- Red Flag Gun Laws Are Rooted In Communist Methods Of Oppression
Red Flag Gun Laws Are Rooted In Communist Methods Of Oppression
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
This week government officials came back from their summer recess, and I have heard from a couple different sources that the US Senate in particular is seeking to fast track legislation on Red Flag gun laws as well as a possible ban on private party transfers of firearms and a possible ban on high capacity magazines. I can only hope that these are just rumors, but I suspect they are accurate.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has publicly vowed to pursue any new gun control legislation that the Trump Administration supports, and Donald Trump has openly called for Red Flag gun laws involving mental health guidelines. The mainstream media now claims that a majority of Americans on both sides of the political divide support red flag legislation, but we all know how rigged such polls can be. The real question is, does the average American even know what red flag laws would entail? I think they do not.
Red flag gun laws are a method of gun control by which a family member or law enforcement can petition the court to confiscate a person’s firearms on the SUSPICION that the person may present a danger to themselves or others. But it doesn’t necessarily stop there. Some reports indicate that Trump is seriously considering using big tech companies like Amazon and Apple to monitor people’s behavior and link this data to a social credit system similar to the system that already exists in China. Your gun rights could then be determined by algorithms that mark you as a potential risk simply by what you post online.
Prosecution using the public to spy on itself is a hallmark of these kinds of laws. It is also nothing new. The Puritans in early America used intangible evidence, such as “spectral evidence” to punish people of various crimes including witchcraft. This encouraged extreme collectivism and conformity, for anyone stepping outside the lines of what the group saw as righteous behavior could find themselves secretly accused using rhetorical evidence and unable to defend themselves. Their only option was to admit to the crime, whether they were guilty or not, and then repent.
But in a social or political witch hunt, you are not repenting to get in God’s good graces, but to get in the good graces of the collective. You are supposed to sublimate yourself for the group and beg their forgiveness; not for the crime you are accused, but for the crime of acting as an individual. The message is clear – There is no way to fight back. Just give in and if you are lucky the collective will let you continue living, under their watchful eye, of course.
This might sound like something that could never happen in the US today, but it already has. The existence of the No Fly List, which is generated in secret, is often politically motivated and is based on evidence that the accused is never allowed to see. It is a perfect example of a “law” that is similar to Red Flag legislation. While the no fly list has been confronted in court numerous times, it still endures and is little changed since its inception. Once ingrained, these laws are rarely ever removed.
It is likely that Red Flag gun laws will operate in the same way. One day you may walk into the sporting goods store and be denied a gun purchase by the ATF. There will be no explanation, only the denial of your rights.
Accusations can come from anywhere, even complete strangers using anonymous online applications (this is how the Chinese social credit system works). They could be based on legitimate behavior, such as suicide or murder threats, or they could be based on a political statement you wrote or said years ago. It doesn’t matter. The goal will be to take gun rights away from as many people as possible while the government still claims to support the 2nd Amendment. It’s about the back door destruction of gun rights, not public safety. It’s also about silencing public dissent.
The bottom line is, if you allow pre-crime judgment based on hearsay evidence for one person, then you are allowing it for ALL people including yourself. And, it might not stop with whether or not a person is allowed to buy or own a gun. These systems of control expand into every facet of life. Again, simply look at what is happening in China.
The method of using “mental health” or social disruption as an excuse to silence dissent was not actually mastered by China, however. It was standardized in communist Russia during the reign of the Soviets. The mental health excuse was exploited on a regular basis in order to quietly sweep government critics and dissidents under the rug never to be seen again. The metal hospitals where these deplorables were kept were called “Psikhushka”, an ironic diminutive label. The hospitals worked hand in hand with the Cheka secret police and their vast networks of civilian informants.
‘See Something Say Something’ began under communists in the East. It’s only being recycled today in the West.
For the Soviets, the methodology made sense. The message they were sending was that anyone who criticized socialism/communism MUST be crazy. And, in a way, this is how Red Flag laws function. For if you are put on the list, or denied gun rights, then there MUST be something mentally wrong with you. And, by extension, if you are placed on the list for political reasons, then your political beliefs or convictions MUST also be psychologically disturbed. You see how this works?
Red Flag laws and social credit systems take the Psikhushka and flip it around. They don’t need mental health prisons, they simply turn the whole country into a mental health prison. The wardens and guards of this prison will be the citizenry, and they will police each other.
Make no mistake, the mainstream media and the government have been conditioning the public for years to the concept that certain ideals and political activists are on the “fringe”. They are “conspiracy theorists”. They are exhibiting “defiance disorders”. They are not right in the head. Red Flag gun laws are meant for people like me, or perhaps people like you.
Precursor testing of denial of gun rights based on mental health accusations has already taken place against war veterans in the US based on PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). It makes sense that the government would seek to disarm trained combat experienced veterans first, as they tend to present the biggest source of resistance to a totalitarian shift.
I can’t say that Trump’s open support of Red Flag laws surprises me in the slightest. Trump’s long term business relationships and debts to the Rothschild banking elites as well as his many dubious cabinet choices including Pompeo, Ross, Mnuchin, Kudlow, Lightheizer, etc., indicate to me that Trump is not on the side of liberty activists. John Bolton’s recent exit from the White House does not impress me. It is clearly a crumb thrown to conservatives as a means to keep them close to the Neo-Con table. The goal of the elites to lure conservatives into blind adulation of the Trump Admin. is starting to fail, and they had to do something. Also, it is not uncommon for elitist members to jump ship from an administration right before their agenda’s are implemented so that they get none of the blame for the consequences.
Bolton should never have been in Trump’s cabinet to begin with, he was there for years, and just because Bolton is leaving doesn’t mean his agendas will be leaving. Trump has many elitist handlers, and I’m sure Bolton will be replaced with yet another reprehensible ghoul in due course.
In my recent article ‘The Real Reasons Why The Media Is Suddenly Admitting To The Recession Threat’, I noted that if an economic crisis strikes in the next year, then it’s highly unlikely that Trump is slated to be president after the 2020 elections. If he supports Red Flag laws, then it is almost assured that he will not be president for another term.
In our controlled political machine in which presidents from both parties are merely puppets for elitist interests, these kinds of liberty crushing laws are not generally designed for the current Administration’s use. Rather, they are supported by one president or party, and then exploited by the next president or party in power. In this way, conservatives could be tricked into backing unconstitutional laws in the name of “helping their side win”, only to discover that the laws they supported (or ignored) are being used against them by Democrats a few years later.
I think this would be especially true for Red Flag legislation. If conservatives do not raise hell in response to these laws just because they don’t want to derail the Trump train, then they will find themselves complicit in their own disarmament if markets tank and the Dems take over in 2020. The socialist front runners will say that we “asked for this” under Trump, and now we’re getting what we wanted. And, once these laws are in the books, expect that a majority of police will comply with them and enforce them.
Of course, this leads to an inevitable outcome – War. There are millions of people in the US that are not going to fold to the dismantling of gun rights or gun confiscation. No doubt, we would all be labeled terrorists, and our defiance would be held up as further proof of our mental instability. So be it.
Once the Pandora’s box of pre-crime and hearsay evidence is opened, the sky is truly the limit for the violation of American constitutional rights.
For whatever it’s worth, now would be a good time for gun rights advocates to contact their representatives and warn them that Red Flag laws are unacceptable. Also keep in mind that the government may push a long list of new gun control restrictions on top of Red Flag laws as a means to frighten the public. They will then rescind many of the items on the list (except the red flag legislation) in order to make it appear as thought we “got lucky”. The real goal here is the mental health restrictions and the ability for government to deny your rights according to hearsay evidence.
Gun ownership is as integral to a free society as free speech and property rights. Without firearms ownership, the public is at the mercy of any criminal or criminal government that seeks to oppress them. Remember, if your “military style” rifle was not a threat to the elites then they would not constantly seek to take it away. Never let it go.
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Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/14/2019 – 00:05 - "We Need A Back-Up Plan": Middle-Class Hong Kongers Look To Emigrate As Protests Drag On, Rents Crash
“We Need A Back-Up Plan”: Middle-Class Hong Kongers Look To Emigrate As Protests Drag On, Rents Crash
Hong Kong’s wealthy elite didn’t wait long before they started moving assets abroad after the anti-extradition bill protests morphed into a broader pro-democracy movement over the summer. Apparently, they could sense where the wind was blowing. Now, Hong Kong’s rank-and-file are starting to catch up.
According to Reuters, as the pro-democracy demonstrations stretch into the fall with no end in sight, more Hong Kongers are starting the lengthy process of relocating outside the special administrative region. Many are looking to join family in areas with large Chinese immigration populations – cities like Sydney, Australia and Vancouver, Canada.
The city government recorded what appears to be a surge in applications for migration. Since these types of data aren’t as readily available in HK as they are in the US, here’s how Reuters arrived at this conclusion: Requests for police-record printouts (which cost HK$225, or about $29) have jumped more than 50% in the month of August compared with last year. These records, according to Reuters, are only issued for visa applications or child adoptions. From what the news agency can tell, the number of adoptions has remained roughly constant. Last year, the city estimates that 7,600 citizens left HK for good.
Plus, attendance at emigration seminars, which help Hong Kongers learn and understand the complex process of leaving China, has soared. Via conversations with regular Hong Kongers, reporters got the sense that many who own property in the city feel that now might be the best time to capitalize on HK’s still frothy property market, sell, and move elsewhere. The protests have also started to have an impact on the city’s notoriously high rents, which have fallen in recent months along with property values.
On the other end, authorities in Malaysia, Australia and Taiwan have reported a spike in emigration inquiries and applications. Property agents also told Reuters that their phones are ringing ‘off the hook’.
One investor who spoke with Reuters after buying a house-and-land package in suburban Melbourne said her motives are simple: She wants to provide a stable home for herself and her child because, as she said, “there are many uncertainties in Hong Kong.”
“There are many uncertainties in Hong Kong,” one investor on a property agent’s late-August tour of suburban Melbourne said before, laying out A$600,000 ($410,000) for a house-and-land package.
“People like me in their 40s and 50s – we think about our child,” said the investor, who gave only her family name, Lee, because her employer forbids speaking to the media.
“We want a back-up home, a better place to live,” she added. “At least if something bad happens, they have a back-up plan, an exit plan.”
Reuters reported that Lee’s sentiments were echoed by 10 other families that agreed to be interviewed for the story.
Though there are no official data tracking immigration out of Hong Kong, at least one of Reuters sources believes the volume of people seeing to emigrate now is higher than it was back in 2014, when the last round of pro-Democracy protests roiled the city.
“The numbers are the highest in recent years, even higher than 2014,” said Peggy Lau, a sales director at Uni Immigration Consultancy in Hong Kong, where enquiries have surged sevenfold since protests began in June.
To be sure, there is no official data tracking emigration applications from Hong Kong, which has a population of about 7 million. Nor is there evidence of departures or cash outflows on the scale of those in the aftermath of the 1997 handover from Britain to China.
But there are firm signs of preparations.
Favored destinations such as Malaysia, which is relatively cheap, and Taiwan, which is culturally similar to Hong Kong, show sharp rises in interest.
At Johor, near Malaysia’s southern tip, property consultant Bruce Lee said Hong Kongers have poured into a project called Forest City, developed by China’s Country Garden Holdings Co Ltd, buying 800 units since June.
That compares with 200 units purchased between then and 2016, when sales began.
In Taiwan, the number of visas issued to Hong Kongers in June and July was 38% higher (at 884) than during the same period from a year ago, according to the island’s Ministry of the Interior National Immigration Agency. Given the sudden upswing in violence during the month of August, it’s likely that the number of applicants continued to climb. In Australia, authorities confirmed to Reuters a “significant” increase in visa applicants from Hong Kong, but declined to give specific information. In New Zealand, applications for residency visas from Hong Kong passport holders hit 34 in June and 44 in July, modestly higher than the average of 29.
Property agents report that they’re already beginning to shift their focus away from Hong Kong’s real estate market, as prices edge lower for a second straight month, and are beginning to focus on finding new homes for Hong Konger clients in Taiwan and elsewhere.
There are no signs yet of an effect on prices in destination markets, but demand is strong enough that agents and developers say they have begun actively courting Hong Kongers.
“We see there is an opportunity,” said Ken Dodds, sales director at Melbourne homebuilder Resimax, which hosted 43 Hong Kong investors last month, after previously focusing on buyers from Malaysia and Singapore.
“People are keen to look for a safe haven,” he said, adding that the investors bought or reserved a dozen properties, which he described as a “great” result.
And while destination markets haven’t seen much of an impact on prices, many suspect that a “safe haven” premium could soon arise in popular markets around Taiwan, and elsewhere.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 23:45 - Another Bizarre Interstellar Object Has Just Been Found In Our Solar System
Another Bizarre Interstellar Object Has Just Been Found In Our Solar System
Authored by Jake Anderson via The Mind Unleashed blog,
A second interstellar object is zooming through our solar system and this time, astronomers will be ready…
In 2017, scientists marveled over the first human observations of an interstellar object passing through our solar system. The cigar-shaped asteroid, named ‘Oumuamua, possessed such bizarre traits that some observers speculated it might be an alien spaceship; most astronomers, however, focused on using the narrow timeframe of its passage to make as many observations as possible.
Now astronomers believe a second interstellar object is zooming into our solar system and this time, their telescopes will be ready.
An amateur astronomer in Crimea, Gennady Borisov, discovered what is believed to be a comet using his own observatory. The Minor Planet Center (MPC) confirmed the object, subsequently named C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), and further analysis revealed it to have an unusual trajectory—an eccentric, hyperbolic path that likely means it is not gravitationally tied to our sun.
Like its predecessor ‘Oumuamua, the new interstellar visitor hails from another planetary system and is tearing through the galaxy with incredible velocity (30 kilometers a second).
There are differences between the objects, though. While ‘Oumuamua is an asteroid, the 10 kilometer wide C/2019 appears to have a tail of gas indicative of a comet. This means its composition and origins can be studied in greater detail. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, C/2019 is six times brighter and will be available for observation for far longer.
‘Oumuamua took scientists by surprise and was on its way out of the solar system by the time they discovered it, allowing only a couple weeks of analysis. C/2019, on the other hand, will be visible to astronomers for about six months.
C/2019’s cometary nature and the amount of time scientists will have to study it means we will get an unprecedented opportunity to learn about the condition of an alien planetary system that could be a billion years old.
Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer with the European Southern Observatory, says scientists are so excited about the discovery that many are dropping all other projects to focus on it and commission high-powered telescopes for observation.
“Here we have something that was born around another star and traveling toward us. It’s the next-best thing to sending a probe to a different solar system,” Hainaut said.
Someday the European Space Agency (ESA) may attempt to land a spacecraft on an interstellar object. In the meantime, scientists plan to learn more about the conditions of other parts of our vast galaxy.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 23:25 - US Army Expected To Test Super-Short Carbine For Soldiers Of 2025
US Army Expected To Test Super-Short Carbine For Soldiers Of 2025
Maxim Defense Industries has partnered with the U.S. Army at Fort Benning and The Maneuver Center of Excellence to provide soldiers with a super-short carbine for testing during the Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment (AEWE) starting in November 2019 through July 2020.
Maxim will provide the Army with the MDX weapon system consisting of the MDX:505/PDX (5.5″ barrel), the MDX:508 (8″ barrel), and the MDX:511 (11″ barrel), along with three of their stocks: the Sub-Compact Weapon Stock, Maxim’s Gen7 Close Quarters Battle Stock and the Combat Carbine Stock, said the Military Times.
Michael Windfeldt, CEO of Maxim, said the company is delighted to provide the Army with the new weapon system for testing and believes it could one day “enhance the warfighter’s capabilities on the battlefield.”
Maxim has scheduled the first live-fire exercise on November 14 with the U.S. Army, and British and Australian Special Forces in early 2020.
The AEWE program allows U.S. soldiers to test prototype weapons and concepts that are designed for small units. These weapons will eventually find their way onto the modern battlefield by 2025.
The push for modernization comes as President Trump has flooded all services with records amounts of cash this year.
The Army expects by 2025, that most operations will likely be carried out with smaller and leaner forces capable of using advanced technologies to make the probability of completing a mission much higher than ever before.
The AEWE is focused on medium to long term modernization efforts, centered explicitly around procuring new weapon systems for combat troops by the mid-2020s.
Military Times said the MDX weapon system could shoot 300BLK, 5.56 NATO and 7.62x39mm. The barrel length is about 5.5 inches long and interchangeable with other lengths, allowing the weapon to be used in various types of missions.
YouTube handle Impact Guns provides a review and range test of the Maxim Defense PDX in the video below:
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 23:05 - Why Gen-Z'ers And Millennials Support Socialism
Why Gen-Z’ers And Millennials Support Socialism
Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,
Public-opinion polls reflect that large numbers of Americans in their 20s and 30s (i.e., Gen Z and millennials) support socialism. When one considers the indoctrination to which these young Americans have been subjected in their state-run educational systems, their preference for socialism actually makes sense.
From the first grade, American students are indoctrinated with the notion that they live in a free country, one that has a free-enterprise economic system. By the time they graduate from high school, students have no doubts that this is true. The notion is refortified in those students who go on to college. By the time Americans start their careers, their mindsets are set in concrete: They are grateful that they live in a free country. Many of them continue reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, which they learned in school and which they were expected to recite every day, a pledge that confirms that in America there is “liberty for all.”
Now, look around you. Examine the society in which you live. There are crises, chaos, and mayhem everywhere. Social Security. Health care. Immigration. Federal spending and debt. Monetary. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Korea. Russia. China. Drug war. Forever wars. Secret surveillance. Assassinations. Death. Destruction. Bombings. Terrorism. Mass killings. Tribunals. Torture. Indefinite detention. Militarism. Invasions. Occupations. Coups. Regime-change operations. Trade wars. Sanctions. Embargoes. Police states. Alcoholism. Drug addiction. Homelessness. Poverty. Suicides.
It’s not a pretty picture, is it? It’s a picture of a quite dysfunctional society.
In the mind of the Gen Zer and the millennial, that is what comes with freedom and free enterprise. Given such, it’s perfectly logical to want something else, and that something else happens to be socialism. It even makes sense that so many young people decide to check out of life early through suicide. They’re thinking, “If this is freedom — if this is the best there is — no, thanks. I’m leaving and hopefully going on to something better.”
Conservatives and liberals
Moreover, it’s not just people in their 20s and 30s who believe this. Conservatives and progressives (i.e., liberals or leftists) believe the same thing. They all fervently believe in the words of the Lee Greenwood song, “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.” That’s why whenever they see a U.S. soldier, they go out of their way to thank him for “his service” in keeping America free. They have absolutely no doubts that they live in a free country, one that has a free-enterprise economic system.
Ironically, however, conservatives and liberals divide into two camps: Conservatives decry socialism and defend what they are convinced is America’s free-enterprise system. Liberals decry what they too are convinced is America’s free-enterprise system and want it replaced with a socialist system.
It’s all one great big confused mindset, one that is the direct result of state indoctrination.
The libertarian breakthrough
What distinguishes us libertarians from non-libertarians is that we have succeeded in breaking through the state’s system of indoctrination.
The truth is that Americans are not free and they don’t live in a free-enterprise system. What the state ingrained in during those long years in the state’s education system was a lie from the start. Americans lives their lives as serfs on a giant government plantation, one that is based on the statist principles of socialism, interventionism, militarism, and imperialism.
America’s system is based on massive mandatory charity. Through such programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education grants, farm subsidies, foreign aid, and thousands of others, Americas are forced to be good, caring, and compassionate. There is no way to reconcile that type of system with freedom. Freedom necessarily entails the right to make charitable decisions on a purely voluntary basis.
America’s system is also based on control, regulation, and management of peaceful activity. The drug war is a good example. President Trump’s trade wars and unilateral impositions of tariffs, sanctions, and embargoes is another. America’s system of immigration controls is another. There is no way to reconcile such a system with the principles of a genuinely free society. A free society necessarily entails ingesting whatever you want, no matter how harmful, traveling wherever you want, and doing whatever you want with your own money.
America’s system is also based on a national-security state, a type of totalitarian government structure, one that comes with assassination, torture, coups, invasions, bombings, sanctions, embargoes, wars of aggression, occupations, indefinite detention, military tribunals, death, suffering, and destruction. There is no way that such things can be reconciled with the principles of genuinely free society. A free society necessarily entails a limited-government republic type of governmental system.
Thus, we libertarians lament the dysfunctional state of American society, just as many Gen Xers, millennials, and leftists do. The difference is that they think that the dysfunctionality is the result of freedom and free enterprise and, therefore, want socialism to replace it. We libertarians, on the other hand, realize that the dysfunctionality in American society is owing to the socialist, interventionist, militarist, and imperialist system under which we live, which is why we favor a genuinely free society, a genuine free-enterprise system, and the restoration of a limited-government republic.
The hope for America
Given the popularity of statism among Gen Zers, millennials, conservatives, and liberals, is there much hope for putting American back on the right track? Of course there is! Since we libertarians have succeeded in breaking through the indoctrination to which the state subjected us in its educational system, so can others. We libertarians just need to keep speaking the truth and sticking to our principles. That’s the best way to help others achieve the same breakthrough that we libertarians have achieved.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 22:45 - The Sisyphean Exercise Of Afghanistan In One Shocking Map
The Sisyphean Exercise Of Afghanistan In One Shocking Map
President Trump announced Monday that his controversial Afghan peace talks and the entire process is “dead” — explaining the Taliban had continued its terror offensive targeting US personnel and allies amid talks, specifically an American soldier in a car bombing last week.
“They are dead, they are dead,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn. “As far as I’m concerned, they are dead.”
He further described that Taliban officials had been spreading the word that they’d made a “big mistake” in crossing him.
Via Outlook Afghanistan “They thought they had to kill people in order to put themselves in a little better negotiating position,” Trump said.
“When I heard, very simply, that they killed one of our soldiers and 12 other innocent people, I said ‘There is no way I’m meeting on that basis. There is no way I’m meeting.’ They did a mistake. And by the way they are telling people they made a big mistake. They are saying it loud and clear that they made a big mistake.”
Soon after Trump first announced Saturday that direct peace talks were effectively ended, also acknowledging Taliban leaders were set to “secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday,” the administration immediately starting painting a rosy picture of how things are going in America’s longest war – now approaching two decades.
Pompeo on Meet The Press: “You should know, in the last 10 days we’ve killed over 1,000 Taliban. And while this is not a war of attrition, I want the American people to know that President Trump is taking it to the Taliban.” pic.twitter.com/dXxQwzrYkD
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 8, 2019
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promptly claimed the US had killed over 1,000 Taliban in just the last 10 days.
“Well a lot of them are in their graves, and so make no mistake about it. We will continue to punish, we will continue to pound, we will continue to fight. We will continue to protect the American people,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper while making the rounds on multiple Sunday shows.
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The Map
But what’s the end game here?
The map below shows the shocking reality that a little less than half of the entire country’s population is actually firmly under the US-backed national government’s control (just 48%) after over eighteen years of war and countless American sacrifice in blood and treasure.
And a majority the territory across Afghanistan is still considered “contested” (in red below) according to an interactive map maintained by FDD’s Long War Journal (see full-sized interactive map here).
This led one former Green Beret and current journalist, Jack Murphy, to say it’s past time to just skip right to the end game: get out and get out now.
He said, “instead of all of this navel gazing, teeth gnashing, and handwringing, let’s just skip right to the end game?”
This is going to sound crazy, but bear with me. We all know the US is going to pull out of Afghanistan and the country will collapse into chaos like Vietnam. So dig this, instead of all of this navel gazing, teeth gnashing, and handwringing, let’s just skip right to the end game?
— Jack Murphy (@JackMurphyRGR) September 9, 2019
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Trump’s instincts to withdraw from the Afghan quagmire are correct (as they were on Syria as well before an avalanche of deep state push back).
Indeed let’s just skip right to the end game, assuming the end result will be the same no matter what. At least no more Americans would have to die, and no more tax dollars drained, on what in the end is a futile Sisyphean exercise.
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Via “The Myth of Sisyphus and Man’s Search for Meaning”/Medium.com The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
–Albert Camus, THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 22:25 - Berkeley Hosts "The Right To Be Lazy: Shifts In Marxist Thought" Class For Credit
Berkeley Hosts “The Right To Be Lazy: Shifts In Marxist Thought” Class For Credit
Authored by Seth Segal via CampusReform.org,
The University of California, Berkeley is offering a course, titled, “The Right to be Lazy: Shifts in Marxist Thought.”
The fall 2019 course is part of UC Berkeley’s DeCal program, consisting of student-taught, but faculty-approved courses.
“Marx’s ideas were taken up by revolutionaries around the globe from the anticolonial militants in Africa and Latin America to those blockading the streets of Paris in 1968 and Italy in the 1970s,” the course description reads.
“We will find in each struggle a Marxism specific to its historical and geographic context, reflected in the various stages of capitalist development. By studying these struggles and the creative responses to conditions they faced, we will try to better understand what it means to be anticapitalist, what are the basic categories of capital, and questions of the revolutionary subject.”
Campus Reform reached out to student instructors for comment but did not receive comment in time for publication.
“Each of us has the right to be lazy, but none of us has the right to the rewards of someone else’s hard work,” Capitalism.com founder and CEO Ryan Daniel Moran told Campus Reform.
“Anticapitalist ideas are rooted in entitlement, which is one of the dangers of today’s society. I hope the students at Berkeley are taught the ineffectiveness of Marx’s ideas; if you want to create change, it starts with you.”
Campus Reform also spoke with the Berkeley College Republicans about the offering.
“We do not oppose teaching divergent subjects in DeCal classes at UC Berkeley,” the chapter said.
“However, nobody can dispute the fact that if a DeCal class with a right-leaning curriculum was ever proposed, it would be promptly rejected. Colleges should be dedicated to promoting intellectual diversity and an important part of that is giving adequate space to conservative views, even if they are unpopular with the larger campus community.”
UC-Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof previously commented to Campus Reform on the DeCal program, more generally, saying, “the campus administration has no connection to or control over these [course] offerings.”
Mogulof referred Campus Reform to the academic senate, which approves these courses. The academic senate has not returned Campus Reform‘s request for comment.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 22:05 - Goldman Sachs VP Stole Millions To Pay Down Poker Debt
Goldman Sachs VP Stole Millions To Pay Down Poker Debt
A senior Goldman Sachs executive working at the Bengaluru office in India was arrested earlier this week for stealing $5.3 million from the firm to pay down his gambling debts, reported Business Today.
Ashwani Jhunjhunwala, 36, the firm’s vice president, was arrested and will arrive in court in the near term, deputy commissioner of police MN Anucheth told the news agency.
Based on a complaint by Goldman Sachs, Jhunjhunwala used three of his subordinates Gaurav Mishra, Abhishek Yadav, and Sujith Appaiah to transfer the money. He had allegedly used their desktops during a “training session” to send the funds in two installments to an account he controlled at the Commercial Bank of China.
“He had access to another financial manager’s account. So he used it to transfer the money to himself. It happened within a span of just 10 minutes on September 4,” the deputy commissioner said.
The fraud surfaced on September 6 during an internal audit.
Mishra told the police that Jhunjhunwala asked him to create a Settlement Reconciliation Service (SRS) for payment recall earlier this month, which he wasn’t briefed on why he had to create such a thing considering he was a new employee.
Goldman Sachs in the complaint stated that Jhunjhunwala had lost $70,000 while playing online poker.
Gambling is illegal in Bengaluru, which is part of the Karnataka state. But the New Indian Express reports that the capital city has very laxed penalties for those found guilty of violating gambling laws.
“The penalty is pitiably low – Rs 200 ($2.78) fine for gamblers and Rs 500 for the clubs. Top officials say that imprisonment is rarely ordered by the magistrate court,” New Indian Express explains.
The total charge, according to Bengaluru code, could see Jhunjhunwala facing 27 years in prison and large fines, considering he stole $5 million.
Goldman Sachs has since terminated Jhunjhunwala, and the Commercial Bank of China has returned the funds.
Jhunjhunwala’s LinkedIn profile noted that he held an MBA and had over a decade of experience in capital market businesses and financial consultancy.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 21:45 - The Establishment Is Changing Its Tune On Russia
The Establishment Is Changing Its Tune On Russia
Authored by Patrick Lawrence via ConsortiumNews.com,
Russophobic rhetoric persists in Washington, but a counter-argument is emerging.
Are Western democracies, the U.S. and France in the lead, rethinking the hostility toward Russia they conjured out of nothing since Moscow responded to the coup Washington cultivated in Ukraine five years ago? Will Trump eventually succeed in putting ties with Russia on a more productive path — triumphing over the hawks hovering around him? Have the Europeans at last grown weary of following the U.S. lead on Russia even as it is against their interests to do so?
In desultory fashion over the past month or so, we have had indications that the policy cliques in Washington are indeed reconsidering the Cold War II they set in motion during the Obama administration’s final years. And President Donald Trump, persistent in his effort to reconstruct relations with Russia, now finds an unlikely ally in Emmanuel Macron. This suggests a nascent momentum in a new direction.
“Pushing Russia away from Europe is a profound strategic mistake,” the French president asserted in a stunning series of remarks to European diplomats immediately after the Group of 7 summit in Biarritz late last month.
This alone is a bold if implicit attack on the hawkish Russophobes Trump now battles in Washington. Macron then outdid himself: “We are living the end of Western hegemony,” he told the assembled envoys.
It is difficult to recall when a Western leader last spoke so truthfully and insightfully of our 21stcentury realities, chief among them the inevitable rise of non–Western nations to positions of parity with the Atlantic world. You have nonetheless read no word of this occasion in our corporate media: Macron’s startling observations run entirely counter to the frayed triumphalism and nostalgia that grip Washington as its era of preeminence fades.
President Donald J. Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron in joint press conference in Biarritz, France, site of the G7 Summit, Aug. 26, 2019. (White House/ Andrea Hanks)
There is much to indicate that the West’s aggressively hostile posture toward Russia remains unchanged. The Russophobic rhetoric emanating from Washington and featured daily in our corporate television broadcasts continues unabated. Last month Washington formally abandoned the bilateral treaty limiting deployment of intermediate-range ballistic missiles, signed with Moscow in 1987. As anyone could have predicted, NATO now suggests it will upgrade its missile defense systems in Poland and Romania. This amounts to an engraved invitation to the Russian Federation to begin a new arms race.
But a counter-argument favoring a constructive relationship with Russia is now evident. This is not unlike the abrupt volte-face in Washington’s thinking on North Korea: It is now broadly accepted that the Korean crisis can be resolved only at the negotiating table.
The Times Are Changing
The New York Times seems to be on board with this this sharp turn in foreign policy. It reported the new consensus on North Korea in a news analysis on July 11. Ten days later it published another arguing that it’s time to put down the spear and make amends with Moscow. Here is the astonishing pith of the piece: “China, not Russia, represents by far the greater challenge to American objectives over the long term. That means President Trump is correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia and peel it away from China.”
It is encouraging that the Times has at last discovered the well-elaborated alliance between Moscow and Beijing. It took the one-time newspaper of record long enough. But there is another feature of this article that is important to note: It was published as a lead editorial. This is not insignificant.
It is essential, when reading the Times, to understand the close — not to say corrupt — relations it has maintained with political power in Washington over many generations. This is well-documented in histories of the paper and of institutions such as the CIA. An editorial advancing a policy shift of this magnitude almost certainly reflects the paper’s close consultations, at senior levels of management, with policy-setting officials at the National Security Council, the State Department, or at the Pentagon. The editorial is wholly in keeping with Washington’s pronounced new campaign to designate China as America’s most dangerous threat.
It is impossible to say whether Trump is emboldened by an inchoate shift of opinion on Russia, but he flew his banner high at the Biarritz G–7. Prior to his departure for the summit in southwest France he asserted that Russia should be readmitted to the group when it convenes in the U.S. next year. Russia was excluded in 2014, following its annexation of Crimea in response to the coup in Kiev.
Trump repeated the thought in Biarritz, claiming there was support among other members for the restoration of the G–8. “I think it’s a work in progress,” he said. “We have a number of people that would like to see Russia back.”
Macron is plainly one of those people. It was just after Trump sounded his theme amid Biarritz’s faded grandeur — and what an excellent choice for a convention of the Western powers — that the French president made his own plea for repairing ties with Russia and for Europe to escape its fate as “a theater for strategic struggle between the U.S. and Russia.”
Biarritz from the Pointe Saint-Martin, 1999. (Wikimedia Commons)
“The European continent will never be stable, will never be secure, if we don’t pacify and clarify our relations with Russia,” Macron said in his address to Western diplomats. Then came his flourish on the imminent end of the Atlantic world’s preeminence.
“The world order is being shaken like never before. It’s being shaken because of errors made by the West in certain crises, but also by the choices made by the United States in the past few years— and not just by the current administration.”
Macron is an opportunistic main-chancer in European politics, and it is not at all certain how far he can or will attempt to advance his new vision of either the West or Europe in the Continent’s councils of state. But as evidence of a new current in Western thinking about Russia, the non–West in general, and Europe’s long-nursed desire for greater independence from Washington, the importance of his comments is beyond dispute.
The question now is whether or how soon better ties with Moscow will translate into practical realities. At present, Trump and Macron share a good idea without much substance to it.
Better US-Russia Ties May Be in Pipeline
But Trump may have taken a step in the right direction. Within days of his return from Biarritz, he put a hold on the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a military aid program that was to provide Kiev with $250 million in assistance during the 2019 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1 and runs to Sept. 30, 2020. The funds are designated for weaponry, training and intelligence support.
Trump has asked his national security advisers to review the commitment. The delay, coming hard on his proposal to readmit Russia to a reconstituted G–8, cannot possibly be read as a coincidence.
There will be other things to watch for in months to come. High among these is Trump’s policy toward the Nord Stream 2 pipeline linking Russian gas fields to terminals in Western Europe, thereby cutting Ukraine out of the loop. Trump, his desire to improve ties with Moscow notwithstanding, has vigorously opposed this project. The Treasury Department has threatened sanctions against European contractors working on it. If Trump is serious about bringing Russia back into the fold, this policy will have to go. This may mean going up against the energy lobby in Washington and Ukraine’s many advocates on Capitol Hill.
To date, U.S. threats to retaliate against construction of Nord Stream 2 have done nothing but irritate Europeans, who have ignored them, while furthering the Continent’s desire to escape Washington’s suffocating embrace. This is precisely the kind of contradiction Macron addressed when he protested that Europeans need to begin acting in their own interests rather than acquiesce as Washington force-marches them on a never-ending anti–Russia crusade.
Macron may prove a pushover, or a would-be Gaullist who fails to make the grade. Or he may have just announced a long-awaited inflection point in trans–Atlantic ties. Either way, he has put highly significant questions on the table. It will be interesting to see what responses they may elicit, not least from the Trump White House.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 21:25
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