Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

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Literature – letter to a king

04.07.2024 /

I am currently reading The Years, Virginia Woolf’s last novel, published in 1937. Actually, I bought the book accidentally, in French, mistaking it for Ernaud’s Les Années.

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse happen to be among the very few books I have read twice. Having dutifully read some 20 % of The Years in French, I therefore decided that even the French language cannot do justice to Virginia Woolf’s beautiful prose. So I bought the book in English, too.

I haven’t finished it. Superb literature is often like a box of chocolates – you don’t want to eat more than “two or three” at a time – but I already consider this novel superior to the two she is best known for, because it delves deeply into the nature of society itself. I will not go into detail, since this blog is not, after all, about literature.

Why do I speak of it then, The Years? Because in it, Woolf mentions a hero, Parnell, presumably Charles Parnell, reviled and adulated. I had to look him up .

At the time, I have just learnt, the press was very keen to trumpet certain aspects of his private life. But we now know that he was a formidable opponent of “landlordism” and “British misgovernment”.

…within two decades absentee landlords were almost unknown in Ireland. He created single-handedly in the Irish Party Britain’s first modern, disciplined, political-party machine. He held all the reins of Irish nationalism and also harnessed Irish-America to finance the cause. He played an important role in the rise and fall of British governments in the mid-1880s and in Gladstone’s conversion to Irish Home Rule.

Wikipedia as at 4 July 2024

Reading about him reminded me that often – very often – we don’t realise until after a person’s death how much we owe him or her. Parnell was only 45 when he died.

Assange might well have died just 10 years older, had he not been released in the nick of time. That does not mean that we can forget all about him, though. On the contrary, it is vitally important that we examine and understand what Wikileaks revealed. Only by knowing the world we live in can we change it for the better.

Of course you have heard of and probably even seen the video footage “colateral murder”. It it is merely the tip of an iceberg.

In 2019-2020, a series of 9 (or 10) articles attempted to summarise what Wikileaks had revealed. There is a shortcut to the story:
Marjorie Cohn’s recent analysis Here’s What He’s Given Us.

Or: If you wish to go to the sources, here’s from the horse’s mouth: Wikileaks .. the lot

As for Julian Assange’s own literary output, his letter to King Charles (dated 5 May 2023), may perhaps serve as an example.

The hero and the villain

30.06.2024 /

Team Biden eventually considered it expedient to offer Assange a filthy plea deal. Do I thank them? Certainly not, though like everyone else, I’m relieved that the barbaric mistreatment of Assange has come to an end. So are, I suspect, Biden’s few remaining supporters.

Please note that even Associated Press (AP) comments the public’s distrust of their rulers in the USA and the UK. As we have seen in the recent “European elections”, such distrust is widely shared throughout much of Europe. Why? Well, the media are full of confounding explanations – naturally – that’s what the media do for a living: confound us. I prefer the explanation given by the comedian George Carlin back in 2005. Some things never change.

I put to you that “a constitutional state” is one in which governmental power is firmly and consistently constrained by the law. The Assange case has patently demonstrated the subservience of the British judiciary (i.e. Law) to Government. This is all the more striking since the latter (Government) is that of a foreign country, the USA. In short, the case has effectively demonstrated that the US and the UK are not constitutional states, and the UK is hardly even an independent one.

That US presidents and their teams care naught for “rule of law”, except as a tool to subjugate other nations, should come as no surprise to anyone. That concepts such as “justice”, “fairness” and “due process” are secondary, in the USA, to personal ambitions was clearly demonstrated in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, which rewarded those who had made the crash happen with impunity and struck down the millions of victims in poverty and despair.

What is relatively new to some of us is the incestuous relationship between government and the corporate media. Even AP has noticed: “Nearly three-quarters of American adults blame the news media for dividing the nation.” Just so. Perhaps US citizens have grown wise to the collusion between e.g. the N.Y. Times and the currently ruling set. Will Times loyalties shift when a new master enters the White House?

In Norway, middle-aged people still subscribe to and read daily papers. The rising cost of living has not yet strangled their budgets or their confidence in the authorities. Younger people however, are wading in deeper water. Heavily indebted, they are so fearful of the future that they are reluctant to make babies. The suicide rate is rising.

My favourite news outlet was the Guardian. I repeat: was. I pretty abruptly stopped following the Guardian at about the time Assange was kidnapped by the British police. Why? Because the Guardian had been subtly vilifying Assange, suggesting this, that and the other. I ascribed the character assassination to shame: The Guardian had disclosed Cablegate encryption passwords and was thus the direct root of the US claim that Assange had jeopardised lives. So the paper had to imply that Assange was not worth any tears. That is what I thought back then.

Now, however, I see there may be another source of depravity in the above-mentioned incestuous relationship between governments (in plural) and the media: Keir Starmer. Yes, he is my villain for today: It is very likely that he plotted with the US authorities to destroy Assange’s life and his reputation.

We don’t know, of course, exactly what went on during the meetings between the Starmer delegations and their US counterparts during his visits to the USA in 2009–2013, because the relevant minutes – from all four trips – were allegedly destroyed, which in itself is pretty damning (admittedly circumstantial) evidence. But there is no doubt that Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) from 2008-13. And we do know that Starmer is not a “gentleman” when he feels like, for instance, getting rid of a political competitor. Moreover, Starmer was then, and is still, masquerading as a “Labour” politician.

So yes, I believe Starmer is a villain. And he will no doubt be the next PM of the UK. He will presumably treat the Guardian kindly for past and future services.

As for the hero, need I tell you?

I missed the jokes

29.06.2024 /

I am not and never have been in thrall to US entertainment, so I never heard the late comedian George Carlin. To be honest, I might not have appreciated him back then (he died at the age of 71 in 2008) because I was not partial to foul language. Now, of course, thanks to rap, the F-word, the P-word and S-word tend to occupy 40 % of many people’s polite conversation, so I’ve stopped noticing.

Thanks to Glenn Greenwald, I have just been introduced to a taste of Carlin’s acerbic humour. Not just a taste: I was instantly mesmerised and spent the better part of the afternoon digging up Youtube clips of his angry diatribes.

I case you haven’t heard George Carlin, and in case you don’t follow Glenn Greenwald on Rumble (in which case you are missing an extremely eloquent source of lots of well-referenced information) I am pasting, below, a Youtube clip of “You have no choice”. The sound clip has been embellished with animation. You may or may not approve. Moreover, it skips the previous part of Carlin’s talk, presumably because that part ridicules not only obesity but makes rather cruel fun of obese people. You will find it, however, searching for Carlin HBO 2005 Life is worth losing. And I must shamefully admit it is hilarious. But here is the part “You have no choice”.

Palestine

19.06.2024 /

Quoting Aljazeera 19 June: “Israel is ready for an “all-out war” in Lebanon and has plans approved for an offensive targeting Hezbollah, officials have said.”

How about “talking” to Hezbolla? How about “talking” to Hamas? How about actually listening? While Israel and the USA kill and maim and starve people right, left and centre in the name of “Democracy”, more and more people are getting very, very angry,

Some people are even saying “if this is Democracy, stuff Democracy.”

Is it or isn’t it?

07.06.2024 /

What is “democracy”? I’ve been asking the question ever since I was a kid. Just as I asked what is “good art”?

Is it at all possible to arrive at a universally acceptable definition of “art”? Let alone “good” art? Art historians and critics maintain it is. I suspect that in any case, there is a lot of humbug involved, but not only humbug. There is an ingot of the sublime in there somewhere, in art, that is, but I have long since ceased to even try to grasp it.

Likewise, most of us in so-called democratic countries fervently believe in “democracy” without necessarily knowing just what we are so passionate about or why?

What we do know is that we don’t want to live in certain other countries. The thing is, most people living in most countries – except in those that have been rendered uninhabitable, and even in some of those – want to continue living there. I very much doubt that our rationale for living where we live has anything to do with democracy, even in the USA, which considers itself the mother and the father, of democracy.

Why do I doubt that? Well, for one thing, because I don’t consider the USA a democracy. And whereas life has been, until very recently, easier for most people in Europe than for most people in the USA, democracy in Europe, too, is slithering down a slippery slope.

Democratic features in so-called democratic countries

1) Elections

It is true that every few years we are allowed to vote for a person or a political party to represent our district. It’s called “parliamentary system”, and it worked well enough – although it wasn’t infallible – when we were few, when we knew the contesting parties and could assess the results of their labours. We knew whether A. was a “man of honour”, whether or not B.’s financial enterprises tended to be solid and beneficial to the community.

Nowadays, we cannot possibly know all the individuals who run for office. The contestants, be they individuals or political parties, all formulate their programmes as ambiguously as possible so as to attract people who might have very different, often opposing, needs and wishes. We no longer have even an inkling of the real aspirations* of the contestants. We therefore depend on political analysts. In short, we depend on the media.

*Explanatory digression about aspirations:

A school of economic thought associated with Friedrich Hayek quietly started with a whisper in the 1930s in the almost secretive Mont Pelerin Society. But it rapidly gained in popularity among the “filthy rich”. “Neoliberalism” – as we now refer to it, or “market fundamentalism” – has seeped into our pores and infiltrated all economic activity, not only in “democratic” countries, but also, and not least, in dictatorships.

The economist Maynard Keynes tried to stop the neoliberal avalanche, but he died shortly after the Bretton Woods Conference (1944), where he was a key player but lost to the USA which has dominated most of the world ever since. Neoliberalism was violently imposed on the global south and has reluctantly been embraced even by European “labour parties” (which explains their dwindling popularity).

For a long time after Keynes’ death, market fundamentalism had few heavy-weight opponents. No corporations were going to protest, obviously. Intellectuals in frayed shirts were unable to move the electoral “masses”. Thus it has been until fairly recently. Even now, though there are several brilliant economists opposed to neoliberalism, they are basically ignored by the top dogs.

What I am trying to say is that a politician may say that he intends to improve care of the elderly. However, he may not tell you whether or not his approach to care of the elderly is “neoliberal”. Believe me, it matters!

End of digression

Voters know nothing of the ulterior motives of the man or woman they vote for. He/she may be sincere, but is more likely to be an inveterate liar. Voters are kept in the dark about the machinations of the political party they vote for. So we, voters, have no choice other than to vote for “the nice guy” or check our favourite sources in the media.

Candidates that cannot entirely conceal that their aspirations are neoliberal (i.e. that they prioritise capital (the haves rather than the have-nots) are assisted by the media (the “respectable” press, TV-channels, news networks, social media, etc. etc.) The mainstream media serves the important function of dressing up capital because it is owned by capital. For example: If capital is in favour of a war, the mainstream media will sugar the war.

So: Regardless of who wins an election, nothing much ever changes, except for the worse – for most of us, that is. Yet, they have the gall to complain about low voter turnouts.

I’m pretty sure people in so-called democratic countries do not know how the people of Palestine have been mistreated for decades and how the entire population of Gaza is being tortured to death. I have to believe that most people in so-called democratic countries are not deeply immoral, not evil, and that, had they known what is going on, they would never ever, ever have allowed it. I have to believe that they allow it only because they are being kept in the dark. I have to believe that, because if this were not so, we would have to welcome the impending demise of the human species.

Anyway, I know that the mainstream media does not inform us, because I, too, read the mainstream media.

The mainstream media tells us that the US economy is doing brilliantly, so US citizens should vote for Biden and EU citizens should continue to bank on the USA. Indeed, the US economy is doing brilliantly, but the gems are not trickling down to the average US citizen. In October 2023, US debt was 33 trillion USD, probably more like 35 trillion now – yes, that’s trillion!

A US default on the national debt:

… would trigger the domestic economic equivalent of a nuclear carpet bombing. —

In the U.S., a staggering 7% of federal spending goes to servicing debt. Those taxpayer dollars are no longer doing anything to strengthen the economy or improve the lives of its citizens. And every time we run an annual budget deficit, that spending on debt service goes up.

Source

I put to you that this is not what the average US citizen voted for.

I put to you that the average citizen of so-called democratic countries is not raring to go off to the upcoming Olympic war games, which are being prepared and sponsored by Biden and his ilk, together with Stoltenberg, Cameron, Macron, Baerbock and St. Ursula, etc. Top dogs in so-called democratic countries will, of course only see the “action” they hanker for on their screens, they hope. Alas, or should I say fortunately, once the really heavy punches are delivered, even they might not be spared.

The Russian deputy foreign minister has allegedly suggested that these people should devote less time to video games and somewhat more time to reality, over which they seem to have a slim grasp.

2) Freedom

Those who can afford it, can do almost anything they want to do, short of murder (or even murder if they can afford to conceal it).

But: Such freedom is also enjoyed by the privileged few in fascist states.

It is true that there are countries where religious mores or prevailing values and attitudes impose limitations on what you can wear and how you can behave in public. Even in democratic countries, there are many such communities. More often than not, the restrictions are supported by a majority, but a minority will feel heavily suppressed.

No matter where you live in the world, there will be minorities. Some minorities will have a tougher time than others, it is true.

3) Freedom of expression and of information

This is the most important and possibly the only, real asset of a democracy. This is the truly invaluable ingot!

Those who express seriously dissident views will not be prosecuted or imprisoned or tortured in a democracy. Those who want to know what the powers-that-be are up to can access that information in the mainstream press of a democracy.

But that most invaluable of rights, one which is absent in many of the countries we “don’t want to live in” is no longer guaranteed in the the so-called democratic countries either. True, small-fry dissidents will only be ridiculed, ignored, maybe even spat upon. They will be jeered at in social media, eventually blocked from all forums and isolated, but they will not be imprisoned.

However, we have now learnt that if a dissident really manages to unmask the powers-that-be and reveal their crimes, as did Julian Assange, he will be prosecuted, tortured and slow-motion-killed.

We have seen that the mainstream – i.e. “respectable” – press is no longer available to heavy-weight dissidents who truly challenge the establishment. There are intelligent and very well-informed people who question the wisdom of US forever-wars, into which European allies are dragged, and many more who question the wisdom of US and EU support for the ongoing genocide. Those who speak out are paying a price. They are labelled “conspiracy theorists” and are blocked from all platforms, including not least the “respectable” press. Many are expelled from universities or lose their jobs. Many will undoubtedly have to get heavily into debt to cover legal defence fees.

Those who seek knowledge about the forever-wars search in vain in the mainstream media, where views preferred by capital, and by extension any ruling party, will dominate.

I put to you that most people in the USA/EU would be furious if they knew that their taxes were contributing to the death by starvation of Gazan children, to the stunting of those who do not die.

I put to you that voters in so-called democratic countries are not free to make “informed decisions”.

I put to you that we are nearly as brainwashed as the citizens of Oceania in 1984 by Orwell.

Admittedly, those who doubt the magnificence of whatever party is the ruling Party are not killed. They are just not heard or seen. They are “vaporised”.

The inscrutable ways of the brain

27.05.2024 /

Climate and ecology activists, e.g. in Extinction Rebellion, are often bitterly accused of moralising. The rest of us, all who do not follow their rigorous precepts, are made to feel we are an abomination to the planet.

I am certainly not innocent in this context. Although far from being an activist, I tend to consider all but basic consumption morally reprehensible, and you may have noticed how I refer to Norway’s former prime minister, Mr ProudRock and his ilk. After all, I’m only human, and if I feel that somebody has committed treason, I refuse to apologise for being very angry.

On the other hand, I know perfectly well that neither anger nor for that matter any other emotion helps solve the crisis at hand. Only a conscientious examination and a level-headed analysis of the situation will yield sensible solutions.

I happen to know somebody who has taken part in atrocities under Mr ProudRock’s command, committed war crimes, that is. Yes, that person is actually a very dear friend of my family. Notwithstanding his participation in war crimes, he is one of the most gentle-mannered people I know. His generosity verges on self-effacement and his willingness to care for the weak and disabled far outshines that of most people I know, certainly mine. How does he do it, I wonder?

The one-word answer to the question popped up at once in my mind: “Compartmentalisation”.
“Compart- what?” was the next thought. Is that a word?
Well, it must be, since I used it.
Does it mean what I feel it means?

I looked it up. Yep, compartmentalisation, on the dot. Exactly what I thought it meant … “to avoid cognitive dissonance”.

Now I am not going to pretend that I invented the term all over again. On the contrary, I must have heard or read the word so often that I actually stored it. I will even have come across a definition of sorts, probably on several occasions, and stored that too. I just didn’t know it, because neither the unwieldy word nor even the concept was of any use to me.

Until now, when all of a sudden, the word was eminently useful, pin-prick accurate, in fact.

Our dear friend has compartmentalised his life. And my friends, who almost all fervently clamour for more weapons to Ukraine, must believe that I am compartmentalising too. After all, what I defend with regard to Ukraine (inter alia a cease-fire in Ukraine and a negotiated long-term end to the war – be it cold or hot – between Russia and the USA/EU) is deemed morally reprehensible, though most people consider me relatively decent in other respects.

The ways of our brains are indeed inscrutable.

May 17

23.05.2024 /

This year, waking up on 17 May brought to mind a Cat Stevens song:

Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird

I had to look up the text, and saw then, that it is essentially a hymn of gratitude. No matter. The song is beautiful, and the sunlit morning was as pristine as the first morning, no doubt about it. I happened to be in Lillehammer where you can still see snow on distant mountain tops towering over green slopes and the lake down below. May 17 is Norway’s national holiday.

The day is celebrated year after year as earnestly as Christmas. No military parades, but parades of children. Dressed in their finest, waving little flags, they march proudly preceded by their school’s band. In all of Norway, children from all schools march, flanked by their teachers. In the capital, the parade lasts for hours as wave after wave of schools make their way through the centre, up the boulevard to the palace, where the king and his family stand on a palace balcony, smiling and waving (must be quite an ordeal).

Normally, May 17 tends to be cold, often even wet, but this year, the day was spectacularly warm and beautiful. Though I generally go off to the woods on such occasions, I made an exception this year, the last before we cede military control of our country to the USA. I dressed up and watched and listened.

This is the one day of the year when people can wear their beautiful and exorbitantly expensive national costumes. There was a time, not very long ago, when it made sense to own a national costume. Back then, many women did their own embroidery, and some were even able to sew the entire costume. At any rate, the costumes were so durable that they were reused, generation after generation for all major events: Christmas, christenings, weddings, funerals…

Now, they are only used on May 17. And what a sight they are. The town Lillehammer was populated by billowing skirts sprinkled with delicately embroidered flowers, broaches with trembling golden birch leaves, silver belts, richly embroidered linen shirts and intricately shaped tight-fitting brocade bodices. Lillehammer could have been a Rivendell film set (Lord of the Rings).

Norwegians are certainly patriotic, no doubt about it, yet they are surrendering military control of their country to a foreign power. Norwegians are basically peaceable, yet, they have chosen a “protector” that is the most dangerous out-of-control war machine on earth (cf. conversation between Glenn Greenwald and Jeffrey Sachs).

It is terribly sad.

Nineteen eighty-four revisited

10.05.2024 /

It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

The atmosphere in the novel’s first chapters is oppressive. Every one of the protagonist’s moves, every breath, is recorded by “telescreens”. The protagonist knows he will be disappeared sooner or later, guilty as he is of “thoughtcrime”.

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself–anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide.

They will come for him, inevitably, and when he is gone, there will be no trace of him, as though he never existed.

Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: VAPORIZED was the usual word.

The protagonist, Winston, works in the Ministry of Truth. His job is to cancel inconvenient pieces of the past and throw them down a “memory hole”. He knows too much and doesn’t like what he knows.

Most people, of course, are not targeted. The “proles” almost never are. But Party members, entrusted with defence of the system, are closely monitored. Those who are too perspicacious, whose minds are too independent, risk being eliminated.

Up until this point, I thought George Orwell’s 1949 dystopia was about the USSR. There are, after all, ten-year plans and several daily cups of foul-tasting booze.

Then I started noticing a number of subversive details. First, the events of the novel take place, not in Russia, but in London, one of three megacities in Oceania – a realm encompassing what we know as North America, Australia and UK.

Second (and more importantly) the “proles” – 85 percent of the population – are not adulated, but despised. They are uneducated and therefore not very clever. No attempt is made, either, to educate them, on the contrary; they are treated to constant mind-dulling entertainment.

There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator. There was even a whole sub-section–Pornosec, it was called in Newspeak–engaged in producing the lowest kind of pornography, which was sent out in sealed packets and which no Party member, other than those who worked on it, was permitted to look at.

Further into the book, Winston finds himself thinking on several occasions that “the proles are our only hope”.

If there was hope, it MUST lie in the proles, because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated.

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious

So Winston longs for a revolution. Did George Orwell share his protagonist’s longing?

Third is the obsession with war, the copiously nurtured hate and fear of the enemy. Hate and fear of the enemy feed war which in turn feed hate and fear of the enemy. Perpetual war is the engine that keeps the system afloat. It keeps the population working, the economy going, and the Party in undisputed power, as war and fear of the enemy, bolsters the population’s loyalty to the Party.

War is not ideological. It has no cause, in fact, other than that of perpetuating the Party’s power. The hope is, of course, to rule the entire world, which – we are told – is divided between three powers, none of them Communist.

… museum used for propaganda displays of various kinds – scale models of rocket bombs and Floating Fortresses, waxwork tableaux illustrating enemy atrocities, and the like.

….war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one’s own side and not by the enemy, meritorious.

The other two powers are – guess what? – Eurasia (Russia) and Eastasia (China). [How could Orwell have guessed, in 1949?]

What I, the revisiting reader, found most fascinating, however, were the details of propaganda warfare. The propaganda war is waged against Oceania’s own population by means of tools such as:

Newspeak (reframing), doublethink (cancelling of logic) and the constant rewriting of history.

Yesteryear’s inconvenient facts are not disputed, not denied; they simply disappear. They are wiped off the slate of our [Google search] screens.

En the end, Winston has learnt to not only say, but actually believe that 2 + 2 equals 5. Just as we in the West have learnt to truly believe that “we defend” freedom, justice and democracy.

In order to train citizens to practice doublethink, the Party lets them sink their teeth into apparently nonsensical slogans, such as:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH:

As translations into the present, I suggest, for example:

PAX AMERICANA
THE FREE MARKET
WIKILEAKS IN CHAINS

I wasn’t around in Stalin’s day, but I have met people who have been dissidents in various totalitarian states, who have lived in constant terror of being denounced by somebody during a torture session , who have suspected the existence of tapping bugs hidden in the most unlikely places. There have been acquaintances who refused to wear seatbelts, who always made sure to stand against a wall. In short I recognise as 2024-fact much of what is considered fiction in the novel 1984.

What surprises me, however, is that the methods detailed with regard to propaganda warfare are so painstakingly reproduced today in the West. Has Orwell inadvertently taught the powers-that-be the art of “doublethink”. Have they learnt about memory holes from him, too?

What about perpetual war? Did he perhaps learn from them?

China

04.05.2024 /

A Global Affairs study conducted in 2023 indicates that 58 % of US Americans view China’s development “as a critical threat to the vital interest of the United States”, and only 19 % “believe that China will deal responsibly with world problems.”

On the other hand a recent Brookings article suggests that most Chinese feel that the USA’s desire to preserve its “global hegemony” is depriving “China it’s right to develop”. The article directs us to a 53-page angry bipartisan report, “A Strategy to Win America’s Competition with the Chinese Communist Party“. Its introduction reads:

For a generation, the United States bet that robust economic engagement would lead the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to open its economy and financial markets and in turn to liberalize its political system and abide by the rule of law. Those reforms did not occur. … the CCP has pursued a multidecade campaign of … decoupling the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from the global economy, making the PRC less dependent on the United States in critical sectors, while making the United States more dependent on the PRC.

https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/…

(There is no disputing that China seeks to become less dependent of the US economy.)

On page 8, the report’s list of recommendations ends thus:

Taken together [the recommendations] would level the economic playing field, reduce the PRC’s hold on U.S. and allied critical supply chains, and invest in a future of continued economic and technological leadership for the United States and its likeminded alliesand partners. [My highlight]

ibid

The term “leadership” occurs 25 times in the report, as for example here:
“… thereby undermining American global leadership”.

What the report calls “continued global leadership”, the Chinese refer to as “continued hegemony”. Are the expressions synonymous?

We don’t often encounter the word “hegemony” in the daily news. It sounds foreign and has an unpleasant aftertaste. Nevertheless, a Google search for “USA” AND “hegemony” will return an avalanche of links to sites that either predict an end to US hegemony or, on the contrary, hotly dismiss such a prognosis.

Britannica on hegemony:

… the dominance of one group over another, often supported by legitimating norms and ideas. The term hegemony is today often used as shorthand to describe the relatively dominant position of a particular set of ideas and their associated tendency to become commonsensical and intuitive, thereby inhibiting the dissemination or even the articulation of alternative ideas.

Britannica’s subtle definition would perhaps be reworded by a less highly educated person as: “hegemony” is power exercised by persons who are bossy, domineering – in short bullies.

I’m taking pains to stress this fine distinction between (good) “leadership”, which we admire in a sports team, a military unit or a well-run workplace, and hegemony, which tends to be resented or, at best, tolerated because there is no alternative.

I believe that US Americans are being mislead by their leaders – Democrats and Republicans alike – as to what the rest of the world feels about their country’s economic, military and political control over much of the world. If you read Rogue State by the indefatigable late William Blum (whom I have eulogised in post after post) you will understand that grievances are not without cause.

Back to China. For the USA, the “threat” from China is primarily economic and technological. Do please note the word “threat”. Not even the above-quoted angry report maintains that China seeks to harm the USA with economic sanctions, lethal viruses or AI attacks on banks. According to the report, the only reason China represents a “threat” is that it’s doing well although (or perhaps because) it deliberately fails to follow the US neoliberal playbook. China designs its’s economic policies in such a way that economic growth also improves living conditions for its population. The US hasn’t been doing anything of the kind for several decades.

In 2023 Chinese GNP grew by 5.2 %. Even the IMF expects it to grow by 4.6 % in 2024. China is doing well in spite of Covid, and in spite of a serious real estate crisis. That is certainly not the case for EU states, and the US is so debt-ridden that many people are transferring their savings to expensive cryptocurrencies.

So China represents no military threat to the USA, yet. But in view of recent US provocations (Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the gift to Taiwan in April this year of 8 billion USD in military aid) China will surely be preparing itself.

What is Taiwan, by the way? It is not a country recognised by the UN. It was always part of China until after Chiang Kai-Shek lost the civil war and fled to Taiwan which subsequently suffered a murderous 38-year dictatorship. You will not find much about this on the internet, alas. Yet, it was only in 2016 that his Kuomintang party was voted out of power. At best you might get an idea with a search for “Taiwan 228”. History is written, after all, by the victors. USA has been the victor since WWII.

After WWII the USA was one of very few countries in the world that wasn’t destroyed. Russia, China, Germany, England, France, Japan… all in ruins because of the war, and the third world was in ruins because of colonialism. The USA was determined to call the shots, and has done just that ever since.

When US policy makers use the word “hegemon” they prefix it with the epithet “benevolent”. The “benevolent hegemon”. Words have power and US citizens have been deluded into thinking that their country has spawned democracy and justice throughout its sphere of influence.

The benevolent hegemon’s malignant foreign policy choices are now being countered, and the USA is desperately trying to pull its chestnuts out of the fire. Desperate situations call for desperate action. Trying to provoke a war with China may be one of them.

A fitting name

30.04.2024 /

Genocide Joe. I like the sound of it. Craig Murrey firmly believes that the USA and vassal states in Europe actually want to hasten the extermination of Palestinians in Palestine. His argument is sound, I think:

Discontinuing aid to UNRWA would require the following in each country:

Views would have to be coordinated through written submissions and interdepartmental meetings between the departments dealing with the Middle East, with the United Nations, with the United States, with Europe and then of course between the diplomatic and development wings of the ministry. That process would include seeking the views of [the country’s] ambassadors to Tel Aviv, Doha, Cairo, Riyadh, Istanbul and Washington and to the United Nations in Geneva and in New York.

[Yet, several countries] announced all on the same day the destruction of the life support system for Palestinians, then in absolute need.

Craig Murrey, Consortium News April 26 2024

Why on earth would they all simultaneously cut off aid to an organisation that is vital for human survival in that Hell on earth if not to achieve a “final solution” on the Palestine issue.

There’s a lot of money involved, of course, from the Israel Lobby. Everybody knows that, but I doubt that anybody knows just how much, since every attempt will surely be made to conceal the extent of such donations. Here is a site that claims it knows. However I have no doubt that The Intercept has pretty solid documentation about a relatively trifling amount, which nevertheless proved to be significant.

Yes, Genocide Joe! And that is the country that promises to “defend” Finno-Scandinavia with 47 military bases? Defence, my foot!

I’ll be back soon. Yes, by Joe, I’ll be back!

PS: On May 4, I see in Reuters that Sanaa University has issued a statement applauding the “humanitarian” position of the students in the United States and said they could continue their studies in Yemen. “The board of the university condemns what academics and students of U.S. and European universities are being subjected to, suppression of freedom of expression,” the board of the university said in a statement, which included an email address for any students wanting to take up their offer.

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