The bizarre exploits of Extinction Rebellion are diverting attention from the alarming reality that many in power agree with the group’s bonkers agenda. And that is resulting in a hands-off approach to XR’s disruptive tactics.
While Extinction Rebellion (XR) has been getting lots of attention for its bizarre and disruptive protests, the real madness is the fact that the political and media establishment agrees with its aims. The only quibbles are over timing and methods.
Over the past week or so, XR has reignited its protests after being in abeyance during the Covid-19 pandemic. As is the usual routine, roads have been blocked and institutions targeted. On one day, XR harassed a group of British think tanks based in a shared building in Westminster. Another group of protesters glued themselves to the ground in front of a doorway into Parliament, perhaps symbolic of XR’s disdain for democracy.
Most controversially, XR protesters blocked printing plants for The Times, The Sun and The Telegraph, preventing delivery of the newspapers. XR accuses these publications of promoting lies about climate change. Here was an attack on the free press, and the backlash was substantial. Rather than debating the arguments for a rapid reduction in UK greenhouse gas emissions, the protesters seemed to believe that these media outlets were responsible for brainwashing the public and should simply be shut down.
The newspapers were, rightly, outraged. But the irony is that these publications all broadly agree that climate change is an existential threat to humanity. Saturday’s edition of The Sun even included an article by David Attenborough, the veteran voice of BBC wildlife programmes, demanding stronger action on the environment. At most, The Telegraph has included a handful of sceptical voices in its opinion pages, but the editorial line is right behind the government’s ‘drastic carbon emission plans’.
It is those plans that should alarm us far more than XR, who are a bunch of oddballs engaged in staging stunts that are annoying and disruptive, but which are also bizarre. It seems that XR supporters believe that they can bring down The System through the medium of interpretative dance, staging ‘die-ins’, meditating outside leading banks or dressing up in costumes that offer alarming echoes of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.
For the environmentalist mainstream, XR is utterly embarrassing. Moreover, while demanding that we listen to the scientists, its own claims of imminent global destruction are utterly unscientific.
Meanwhile, every significant UK political party has fallen in line with the idea that we should aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to ‘net zero’ – that is, zero emissions once the effect of counteracting policies like planting trees is taken into account. That is exactly the same aim as XR. The only question is over what the target date should be. XR wants to get to net zero in five years, the government wants to do it in 30. But that aim itself is bonkers.
To achieve such a goal would mean a very rapid decarbonisation of society. Without the technology to replace fossil-fuelled transport, energy production, cement, food production and much more, this could only be achieved by a drastic reduction in living standards that would make the post-lockdown recessions look luxurious in comparison. ‘Net zero’ doesn’t just mean turning down the thermostat a bit and recycling your plastic – it means a wholesale transformation into a shivering, stay-local, lentil-munching society.
As a new report by the Institute of Government, a British think tank, notes that ‘there is still little evidence that the government, and the politicians who waved the new target through with little debate, have confronted the enormous scale of the task ahead’.
Moreover, it isn’t clear if imported goods would count in this target. If they do count, then somehow the UK would need to go into negative emissions, since it would have to make up for the emissions created abroad during the production and transportation of those goods. If they don’t count, the net zero target itself becomes rather meaningless – we would just import stuff instead of producing it in the UK.
This places the government in a quandary. It shares XR’s basic aim, while hating the disruption that XR’s protests cause. For example, one Conservative MP, Tobias Ellwood, has come out in support of XR’s original ‘noble cause’, but says he thinks the protesters have gone too far. The result has been a hands-off approach. While protesters against the Covid lockdowns have faced arrest and heavy fines simply for assembling in large numbers, the police have been slow to break up XR’s protests.
Some ministers recognise that this is untenable for the normal functioning of society, but their response has bordered on the irrational. There are now rumours from within the government that XR might be designated an ‘organised crime group’, based on the definition that such a group is ‘characterised by violence or the threat of violence and by the use of bribery and corruption’. This is as bizarre as one of XR’s protests. Whatever it is, XR is not akin to the mafia or a drugs cartel.
There are easier and less illiberal ways of dealing with the problem. XR should not be stopped from peaceful protest. If XR supporters block a road or attack a building, there are perfectly ordinary laws that can be used to arrest them without undermining the right to assembly and protest.
While XR’s antics mostly attract derision, the truly crazy thing is the policy of ‘net zero’. And because every major political party agrees with it, voters have simply been given no choice in the matter. It’s not the lunatics dressing up and blocking the roads we should worry about; it’s the lunatics in Parliament who keep voting for these irrational and reactionary policies.
Rob Lyons is a UK journalist specialising in science, environmental and health issues. He is the author of ‘Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder’.
This essay about medical researchers having trouble getting their papers published because the results don’t support the official pandemic narrative has disturbing parallels with my experience trying to inject some balance into the official polar bear conservation narrative.1 Especially poignant is the mention of models built on assumptions sold as ‘facts’ that fail once data (i.e. evidence) become available – which of course is the entire point of my latest book, The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened.
Read the commentary below, copied from Lockdownsceptics.org (6 September 2020). Bold in original, link added to the story to which this is a response, and brief notes and links added as footnotes for parallels with polar bear conservation science.
Thanks for the ongoing sanity that is Lockdown Sceptics. I read the piece yesterday about how the scientific community is slowly starting to wake up to the fact that we have been significantly underestimating the level of immunity in the population (something that LS has been saying for months).2 I was really struck by these lines:
“Unfortunately, not all scientists are so timid with their views. Could it be the silence of too many sceptical scientists that has allowed more confident scientists like Neil Ferguson to become so influential?”
As sceptical scientist myself, this point hit home, but the reasons for the silence of the sceptical scientific voice are not just to do with lack of confidence.
Firstly, it is important for a scientific argument to have data. Without data you’re just expressing an opinion which, of course, can still carry weight depending on who is expressing it.3 However, there are real issues both with the data we have around COVID-19 and its reporting.
It is a well-known problem in science that the “negative results” are rarely published and so the literature is heavily weighted towards positive findings.4 This can lead to a false perception of what is happening. So for sceptical scientists wanting to make arguments, the data may simply not be there as it was a “negative result”.
Scientists also tend to want to publish interesting findings. As a result, the COVID-19 literature tends to be biased towards the serious or rare cases as these are by definition “interesting”. 5
Here’s an example of the title and the first few lines of a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine from April, which illustrates this point:
Coagulopathy and Antiphospholipid Antibodies in Patients with COVID-19
“We describe a patient with Covid-19 and clinically significant coagulopathy, antiphospholipid antibodies, and multiple infarcts. He was one of three patients with these findings in an intensive care unit designated for patients with COVID-19….”
There is nothing wrong with this paper, it is a typical case report. However notice that the title gives no qualification of the fact that the patients are in the intensive care unit and as such are not representative of the vast number of patients with COVID-19. If you just read the title you could erroneously infer that ALL patients with COVID-19 have issues with their blood coagulating and their immune system going haywire. That’s the problem, a report of a rare finding, designed to alert clinicians in the ICU of potential complications, can feed confirmation bias in a lot of the media (and the public) that COVID-19 is the new plague that will kill you as soon as look at you.
Unfortunately you cannot publish the balancing paper:
Mild cough in Patients with COVID-19
“We describe a patient with Covid-19 and a mild dry cough that resolved itself in a few weeks…”
It is uninteresting. Although ironically it would be interesting (and probably publishable) if COVID-19 was actually causing all patients to have major complications!
Finally as you reported today in your article about Prof. Gupta, there is also further worrying bias in the COVID-19 literature with editors scared to publish “dangerous” ideas that could “impact our response to COVID-19”. Limiting publication of such finding in “lesser journals” (essential ones that aren’t so widely read), is an effective way of burying the findings as they may appear less “valuable” than a publication in Nature.6
This literature bias makes addressing the major issue facing the sceptical scientist even more daunting. This issue is that they need to overturn established orthodoxy around COVID-19 and our responses to it.
The advantage that modellers had at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic is that they did not much [rely on] real world data because they could run their models built on assumptions.7 So it’s not surprising that the modellers got in first. It is only now that we have the actual data can we look at the modelling predictions and point out how inaccurate these were and start to see where the assumptions were wrong.
The problem is that the models and modellers created and established “facts” and you require a lot more data to overcome an established “fact” than was needed to create that “fact” in the first place.8
This was compounded by the fact that we then implemented solutions with assumed efficacy (e.g. wearing face coverings, lockdowns) and the use of these solutions have now become more articles of faith rather than scientific hypotheses.9 So to overcome such solutions will require large amounts of evidence to achieve a shift amongst the scientific community, many of whom have been active advocates of these very solutions. Imagine what data you would actually need to persuade Nicola Sturgeon that mask wearing has no benefit or Matt Hancock that lockdown is not the answer? I’d wager it would be almost impossible and will be all the more impossible if [they] don’t allow the publication of “dangerous data” in the first place.10
Finally I think it import to also understand that science is a professional industry and that most scientists work for businesses and institutions. Most of these businesses and institutions will have implemented COVID-19 based policies, supported by senior leadership who, even if they don’t believe in the policies, will need to be seen to be “doing the right thing”.11 Scientists working in these organisations will also have contractual obligations that will limit their ability to publish without permission or produce communication that could be deemed to be detrimental to their place of work.12
Imagine if you worked for one of the companies working on developing a vaccine and wanted to publish something saying that “vaccines are a waste of time and money because everyone will be basically immune through infection before they get to the clinic”? This effectively means that the vast majority of scientists are in environments that require a level of collective “self-censorship” and so, with a few exceptions, most of us have to bite our tongues or run the genuine risk of “blow back” on careers.13 We are not in the position of having a comfortable academic chair from which to cast our pearls of wisdom.14
Despite this, science is built on data and so ultimately I have to believe that we can get to a point where we stop treating COVID-19 as a special case and recognize it as just another disease to go alongside all the other risks we face in being alive. I am greatly encouraged by the fact that we’re seeing journals like the BMJ publish “sceptical” opinion pieces as it shows that this shift may be starting to occur although today’s article about Prof. Gupta shows that we may have a lot further to go.15
Footnotes
Of course, this analogy applies also to the experiences of many scientists sceptical of climate science narratives: I am not alone in this regard, nor am I alone in my experience of challenging the dominant narrative of polar bear conservation science. Mitch Taylor, Peter Ridd, Tim Ball, Judith Curry, Roger Pielke Jr. and a host of other scientists could write a similar list of parallels.
cf. ‘negative results’ for polar bears is evidence of bears not starving due to reduced sea ice (or population increases), such as in the Beaufort Sea and Barents Sea
On July 7, 1941, a large American naval task force with a 4000-man Marine brigade arrived off Iceland. Despite British pressure, the government of Iceland refused to invite the American troops ashore. President Roosevelt ordered the Marines to invade and informed the US Congress that Marines had landed because it was in Iceland’s best interest.
HIGHLIGHTS OF MOBILIZATION, WORLD WAR II, 1938-1942; Office of the Chief of Military History; Department of the Army; Dr. Stetson Conn; 10 March 1959; https://history.army.mil/documents/WW…
The only Lockerbie bombing convict is one step closer to his guilty verdict being overturned, however, posthumously. Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi died at home in Tripoli on 21 May, 2012, while protesting his innocence until his last breath. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) allowed the family to proceed with an appeal to clear his name. The case was sent to the High Court of Justiciary, Scotland’s highest criminal court, and a date for the final hearing has been scheduled to start on 24 November.
His 27-year-old son Ali, who is leading the family’s long and arduous fight to clear his father’s name, is certain that justice will prevail this time and that his late father’s verdict will be reversed. During a telephone conversation in Tripoli last Monday, he assured me: “My father’s name will certainly be cleared this time.”
The family’s lawyer Aamer Anwar, a distinguished Scottish lawyer who volunteered to take the case, in a series of emails confidently communicated to me: “We have a robust appeal.”
Winning this time seems certain. Professor Robert Black, a Scottish law authority, and the mind behind the first Lockerbie court setup in the Netherlands in May 2000, agrees with this analysis. He believes the Scottish court will “overturn the verdict” against Al-Megrahi, however, on the “narrower ground” of the crown prosecutor “withholding materials” from the defence team that could have helped establish Al-Megrahi’s innocence from the outset. Professor Black is “disappointed” that the court might not go as far as “to find that no reasonable court would have convicted Al-Megrahi.” He added, “I hope I’m wrong about this” – which would restore some of the Scottish judiciary’s reputation tarnished by the Lockerbie case and its aftermath.
The Lockerbie bombing, since 1988, became negatively synonymous with Libya, Gaddafi and its entire population. Gaddafi, firmly believing in their innocence, refused to hand over his accused citizens, Lamin Fhimah and Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, to stand trial in the UK. This led the United Nations (UN) to adopt a series of sanction resolutions, including Resolution 731, passed on 21 March, 1992, with harsh economic and political punitive measures that not only isolated Libya, but made life extremely difficult for its entire population.
The long-held belief that the late Gaddafi was behind the attack still echoes within Western mainstream media, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary emerging over the years.
Now, it can be disclosed that Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA), the only UN-recognised authority in the country, wants the mud to keep sticking to Gaddafi, Libya and its people too. The GNA is not enthusiastic about this latest development. The GNA have, illegally, cut the funding for the case over the last three years.
Al-Megrahi’s son Ali and the family lawyer are puzzled as to why the GNA cut funding at this critical junction of the case – when winning seems all but certain.
Lawyer Anwar does not disqualify the assumption that the GNA came under pressure from both the UK and the US to steer away from the case. The British and American narrative of the Lockerbie tragedy has always been that Libya is responsible and “that narrative must be maintained”, Anwar informs me.
However, suspension of defanging goes much deeper within the GNA, where corruption is rampant. A Scottish consultant to the legal team, speaking on condition of anonymity, yesterday clarified: “I believe funding is still budgeted, but the money disappears before getting to its intended final destination.”
Despite writing several times to the GNA to resume funding to meet the substantial mounting legal fees, Anwar received no replies until a few months ago, when his consultant was told that the GNA did not receive any messages relating to the funding of the case.
However, the consultant strongly disputes this, asserting that she “personally” handed over the file to the “highest official in the GNA” in a December 2017 meeting in Tripoli. When asked if “the highest official” meant Fayez Al-Sarraj, the GNA’s prime minister, she replied: “You think about it.”
It is not wholly unusual for the GNA to take such a position. Part of the political legitimacy in new Libya rests on the claim that Gaddafi was a supporter of international terror, and the Lockerbie bombing must have been his evil work too.
In November of 2019, the GNA’s Minister of Justice Mohamed Lamlum, personally stood before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ask Saif Al-Islam, Gaddafi’s son, to face trial before the ICC, tarnishing the very judiciary he is supposed to protect and defend. Gaddafi Junior is wanted by the ICC for his – broadly disputed – role in quelling the 2011 troubles that ended his father’s rule over Libya.
According to different legal experts, the Libyan state is obliged to help its citizens abroad by all means necessary, including through funding in the event of legal issues. The Lockerbie case is much more than a petty case about a Libyan citizen, but it concerns the entire nation, its history and its reputation. This should elevate the case to a “national cause” for all Libyans, according to Anwar.
Indeed, Libyans across the political spectrum now consider the Lockerbie case a national issue and that Libya must continue funding the legal team, just as it did before 2011.
During the Gaddafi era, the government even established a consulate in Glasgow to closely monitor the case, and to help Al-Megrahi’s family who had to relocate to Scotland to be near their father while in jail.
It is not clear if the GNA will honour its legal obligations towards its own citizen, Al-Megrahi, albeit posthumously, but the legal team is not surrendering. They have already established a liaising team inside Libya to follow up with the chaotic authorities in Tripoli.
A group of volunteers inside and outside Libya are gearing up to explore other funding avenues if the GNA continues to reject meeting its legal obligations. In any eventuality, Al-Megrahi’s reputation, and that of Libya, will soon be restored.
Foreign Affairs published an article by Daniel Drezner, Ronald Krebs, and Randall Schweller (“The End of Grand Strategy,” (May/June 2020) that brought forth a rejoinder in opposition by Francis J. Gavin and James B. Steinberg (“Foreign Policy Needs a Road Map,” (July/August 2020) and a reply by Drezner, Krebs, and Schweller in the same issue. After reading both sides of the controversy, one could make a case that the authors of the articles on both sides of the grand strategy debate are correct — or at least partially correct. The first article is on firm ground when pointing out that a grand strategy is probably impossible for the US to arrive at due to the change in the world situation and the fractious nature of American politics. However, the second article is also correct, that leaving strategy up to field officials would hardly ensure any coordinated actions at all and they could end up working at cross purposes.
It might be helpful to step back and leave grand strategy for a moment and talk about “semi-grand” strategy instead. For example, the US has a de facto strategy of containment in dealing with Russia—basically a re-invention of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. This has been going on in some fashion ever since the end of the Soviet Union. Currently it involves Belarus, Ukraine, NATO expansion, Nordstream 2, Georgia, sanctions, and Syria, among other skirmishes. One might say that the Cold War never ended, based on the refusal by the US to dissolve NATO at the same time that the Warsaw Pact came to an end. This is “semi-grand” because the US is now ginning up a de facto containment strategy against China. This one involves the Pivot to Asia, support for Taiwan, the “umbrella” effort in Hong Kong, opposition to the New Silk roads, contesting the South China Sea, sanctions, and the Indo-Pacific effort, which all amount to at least a “semi-grand” also. The reason they are both “semi-grand” is that a grand strategy would have planned how to keep Russia and China from joining forces in response to the dual containment policies of the US. The fractious politics in the US, where one party was more hawkish on Russia (witness RussiaGate) and the other party was more hawkish on China (witness the Trade War), meant that no real discussion or analysis was completed before decisions were made which resulted in trying dual containment of two major powers at the same time. The US is belatedly trying to round up partners to stop China, but having very little success. Even Australia, one of the supposed Quad members of the Indo-Pacific push, just stated its lack of enthusiasm to sign up with the US plan. Looking back almost ten years, there was an interesting attempt to craft a positive and peaceful strategy for relations between the US and China, but it did not get very far (“China US Grand Strategy Proposal,” Thomas P.M. Barnett, John Milligan-Whyte & Dai Min, Foreign Affairs, 2011).
So the two semi-grand strategies have resulted in China and Russia joining forces to oppose the US actions. A grand strategy would have gone for a divide-and-conquer effort or at least taken them on one at a time. As it is, the two countries are working to overcome containment and have a combined advantage in real estate, population, energy, factories, weapons, economy and 5G. An alternative grand strategy would be to harmonize the semi-grands into a plausible overarching concept that might work. So far, the most effort along this line has been in articles hoping to show that both China and Russia have inherent internal defects that will eventually result in their demise. Skeptics could point out that the US also has a slew of internal defects, and that it is a race to see who reaches bottom first. However, a recent statement by some retired US officials indicates a belief that ostracizing Russia was maybe not the best foreign policy maneuver and that a re-thinking is in process (“It’s Time to Rethink Our Russia Policy,” Rose Gottemoeller, et al – signed by 103 former officials, Politico, August 5, 2020). On the other hand, this statement elicited a vigorous rejoinder which opposed any re-thinking (“No, Now Is Not the Time for Another Russia Reset,” David J. Kramer–signed by 33 former officials, Politico, August 11, 2020). These articles illustrate a wide gap in foreign policy thinking within the US expert community.
The pursuit of the Monroe Doctrine could be considered a very early grand strategy, but its recent re-emphasis has had both success and failure. Other previous grand strategies could be considered to be the Opening to China (Nixon & Kissinger) and the Grand Chessboard (Brzezinski). However, the US strategy toward China since the Pivot to Asia has negated the Opening, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Iran nuclear agreement will negate the Chessboard. Other strategies included “Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look” (Ralph Peters, Armed Forces Journal, 2006), which proposed a plan to redraw the borders throughout the region to better align with the ethnic and religious distribution; “Imagining a Remapped Middle East” (Robin Wright, New York Times, 2013), which showed how 5 countries could be divided to become 14 countries; “Why the Pentagon Changes Its Maps” (Thomas P.M. Barnett, Esquire, September 10, 2016/originally published March 2003); and the Arab Spring (Obama administration). All these proposals and actions involved vast disruptions, regime changes, and attempts to refashion boundaries in North Africa and the Middle East. There has been little official change in borders so far, however, several countries have divided war zones and attempts at separation. These other strategies could be considered semi-grand and have shown the difficulties in implementing even a limited form of overall strategy. It is obvious that the US has little benefit to show for all the blood and treasure spent in the Middle East and Africa, unless the creation of “failed states” qualifies as a plus.
Additional semi-grand strategies can be observed in other parts of the world. The US has somewhere around 800 military bases spread about on all the continents. This is a very expensive proposition and has several different rationales to support it: being the world policeman, preventing nuclear proliferation, solving the problems of the Middle East, stopping terrorism, bringing democracy and human rights to distant lands, increasing weapons spending, creating chaos, and so forth. Another actual semi-grand strategy might be the promotion of regime change by color revolution, legal or military coups, electioneering tactics, and proxy fighters. Pretty much the same rationales apply here as for the military web of bases, as they can be used together in difficult cases. Viewed from a higher theoretical level, however, they are part of the broad range of implements in the hegemony toolbox.
From this higher angle then, the extensive military bases and the regime change semi-grands can be added together to form one sort of a grand strategy called the “pursuit of hegemony.” There have certainly been enough articles in Foreign Affairs over the years to indicate the importance of hegemony for US foreign policy. In fact, the magazine published an issue (January/February 2019) with “Who Will Run the World” on the cover and four articles inside on the featured theme. One article argued that the liberal international order could possibly be saved, while the other articles were dubious and generally claimed that the order could not be restarted or revived. This pessimistic outlook was followed by another set of articles in Foreign Affairs (March/April 2020) with “Come Home, America?” on the cover and six articles inside on the featured theme. Once again, the first article was in favor of continuing current world-wide policies, while the next two articles were arguments for retrenchment. The last three articles were dubious about much success from continuing current policies. Careful reading of the first article, however, shows that it begins to waffle toward the end and is only half-hearted in support of continuing the current global role due to the many factors working against it. On a scorecard, the result of these debates in Foreign Affairs would be a lopsided defeat for the hegemonic pursuit grand strategy side.
There is possibly a significant faction within the Council on Foreign Relations that is skeptical about the future prospects for the US “running the world.” Otherwise, the Foreign Affairs articles would likely not have been published. Likewise, many of the articles were written by academics and similarly show a difference of opinion among the professors. However, little of this newly published skepticism has made its way into general public discourse. The few politicians expressing a skeptical view have been marginalized or excluded in the debates and subjected to very adverse publicity in the mass media. One reason for this could be the relative lack of published grand strategies for US foreign policy in a post-hegemonic world. The “retrenchment” proposals are essentially semi-grand in that they are mostly negative in tone and do not give a compelling description of life after the imperial sunset. It is common for textbooks to note that when the British Empire went into decline, the baton was passed to the Americans, albeit with continual British influence and participation. It is also a common comment that the Americans have no one to pass the baton to.
So, are the skeptics right or wrong? The US current foreign and military policy is certainly going forward on all fronts in an attempt to continue running the world and to prevent any obstruction to its exceptional and unipolar situation. Attempts at retrenchment are furiously beaten down, and there seem to be little slackening of regime change efforts. This makes sense if the US role is sustainable at its current level and the skeptics are generally wrong. On the other hand, perhaps the current effort is a last ditch “Hail Mary” pass before the clock runs out. In any event, just in case the skeptics are right, it might well be useful to draw up some comprehensive scenarios for life in a post-hegemonic world, as well as how to decline gracefully and make the best of the new situation.
In summary, the grand strategies of the past have either been discarded (Opening to China) or are in serious trouble with a doubtful future (Grand Chessboard). More recent strategic attempts to deal with Russia did not get anywhere (Reset) and those dealing with China failed to get much traction either (Pivot, TPP). It is certainly questionable whether the War on Terror achieved any significant reduction in terrorism around the world. The semi-grand strategies appear to have resulted in the US getting bogged down in various quagmires. The current grand strategy of the US government appears to be an effort to use any means possible to keep “running the world.” If articles published in Foreign Affairs are any indication, however, it would seem that the scholarly community and many former officials possess a very pessimistic view of the US pursuing hegemony. By extension, this pessimism could also apply to some members of the Council on Foreign Relations. To date, however, the experts appear to be hard pressed to create a positive-sounding and marketable alternative. As a result, politicians, mainstream media, and the public are seemingly unaware of the potential for a major crisis. A hard landing for the Yankee Empire is not a welcome prospect.
Swinemunde was a beautiful seaside resort on the German Baltic coast. During World War II, it was of no military value other than a few piers where ships could dock. It had escaped aerial attacks as its population grew with refugees from bombed out cities. On March 12, 1945, the United States Army Air Force carpet bombed the town killing over 23,000 civilians. This was not a mistake, but part of a genocide campaign to kill German civilians and destroy homes.
MP Alister Jack has finally replied to my question asking where he and the UK government stand on the threat by Israel to annex more Palestinian territory known as the West Bank. It seems the Government has urged them not to do it.
I doubt if his letter reproduced here, is his own work. It is sprinkled with the humbug and deceit repeated for decades by Tory and Labour governments and was likely penned at least 20 years ago by a Foreign Office scribbler vaccinated with an Israeli embassy gramophone needle. It is still used as a reply template by MPs and ministers who dare not speak their own minds or are plain clueless.
As usual, Her Majesty’s Government wants “a safe and secure Israel” but only “a viable and sovereign Palestinian state”. What a deplorable statement. Viable means workable in the most meagre sense. And when it comes to safety and security why can’t Mr. Jack be evenhanded? His words (if they are indeed his) express clear racial prejudice favouring the wellbeing and prosperity of one people at the expense of another which, I’d have thought, deserves a sharp rap on the knuckles.
He says there can be no changes to the status quo without a negotiated agreement between the parties. Mr Jack is surely aware that the status quo is itself illegal and breaches umpteen UN resolutions. And why does he feel the Palestinians must ‘negotiate’ their freedom? Picture the scene with the invader holding a gun to the head of the victim whose land the invader has occupied under brutal military control and in defiance of international law for 70+ years. Why is Mr Jack joining his colleagues in calling for more lopsided negotiations instead of pushing for law and justice?
‘Nothing shall be done to prejudice the rights of non-Jewish communities….’ Sorry, forget that.
So many experts are saying that a negotiated two-state solution is impossible. Does anyone seriously think the Israelis will voluntarily give up their ill-gotten territorial gains which are crucial to their Greater Israel dream? The only peaceable way to change their mind is through the persuasive power of BDS and other sanctions. For that reason BDS is under relentless Zionist attack and is fiercely opposed by the servile UK Government. The reason why the West endlessly woffles about ‘negotiations’ is their cowardly failure ever since 1948 to confront Israel’s greedy ambition for expansion and domination. That inconvenient bit in Britain’s 1917 pledge to Rothschild and the Zionist Federation about “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” is best forgotten. It’s so much easier for the UK Government to say and do nothing while their Zionist ‘friends’ surreptitiously complete their programme of creeping annexation. And never mind the 70+ years of grief this has caused innocent Palestinians.
Mr Jack refers to Boris Johnson’s article in Yedioth Ahronoth which appeared on the very day Netanyahu was supposed to be carrying out his crazed threat. “Annexation would represent a violation of international law…. I profoundly hope that annexation does not go ahead,” he wrote. “If it does, the UK will not recognize any changes to the 1967 lines, except those agreed between both parties.” But Israel has repeatedly violated international law and repeatedly been rewarded, so why should it care what the UK thinks about boundary changes? They have been changing all the time. Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem (including the Old City) in 1967 was a flagrant breach of international law, and what did the UK or anyone else do about it? “I want to see an outcome that delivers justice for both Israelis and Palestinians,” says Johnson absurdly. He has no interest in justice otherwise he’d be leading the charge for implementing international law and UN resolutions which have already ruled on the issue.
As for Israel’s annexation misfire, it looks like world hostility gave Netanyahu cold feet and he and Trump cast around in desperation for a face-saver. They found it the United Arab Emirates’ ‘MBZ’ with whom they cobbled a deal for full diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE provided Israel suspended annexation, and this is touted as a triumph. No-one of course insisted on actually abandoning annexation and you can bet the piecemeal ethnic cleansing, destruction of Palestinian homes and confiscation of their lands will continue unabated.
Mr. Jack then says he’s proud that the UK supports UNRWA and is providing £34.5 million funding this year. If the Palestinians were allowed their universal right to freedom of movement and self-determination in their homeland there’d be no need to keep throwing our tax money at agencies like UNRWA. It’s scandalous that money for our own schools and hospitals has been diverted to subsidise Israel’s long-running programme of thieving, collective punishment, dispossession and the trashing of the Palestinian economy.
Mr Jack goes on to say: “The UK’s position on Israeli settlements is clear.” Well no, it isn’t. They are illegal and even constitute a war crime yet the UK Government doesn’t mind if companies or individuals profiteer from using and endorsing those squats to the detriment of the Palestinians. And he seems to agree with his government’s opposition to the UN’s business and human rights database. Back in March 2016, UN Human Rights Council resolution 31/36 mandated the High Commissioner’s Office to produce a database of all businesses engaged in activities related to Israel’s settlement enterprise and having implications for the rights of the Palestinian people. Fair enough, you might think. But a year ago 103 local, regional and international organizations felt it necessary to call on the High Commissioner to release the Database expressing deep concern that the document and names of the companies facilitating the settlement programme had been withheld from circulation for 3 years due to political pressure. In the meantime the Israeli government had escalated the construction of new squats and broadcast its intention to formally annex parts of the West Bank in further violation of international law.
“The Database will bring an important degree of transparency on the activities of businesses which contravene rules and principles of international humanitarian and human rights law as a result of their operations in or with illegal Israeli settlements,” they said.
Amnesty International commented: “Naming the businesses which profit in the context of this illegal situation sends a clear message from the international community that settlements must never be normalized. These companies are profiting from and contributing to systematic violations against Palestinians.”
And Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights said: “The UK Government abstained on the vote of this Human Rights Council resolution in March 2016…. It was the only state to declare that the database was ‘inappropriate’ and that ‘it would not co-operate in the process’ of its implementation.” LPHR felt that the reasons given for the Government’s position “did not individually or cumulatively amount to an adequate basis for justifiably opposing the UN Database”. One such reason was that the UK Government thought the Human Rights Council should focus on states rather than private companies. LPHR says this contradicts the UK’s earlier agreement, along with the rest of the international community, that companies as well as states have vital responsibilities in protecting and advancing respect for human rights.
I won’t trouble Mr Jack for an explanation for all this. It’s enough that voters and campaigners are aware of the skullduggery.
The US exited the Iran nuclear deal and therefore has no right to demand a ‘snapback’ of UN sanctions on Tehran, the foreign ministers of three European powers involved in the JCPOA said in response to Washington’s latest push.
“France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the so-called E3, note that the United States has not been a member of the JCPOA since their withdrawal from the agreement on May 8, 2018,” their respective foreign ministers Jean-Yves Le Drian,Heiko Maas and Dominic Raab said in a statement on Thursday.
Therefore, the E3 “cannot support” the US demand for UN sanctions against Iran to be reimposed, as it is “inconsistent” with their current efforts to implement the deal, the trio added.
JCPOA stands for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the name given to the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated by the Obama administration, endorsed by all five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany.
Citing UNSC Resolution 2231, which codified the deal, US envoy to the UN Kelly Craft officially requested the “snapback” of sanctions on Thursday, accusing Iran of “significant non-compliance” with the deal. However, China has previously pointed out that the US is not eligible to make that request, having exited the treaty unilaterally. The E3 statement indicates the Europeans share Beijing’s stance on the issue.
The E3 statement came during the press conference US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was giving at the UN, declaring confidently that the rules of the Security Council are “straightforward” and will lead to the sanctions being restored.
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Everything you read in the NYT or hear Rachel Maddow say about Russia is true: Putin is a murderer, a thief and a thug, he shot down MH17, poisoned the Skripals, elected Trump, invaded Georgia and stole Crimea. If you question any part of this, you are controlled and directed by Russian Disinformation HQ.
Freedom of speech does not entitle you to doubt The Truth.
The methodology of all of these things – this is one of several – is uncomplicated. Paul Robinson has commented on the dependence of so much comment about Russia, and this report in particular, on the myth of central control.
Anything anywhere on Russian social media, whether sensible or crazy, was personally put there by Putin to sow discord and weaken us. All social media or websites based in Russia are 100% controlled by Putin.
The Truth about Russia is found in the West’s official statements and in the “trusted source media”. Anyone who questions it benefits Putin, who wants to bring us down, and is therefore acting as a servant of Russian Disinformation HQ.
The argument really is that simple and can be found in its baldest (and stupidest) version on the EU vs DiSiNFO site, The NATO Centre of Excellence is pretty bad while The Integrity Initiative seems to have been embarrassed into silence. Note the “disinfo”, “excellence” and “integrity” bits – that’s called gaslighting. Who funds these selfless truth seekers? The EU, NATO and the British government. But they’re good and truthful, unlike those tricky Russians.
In this particular effusion they look at seven websites, six of which are registered in Russia and one in Canada. The report declares that they are in an ecosystem directed from Russian Disinformation HQ. In reality they are sites which publish writers who – to take one example – think that it is a bit unusual that a deadly nerve agent smeared on a door handle requires the roof of the house to be replaced. But doubt, these days, is the outward sign of an inward Putinism.
Door handle!
Yeah, OK, but why the roof?
Putinbot!
One of the websites mentioned in the report is the one you’re reading now – Strategic Culture Foundation.
The report has a good deal of speculation about who backs Strategic Culture Foundation (p 15). Personally I don’t much care who runs it (and I very much doubt that the Kremlin understands the point of running an opinion website). I’ve been in the USSR/Russia business for some time and what I think hasn’t changed much since 1986 or so. I’ve written for a number of sites which have faded away and I will not permit having what I write changed; the one time it happened twelve years ago, I immediately switched my operations elsewhere. Strategic Culture Foundation has never changed anything I’ve submitted and only twice suggested a topic – this one and Putin’s weaponised crickets. (And the warning is still up at the U.S. State Department site!) The other writers on the site whom I know haven’t changed their views either. Strategic Culture Foundation hasn’t created something that didn’t exist before, it’s collected something that already existed. What do we writers have in common? Well, Dear Reader, look around you. Certainly we question The Truth. Or maybe SCF is a place where people “baffled by the hysterical Russophobia of the MSM and the Democratic Party since the 2016 election” can find something else? Or maybe it’s part of Madison’s “general intercourse of sentiments”?
There was a theory in the Cold War that the two sides would eventually converge. I often think that they met and then kept on going and passed each other. In those days the Soviets did their best to block what they considered to be – dare I suggest it? – disinformation. And so RFE/RL, BBC, Radio Canada and so on were jammed. We, on our side, didn’t care who listened to Radio Moscow or read Soviet publications. Today it’s the other way round. Which fact prompts the easy deduction that the side that’s confident that it has a better connection to reality and truth doesn’t waste effort trying to block the other. In a fascinating essay, the Saker describes Russian propaganda for its home audience: “give as much air time to the most rabid anti-Kremlin critiques as possible, especially on Russian TV talkshows”. They even took the trouble to dub Morgan Freeman’s absurd “we are at war” video. That’s brilliant – we won’t tell you they hate you, we’ll let them tell you they hate you.
The report talks as if this “ecosystem” were big and influential. But it’s a tiny mouse next to a whale. Total followers on Twitter of all seven sites are 156 thousand (p65). That’s nothing: the NYT has 47.1 million Twitter followers, BBC Breaking News 44.8, WaPo16.1. Why even Rachel Maddow has ten million followers eager to hear her explain how Russia is going to turn off your furnace next winter. So the rational observer has a choice to make after reading this report: either the report ludicrously over-exaggerates the influence of this “ecosystem” or 156,000 website followers are astonishingly influential and I, with my Strategic Culture Foundation pieces, personally control several Electoral College votes.
Clinton loses an election, blames Russia, the intelligence agencies pile on, the media shrieks away. Americans are told patriotic Americans don’t doubt. And now we arrive at the next stage of insanity. William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, informs us that “Russia is backing Donald Trump, China is supporting Joe Biden and Iran is seeking to sow chaos in the U.S. presidential election…”. I guess that means that Russia and China will cancel each other out and that he’s telling us that Iran will choose the next POTUS. Who would have thought that the fate of the “greatest nation in earth” (as Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush Jr, Clinton, Bush Sr and Reagan like to call it) would be hidden under a turban somewhere in Iran?
So, American, know this: your “trusted sources” are telling you not to bother to vote in November – it’s not your decision.
After days of posturing and pugilistic rhetoric the UK has upped the ante on Belarus by calling the result of the recent presidential election in the pro-Russian country “fraudulent”.
Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, tweeted that not only the UK does not recognize the election result but it is also calling for an “urgent investigation” by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), an inter-governmental organization focused on European security.
Raab’s hardline position is reinforced by a Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) statement whereby the UK appears to call for an intervention in Belarusian politics via the OSCE.
Belarus has experienced political unrest since a disputed presidential election on August 09 in which the incumbent, Alexander Lukashenko, reportedly secured 80 percent of the vote.
However, opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, refuses to accept the result and has instead declared herself the winner.
Tsikhanouskaya has since fled to Lithuania, whose government is openly calling for the overthrow of the Lukashenko administration.
Strongly aligned to Russia, Belarus has long been targeted by Nato states as part of a broader destabilization program focused on Russia’s immediate neighborhood.
In recent years the UK has stepped up diplomatic and intelligence activity related to Belarus.
In March the UK even sent 30 Royal Marines to Belarus as part of a plan to foster ties with the Belarusian armed forces, which have traditionally looked to Moscow for training and support.
As Belarus continues to grapple with post-election unrest, the British government is showing stronger signs of wanting to influence the outcome by potentially fomenting the overthrow of long-time President Alexander Lukashenko.
In the immediate post-election environment the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) published a statement where it called on the “Government of Belarus” to “refrain from further acts of violence” following the “seriously flawed Presidential elections”.
In the presidential election of August 09 Lukashenko was re-elected to a sixth term in office with just over 80 percent of the vote.
But opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya refused to accept the result and instead declared herself the winner.
Nato countries have generally supported her position with the Lithuanian foreign minister, Linas Linkevicius, taking the extraordinary step of calling Lukashenko “the former president of Belarus”.
The FCO statement complained of a “lack of transparency” in the electoral process even though the UK had no monitors on the ground and therefore cannot make a definitive conclusion on that issue.
The statement concludes with an interventionist tone by asserting that the UK “calls on the Government of Belarus to fulfill its international commitments and the aspirations of the people”.
Beyond the FCO, the British media have thrown their weight behind Belarus “protesters” and by extension appearing to support calls for Lukashenko’s ouster.
For its part, Sky News has tried to depict Lukasheno as on the defensive by talking up his claim that Nato forces are “massing” on Belarus’ border.
In recent years the UK has shown growing interest in enhancing its diplomatic and political presence in Minsk, Belarus’ capital.
Earlier this year the UK even deployed 30 Royal Marines from 42 Commando to Belarus to ostensibly take part in an unprecedented joint exercise with the Belarus armed forces.
Belarus is universally regarded as a stalwart Russian ally, and for that reason alone Nato countries, including the UK, have long sought to create political distance between Minsk and Moscow.
In my previous article, I discussed the role of the Brookings Institute’s founder Strobe Talbott as an integrated part of the puzzle behind Russia Gate and also his indoctrination as a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford alongside his room mate Bill Clinton in 1966.
I addressed the rise of the Rhodes Trust in 1902 as think tank designed explicitly to sabotage the spread of a multipolar model of sovereign republics applying “American system practices” of protectionism, national banking and internal improvements in the post Civil War era.
In this follow up article, I would like to pursue the deeper philosophical structure of the Rhodes Scholar world view as it expressed itself in Strobe Talbott’s 1992 Time Magazine manifesto “The Birth of a Global Nation” which he wrote in preparation for the new phase of his career swarming into the White House with dozens of other Rhodes Scholars who sought to define the conditions of the new unipolar age.
All Talbott quotes in this text are taken from this 1992 manifesto.
The Birth of a Global Nation
Standing on the cusp of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the rise of a unipolar era in 1992, Talbott couldn’t help but celebrate the dissolution of sovereign nations and the creation of a world government stating that within the next century “nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority…”
Ignoring the fact that sovereign nation states were created as instruments to protect citizens from empires, Talbott falsely defines nationalism in the following terms: “All countries are basically social arrangements, accommodations to changing circumstances. No matter how permanent and even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary. Through the ages, there has been an overall trend toward larger units claiming sovereignty and paradoxically, a gradual diminution of how much true sovereignty any one country actually has.”
This false definition of nationalism (which has become hegemonic amongst academia in recent generations) then sets up a series of false problems which he proceeds to “solve”.
In the Hobbesian system of zero sum thinking that Talbott imposes onto world history, nation states are assumed to be the natural outgrowth of selfishness, exploitation of the weak and war. Here Talbott entirely ignores all evidence that history’s wars have been artificially manipulated by a transnational financial elite and instead characterizes war as mankind’s natural state of being- thus requiring some sort of resolution of a leviathan or global force of enlightened elites from above:
“The big absorbed the small, the strong the weak. National might made international right. Such a world was in a more or less constant state of war… perhaps national sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.”
Then describing the hoped-for era of world government which he believes to be a utopian future age, Talbott lists the creation of the wonderful 20th century innovations of the League of Nations, NATO, the IMF and Globalization.
Talbott describes NATO as “history’s most ambitious, enduring and successful exercise in collective security” and then celebrates the International Monetary Fund. Talbott said “the free world formed multilateral financial institutions that depend on member states’ willingness to give up a degree of national sovereignty. The International Monetary Fund can virtually dictate fiscal policies, even including how much tax a government should levy on its citizens.”
Forecasting the Blair-Cheney R2P protocol which would soon justify the humanitarian bombings of Kosovo, Iraq, Libya and Syria, Talbott championed the destruction of national sovereignty made possible by the invasion of Kuwait in 1991 saying “the internal affairs of a nation used to be off limits to the world community. But the principle of ‘humanitarian intervention is gaining acceptance.”
Straussian Neocons vs Rhodes Scholars
So far, if Talbott’s worldview looks pretty similar to that of your typical neocon, then don’t be surprised.
The goals of a neoliberal Rhodes Scholar imperialist and a neoconservative Straussian imperialist are essentially the same. Both types ultimately seek a post-nation state world order governed by a financial oligarchy and their technocratic alpha managers, and both define “power” in absolutely Nietzschean terms of “force”.
There are however several important differences which may seem superficial yet are important to understand if one wishes to avoid “left vs right” traps in thinking that many well-intentioned analysts are inclined to fall into.
One primary difference is that while neocons of a Kagan-Cheney-Bolton variety are much more willing to accept the fact (at least amongst themselves) that their ideal world order necessitates constant states of asymmetric “forever wars” of each against all- managed by their alphas from above, the left-wing imperialists of Talbott’s mindset prefer to promote a more pacifist narrative which I have no doubt some of them- including Talbott himself- actually believe to be true. Theirs is an “enlightened” rainbow fascism with a democratic face and a green Malthusian veneer which Aldous Huxley once described as “a concentration camp without tears.”
The Green Path to World Government
Returning to Talbott’s manifesto, the green path to the new world order that differentiates a neo con from neo liberal is introduced along with his admiration for a powerful individual:
“Last month’s Earth Summit in Rio signified the participants’ acceptance of what Maurice Strong, the main impresario of the event, called ‘the transcending sovereignty of nature’: since the by-products of industrial civilization cross borders, so must the authority to deal with them.”
In a 1992 essay entitled ‘From Stockholm to Rio: A Journey Down a Generation’, Maurice Strong (whom Talbott has always revered) wrote:
“The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.”
Two years earlier, Strong gave an interview wherein he described a “fiction book” he was fantasizing about writing which he described in the following manner:
“What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s conclusion is ‘no’. The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
Much like his sociopathic counterpart George Soros, Strong’s entire career had been devoted to the cause of a green world government from his earliest days as a Canadian Rockefeller asset and vice-president of Power Corporation, to his entry into the new Liberal Government of Lester Pearson in 1963. It was here that Strong created the Canadian International Development Corporation that helped accelerate 3rd world debt slavery (granting loans to poor nations on the condition that they adhered to IMF/World Bank conditionalities which kept them forever undeveloped and colonized.) Strong’s great innovation during this time was his enforcement of the idea of “appropriate technologies” which poor nations were expected to invest in rather than advanced “dirty technology” like nuclear power which “modified natural tribal ecosystems” too much.
In many ways, Maurice Strong along with Prince Philip (who was President of the World Wildlife Fund while Strong was WWF Vice President in 1977) and Laurence Rockefeller (controlling hand behind both America’s conservation movement and UFO disclosure movement), were founders of the Green New Deal which is currently being pushed as the “solution” to the imminent economic collapse.
The ‘One and the Many’
An important philosophical concept must be tackled by all truth seekers in order to fully appreciate the imperial games and manipulations which have defined our collective history as well as our collective future. While this concept can be formulated in many ways, its most simple expression is “the paradox of the One and the Many”.
The paradox in three short steps:
ALL processes which are ponderable exist simultaneously as “one”, “many” and “infinites”.
According to the rules of logic, a thing can be either “A” or “Not A”, but it can never be both “A” and “Not A”
Thus, how could something simultaneously be both one, many and infinite?
Let’s get out of the abstract realm for a second by looking at a concrete example.
A human being can be conceptualized as a one (ie: a person with one body and one identity), but also as a many (ie: the sum total of limbs, organs, cells, bones etc…). It can also be defined as an infinitely subdivided entity of atoms, and sub-particles ad infinitum. The same goes for a building, a chair, tree, dog, a poem, a painting or even HUMANITY itself.
In his beautiful Philebus dialogue (on how we judge “Good/Evil”), Socrates describes the discovery of this trifold character of all reality as a Promethean gift which must then be harnessed responsibly:
“A gift of heaven, which, as I conceive, the gods tossed among men by the hands of a new Prometheus, and therewith a blaze of light; and the ancients, who were our betters and nearer the gods than we are, handed down the tradition, that whatever things are said to be are composed of one and many, and have the finite and infinite implanted in them: seeing, then, that such is the order of the world, we too ought in every enquiry to begin by laying down one idea of that which is the subject of enquiry; this unity we shall find in everything. Having found it, we may next proceed to look for two, if there be two, or, if not, then for three or some other number, subdividing each of these units, until at last the unity with which we began is seen not only to be one and many and infinite, but also a definite number; the infinite must not be suffered to approach the many until the entire number of the species intermediate between unity and infinity has been discovered,—then, and not till then, we may rest from division, and without further troubling ourselves about the endless individuals may allow them to drop into infinity. This, as I was saying, is the way of considering and learning and teaching one another, which the gods have handed down to us.”
As if to warn future lazy-minded Rhodes Scholars who prefer to skip steps in their understanding of the system of humanity which they wish to manage politically- Plato says:
“But the wise men of our time are either too quick or too slow in conceiving plurality in unity. Having no method, they make their one and many anyhow, and from unity pass at once to infinity; the intermediate steps never occur to them.”
The question then presents itself: How do we define the relationship of the infinite to the many and the many to the one? Is the one merely a sum-total of parts? Or is it something more?
An empiricist (or one who has enslaved their metaphysical capacities to sense perceptive rules) would have to conclude: Yes.
Since metaphysical notions like Justice, Goodness, Soul, Purpose, Creativity, etc… have no parts, are not bounded by time or spatial constraints (you can’t cut a “Justice” in half and share it) and are thus not subjected to sense perception- the empiricist asserts that they cannot actually exist in any meaningful way. Like Plato’s Callicles featured in the Gorgias dialogue or the brutish Thrasymachus in Book one of the Republic, such “abstract” concepts are just social conventions (like Talbott’s “nation states”), used for utilitarian reasons of managing society but never assumed to be true by an “enlightened” master class.
Pick up any Platonic dialogue and you will encounter rigorously dialectic treatments of this problem from a multitude of angles. It is worth the exercise.
Rhodes Scholars, Straussians, and other imperialists across the ages, have always been and will always be very aware of this paradox. All imperialists who enslave their reasoning powers to sense perception all suffer from the same inability to resolve ontological paradoxes which Socrates warned us of in the Philebus Dialogue above… They wish to rule without first having taken the time to know either the nature of the species they wish to rule, the universe they wish to rule in, and consequently they don’t even know themselves (breaking the cardinal rule of philosophy extolled by both Socrates and Confucius: “Know thyself”).
This small philosophical sojourn takes us back to Talbott’s 1992 manifesto.
Talbott’s Failed Solution to the One and the Many
Talbott ends his treatise with a telling insight into the oligarchical “false resolution” to the One and the Many paradox: describing the Balkanization process that would soon be imposed upon the Soviet Union and the larger spread of subdividing separatist movements across the world, Talbott states that they are a “basically positive phenomenon: a devolution of power not only upward toward supranational bodies and outward toward commonwealths and common markets but also downward toward freer, more autonomous units of administration that permit distinct societies to preserve their cultural identities and govern themselves. That is being defined locally, regionally and globally all at the same time.”
Defining society “locally, regionally and globally”, Talbott lays out an infinite [locally sub dividable], many [regional ever-more Balkanizable nations] and inescapable one [the global community].
Since this configuration is rooted in the belief that “wholes = the sum of their parts”, Talbott’s ilk choose to promote forms of “world federalism” that impose order onto society from above.
If humanity can be socially engineered to think locally, subdivided according to race (see: Black lives Matter), creed, micro states, genders (also infinitely sub-dividable), etc… then the slaves can happily vote for whichever local CHAZ warlord or parliamentarian on their tiny section of the board game as they see fit. In the end their choice won’t matter very much since the rules of the world game system would be forever out of their sphere of “democratic” influence.
This utopian subdivided world of micro-democracies would be “harmonized” by a global order of non-elected social engineers and enlightened elite who would scientifically manage the diminishing returns of resources to be allocated to the useless eaters in this Brave New World. The new world religion would have a decisively green tint, morality would become reduced to the liberal nothingness of “tolerating infinitely subdividing opinions and genders” and Orwell’s vision would be complete.
The only problem was the Multipolar Alliance
We have been introduced to the false resolution of the One and the Many adhered to by imperialists and technocrats. Let us now look at a more healthy resolution to the paradox which has been adopted by leaders of the Multipolar Alliance which took on a powerful character with Xi Jinping’s 2013 announcement of the New Silk Road, and Putin’s entry into Syria in 2015. Since 2015, both the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, Arctic development and New Silk Road (that has seen 135 nations join) has integrated into one unified system along with an alternative multipolar financial architecture, increasingly independent from western oligarchical manipulation.
The re-assertion of national sovereignty tied to this multipolar alliance enrages technocrats like Talbott and other British Imperial deep staters to the ends of the earth for the simple reason that it is based not upon “structural controls of the many” under stasis, but on scientific and technological progress. This principle of creative change is the resolution to the ontological paradox raised in every Platonic dialogue. When one takes creative reason and its fruits into account as the defining characteristic of humanity as a One, then we come to recognize that humanity will always be more than the sum of its parts. Humanity, is a self-perfectable species capable of boundless discoveries of principles of the universe, and self-reflexively translating those concepts back upon our species through scientific and technological progress which has allowed our species to leap far beyond the limits to growth bounding all other species of life, to the point of sustaining nearly 9 billion souls on the earth today.
Since this open system/creative character is intrinsically uncontrollable, and a cause of disequilibrium, Rhodes Scholars and neocons who are obsessed with godlike control can do nothing but hate and fear it.
The return of nationalistic impulses to America in 2016 after decades of neocon/Rhodes Scholar controls represented the deep state’s greatest fear and for this reason, a desperate and sloppy dossier was concocted to undo the election at all costs.
Luckily, the near-absolute controls which the oligarchy enjoyed in 1992 as it celebrated the New World Order have fast slipped away, and the jig, as they say, is increasingly up.
Today, nation states (including the USA itself) have the first chance in decades to save themselves from a new global bankers’ dictatorship by jumping on board a new system of win-win cooperation both on earth and, increasingly in space.
The first item on the agenda must be the immediate acceptance of President Putin’s call for a five-nation emergency summit followed soon thereafter by a new economic system driven by great projects, long term growth and CREATIVE CHANGE.
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