hide behind a façade of tense, superficial politeness and fly into a rage at the slightest provocation? Is conversation soft in tone, gracious and respectful or is it loud, shrill, rude and polluted with foul language? Do people dress well out of respect for each other, or to show off, or are they all just déclassé slobs—even the ones with money?
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Observe how their children behave: are they fearful of strangers and trapped in a tiny world of their own or are they open to the world and ready to treat any stranger as a surrogate brother or sister, aunt or uncle, grandmother or grandfather without requiring any special introduction? Do the adults studiously ignore each others’ children or do they spontaneously act as a single family?
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If there is a wreck on the road, do they spontaneously rush to each others’ rescue and pull people out before the wreck explodes, or do they, in the immortal words of Frank Zappa, “get on the phone and call up some flakes” who “rush on over and wreck it some more”?
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If there is a flood or a fire, do the neighbors take in the people who are rendered homeless, or do they allow them to wait for the authorities to show up and bus them to some makeshift government shelter?
It is possible to quote statistics or to provide anecdotal evidence to assess the state and the viability of a culture, but your own eyes and other senses can provide all the evidence you need to make that determination for yourself and to decide how much faith to put in “the goodness of humanity” that is evident in the people around you.
Dmity concluded his reply by summarizing his view like this:
Cultural and social collapse are very far along. Financial collapse is waiting for a trigger. Commercial collapse will happen in stages some of which—food deserts, for instance—have already happened in many places. Political collapse will only become visible once the political class gives up. It’s not as simple as saying which stage we are at. They are all happening in parallel, to one extent or another.
My own (totally subjective) opinion is that the USA has already reached stages 1 through 4, and that there are signs that stage 5 has begun; mainly in big cities as US small towns and rural areas (Trump’s power base, by the way) are still struggling to maintain the norms and behaviors one could observe in the USA of the 1980s. When I have visitors from Europe they always comment how friendly and welcoming US Americans are (true, I live in small-town in East-Central Florida, not in Miami…). These are the communities which voted for Trump because they said “we want our country back”. Alas, instead of giving them their country back, Trump gifted it to the Neocons…
Conclusion: connecting the dots; or not
Frankly, the dots are all over the place; it is really hard to miss them. However, for the doubleplusgoodthinking “ideological drone” they remain largely invisible, and this is not due to any eyesight problem, but due to that drone’s total inability to connect the dots. These are the kind of folks who danced on the deck of the Titanic while it was sinking. For them, when the inevitable catastrophe comes, it will be a total, mind-blowing, surprise. But, until that moment, they will keep on denying the obvious, no matter how obvious that obvious has become.
Don’t expect these two losers to fix anything, they will only make things worse…
In the meantime, the US ruling elites are locked into an ugly internal struggle which only further weakens the USA. What is so telling is that the Democrats are still stuck with their same clueless, incompetent and infinitely arrogant leadership, in spite of the fact that everybody knows that the Democratic Party is in deep crisis and that new faces are desperately needed. But no, they are still completely stuck in their old ways and the same gang of gerontocrats continues to rule the party apparatus.
That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own failures on internal (“deplorables”) and external (“the Russians”) factors. Again, think of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev, the Apartheid regime in South Africa under F. W. de Klerk, or the Kerensky regime in 1917 Russia. It is quite telling that the political leader whom the AngloZionists try to scare the most simply thinks of them as “first-rate idiots“, it is not?
As for the Republicans, they are basically a subsidiary of the Israeli Likud Party. Just take a look at the long list of losers the Likud produced at home, and you will get a sense of what they can do in its US colony.
Eventually the USA will rebound; I have no doubts about that at all. This is a big country with millions of immensely talented people, immense natural resources and no credible threat to it’s territory. But that can only happen after a real *regime* change (as opposed to a change in Presidential Administration) which, itself, is only going to happen after an “E2 catastrophe” collapse.
Until then, we will all be waiting for Godot.
The Saker
One of the best articles on this site.
I dare say that I don’t agree with that sentiment. Much of The Saker’s geopolitical analysis since Trump became president in my view falls somewhat off the mark. I miss the incisive analysis of BT (Before Trump). The general points are correct, but that is merely the obvious. The US is in decline as a superpower and as a society i.e a cultural-political-economic system. Thats the obvious. Whats not so obvious is how deep the decline goes and whether recovery is possible.
Had Hillary been president I would probably have agreed with 90% of what The Saker and Dmitry Orlov have written here. As it is Trump may well succeed in bottoming out the decline before the point of catastrophe. The chances are actually very good that he will. But many things have to go right, starting with his surviving in office. If he does not survive in office (e.g fails to get a second term or is removed) all bets are off. In that case I think the US heads to catastrophe. In other words Trump is the USA’s last best hope!
There is one thing that seems to be always lacking in deterministic analyses such as the one above by the so called dystopians. And that is a clear distinction between the external decline of US hegemony (superpowerness as per the article) and the internal cultural, political, social and economic decline. In my view the external decline is irreversible but not catastrophic, the internal decline is potentially catastrophic but reversible. What needs to be understood is that catastrophe arrives only if internal decline is not halted. The decline of US hegemony will not produce a catastrophe for the USA unless there is internal collapse. At the same time a managed external decline to some “acceptable” steady state will serve to arrest the internal decline. Understanding this is the key to understanding why Donald Trump is the USA’s last best hope.
Another thing lacking from the dystopian’s analyses is a clear understanding of what Trump is working towards. Its too bad that so many such analysis simply dismiss Trump as a fool or else in the pocket of the neocons deep state etc. i.e the very forces attacking him!
Trump is trying to end US global hegemony while preserving its great power status. It seems that he is aiming for a multipolar world, where the US remains rich and powerful but not the world’s hegemon or policeman. This is very doable. His biggest opposition in this is domestic, i.e the neocons and their left allies. But so far he has been able to out maneuver them. The gains have not been spectacular but much of what has been going on is the opening skirmishes in what promises to be a much bigger war. Trump’s order to withdraw from Syria is the first truly serious offensive that he has launched against the neocons and the deep state. But before that Trump landed important blows on the domestic forces of US imperialism:
1. He permitted the destruction of ISIS and the forces arrayed against the Syrian government. i.e Trump allowed the victory of the Syrians and the Russians in Syria. Lets not deceive ourselves that the Syrians and Russians won over determined US opposition. In fact the rapid collapse of the opposition forces in Syria came after Trump became president and not before. The US had plenty of options to create a bloody stalemate and drain the Syrian forces over many more years of heavy fighting. That the US did not choose these options is because Trump was and is opposed to escalation in Syria. It was Trump who pressured the Saudis to withdraw support for ISIS and Al-Nusra in Syria. It was Trump who ordered the brutal assault on Mosul. It was Trump who ordered the “slap on the wrist missile strikes on Syria. A Hillary presidency would certainly have gone a different route.
2. Trump out maneuvered the Neocons on North Korea, his handling of that issue was simply brilliant. Contrary to what most people think, his dire threats toward the DPRK were really aimed at the neocons. Trump raised the heat with North Korea to such a point that the neocons, notably their leaders John McCain and Lindsey Graham actually began calling for a lowering of tensions. Thus the neocons could not object to direct negotiations with North Korea. Most analysts seem to have forgotten that North Korea has been demanding direct talks with the US since the 1990s. It is the US which has always adamantly opposed direct talks. Trump scared the neocons and their democrat allies into accepting direct talks by raising the spectre of war on the Korean peninsula.
3. Trump has began to break the bonds between the US and the European vassal states. Trump is emancipating the European vassals, very much against their will. However, they have no choice but to do as Trump demands. So the Europeans have adopted a policy of spiteful obedience. They thus obey Trump and increase their military contributions under the guise of a European Army, while spitefully insulting Trump at every opportunity. If successful this process will lead to what Trump wants, complete withdrawal of the US imperial presence in Europe.
4. Trump is clearly seeking a US pull back from the middle east, while leaving Saudi Arabia and Israel in overall charge. This one is much trickier and is not going so well. But this is clearly Trump’s goal. We will see how it turns out.
5. Trump is also attempting to break down the old global trading order and reestablish national sovereignty across the world. This is the big one. If he succeeds in doing this he will succeed in arresting both the external and internal declines at a pretty good steady state, well short of catastrophe. It is success here that will save the United States.
That Trump is even attempting point no. 5 above is the reason he is the USA’s last best hope. Pray that he succeeds. As I said at the beginning of this super long comment, the US is not fated to collapse catastrophically and this is especially true because of the rise of internal forces, represented by Donald Trump, that know what to do and have the courage to do what it takes to prevent this catastrophe. The whole world should pray and hope that they succeed. The alternative will not be very pretty for the US or for the world.
But there are also international forces that seek to work against catastrophic collapse of the US. And this is a good thing. Foremost amongst such forces are Russia and China, neither of which would like to see a catastrophic collapse of the US, nor would such a thing be in their interests. Trump will get his trade deal with China for the simple reason that it is in China’s interest to deal rather than “fight”.
It is very possible to reindustrialize the US. The main block to doing this is the global trading system created by the US in the 1990s and enshrined in the WTO. This system was created to benefit the Western capitalist elites at the expense of their workers but it has backfired badly and created deadly foreign competition to these elites.
Not too long ago these elites ruled the world, now they face obliteration by the likes of Huawei and Ali Baba. If Trump is successful in tearing down the free trade system, industry will return to the US, cheap labor in China or Africa notwithstanding. Remember that when the US seized global industrial dominance after the second world war, there was a sea of cheap labor all around it. Very cheap labor. Still this is a very tall order indeed. It will take a great deal of skill and a bit of luck for the US to pull this off. But it can be done. Everything that is required to achieve it is available on the geopolitical stage, not least the supreme tandem of Putin and Xi.
It doesn’t matter who is president.
It does matter who is president. The current decline in US global power began because of the Iraq invasion of 2003. Had Bush not become president and brought the neocons to power with him that invasion would not have happened.
As the destruction of Iraq, Libya and Syria is a Zionazi project, as outlined in the Oded Yinon Plan and subsequent reiterations, and as the Zionazis COMPLETELY control US (and Western) politics, Gore almost certainly would have destroyed Iraq, particularly after the MOSSAD/sayanim/Sabbat Goyim 9/11 operation.
We live in an age of hyperdeterminism. Whether it’s climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, over population, mass extinction, AIDS depopulation etc. Something bad is fated to happen and unavoidably as well. But look at the rise of Russia, which was fated to disappear and is back.
As Marx said, history is nothing but men going about their purposes.
Leaders do matter. Russia, recently in much worse straits than the US, owes her rebirth to Putin.
You got that right.
https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/06/reflections-on-putin-as-a-leader-and-on-the-world-situation-in-which-he-works/
Ngoyo on January 14, 2019 · at 5:33 am EST/EDT wrote
> Trump allowed the victory of the Syrians and the Russians in Syria.
The alternative was to establish a no-fly zone over Syria, as proposed by H.Clinton and Anne-Marie Slaughter (“sending body-bags to russia”). Some may have seen this as realistic option, but the voices from the military were much quieter at that time. I think it is safe to say that the outcome would have been unpredictable, to say the least.
To turn the logic behind your statement around i could also claim that
“Putin allowed the victory of the NATO and the Takfiris in Libya”.
No fly zone was not the only option. There was also Turkish invasion as well as continuing to flood the country with weapons and takfiris, of which the US has no shortage.
As to Putin allowing the destruction of Libya. The question is could he have prevented it. Had Putin been president at the time he would certainly have vetoed the no fly zone UN resolution. Would this have stopped the Euros? Possibly. Would it have stopped the US? Possibly. But Obama was weak and so Hillary and the neocons were able to roll him. The US did invade Iraq in 2003 over a Putin veto.
Could Putin have militarily stopped NATO? No.
The complete destruction of Libya after the UNSC ‘no-fly zone’ resolution was not vetoed by China and Russia, was a serious error by Russia and China, and a wake-up call. The NATO air assault that drove the jihadist vermin to power, while murdering tens of thousands of Libyans and reducing the country to ruin, was a Hitlerite crime-but what else do you expect of Zionazi butchers like Sarkozy and the other NATO butchers?
not Putin but the Atlanticist Medyedev.
“4. Trump is clearly seeking a US pull back from the middle east, while leaving Saudi Arabia and Israel in overall charge. This one is much trickier and is not going so well. But this is clearly Trump’s goal.”
That appears to be correct. Giving Syria, Iraq, etc. to Israelis is His goal.
In other words, He is serving Greater Khazaria. Yes?
This is the most realistic assessment of where we are at that I have seen of late. Would read any of your analyses you print up. Are you actually a contributor somewhere?
It really is strange how the USD levitates where it is.
The US has the same amount of foreign exchange reserves as Indonesia. The US’s biggest single export market is CANADA. Yes that’s right. Imagine the European Union’s biggest export market was Poland. Well that’s the US today.
Germany and Holland produce more than the US with 220 million less people. Germans make the same wages as Americans yet Germany can run trade surpluses with China.
This whole debtors empire was a fluke. Britain was the worlds biggest CREDITOR until 1914. Yet everyone thinks that its normal for this massive debtor to be sucking in the worlds resources. There’s nothing normal about it.
All it would take is ONE more large economy to pull a Russia. Russia is a top 5 foreign exchange reserve holder n the world YET it does not even make the list of major holders of US debt anymore. Brazil, Korea , Japan and China all have trillions of this garbage. Just ONE more following Russia’s lead would collapse the empire. Because as I said, the US produces nothing. Its biggest export market is Canada.
To understand how the USD stays elevated, you need to find out about the ESF.
The Exchange rate Stabilization Fund & the PPT the Plunge Protection Team.
Trillions of off the books dollars spent in its support, and the role of quadrillions(not a typo)
of interest rate swap derivatives.
Its a marvel of financial engineering, but so complex it is doomed to fail,like those grotesque Heath
Robinson machines,a Tower of Fraud.
Yes, USD will elevate as initial demand is high. First USD based assets (bonds, stocks, real estate) are sold off and converted to USD initially increasing USD demand and price. US Hedge Funds could have closed shop and took a vacation last year, and stayed comfortably in USD only.
1) Chinese as they move out of US real estate convert that to USD, 2) US equities are sold off and moved into USD short term, 3) FRB raising rates increase USD demand in many ways as well. One would expect the dollar to elevate prior to its demise movement.
4) Keep in mind, foreign investors do NOT pay US tax on gains in the US equities market as opposed to investments made in their own equities markets, this keeps USD priced assets more attractive and in demand for a longer period of time (look how much Apple stock is owned by the Swiss National Bank). However, confidence is US equities has recently take a sharp turn for the worse and once risk outweighs any tax aversion benefits things get ugly fast.
Picture a dead body in water it first fills with gas and floats for a time before it sinks. The demise occurs when USD priced asset selling finally runs its course and there are no buyers and conversions to USD twinkle. We are clearly on the path now.
If the Swiss National Bank does indeed own a large portion of Apple stock, they should prepare for a big loss, as according to Sputnik Chinese Retailers Slash iPhone Prices, Say They Aren’t Worth The Cost…
The US could not possibly win a commercial war with China; now, it seems quite clear that they are going to lose big… This could be one of the triggers of the ‘E2 catastrophe’.
Great article, Saker, thanks!
I expect the USA to simply repudiate its debt one day, following the ancient practise of a ‘Jubilee’ debt forgiveness. Anyone who protest, and does not possess nukes, will be ‘shocked and awed’ to encourage the others to keep their traps shut. The USA possesses one true advantage over others-the ability to and the love of destroying other countries and murdering millions of their people.
“Eventually the USA will rebound; I have no doubts about that at all. This is a big country with millions of immensely talented people, immense natural resources and no credible threat to it’s territory.”
Ya really think so? It’s not at all obvious to this next-door neighbor that those “immensely talented people” possess the gumption to rebound from anything, let alone the forthcoming collapse of their fondest illusions. I’m much more inclined toward Dmitry Orlov’s assessment when he asks:
“Those proud, conquering, virile Yanks [—] where are they? Haven’t they devolved into a sad little subethnos of effeminate, porn-addicted overgrown boys who shave their pubic hair and need written permission to have sex without fear of being charged with rape?”
Arvy: Agree. I was nodding in approval until this final, almost unnecessary paragraph.
The US has undergone irreversible demographic, economic, and industrial changes. There is no going back.
Arvy
cdvision
Both of you are correct. New Orleans in 2005 was a bad omen. When the city was flooded by Katrina, 50 % of the police never showed up for work, staying home protecting their families. Of the remaining 50 %, only 25 % showed came to work, while the remaining 25 % went on a looting rampage, stealing from department stores and shops. A very bad sign for the US.
yes – I’ve lived all over the US and I don’t see any optimistic outcome. there is far too much ugliness instead of any kind of a meaningful social contract. A society without any cohesive social rituals (as opposed to say Argentina where everyone kisses each other when they meet and separate, where your house is always full of friends and family as is normal in Serbia for instance) will not be able to survive anything.
Americans are jealous of their ‘best’ friends
Plus Americans and Brits are very much turned against everyone including their cousins, forever irrationally competing against everyone all the time – like a bunch of stupid slaves. Plus in the US everyone seems scared of everyone, whites are scared of blacks and vice versa, gays are scared of normal people and vice versa…there is very little respect for others. America is the only place where I have seen people actually peeing in movie theaters (they don’t go to the toilet – they just pee in their seats – I’ve seen this a few times in Santa Monica etc – and Americans don’t do anything they just look . I once complained and the guy who peed was kicked out. There is very little initiative – too much fear, too little connective anything to help keep Anglosheeple together when the next crisis strikes…pretty hopeless
Last time there were riots in LA poor people were burning their own neighborhoods instead of Beverly Hills etc…
I don’t think I have met anyone brilliant there in all the 14 years I’ve spent in the US of AIPAC
I suppose, to be perfectly honest, there may be a certain amount of “wishful thinking” involved on both sides of the question, depending on what one thinks a U.S. “rebound” might entail and to what extent one considers it to be a desirable outcome for the rest of humanity.
Rebounding in a heartless capitalist society? Now that is something which is to awful to contemplate.
break up is the essential for survival in reformulation into smaller parts as entities that can survive on their own, develop socially of America..appears to be the likely result
I can see a few countries flowing out of US collapse. looking at regional interconnections and integrations that can lead back to some form of social health regionally, might help us to figure where and how many these new nations will take shape
america as we have know it is done. there is no logic in its reformulation. America serves no useful purpose now. it never served a useful purpose. america was a grotesque formulation from its beginning, and it would be very good if it goes without taking the rest of us with it. reformulations out American ruins must take a different and opposite course for their very own survival..or they wont.
The U.S. is several nations welded together by force (Civil War) and law (Commerce Clause) as in “Nine Nations” by Colin Woodard. Parts of the collapsing empire may rebound as sovereign regions.
We are here. Waiting.
Not all yanks are soulless demons. Some yearn for peace and brotherhood. Ready to spread our virility through a new age of harmony, equal to our brothers across the world, not lording over them as we have in the days past. We are ready to repay for our sins, and cushion America’s decline, ease her from her seat of empire and down to sit at a round table among equals. Believe what you want. Curse us all or not. I fight on, with my godless heart for a peace that we have banished with our sin.
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes, a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
Of course not all yanks are soulless demons. Unfortunately, USA Incorporated appears to be under the total control of those who are. And that is what anyone must inevitably contemplate in any consideration of a possible ‘rebound’.
If people of your sense and sensibility have been unable to turn things around under current and recent past circumstances, the likelihood of their being able to do so following a total societal collapse seems questionable at best. And an outcome like Germany’s resurgence following its WWI defeat with similar results (MEGA = MRGA = Make the Reich Great Again?) is not something that anyone can envision with equanimity and without some very serious reservations.
Americans could create a decent society and contribute to humanity’s survival and then progress, but only if they abjure ‘American Exceptionalism’ once and for all. They are just human beings like us all, with 99% the same genes as bonobos, who would make excellent role models.
Eventually the USA will rebound; I have no doubts about that at all. This is a big country with millions of immensely talented people, immense natural resources and no credible threat to it’s territory. But that can only happen after a real *regime* change
You should start to believe what you write about, the history and the repetition thereof. I can see, you are still young, and suffering from goodness, and good motivation… I, also, was young. But I wasn’t as clever as you are, and studied different fields. Your prognosis is lacking. Protestants voted in Hitler. The line between protestant and catholic regions, was exactly where Hitler won and lost. Also, the beast that has the demo slogans on her horns, with the prostitute riding her… who do you think is the beast? Who is the prostitute?
Mička
Protestants never voted Hitler into power. In fact he lost every single election he participated in, although many did indeed vote for him. He was appointed to power by Hindenburg, as Germany was ungovernable due to political dissention.
The last words on Hitler and World War Two still need to be written, like explaining to people who Hitler really was, who financed Germany during the war and what really happened to Hitler in 1945, bearing in mind his bunker had four escape tunnels, which historians always like ignore for some reason.
” /…/ explaining to people who Hitler really was /…/ ”
Rude (yet true!) answer: A Pindo-inspired piece of Euro-trash, save his inability to express himself in English. This contempt of foreign languages is shared by most Anglo-Americans too.
More sincere answer: A ’labour politician’ with an honest commitment to Germany — state and people alike — having served in the trenches for a greater share of imperialist spoils and then witnessed the utter horrors deliberately visited upon Germany in the wake of defeat. Like the piece of Euro-trash that he was, Hitler dreamed about looting, burning, and killing Russians despite not having served on Imperial Germany’s Eastern front; despite Bolshevik Russia pulling out of the war there, and despite that tiny, little fact that it was the Western powers that made life a living hell for Germany’s majority population.
As a soldier-turned-politician, Hitler — with the aid of his former adversaries at the front — rearmed Germany for waging his anti-Russian genocidal war of conquest. European values at their finest.
@Nussiminen:
Yeah, and still very, very much on vogue there with the small exception of now excluding the chosen ones at any cost (never again !!), but else the same movie is still very much in play directed by the same old crew..
A convincing analysis. As you say, the U$A may fall like Rome but the good land with good people on it will rise again like Italy.
Literary note: “Finnegan’s Wake” is about a drunken Humpty Dumpty who keeps falling through the ages, and Waking again — at his FunFerAll (Funeral). I think your picture of Humpty in a SuperPower context illuminates the Imperial War Museum chapter in “Finnegan’s Wake”.
Andrei and Dmitry tag-teaming the Empire!!
Exceptional has become pejorative because the Big Broadcast Propaganda Machine has self-described this Freak Show called America as such.
But this article is exceptional and packs so much truth and intelligent observation.
Great job, Saker and Dmitry. Two outstanding minds converging on the crucial topic of 2019.
On the evening when Pompeo announced the return of American Power as a gift to humanity in the ME (deliverable in spent Uranium and 155mm shells, 250 or 500 pound bombs, cruise missiles and rockets of various sizes) this article exposes the naked Emperor/Empire.
The irony is which will collapse first, the USA or its nazi wannabe proxy Ukraine?
You boys have produced a piece that will surely rattle the Elites and, I predict, will tour the world in the next few days, deeply shaking the vassals.
Ambitious and stimulating article.
Through work and other venues, I have been fortunate to travel extensively through much of the world. My perception is that the civilized world is somewhat synchronized in this downhill slide. Different groups go up and down in their own times, but overall, I would say that the whole world is currently at a very low ebb. Yes, Russia is much more functional as a political entity, but my interactions with the Russian people indicate they are only a little more aware and psychologically/spiritually together than Americans. They have the toughness of more recent suffering and the benefit of more limited material goods, but I personally have not observed a deep level of overall health. And as the Saker and others have pointed out, the Russian government is inappropriately involved in an important part of the spiritual heart of Russia – the Orthodox patriarchy.
The Chinese are “hungrier” than Americans, but I similarly do not see them in a good state. For those in doubt, check out the gigantic head of Mao in Changsha, and the almost complete lack of interest in the Cultural Revolution museum (if it still exists). Some years ago, while traveling in China, I learned that the Chinese government had established a grand leader of Taoism. If you know Taoism, you will realize that this concept would be like arbitrarily creating a Pope for Orthodox Christianity. It has no historical precedent and is completely out of synch with the religion/philosophy itself. South America is suffering in many ways, but the multi-decade erosion of the Catholic Church is a particular acid on the societal health. Now, with a South American Pope who does not even seem to be Catholic, the situation seems almost hopeless (yet many good people manage to prevail there as everywhere). In Africa, the replacement of western dominance with Chinese dominance is a growing disaster even more brutal than the western version.
The point is that there does not seem to be any country in a real state of health at this time. Closer to the heart of the problem (than assuming that all the problems originate from U.S/Israel and will end there) could be that material wealth has led to the possibility of an unprecedented concentration of power (through weapons, economies, communications, etc.). The psychopathic element of society is drawn to power, and the weak-hearted are drawn to pleasures and ease. Sadly, human nature is such that abundance typically leads to degradation. The beginning of a downhill slide often appears attractive. Adam and Eve had an idyllic life, but the allure of adding even “more” to their current state of abundance was irresistible to them. The truth they did not see is that the attractive “more” unalterably leads to the degradation and destruction of the existing state of abundance. This is the same fallacy that sometimes leads one partner in a marriage to break the marriage vows – in their fantasy, they are simply adding a new pleasure to their current state of being. It never occurs to them that the new addition, by its nature, will destroy all that is good about their current state.
As a child, my sense was that the Christian Bible was speaking mostly about foreign lands and peoples of the distant past. Now, as every year goes by, it appears more and more to be a precise description of the present and the near future. While it is worthwhile to point out and shun personifications of evil and its practices, the danger is of fixating on the current intermediaries. The struggle is ancient – it is simply coming out into the open for those with eyes to see. The U.S. is in a horrible state of degradation, but it is only the flagship of a worldwide problem. I am personally not even certain where the collapses may take place first – France, China? Based on recent actions, I will mention the following: If the U.S. goes down first and China takes the position of world hegemon, you will long for the days when only the western monster ruled. I would worry far less about Russia as world leader, but the story line is that power corrupts.
The remedy for the current state of the world is spiritual. Unfortunately, history shows that such a turn around typically requires destruction of the societal/power structure that has been providing great ease, and then immense suffering. Up for discussion is largely only when and where the suffering will intensify as the cycle of abundance ends.
JohnTB wrote: “(than assuming that all the problems originate from U.S/Israel and will end there)” – really liked your comments, this one part I poke at a little saying that only in recent months have I become fully aware that the bible (which I respect and seek to live faithfully) explains the Jews will welcome the anti-Christ thinking he is the Messiah, point 1, point 2 is: The Synagogue of Satan is almost certainly if not 100% pertaining to the Jews who organize the 3rd temple + daily sacrifices for the false messiah (3rd temple stands ready in waiting), who ends up ruling the world- point 3 the Talmud clearly states that ruling the world for their own good will come, or is a goal, and the strongest currents of Zionist groups (Chabad, and those organizing the 3rd temple, etc.), also have that as a goal as if it is a spiritually needed concept from Holy writings. point four: the extent to which; Chabad, Israeli govt., the Vatican, the UN (very important offices on the Hill of Evil Counsel in Jerusalem), Trump/Kushner are close to Chabad for decades, the US congress and unelected bodies are Israel-centric — all this collective, extensive cooperation tied to the vision to rule the world from Jerusalem, still may not mean all evil comes from “US/Israel” but my four points orient one’s eyes to see that (thanks to the bible) those two entities are integral to the beast system that will be established albeit, there are other players integral as well.
Dmitry’s comparison between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the (maybe) coming collapse of the USA is fundamentally flawed, because Dmitry assumes wrongly that both the Soviet Union and the USA are sovereign enough to decide their own fate. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Soviet Union collapsed because the Mafia decided it is time for it to collapse.
The Mafia’s plans for the United States, on the other hand, are unknown. It certainly looks like the Mafia wants to ‘pull it’, but we the spectators can only guess when and how.
This comment was removed by the Saker as it violates several moderation rules.
Bye-bye :-P
The Saker
I’m from Canada, and recently bought an apartment in Russia. Moving takes time and a lot of planning, especially for those of us with families. At some point, I can elaborate about this decision but for now, I just want to say that failed predictions are not indicative of anything. We’re humans, and nobody knows how and when events will play out. Just look at the theory of the mud floods. Apparently some cataclysmic events occurred all over the world not so long ago. I was introduced to these ideas in Russia, and some of the thinking behind it is absolutely transformative. In 2013, CIA declassified some papers called “Adam and Eve” (still available on the CIA website). These papers are also known as a “reset manual”. All of that to say, that there is so much that we don’t know. The only thing is certain, is that we were lied to for many, many generations.
Chinese are buying properties (Home, Apartments) in New Zealand, and Australia. Maybe this may be a better choice. A fried of mine bought a land and builds from the scratch a home, one-hour drive from Brisbane Australia and 1 minute walking from ocean.
He has for acres, one story ranch with steel structure, metallic roof covered with solar panels. He planted a lot of fruit trees, and is growing most of vegetables in his yard.
He has a boat, and he is a recreational fisherman. Now he is planning to install honeybee cages.
He retired at 62 and is living a happy life. While we talk others act.
The GDP of Switzerland is much smaller than both USA and Russia. Does this mean Switzerland is poorer and more unstable? Hint: Nope, it just means you haven’t adjusted for population, PPP, debt and consumption…
D. Orlov can keep telling that USa will collapse but, he still living in USA (like the saker and gorbachov) in spite that he is russian and he keeps saving in dollars in american banks.
What I dumb and ugly cheap ad homenim shot!
For one thing, and as far as I know, Dmitry left the USA and does, indeed, live in Russia.
Not that anybody has any justifications to give to that kind of stupid personal attacks..
Here is my own reply to this: /why-do-i-live-in-the-usa
As for Gorby, I thought that he lived in the UK.
But who cares?!
As for saving dollars in US banks, please don’t project – some of us are capable of other motive and considerations than hoarding dollars :-)
Anyway, this comment should have been flagged by the mods, so I will not proceed to trash it.
Obi Juan – the next one will get you a ban, just saying…
The Saker
You gotta point, OJ.
As long as the Titanic has a few decks above water, it’s more comfortable than a lifeboat, or an unsinkable iceberg for us lounging, expounding pundits. Unless you are an Innuit or a Polar Bear.
And they mostly can’t find an audience except 1 or 2 of each other..
I planned to get the hell out of here on a sailboat in the seventies.
Until I interviewed sailboat owners from all over the world (but mostly Europe…………the Yanks had left for the Bermuda to New USA York Bicentennial Tall Ships Race ) moored to docks in English Harbor Antigua in the summer of 1976. Admiral Lord Nelson had been stationed there for some part of his naval career, I discovered, when checking in to the Admiral Nelson Inn.
I could tell from their sterns where they were from. Nice. Amsterdam. Barcelona. Athens. Their Atlantic crossings had only taken them 2-3 weeks.
“How long have you been here in English Harbor?”, I asked.
“Several months.” was the average reply.
“Have you planned your next voyage?”, I asked
“No,” ,was the unenthusiastic reply. Like in much of America today, ennui and static inertia were the prevailing dynamic, not the spirit of adventure. Existentialist Dreamers had met the reality that the ocean is not a very comfortable place, and “If momma ain’t happy, nobody ain’t happy.”
And nobody ain’t settin’ sail, either.
Still (to complete the ships metaphor and not be banished to the Cafe) any captain (or citizen) “worth his salt” will go down with his ship, rather than abandon it., even if its leaking like a sieve and tied to the dock with a For Sale sign on it….unable to pay for or get credit for fuel or provisions…..Going Nowhere, Fast.
I realize California could slide into the Ocean….and the USA into the Bottomless Ocean of Unpayable Debt
But just like the residents of Pompei, how can you not tempt fate….when the weather’s great (there isn’t any about 370 days out of the year) and.so………. “California Wins the Tie-Breakers”???
And a fair number of Chinese and Russians and others from around the world….particularly the Pacific Basin…. think the same. and are putting down roots here………healthier roots…which will surely outlast the diseased demons Pelosi and Di Chi FI Spy..
I hope.
It is good we have you to moderate comments, thank you for keeping this chat field uniform.
Much of the prevailing emotion expressed here is quite well justified, but when emotions predominate, as I feel they do when Saker is berated for noting ANY positives anywhere in the continental USA, it’s a run away train …..and time to get off the train and consider other perspectives….but that’s just my opinion, my habit
A head-on emotional collision might be avoided with a less thin-skinned personal investment in any emotion.
But that’s just my opinion.
Ironically, I see plenty of reasons for not writing this place…or any place ..like 1990’s Russia……permanently off.
Our bridges may be in worse shape than in 2000….but thanks to the 911 accelerating wake up effect (there is now an incipient grand jury investigation officially looking into the Deep State stunt) the red-pill effect is real……… and growing.
That’s a TON more wakefulness ….more IQ “to work with” than the prevailing dead asleep dumb sheep of 18 years ago….and I’ll take that over the moronic stupor that prevailed back then…. even with a lot more physical decay ….and unpayable debt ….presently……….and the other very real worries noted in the article….if you consider the much improved opportunities to organize a growing Anti-Empire patriotic faction….that could Stop the War on Russia….if not unrecognized, despised, shunned and marginalized by internal foes and potential external allies alike.
To_smr:
Hallo.
I did not get the same assumption about Dmitry’s observations, but I like your comment about who caused the SU collapse.
If I may add… the plans of the USofA are known, as the Uber EL-ite’s scribes have put pen to paper over these last few hundred years and made their plans “known”.
Well maybe not… as the EL-ites have known for centuries, serfs/proles/slaves don’t read, especially in the US (and Canuckisatn for that matter).
The only real question, I believe is (E2) how/when the FINAL decisive blow will come.
As WWIII is currently well under way…and the US (+NorAm) is a ‘front line’.
The “end result” is also known. The psychos are constantly telling us their grand designs.
You know…”transhumanism”…via a little Orwellian Oceania in a “Brave New World”
The US is CURRENTLY being destroyed (by design) by both inside and outside forces and the bloodletting will continue.
“Mafia” is so vague.
Let us point at the true cause of this psychopathic anti-Human suffering… Rome/London/WARshigton.
Cheers
“Until then, we will all be waiting for Godot.”
Considering that ‘Godot’ is a word creation by Jewish Mafia asset Samuel Beckett, Saker’s statement acquires a new meaning: yes, we are all waiting to see how the Mafia’s script for the US will play out in the coming months and years…
First rate analysis.
Its a pity the clown Mike Pompeo couldnt get a copy of this to read on his flight back to the US after wrapping up his circus road show across the Middle East.
Selah
Interesting ideas in this article. The Humpty Dumpty picture reminded me of this little rhyme:
Trumpty dumpty sat on a border wall, trumpty dumpty had a great fall.
Very symbolic of the current failure in american leadership.
Describes the usa at the moment where the trump regime has shut down the u.s. government over a piece of psywar called “the wall”. They put brakes on an economy which is in stagnation already for what is in effect a crude propaganda stunt. Rather than work on things that really need fixing, they play psywar games and in effect say to the public: FU.
Israel has been building a massive wall on Palestenian lands- not slats – for years, with the full economic and political support of all US politicians.
The ICC ruled that the wall was illegal, and Hillary Clinton railed against the ruling, at the time.
Yet these same hypocrites who say the illegal Occupation Wall that Israel builds is vital to its security, are refusing to allow the US president to undertake the construction of something similar on the US southern border.
Do you see how unpricipled these US politicians are?
Building walls is good for Israel, but its bad for America.
They are compelled to be inconsistent and unpricipled in their service to Israel, which they put before their service to the US citizens that they were elected to represent.
Selah
The servitude towards Israel is going on since its creation, that’s the Gordian Knot of the american policy, it’s not gonna change soon.
It is even more interesting when you know the roots of that Humpty Dumpty story.
Actually it is about a military loss; a very big and powerful cannon, fall down from a wall and broke into pieces.
Indeed, the powerful military might of the Empire is falling and breaking into pieces.
“Until then, we will all be waiting for Godot.”
An optimistic view, at last, with no more anguish about the next neocon move, or about the next feminist outrage. Just accepting to get lost in an absurd dream.
Interesting, as from the belly of the beast I take Stage 1, “faith in business as usual is lost” as the internal struggle in America between Main St. and Wall St. Faith in business as usual is lost because of the way financial speculation has taken over the economy. The American economy is more about who can scam everyone else to make money quickly, and the faith in the America that could produce the goods it needs for itself is now shredded and gone.
I saw a good article somewhere that said Trump was fighting the wrong enemy in the Chinese government. They weren’t the ones who took American industry away and shipped it to China. It was the Wall St financiers and corporate CEO’s looking to make a quick buck. China was just happy to take advantage of a foolish nation led by people looking to make a quick buck.
Through the wrack and ruin of Wall Street, the faith in business as usual is long gone in America.
I think the article you mention was by Paul Craig Roberts
As Dmitry says failed states go on. Of course the idiot belt of East European failed states is facing the terminal disease of depopulation. This applies particularly the Baltics, – whose combined population is now smaller than that of London – Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. This is due to a collapse in the female fertility rate, a rise in the death rate and emigration to the more salubrious climes of western Europe. And the migrants are the most talented, young, brightest and best qualified sectors of the populations. This is a demographic disaster and it won’t be reversed given present policies and conditions.
DD, you are saying “migrants are the most talented”
Really? I disagree with your comment.
Pretty sure he means “the most talented” relative to the people in the region the migrants are leaving, and not relative to the people in the region where they are moving to. Big difference there.
In the usa, the bulk of migrants are the more aggressive, selfish, looking to cash in on all that gold that paves the streets they heard about. This is also true throughout american history.
Old Scot saying (paraphrase):
Your sons who are moral and intelligent, keep at home. Those that are moral and stupid, send to london. And those who immoral, but intelligent, send to america.
It didn’t note the immoral and stupid sons, though, or where they should be off loaded to. ;-)
That was from a long time ago, but still rings true. The usa was populated by greedy pigs, mostly. Right winger types mainly looking for a venue they can exploit.
The myth is america is populated by people wanting to escape oppression and experience true freedom. The reality is the country has been a magnet for those looking to get rich and exploit others. The freedom they sought was the freedom to profit at others expense. And do so easily.
”The myth is america is populated by people wanting to escape oppression and experience true freedom. The reality is the country has been a magnet for those looking to get rich and exploit others. The freedom they sought was the freedom to profit at others expense. And do so easily.”
Well put, vt. The Euro-squatters in North America were, in modern parlance, fake refugees to boot. Gorging on land-grabbing, genocide, and ecocide is about as ”revolutionary” as American domestic shooting sprees and the psychobabble praising privately owned firearms for everybody. Militant parasites possessed by their hallucinations prove the genuinely revolutionary Soviets right: Bourgeois ideology = Mental illness, including any pro-American outlook predominant anywhere in the world.
Um…the immoral and stupid ones were shipped to Australia ?
Analyst
Well, as the old Aussy joke goes, Britain is the country from which criminals come from.
And they are still in power here to today. Indeed, over the years they have degenerated markedly. Our current Prime Minister, Morrison, is a Pentecostal thug, and we beat Brazil in installing such a malevolent buffoon first.
Colonial settlers were mostly superfluous to their native countries, and in the later stages they certainly included some undesirables. However, we should not forget their dream of a ‘New World’. The Christian dissenters who founded New England had very high hopes for the future, which have sadly come to naught…but the dream itself and the men and women who dreamed it are certainly worth remembering. It is a great tragedy that the idealistic nation they founded has fallen into such tyranny.
Hajduk
When the Mayflower landed in Plymouth in 1620, it was made up of Puritans, settlers and criminals. Most, if not all, thought they would find gold, having heard stories of Spanish gold convoys from Central America. One of the first things they did was to loot the graves of native Americans. They found no gold. Had it not been for native Americans, who tought them how to farm in new conditions, they all would have perished from hunger.
Once their numbers had increased, they instigated a policy of genocide against the native population, their favorite method being the use of smallpox, by which which they exterminated entire regions. There were other methods, like burning alive the natives.
Historians estimate that in the year 1500 there were 90 million native Americans on the territory of the present USA. Of that number 75 million were exterminated, which would make it one of the largest genocides in human history. So much for the Puritan “dream”.
I know all about the dark side of American history, my point being that there was a bright side too. It does little good to focus only on the horrible things and thereby forget that there were also heroes and prophets on those ships. History is never black and white.
And the ‘Christian’ settlers explicitly quoted the Old Testament/Torah, with its copious tales of genocide inflicted on Israel’s victims in Canaan, on ‘Yahweh’s’ express orders, as justification for their genocide of the ‘heathen savages’. That impulse drives US and Israeli policy to the present.
A wise observation, vot tak. There were some exceptions, of course, like Irish fleeing English genocide in the mid-19th century, but in general the facts are pretty incontrovertible.
Not replying to Cosimo: I just wanted to get in line with the people who were making US America out to be some kind of Puritan project.
Yes, it started that way, but the Puritans were so totalitarian that they turned their offspring completely off, so that they turned to Deism and Unitarianism. The more serious among the Unitarians, led by one of their ministers, Ralph Waldo Emerson, created Transcendentalism (God is better revealed in Nature, both human and non-human, than in the tired, old tomes of antiquity). The Transcendentalists went on to inspire the (anti-slavery) Abolitionist Movement, the Women’s Rights Movement (while still progressive), the Non-Violent Resistance Movement (against war and civil oppression) which inspired Dr M L King, M K Gandhi (by way of Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau), and many of the early socialists and labor activists, and figured prominently in the element that took the nation into its Civil War to end slavery (John Brown was a Transcendentalist and so was Herman Melville, who celebrated the Great French Revolution as the beginning of a world revolution).
While still on the subject of religion, I’d like to add something after having noticed that Saker is featuring a history of the Orthodox Church. Jan Hus, the TRUE founder of Protestantism, in the hands of whose followers Protestantism emerged as a REVOLUTIONARY movement to free the serfs of Europe from the Roman Church and landlord class, was in close contact with Orthodox clergymen, and very likely for that reason Protestant ministers are free to marry today, as well as his adopting various other progressive aspects of Orthodox Christianity. It was the arch-antisemite and early fascist Martin Luther (an inspiration for Adolf Hitler) who served the landlord class as the gravedigger of revolutionary Protestantism by turning it into a politically toothless reformation. Karl Kautsky, in his revolutionary period, perhaps among others, rediscovered this revolutionary aspect of the Protestant movement for the European workers’ movement. The Prague of the Hussites is today spoken of favorably in the Jewish Encyclopedia as a refuge for Jews.
A lot gives me doubt, but I believe that the diverse but still far-from-cynical peoples who live within the borders of the United States have it in them to rise from the mire once again. Every nation has its backward elements: we’re just cursed with more than our share.
Puritan means (Calvinist) extremist. ‘Dissenter’ in the 17thc. means Quakers, Unitarians, Swedenborgians (and Baptists). They have made quite a substantial contribution to ‘The New World’ (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King etc.). The more radical religious revolutionaries (Levellers, Fifth Monarchists, Diggers etc.) were of course suppressed or killed during the Protectorate.
According to Gerrard Winstanley (1609-76),
Freedom…’comes clothed in a clownish garment’: he ‘…is the man that will turn the world upside downe, therefore no wonder he hath enemies’.
‘Mankind must have the Law of Righteousnesse once more writ in his heart and all must be of one heart, and one mind.’
‘For the Spirit Reason doth not preserve one creature and destroy another but it hath a regard to the whole of creation and knits every creature together into onenesse, making every creature to be an upholder of his fellow, and so everyone is an assistant to preserve the whole’.
“civil war to end slavery” This is where you have it all wrong A Bill but then so do most Americans The South seveedef because it was to ten of being plundered by New England Lincoln was one of the worst tyrannical dictators the world has known The North had no love of Metros in fact Lincoln wanted to load them up and send them out of the country During the war slaves were forced off plantations and put in concentration camps where many of them starved to death So much for the great emancipator Lest I be accused of being a racist southerner I live in North Dakota the only state in the union to have its own bank plus we are riddled with cooperatives across the state Many utilities are cooperatives I can’t go out but what someone is opening or holding a door for me I was talking to grocery boy while attempting to get out of motorized cart by bell ringer Boy put groceries in pickup while I was struggling to get in the bell ringer reached in and placed a folded up bill on the seat returning inside i thought it might be a 10 or 20 I continued my struggle to get in close the door and start the pickup I unfolded the bill and discovered it was a $100 dollar bill So what I am saying is that I live in the best possible place to weather the impending disaster
@ Cosimo
_ ” the most talented ” _
” relative to people in region migrants are leaving ” , and
” relative to people in region they are moving to “.
What if both those relations are correct , and donald duck in fact , right ?
What about number of brightest studemts from india and china ,
taking positions as best programmers, mathemathicians , and other fields…
That is main reason why usa is desperatelly , urgentlly , calling them to come.
Most of domestic usa students do not reach levels of those migrants.
What is number of usa students lawyers to usa number students of math ?
Or number of usa students of political sciencies , to usa students in physics ?
What number of usa students in sociology , to usa students in biochemistry ?
And for double salary than in their native lands , in paper $ , they all come.
USA has just to pick them up.
Just selection , and distribution , to where they are most urgently needed.
The sense I’ve gotten from Americans for a long time now, back to the Dubya/Cheney era (we can’t forget to give Dick Cheney his due in the downfall of America!) is that most Americans know deep down inside that something, everything is very, very wrong.
The problem is that they see no way to do anything about it. Trying to do anything about it only makes one a target of the ruling elites, so its better to keep your head down. And yet, whenever Americans do get a sniff of a hint that they can do something about it, they come out and they respond. This has been seen several times in the E1 era. Conmen like Trump and Obama both promise versions of Change and Hope, and most importantly were seen as standing up to the elites. It was a con in both cases of course, but the key was the way each campaign touched something with its lies.
The Occupy Wall Street days were the same. Standing by the side of the road holding a sign saying Wall Street was the problem, and I was met with constant horn honks and thumbs up signs from passers-by. I saw a line of cars around the block of people just spontaneously coming up and offering cases of bottled water, pizza and other supplies. Obama was quick to move to crush that because the way it was growing scared them.
The elites spend a lot of effort trying to redirect that feeling that something is wrong away from them. OMG, its Uni-Sex bathrooms that are destroying America. It couldn’t be because the place is run by crooks and con-men. No, its that statue of Robert E. Lee that is the big problem.
Notice how carefully the news of the Yellow Vests in France is kept as quiet as possible, and distorted and spun. One might almost think that the elites are worried that Americans might see that lots of people in the streets have the power to change things.
I should warn you that Mr. Orlov doesn’t know what he is talking about when he says that the US government is going broke. The US government is a sovereign issuer of its own currency can NEVER go broke. Regardless of what is said in the media or credit rating agencies the US is no way subject to default on its debt unless stupid politicians refuse to pay the debt. The real problem the US faces with debt is not public debt but private debt. Banks control this country and they are sucking the people dry. Private banks caused the crisis in 2008 and will cause the next one. If Mr. Orlov is worried about debt then he should worry about private debt.
I’m guessing different definitions of wealth are being used here.Wealth is fundamentally labor and in turn the products of said labor, the dollar(and any other currency) only has value if it is backed by the labor of American people(or the labor of some other peoples), otherwise it’s just a worthless piece of paper.The USA government can ‘issue’ as many dollar notes as they please and then eat them, if no one is willing to sell them food in exchange for dollar notes.
Anon1…
I have known some people who tried to get rich in Germany, after many years of hard work they went to USofA with one suitcase. Many started as dishwashers and moved on to owning fairly nice taverns, some owned plazas, some every house on the street. So, I second what you said about labor. Hard work did pay off, but not for all and not always. Mind you this was in the days when USofA was the promised land, not anymore. Today Corporate America destroys everything. Those were also different people unlike the said “migrants” from the middle east and Africa today. One old and wise man said to me many years ago: “Waps” are the ones who build everything in America. The wise man was my mother’s uncle. Just to clear things up “Waps=Southern Europe”. In addition, Central Canada to which Ukrainians and Poles were shipped off was developed into huge huge and profitable farms, they still live there. In the US, little south of that you will find Scandinavians and Germans.
When man’s labor is exchanged for currency man surrenders part his labor to issuer of the money thus loosing his claim to his labour in this public transaction. “Give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s”.
Wealth is not measured in jobs but in certain assets and nobody gets rich from digging then consequently backfilling ditches.
Much of assets are not allowed to be owned in most western counties because establishment has a running claim against your assets. Try to explain policeman your ownership of your car as he is confiscating it for reason of expired licence tags while on public road. Same goes for real estate and pair of socks as there is some entity having legally valid but not necessarily morally sound claim against it.
These days issuers of money are central banks and they loan the money to governments and other users of their currency, there is only a handful of Nations that don’t fall under this scheme. The debt is perpetual and can never be repaid under such arrangement*.
For reference;
Gold, currency of Kings
Silver, currency of nobility
Barter, currency of free men
Credit, currency of slaves*
Think carefully about where that scenario puts us?
Just my 5¢
Of course the US is going broke!!
There are 2 options:
1. The honorable way: by admitting openly they cannot repay the debt and only paying a fraction of what they owe…
OR
2. The dishonorable way: printing up USD, and repaying their debts with highly devalued currency.
Either way, US creditors and their respective pension funds are NOT going to get the full return on their money!
It seems like the US has chosen option 2..
GLH,
I (and many others I’ve read) may be completely misinformed but it was my impression that the money created (at the federal level) is done so by the Federal Reserve, which is known/acknowledged as being a wholly owned entity of the international banking cartel and, therefore, I believe Mr. Orlov’s point is entirely valid in regards US National debt. The US government (the taxpayers) has to repay the bankers and is not a sovereign issuer of its own currency and it is going broke, if not broke already.
(Sorry for the caps…was only replying in kind)
J-P! Yes! I agree. As Henry Ford, long dead founder of Ford Motors once said “If the American people understood the banking system, they would revolt over night.” The “Federal” Reserve is federal in name only. It’s only quasi federal. The U.S. President can name the Chairman, but the government has no control over the Federal Reserve. It’s essentially owned by the major shareholders of Goldman Sacs, Chase Manhattan, J.P Morgan (Morgan Stanley), and a few more. One question, always unanswered, is who are the major shareholders of those major banks. History seems to point to the Rothchild Family Cartel and their extended families, such as the Warburgs.
The Rothchilds became the central bankers of most of the major European nations in the mid 1700s and learned to fund both, or all sides of international conflicts. During the aftermath of WW1, at the time of the Treaty Of Versaise, a Warburg represented the German Bundesbank and his brother, obviously another Warburg, was the U.S. Treasury Secretary representing the U.S. During the U.S. “Civil” War, one Warburg (think Rothchild) bank funded the North, another Warburg bank funded the confederacy. Pres. Lincoln, in an attempt to get out from under the bankers, had the Treasury department create honest “Federal” money, later called “Lincoln Greenbacks”. John Wilkes Both, Lincoln’s assassin, was employed by the Rothchild cartel. Pres. John Kennedy was assassinated two weeks after he announced that the U, S, intended to issue some of its own money.
The mostly hidden international banking cartel funds the warring factions, the military industrial complexes, and the war reparations. I fear for the Russian Federation and China if their central banks are not entirely owned and controlled by their own governments, which also has it’s own risks.
Small independent banks in the United States can become members of the non-federal Federal Reserve Banking System. I’m not sure of the requirements.
I do know that any bank can legally lend 10 X the value of it’s assets. So I can borrow. as an example, $100,000 for a home loan if the banks assets were only $10,000. The bank simply adds the digits ($100,000) to my account and then sits back and receives over, say 30 years, $100,000 that it never had, plus 30 years of interest on something it never had to loan in the first place. Poof! Money out of nothing! And to top that off, that outstanding loan of $100,000 is then considered an asset of the bank. Seems like there’s a bank on every street corner of every town in America. I wonder why! Duh! Banks extract more money than drug cartels, and legally.
The best to you! Barry
@ Barry in Missouri
_ ” i do know that any bank can legally lend ” ….explanation …
Congratulations !
Nice example of bankers and their hard work earning bloody money …
Everybody dealing with bankers should remember this example …
Money out of nothing !
Excellent !
It’s 10x or 8x deposit that can be lent out. It’s called fractional banking. But I am sure higher multiples are common practice.
If you have $1 in your account and write $10 worth of checks sorta thingy.
That’s why run on banks is their significant leveraged pressure point (yellow vests anyone?) lol.
Good luck to get money out of your federally insured “saving” account when that happens.
Depositing money in any financial institutions makes you unsecured creditor exposed to widely implemented and ready to be used bail-in provisions (Cyprus pilot program) of most banks as they are instructed by your own government to have those provisions.
Just saying
JFK did not intend for the US to issue its own currency. He made a small amendment to silver procurements that were involved with the small issue of US greenbacks that originated with Lincoln in the Civil War. The New York banks were demanding 20% for loans to finance the Civil War. Lincoln noted that the US government could issue its own currency and did so. Inflation from 1866 on had made these Federal greenbacks a very small amount of the currency as the amount hadn’t changed from Lincoln. Although the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis had further cemented JFK’s drift away from typical liberal democratic Cold warrior stances. He was serious about the threat of nuclear proliferation. His efforts to keep Israel from getting the bomb was one reason they joined the large number of enemies JFK had made in eliminating him. Remember that Jacob Rubinstein murdered Oswald. But his biggest sin for his enemies was that in collaboration with Khrushchev he was trying to wind down the Cold War. Khrushchev himself was eliminated from power shortly after JFK’s assassination. JFK hadn’t gotten around to noticing that global finance is the biggest conspiracy in plain site.
Private banks in the US issue currency and peddle low interest loan around the globe. What happens when debtor countries impose tariffs om foreign capital coming into their countries? And when countries stop buying US securities?
“Scientists warn Earth’s magnetic North Pole has begun moving ‘erratically’ at speeds so fast they are having to issue an emergency update to maps used by electronic navigation systems”
Apparently exiting Canada and heading for Siberia…..a “sign” of the times?
Regarding the five levels I think UK is at 3….and either extending itself out to 4 and 5 or trying to establish a critical mass to bring 4 and 5 within the fold ov 1-3……when certain things are percieved to be vaguely linked….and seem to exert a strange magnetic power that they illogically and coalesce together to over come rationality methods- such as use of logic…responsibility…emotional intelligence…common sense ….true vision of principles and objectives -the balance will truly tip……..far easier to slide down something but very difficult to climb up a greasy pole……..
Been reading emtional intelligence by Daniel Goleman from c 1996…..very interesting that then there were so many indicators of societal problems that are proving themselves now to very extant and extensive…….but we seem to be stuck with the generations of those peoples that are affected by that until newer generations of younger peoples in revised educational systems work themselves through to be effective leaders and managers of their communities and higher levels of government.
JJ, accordingly to some ancient writings Earth has flipped it’s poles once already. Do not ask me when, but it’s said to have happened roughly at the time when the single land mass split into the continents. Also, keep in mind that resources’ extraction does/will affect the Earth’s balance, which means the center-gravity may be shifting as well as it’s magnetic axis. Just a simple physics. It is my theory that our endless digging eventually will put Earth off balance, which could have disastrous effect on all of us. Besides, it is a known fact that Earths rotational axis is not dead steady but it bobs all the time.
do you really think that mans’ capacity for digging compares to the uprising of mountains/tectonic plates shiftings such as the himalayas – that is a out of balance phenomenon of enormous consequences.
Oldnik,
Yes, normal crust movements could be much more disastrous than human “digging”, it happened before. The question is at what point could our “digging” have disastrous effects. Also, have you thought about reasoning behind sudden “human” rush to search for livable planets? Also, suddenly the big three (US, Russia, China) are pushing for out of earth exploration (Mars, Moon)? Also, the effects of “Doomsday torpedo”? 1/4 of US’s land mass just slipping into the ocean? Think of Atlantis, this is not a myth and it happened due to natural events.
It’s known that highly evolved Greek civilizations disappeared around ~1500BC due to seismic events, when some islands vanished and some partially did. Life on coastal areas of Greece suddenly vanished as well, this is recorded by ancient Greek writers, also keep in mind Greek saying: Myth about Myths is a Myth.
Look at this page ( sorry it’s in Greek), but it has maps of what’s called “Η θεωρία της βυθισμένης Αιγηίδος – Theory of Sunken Aigida). This is the real Catastropy, unlike the story we are told in the Bible:
http://aegean-theory.gr/
Small note, I used wrong example here. The example refers to the rise of the sea levels resulting from Ice crust melting during Global Warming. The sea levels rose 150meters. This happened 18,000 years ago.
Bolsonaro win in Brazil was not an accident, the US jews are fleeing their capital there to S America. Their common jewdar (akin to gaydar) tells them the US goy may explode at anytime. But underlying all this is the fact that the kazar has now accumulated enough jewels to ensure his safety/food in a world gone chaotic, its time to expand israel like 1967, boobi already has the delusion to be another dayan (his psychiatrist even committed suicide!).
Whilst the 7b goyim are the least of their concerns, maher&co (and the jew owners of the US MSM), its that putin march video that disturbs them. The roosevelt wasp cannot carry out another nuking without the oppenheimer jew, but the schumers and russian emigre jew deepstate schiffs cannot afford to have 11m kazars wiped out by Russia in NY,LA,Miami,N London,Paris & Israel, they are only supposed to fight in Tashkent ! Hence the Yemen war, Russian subs in the Red Sea are the threat that needs to be taken care of before the fun and games can begin. We have just seen two frontmen of the jew deep state, schumerpelosi, openly diss the potus, this time round, unlike WW2 oppenheimer does not need the roosevelt wasp in the Pentagon, he can nuke (Russia,Iran?) all by himself now?
“Neocons Unleash New Weapon to Crush Independent Media
“While even a quick glance at its advisory board alone would be enough for many Americans to decline to install Newsguard’s browser extension on their devices, the danger of Newsguard is the fact that it is diligently working to make the adoption of its app involuntary”…….https://russia-insider.com/en/neocons-unleash-new-weapon-crush-independent-media/ri25862
Particularly to have this browser extension on all schools computers….denying children the right to view any facts and viewpoints from independant media and denying them the right to be taught how to have an independant mind and individual thinking…..considering mass media “control “by bought press…manipulations of social media etc…. Integrity Initiative type things and EU so called fighting disinformation department ..another sign of the times….
I’m not convinced that the USA will rebound at all. I don’t think it will exist in anything like its current form and will probably be split up into different States.
The entire concept of the USA is meaningless when the entire population is becoming Black/Mexican/Hispanic and more often than not non-English speaking. There is no ‘USA’ in this context.
Empires don’t rebound. They end. Nations don’t always rebound either, and a prerequisite for such a rebound would be a cohesive population (ethnically as well as mentally). The USA will not have this and will therefore not survive as an entity.
WofS, I totally agree with you. No real Empire ever rebounded. They broke up into pieces.
China destroys your hypothesis.
China isn’t/wasn’t an empire, at least not the ever expanding,all conquering type that is generally considered an empire.
I respectfully submit you need to requalify your definition of Empire. China, like Russia, is an Overland Empire, unlike the UK and USA which are Overseas Empires. An Empire is a polity exerting hegemony/ruling over another polity that would prefer to be independent–sovereign.
And on which polities that prefer to be independent/sovereign, does Russia and China exert hegemony/ruling over?The RF is smaller than the Soviet Union, so the Kremlin certainly isn’t expansionist and China also hasn’t expanded for millenniums.
Outlaw Historian
Russia and China are not overland empires, even though both are huge. Russia holds Russians from European borders to Vladivostok, and huge areas are barely inhabited. The US, on the other hand, does possess a temporary oveseas empire which is destroying the US financially, a fate which befalls all empires. The US began as a collection of European colonies and in 1776 ostensibly became “independent”. All Indian lands were subsequently incorporated into the new US. It’s highly debatable if the US has any legal, cultural and historical reasons to exist at all, as there is no such thing as the American “language”. It’s chief weakness is lack of history and tradition in many states, which are nothing more than artificial administrative units resembling colonial entities.I don’t see the US surviving in it’s present form, and it’s break up could indeed be very swift.
So could one say that the USA is to nations what Judaism is to religions?
I.e., in both cases there is no there there at the core.
Katherine
Katherine
I think you got it.
@ B.F.
_ ” us began as a collection of european colonies ” _ …
_ ” all indian lands were subsequently incorporated ” _…
One could conclude that europeans came to empty land , free range.
But they did not come to empty land.
First europeans killed 70.000.000 indians , or nowdays called ” native indians “…
That is some difference in input data. So great number should not be ommited.
Yes next sentence mentions indian land , but not indians. Where were indians lost.?
Indians disappered by process called ” genocide ” , but that word was not in use those days. So there was no genocide.
Indians did not have imunity to european diseases , and they died like moskitos,
In thousañds , upon thousands . bufallos , indians’ basic , imporant food , were killed so indians would starve without food , and die.
There were special trains with hobby tourist hunters that killed buffalos , and killed.
They were given free guns , ammunitions as they could carry. And party started.
Those indians that did not starve from hunger , died from colonists help.
Colonist gave indians blankets that were infectted with variuos bacteria and diseases. And they died like fleas.
Who survived that , was given cheap wiskey poison to finish them.
Those are begining days of usa.
Colonisation.
Industrialisation.
rise of wealth was achieved on hard labor of slaves , who made america rich state. And thousands upon thousands so called ” afro-americans ” died ,
first while they were tranported from africa , than from hard labour on farms.
Those slaves who dared to complain were pacified by peacefull organization KKK , known also as kew_klux_klan. Something like NGO , nowdays.
Those were initial steps , on path called ” we will make america great “…
But all so many deaths to make america great
Your history lesson of “making America great” is brilliant
@Janis Schmidt
Thanks !
But my part in this text is not worth mentioning.
Just holy spirit declaring himself through me.
God is to be thanked.
China’s “Empire” is a figment of imagination. It never existed. Some time in VI (? maybe) century AD they happen to join their five(?) kingdoms. All Chinese. This does not make China an Empire, just big kingdom. Even small bands of Mongols forced China to hide behind the wall. Those who created Empires went and conquered other people (Assyrians, Babylon, Persia, etc, etc)
Imperial China is sometimes called the ‘immortal state’. Its unique longevity in world history was the result of centuries dedicated to ordering society. However, the key factor was the geography of the ‘Central Plain’. Despite the obvious benefits of invading and occupying Tibet, East Turkestan, and Inner Mongolia many Chinese thinkers opposed these policies because they upset the ancient stability of China. China is now subject to internal tensions from non-Chinese subject populations and it can now fracture along geographic and ethnic fault lines. China could have occupied Central Asia many times during its history but did not do so for very good reasons.
Thanks for an explication of US policy to fracture China into pieces. You forgot to mention other targeted regions, like Hong Kong (yearning to be free to be Westernised Oriental Gentlemen), Manchuria (or should I say ‘Manchukuo’?), Taiwan, and even, lately, Guandong and other southern regions. The EXACT same ‘divide and conquer’ policies that have brought such suffering and destruction to the USSR and its successor states, Yugoslavia and Iraq, not to forget its application to China by the West in the 19th and 20th centuries. As for the so-called ‘East Turkestan’, ie Xinjiang, it has been Chinese territory on and off since Han times. A far more likely candidate for secession is the vast regions of the USA stolen so recently, comparatively, from Mexico.
I want to consider in careful critical detail with paper and red pencil, but notice errors… Kennan predicted the Soviet “contradictions” would lead to collapse. Szilard held that the Soviet Union and the US were in a sort of duality – and if one failed the partner would too. The author Bill Pfaff pointed this out…
He wrote (in October of 2008, excerpt) “The nuclear physicist Leo Szilard once remarked that the fall of the Soviet system would eventually lead to the fall of the American system. He said that in a two-element structure, the interrelationship and interdependence are such that the one cannot survive without the other.” https://www.truthdig.com/articles/will-the-pentagon-be-the-next-u-s-institution-to-crash/
Szilard spoke of this in the late 1950’s, as did I myself in the mid 1960’s…wasn’t this obvious? Of course it was obvious…Kennan might as well have written a script for Russia today, as all they have to do is cope, mitigate, and wait… tic tic tic… long telegram article…old stuff.
The dangerous nature of ideology paralyzing a political grouping – and the similarities between Soviet ideology and neo-liberal ideology is often discussed on Crosstalk, particularly by Dima.
Withal, however, despite what I am sure are numerous errors, the substance of the article is, I believe, quite sound. However I am not persuaded, nor do I expect, that the US will rebound as an integrated State unless Russia “interferes” as she has done in the past, particularly in the so-called US Civil War.
That “CW” was nothing of the kind, it was a Northern War of Aggression…the issue was not control of the State (defining CW aspect) – rather the issue was State sovereignty, which is to say local control.Today every US State is occupied by standing federal armies of one sort or another, right down to local cops… This is to say that most of the internal contradictions that lead to British and Russian interference in the “CW” circa 1860’s still exist…and their potential is far more terrible.
So, not “rebound”, I am afraid the reality will be regionalization and foreign interference…but the form will be the product… The product of foreign (and probably helpful) interference will be re-formation, not rebound.
There’s always a problem with deciding when a process began…some say with this president or another…so it is that I remember the Vietnam defeat, and propose that was the beginning…the movement toward the edge of the table…because after Tet the vast US Army mutinied and refused to fight, began to murder their own officers…after that the US was unable to field a drafted and effective army. I saw this, it’s not mere opinion.
I opine it’s not Godot we’re waiting for, but instead it’s MacBeth’s date with Birnam forest
It’s not a new idea. So, the Syrian war failed…tic tic tic Trumpie the Clown meets Ivan and Sun Tsu… Wanna bet about what’s next?
Here: Malcolme following hastilie after Makbeth, came the night before the battell vnto Birnane wood, and when his armie had rested a while there to refresh them, he commanded euerie man to get a bough of some tree or other of that wood in his hand, as big as he might beare, and to march foorth therewith in such wise, that on the nexf morrow they might come closelie and without sight in this manner within view of his enemies. On the morrow when Makbeth beheld them comming in this sort, he first maruelled what the matter ment, but in the end remembred himselfe that the prophesie which he had heard long before that time, of the comming of Birnane wood to Dunsinane castell, was likelie to be now fulfilled.” (Holinshed, Historie of Scotland), Vol. v.)
@ about 3 minutes in https://shortwavearchive.com/archive/2i3k6b80959ilkwz45s0v7s2uhe54k Radio Moscow from 1968 reported Tet….
We learn no other but the confident tyrant
Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
Our setting down before ‘t.
‘Tis his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt,
And none serve with him but constrained things
Whose hearts are absent too.
A most erudite comment . . . excellent references.
Kennan designed the Grand Strategy Containment and preached patience. The contradictions within the USSR would surface as the constrictions finally took hold, boa-like, and these occurred. The USSR took its own empire down. Technological development outpaced the old men in overcoats standing on the wall. And the riches to be grabbed were too enticing, so the wealth resources were stolen from the people, too. The Phoenix has risen, but it is incapable of empire. Its role is neutralizer (defense) against the US Empire. However, Russia alone cannot pressure or contain the US. Nor can China. Either, alone, are as powerless as lesser states. Only together, as the Double Helix, do we see the Empire blocked, checkmated. Most clear example is in North Korea.
Parallel history may be occurring in the USA.
MAGA was the People’s reaction to the Empire’s vices and addictions. It was not an ideological reaction. It was the simple cultural return—the demand—to return to the Social Contract. The MAGA movement was an expression of inclusiveness (though it was painted Nationalist, Alt-Right, Conservative). It was none of that. It attracted and welcomed all neighbors from all demographics. There was no Party, so Trump chose the ballot of the Republicans and slew all challengers. He had no strategy and he has no ideology. Nor does MAGA. It sought a return to common sense values of work, jobs, small business enterprise, low taxes and the end to foreign intervention wars. To end the impact of 22 million illegal aliens, it wanted a Wall at the border, removal of the illegal aliens, blockage of the drugs flowing across the Southern Border, and victory over the violence that spewed from Central America and Mexico across the Open Border.
With no Party, no Ideology, MAGA was merely a common emotion that swept Independents, some Democrats and most Republicans and many voters who had previously lost hope when they lost jobs. Trump promised a return to Common Sense and the Social Contract of Rule of Law and a much less regulated economy. This was a return to pre-Tet times. The 50s and 60s, the last times before the horrors in public of 1968 onward. And the behind the scenes Wall Street-led destruction of Union Labor and Manufacturing. Made in USA was destroyed willfully, and factories, whole industries were destined for overseas—first Japan and Taiwan, then China in the following decades.
Just as the wealth resources (mostly mineral, but also banking) in Russia had been stolen, the US thieves took away the wealth of the nation (manufacturing and mining) and pauperized tens of millions of Middle Class. They left them a drug culture and endless wars with all sorts of chimera to fear. And the monster of Tens of Trillions of National Debt, as well as a hundred Trillion in derivatives and Consumer and Student Debt and under-funded Pensions. The balance sheet is hopeless to correct. Even if the Hegemon triumphed and sucked up all wealth from Russia, it would not make a dent in the bottom line indebtedness.
Thus the Tyranny in DC, the Deep State and Shadow Government is terrified of the People. It is desperate to control and manage the reaction as more Americans realize their UniPolar days are numbered. They can be made to fear Russia, Putin, Iran, China, Belts and Roads, Huawei and Kaspersky, but it changes nothing in their daily life. Even the clown show in the White House and Congress (and the Ruth Bader Ginsburg slow death-ala Fransisco Franco act) can’t distract them for an hour.
The People sense the rope they hand onto is greased and they are suspended over the Abyss.
Trump is captive.
MAGA is being sliced and diced.
Violence will explode culturally as the Tyranny attempts the impossible, to disarm the public.
All the Americans have left after the Social Contract is terminated is their guns.
They will fight in the Red States against the Blue States and the Union will be broken.
The Federal System might become a Confederation later on.
But for certain, Washington DC will burn down. The American People hate their government.
Wow, what a great article and a particularly insightful comment.
To add some context – I live in Virginia and my entire extended family owns about 120 guns. We might starve to death when the government collapses, but they will not take our guns away!
And yes, we hate our government and incompetent leaders!
”We might starve to death when the government collapses, but they will not take our guns away!”
As I’ve pointed out before, when the US collapses what we are going to witness is a psychotic, all-out shooting spree (including suicides and suicide pacts, mind you), hence reducing the death toll due to outright starvation. Pindos are funny specimina indeed!
Iconodule, I am not joking here: “as long as there are squirrels, rabbits and other wildlife you will be OK”. I also believe that majority of “dirt pounders” are from the south. I was going to say that some southern states are economically depressed, but come to think of it northern ones are quickly joining in.
The printing cost of a $100 Federal Reserve Note is 20 Cents.
The question is:
When Will the U.S. Dollar Collapse?
Updated October 28, 2018
A dollar collapse is when the value of the U.S. dollar plummets. Anyone who holds dollar-denominated assets will sell them at any cost. That includes foreign governments who own U.S. Treasurys. It also affects foreign exchange futures traders. Last but not least are individual investors.
When the crash occurs, these parties will demand assets denominated in anything other than dollars. The collapse of the dollar means that everyone is trying to sell their dollar-denominated assets, and no one wants to buy them. This will drive the value of the dollar down to near zero. It makes hyperinflation look like a day in the park.
Two Conditions That Could Lead to the Dollar Collapse
First, there must be an underlying weakness. As of 2017, the U.S. currency was fundamentally weak despite its 25 percent increase since 2014. The dollar declined 54.7 percent against the euro between 2002 and 2012. Why? The U.S. debt almost tripled during that period, from $6 trillion to $15 trillion. The debt is even worse now, at $21 trillion, making the debt-to-GDP ratio more than 100 percent. That increases the chance the United States will let the dollar’s value slide as it would be easier to repay its debt with cheaper money.
Second, there must be a viable currency alternative for everyone to buy. The dollar’s strength is based on its use as the world’s reserve currency. The dollar became the reserve currency in 1973 when President Nixon abandoned the gold standard. As a global currency, the dollar is used for 43 percent of all cross-border transactions. That means central banks must hold the dollar in their reserves to pay for these transactions. As a result, 61 percent of these foreign currency reserves are in dollars.
Would China and Japan ever dump their dollars? Only if they saw their holdings declining in value too fast and they had another export market to replace the United States. The economies of Japan and China are dependent on U.S. consumers. They know that if they sell their dollars, that would further depress the value of the dollar. That means their products, still priced in yuan and yen, will cost relatively more in the United States. Their economies would suffer. Right now, it’s still in their best interest to hold onto their dollar reserves.
When Will the Dollar Collapse?
It’s unlikely that it will collapse at all. That’s because any of the countries who have the power to make that happen (China, Japan, and other foreign dollar holders) don’t want it to occur. It’s not in their best interest. Why bankrupt your best customer? Instead, the dollar will resume its gradual decline as these countries find other markets.
https://www.thebalance.com/when-will-the-u-s-dollar-collapse-3305691
When the USSR collapsed it mainly affected the Central Asian countries and Eastern Europe and Russia.
When the US collapses it will affect almost everyone in the world.
Thus the rest of the world has a big incentive not to allow a catastrophic collapse, but a gradual one.
Plus, the US has nuclear weapons and more importantly, a track record of using it to maintain its hegemonic position. It is inevitable that the US will use this option to avert any collapse.
With the collapse gathering pace, Trump should hurry up and build THE WALL.
THE WALL will be needed to keep in, all the young people who will want to flee the shithole.
No rebound can occur if you lose all the brains.
”THE WALL will be needed to keep in, all the young people who will want to flee the shithole.”
Dead right! Also gives some new fresh associations to ”Wall Street”, LOL.
Waiting for Godot, indeed. Vain hopes in a hopeless situation. The last stubborn illusion in a world dying from it’s delusions and myths and absurd lies.
”Eventually the USA will rebound…” Really? When most life on this planet is destroyed, and only a scarred wasteland remains? The false hopes that played such a major role in destroying our ability to confront the realities facing us, gives us one last vicious kick on our way out…..
Yep, it looks like the USA is pretty far along the historically well-trodden path in all 5 stages of collapse — the only real question is: “When does that magic moment occur?”
Back when I was in college in 1982, I was following world events then as I am now (though it was a helluva lot harder without the internet!). I made a case then with classmates and a couple of professors that the USSR would collapse, and not just because of its economic problems (couldn’t feed itself, had to import American wheat) or military troubles (the Afghan quagmire). The indicators that convinced me: declining average lifespans – unheard of in an industrialized nation, and mostly due to alcoholism – which was leading to declining population numbers. I wasn’t close on the timing: I thought the collapse wouldn’t happen until sometime after 2000, yet the USSR was gone just a decade later. Contrary to common belief about such things, when shit happens, it happens quickly….
I see a lot of similarities between then and now, imperial overreach leading to economic failure being the big one. The USSR had its alcoholism plague, but at least it had a well-functioning social safety net and a viable health care system. The results of the current obesity/diabetic/opioid overdose epidemic and disastrous health care/insurance system costs have been masked by the practically open borders immigration policy of the last few decades, keeping the overall US population number growing even as the (esp white) birthrate declines catastrophically.
Of course, few things are set in stone. The Communist nomenklatura of the USSR theoretically could have taken steps to address their empire’s problems and prevent its collapse, just as the USSA elites can theoretically do the same toady. Then again, if the Nazis hadn’t been Nazis they might have won WW II. Each political/social system has to operate within the constraints it has chosen; once certain decisions have been made, trends gain momentum and take on a life of their own, usually becoming unstoppable and irreversible. The trends toward a failed empire/failed state seem to be such in the USA today….
I don’t think the Imperialist States of Amerikastan will “rebound”. Far more likely that it will either disintegrate (the Northwest and California being the first to break away) or, in a desperate attempt to avoid said disintegration, start WWIII.
“In the meantime, the US ruling elites are locked into an ugly internal struggle which only further weakens the USA. ”
I would correct it as ” US and British ruling elites” which explains the current situation in the west much better and clearer. There is only one US elite cabal (the Yankee Doodle), but the British cabal (City of London) is powerful in EU but also in the US as well and should not be confused with the US elitist (which Trump is part of). A war is raging in between as we speak for the domination of the western hemisphere against a rising China, (the only superpower against the west) to confront the west. This explains the dynamics of today’s western world and politics.
BTW, there is a new book which talks about the internal dynamics of Russian politics and Kremlin for the last 20 years. It obviously reveals lots of details about Mr. Putin and his dealing and wheeling with Yeltsinist oligarchic cabal of Russia. I think it is an interesting read. Link is below for anyone who wants to have an updated look at Mr. Putin from a different angle and with a critical eye, in order to understand his actions especially in Syria and Donbass. He may not be a 5-dimensional chess player and the only true world leader after all, as consistently propagated by the Alt-Med.
https://russia-insider.com/en/best-purchase-russian-secrets-you-can-make-veteran-russia-correspondent-publishes-memoirs-john
I agree with those who think that the US will never arise again as a unified country. We will split up into parts. But I don’t think that we are collapsed yet. The trucks still provide food to the stores and even the homeless get enough to eat.
The US ruling class still has control of the world’s financial trading system, the Mighty Wurlitzer of propaganda, the internet and the petrodollar. To think that a gold-backed currency is more valuable that an oil-backed currency is to disregard the importance of oil in every industrial and transportation process.
Why would a static supply of a metal locked up in a vault be more valuable than the black gold that allows every productive enterprise to take place?
I think that the US will lose even more population than Russia did in the 90s. Not just from excess deaths, (which has already started), but from mass exodus, especially of recent immigrants who have a place to which they can return. But that will only happen when the food shipments stop, and they haven’t stopped yet.
So most of the immigrants are coming from Mexico and of the food we import, most of it comes from Mexico. Hmmm. The biggest reason for modern immigration is violence from the gangs or “cartels” (who started with drugs and then added extortion). This is vast and not covered in the US media. But ask your local Mexican-owned businesses in the US, and you are likely to hear harrowing accounts. Many say it’s the only reason they are here in the US.
If the new Obrador government could somehow get rid of the drug gangs, immigration would slow down greatly. I am amazed that Trump has been so brain-dead about Mexico, not offering to help Mexico get rid of these gangs.
As I understand it, there is now a net decrease in Mexican immigration, with more returning home than are coming here.
I was referring, though, to skilled immigrant labor, the million people a year that the US imports to do jobs that Americans want too much money to do.
Have you been to a hospital lately? How many doctors are US born? College? How many professors are US born? Tech company? Wall Street?
When the shit hits the fan, I assume that most skilled and professional labor will leave.
1. I haven’t seen any data suggesting that Mexican immigration has reversed. I”m keen to see any data you might have.
2. I get your point that you are talking about highly-skilled immigrants, and yes, they have alternatives to remaining here. For example, the norm used to be that Chinese graduate students simply remained in the US after graduation. Then, the norm changed and these recent graduates took work for a few years before returning to their homeland. Now, it’s common for Chinese graduates to take their first job in China because that’s where the opportunities are now.
3. Gold bullion versus gas and oil ? Russia has both in abundance, China has gold in abundance and can earn more because their products are competitive. It’s not clear whether the US has gold and gas & oil in abundance. Someone can work out the economics and energy-efficiency of fracking better than I. US gold reserves are a real question. Gold-coated tungsten bars were uncovered in one famous incident a few years ago, and the German central bank were told to wait a great many years to get their gold back, leading people to doubt the gold was actually in the US vaults.
My point is that oil is used every day, millions of barrels of oil, while gold sits in a vault and, as you point out, no one knows if it is really there and it doesn’t matter to daily commerce if it is or not. Which, then, is more important to industrial societies?
Having all oil sold in dollars means that every country in the world has to obtain dollars to buy oil, or live solely on human and donkey labor. This gives an enormous advantage to the US, as it gets the resources and products from other countries forced to sell to the US because they need dollars.
As for the other question…http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/
The premise of some that US will fall like the tottering giant in Jack And The Bean Stalk is, I think, not totally accurate. There is still a quite viable majority, I think Hillary Diane Rodham called them ‘deporables’, who at least to an extent harbor the old values instilled in much of USA before, during and even after the apex of American Culture from 1938 through roughly 1970. The problem is these deplorables have been relegated to a silenced majority by the incredibly ‘liberal’ ‘main stream media’.
However, it’s going to be a mess as any declining culture is, hegemon or not. I don’t think US will split or divide in to two or more countries although a substantial majority of those citizens with any sense left would not feel too sad if California was allowed to become The Autonomous Region of Moonbeam within the borders and Boston is right up there with ‘Federal Autonomous City’ status possibilities. When the resources to feed and power the overgrown and under producing cities along the borders north, south, east and west begin to thin out, that is when the true cultural meltdown will be seen. It will be every man for himself (oh dear, there’s me using a sexist, misogynous, toxic male, pelican abusing term) and it ain’t going to be pretty, nor will it be pretty when the opiates and meth aren’t so available and those who use them won’t have the money to pay for them anyway.
The big thing will be food in general and heat in winter. Think about that for a while, and try to come up with ways to accomplish supplies of both food and power, be it gas, electric, oil or coal with payment for same to cities full of millions and along supply routes that may not, no, WILL not, be all that secure. That will be when you see the real melt down of law and order and equality, you know, the very premise of what USA was built on.
Pity, really, such promise, so many possibilities, so much grandeur, and hope, thrown away with both hands.
Auslander
Author
Never The Last One. A deep look in to Russia, her culture and her Armed Forces, in essence a look at the emergence of Russian Federation. https://saker.community/product/never-the-last-one-a-novel-by-r-h-auslander-pdf-ed/
An Incident On Simonka. NATO is invited to leave Sevastopol, one way or another.
https://saker.community/product/an-incident-on-simonka-a-novel-by-r-h-auslander-pdf-ed/
I agree with much of what Auslander wrote, particularly with his suggestions about paying attention to basics…water, firewood or fuels, food…
There’s nothing so nice as a clean well and 10 cords of dry firewood with a pantry full of home-canning from the garden. Independent solar electric – if only a single kw, is also something fairly dependable, and good…I mean, how else pump water? (ours can be pumped by hand, though the idea of pumping by hand is something I do not wish to consider!).
But I see also that the core-country – pretty much the Atlantic Coast to the Ohio Valley and down to Florida is going to have great difficulties trying to hold the dominions of the west in thrall…
And I do not imagine that he fully appreciates the importance of “foreign interference” in the shaping of what we see as the US today. Most people are unaware of this.
Just as Britain and City of London have done, so also Imperial and Soviet Russia have done…though at this time these things are ignored and generally are “public secrets” known things to a few scholars.
Examples? British mechanizations in the “Civil War”…Lincoln’s magical assassination, and FDR’s – while the Russian Fleet saved the Union…and the Red Army stopped the nazi army…only to see the Brits sabotage the victory (as in the “Civil War”) by curating the “coldwar”.
There’s no reason I can find not to expect similar mechanizations to continue, probably with Chinese influence especially in districts West of Mississippi River.
How far and into what condition? We shall wait and see…but the established “stable empires” of Russia and China are well-led and smart…proved by History – and they avoid stupid. I expect that their interference will be invited and welcome because it will be beneficial to all. The Brits? “Not capable of contract” this says everything about them…
What the established empires do, what they decide, will be a big influence on the shape of whatever the US as a territory becomes, just as it has been in the past.
“I agree with much of what Auslander wrote, particularly with his suggestions about paying attention to basics…water, firewood or fuels, food…”
There is an old saw: Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. If you can’t get the beans and bullets to the line, the line is useless.
Same with civilian logistics, only much more complicated for civilians. All one has to do is look around one’s domicile and think what is needed to continue in today’s life style. Gas, electric, water, canalizatsya (sewage).
Food. How many ‘modern’ cooks know how to cook the basics with basic foodstuffs? How many men, women and children know what to do if the basics of life are not available 24/7 at the local quick mart? How many know how to obtain meats and vegetables the ‘old’ way, IOW slaughter a chicken, pig or cow or plant and harvest vegetables? Methinks the percentage is very low, less than 1%. If things get really bad, that is the basic survival percentage, one percent.
The main problem is the water and power grid, without that life as most know it stops instantly. How many houses in metropolitan areas, and even rural areas, have wells? Even if they have a well, 99.999% of the pumps are electric. If the power grid is down, how to pump the water? Interesting problem. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Auslander
We are in precise agreement!
Circumstance and character seem to me to define what people do, or maybe perceived circumstance if the propaganda machine of modern “Hollywood”.
Anyway we picked the best spot that we thought within our grasp, evidently so did you.
Part of our criteria was homogeneity in confession and class within an agricultural riparian zone. ie this place can manage, fuel, feed, fire and water, if it’s left alone. Of course you know about where on the Western Slope. Regrettably it’s also a critical military objective and zone, at least potentially, and a BFT as far as a “strategic target”…but we’re not dead yet, so maybe it won’t happen.
Regards
Our soil here is so rich you can put a rivet in the ground and it will grow an I beam. My wife plants in spring tomatoes, cucumbers and potatoes and this year she will do cabbage, too. Water is no problem, either, we have a well and an old one arm pump if electric is gone. Heat is no problem, with or without gas and electric. We are not unique in this little valley and if push comes to shove the Fleet can power our, north side, of city, the Soviet electric grid was set up for this and it’s still there and tested often.
If I was in US I would change nothing, we would be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.
Auslander
Aus, I agree with your comment in general, but:
1. You must have field to grow things, forest to burn in the winter.
2. You live in Krim, which has warm enough climate that winters are mild and you can grow things for many months.
So, going back to the subject. If things go bad, you have to make sure you have enough weapons and ammo, or components to make ammo to protect what you have or take the stuff from from those who have stuff but can’t defend themselves. Welcome to MadMax scenario. Lets prey this never comes to be.
This comment would seem to be alignment with my earlier comment regarding Kunstler’s ideas as to how to plan for a stormy future. Find a community in a decent locale that will pull together under leadership of people who have some know-how.
Katherine
@ Auslander
_ ” if basics of life are not availble 24/7… ”
It is very great danger present day civilisation will be faced with ,
present day men are ” spoiled ” by acceptance of kind of life as set up by capitalistc dogma of life recomended and posed to mankind.
Use more , waste more , and more,… Hwo cares for tomorrow generations ?
But there must inevitably come saturation point , peak in consumerism kind of life , and then fall_down. Fall of civilisation , if it continues this kind of life.
Unles mankind changes its behavior. No_Use more , no_waste more.
30 _40 % of food is not eaten , not used , but thrown away. We can do it !
Yes , water will be most difficult problem. Because humans poisoned it. Long ago.
Everything God made can be recycled. Everthing manmade not. All poisons.
One liter of detergent spolis thousands liters of water. Herbicides , pesticides,
All human made poisons , that unfortunately can last thousands years.
Like in sports , more speed , faster , faster. One day it would be expected of athlet to run 100 m for 1 second ? Could mans body reach that speed without drugs ?
And why should it ? Whats the point of world record at 100 m ? He is the best ?
Mankind has to slow down . no more rush for speed.
Do one family of 4 need 6 cars ? Do one family of 4 need 8 room home ?
And that 6 cars use so and so gasoline ?… Multiplied by number of cars , days , ?
For mostly unnecessary trips , merciless wasting __ usual kind of life …
Man discconected himsel from nature and associated to technical devices.
No connection to mother nature. But connection to demon of money.
So , yes present man could easily disapear if it does not remember his previous natural one. But no one now remember that natural , strong , patient , unselfish.
Who changes and return to natural life connected with all living beings , survive.
And those will form new mankind , in some new of social organisation.
When capitalism and its habits imposed to men , disapears. Maybe soon…
Like feudalism dissapeard.
Todays man remembers nothing , because their present memory is on pc hard drive.
Just bought a Bison hand pump for our well. Should arrive in 2-3 weeks and we have an experienced guy to install it. Hope everyone else on this list gets one, just in case.
Auslander
I am afraid you have indeed confirmed that the US will fall (and split) like a tottering giant when you stated that “it will be every man for himself”. And then what ? Will anybody living in states which made up the former Confederacy care what happens to a state like Montana or Washington ? I think not. Worse, how many times were national guards sent to quell race riots ? Who sent the US military into Los Angeles ?
You currently have secesionist movements in California, Texas and in the former states of the Confederacy, if not in other states as well. It’s debatable if secesionsit movements in the Confederacy ever died down. We have also seen the removal of Confederate monuments in former “Dixie Land”, the excuse being that they represent “racism”, even though the famous General Robert E.Lee was not a slave owner and spoke out against slavery. This removal of monuments was a foolish attempt to eradicate the existance of the Confederacy from peoples minds. It did the opposite. I don’t see the US holding together.
Regarding Lee:
1. Lee like all Virginia gentry had slaves. What he didn’t have was a plantation. Lee lived in Arlington, which was his wife’s dowry. His wife was descendant from Washington. The Federals turned Arlington into a cemetery to spite on Lee (and it remains one up to today).
2. Slavery was not the major reason for the Civil War (more correctly war of Northern Aggression). In fact, in 1860, most Republicans opposed the abolition of Slavery. The emancipation proclamation was only used by Lincoln after Antietam and only as a tactical move to stop Britain & France from recognizing the Confederacy. And it worked.
3. The funniest thing about Lee: Lincoln asked him to lead the Federal armies at the beginning of the war. Lee refused, because his duty was to his state—people back then had allegiance to States, not the Federal government. Clearly the fact that he had slaves meant nothing to Lincoln when he offered Lee the job.
The removal of confederate monuments is dumb for many reasons, including those you mentioned. Removing parts of your own history is never a good thing. Lee and Jackson were a brilliant pair, unmatched to this day in American military history in terms of what they managed to accomplish with the resources they had.
Thanos
According to what I have read, Lee did not possess slaves, although you could be right. I have been to Arlington, Lee’s home. The US Government turned it into a military cemetry out of revenge, because Lee in 1861 refused to take command of Federal forces.
The emancipation proclamation by Lincoln was not issued to prevent Britain and France from recognizing the Confederacy, but to weaken Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. After the procalamtion, troops were sent back to prevent any uprisings of freed slaves. As for Britain and France, they cancelled their plans of recognizing the Confederacy after Tzar Alexander sent the Russian Pacific Fleet to San Francisco and the Russian Baltic Fleet to New York, a point Western historians love to ignore. And yes, the civil war had nothing to do with slavery, as you had Afro-Americans who volunteered to fight for the Confederacy.
B. F.
I think you will see regions banning together if US splinters. Problem with that is the only region remaining with any kind of cohesion is the Old South, Texas and south coast and east of the Mississippi up to Virginia, perhaps even West By God will return to the family. Toss in the fact that an inordinate percentage of the tip of the spear of the US Army is from the Old South and one has the idea of a distinct possibility of ‘The South Shall Rise Again’. Hopefully the old values of USA will be preserved and yeah, I well know those ‘old values’ are open to vast interpretation, but genteel and mannerly tradition outweighs debauchery any day. 18 and 19 year old children will not decide anything of any import, be it the ‘question’ of monuments being destroyed or ‘pot’ being legal. Them days will be over in a heartbeat.
On the, decide which, plus or minus, side you will see the illegals summarily taken to the borders and put out. Productive ‘illegals’, maybe not, but the bums and back alley trash will be gone instantly, shoved back across whatever border they walked across. For those who didn’t leave when their travel visas expired, that is going to be an interesting problem, but when the horn of plenty dries up many of them will leave anyway. Any way you look at it, it’s going to be a helluva mess for some years.
Auslander
” and Boston is right up there with ‘Federal Autonomous City’ status possibilities. ”
What do you mean by this? Is it good or bad??
Curious, since I live near Boston . . .
Katherine
My lady, I live in a Federal City and it ain’t bad, ain’t bad at all. Moskau, St. Pete and now we get preferential treatment for infrastructure and amenities and many other benefits. Of course this being a Navy village has it’s advantages but who knows, if US falls apart it’s possible Boston might be more of a Navy town that it is now.
If Virginia and south splits, the remains of the east coast US Navy that don’t declare for The South can’t be based in Philadelphia regardless of the near facilities and the only other harbor besides NYC is Boston.
Auslander
NYC is no longer a functional harbor. All port & naval facilities are either museums (Brooklyn Navy Yard/Intrepid) or have been converted to “luxury” rentals/condos and other assorted hipsterized/gentrified stuff. The actual commercial port of NY has moved to Elizabeth, NJ.
But I guess if push comes to shove they can repurpose the cruise piers which still function as piers.
Now as to the hypothetical split…we’re all speculating here but I am not sure Virginia would go with the South this time. It’s too close to DC and is firmly attached to DC’s money spigot & associated criminal/amoral/evil activities. Perhaps the southern parts of Virginia are different, but Newport News is still too close to DC.
Anonymous
As the old saying goes, money talks. When the dollar crashes, Virginia will have no reason to look towards Washington DC. It will look south.
IMO, the key component is cultural, which I see as being fundamentally dysfunctional globally with very few exceptions for several millennia. The truth is the USA has never had a functional culture, nor do I see one emerging after collapse. Thanks for the excellent essay. Ironic that the ruling philosophy of Zerosumism will cause the Outlaw US Empire’s bankruptcy.
USA is far gone. Look at reaction to attempted withdrawal from Syrian. Critics ignoring that Iraq is demanding US troops leave Iraq, which means no supply line to Syria. The inanity of trying to set up “Rojava”, when 70% of populace are Arabs who do not want to be 2nd class citizens in a Kurd ethno state. Turkey threatening to move against the Kurds. There is no upside to trying to create “Rojava”, yet all across political spectrum Trump is denounced as a traitor for wanting to make a common sense move. Most republican politicians do not make any pretense about worrying whether it is good for USA, but about Israel. USA is far along in social/ political collapse, whether the Beast takes the world with it or Babylon alone is destroyed is hard to see.
Thus opens a forgotten book…
“.. financial and industrial troubles that had vexed the United States of America for so long a time were about to culminate in civil war.
Wealth had grown so strong, that the few were about to strangle the many, and among the great masses of the people, there was sullen and rebellious discontent.
The laborer in the cities, the producer on the farm, the merchant, the professional man and all save organized capital and its satellites, saw a gloomy and hopeless future.
With these conditions prevailing, the graduation exercises of the class of …” You get the idea…
full text? http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6711/6711-h/6711-h.htm
And a discussion of the book? Corbett’s done it again! https://www.corbettreport.com/philip-dru-flnwo-23/
(and yes, it’s on topic…and no, I do not imagine Gospodin Orlov knows the book. It does raise, however, the question of Time…the book is about 100 years old – given this, how should we see the “continuum”?)
The internal contradictions are old, intrinsic and deadly? Maybe…
One sector of the Hegemon that is very difficult to analyze is the Volunteer Military.
As the government implodes and the society stratifies, the bulk of military will choose.
Stay and work to hold the Government Tyranny and suppress the People, or join one side or the other.
The US has always been scotch taped or bostitched at the seams.
The Heartlands vs the Coasts is now a cliche, but absolute.
Wealth and Power are on the coasts, as are the important heavy industries related to the MIC.
The key commodity in a future civil war will be potable water. See where these resources reside.
Energy is subject to total collapse in such a war. Electrical grid will be down swiftly, hacked by outsiders, most probably. Gas pipelines will be sabotaged. Just follow a map of Kinder Morgan nexuses.
If the flow of drugs is cut, millions of Americans will rampage to get their fix.
Food will be an issue for more than two-thirds the population within a week.
Without a cohesive military, the US will tear itself apart in a few months.
It has been an illusion of Union for a long time. The double cross of the People by the governing elites has sown the utter destruction of the society.
The original civil war was a blood feast on the battlefields.
The next civil war will be blood feast in the suburbs and cities. Many millions will die.
Only foreign intervention will stop it once it gets going.
When Caesar cast the die at the Rubicon he was leading an intact army into Rome…because of similar mis-management. The soldiers were farmers whose farms were stolen, Caesar was loyal to the Army and to the Republic…and what came then?
In the present example there is no Caesar…and the experts say that the only reasonably cohesive military the US has is the Marines – that in a real war they’d last a few months – while the rest either play cards or get liquidated, maybe both. Surface ships are simply coffins. The trained soldiers are essentially mercenaries already – they have a trade – they’ll try to get jobs in their trade. Others? Become bandits? Anybody can predict their behavior. Many will simply go home and do their best in a situation that looks a lot like betrayal…what do you think their politics will be?
As to civil disorder…serious trouble? Two weeks without electricity and it’s adios amigo for most of the country and all the cities. Even if they managed to prevent any nukes cooking off.
Messy, eh?
Well, it ain’t happened yet. Not everything bad happens…
Too optimistic, to credit Americans with any gumption — and fighting-back is ineffective when you are your own enemy. I would suggest that the real revolution was declared full-swing, in 2017, followed shortly by the creation of the victorious red army of the proletariat, being preceded by the militias; and now in its second year, the civil war is showing a resounding and exuberant victory right-round the corner. The courts and prisons are being reshaped too, to deal justice swiftly to the perpetrators of this plight — lenin would be proud.
There will be no foreign intervention per se, the country is simply too large and the populace too well armed for any foreign troops to control.
I think that the Real Army, the dedicated troops, not the ‘contractors’, will defend the Institution of USA, not the political hierarchy. The quasi military civilian police, they are an unknown. Some are very good, some very not good. The main thing everyone should pray for is will there be a dedicated cadre of patriotic soldiers who will defend and keep secure the massive amounts of nuclear and chem/bio weapons stashed all over hell and creation in SehSha no matter what comes, similar to what happened in Russia during and after the meltdown.
However, I did have a conversation with a fellow hobbyist back in early summer about this very subject. He was very clear that his little town in Deplorable Land was already quietly planning and he said law enforcement was squarely on the side of the planners, aka ‘deplorables’.
Of note is he clearly stated that all the career criminals and drug dealers were known to the police and the locals and come the breakdown of viable ‘power’ in DC and and his AO, the next day there would be no criminals and no drug dealers in his little town. He was adamant that the dealers and criminals would not be shot down in the streets, they would be picked up and imprisoned for the duration, however long that ‘duration’ may be. I would aver that his little berg is not the only one contemplating such a move, and when I played devil’s advocate and asked about all the druggies who will go through difficult and painful withdrawal, his reply was tough s//t, they knew better and did it anyway.
Bottom line, the real army I think will stay loyal, but I don’t think you’ll see any of them willing to fire on the populace and I can guaranty you that will eventually be in the cards. If they do shoot, the fight will be on and it will be Army against Army and civilian against civilian. That will be the end of USA as we knew it.
Auslander
Auslander
Yes, the country is too large for any foreign military intervention. However, there would be no need for any foreign military intervention. For example, both Russia and China are watching the internal situation in the US and drawing up conclusions. Why would they intervene if the country was to break up, as it probably will ?
Yes, the population is too well armed. However, this is also a very dangerous fact. What is a well armed population capable of doing in a crisis ? Against whom will it turn it’s guns, if need be ?
As for the US military, it’s a professional military working for wages, namely the US dollar. What is going to happen when the dollar crashes, as analysts have been warning for years ? Will those troops stay in their military units, or will they take their guns and go home to protect their families ? In 2005 Katrina flooded New Orleans. How did the police respond ? Only 25 % came to work, while 25 % went on a looting rampage. The remaining 50 % stayed home, protecting their families. I fear a simular thing will happen with the US military.
I myself have heard stories along the lines Auslander’s described. I am fairly sure our local sheriff has plans for road-blocks, which for us is easy, and also lists of the local farmer’s to be invited to become emergency deputies under his authority. For us already there’s essentially no drug problem. Most of the druggies, the serious ones, not the occasional ones, can’t really live here. It’s too difficult. Of course the marijuana is ubiquitous, but it’s irrelevant. Even respectable people grow some in their gardens and make salves and remedies, and almost never sell or smoke it. For myself I am delighted that the community is pretty well equipped for at least moderate trouble, as farmer and gun-owner mean the same thing, and this is farm country. There are basically 4 roads, all chock full of choke points and cover, with good arty positions in 500 meter high nearby hills. As to opiate addicts, most use commercial “doctor prescribed” drugs, which would simply stop. Opiate withdrawal is something experienced addicts do regularly – they say it’s like having a bad case of flu, it’s not terrible, just unpleasant. Most addicts will manage the transition rather well, I expect their health will improve. In fact they’ll be so busy with immediate problems, water, food, fuel, they’ll sail right through withdrawal and hardly notice it. Hard-core heroin dealers? I suppose there must be a few…and I am sure they too would simply be overwhelmed by urgent personal affairs and a cutoff in their supplies would simply stop the business. If not? The deputies will have a chat with them – of one sort or another. The cops ’round here are pretty fast with a gun, if you get my meaning. Most are pretty fair-minded.
But places like “LA”? It would be horrible. In fact it already is. Pretty much from San Diego north to just past Sacramento would be totally fubar and seething with violence. There I’d expect lots of murder and lots of fighting and arson and, in time, gallows on the court-house lawn, with a vast reduction in population that has nothing to eat and little water, etc. All the factors are in place for such a fubar…
I too have considered the possible ways the army may go, and it seems to me somewhat, at least potentially, like the Soviet time may give us clues for America. Particularly I want to remind people about Aleksei Brusilov, whose “letter in Pravda” is said to have made a big difference, that and his actions follow the letter, the decision.
wiki of General B > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksei_Brusilov
Dima on Crosstalk suggested something along these lines…
Yes, much of the Army will be loyal to their oath, and their homes. Governments come and go, the Country abides.
P,
Oath can be interpreted many ways, which does not exclude the possibility of dropping fat a$$es in Washington for the people.
Auslander, regarding nuclear,chemical,biological weapons and facilities. When the Ukraine crisis flared and Nato started exercises near the Russian border Russia answered by recreating 1st Tank Guard Army and with an increase in number of paratroopers to 72.000 servicemen. Yes, they could be deployed but they need to be reinforced after that. I could not see where they could be deployed where standard infantry could not be sent already. It did not add up somehow.
At the time i was puzzled by the second decision, even more so when the official story mentioned that they can be dropped anywhere around the globe within 14 hours. Russian statements are work of art by themselves and those 14h bothered me until now for that number seemed out of place in that statement.
Now, it does seem that Russia was preparing for the chaos in USA. Not to exploit it but to prevent those weapons and facilities to fall in wrong hands in the case that chaos reaches such magnitude that government is unable to provide security for them. It goes without saying that something like that must pass approval in UN Security Council first.
Regarding use of arms by the Government against civilians. First they will order Police in. Army would be next,along with the National Guard. If they had trouble shooting, they will bring mercenaries in. Final straw would be when they release prisoners and arm them. If anyone have trouble believing that, just look where the US plundered and pillaged and what their allies did at the behest of Hegemon.
An excellent article. However, I would like to add a few points:
The Soviet Union collapsed not only due to deficiencies in it’s central economic planning, but also because it was composed of territories which should not have been part of it. The Russian Federation, on the other hand, can never collapse, because it has more than 1.000 years of history, tradition and culture behind it, which is not the case with the US. True, Russia lost people and territories after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it’s only a matter of tim before these territories are reunited with Russia.
Dmitry Orlov does not mention the American Civil War of 1861-1865, which historians basically explain as a fight against slavery, which is absurd, as slavery existed in the US since it’s inception. The reason the US broke up in 1861 was due to monetary reasons (the industrial North wanting to turn the South into it’s own internal colony), as well as due to cultural reasons. The original US was almost entirely created in the South, whose backbone was the English-French culture. In fact the English spoken in “Dixie Land” is English with a French accent. This is not the case in the North, where you have artificially created administrative units known as “states”, and this also apllies to many of the Western states. When the South seceded in 1861, it stated that it was different to the North, it’s culture being superior, which is true.
Dmitry Orlov states that “cultural and social collapse are very far along”. I have to disagree. The birth rate of the Latin ethnic groups in the US is on the rise, while the birth rate of the non Latin ethnic groups is falling. Secondly, the “winner take all” mentality of the US corporations and banks has succeeded in reducing the size of the middle class in the US, while impoverishing the working class. According to analysts, 1/3 of the US labor force in 2018 “was out of work” (yes, official Government figures state that unemployemnt is falling, but only because the US Government is playing with numbers). How many factories has Trump reopened ? Now compare his “achievement” in the US with the real achievements of Vladimir Putin in Russia. Who has improved infrastructure ? Trump or Putin ?
The Saker has stated that the US will rebound. I have to disagree with this as well. I lived in the US on two occasions. During my first stay I saw a country which was basically functioning from the economic and financial point of view. After a 20 year absence, I returned to the US, and was shocked with what I saw: highways cracking up, bridges cracking up, bridges going rusty and a very dispondent and demoralized population.
In 1998 Igor Panarin, Dean of the Russian Diplomatic Academy, published his famous map of the break up of the US into six parts. The map is basically correct, except that he left a few of the former “Dixie” states outside “Dixie Land”, which is not accurate, nor logical.
In “Dixie Land” there is a saying that the South will rise again. It probably will, as it’s the only part of the US which has history and tradition behind it, the exception being the Spanish/Mexican parts of the South-West. During the past two years we have seen the removal of Confederate monuments in the South, the excuse being that they are “racist”. The true reason was for people to forget that the Confederacy ever existed. A foolish thing to do. By removing he monuments, people were just reminded that the Confederacy did in fact exist.
Finally, an artificial creation cannot last indefinately. I am afraid that the days of the US in it’s present form are numbered.
Comrade Panarin’s map > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Panarin#/media/File:Panarin.svg
parrhesiastes
There are a number of versions of Panarin’s map on the break up of the US. The version which you pointed out is misleading, as it implies that most of the former Confederacy would end up as part of Mexico, which is not the case. Panarin stated that the future Republic of Texas would be influenced by Mexico. He did not mean that all of “Dixie Land” would end up in Mexico, when there is no historical basis for this.
I agree…the url I proffered is simply one of a variable set, and it is also the one “wiki” gives…and wiki is always a suspect source. I ought to have pointed these things out, and appreciate your doing it.
To most American’s eye the wiki / Panarin map is shocking.
To my own eye it seems probably inaccurate, as such details as post hoc borders cannot be reliably predicted.
I would expect, for example, that ties between China and the West Coast would parallel Russian ties to the west coast. The Russian Imperial Fleet stood guard on the west coast during the Northern War of Aggression, there are plans for railroad links under Bering Strait to link said coast to Siberia and Heartland. This is not reflected in the wiki map… Anyway I expect that a working knowledge of both Chinese and Russian might be a smart thing for US west-coast persons to acquire… I am inclined to learn some more Russian, anyway, even though I am so old that I shall probably miss the party…
Nevertheless I did buy a Soviet Flag and a Chinese Flag, so whichever one dominates I can have the correct flag if I need it… (Soviet Flag? Yeah, call me old fashioned…I miss the USSR. It brought some stability to America. It was good for the ordinary US working class.)
@ BF
“The Soviet Union collapsed not only due to deficiencies in it’s central economic planning, but also because it was composed of territories which should not have been part of it.”
While I totally agree with you, I hate to disagree with you, for only one region (Ukraine Oblast).
In fact the Ukraine, the cradle of the Russ people, or Kievan Rus, was a territory that should be part of Russian Federation, because Kievan Rus is the cradle of the Russian People.
Kievan Russ was the early, mostly East Slavic state dominated by the city of Kiev from about 880 C.E. to the middle of the twelfth century. People speaking East Slavic dialects were known from the ninth century as Rus (also referred to as ancient Russians or Ruthenians).
The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980-1015) and his son Yaroslav I the Wise (1019-1054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda. Kievan Rus played an important role not only in the development of Russia, but in Europe as well.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/File:Kievan_Rus_en.jpg
What vent wrong:
The beginning of the end of Ukraine Oblast, as a part of Russian Federation started with the Potsdam Conference.
The winners of WW2 decided to move Poland 200 km West bound, up to the Oder-Neisse Line. But Poland wasn’t an Iceberg in the middle of an Ocean that belongs to nobody.
Moving the Ukraine to the Curzon LINE this added the eastern Poland to Ukraine, with non Russian Population of 10,640,000 and an Area of 70,049 sq mi.
This reshaped (modified) the Ukraine population, turning Russians from the majority to minority.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Vertreibungsgebiet.jpg
Oder-Neisse Line and Germany’s postwar territorial Losses.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Oder-neisse.gif
During 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum, voters in Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, and Odessa Oblasts and Crimea opposed the Ukrainian independence, but as a minority, they couldn’t stop the secession of Russian Cradle from the Russian Federation.
If during the Potsdam conference, not only Poland, but also the border of Russian Federation would be moved 200 km West, the Novorossyia could be saved.
Anonymous
Yes, Kiev was the capital city of the original Russian state. If you read my comment, you will see that I wrote that Russia will regain the territories it lost. You have in fact confirmed what I wrote. Current Ukraine is built on about 75 % of historical Russian land.
This is a great read.
In 2015, despite the most spending per person, US life expectancy ranked the lowest in its peer group.
The US and Serbia are the only developed nations whose maternal mortality rates have increased since 1990.
I would think the increased rates in Serbia is due to depleted uranium from NATO bombing.
Info from National Geographic. Deep State missed censoring this article!
The decline continues.
Serbia’s birth rate has been declining for decades, pre-1999 NATO aggression & is due, like the US (but for very different reasons) a socio-economic-cultural collapse. Pre WW2 Serbia’s population was overwhelmingly rural peasantry, self sufficient subsistence farmers – their birth rate was very high – this was in part due to high child mortality rates plus the conscious sense of urgency to repopulate the country after the catastrophic loss of half the male population during WW1. Post WW2 however the Marxist regime embarked on a rapid industrialisation/urbanisation policy which saw a vast movement of the rural peasantry migrate internally from the villages to the towns & cities. The birth rate damatically slowed during the 1960s, 70s & ever since. My great grandmother had 11 children, 5 survived. My grandmother had 3 and my mother 2, although I was born in the UK so I don’t count myself. But the reason the Serbian population is on the decline is mostly socio-economic, & part cultural political. The industrial market economy has caused social upheaval around the world the likes of which have never been seen & the results differ, but are sometimes similar, from country to country. I believe the UK, like the US, has experienced a social collapse, largely for socio economic reasons again, to get into that would be a very long story. I am not understating what criminal effects the NATO bombing had on my ancestral homeland however, but the social collapse there is a long process, ongoing for decades – economic sanctions in the 90s, these were devastating as well.
How do you explain the decrease in the maternal mortality rates for Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Ukraine, Albania etc.?
@ Vor
_” serbia birthrate has been declining _ ”
Many reasons .
i am not expert on demography themes , but i dare say few words. Few points.
Maybe help you somehow.
Serbs , are very old tribe .
like it happened to many , tribes now dissapeared from earth , their initial genetic specifics that lasted those thousand of years is ” thining ” nowdays. Dissolving.
Until their role is completed. When role is completed , they will disappear also.
During those thousand of years they mixed with others , genetics that was transfered to others formed other new tribes , nowdays different nations.
But during those ages many of those carryng those primal serbian genes , died and those genes were not transferred. Lost. Discontinuation of transfer. Genetic lines.
So there were less and less ones with those genes. Strong primary ones.
Second , speciffic genes do not transfer directly from generation to generation.
Sometimes they skip two , three , four generation , than at 5 th generation trasnsfer.
So all today serbs are not serbs with all those genes. All do not have those genes.
They are called srebs but are not serbs by genetic content. Not gene carriers.
Destiny takes its role. For some specific situation specific person has to be born.
Then those genes come into action. United . Leader for liberation of nation is born.
Like Vozd Karadjordje. Serbs lived as slaves for 430 years under turk. But then turning point for nation came to its time. There was Vozd born , ready to start fight for liberation. For hundreds of years before him no such person was born. Leader.
Of course there are those ” socio economic reasons ” . making people so insecure.
They in desparation thinking , why should i have a child , when he cannot live like a man , but as as slave. Proud but not strong persons. Not ready for batlle , yet.
Before bombing serbia was for several years under economic sanctions , on softening , hermetiçally sealed . to weaken will for resistance. For counter fight.
When nato speciaslist concluded sebia is ready to capitulate , they started a small war against serbia , than occupied it. And continue with decimating serbs.
And now children are to be born under occupation. To be born as slaves.
Only very brave parent dare to have children under such circumstances.
More than 1 or 2. So carriers of transfer of genes decline and decline. Aim of nato.
_ ” criminal effects ,… nato bombing_ ”
Those were not criminal effects.
Those were actions of canibals.
Killing wild beasts. Poisoning serbian genes with uranium.
For a wild rabid beast you can not say : you are criminal.
That would offend animal.
Animal kills to survive. But kill only as necessary, minimaly victims.
But nato killed to terminate serbian genetic line.
@ Vor
lines you wrote tell that you are worried about destiny over serb tribe.
Yes , there are strong elements to support those conclusions.
But , there are also elements giving strength to those who despair.
Elements of God’s will.
Of course God knew what suffering is before His serb tribe.
Maybe you did not know , but serb tribe is also called : ” heavenly ” ones.
Serbs are tribe God assigned special duties , task , heavy load on their backs.
Maybe you do not know , but serbs have calendar of their own , unique on earth.
Calendar dating this year , as year 7528 , by serb counting of years. Very Old tribe.
So , how God helped his tribe with special duties ?
And accompanyng hard days before them…
He dispersed serbs among other nations. Hidding them among mass of others.
Maybe you do not know , there are about 6 milions serbs in homeland serbia , core of tribe. But there are nowdays , about 5 millions serbs in states all around globe.
Masked. Protected. Awaiting for duties to be fullfilled.
So serbs under hunt from all his ancient evil enemies , disperse all around world.
To protect those special genes God imprinted them. For some new battles in future.
For in deep history serbs were powerful tribe , mighty warriors , all feard from them.
But still there are those who are afraid of them. But nowdays hunters greatly outnumber hunted ones. Hunters are still afraid of those they hunt. Hunters kill whoever they get. But never statisfied with their efforts. Not enough of serbs killed.
For enemy knows one serb can move path of destenies of many nations.
Remember Gavrilo Princip , Franc Ferdinand killed , start of Ww1.
Present day living serbs are not only serbs that were hardly able to endure strengh of heavy load of difficulties . hundreds of years dificultis , hundred of years were slaves. Sufferings , humiliations , hunger , wars , pains ,
So they tried to get help from songs they wrote , they felt giving them hope to survive. I will write you those couple of verses _ you remember them well :
” горе над нама СРБско је небо
на њему СРБски седи Бог ,
око њег СРБи анђели лебде ,
дворе СРБина Господа Свог ” …
Those are desperate words of men under greatest suffer ,
but awaitig for strength and encouragement , to endure , not to surrender.
from no one on earth , but from Heavenly Fateher , their only hope.
So we can hope and strongly belive that we are still under His protection.
And that numbers and statistical data do not alway contain real values.
There are values beyond numbers.
I could also tell you about ” Prayer ” written by sincere , honest serb , but broken :
” о Боже мој Велики Силни и Недостижни, дај ми језик , дај ми Крупне и Големе Ријечи које душмани не разумију.
Да се исплачем и изјадикујем над црним удесом свога Народа и Земље своје.
Поклони ми Ријечи Господе , Крупне и Замашне ко брда хималајска , Силне и Моћне ко небески громови и оштре и језиве ко Свјетлице Божије , и тирјанима неразумљиве , ко што су неразумљива Сфинга египатска Роду Човјечанском.
Дај ми ријечи и обдари ме , Господе мој , тијем даром Својим великијем и Милошћу Својом неизмјерном , јер ће ми срце свенути , јер ће ми се душа од
превелике туге и жалости разгубати ! … “. ( ” Молитва ” , Петар Кочић )
The number of children that a woman bears has been falling everywhere where female emancipation and education have been achieved, and where material standards of living have improved. Even in ‘theocratic’ Iran. This is, of course, a very good thing, as human over-population is one of the drivers of the ecological Holocaust that will, barring some miracle, end human residency on this planet, very shortly.
I think the most wise position is to try to find a pathway from empire to just a normal country that values is traditions and finds institutions which generate enough babies which will honor the tradition into the future. Trying for eternal empire will only end in true disaster. And if the US fails to find a path the a normal country (maybe like Portugal in some respects) we will end up with a balkanized set of cannons that have their own culture and are insular in an attempt to preserve their subculture. This alternative is not so bad. The union itself can be preserved as a vehicle to do common negotiations for trade, but this kind of weak political union thing usually results in another attempt at empire as forces are again concentrated in the hands of a new more clever ruling clique. (on ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them). Pakistan and India had to split. The cantons in Switzerland had to separate Protestant from Catholic. No crying about ethnic cleansing please. It’s probably the only path to peace and prosperity. (And walls to make sure they endure) There will be period of terrible strife to reorganize into this model, but if the multicultural empire model fails- we have to go somewhere. A terrible possibility is world war III which which destroys so much that radical reorganization is possible.
The Saker’s on fire saying: “she was a bad eggpire that’s going down the garbage chute”!
Good Riddance, eggpire run by first rate f’tards!
I fully expect the US stocks markets to keep going down the garbage chute to more 52-week lows later this year after the current rally craps out at the falling 200 day moving average.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqsy7V0wphI
Semi-devil’s advocate. If the ‘global force for good’ were to fall on our collective heads (the sky were to fall) how will, really, the great nations of the earth respond? — Thanksgiving and relief, blessed rejoicing in new found freedoms . . . how about launching a little war? — What about all out ‘modern’ war; nuclear, biological, and population obliteration tactics . . . this is the logical conclusion. It is a future fact.
I loved this article, but some comments …jeez. I mean, having black hispanic or asian population suddenly destroys this White good ol America some of the commenters dream about? What a bunch of rascists! Really, read what you write. I can perfectly say that the America i dream about no longer exists because of all the white people displacing the indigenous people. Some people is really hypocrital. When i read that, i really doubt that you will be in our side when the feces hit the fan.
My thoughts exactly. Whiteys soiling their pants, throwing tantrums as per Massa’s instructions. With ”angry people” such as these, Oligarchy is perfectly safe from the proverbial ’enemy within’. The rotten edifice will have to be smashed from without; think the Red Army in april 1945.
Re: “I have lived in the USA from 1986-1991 and from 2002 to today and there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the country has undergone a *huge* decline over the past decades. In fact, I would argue that the USA has been living under E1 condition since at least Dubya and that this process dramatically accelerated under Obama and Trump. I believe that we reached the E2 “edge of the table” moment in 2018.”
True. I’ve lived here almost my entire life –70+ years– and almost no one I know or read thinks otherwise. It is obvious. The rot set in in earnest in the 60’s, although all the seeds of destruction and perversion were in place almost at the country’s beginning.
Orlov’s knowledge of fiat money is useless, for it pertains to the gold standard Bretton Woods regime. “Libertarians” still hold to this view.
The concern about federal debt is misplaced. It is assumed that the government as well as the private sector rely on dollars lent to us by foreigners. The terrible day will come when the Chinese–for example–will demand payment (or else they will “dump” dollars, creating a dollar crash.
However, the US government does not borrow dollars from China. In fact it doesn’t borrow dollars from anyone. It is the sovereign issuer of the dollar. All dollars originate in the US. China exports to the US and accumulates dollar reserves, which it exchanges+ for Treasuries, with earn a greater return. A country sovereign in its currrency is not a household or a private enterprise. It does not earn its own currency which it issues. It can only be indebted in a foreign currency. The sovereign issuer of the currency cannot “run out” of it, as Barak Obama once stupidly asserted. Also, and contrary to popular opinion, ithe federal government doesn’t “need” tax money to buy or outfit itself in the private sector. Rather, when it wishes to buy, it credits accounts. Taxes serve a very different function in a fiat regime than is imagined by the public and by the mass media.
See:
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/06/something-rotten-state-denmark-rise-monetary-cranks-fixing-aint-broke.html
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/07/debt-free-money-non-sequitur-search-policy.html#more-8381
Seven Deadly Frauds of Economic Policy (June 17, PDF Link)
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2015/12/debt-free-money-banana-republics.html
http://moslereconomics-kg5winhhtut.stackpathdns.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2015/12/debt-free-money-banana-republics-part-two.html
THE VALUE OF REDEMPTION: DEBT-FREE MONEY PART 3
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2016/02/value-redemption-debt-free-money-part-3.html
DEBT-FREE MONEY PART 4: AMERICAN COLONIAL CURRENCY
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2016/02/debt-free-money-part-4-american-colonial-currency.html
Semi-sane redux. Take these five steps of mental dis-enlightenment, above, and project them forward onto each square meter of the flat-earth map; allowing for a non-uniform uptake, and differential growth rates of certain metastasis; and the empire-collapse is now a global-collapse, as it is a global empire; after all, its collapse is ours too, and it’s insanity lives in us, in everyone, the sickness of empire is pandemic — behead the mother, and a thousand gorgon heads will spring from the monsters side, all more hideous and revolting than the first, and more limited.
Stephen Cohen analyzed the reasons of USSR dissolution
http://www.gorby.ru/en/presscenter/news/show_28867/
Basically, it was a power struggle between Gorbachev & Yeltsin with Yeltsin illegally dissolving the Union at Belozova Forest in order to gain power (Russian Presidency).
Then, it was the elites/nomenklatura who wanted to seize the state assets through privatization. The socialist ideology & institutions of USSR was a great obstacle and therefore they did not stop the dissolution.
If the above reasons were not in place, USSR & eastern bloc will still be around at 2019.
The soviet economy did not collapse, it was very stable.
The decline of economic activity happened after 1990 with the introduction of rogue oligarchic capitalism , the decline of eastern bloc trade & the cessation of internal economic links between the soviet republics.
Not correctly accredited on ZH it seems.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-11/orlov-placing-usa-collapse-continuum
Hilarious.
It’s not the USA that’s being collapsed but US and Euro middle classes. You’d think an avowed Marxist like Orlov would pick up on this much at least.
The USA will not collapse but expand to include all echelon nations. This has long been inevitable although the turn against China marks the true start of a new epoch. Eric Arthur Blair’s promised tripartite world order is already established as the basis of all geoplitical calculations, regardless of the role we are told is played by the USA or other nation states.
Nor will the USD be destroyed anytime soon because that will invite the immediate creation of a Cryto-Greenback. Collapsing the current USD would so disempower Zionist Ultras they wouldn’t dream of doing it in the absence of a World War or Solar catastrophe. Globalists, especially those residing in the City of London, have no other good option to preserve their power but to keep the USD, and so they will.
Stage 1: Cultural collapse. Faith in “the goodness of humanity” is lost.
Happened in the 1950s and 1960s with the rise of communist conspiracy theory cracpots brainwashed by imperialistic neconservatives / neo liberals (bastardization of classical liberalism). The left gave up on the white population because paranoid whites already did so.
Stage 2: Social collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost.
A portion of the youth not willing to be cannon fodder turned to liberalism (and drugs thanks to CIA infiltration).
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost.
Rise of Rambo Ray-guns and everything since then. The idea that government cannot do anything right anymore. Vietnam, stagflation, etc.
Stage 4: Commercial collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost.
Millennials voting for Sanders who would have won honest elections with paper ballots. Wanting a functioning federal government for the first time in decades. The Loud Generation and even worse still BABIES boomers, the most hypocritical generations in world history who turned on their own and eat their young vehemently opposed to updated roughly analogous policies they benefited from in the 1946-1990 period.
Stage 5: Financial collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost.
Finally about to happen. To deal with 1929, 2000 or 2008 a drop in interest rates of 5-6% is needed. What we have today are several reflated bubbles and new ones such as CLOs, student debt, auto loan debt. This is easily three times worse and you are not getting an 18% drop from three percent discount rate to negative fifteen.
A metaphor for US versus Russia – Don’t poke the bear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAnrsCOeNUM
Priceless!!!! What a great video
Withdrawal of US forces Afghanistan will have profound unseen knock-on consequences for the US financial system. This because the US military and diplomatic missions are used as conduits for opium (ie heroin) trafficking on a vast scale. This trade creates a hidden but crucial demand for US dollars and laundering this revenue is a major source of liquidity for Wall Street entities. Ask Catherine Austin-Fitts about this. The end of the occupation of Afghanistan will lead to a US financial collapse within a few months.
From the lastest Wikileaks documents I’d guess that the US uses Iraq as a major drug distribution hub.
Emotion clouds judgment and oversimplifies reality, cutting out the anomalies and exceptions wherein lie happier, more intelligent outcomes than catastrophic collapse many here yearn for, even though the effect could very well be mass death in the millions or even billions…which is a number you can’t contain in North America…in some sort of Great Cleansing Emetic or Global Flushing of American Stink down the toilet.
I don’t think you can call a win or loss, success or failure in the first half.
Which is the first Two years of a single term .
Or First Quarter if it is to be two terms.
American Deplorables and Brit soccer hooligans will understand.
Too early to call the game. But it surely will be a cliff hanger, full of drama and surprises.
Agreed that the privileged sons and daughters of the opium running Yankee Clippers of New England, whose fathers owned the slower hellship slave traders, despite “Amazing Grace” confessionals among a very,very few of them are immersed in Darkness, Satanic Egoism, ………….and not too likely to ever See the Light or know ANY Grace. The egoic miserable wretches:
https://www.anointedlinks.com/amazing_grace.html The Story of John Newton
The solution to the riddle can not lie in them.
The bulk of people ANYWHERE are usually not that great, mind you. It is The Few Better Ones that might lead the others in a better direction….off the Empire Plantation of the Enslaved Mind.
The Anti-Zionist Jew. The Anti-Empire Brit. Look for people who are the anomaly ….not the disappointing rule.
The American whose ancestors were kidnapped, shackled and thrown in the hold of one of John Newton’s slave ships on the west coast of Africa, bound for wretched, stinking in urine and excrement passage to New Orleans or Savannah, Georgia slave auction??? Not quite the rule, I wouldn’t think:
https://youtu.be/20PrHAhafYw?t=34
It’s only possibly the First Quarter, sports fans.
But don’t grab you pop corn. Put your pads and cleats on and get out there on the field…..at least mentally and deal with the uncomfortable fact that The Donald may be taking on some root of enslavement….you might just be ducking….not taking into account AT ALL…… in your oversimplified, more emotional than reasoned, self loathing American approach which the black gentleman producer of this little video of a third of a million views…..and counting….is at the very least….a slight bit.more free of.
That is the thinking of beneficiaries of the status-quo, or at least the least affected by it.Mass deaths of millions have already taken place(and continues to take place in Syria,Yemen,Ukraine,Afghanistan,Libya,etc.) under the status-quo, due to the Empire.
Just to say that I posted on indicator of Collapse at Cafe…related to topic here but more general. WSWS and so forth…
The federal workers are unpaid for nearly a month…and many stopped coming to work…
It may be accidental, but it’s headed to serious crises…soon.
Longer this government shutdown goes on more will people realize gangrenous nature of this easy-to-do-without entity.
It is hard for me to believe that the Government Shutdown would indicate a serious crisis coming soon.
While most Americans Believe that Democrats are socialist, they are dead wrong.
The Socialism is the State Capitalism, and for this to happen the Proletariat Dictatorship is a must. Plus the working class must have a voice.
Democrats are Globalist, and are working hard to complete their agenda (NWO).
That means Open Borders, Free Trade, and a world organized in 10 regions where:
Region #1 is North America, composed by Canada, USA, and Latino America under NAFTA and CAFTA.
Region #2 is The United States of EUROPE.
And 8 more regions including Japan #3, Australia #4, Russia #5, South America #6, Middle East #7, Africa #8, India #9 and China #10.
http://www2.ministries-online.org/biometrics/rome.html
There won’t be a collapse, not a crisis, but a transformation from a Multipolar World to an Unipolar World.
In 1950 the son of one of the Council on Foreign Relations’ founders, James Warburg emphatically decreed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
“We shall have world government whether or not you like it – by conquest or consent.”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/one-world-governance-and-the-council-on-foreign-relations-we-shall-have-world-government-by-conquest-or-consent/5541363
I am a big fan of Dmitry Orlov, though I do not agree with him about everything.
However, that photo collage piece of work subtitled “Obama was truly the beginning of the end” is Brilliant.
It looks a lot like the kind of stuff David Dees would do, but its even better.
I would like to download a very high definition version of this, and pay the artist a few quid.
I could study this for hours.
Tony
““Eventually the USA will rebound; I have no doubts about that at all. This is a big country with millions of immensely talented people, immense natural resources and no credible threat to it’s territory.””
Lotta disagreement on the reliability/implications of this statement.
It is a big country and differences among regions are huge: the terrain, the climate, the mind-set, the level of education, the level of resourcefulness and the form that resourcefulness could take. If push comes to shove
The greatest strength of the USA is that there is a lot of space here. There is also quite a lot of choice as what type of community might seem most survivable.
I think the writing of James Howard Kunstler is quite relevant to this part of the discussion.
Kunstler’s advice for surviving future adversity of various sorts and having a decent spiritual environment as well is to find a medium-size town or a nice, small city in a decent location and to settle down there (I think he lives in Saratoga Springs, NY; indeed, a lovely town with a college). In the USA this basically means: get some property. This is the basis for personal security. But Kunstler means much more than that. A smallish social environment offers the best emotional, economic, and psychic security. The internet means that many of the strictures of small-town life can be circumvented. Many smaller towns have significant cultural/intellectual assets. Kunstler’s thinking is that these types of communities offer the best basis for surviving the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that may be winging their way in the direction of the USA and actually rebounding through collective action of residents.
Kunstler’s own predictions for 2019 make interesting reading and amplify the above.
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/forecast-2019-ding-ding-margin-call-usa/
(hope providing that link doesn’t break a rule).
Katherine
Whilst Kunstler and Orlov, are highly intelligent, and write exceedingly well, their basic philososphy exceedingly well written and totally logical – in for example http://dieoff.org/ is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Pure Physics, and the origins of oil. Whilst their mathematics is completely correct, with regards to exponential population growth, this Malthusian philosophy does not in fact accurately illustrate real life growth (and decline of populations). I could cite numerous examples where populations, that did exhibit exponential growth, stabilise, and even decline.
But the real thing, that almost everyone intentionally misunderstands, due to the propaganda, of Western Oil Companies (which virtually no one discusses) is the belief, produced on complete bullshit over 100 years ago, on no real physical science whatsoever, is the concept that oil is a fossil fuel. It isn’t. Basic physics does not support this concept. Orlov will not even discuss it, as he is convinced he is correct.
I suspect the vast majority of Peak Oiler’s have gone bust by now, because they were so convinced that their philosophy was correct, and bet almost everything they had, on the price of oil rising exponentially.
Like populations, it didn’t and won’t.
Try this instead.
http://www.gasresources.net/
All these wars in the Middle East, have been based on a total lie, that oil is running out. It isn’t. it is formed deep within the earth. I am not suggesting that we should continue to burn it, but should develop new technologies, based on nuclear power, and stop fighting all these horrendous wars trying to steal other peoples oil and gas.
Tony
Correct! What the theory of the abiotic origin of petrol and gas shows, is that the points where they come out of the earth are ‘unfairly’ distributed around the world and the majority of them are under the soil of unfriendly nations, like Russians, Iranians…
A must read for anyone interested in theories of oil formation, is Thomas Gold’s “The Deep Hot Biosphere”. Gold was an astrophysicist by training and did important research in this field but was also in the habit of sniffing around other areas of science, and irritating the guardians of those areas by his ability to detect bullshit in supposedly established theories. Very sharp guy. I would say that he presents a very strong array of arguments, from many different angles, in favor of the notion of abiotic formation and against the prevailing notion of it being the result of fantastically large amounts of detritus. The book is very clearly written, though of course it helps if one has a general understanding of science, especially chemistry and geology. Absolutely fascinating book, prefaced by his long-time friend, the physicist Freeman Dyson.
While reading through this text showing black side of present representatives of mankind , so called ” civilised man ”
I reached to some numbers like 4.704 … and rest of figures , lot of them,..
I tought that number tells about number of star in milky way galaxy , but no ,
It had $ sign preceeding , so it was $ 4.704, and rest of lot of numbers ,
So , it represents money , unimaginamble number of money…
What was that number , like stars in milky way represent …
Number of money ,…
Entire us adventure in middle east since man 9/11…
So since that number represents number of stars in milky way ,
So number 9/11 also represents some celestial number..important in universe…
But it seems that 9/11 represents some tragic accident organized by men to other men… So number can represent tragedy not only number of stars , 4.704…figures.
But i said , that number represents only ME adventure , so number is incorect …
As us government had many other adventures through history of its existance…
Many wars and adventures,…
So if we recalculate this number , we could , like add another 6 digits to it…
So that number would be 4.704 … plus nuber of digits + 6 digits,..
So what that number could represent ?…
Nothing in numbers representable in universe. ..
.God did not make so many stars
So humankind reached to numbers that God Himself did not use…in Universe…
Nice achievment of humankind. Numbers beyond Gods ability.
We found out number of numbers representing cost of war and adventures.
Those are numbers on left side of equation.
But what are numbers on right side of equation.
Numbers of man killed ,wounded , homes destroyed , human sufferings, pain ,
Through all those usa wars and adventure…
So could number of those damages done be represented by number of $ …
Something very imaginable , in fact real, by something unreal like $.
Since if $ was real , it could not be in such big number that God did not use.
If $ was represented with equivalent amount of gold.
It could be spent until gold is spent.
When that amount of gold was spent on wars and adventures , wars would stop.
No gold _ no wars.
But mankind thought out how to spend more gold than was existable on earth.
By stopping backing value of $ by value of gold.
Than wars could be fought no mater if there is gold , or gold is spent.
So mankind continued fighting wars backed on nothing…
To kill other men , by term called $ , backed on nothing.
Killing men for free.
Result of cleverness of mankind.
So Wang traded a false flag espionage incident for some millions of dollars/euros. It is just so easy to do.
Dear Wang do you want to live well outside China.?
Wang: yes.!
Dearest Wang, please work with this neocon Polish man to set up an apparent case of espionage and prepare yourself to be arrested and have your face splashed on TV. You will get 10 years in prison. A prison with a back door leading to a castle in the south of France where you can live out the remainder of your life in peace and prosperity. You will have some minor cosmetic surgery and recieve a Singaporean passport and identity.!
Wang: thank you master, thank you thank you.!
Snice…!
Really interesting article. Not quite sure what to make of it though.
The Saker’s prediction the US will make a comeback may or may not happen, it appears impossible to say either way at this point, most of the commenters disagree with this prediction.
The world is in a tremendous state of flux and that is not a terrible thing in and of itself. Surely change is required and is long overdue.
I think the internet censorship is a sure sign of fear from the elites toward the people. This is good. But after censorship comes violence, it is a indicator of the elites running short of tools to control the population. Violence is the last resort and I will not be surprised if/when it comes in full force. People will start to disappear in the middle of the night and we will whisper rumours of gulags/Fema camps and executions in the forests are a very real possibility.
The question I ask myself is to what degree is the USA used as a vehicle of the NWO or an impediment toward it? I have heard that the collapse of the USA has been long pre-planned, we also know US institutions have been the main driver of a one world government for decades.
I think I just answered my own question typing this as it is the ‘deplorables’ that represent a great threat to the globalist project. That said, it is quite difficult, if not entirely impossible, to quell Russians Iranians and Chinese under a uni-polar umbrella if US citizens can’t be controlled first.
I think civil war in the US is a reasonable near to medium term future outlook. As a non-American, of all the pits of hell the world could descend into, a US civil war is actually a better than average outcome. The rest of the world may find a new path to sovereignty while US territory itself is turned into a battlefield.
This can occur on a cultural/social plane even before you begin conversation about America’s debt problems/world reserve currency status.
I can see the USA splitting into different regions. I don’t know how many or where, although you would think the South and West Coast states would logically be individual zones.
Can any of these zones/new entities emerge successful?
Russia did after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Perhaps less is more.
ON the other hand the Globalists love chaos, I am sure they have a plan as to how to maintain power in a collapsing, warring USA.
I think a US civil war could disrupt those plans at least for a a decade or two.
Could one of these surviving entities recommit itself to the principles of the US constitution and perhaps have a gold-backed currency?
It is not entirely impossible.
https://m.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Amazon-will-go-bankrupt-Jeff-Bezos-keeps-13451525.php
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/sputniknews.com/amp/viral/201901111071402963-jeff-bezos-lauren-sanchez-sexts-report/
The geopolitics of Bezos divorce.! Something to ponder. Pure speculation of course but intriguing none the less.
Is Bezos divorcing to protect half of his fortune.? Is Bezos actually saying…as a business largely driven by internet sales…in the near future the internet will be closed down because of global war and Amazon as it is today will not be able to function.?
His wife divorces him and takes a huge cash settlement. Sometime thereafter the world falls into conflict. His wife protects his fortune by way of a sham divorce. After a few years they get back together and hey presto…Bezos is back in the game.
Maybe I’m a little over suspicous but I can’t help feeling his talk over the last few months of Amazon going broke one day and now his divorce are related. Are a strategy. I think he knows as Musk does too that the world is going to be deliberately plunged into war and the internet will no longer exist.
Musk is of the same tribe. For some reason Musk blows himself away with pot smoking and crazy tweets so as to buy distance for himself from the enterprise. And then he has relationship breakdown which may result in a huge settlement to his ex. Musk just like Bezos may get to live again via the settlement with his other half.
Tarkovsky’s Stalker final scene ( E2,E1,“catastrophe ” …)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNiVFCWMrqI
After the world war ,all the countries will be in a catastrophic state,not only some. Before that,there will be huge natural disasters in USA,never seen before, which will delay her entry into the war.
With Trump election,spring and color revolutions,yellow vests protests,mass migration,EU dysfunctions ( Brexit,France,Germany,Italy…),Middle East wars,etc the global elites prepare the masses for a world government.All state institutions (political, executive, economic) are deliberately weakened,social cohesion destroyed,never-ending terrorist acts to instill fear,some climate changes engineered… They will say that only a world government full of Nobel prize laureates,the best politicians,economists managing the world resources can tackle and solve all the problems the humanity is been facing.The chaos ( we can include the war here ) that precedes,requires unity.
I think this is one of the multiple sides of the same diamond ( reality ,truth) if I’m not mistaken,which is highly likely.
Great insights.
Great article and thanks for writing it. I still believe the most powerful tool we have to help bring about the regime change we so desperately need, is the truth about the false flag attack of 9-11-01. To me, this is the root, and pretty much everything else is hacking at branches.
http://911speakout.org
hope the saker & Dmitri will record a conversation together soon…
“At present half the households within the US speak a language other than English at home”
I google 20%.
Great article from a real political scientist. Posted this at mix.com and whatreallyhappened.com
Saker & Dmitry…. Thank you for such a profound, and detailed analysis. Here in Australia, the cult of Neoliberalism is, sadly, well and truly entrenched, with much of the population completely brainwashed by the presstitute scum (mainly News Ltd) but also completely oblivious to how dangerous the situation in the World has become. Most only seem to care about their next shopping binge or boasting about their next overseas holiday or football team. Most don’t even have independent thoughts anymore – they just regurgitate soundbites they hear in the Media, and fully believe that is the truth. Groupthink is rampant here: ‘America the good guys, defenders of democracy and human rights – Russia evil, China evil, Iran evil’. Oh, and Trump is a traitor who is colluding with Putin….. on and on this garbage is spewed out continuously by these creatures. They are pushing the World to the brink. Was on another site earlier called Softpanorama, an incredibly comprehensive site exposing Neoliberalism, with a subsection entitled ‘Neoliberal War On Reality’ and it talked about the German journalist Udo Ulfkotte, and his book ‘Bought Journalists’. The situation is just surreal, and if it wasn’t for the myriad of alternative news sites like The Saker, Moon Of Alabama, The Greanville Post, OffGuardian, etc, with other people seeing things how I do, I would’ve thought I was going mad, such is the Orwellian nature of the World. In fact sometimes I wonder if buying a one way ticket to Easter Island would help? Saker, much appreciate your work.
Your description of the failed state, Austfailure, is spot on. I cannot think of a single figure in public life in this benighted land who is not a flagrant psychopath or a fool, an opportunist, a buffoon or an ignoramus. Groveling obeisance to the USA and Israel is compulsory, and has been joined by mandatory hatred of Iran, Russia and, particularly, China, where the racist element is quite unhidden, and growing rapidly more febrile. The worst, like our Pentecostal ‘Christian’ Prime Minister, Morrison (the antithesis of Jesus in every way)exude a sulphurous stench that leaves one gagging. However, as the current deep drought and wretched heat-waves (46.6 degrees here yesterday, a record, for now) show, the horror is self-limiting.
Another indicator of collapse…the USN…@ Sputnik >
https://sputniknews.com/military/201901141071474263-USN-Probe-Crash-Numerous-Routine-Violations/
I posted further remarks @ Cafe…enjoy! (though for a “sea-power” this is a devastating situation)
You forgot to add the phase of what I call colloquially as the “imbecilization”. This is not a phase per se, but a superphase that can begin and continue through one or more of these “phases”.
The imbecilization process can be described as one where a given society begins to reverse the process of secularization (mostly, State-sponsored) and, more or less at the same time, the academia begin to deprioritize real sciences (History, Mathematics, Physics, et al) and to prioritize pseudo-sciences (e.g. Economics, Sociology, Criminology, Psychology, Political Science, post-war Philosophy, Gender Studies, Business et al). Religion is rehabilitated, and the masses begin to be more and more superstitious and selfish.
This happened with the USSR (rehabilitation of the Orthodox Church) and is happening with the USA since at least the 70s (rehabilitation of the many protestant churches).
An appropriate term, although the several Churches, particularly the orthodox are so established in custom and culture as useful ritual stabilizers of cultures that they seem less significant than the abandonment of science and the corruption, ruin, of the academy itself. Well, the academy has always been a tool of the rulers, a trap to keep intellectuals in a gilded cage, so it seems that the bosses need, ah, imbeciles, no?
From wiki> “For the common or slang use of imbecile, see Idiot.” (Isn’t that great!)
“The term imbecile was once used by psychiatrists to denote a category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability, as well as a type of criminal.[1][2] The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded. It included people with an IQ of 26–50, between “idiot” (IQ of 0–25) and “moron” (IQ of 51–70).[3] In the obsolete medical classification (ICD-9, 1977), these people were said to have “moderate mental retardation” or “moderate mental subnormality” with IQ of 35–49.[4] ”
Ok, the US has become imbecilitated… The term you’ve given fits like a smooth skin, on a snake.
And (see Fitzgerald collision) the USN is also imbecilitated. They cannot con a ship, and it is said that they also cannot navigate. They simply believe the GPS read-outs…. This has happened before in small degree…
Honda Point 1923… http://www.naval-history.net/WW1zp91HondaPoint.gif
I am serious, without GPS and some inertial navigadgets they’re lost. Few, if any, can use a sextant and clock, or even do shear and stability calculations on paper… (these are essential if one wishes to stay on top of the water for awhile)
” imbecilitated” !! Perfect!
(the US Churches are, generally, barking nuts and have, generally, essentially zero relationship with Christianity beyond names. There must be exceptions, but I have not seen any. As to Christianity itself – it’s political and communist or socialist. They never teach Jesus the El Che as a man, only as a magic baby or a murdered corpse. That alone tells everybody that “the Church” is a diversion, fakenewz from Rome. Christianity just now would demand a Jubilee Year, if it was real)
Motto: This is like saying, “Cut your head and go wherever you want.”
This is about secularism in general.
http://www.orthodoxchristian.info/pages/Care.htm
” The Church does not function as an ideological field. It does not simply have some ideas, be it the best and perfect ones, that it uses to counter other ideas. The Church has the life, indeed the true life, which is a fruit of man’s communion with God. St. Gregory Palamas says, “every saying is countered by another saying”. Every argument is confronted by a counter-argument. This can be clearly seen in many of the philosophical ideas that have been developed. However who can confront true life, and in particular, life that defeats death? The Church does not have ideas. It has life, which is the transcendence of death.”
PS: Rehabilitation of the Orthodox Church in Russia is the main reason for the war to come!
The above is a product of wishful thinking. America is led by a bunch of psychopaths, Once they realize that America is crashing and burning, they will instigate a global war. America will end up be humiliated and her armed forces trounced. The megamaniacal psychopaths will resort to using nuclear weapons. Huge mistake. By then Russia and China will have the means to neutralize most of America’s nuclear arsenal. Then they will turn America into an object lesson eclipsing that of Sodom and Gomorrah. That will begin the collapse of civilization as we know it. Over four billion people will perish as a result of the Great War. Billions more will perish in the aftermath. The result will be that an age of righteousness and wisdom will dawn. And nothing resembling our woeful excuses for civilization will trouble our world again for many generations……
I very much suspect that the USA, with its multi-billion dollar budget for bio-warfare, and its archipelago of bio-warfare research centres worldwide, will resort to bio-warfare for its Final Solution to the revolt of the Unexceptionals (or ‘deplorables’ if you prefer). The recent campaign by the Exceptionalist Reich to collect DNA, blood, tissue and neoplasms from every identifiable human population, is, in my biased opinion, deeply sinister.
“A vicious spiral ensues in which the ability of the US government to borrow internationally to finance the gaping chasm of its various deficits becomes impaired. Sovereign default of the US government and national bankruptcy then follow.”
” … with Federal spending not revenue constrained, the first function of taxation is to regulate the value of the dollar, which we know as regulating inflation. The notion of the Federal government ‘running out of money’ and ‘dependence on foreign borrowing’ as well as ‘sustainability’ is categorically inapplicable.” — Beardsley Ruml, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1946
A nation with sovereign currency does have tools at its disposal. What about government abuse in issuing money (as a means of financing) leading to high inflation and a volatile economy? “Only if the economy is already at full capacity/full employment. But yes, inflation is the threat and only creditors are the likely bulwark to promiscuous gov spending and devaluation of the dollar.”
Further reading: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren-mosler/taxes-for-revenue-are-obs_b_542134.html
My opinion is that both guys miss the points.
First, not been able to identify the enemy: the multinationals / banking / eu aristocratique zio elites (with the Bilderberg, CFR, …). My opinion is that Trump is not part of this and The saker doesnt seem to see his policies are supposed to go against the following:
Second failure: not see how the enemy destroyed western countries:
– the financial collapse comes with the central banks inflating currencies and manipulating all prices.. as result economy is 100% virtual. To the point that only le parasites make money (bankers, insurer… but not builders or farmers)
– the societal collapse comes from “bread and circus”, social marxism idea which have destroyed familly (feminism, homosecuality and now transgenderim), education is only lies, medicine is aimed at degrading people, justice is used to oppress people, media only lie.
– people are been replaced by foreigners (intention here is likely divide and conquire)
– legitimate work by individual is destroyed by regulation and multinational monopolies
– sovereinity is transfered to elites super structure: EU, UN… and were close to be stolen by TPP and TTIP (thanks Trump this didnt happen)
– politics are complicit in implementation of the above
Last point is that elites have well progress the above and their objective is getting closer: start next global crisis, destroy western middle class and establish full control on what will be left of “western democracies”.
Orlov, this is one of the most thought provoking, creative and original, pieces I have read, especially in comparison to the garbage pundits main stream media finds somewhere. I think there is more to America than you realize through.
Observation 1: We have significant nomadism in the US, think about mobile homes, apartment dwellers, and home owners on average move every 4 years to a new house. What we don’t have is agrarianism, because it costs more to grow food than to buy food in most cases.
Observation 2: Future prospects are always differentiated by class. The lower class has always said that America was on its last leg, The system will never survive. While the upper class has always said the best days are ahead of us.
It’s called sin, friends. Sin. Go ahead, breathe freely and say it: sin. Sin is what is killing the USA, at least until it, yes, repents. Instead of human-devised “Stages of Collapse” used to describe the slow-motion trainwreck USA, simply go find the Two Most Important Commandments and the Ten Commandments, hold them up in left hand and in right, and then look around the USA (and also in the mirror). If what is going on does not abide by God’s Commandments, it’s in failure mode, with its sand-based foundation cracking, waiting for its great fall.
(For any who are interested, the Bible’s definition of sin is at http://www.itscalledsin.com. No kidding !)
Congrats Saker:
That is an excellent article and was a very enjoyable read.
Thank you
Sovereign default and national bankruptcy are absolutely not a given. The USA will be treated as any second or third world nation when it comes to it’s debt. Look at the state of Greece or Venezuela. Being crosswise to international banking is not pretty. But they WILL BE PAID. During the Great Depression the state of Arkansas was the only one that actually defaulted, and then it was only for a time, their debts were restructured and finally discharged in the 1960s, I think. The only solution for the debts worldwide is to re-price the gold. The USA has lots of it in the ground, so does Greece and Venezuela.
Good article…the best sentence was about the soul vs consumerism. Jesus went on about that stuff, but American Christians mostly virtue signal on and on about anything BUT the words of Jesus..He’s definitely been relegated to marginal status.
In pushing eastern mysticism and reincarnation, the elite have taken away the personhood of each of us…as well as romantic love and the material affirmation of “God so loved the world…” That leaves the created, material world open for the grabbing, devoid of sacred meaning.
Help Lord!
I am a bit late to this party, but will comment (for posterity purposes) anyway.
I appreciate the detail that many put into their analysis. I do not, however, believe that the reasons for impending doom are necessarily all that complex. There are two fairly simple works than can be used to describe why failure is assured:
1) Sir John Glubb’s The Fate of Empires and Search For Survival (one can find bootlegged copies online);
2) Albert Bartlett’s Arithmetic, Population and Energy (presentation is available online)
Glubb’s writing provides a great overview of the cycle of an empire. He noted that no ideology or specific type of leader was able to prevent the eventual collapse. A very stark and accurate view of the life cycle of any empire (even ones yet to come post Glubb’s observations). What Glubb was unable to discover, however, was what was THE reason for collapse.
As I’d watched (and read) Bartlett’s presentation before I read Glubb’s writing I was able to readily identify the exact reason why all empires collapse, I knew what Glubb failed to realize. Quite simple, actually: growth. ALL empires predicate themselves on growth, and this growth is non-ending, it’s perpetual. Perpetual growth on a finite planet is not possible. STOP.
No matter the ideology or might, if the collective system is predicated on unending growth it WILL fail.
The US essentially perfected capitalism. Capitalism is the ultimate system for generating growth, that is, as long as there are natural resources. Natural resources are what we all live on (of course, “live” has been taken FAR above a simple “need” level, for those in the empire and the empire’s close dance partners).
If I were to pick a point in history in which our future doom was established I’d have to say it was when we were instructed to “go forth and multiply”- perpetual growth on a finite planet equals poor programming!