If you regularly read this blog you learn what you need to know before others do. Let’s run thru just a few, many are common knowledge now, but they weren’t when I wrote them.
- That Covid was airborne. Everyone knows it now, but it was disputed by WHO when I asserted it.
- That Covid becomes more dangerous each time you get it and that Long Covid is the thing to be scared of.
- That schools were a primary vector for infection, long before authorities would admit it (most still don’t.)
- That Russia would win the Ukraine war.
- That Europe would be badly economically damaged by the Ukraine War and sanctions.
- That China would win most from the Ukraine war, and that the US would benefit in some ways.
- That most of inflation over the last few years was driven by pure market power jacking up prices.
- That an age of war of revolution was soon to be upon us. (It has begun.)
- That the IPC reports on climate change were vast understatements. (Said this long ago.)
- That the political point of no return on climate change was reached long ago.
- That the US would eventually lose dollar privilege due to abusing it. (Wrote the first article about that 20 years ago.)
- That China would be the new strongest power (many years ago.)
- That we would move to a two polar or multipolar world (everyone knows this now, but I wrote it years ago.)
- That China would first take over manufacturing then take over the scientific lead (again, a very old prediction.)
- For a couple decades I’ve noted that Israel was looking for a final solution for the Palestinian problem: ethnic cleansing ideally, but genocide was not out of the question.
- Again, for a couple decades I’ve noted that the Israeli army was far weaker than it used to be in terms of competence: proven in the last month.
- The decline of the UK would be faster and more serious than that of the EU.
And far more.
Of course I’ve gotten some important things wrong, but my hit/miss ratio is good.
A lot of what is written here isn’t predictive. I write about morals and ethics, or how to live the good life, or just lamentations of evil. There are also plenty of explainers of how things work now or have in the past, though I tend to do fewer of those than I once did.
Generally speaking, what you get by reading this site is more correct knowledge of the present and the future than any “reports” or think tanks I know of, and everyone can read for free: no multi-hundred or thousand dollar subscription gate.
That said, my work does need to be paid for because I need to eat and sleep in a warm place, and it’s paid for by people who donate or subscribe. Through their generosity, everyone is able to read. Because I have specific ethical views (rape is bad, Palestinians shouldn’t be treated like animals in a slaughtering pen) last year some saw some large donors depart for places where they could be told that clear evil is sometimes OK.
So, I’m asking my readers who can (if you would go hungry or forego health care or anything important because you give to me, don’t) to donate or subscribe (monthly subscriptions are very helpful but either is great.) You help me and you keep my writing available to everyone and I damn well appreciate it.
This years goal is $12,500. At that level I’ll write an article about the Middle Ages scholastic crisis, where the universities produces way too many people with degrees. This has some relevance to current circumstances and I’ve been eyeing writing it for years without quite committing.
But mostly, again, you are helping me and keeping my writing free and available to everyone.
Thank you, and again, if you are in financial trouble don’t give and I hope your circumstances improve (imagine a hug here. I know what poverty is like.)
SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE TO IAN’S 2023 FUNDRAISER
(Afterword. If you had a subscription and think it’s still running, please check. When credit cards change, the subscription ends. I always let people know, but email messages don’t always get thru.)
KT Chong
On this point:
6. That China would win most from the Ukraine war, and that the US would benefit in some ways.
Disagree on the second part.
The US would NOT benefit. Sure, some circles in the US (i.e., the elites and military industry complex) would benefit from the Ukraine War, but and only in the short term. However, the US will lose and lose bigin the long term. Some of the losses off the top of my head:
(1) All the other countries — including Saudi Arabia — looked at how the US seize the foreign reserves and assets of Russia over a geopolitical dispute. They all must have been thinking, “wow, one day the US will do this to us as well if we do not submit to some ridiculous, insulting US demand.” So now they all are moving away the US dollar, all at the same time.
(2) The US really needed Russia to contain with China. The US has surrounded China from all sides – EXCEPT Russia; and China is like Conan the Barbarian in combat: Conan could be surrounded from three sides by endless waves of enemies, but as long as his back was facing and protected by a wall, no one could defeat Conan.
The US will NOT be able to defeat China with Russia on its back. By antagonizing Russia over Ukraine and pushing Russia towards China, the US has already lost the war on China.
In terms of economies, China and Russia actually complement each other: China has what Russia needs but lacks, and Russia has what China needs but lacks. If China and Russia can set aside their disagreements (and there are a few) and ally with each other, the US and West will be in serious troubles. The US KNOWS this yet still choose to antagonize Russia.
(3) When Ukraine collpases or surrenders, confidence in the US will be shaken AND stirred. The world will see how the US pump-and-dump Ukraine. Here is a strong message to Taiwan: “Do you see what happened to Ukraine? See how the US just used and then discarded Ukraine? That could be YOU.”
Also, all those hundreds of billions of dollars (if not trillions) that the US have grifted to Ukraine just went down the toilet. Sure, some circles benefited from the grifting, but the AMERICAN people lose, and they are paying through inflation – and I DO hold the American people responsible, and I do NOT feel sorry for what is happening to them.
Americans love to give the excuses, “it’s not us, it’s our government, blah, blah, blah.” NO, it’s American people. As a whole, they are guilty as well just as the US government is. It is a REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY. Americans elect their representatives and government. That kind of “it’s our government, it’s not us” excuse can only be used by people who are living under an authoritarian, unelected government. Americans can’t just pretend that they are not responsible for the actions of the government THEY themselves elected.
Sure, Americans do not agree on everything, but here is the overall thing about Americans: Democrats fight with Republicans, liberals and conservatives hate each other, BUT Democrats and liberals support the Ukraine War and want to defeat Russia, and all the Republicans and conservatives are supporting Israel and dehumanize Palestinians. So, ALL Americans are guilty, in one way or another.
Ian Welsh
The US benefits in two ways:
1) the reins on the EU have been tightened considerably; and,
2) the European industry which had to leave because of increased oil and gas prices went more to the US than anywhere else.
The people who make the decisions don’t have any morality you or I would recognize as such.
Soredemos
@KT Chong
The US isn’t a representative democracy. This has never been more blatantly obvious than with the current war on Palestine.
KT Chong
I did not figure it out but now I have realized…
Democrats and liberals hate Russia so much, that they so desperately want to crush and destroy Russia, because they still blame Russia and Putin for the 2016 presidential election result, in which Trump defeated their best hope of having a woman president. They want to punish Russia and Putin for it.
Hillary and the DNC establishment was embittered and embarrassed by losing the election to the “unelectable” Trump. They had engineered for Trump to become the Republican presidential nominee on the other side, foolishly thinking that Hillary would easily defeat Trump. Then the “Pied Piper” strategy backfired spectacularly. Hillary and the DNC, along with the mainstream media that was also embarrassed by Trump’s victory, created and promoted the Russiagate narrative to excuse their own failures and missteps.
So, the Democrat constituents and liberals believe the Russiagate narrative, which was created and promoted to shift the responsibilities and blames for 2016 from Hillary and the DNC to Russia, Russia, Russia. Over time, Democrats and liberals get angrier and angrier at Russia. They want to punish Russia for Trump winning in 2016, for depriving them of the first woman president. That is why Democrats and liberals want to endlessly support Ukraine… until Russia is destroyed. It is about getting even, based on a false narrative fed to them by the mainstream media to excuse Hillary and the DNC for the 2016 f-up. It is also why Republicans and conservatives on the other side do not care much for supporting Ukraine against Russia, because they have never bought into the Russiagate narrative.
It took me a while to figure out what is going on with between Democrats and Russia, but now I understand the underlying sentiment and motivation, (which is really irrational and even psychotic, but that is what Democrats and liberals have become… mentally unstable.)
KT Chong
i.e., Democrats and liberals really, really, wanted a woman president. They already had a Black president, and it was a woman’s turn. It would have been so purfect… a Black president followed by a woman president. Yet they did not get the woman president to that they thought they were entitled. Instead they got… TRUMP. That really burned.
Then the media kept telling them that Russia was the reason for why they did not get the woman president they had wanted. So they want to cancel Russia for not getting the woman president they want: Russia has to pay.
responseTwo
” Americans elect their representatives and government” -no, the oligarchs financially back the people who run for office. They pick who we can vote for. We have no choice. Don’t want any more war? Who are we supposed to vote for? Money and influence run the country, not democracy.
KT Chong
A Black president.
Followed by a woman president.
Followed by a gay president, (i.e., Pete Bootyjuggs was the next-in-line.)
Followed by a binary or trans president.
Would have been purfect… PUUuuuuRrrFECTO! It’s all Russia’s fault for breaking the combo!
Coops
Your donation link says 2022, I guess a copy / paste error? Cheers.
DMC
It’s not Democrats and Republicans that are the significant factors, it’s the NEOCONS who hate Russia and China and both parties are bought off stooges of Israel. Yeah, it’s the American publics fault that the only 2 significant political parties are UTTERLY corrupt. It’s the public’s fault billionaires were able to suborn the Supreme Court to make money equal speech and to give corporations human rights. It’s the public’s fault war mongers entirely dominate the media and the only voices against war are coming from the far right(at least, in Congress).
StewartM
KT Chong,
As the abortion, marijuana, and minimum wage votes show, once the US people are allowed to vote directly for things, they can get them (though with the anti-abortion votes, the Rs in Ohio are already seeking ways that they can refuse to honor the voters’ wishes). Support for Ukraine and Israel are less popular than you would think, I suspect, despite the fact that the US public only gets a nearly 100 % pro-Ukrainian perspective and a heavily pro-Israel one. I personally wouldn’t trade IRS funding or any other US domestic need for supporting either Ukraine or Israel, as I don’t see that real US interests are being promoted in either case (except negatively).
The problem with US representative democracy is that it relies not only on money (as some have pointed out) but also the way that districts are drawn, resulting in many candidates getting only token opposition and sometimes running completely unopposed. Many if not most races in the US aren’t competitive. The voters don’t have a choice. If our betters really wanted us to have competitive races, the easiest way to do that is to do away with single-representative districts altogether and replace them with large, diverse, districts* that allow for multiple winners (the top 2, 3, 4, etc. winning seats, maybe combining with instant-runoff so that the people winning are the most acceptable and preventing purely ‘spoiler’ candidacies)
*Example: North Carolina has 14 House seats. Instead of having 14 districts, have just three “natural” districts—the Mountain West, the Piedmont Central, and the Coastal Plain East. The top 4 candidates in each are seated by instant-runoff voting (accounting for 12). Then the last 2 are elected state-wide, again by instant-runoff.
So all the candidates would have to appeal to a diverse audience. Those who have large negatives (i.e., they’re hated by a lot) would tend to be lowered in the instant-runoff process.. This would be a very hard system to gerrymander or distort.
Curt Kastens
Why do my comments have to await moderation? I am not an adverstiser selling shares to Boeing.
Ian Welsh
No one except me and Tony doesn’t go thru comment approval. It isn’t a reflection on any individual commenter.
Curt Kastens
I asked because as I recall the first 5 or 6 times that I commented here my comments were not moderated. At least not that I noticed.
capelin
This is a very accessible, non-intrusive, sensible website with great perspective and a fantastic signal/noise ratio.
Ian Welsh
For most of this blog’s existence there was no comment moderation. Alas, that privilege was abused.
VietnamVet
Madison Ave. propaganda is effective. It keeps the dollars spinning. At the same time as the Soviet Union fell, money families seized control of the global economic system. The US New Deal and myriad sovereign nations were terminated. A hegemon created. Its ruling ideology states that anything that makes a profit is good. The human deaths from war, pandemics, famine, and the pollution of the earth are of no concern.
Except the global Vampire Squid is senseless. It drove China and Russia together in self-defense due to the West’s pursuit of war profiteering. WWIII has started with two fronts in Ukraine and Gaza.
Since the Clintons are firmly part of the New World Order (NWO), they expected election by acclamation. Except the propaganda failed. Russia’s $500,000 spent on Facebook in 2016 defeated DNC’s nine billion dollars.
The USA stopped working well for its people because North America is now composed of NWO’s Neo-colonies. The debt laborers are getting restive. But the arrogant globalist managerial class hates them and readily believes that it is the Russians who are placing the rope nooses over the lampposts.
Every indication is that unless there is a restoration of good government by and for the people, the USA will splinter apart. If 2024 is repeat of 2020 election, either Donald Trump will destroy the federal executive branch looking for revenge or Joe Biden will be too old to understand that this is the end of the road.
There is no alternative.
Joan
I have a monthly donation and will make sure it’s still active and running. Will keep it going this year and if I can get a job upgrade I’ll up the amount. Good luck Ian, I’ll keep reading.
sbt42
I simply can’t -not- donate to support. I greatly appreciate what appears here, and I want to do my part to see it keep coming. I’ve been following for years.
(And Ian, should you revisit your Political Concepts essays and want some audio work done, just say the word.)