- The Existential Madness Of Putin-Bashing
Submitted by Robert Parry via ConsortiumNews.com,
Official Washington loves its Putin-bashing but demonizing the Russian leader stops a rational debate about U.S.-Russia relations and pushes the two nuclear powers toward an existential brink.
Arguably, the nuttiest neoconservative idea – among a long list of nutty ideas – has been to destabilize nuclear-armed Russia by weakening its economy, isolating it from Europe, pushing NATO up to its borders, demonizing its leadership, and sponsoring anti-government political activists inside Russia to promote “regime change.”
This breathtakingly dangerous strategy has been formulated and implemented with little serious debate inside the United States as the major mainstream news media and the neocons’ liberal-interventionist sidekicks have fallen in line much as they did during the run-up to the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
Except with Russia, the risks are even greater – conceivably, a nuclear war that could exterminate life on the planet. Yet, despite those stakes, there has been a cavalier – even goofy – attitude in the U.S. political/media mainstream about undertaking this new “regime change” project aimed at Moscow.
There is also little appreciation of how lucky the world was when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 without some Russian extremists seizing control of the nuclear codes and taking humanity to the brink of extinction. Back then, there was a mix of luck and restrained leadership, especially on the Soviet side.
Plus, there were at least verbal assurances from George H.W. Bush’s administration that the Soviet retreat from East Germany and Eastern Europe would not be exploited by NATO and that a new era of cooperation with the West could follow the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Instead, the United States dispatched financial “experts” – many from Harvard Business School – who arrived in Moscow with neoliberal plans for “shock therapy” to “privatize” Russia’s resources, which turned a handful of corrupt insiders into powerful billionaires, known as “oligarchs,” and the “Harvard Boys” into well-rewarded consultants.
But the result for the average Russian was horrific as the population experienced a drop in life expectancy unprecedented in a country not at war. While a Russian could expect to live to be almost 70 in the mid-1980s, that expectation had dropped to less than 65 by the mid-1990s.
The “Harvard Boys” were living the high-life with beautiful women, caviar and champagne in the lavish enclaves of Moscow – as the U.S.-favored President Boris Yeltsin drank himself into stupors – but there were reports of starvation in villages in the Russian heartland and organized crime murdered people on the street with near impunity.
Meanwhile, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush cast aside any restraint regarding Russia’s national pride and historic fears by expanding NATO across Eastern Europe, including the incorporation of former Soviet republics.
In the 1990s, the “triumphalist” neocons formulated a doctrine for permanent U.S. global dominance with their thinking reaching its most belligerent form during George W. Bush’s presidency, which asserted the virtually unlimited right for the United States to intervene militarily anywhere in the world regardless of international law and treaties.
How Despair Led to Putin
Without recognizing the desperation and despair of the Russian people during the Yeltsin era — and the soaring American arrogance in the 1990s — it is hard to comprehend the political rise and enduring popularity of Vladimir Putin, who became president after Yeltsin abruptly resigned on New Year’s Eve 1999. (In declining health, Yeltsin died on April 23, 2007).
Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Putin, a former KGB officer with a strong devotion to his native land, began to put Russia’s house back in order. Though he collaborated with some oligarchs, he reined in others by putting them in jail for corruption or forcing them into exile.
Putin cracked down on crime and terrorism, often employing harsh means to restore order, including smashing Islamist rebels seeking to take Chechnya out of the Russian Federation.
Gradually, Russia regained its economic footing and the condition of the average Russian improved. By 2012, Russian life expectancy had rebounded to more than 70 years. Putin also won praise from many Russians for reestablishing the country’s national pride and reasserting its position on the world stage.
Though a resurgent Russia created friction with the neocon designs for permanent U.S. world domination, Putin represented a side of Russian politics that favored cooperation with the West. He particularly hoped that he could work closely with President Barack Obama, who likewise indicated his desire to team up with Russia to make progress on thorny international issues.
In 2012, Obama was overheard on an open mike telling Putin’s close political ally, then-President Dmitri Medvedev, that “after my election, I have more flexibility,” suggesting greater cooperation with Russia. (Because of the Russian constitution barring someone from serving more than two consecutive terms as president, Medvedev, who had been prime minister, essentially swapped jobs with Putin for four years.)
Obama’s promise was not entirely an empty one. His relationship with the Russian leadership warmed as the two powers confronted common concerns over security issues, such as convincing Syria to surrender its chemical-weapons arsenal in 2013 and persuading Iran to accept tight limitations on its nuclear program in 2014.
In an extraordinary op-ed in The New York Times on Sept. 11, 2013, Putin described his relationship with Obama as one of “growing trust” while disagreeing with the notion of “American “exceptionalism.” In the key last section that he supposedly wrote himself, Putin said:
“My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is ‘what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.’
“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
Offending the Neocons
Though Putin may have thought he was simply contributing to a worthy international debate in the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence’s assertion that “all men are created equal,” his objection to “American exceptionalism” represented fighting words to America’s neocons.
Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy
Instead of engaging in mushy multilateral diplomacy, muscular neocons saw America as above the law and lusted for bombing campaigns against Syria and Iran – with the goal of notching two more “regime change” solutions on their belts.
Thus, the neocons and their liberal-interventionist fellow-travelers came to see Putin as a major and unwelcome obstacle to their dreams of permanent U.S. dominance over the planet, which they would promote through what amounted to permanent warfare. (The main distinction between neocons and liberal interventionists is that the former cites “democracy promotion” as its rationale and the latter justifies war under the mantle of “humanitarianism.”)
Barely two weeks after Putin’s op-ed in the Times, a prominent neocon, Carl Gershman, the longtime president of the U.S.-government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, issued what amounted to a rejoinder in The Washington Post on Sept. 26, 2013.
Gershman’s op-ed made clear that U.S. policy should take aim at Ukraine, a historically and strategically sensitive country on Russia’s doorstep where the Russian nation made a stand against the Tatars in the 1600s and where the Nazis launched Operation Barbarossa, the devastating 1941 invasion which killed some 4 million Soviet soldiers and led to some 26 million Soviet dead total.
In the Post, Gershman wrote that “Ukraine is the biggest prize,” but made clear that Putin was the ultimate target: “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”
To advance this cause, NED alone was funding scores of projects that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ukrainian political activists and media outlets, creating what amounted to a shadow political structure that could help stir up unrest when the Ukrainian government didn’t act as desired, i.e., when elected President Viktor Yanukovych balked at a European economic plan that included cuts in pensions and heat subsidies as demanded by the International Monetary Fund.
When Yanukovych sought more time to negotiate a less onerous deal, U.S.-backed protests swept into Kiev’s Maidan square. Though representing genuine sentiment among many western Ukrainians for increased ties to Europe, neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist street fighters gained control of the uprising and began firebombing police.
A screen shot of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland speaking to U.S. and Ukrainian business leaders on Dec. 13, 2013, at an event sponsored by Chevron, with its logo to Nuland’s left.
Despite the mounting violence, the protests were cheered on by neocon Sen. John McCain, U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt and Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Victoria Nuland, the wife of neocon stalwart Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, which was a major promoter of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
In a speech to Ukrainian business leaders on Dec. 13, 2013, Nuland reminded them that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.” By early February 2014, in an intercepted phone call, she was discussing with Pyatt who should lead a new government – “Yats is the guy,” she declared referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Nuland and Pyatt continued the conversation with exchanges about how to “glue this thing” or “midwife this thing,” respectively.
A Western-backed Putsch
The violence worsened on Feb. 20, 2014, when mysterious snipers opened fire on police and demonstrators sparking clashes that killed scores, including police officers and protesters. Though later evidence suggested that the shootings were a provocation by the neo-Nazis, the immediate reaction in the mainstream Western media was to blame Yanukovych.
Though Yanukovych agreed to a compromise on Feb. 21 that would reduce his powers and speed up new elections so he could be voted out of office, he was still painted as a tyrannical villain. As neo-Nazi and other rightists chased him and his government from power on Feb. 22, the West hailed the unconstitutional putsch as “legitimate” and a victory for “democracy.”
The coup, however, prompted resistance from ethnic Russian areas of Ukraine, particularly in the east and south. With the aid of Russian troops who were stationed at the Russian naval base in Sevastopol, the Crimeans held a referendum and voted by 96 percent to leave Ukraine and rejoin the Russian Federation, a move accepted by Putin and the Kremlin.
Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine’s Azov battalion. (As filmed by a Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)
However, the West’s mainstream media called the referendum a “sham” and Crimea’s secession from Ukraine became Putin’s “invasion” – although the Russian troops were already in Crimea as part of the basing agreement and the referendum, though hastily organized, clearly represented the overwhelming will of the Crimean people, a judgment corroborated by a variety of subsequent polls.
Ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine also rose up against the new regime in Kiev, prompting more accusations in the West about “Russian aggression.” Anyone who raised the possibility that these areas, Yanukovych’s political strongholds, might simply be rejecting what they saw as an illegal political coup in Kiev was dismissed as a “Putin apologist” or a “Moscow stooge.”
While Official Washington and its mainstream media rallied the world in outrage against Putin and Russia, the new authorities in Kiev slipped Nuland’s choice, Yatsenyuk, into the post of prime minister where he pushed through the onerous IMF “reforms,” making the already hard lives of Ukrainians even harder. (The unpopular Yatsenyuk eventually resigned his position.)
Despite the obvious risks of supporting a putsch on Russia’s border, the neocons achieved their political goal of driving a huge wedge between Putin and Obama, whose quiet cooperation had been so troublesome for the neocon plan for violent “regime change” in Syria and Iran.
The successful neocon play in Ukraine also preempted possible U.S.-Russian cooperation in trying to impose an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement that would have established a Palestinian state and would have stymied Israel’s plans for gobbling up Palestinian territory by expanding Jewish settlements and creating an apartheid-style future for the indigenous Arabs, confining them to a few cantons surrounded by de facto Israeli territory.
Obama’s timid failure to explain and defend his productive collaboration with Putin enabled the neocons to achieve another goal of making Putin an untouchable, a demonized foreign leader routinely mocked and smeared by the mainstream Western news media. Along with Putin’s demonization, the neocons have sparked a new Cold War that will not only extend today’s “permanent warfare” indefinitely but dramatically increase its budgetary costs with massive new investments in strategic weapons.
Upping the Nuclear Ante
By targeting Putin and Russia, the neocons have upped the ante when it comes to their “regime change” agenda. No longer satisfied with inflicting “regime change” in countries deemed hostile to Israel – Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran, etc. – the neocons have raised their sights on Russia.
Billionaire currency speculator George Soros. (Photo credit: georgesoros.com)
In that devil-may-care approach, the neocons are joined by prominent “liberal interventionists,” such as billionaire currency speculator George Soros, who pulls the strings of many “liberal” organizations that he bankrolls.
In February 2015, Soros laid out his “Russia-regime-change” vision in the liberal New York Review of Books with an alarmist call for Europe “to wake up and recognize that it is under attack from Russia” – despite the fact that it has been NATO encroaching on Russia’s borders, not the other way around.
But Soros’s hysteria amounted to a clarion call to his many dependents among supposedly independent “non-governmental organizations” to take up the goal of destabilizing Russia and driving Putin from office. As a currency speculator, Soros recognizes the value of inflicting economic pain as well as military punishment on a target country.
“The financial crisis in Russia and the body bags [of supposedly Russian soldiers] from Ukraine have made President Putin politically vulnerable,” Soros wrote, urging Europe to keep up the economic pressure on Russia while working to transform Ukraine into an economic/political success story, saying:
“…if Europe rose to the challenge and helped Ukraine not only to defend itself but to become a land of promise, Putin could not blame Russia’s troubles on the Western powers. He would be clearly responsible and he would either have to change course or try to stay in power by brutal repression, cowing people into submission. If he fell from power, an economic and political reformer would be likely to succeed him.”
But Soros recognized the other possibility: that a Western-driven destabilization of Russia and a failed state in Ukraine could either bolster Putin or lead to his replacement by an extreme Russian nationalist, someone far-harder-line than Putin.
With Ukraine’s continued failure, Soros wrote, “President Putin could convincingly argue that Russia’s problems are due to the hostility of the Western powers. Even if he fell from power, an even more hardline leader like Igor Sechin or a nationalist demagogue would succeed him.”
Yet, Soros fails to appreciate how dangerous his schemes could be to make Russia’s economy scream so loudly that Putin would be swept aside by some political upheaval. As Soros suggests, the Russian people could turn to an extreme nationalist, not to some pliable Western-approved politician.
Protecting Mother Russia
Especially after suffering the depravations of the Yeltsin years, the Russian people might favor an extremist who would take a tough stance against the West and might see brandishing the nuclear arsenal as the only way to protect Mother Russia.
![U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, flanked by Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria "Toria" Nuland, delivers his opening remarks to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the outset of a bilateral meeting on July 15, 2016, in Moscow. [State Department photo]](https://i0.wp.com/consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/27703725034_63080748a1_k-300x200.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, flanked by Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria “Toria” Nuland, delivers his opening remarks to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the outset of a bilateral meeting on July 15, 2016, in Moscow. [State Department photo]
Still, Official Washington can’t get enough of demonizing Putin. A year ago, Obama’s White House – presumably to show how much the President disdains Putin, too – made fun of how Putin sits with his legs apart.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest cited a photo of the Russian president sitting next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “President Putin was striking a now-familiar pose of less-than-perfect posture and unbuttoned jacket and, you know, knees spread far apart to convey a particular image,” Earnest said, while ignoring the fact that Netanyahu was sitting with his legs wide apart, too.
Amid this anything-goes Putin-bashing, The New York Times, The Washington Post and now Hillary Clinton’s campaign have escalated their anti-Putin rhetoric, especially since Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has offered some praise of Putin as a “strong” leader.
Despite the barrage of cheap insults emanating from U.S. political and media circles, Putin has remained remarkably cool-headed, refusing the react in kind. Oddly, as much as the American political/media establishment treats Putin as a madman, Official Washington actually counts on his even-temper to avoid a genuine existential crisis for the world.
If Putin were what the U.S. mainstream media and politicians describe – a dangerous lunatic – the endless baiting of Putin would be even more irresponsible. Yet, even with many people privately realizing that Putin is a much more calculating leader than their negative propaganda makes him out to be, there still could be a limit to Putin’s patience.
Or the neocons and liberal hawks might succeed in provoking a violent uprising in Moscow that ousts Putin. However, if that were to happen, the odds – as even Soros acknowledges – might favor a Russian nationalist coming out on top and thus in control of the nuclear codes.
In many ways, it’s not Putin who should worry Americans but the guy that might follow Putin.
* * *
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
- New Study Finds Taxpayers Are Fleeing New York, Illinois and California
A new demographics study, posted on newgeography.com, found that more tax filers are fleeing the state of New York than any other state in the country. Frankly, we’re shocked people wouldn’t want to live in a state with the highest cost of living, highest home prices, highest state income tax rate and highest property tax rate…what about the cultural benefits? We guess the bankers and hedgies have finally figured out that they can conduct their business from pretty much any location with an internet connection and then visit New York when/if necessary. Per the same study, Illinois lost the second highest number of taxpayers and California was not far behind in third.
Does anyone think it’s purely a coincidence that the darkest areas of the following maps seem to overlap and represent the states that people are fleeing at the highest rates? If so, we assume you probably also think it’s a coincidence that those very same states have been Democratic strongholds for decades.
Source: Economic Policy Institute.
Actually, the Albany Times Union was able to find at least one person who thought that people were fleeing from NY for reasons other than oppressively high costs of living and burdensome tax rates. Ironically, that person was non other than Richard Azzopardi, of Governor Cuomo’s office, who said:
“The fact is that under this administration, New York has a record number of private sector jobs, an unemployment number below the national average, and passed reforms that led to the lowest middle class taxes in 70 years, the lowest corporate tax rates since 1968 and the lowest manufacturing tax rate since 1917 and a property tax cap.”
While we appreciate the data from Azzopardi, we’re not sure that linking New York’s excessive tax rates to its own historically higher excessive tax rates is the right comparison. Our guess is that your citizens (or ex-citizens) probably consider New York’s current tax rates versus the current tax rates of other states as the more relevant comparison. But that’s just a hunch.
- Why East Coast Gas Prices Are About To Explode
As Native Americans protesters face arrest in North Dakota for blocking the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, TheAntiMedia's Carey Wedler reports a gasoline pipeline spill is currently unfolding in the South. The leak has prompted Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, and Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal to declare states of emergency.
The Colonial Pipeline, which runs from Houston to New York, began leaking on September 9, spilling 250,000 gallons of gasoline, or 6,000 barrels. The pipeline was built in 1962, and the current leak in Helena, Alabama, is the largest one Colonial Pipeline has experienced in 20 years, Reuters noted.
AL.com reported that according to the Colonial Pipeline company’s spokesperson, Bill Berry, the pipeline could still be leaking:
“The leaking pipeline was shut down [last] Friday after the leak was discovered, but Berry said there may be additional gas still inside the pipeline. The leaking section of pipeline hasn’t been excavated yet due to safety precautions, so Berry said the condition of the pipeline and cause of the leak is still unknown.”
Hundreds of employees and contract workers face health risks from inhaling vapor as they work overtime to clean up the spill, which the company says is contained to a mining retention pond. AL.com reports “the leak was discovered at the inactive mine site by employees of the Alabama Surface Mining Commission.”
The governors of Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama have declared states of emergency, not due to environmental concerns, but over the gas shortage that will result from the leak. After Colonial Pipeline announced Thursday there would be a delay in restarting the pipeline because “work activity was intermittent overnight due to unfavorable weather conditions that caused gasoline vapors to settle over the site,” the price of gasoline futures rose six percent… even as crude futures prices tumbled…
As CNN reports, The major pipeline, one pipe of which has been severed, provides gasoline for an estimated 50 million people on the East Coast each day, according to company estimates. The cause of the leak has yet to be determined, according to the company's most recent statement.
The pipeline's operator has said full service will not be restored until at least next week. The closure has set off an industry-wide scramble as suppliers seek alternative ways to transport gasoline to the East Coast.
According to reports, the leak will likely start affecting drivers in the nearby states of Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina within a matter of hours and may spread in coming days. Colonial Pipeline Co., which transports some 40% of the gas along the I-95 corridor says at least 250,000 gallons of gasoline have already been lost.
Senior petroleum analyst Patrick DeHaan warned that some stations may run out as primary gasoline transportation shipping routes along the East coast have been temporarily closed.
Not every station will be able to get the gasoline it needs, he said.
“You’re going to see some places without gasoline,” he said. “It’s like a mini-hurricane.”
The pipeline operator said that based on its current projections, parts of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina will be the first markets to suffer potential supply disruptions.
And sure enough the price of East Coast gasoline is soaring relative to the slide in West Coast… (4month highs for East Coast vs 1-month lows for West Coast)
Gas prices typically fall at this time of year. Thursday was the day that stations in most of the country could start using the cheaper winter blend of gasoline rather than the summer blend, which is formulated to combat smog. But East Coast gas prices are spiking already…
As SHTFPlan's Mac Slavo notes, the massive pipeline leak in Alabama is threatening widespread gas shortages and significant price hikes on the East Coast of the United States. Though the leak reportedly poses no danger to the public, officials say it stands to affect drivers all along the I-95 corridor from Florida to Maine.
If you live in any of the aforementioned states then you may want to head to your local gas station and fill up the tanks. Though any shortages will be temporary, not being able to get gas for several days or a week could prove troublesome to the 50 million residents served by the Colonial pipeline. The shortage may also impact grocery store deliveries, so if you have anyessential items you absolutely must have it may be a good idea to pick those up before trucks stop delivering.
The declared states of emergency highlight the fragility of just-in-time delivery systems that include critical goods like gasoline, food and medicine. As we’ve previously noted, even a small emergency could wreak havoc on a local, state or nationwide basis with immediate and catastrophic consequences for the populace.
Mansfield Oil, a fuel distributor, has warned its customers to take fuel savings measures and to place their orders early. The company said the supply of gasoline is currently very thin along the closed pipeline, and that it was trucking in supplies from the coast to meet demand. The company said it was treating the situation "with the same importance and urgency as a natural disaster."
- Nassim Taleb Exposes The World's "Intellectual-Yet-Idiot" Class
Authored by Nassim Nichaolss Taleb via Medium.com,
What we have been seeing worldwide, from India to the UK to the US, is the rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking “clerks” and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think… and 5) who to vote for.
But the problem is the one-eyed following the blind: these self-described members of the “intelligenzia” can’t find a coconut in Coconut Island, meaning they aren’t intelligent enough to define intelligence and fall into circularities?—?but their main skills is capacity to pass exams written by people like them. With psychology papers replicating less than 40%, dietary advice reversing after 30 years of fatphobia, macroeconomic analysis working worse than astrology, the appointment of Bernanke who was less than clueless of the risks, and pharmaceutical trials replicating at best only 1/3th of the time, people are perfectly entitled to rely on their own ancestral instinct and listen to their grandmothers (or Montaigne and such filtered classical knowledge) with a better track record than these policymaking goons.
Indeed one can see that these academico-bureaucrats wanting to run our lives aren’t even rigorous, whether in medical statistics or policymaking. They cant tell science from scientism?—?in fact in their eyes scientism looks more scientific than real science. (For instance it is trivial to show the following: much of what the Cass-Sunstein-Richard Thaler types?—?those who want to “nudge” us into some behavior?—?much of what they call “rational” or “irrational” comes from their misunderstanding of probability theory and cosmetic use of first-order models.) They are prone to mistake the ensemble for the linear aggregation of its components as we saw in the chapter extending the minority rule.
The Intellectual Yet Idiot is a production of modernity hence has been accelerating since the mid twentieth century, to reach its local supremum today, along with the broad category of people without skin-in-the-game who have been invading many walks of life. Why? Simply, in many countries, the government’s role is ten times what it was a century ago (expressed in percentage of GDP). The IYI seems ubiquitous in our lives but is still a small minority and rarely seen outside specialized outlets, social media, and universities?—?most people have proper jobs and there are not many opening for the IYI.
Beware the semi-erudite who thinks he is an erudite.
The IYI pathologizes others for doing things he doesn’t understand without ever realizing it is his understanding that may be limited. He thinks people should act according to their best interests and he knows their interests, particularly if they are “red necks” or English non-crisp-vowel class who voted for Brexit. When Plebeians do something that makes sense to them, but not to him, the IYI uses the term “uneducated”. What we generally call participation in the political process, he calls by two distinct designations: “democracy” when it fits the IYI, and “populism” when the plebeians dare voting in a way that contradicts his preferences. While rich people believe in one tax dollar one vote, more humanistic ones in one man one vote, Monsanto in one lobbyist one vote, the IYI believes in one Ivy League degree one-vote, with some equivalence for foreign elite schools, and PhDs as these are needed in the club.
More socially, the IYI subscribes to The New Yorker. He never curses on twitter. He speaks of “equality of races” and “economic equality” but never went out drinking with a minority cab driver. Those in the U.K. have been taken for a ride by Tony Blair. The modern IYI has attended more than one TEDx talks in person or watched more than two TED talks on Youtube. Not only will he vote for Hillary Monsanto-Malmaison because she seems electable and some other such circular reasoning, but holds that anyone who doesn’t do so is mentally ill.
The IYI has a copy of the first hardback edition of The Black Swan on his shelves, but mistakes absence of evidence for evidence of absence. He believes that GMOs are “science”, that the “technology” is not different from conventional breeding as a result of his readiness to confuse science with scientism.
Typically, the IYI get the first order logic right, but not second-order (or higher) effects making him totally incompetent in complex domains. In the comfort of his suburban home with 2-car garage, he advocated the “removal” of Gadhafi because he was “a dictator”, not realizing that removals have consequences (recall that he has no skin in the game and doesn’t pay for results).
The IYI is member of a club to get traveling privileges; if social scientist he uses statistics without knowing how they are derived (like Steven Pinker and psycholophasters in general); when in the UK, he goes to literary festivals; he drinks red wine with steak (never white); he used to believe that fat was harmful and has now completely reversed; he takes statins because his doctor told him so; he fails to understand ergodicity and when explained to him, he forgets about it soon later; he doesn’t use Yiddish words even when talking business; he studies grammar before speaking a language; he has a cousin who worked with someone who knows the Queen; he has never read Frederic Dard, Libanius Antiochus, Michael Oakeshot, John Gray, Amianus Marcellinus, Ibn Battuta, Saadiah Gaon, or Joseph De Maistre; he has never gotten drunk with Russians; he never drank to the point when one starts breaking glasses (or, preferably, chairs); he doesn’t know the difference between Hecate and Hecuba; he doesn’t know that there is no difference between “pseudointellectual” and “intellectual” in the absence of skin in the game; has mentioned quantum mechanics at least twice in the past 5 years in conversations that had nothing to do with physics; he knows at any point in time what his words or actions are doing to his reputation.
But a much easier marker: he doesn’t deadlift.
Not a IYI
- On This Day In Financial History
8 years ago, Lehman’s bankruptcy exposed the reality of the global financial system and equity markets collapsed. While the events of that weekend are still in many memories, we suspect few remember the events of September 16th 1929…
As S&P’s chief investment strategist, David M. Blitzer explains, On September 16th 1929, The Standard & Poors 500-stock index (calculated retroactively) hits 31.86, its peak for the Roaring Twenties bull market.
It does not close above that level until September 22, 1954.
When you hear that stocks always outperform in the long run, do you realize how long long can be?
- A Dire Warning: "Someone Is Learning How To Take Down The Internet"
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
When Bruce Schneier writes a post titled, Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet, you better listen.
Read his post below and share widely:
Over the past year or two, someone has been probing the defenses of the companies that run critical pieces of the Internet. These probes take the form of precisely calibrated attacks designed to determine exactly how well these companies can defend themselves, and what would be required to take them down. We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large nation state. China or Russia would be my first guesses.
First, a little background. If you want to take a network off the Internet, the easiest way to do it is with a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS). Like the name says, this is an attack designed to prevent legitimate users from getting to the site. There are subtleties, but basically it means blasting so much data at the site that it’s overwhelmed. These attacks are not new: hackers do this to sites they don’t like, and criminals have done it as a method of extortion. There is an entire industry, with an arsenal of technologies, devoted to DDoS defense. But largely it’s a matter of bandwidth. If the attacker has a bigger fire hose of data than the defender has, the attacker wins.
Recently, some of the major companies that provide the basic infrastructure that makes the Internet work have seen an increase in DDoS attacks against them. Moreover, they have seen a certain profile of attacks. These attacks are significantly larger than the ones they’re used to seeing. They last longer. They’re more sophisticated. And they look like probing. One week, the attack would start at a particular level of attack and slowly ramp up before stopping. The next week, it would start at that higher point and continue. And so on, along those lines, as if the attacker were looking for the exact point of failure.
The attacks are also configured in such a way as to see what the company’s total defenses are. There are many different ways to launch a DDoS attack. The more attack vectors you employ simultaneously, the more different defenses the defender has to counter with. These companies are seeing more attacks using three or four different vectors. This means that the companies have to use everything they’ve got to defend themselves. They can’t hold anything back. They’re forced to demonstrate their defense capabilities for the attacker.
I am unable to give details, because these companies spoke with me under condition of anonymity. But this all is consistent with what Verisign is reporting. Verisign is the registrar for many popular top-level Internet domains, like .com and .net. If it goes down, there’s a global blackout of all websites and e-mail addresses in the most common top-level domains. Every quarter, Verisign publishes a DDoS trends report. While its publication doesn’t have the level of detail I heard from the companies I spoke with, the trends are the same: “in Q2 2016, attacks continued to become more frequent, persistent, and complex.”
There’s more. One company told me about a variety of probing attacks in addition to the DDoS attacks: testing the ability to manipulate Internet addresses and routes, seeing how long it takes the defenders to respond, and so on. Someone is extensively testing the core defensive capabilities of the companies that provide critical Internet services.
Who would do this? It doesn’t seem like something an activist, criminal, or researcher would do. Profiling core infrastructure is common practice in espionage and intelligence gathering. It’s not normal for companies to do that. Furthermore, the size and scale of these probes — and especially their persistence — points to state actors. It feels like a nation’s military cybercommand trying to calibrate its weaponry in the case of cyberwar. It reminds me of the US’s Cold War program of flying high-altitude planes over the Soviet Union to force their air-defense systems to turn on, to map their capabilities.
What can we do about this? Nothing, really. We don’t know where the attacks come from. The data I see suggests China, an assessment shared by the people I spoke with. On the other hand, it’s possible to disguise the country of origin for these sorts of attacks. The NSA, which has more surveillance in the Internet backbone than everyone else combined, probably has a better idea, but unless the US decides to make an international incident over this, we won’t see any attribution.
But this is happening. And people should know.
As an aside, the observations noted above are consistent with some of what we have seen here at Liberty Blitzkrieg over the past year or so.
For prior articles by Schneier highlighted here, see:
Bruce Schneier: “The Internet is a Surveillance State”
“This is No Longer Fiction” – The Era of Automatic Facial Recognition and Surveillance Is Here
- #MaybeTrumpAfterAll
A funny thing happens when the polls go the other way…
This is happening…
And so is this…
#MaybeTrumpAfterAll
- Jessica Alba Laughs Last After $1 Billion Offer For Her "Honest" Company
While we would never wish ill will upon anyone, particularly someone with Jessica Alba’s particular “talent”, earlier this year we must admit that we derived some comfort from a WSJ article alleging that Alba’s “Honest Company” hadn’t really been that honest in disclosing which chemicals were used to make their “non-toxic” diapers and detergents. It’s not that we took any delight in Alba’s potential failure, but we were at least relieved that future investors might be spared additional investing “opportunities” in America’s latest mania-driven bubble. Back in March we wrote the following:
Back in the summer of 2014, roughly a year and a half before the second bubble of profitless, “story”, aka “tech”, companies had burst, we wrote in dismay, that “the true indicator of just how bubbly the second coming of the dot com era has become comes courtesy of none other than Jessica Alba’s, yes the actress, own startup: a company launched in 2012 and which makes “non-toxic” diapers (as opposed to toxic diapers?), called the Honest Co., has raised $70 million at a valuation just shy of $1 billion in preparation for an IPO.”
As we noted then, it looked as if the Alba bubble may have burst (as frightening as that may sound) when the WSJ released an article alleging that Alba’s company may have been using chemicals in their products that they had claimed to shun.
What isn’t as easily explained is that since we profiled Alba’s “Honest Company”, its valuation has grown by another 70%, and according to the WSJ it is now $1.7 billion with total funding raised more than $200 million “thanks to its marketing of cleaning supplies, diapers and other consumer products that it says are safer and more ecologically friendly than other brands.”
But what Alba herself will have a very difficult time explaining is why, just like in the case of Theranos, her company it not only grossly misnamed, but may also be another fraud, because according to a just released WSJ expose, “one of the primary ingredients Honest tells consumers to avoid is a cleaning agent called sodium lauryl sulfate, or SLS, which can be found in everyday household items from Colgate toothpaste to Tide detergent and Honest says can irritate skin.
Alas, Jessica Alba and her “Honest Company” may get the last laugh, according to the Wall Street Journal, as Unilever, maker of Dove soaps and Axe body sprays, is in talks to acquire Alba’s company for $1 billion. That said, we weren’t totally wrong as Unilever’s contemplated purchase price is over 40% less than the $1.7BN valuation placed on Honest in it’s latest fundraising round. Per the Wall Street Journal:
Unilever PLC is in talks to acquire Honest Co., the consumer-products retailer co-founded by actress Jessica Alba, according to people familiar with the matter.
Unilever, maker of Dove soaps and Axe body sprays, is discussing a deal valued at over $1 billion but significantly less than the $1.7 billion valuation that was placed on Honest in a fundraising round last year, the people said. The talks are at an early stage, and Honest hasn’t ruled out going for an initial public offering instead, one of the people said.
Honest has raised more than $200 million from outside investors since the Santa Monica, Calif., company’s founding in 2011, according to FactSet data. Those investors include venture-capital firms General Catalyst Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners as well as money managers Fidelity Management & Research Co. and Wellington Management Co. In the event of a sale, Honest has pledged to pay some investors double their investment.
According to the WSJ, the Honest Company generates roughly $300 million in annual revenue which pegs Unilever’s bid at 3.3x revenue. While a few short years ago that may have seemed like an outrageous valuation for a consumer staple business, today it’s right in line with the likes of P&G and Clorox which bubbled over as pension funds have begun trading consumer staple equities and their dividends as the equivalent of investment grade bonds. Similar risk profile, right?
But, for our many readers who couldn’t give a rip about the Honest Company or it’s valuation but just clicked on this post because you liked the teaser image…we leave you with this parting gift:
- How About Presenting The Facts & Letting Voters Decide Who's "Fit To Serve"?
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
This simple two-step process would greatly diminish the Ministry of Propaganda's influence.
Here's a radical idea: how about presenting the facts and letting voters decide who is "fit to serve"? Consider the context of this presidential election and the judgment call as to who is "fit to serve":
1. Americans' Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low (Gallup) "Americans' trust and confidence in the mass media 'to report the news fully, accurately and fairly' has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history."
2. Both the Republican and Democratic candidates have highly unfavorable ratings; they may well be the most disliked nominees in American history.
3. The status quo in which voters are supposed to rubber-stamp the decisions made at the top of the wealth/power pyramid is falling out of favor.
4. Personal physicians are not disinterested parties; they serve the candidate, not the voting public. Their public claims of "fit to serve" suffer from irreconcilable conflicts of interest.
To best serve the interests of the nation and the voters, I propose that all candidates for the presidency submit to a thorough medical exam at an Army or Navy hospital that immediately releases the full results to the public. The attending physicians' names will be drawn from a pool of qualified staff at the start of the exam, making it impossible for anyone to threaten or buy off the attending physicians prior to the exam.
The exam will include chest x-rays, CT scans, neurological tests and the usual blood work.
The examinations will be overseen by healthcare/medical journalists to insure that the exams adhere to stardard practice and the results are posted immediately without any tampering.
The principles at work here are:
1. The public has a right to know the facts relating to each candidates' health.
2. Each candidate is given the exact same tests and treated exactly the same.
3. The public will decide who is "fit to serve" after reviewing the facts of the matter.
4. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
If any candidate prefers to keep the results of the health exam private, they can do so by exiting the race for the presidency.
In addition to the medical exam, each candidate will hold a two-hour press conference every week until election day. Representatives of the entire media, not just the handful of mainstream networks and newspapers, will be invited to attend. To secure the room, the public will not be admitted.
Candidates will be invited to sit in comfortable chairs and answer any and all questions on any subject. They will not be allowed to wear sunglasses or be attended by aides. Since the room will be secured (all media reps will be screened for weapons, all entrances properly sealed, etc.), there is no need for Secret Service personnel to hover over the candidates.
Why should any candidate object to these very transparent and uncontroversial demands? Why should any candidate object to a routine battery of medical tests and a weekly press conference?
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
This simple two-step process would greatly diminish the Ministry of Propaganda's influence. It isn't that hard to understand, people: the voters should be able to review the candidates' medical exam results (i.e. the facts of the matter) so they can decide who's "fit to serve" in an informed fashion. Isn't that the core of democracy?
* * *
My new book is #6 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more, please visit the book's website.
![U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, flanked by Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria "Toria" Nuland, delivers his opening remarks to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the outset of a bilateral meeting on July 15, 2016, in Moscow. [State Department photo]](https://i0.wp.com/consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/27703725034_63080748a1_k.jpg?ssl=1)
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