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Life in the Empire

(how is this for a new thread?)

It is not the freshest news. But it is still breaking, people are still absorbing it ,and it all till needs context.

The filthy greedheads and the doomed can't have exclusive rights to this news territory. The insane and the loyal opposition must have their say as well.

My take - the Russian armada is going to bomb the living fuck out of Aleppo.  Not so much to help Assad as to show they can still break shit, and still matter in one of their few areas of influence outside of Russia. 

Sebostabol/Crimea alreadytaken and those pieces are swatted off the chess board.
Then they will pass through the Suez canal to a favorite area of contemporary interest - the south china sea, to dock at the "chinese" island. 
They will refit at Vizag (a top indian navy base), go hover around the "chinese" island in the spratleys, maybe some commando/fast boat/SEAL type training with the chinese there. then they go right by the senkaku islands on the way to vladivostick for winter.
just to show the world the BRICS aint nobody to fuck with. 
Turkish PM Erdogan just "cleaned house," by firing about 40,000 people in government and shooting a
few hundred security, military and intelligence staff accused of being Gulen supporters.  some probably were, some probably were not, and Gulen's infleunce is not as profound as the govt makes it out to be. but he just bought himself 5 more years of unchallengable rule. and the ability to flip turkey out of NATO into the BRICS. I think it is very possible and could happen suddenly if it does.
Then much of eastern europe NATO (esp former ussr/Warsaw Pact) all quit too - because it is a stupid antiquated instiution that has not had a rational strategic reason of existence since the fall of the Berlin wall.  nato is not world's army the blue hats in the UN are.
Timing - Putin put them at sea when he knew he would have a four month window of no real response from usa because of the  elections.
They will have proved they are back as a true blue sea navy, anf kicked some ass, and shored up crucial geostrategic along the way.
I feel no portence of WWIII but instead feel this is a macho country saying "we be back motherfucka!"
and the advanced cyber and ground/space/ship-to-shore warfare eqpt of china, russia (less so india) is getting really good, and hits all the achilles heels of nato/USSA, efficiently, cheaply, and on the button.

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It matters not, who occupies the throne...making sure the peasants don't escape the yoke, will always be job 1.

That sums it up pretty well.

I think I'm going to be using a lot more medieval analogies as we move from Obama's globalism/multiculturalism/neoliberalism to Trump's christian/dominionism/nationalism.

Noticed that some of my wife's evangelical christian relatives were being a lot more vocal about their religious beliefs lately. Trump's win seems to have released a Christian jihad. Fun times. (or should I say, 'end times')

Apocalypse Now.

Oh Rapture!

First time I've seen 'Tribalism' used to describe recent political dynamics. Maybe Glenn is reading the RBC.

Glenn Greenwald on Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Tribalism, and “The Resistance”

The first time I saw mention of tribalism was the 1992 article Jihad vs.McWorld

Some of the Jihad references to tribalism don't note the other manifestations of tribalism that we are seeing now but it was pretty damn prescient.

Had you ever heard of "Accelerationism… and Degrowth? The Left’s Strange Bedfellows" (Aaron Vansintjan)? It's a good time to be a "progressive," because the future's gonna be Green... whether it's the easy way (degrowth) or the hard way (accelerationism).

"Degrowth: A vocabulary for a new era:" (Giorgios Kallis) "‘Simplicity’, ‘conviviality’, ‘autonomy’, ‘care’, ‘commons’ and ‘dépense’** are some of the words that express what a degrowth society might look like." Accelerationism seems to be one way of dealing with Trumpism.

"Accelerationism is the idea that if you accelerate class conflict by supporting neoliberal capitalism on steroids and oppressing the working class as much as possible, then they'll have no choice but to revolt against the bourgeoisie for you." (RationalWiki)

Seems to be a "millennial" thing. You know how kids are. Sounds like what's the matter with Kansas to me. Good to read your words again, brother. Good to know you are back home keeping the faith. I know it seems like a horrible TVReality version of Groundhog Day, but guess what:

We're still here.

** "Dépense refers to the unproductive expenditure of the social surplus." (Kallis)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=469B0Cde_44
Sent the link to a carless by choice on cape cod and he sent this.

Just got back from Umeå, Sweden where the majority of folks bike or walk and it snows a lot. Pea gravel was spread on the roads, and bike & walking paths - the roads were cleaner than the paths but I think that is due to the cars - many of the paths were a bit treacherous as the temperature vacillated below and above freezing.

someone poured cement in my ton bag of gravel. Now I have isolated it by removing the free stones in tin cans and carrying them through the house over the years.

Dana Milbank: We’re with stupid

"But so far, at least, Trump has been mercifully incompetent."
Really? Don't think so...

"The Incredible Cruelty of Trumpcare
Republicans are willing to cause a humanitarian crisis just to give permanent tax cuts to millionaires."
https://newrepublic.com/article/141303/incredible-cruelty-trumpcare

"Doctors Warn Climate Change Threatens Public Health
Physicians are noticing an influx of patients whose illnesses are directly or indirectly related to global warming"
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/doctors-warn-climate-cha...

“We consider that to be a waste of y(our) money, to go out there and do that, so that is a specific tie to his campaign.”

Connect the dots. La la la. So by 2018, the "President" will be lighting farts on YouTube... and his devoted followers will be hunting "liberals" and "illegals" by virtue of their DeputyDon badge they got with their vouchers and Milo Minderbinder's IOUs in every Republican bag of Cheetos.

And everybody owns a share.

(edit) oh yeah... and the word, "disaster" will disappear from Tweety's lexicon... just like WMD vanished from Shrub's. Probably when Utah gets hit with a typhoon.

Just got back from 10 days in Sweden. Really wonderful to be around some sane socialists.

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