State Forests: what the state hasn’t grasped

State owned parks act as impenetrable rocks accidentally swallowed that cannot be digested by the predator’s intestines. The deep state isn’t so deep yet that it has been able to make full exploitative use of the entrenched non-hierarchical ecosystems of these hundreds of thousands up to millions of forested acres. The state dubs it protected land, but it has not silenced the dynamism of the land’s own making that protects and defends it from the state (for now, at least); anti-statists and anarchists alike would benefit to ruminate on this point to inform their future strategies and tactics. There are occasional forays by the state to fix or assess something in the typically mountainous regions covered in green on the surface and on the maps, but mostly, the extractive profiteering is minimal. The state’s conquest is limited to the besieged borders where the state seasonally charges fees to access these wildernesses, with permits to stay more than a single daytime day at a time; they would use tick fear as a patrol mechanism, a state ploy couched under “safety”, attempting to dissuade human access to these lands that it itself could not tame.

Contrary to the de jure legal understanding, I would argue that the borders of the protected lands are international, and the fees are a customs charge, for the land is merely enclaved by a state but not yet enslaved by it. The land is saved from state penetration perhaps by it’s lofty position (often mountainous), seated as Switzerland is in high and oblique inaccessibility. Though there are few to zero humans who permanently dwell in these places, there is plenty that we—who would choose to not be conquered by a state—can learn from such unconquered places. The protective geography that is an island in a sea of the state, is akin to ancient Greece’s geographical context, except that the unpopulated geography was the sea that made protected “islands” out of the separate city states.

While most other forests, grasslands, marshlands have been dragged in to the state’s nexus by roads and settlement—with taxation and monitoring following closely behind—these topographically asymmetrical lands have been overlooked by the state precisely because they were not, and still are not, easy to master. It is these places that frequently offer an overlook, a breath giving scenic vista, that belittles to a mere lower corner of the panorama the bedraggled exclave country that only legally includes this natural beauty. Even imperialistic statesmen such as Jefferson and Ted Roosevelt had either a steward’s empathy wrenched from them, or an awe and terror for something more dominant than they, when dealing with these vast dimensionalized lands and deciding to throw their weight behind their protection; a side question is whether they were acting as moral politicians or political moralists. Other politicians might have decided to do the same in their stead, and had they not, fierce nature might have beat them and their cadre of industry back anyways.

One of the most banal and taboo truths about human existence ties in here—a truth that puts us in our place—and it is namely that land grows people. This uncomfortable idea is ameliorated by other ideas of a plenitude of land (manifest destiny) so that raping and scorching vast stretches is okay and only localized: one cannot marry a land because there are too many parcels available, though one can have a piece of land every night and throw it away by the morning, for there are such reserves in wait. Unfortunately, such overcompensating has lead to pillaging that does not stop until it reaches little unimpressive islands of land where multiple series of squares meet—those awkward sub-acreages that modern land development is unable to systematically make more copies on. A “compromise” with nature is made with places like these alongside interstate highways where “lucky” trees remain that had the good fortune of seeding in what would be future front row seats to a twenty-four hour highway. A development corporation’s convenient public relation’s “green space” ruse disguised as a compromise with nature, is really a defeat of their instrumental rationality; but it is in these cases almost a Pyrrhic victory, for corporate and state use of rationality is so efficient in their destruction of nature.

As development corporations have trouble with little parcels of land that don’t fit in to their cookie cutter model, the state and its corporate parasites have trouble with untamed large pieces of land that would break their cookie cutters were they to try and apply them on the terrain. Life for now is very lush in these ultimate refuges of protected mountainous lands, lands which stand in a stark contrast to what industry really is all about—intentionally taming life and inadvertently (but inevitably) killing it. As of now only these strongest lands have not succumbed (been subalterrained) to the disease of state driven civilization; the state’s claws are not those of a mountain lion, they cannot easily grab such real things without great difficulty and harsh resistance, and so they only etch dividing lines in to flat plains coastal and continental that are two dimensionally digitizable. The state’s inability to grasp these places is precisely why they want to put their title on them. The state wants to contain them in language because such places actually show the limits of state power, and expose its vulnerabilities; like with so many other things, western powers linguistically co-opt what they physically cannot. Sometimes the protecting of these lands is presented as a bargaining chip in exchange for receiving a green-light to industrialize a different piece of wilderness, so in this sense they are used for political expedience. Beyond this the state’s utility of such lands is minimal, and that is a testament to what power life has in such lands, and perhaps to its future benefit if it has not deposited reserves in to fossilized coal. For us with the ability to migrate ahead of the coming metropolitan crises, skyscraping lands of tenacity with such a view would be quite a wise place to rendezvous.

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Easternization and Economist Irrelevancy

(Updated 2016-07-04)

An eastern driven paradigm is emerging dominant to supplant western control of all things economic, but I don’t want to call this a mere paradigm shift—that would be giving too much credit to the western way of life that only knows how to get high on credit, in the process destroying its credibility and its ability to evaluate itself and others. The title, rather, hopefully connotes the emergence of something substantive (a paradigm) filling a multi-hundred year vacuum of cross-dressed imperialism. The artificially floating island that has been loosely anchored is now encountering severe waves on vibrational planes in which its narrow ideology overlooked or lacked the capacity to factor in: it’s a 2-dimensional object about to learn for the first time that it exists in a 3-dimensional world. The ensuing “Economist Irrelevancy” that I chose for the title over the original and unjustly impartial place holder “Economic Relativism” will see the conclusions drawn from this vacuous field of thought now appropriately overlooked and disregarded.
I mention the impropriety of utilizing the concept economic relativism, which I mean here as something akin to cultural relativism, because the notion that neither the eastern mixed economies could say anything valid about our western economics and vice versa is not the case at all. The eastern economies won’t need to say anything, their proof of success will be that they endure, and the western economies and their economist ideologues won’t be able to say anything because they’ll be drowning in their own blood from their tongues they self-severed. To put it another way, the East not only has something valid, it’s very validity is in the process going to invalidate the peculiar western mode of monetizing and destroying every natural resource we define as such—water, timber, herds, grains, humans, metals, the fossil fuels to move them… The western lack of a paradigm has done such a poor job in our interactions with the rest of the world that it is surprising there is still an element in the world with enough energy and courage to blaze a slightly less destructive path, and this is taking in to account the smoggy horrors of eastern industrial cities, the topless mountaintops, and the autocratic ruling elites who occasion massacres on their own people. With such horrors from the eastern theatre being accounted for and its still being a hope for the world is testament to how low the West has dug itself: endangered is always preferable to extinct.

Economist irrelevancy—like the return to a multi-generation household—is going to be a creeping reality that will see growing percentages of the public sphere paying less and less attention to the unveiled charlatans. There has been little to no science behind the mainstay economist “scientific” theories, and there is only poor insight warranted from historical analysis as supplement, so it should be no surprise that the enterprise is failing on its own accord, sped along now by more sensible (eastern) approaches to society. I say society, and not economics, because the very notion of economics as an individuated and separate domain (a western notion) from the domains of culture, governance, and biology, is itself a predestination for ruination. It is true that there have been brilliant and important insights offered by economists from time to time, but these concepts or methodologies they have arrived at almost always travel abroad in to other academic territories, and are strengthened the further away they get from the isolated economics sub-field, and the more interdisciplinary their content and applicability becomes. It’s worth being fair and should be mentioned, also, that our well-known economists do have a handicap, namely that they are partisans that must toe the party line rather than bear integrity, and they are generally sycophants hoping for promotion with fool knowledge they offer nothing tangible—save delusions and convenient propaganda—to the larger society. We can choose to weep for these unfortunates put in a difficult spot with an education that is premised on serving an ideological system that is constantly in need of first aid, or we can arrive at tears from a life-enhancing hysterical laughter.

The above three paragraphs are reason enough that anyone reading reports from the western press that say China specifically is in trouble because of such and such an economic indicator, or say some new statistic signals a downturn, has the right to be highly skeptical (or outright dismissive). It’s absurd that a failing western economy would produce economists that could know how to analyze whether or not it was a good thing for an ascending economy like China to orchestrate a synergy of nations to begin adopting precious metals backed currencies. This mixed economy (for lack of a better term) is way out of their league, and China might be viewing itself as an exporter nation in much more significant ways than mere tacky consumer goods. They may be viewing their emerging position to be producing finished goods for themselves (as opposed to the European colonial model of colonies as markets) with a refocus of their major export to no longer be consumer goods, but to be a currency, itself a finished good, that took the raw materials of gold and legitimacy, and fused them together to sell to a world hungry for security from western destabilization. It is foreseeable that China at some point will give particular industries a break in some cases, as they have to be aware of the externalities of severe pollution; this is something that would never happen in a western corporate capitalist model where externalities are never factored in proactively, only reactively when they directly affect the principle business efforts; China has the advantage of potentially caring for their own people despite a contrast with profit motives.

Unemployment, a positive indicator in a smarter paradigm.

At basis, before the layers of confused thought are piled on top of it, unemployment signals a surplus that must exist, enough of a surplus so that there can be people that aren’t working that are still able to be fed and kept alive entirely without a physical need to contribute within the monetized economic sphere; either that alone, or in combination with a situation where the monetized economic sphere is overly narrow and neglects being the measurement of real value, is what is really happening when looking at a society from a bird’s-eye view. Surplus in these situations can then translate either in to several individuals having no jobs or a greater number having easier jobs that might be loosely thought of as “underemployment”. Higher unemployment is thus a compliment to the interaction that a society is having with the natural world, that there is enough abundance for the human peoples dwelling there produced by less than the effort of all the individuals combined. Job creation, on the other hand, is a sign that the economy is slipping in production, so that additional help is needed whereas it previously was not. The hiring of more hands means at base that the hands you already had are getting weaker (or the load of work is getting heavier and more daunting).Yet the highly distorted western ideological framework has these two concepts—not analogous but akin to “Orwellian speak”—completely reversed! Such an individual focused mindset stemming perhaps from consumer capitalism (¿rather than producer capitalism?) feels it is a great value to have everyone of age be working, regardless that such a large number of the jobs are actually counter-productive and cause a further wasting-away of the commons. People being miserable at their jobs is not factored in at all, though it may be the most important intrinsic indicator of how sick a society, let alone an economy, really is. An economy that grows at the expense of the society in which it is embedded, given enough time will be no economy (or society) at all.

Recent reports lambasting China’s economy from the unemployment angle are therefore bunk, if they are not to be utilized as a supplement to some other point that goes beyond just a narrow statistical dipstick. Again we must speculate, but perhaps the growing unemployment in China is already or going to be translated in to a 30 hour work week, or an increased level of leisure time for vacationing and cultivating cosmopolitan sensibilities in a people that are poised to take over the global economy with a powerful currency that will facilitate their travel. Perhaps China has a powerful enough spine now that they can go-alone the introduction of a gold-backed currency, shut down the factories and stop exporting for two full years because they aren’t dependent on those profits, and buy 100% of their goods from foreign makers because of their highly valued non-fiat currency. This unlikely but mathematically possible scenario could also greatly benefit their usurpation of the global reserve currency status because they will be seeding their money all over the globe, driven by meeting the wants and needs of 1.3 billion people. If that’s not conquering I don’t know what is, yet western economists would call it an economy in shambles: 100% unemployment, no industrial output… yet doing the best ever and breathing clean air! What a clear view of our inversion predicament that would be! China could be unbelievably powerful because of the global historical fascination with gold as a store of value, yet I’m sure they still feel the need to tread lightly with extremely dangerous military powers still lurking, ones that have proven they will use nuclear weapons to further their aims; such potent adversaries on the game board of the global economy are sure to give pause to China if not cause them full impotency.

Focusing in on the coming trend of Chinese vacationing out in the world with a powerful currency in their wallet, I think many tourist destinations will start (or already have) to easternize in their favor ahead of their arrival. Places will compete to be eastern and as it happens, more nature friendly: the McDonalds in the Bahamas will be gutted and replaced with perhaps a Chinese water garden and some other traditional nuances that I have no clue of, because they’ll no longer be fishing for dollars that had the silver lining wear off, but for big catch RMBs that beneath the plain scales have flesh made of gold.

Anyways, times are changing and so are the parameters by which we can hope to evaluate that change. Such an odious place that could genocide an entire continent’s people (the Native Americans) and not admit it to itself is not a very self-honest or thoughtful place, so I doubt much of intellectual value could emerge that allows an honest look at foreign societies let alone at down-spiraling internal dynamics.

Excerpt: Easternizing Europe

Brexit. Ahead of the UK’s June vote on whether or not they should leave the EU, they are already precipitated towards being rescued from the east. The UK’s dismal energy prospects along with their import dependency leave them ripe for some version of Chinese-led commercial colonization. The June vote will merely be a brake or an accelerator to this inevitable pathway. I would not be surprised if another country leaves the EU just ahead or following Britain’s vote, to really set the tone for a cascade of dismemberment.

Germany. A country that has just as many reasons to be in the line to leave the EU as the UK is Germany. For their part I think they’d want to get out while they still have some stamina to prevent being in a similarly full colonizable situation. However, as with most analytic endeavors of humans, it would be wrong to think of a modern nation as a unified individual with full sovereignty—nations are merely indicator points or mile markers.

As for the rest of the EU, if it survives the upcoming tumults that shift power formally from West to East, it will be in name only. If it doesn’t fall apart entirely as far as the obfuscating narrative the media tells, it will be rebranded for all those who depend on their normalizing propaganda.

(more on Easternization in an upcoming post)

3 Predictions plus a four-cast: European Vandalism, Treasury Piratism, Cersei’s Death, and Eastern Goldbacked Elasticity

Ahead of the equinox I wanted to float some far fetched futurecasts, laden with bombast. The first two are predictions for western/eastern civilization, while the last one is a prediction for Westeros/Essos of Game of Thrones (spoilers if you haven’t seen through season 5). These three can be thought of as an appendage to my 2016 predictions. [edit: on 2016-05-02, I am adding a fourth prediction regarding the reintroduction of the gold standard by Eastern nations]

1) There is a high probability that next winter European temperatures will be far below average (they are due in the context of this new deregulated climatic cycle, if not next winter than the following), and whatever the normal human systems existing to remedy such cold contingencies, efforts are sure to fall grievously short of meeting the needs of the increased population. Population is, of course, the number one factor leading European events towards a 2017 winter culmination that will be reminiscent of 406AD in the Roman Empire. The cultural conflicts already existing will be greatly exacerbated when the long night(s) come, and don’t expect either side to simply acquiesce to the needs of the others. History shows that people do not typically just lay down and die (though they do lay down and stop living, evidenced by contemporary consumerist trends). Expect all the foresight that was mocked as ad absurdum speculation to be made viscerally real, a new and twisted self-directed jingoism becoming governmental policy. If the Arab populations moving in (or being intentionally herded) to Europe are as vulgar and criminally apt as they are purported to be—a great prison unloading—there is no telling what the series of reaction-reaction-reaction-reaction will spiral in to. Certainly every ideologue—and Europe has been home to plenty—will try to spin the situation to their own benefit, and to “the other’s” detriment; a demagogue such as Trump would really be in his element when all this shit goes down (but clogs the swelling toilet on its way). My own spin to it has to be ironic: karma is the boomerang you eventually forgot you threw. Imperialism eventually cycles back.

2) While the Donald is on the mind, the next prediction may involve Trump as a spokesperson, but it could be any collection of oligarchs and minions that generally adhere to the Oceania-neocon agenda. There is no specific time frame on this—the timing will depend entirely on the elite/governmental perception of a critical point in which to unveil yet another stopgap measure to constipate a full blown financial collapse. I feel the need to build the context before unveiling the details of this prediction:

The recent trend of investors hunkering in to treasury bonds, specifically United States treasuries, is going to be fully exploited by the always-Machiavellian banker/governmental elites that have access to the financial policy levers. All this foreign wealth still flowing (and even accelerating during market cascades) in to the endemically-corrupt-treaty-breaking nation of the United States really shows a great deal of denial and/or ignorance-driven trust of people/countries towards the bereft banker cartel. It’s true that many countries have not been so reckless as to buy in to American debt, but they will still feel the pinch nonetheless. The economic will become political in its highest expressions, for this is 2016 and the eight year cycle of the changing of the guard in America is to have widespread entwinings.

Before election, after election, after inauguration… at some point, a political person and/or party, being heralded as the ultimate patriots, will unleash a formal policy that disallows the investors of the world from redeeming their treasuries. To my knowledge such an act is unprecedented, and it could only realistically be done by a government that presides over the global reserve currency and holds the “kingbreaker” cards in its military as well. Expect presages and all sorts of domestic propaganda—before, during and after—to corroborate with this move, even a lame educational outreach to reassure the financially literate people of the legitimacy of the government to act in such a way to secure national interests. Of the propaganda efforts, the leader will address the American people with something akin to this:

“The American nation is exceptional because of our greatness. It is because of that greatness that we have long been a target by others: I’m not just referring to our known enemies, but by all who harbor jealousy and have a penchant towards being leeches. The rest of the world has been riding our good times up, but now they are bailing out on us, trying to take us for all we are worth. In stockmarket terms, they are all trying to short us. We are not a nation that allows ourselves to be sold down the river. They have confused our kindness with weakness. It is they who are acting weak, and we cannot allow such weak peoples to one second use our juggernaut economy for their own purposes, and the next try and throw it away. We cannot allow that… and it is not just for our country’s own good, but for theirs. Though the world may not realize it, as they attempt to rob us, they need us a lot more than we need them. We allow their goods to be sold in our country. Where would the world be without American ingenuity? We gift the world our cutting edge technologies at a fair price, enabling many countries to effectively emerge from poverty. We build highways both literal and figurative, networks that allow trade to effortlessly move throughout the globalized world. Until this act, we have always allowed and encouraged the free flow of money between individuals and nations. But for myself, as your president, I will not let our ship be threatened by the boats trying to sink us. This is my highest charge, and on my watch I will not allow the rapid redeeming of treasury bonds by countries trying to cash in on our first class economy. It is wrong, and it has to be stopped.”

Such is a taste of what tactics will be used to pirate the money that was invested in the dollar. Why wouldn’t “they” do it? The oligarchs know they can get away with it because of their kingbreaker position (that threatens China and Russia from gaining full hegemony). As for the morality of such a potential action, or if it is in any way reprehensible, I’d like to export a modified Bushism to the world: “fooled by us twice [or a hundred times], shame on you!”

A political cartoon condemning the action would picture the president and have the caption:

“Ha, ask for a debt jubilee? Let’s just give ourselves one!”

3) I glimpsed a possible pattern in the “GoT Season 6 Official Poster” that, if true, reveals Cersei to be dead by the time the season is over. Please consult the poster (below) to better understand the following written pattern. The pattern for the six characters represented in the Hall of Faces characters starts from the upper left, then moves “south–south-eastward” by a 1:2:2:1 rhythm and symmetry. In the upper left is Jon Snow, who by being brought back from the dead could be considered “twice-alive”; the two after that—Daenerys and Sansa—are both once alive, having been saved, narrowly escaping death; the two after that—Oberyn and Robb—are once dead, killed by complete surprise. The last face—Cersei’s—has to be twice dead, to complete the pattern. How can someone be twice dead? Suicide—the killing of that which was already dead. Her storyline heretofore would support her attempting a suicide. She has already been publicly shamed, she has lost her son and will find out she’s lost her daughter, and not to mention she was ready to kill her third child before he could be captured (Battle of the Blackwater). In the Hall of Faces poster, she is also looking down which I think goes to signify many things, including her downfall and suicide.

[May 2, 2016 edit-in:]

4) Jim Willie and Andrew Gause are two economically-minded thinkers (not sycophantic bullshitters) who expect to see precious metals skyrocket in value as people and nations around the world reject insolvent and corruptible fiat currencies along with their corresponding bonds and treasuries. The former (Willie) predicts a China-centered reintroduction of the gold standard, while the latter (Gause) thinks such a move on the part of China would be impractical because of the inelasticity that would hamper their global economic conquest. While their two thoughts on the matter may seem mutually exclusive, I predict China to maneuver a middle ground that will only be visible to one with a diachronic eye.

The ever patient eastern dragon—not to be confused with a Targaryen—is very well organized and able to act with great subtlety, orders of magnitude more minute than the blundering western nations. They will reintroduce a precious metals backed currency over time, either as a singular nation or conglomerated with other tight trade-partners. With gold set to rise many fold, they will choose a ripe time when gold’s new legitimacy is unquestioned and that they have also accumulated enough during the years of relative suppression. The new Shanghai Gold Exchange and fix, itself a viable entity to restore realistic physical gold trading, is also serving as a stratagem to display China’s trustworthyness to global investors seeking a safe harbor: it is a lead up to their offering a currency that will have everyone flocking to their gates. So far things look to be very much in align with Willie’s predictions…

When China does hit times of inelasticity, as Gause thinks they would were they to back their currency with gold, China will employ their option: release yet more gold to back their currency needs. Their initial backing will be large and substantial, but it will be in part a feign and a trial balloon. The key is that China will not back their currency with all their gold all at once; they will keep a large quantity (in the tens of thousands of tons) waiting in reserve. They will do it in stages as necessary, winning enthusiasm each step of the way, diluting/concentrating as needed, and thwarting all the major problems that western economists delineate a goldbacked currency would bring. Their employment of a creeping normalization with their currency has other precedents that run parallel, such as their taking on the role of being the largest industrial manufacturer in the world. There should be know doubt that these people know what they are doing.

By the time their capturing of the global reserve currency status (utilizing the gold standard method) is a few years in, not just media punditry but entire cultural systems will be normalized to Chinese economic prowess, and western economic schools of thought will largely be bankrupted, nobody left who can read English will be able to afford to spend their time reading the antiquated and off-based notions of a bygone peculiar age… they will be too busy working for their Chinese bosses! I am no economist, but I think possessing a plurality of the world’s gold will give China and its allies the flexibility to move their pieces forward on the game board of economic conquest.

[minor grammar edit (see comments below) made on 2016-05-12]

Globalisation Chinese’sway: Housing Bubble or Future Hegemonic Infrastructure?

There was no place to comment on Charles Hugh Smith’s blog post that pointed out a major potential fault line in China’s economy, namely their scores of empty apartments… so I thought it best to write a response here:

These Chinese city flats and other housing constructions (maybe a suburban phenomena as well? I don’t know enough about China’s current urban developments—it’s doubtful even China does) are sitting brand new, completed, but as of yet unsold. The fear of the short-sighted analysts (I don’t necessarily number CHS as one of them, he’s just pointing the issue out) is that this bubble of bad investment will crash China’s economy as well as the global economy. I’m guessing their fears are at least in part because of the illiquidity being literally built in to China’s economy with such permanent and potentially wealth-sucking blackholes as uninhabited buildings.

Whether or not China intends it—but I think they do—these housing options will be where some of the new non-Chinese moneyed elite will be flocking to as China remains one of the few economies left standing; they will certainly be the strongest country (financially) left after the financial and energy markets wreak havoc, so long as things don’t go terribly wrong militarily. These notions of far reaching global shifts in power don’t generally enter into the minds of most western analysts, especially given the fact that their “macro” analyses were built of (soon to be) antiquated western worldviews that preclude such thought. I think that is why I am probably relatively alone in seeing what seems to be such a “metaphysical” problem (because economics these days are truly pejoratively, metaphysical) as really a grand physical opportunity. Just because liquidity can dry up and prove to be really valueless, doesn’t mean that illiquid goods won’t have a great deal of value. To have a surplus of housing is quite a good thing to be holding on to, as opposed to a load of worthless federal reserve notes.

Indeed, China will become a global host, opening up to be a more modest cosmopolitan country (in comparison to a whored out Manhattan) so long as the benefits are mostly to the mother country. China has to be anticipating its interception of the globalized world and it is certainly doing all in it’s power to not intercept a candle that will in short order be blown out. They will want to keep as many national thermal generators burning and how better to do that than housing some of their leaders to inspire them with residency in a still “functioning” (in terms of industrialized capitalism) economy. They know they will need to cheerlead and put forth great amounts of energy—much like the US did after WW2 with the Marshall plan—to keep their new satellite states orbiting around their dense sphere of interdependent dominance.

This will prove to be just one in several concurrent chess moves that will put Eurasia back in the seat of prominence.

Thankstaking: Russia Sanctions Turkey

As a follow up to a previous post about Russia publicly declaring its ascension to the commanding heights, I thought I’d offer in brief my analysis of the latest posturings of the said polity—namely their sanctions against Turkey. I don’t know if Russia has ever before issued unilateral sanctions against another state, but this time to be sure there is a different tenor about them that smacks of a confident country that wants to clearly define its new role as a hegemon.

Russia is overtly sanctioning a known strategic United States ally—not sheepishly as a rebellious ram making an escape, but as a wolf that knows the shepherd has grown too old to really protect the flock. Next, look for the alpha wolf to have the rest of its pack join with it. In other words, the second reason for Russia’s sanction move is to openly bring out other nations in a roll call. The Russo-China sphere of influence has been deepening to be sure, but the benefits have yet to truly start flowing in. A lot of the ground work has been laid by these two and their allies, but moves such as these sanctions will allow the dazed smaller states to be conscious of the new order of things and invest more fully and deeply in a Russo-Sino structured economy. Maybe Turkey will even be the first to realize and fully shift allegiance…

As far as future proxy conflicts, I would say there are sure to be many more that would be reminiscent of the cold war, but I have a suspicion that the “cold war reunion” between the two former rivals will go more along the lines of something like this:

An old man was bent over, winded, and after a great effort finally able to get out what he wanted to say, between haggard breaths.”I’m not in shape like I used to be, old buddy. Two rounds and I’m spent. Eurasia is yours, but maybe I can get in enough of a shape to keep the Western Hemisphere.”

The other replied, stoically and barely perspiring after the match: “No, Uncle Sam, that ship has sailed too. You’ll be lucky to be a well cared for colony. And this time, you’ll be the one forced to sell off all your military toys to pay of your debts.”

The old man winced in pain, but could do nothing more than pick up his false teeth and sit on the court to rest.

 

http://cnnphilippines.com/business/2015/12/01/russia-turkey-plane-sanctions.html

Desertification

Desertification (As Earth’s Subtleties Are Extincted)^L

The role that metals play in desertification could possibly be analyzed to be twofold, though more or fewer actual reasons may exist beyond the scope of the author. The first role is what has been mentioned in many places already in this essay, namely that metals in motion reduce organisms’ ability to be as dynamically involved in the environment, which might be a definition for a desert. To flesh this out a little more, consider how a lot of wind erosion on a mountain top keeps trees from growing there, but so too it could be said that a lot of trees growing there could keep down the wind erosion. Either way, the degree to which there is the homogenous motion of larger, less subtle forces—a constant drying western gale force wind that acts as one large rigid force as opposed to a light humid breeze that dances between trees in no particular direction—is the degree to which smaller more complex developments is precluded. Along with the great currents of air that are eroding subtle areas that used to be rich with plant and fungal biomass, so too are greater currents of ocean water playing a role in eroding oceanic life, especially at the coasts where it used to be the greatest. To give a galactic example: think of a galaxy where planets large asteroids, planets, and even stars are constantly colliding and causing large violent impacts whereby thermal dynamic changes are undergoing huge changes in the local contexts; these large bodies gathering elemental matter and making it act roughly uniform (think of a giant gaseous planet with little chemical complexity) will give no chance to allowing any life to endure, whether carbon based or any other type. The celestial bodies interacting are themselves, perhaps, the lifeforms; however, it is a big waste of the smaller potentials within them: the variety of chemical elements from which they have pulled by gravity into strict enslavement could make such a richer tapestry, just as a one building with LEGO blocks can make something far more interesting than one can with DUPLO blocks.

The second role that liberated metals play in contributing to desertification is the way their temperature fluctuations mimic that of a desert. Metals heat quickly with exposure to a thermal energy source, but also cool quickly when that energy source is removed (think of a pan being heated by a flame). This is the same process as goes on in a desert, whereby the sun’s thermal energy warms it during the day, but then when the sun sets the desert becomes very cool very quickly. Our particular earthly forms of life, at least, do best when under a relatively constant thermodynamic heat. This regularized temperature that our life needs is emblematic of the modalities of a life force: harmonization occurring through a common interactive vibrational level. The violent swings in temperature prevent life from spreading those deepening complex bonds because harmony is constantly being shattered/interrupted. Large concentrations of metals at the crustal surface are sure to exacerbate these swings in temperature, and so too will continue to diminish the global biomass which is so critical in regulating temperatures to foster additional layers of life.

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Notes:

LThis publication is a footnote to a larger piece I’ve been compiling, “The Liberation Of Metals” and I thought it could stand on it’s own as a post. The upcoming ”’Liberation of Metals is about the role of the large quantities of metals we’ve introduced to our crustal surface, and how these metals are destroying organic connectivity, of which this note published here was an important facet that I struggled to fit within the linear narrative stricture. There’s even more I would’ve liked to publish in here about the ramifications of human simplifying/analytic interactions with our environment, that leads to such destructions as those wrought by industrial mono-crop farming methods. There are so many other things that we engage in that I probably am so normalized to that I don’t see. We are employing such an effort to average everything into a uniformity where the peaks and valleys of vital life are smoothed into a digital conformity. The “treatment” of emotions is another such example, where the dips and dives, highs and aspirations of a mood wave are sought to be controlled, averaged out, to a constant state of looking at things from a cool distance. We are estranged from our own bodily functionings by a rolling pin of pills. The blandness of eroding cannot be tasted for the taste buds are included in the wasting away…

Pole Reversal: Syria as Venue For The Sino-Russo Coming Out Party

As many media outlets either offer their own context or are lacking entirely in that respect, I thought I would offer my own humble understandings. I am no expert in the regional conflict in Syria nor in the Russian state apparatus and its subtleties, nor in all the intelligence shadow war bullshit that keeps everything as a smoke and mirrors game in that poor shelled-out area of the world. The same is true for me with regards to information bytes, where everything I know as far as specifics is provided to me via a tainted media-ted information system with it’s own exclusive interests. In the face of all these restrictive channels off which to base an educated judgment, I have adopted as a view-world (not to be mistaken with my peculiar world-view) the outlook of Jim Willie, faute de mieux. So, to the events of Russia openly bombing positions in Syria we turn:

I think what JW would say about tonight is that this is the coming out party for the Sino-Russo global power shift. Russia openly involving all public channels to let it be known that they are taking a stance in this conflict as a sovereign power, not beholden to US or EU oversight; they are posturing on the big stage where the hapless masses are their audience. In a moment of naivete I would maybe have said they were campaigning for public opinion, but I think the more cynical view is the correct one: they are conjuring the public opinion that will match the already existing geo-political realities. These realities are that China and Russia are already in the driver’s seat as much as there can be said to be a driver in this insanely apocalyptic ride where the entire Earth’s ecosystem down to small bacteria are no longer assured survival. Leaving that aside (which too often it is left aside!), much has been under way for a Eurasian trade zone to command global commerce long before tonight, with perhaps the most notable trend being the Russia and Chinese accumulation of gold in contrast to the west’s squandering of their gold supply.

To summarize, what happened today in Syria is just one of many pretexts to come that will be publicly legitimating the phasing out of the dollar’s dominance as the foreign reserve currency, to be replaced by some yet unknown BRICS backed modality for global commerce. Better re-orient (de-occident) your future orthographic projections:

Cascadian Independence: A Change Before the Crisis

I often live under a rock (a fertile place, see below*) with the Cascadian Independence Movement just entering my narrow radar screen. After some investigation, however, it seems the movement itself also dances between rock-roofed dormancy and active assertions of the human striving for freedom from unnecessary shackles. There are many humans in social media circles that give off revolutionary vibes, standing atop the rock as one would a soapbox, exuding that something big politically will be happening very soon; who am I to cast doubt and preclude such a future? I have a taste for their revolutionary energy, and all I wanted to do when I first realized this was a real movement within the American continent I occupy—where the political imagination is generally as fluid as a desert—was go hug the nearest conifer and have someone take a me and tree selfie, and photoshop that onto a Cascadia flag with the words “Solidarity With Cascadia”.

The Cascadian nation’s coming into existence is important beyond just those that it will include (I wouldn’t say “contain”, as that has a statist connotation and I think Cascadia is far more a free and open nation), as it could serve as both a model for emerging nations and a further disintegration of the overgrown, malnourished, obese post-imperialist empire euphemistically labeled “the United States”. Cascadia is another front against the sprawling Empire to help take it further off balance; another stronghold of a mountainous island to not be drowned out when the real threat to it’s residents—the one to its east (District of Columbia) not west—topples from within. Cascadia has a deep enough of a foundation in place that it cannot be faulted as being a mere reaction to the politically and economically decadent times. Cascadia is full of insight and foresight that put it in a different league of nations than most that have arisen in the last century; it will prove to be a one word poem, prompting other nations to arise before such a possibility is precluded. Cascadia is yearned for by the people within, not a convenience contrived by people without!

A blogpost on Cascadia could go into many different tributaries that wouldn’t lend itself to the linear writing style here employed, so I will return to the rock metaphor, as a matter of course. On this theme, the vanguard revolutionaries need to be prepared psychologically and not lose their far-sighted visions, when another winter comes and they need to migrate back underground to warm and nourishing places. Their thrusting efforts to birth a new sovereign nation may likely be averaged-out and watered-down by their spermicidal, prudish, conservative “let’s stay put” neighbors that don’t have the same lust for an open-ended Cascadian future. However, I have a sense that the number of winters between their hopes of an unoccupied Cascadia nation and its reality, are quickly thinning. The most important reason for this is the revolutionary zeitgeist: Cascadian pride is a phenomenon that might be comparable to a vine spiraling upwards, clinging to a cliff-side at times, but only to return and reveal more of its glorious self higher up, daringly exposed and awe-inspiring. The vine has deep roots that I cannot appreciate, that are larger and more fertile than Ecotopia even understood, though that book was immensely important in its current growth strides. For me, I am gazing up at the vine, rooting it on. I see more hope for it still because what might be the most important inhibition barring the Cascadian nation from bearing its first fruit (a fir cone baby) is a negative that may soon be negated. The Cascadia nation’s biggest natural predator averred to above—the United States, along with its global reserve currency status—is going to be having organ failures of all sorts that will put it in a hospital bed before too long. In such a state the federal government might become too impaired to grasp at a fledgling nation. One must wonder if FEMA’s imminent deployment in response to the fault line is a pretext for federal presence, “reminding” residents that they are not free to self-determine. In any event, at some point this governmental force will release the Cascadian land from its grip, enabling the people to put on full display the beautiful ideas informing their struggles.

Change before the Crisis: “Get ahead of the times with silver ParaDimes”. One triage tactic the region can take up (if it hasn’t already begun to do so) to further ensure it isn’t as injured by any American economic collapse, would be the encouragement of converting dollars into physical silver and bartering with it for trade. This transition to a silver backed currency will allow a more seamless transition when the need arises, as well as becoming another social glue between the Cascadian people. Even more to the revolutionary side of things would be a continued push for an organic economic method of sharing and mutual aid, which I know already exists locally in many different places over Cascadia where people are even further ahead of their times.

*I admittedly couldn’t figure a way to put in this further elaboration without further confusing the text, so I thought I would say it here. With regards to living in proximity of a rock: there is much bio-activity that happens during all seasons, as permaculture profounder Sepp Holzer has displayed in his “symphonies of nature”. A man ahead of his time is surely not unheard of in a place that is ahead of it’s time, and those familiar with his love of rocks would know that they regulate temperature, increase moisture to dry areas, clean and mineralize water, among many other talents known and unknown such as creating an appropriate pH for a fir tree sapling to grow strong and tall!

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Related:

https://cascadiablogs.wordpress.com/the-cascadian-independence-project/

https://freedomcaravan.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/cascadia-freedom-caravan-to-the-tear-down-the-walls-national-gathering/

http://www.seattlecascadianow.org/

The Kingmaker Generation: if there isn’t a Jesus soon, the masses will create one

These are some not fully developed ruminations on where I believe the United States is heading politically:

Will this leader be a fascist? I’m not quite sure that the intensive state-aspect of 20^th century European fascism will be accepted by the fascistic followers in the American context; there will certainly be a populist dynamic between the leader and his followers, but I can’t say that the leader will be able to augment state power without losing the support of the people. The American tradition of distrusting the government, the federal in particular, might be one of the redeeming factors as the stage is set for an American fascism. Is this tradition flow in the blood of the younger generations, though?

There is also to factor in the military’s reaction: I can’t say I know, or care to know, the minds of the generals who are so used to being involved in foreign affairs, what their reaction would be to such a populist, right wing tainted movement. I don’t know that they would “play ball,” and there might be a “month of 15 emperors”, a series of coups on top of one another greatly confusing things, where any masters of chaos will spin and speculate the situation to their advantage.

All these theatrics will be contingent upon the whims of the Chinese underwriters who will not be painting the picture of American life, but will be constructing the picture frame and choosing the colors that can be used and not used.