Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Author: Ian Welsh Page 151 of 437

It Is True: There Is No Moral Equivalency Between Hamas and Israel or the US

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On June 15, 2021

11 Comments

Ilhan Omar, the most radical of the Squad, gave in and apologized for saying:

“We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity,” she wrote. “We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.”

This is, of course, true. In fact, it’s way too mild. But Omar caved.

She said she had never made “a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the US and Israel.”

“I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems,” she added.

House Democratic leaders issued their own statement welcoming Ms. Omar’s clarification, saying that “drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the US and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all.”

Now, the problem here is that there is no moral equivalency between Hamas and the US and Israel. Hamas has killed far fewer people, and committed far fewer atrocities. It has not tried to ethnically cleanse an entire people and has not invaded any other countries. Being a “democracy,” which Israel is not, since almost half of the population can’t vote, does not excuse your war crimes. Hamas is, in every way that matters, far less evil than the US or Israel. This isn’t even a question, and anyone who thinks it is has their moral compass so far up their ass it will never again see daylight.

Do remember that the CIA tortured people. This is well established. What did the “well-established judicial system” of the United States do about that?

The only person the “well-established judicial system” of the United States put in jail for CIA torture was the whistleblower who revealed the torture in an attempt to stop it.

Hamas aren’t “good” people, but they are freedom fighters (yeah, sorry) defending their people, who suffer under an apartheid system after having been ethnic cleansed out of most of their homeland. They have killed fewer people than Israel, stolen fewer homes, and not conquered any countries with a native population and shoved the native population into the dirt.

Compared to Israel, or the US (Libya, Iraq, Vietnam, nukes, drone murders, rendition, etc, etc.), Hamas is a moral giant. Perhaps they are only saved by their weakness, and would be as evil if they had more power, but they don’t. They shoot homemade missiles at Israel to try and stop Israel from stealing more Palestinians homes and Israel retaliates with the most advanced bombs and missiles in the world, leveling press offices, hospitals, and apartment blocks.

(My writing helps pay my rent and buys me food. So please consider subscribing or donating if you like my writing.)

The Lords of Hell (and Their Slaves)

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On June 14, 2021

27 Comments

Most people spend their entire childhoods and adult lives until they are really too old to work, doing shit they don’t want to do and would never do absent coercion.

This is the ur-fact about capitalism. You cannot leave. If you do not submit to slavery, you will wind up homeless and eventually dead, and suffer a lot along the way.

This is built into the system: The “whip of hunger” is used to make people work. The threat of homelessness.

Homelessness, despair, and so on are required; without them people would not bother working at bad jobs. Indeed, without them many people would not work any more than required to feed and house themselves.

Now, understand clearly, rip a hole in your skull, and put this in: There is more food than needed and way more homes than homeless people in all of the developed countries and more food than needed to feed everyone in the world. We could easily feed and house everyone in the world. It is almost a trivial problem. We simply have to do it.

Industrialization, plus modern agriculture, produces easily more than we need. Automation should mean that less and less hours need working. We should be living in a paradise of free-time and choice.

We do not because a small minority has captured power and enslaved the rest of us.

These people are monsters on every possible level, including in their depraved indifference to what will happen to their children and grandchildren under environmental collapse and climate change.

We have a surplus, but it is generated in the stupidest ways possible — with planned obsolesence, soil degradation, and pollution causing environmental collapse.

If we had built everything without planned obsolesence, we wouldn’t be where we are. If we had not degraded the soil and dumped so much pollution into the air we would not be where we are. We made a bunch of choices to do things the fast, “profitable” way that actually led to people being sicker (all that pollution and soil degradation means you are undernourished and full of unhealthy chemicals) and having to work longer.

We had the knowledge to have a manageable, sustainable cornucopia by just looking at the effects on people, animals, and plants, and the environment in general and correcting. We did not.

School, if you will put aside your prejudices for a couple minutes and look at it coldly, is a process whereby you are made to sit still, talk only when teacher allows, piss only when teacher allows, stand only when teacher allows, and do all sorts of things you don’t want in the way that pleases teacher or you get bad grades, and if you get enough bad grades, you will almost certainly never have a good job or any power in society.

You were trained to be a slave by school then you went to work and acted like a good slave. Some few proved themselves psychopathic enough to ascend to the elites (though the few open routes are rapidly closing down), though most elites come from the already-elite (check out who Bill Gates father was).

Since creating a utopia in which people don’t have to obey their masters is no fun for psychopaths or functional psychopaths and narcissists (our ruling class), keeping the majority of the population firmly in a form of slavery they could tell themselves was freedom, “I get to CHOOSE MY MASTER who tells me what to do! I am free!” is what our master-class has done.

We run around on treadmills, working for them to get what we need, and the various drugs (including entertainment) we use to ease ourselves and pretend it’s all worth it. The internet, which looked like it might increase freedom, has simply set up more hedonic treadmills, optimized for us to tell our masters everything about ourselves, so they can sell us our next drug, and continue their removal from us of all real assets. (Private equity is now buying up single family homes, the middle class’s last real asset.)

If you work at a normal job, you are a slave. If you have ascended to the ranks of high executive, CEO, or board member, you are Lord of Hell. There are some other seats, rather nice places: the independent best-selling author or musician, for example. The high paid consultant, the big Twitch streamer and so on. They are rare, and like becoming a pro-sports player, they exist for the majority of the population more as a way to blame themselves for not “making it” than as a real possibility.

This is our society: A society which had the technology to create a near utopia without destroying the world (yes, some people will argue this was always impossible; let us say that we never even tried) and which chooses instead to run a master/slave society which is so advanced it convinces most of the slaves they are free.

You WISH you had “Brave New World” because at least then you’d think you were happy.

It is odd, and sad, that this world will end because the masters, abetted by their slaves (who, remember, have not revolted in any meaningful way and have chosen the master-class through voting), have mismanaged the environment so badly.

When that happens, the powerful are betting they will become even more powerful, so that they can use their resources to be masters in an even greater hell.

Let me suggest, that as you or your children are scrabbling for survival in the world to come, you take the time to ensure that the masters don’t “win” by destroying the environment.

The hell they will create in a collapsing environment will make the present hell look wonderful by comparison, and they will never stop creating hells unless it is made clear to them that their perpetual hell creation will soon become unprofitable for them as well; even if it has to be with their lives.

(My writing helps pay my rent and buys me food. So please consider subscribing or donating if you like my writing.)

Open Thread

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On June 12, 2021

15 Comments

Use the comments to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

Your Phone Is a Sucking Security Wound and Basic Anti-surveillance Hygiene

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On June 11, 2021

17 Comments

Might as well send anyone who cares for an itinerary:

 

While this is for smart-phones, old-style cell phones can also be compromised.

If you have a phone on you, even off, it can be used to track all your movements and listen to what you are saying. Even putting it in a Faraday bag will not stop it from storing tracking movements; the moment you remove it, it will broadcast again, and not all Faraday cages are strong enough to block a phone in any case.

You should not carry a phone, at all, if you are doing anything the State or other large actors dislike. So that it is not obvious when they need to be concerned, you should occasionally not take your phone with you on other trips.

If you need comms, find another way other than cell phones. Even a burner isn’t that great -— the second you contact any other phone, you can be compromised. Old fashioned walkie-talkies with pre-agreed one use codes are better. If you need to record or take pictures, use a device which has no internet connectivity without a cable. Nothing wi-fi or cellular-enabled.

There are NO secure online comms, also. None. Things like Tor and a good (non-Western based) VPN make it a bit harder, but if anyone cares enough, they can find you — plus you don’t know what services has been compromised. Tor is heavily subsidized by the security state, a smart person doesn’t assume it’s reliable for anything the US cares about.

If anything matters, use offline comms. If you must send a message, go yourself, make sure neither you nor the recipient have a phone, and leave out any place you habitually frequent, at the very least. If you’re a messenger, same rules: Write it down, then have it burned (not shredded) after receipt.

If you do not personally control the communications network, you do not know if it has been compromised. In the last Hezbollah-Israel war, Hezbollah won the e-lint war: They had built their own private fiber-optic network underground AND Israeli soldiers carried and used cellphones. Hezbollah knew where Israeli troops were, and Israel only found out where Hezbollah troops were when a bunker opened up on them.

In the early 2000s, the Pentagon ran a war game against Iran. The General running the Iranian side, among other things, used motorcycle messengers. The US expected to have e-lint, didn’t, and that lack was one reason they lost the game.

There’s a vast array of very good surveillance tech now, of course. If someone really wants to track you and listen in on your comms, they can. But they assume e-lint will work and they have less human-intelligence than they did.

Finally, if you are doing something the State REALLY doesn’t approve of (not, of course the wonderful American and Canadian states, who are always good, mind you, but only bad states), remember the first rule of getting away with it.

STOP.

Set a date when you’ll stop and become an ordinary, boring citizen. When the date happens, just stop. Wipe everything and walk away.

Likewise, if you ever think something is OFF, stop immediately.

If you have comrades, once you stop, you never contact them again.

The longer you do whatever it is, the more likely some .01 percent audit or some-such will catch you, no matter how brilliant and careful you’ve been.

Also, don’t keep records, eh?

We’re moving into a very dystopian, surveillance state world. Gait recognition, infrared tracking, mics that can hear through walls, drones, and satellites mean the long game will have pretty much everyone under surveillance all the time, even if you aren’t being watched in particular.

For now, however, don’t make it easy for them, and to start, leave the damn phone at home. (Oh, and don’t assume cryptocurrency is anonymous. Even criminals who really know what they’re doing don’t always get away with that. Cash is still anonymous, given proper safeguards.)

(My writing helps pay my bills. So please consider subscribing or donating if you like my writing.)

Way Past Time to Leave America

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On June 10, 2021

29 Comments

I wrote this article in January of 2010. I’m re-posting it because, alas, it is STILL important. I had some hope Biden could at least put through a good economic package; I was wrong.

My errors are far more often on the side of “hope” and optimism than pessimism, which is something people who consider me a pessimist get wrong.

I have updated commentary after the piece.

The Unvarnished Truth About the US

I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time and in light of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate money into the political system, I think it’s time.

Yesterday’s decision makes the US a soft fascist state. Roosevelt’s definition of fascism was control of government by corporate interests. Unlimited money means that private interests can dump billions into elections if they choose. Given that the government can, will, and has rewarded them with trillions, as in the bailouts, or is thinking about doing so in HCR, by forcing millions of Americans to buy their products, the return on investment is so good that I would argue that corporations have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to buy out government – after all, if you pay a million to get a billion, or a billion to get a trillion, that’s far far better returns than are available anywhere else.

And no politician, no political party, can reasonably expect to win when billions are arrayed against it.

The one faint hope is that politicians in the Senate will panic, know they have ten months to do something and ram something through. Of course, that will only be a stopgap measure, until the Supremes overthrow it, but in the meantime, maybe Dems will get serious about the Supreme Court and not rubber-stamp radical right-wingers like Alito and Roberts.

That is, however, a faint hope.

Add to this the US’s complete inability to manage its economic affairs, and its refusal to fix its profound structural problems, whether in the financial system, the education system, the military, concrete infrastructure, technology, or anything else, and I cannot see a likely scenario where the US turns things around. The US’s problems in almost every area amount to “monied interests are making a killing on business as usual, along with ologopolistic markets, and will do anything they can to make sure the problem isn’t fixed.”

Even before they had the ability to dump unlimited money into the political system, they virtually controlled Washington. This will put their influence on steroids. Any congressperson who goes against their interests can be threatened by what amounts to unlimited money. And any one who does their bidding can be rewarded with so much money their reelection is virtually secure.

This decision makes the US’s recovery from its decline even more unlikely than before -— and even then, it was still very unlikely. Absolute catastrophe will have to occur before people are angry enough, and corporations weak enough, for there to even be a chance.

So, my advice to my readers is this:

If you can leave the US, do. Most of the world is going to suffer over the next decades, but there are places which will suffer less than the US, places that have not settled for soft fascism and a refusal to fix their economic problems. Fighting to the very end is very romantic, and all, but when you’re outnumbered, outgunned, and your odds of winning are miniscule, sometimes the smartest thing to do is book out. Those who came to to the US understood this, they left countries which were less free or had less economic hope than the US, and they came to a place where they thought freedom and opportunity reigned.

That place, that time, is coming to an end. For your own sake, and especially for the sake of your children, I tell you now -— it is time to get out.

I am not the only person thinking this. Even before the decisions, two of my savviest American friends, people with impeccable records at predicting the US meltdown, told me that within the next few years they would be leaving.

There’s always hope, and those who choose to stay might stop this terminal decline.

But you need to ask yourself, seriously, if you are willing to pay the price of failure, if you are willing to have your children pay the price of failure. Because it will be very, very steep.

I understand that not everyone can leave the US. Look within the US for places that will be least affected. I don’t know what those are. I suggest being willing to adopt “protective” coloring; if you aren’t, and things go really south, understand that the right (and a big chunk of what passes for the center in the US) is itching to do a purge of left-wingers and, indeed, of a lot of centrists (the Clintons, for example).

Next, I’m Canadian, and despite our image, things aren’t going great in Canada. We are badly infected by US-style politics, but even if we happen to win against them (not a sure bet at all — and remember my comment about my errors being errors of optimism), we are a US satrapy which the US may decide to take direct control of. Even if they don’t, Canada cannot realistically resist most US demands if the US is serious; well, not without steps Canada has refused to take, like getting a credible deterrent.

Smart Jews fled Germany to other European nations, and wound up in the camps anyway.

Canada and Mexico (a completely failing state) may well not be far enough away.

Next: Understand that the world IS moving towards a new cold war. It looks like China/Russia + allies vs. America/Europe plus allies, at least so far. There is some chance that Europe will try to go third-path, but so far it is choosing to go with the US, despite misgivings. You can see this in its rejection of Huawei 5G, after a great deal of wavering. Some countries even started to deploy 5G, and are now dismantling it.

There are some other considerations, like China now competing with Germany more than being a customer, but overall Europe seems to be choosing the current hegemon over the new rising one. This is a startling failure on the part of Jingping (who is incompetent at almost everything except controlling the Party). Other countries should be falling into China’s arms, but China now wants to be a bully, too; to reap the rights of being powerful.

So, where you settle will have a lot to do with your future mobility; which part of the walled internet you’re in and so on. Look at countries and consider which side they’ll be on, or if or how they might manage the neutrality dance. This will matter for extradition, visiting the relatives, what technology you use and much more (Russia, for example, is where people in the US really want go, not because Russia is great (it’s a mafia state) but because Russia won’t extradite).

It is, of course, possible that I am wrong, and the US will pull it out. Every great nation (“great” is not a synonym for “good”) pulls it out over and over again until they don’t. England lost an empire then created another, for example, but Britain seems unlikely to exist soon: Both Northern Ireland and Scotland will likely go, and it’ll just be England and Wales again (and even Wales may go in 20 to 30 years, which would be losing a possession conquered 800 years ago).

So, it’s always possible that the US will pull it out. History goes in waves: There was a Gilded Age before, and it ended. That may happen again this time, either by force or luck of disaster.

That said, I don’t think that’s where the smart money is, and you’ll be gambling with more than your life.

If you do stay, remember that you have two defenses: (1) Other people who care for you and will fight with you (fight is not entirely a metaphor here), and; (2) Anonymity: Sliding along with no one really knowing anything about you and your beliefs (far harder than it once was).

All of this is complicated by climate change and environmental collapse putting pressure on systems never designed to withstand shocks.

Be well and be safe, whatever you do.

(The more people subscribe or donate the more I write. So please consider subscribing if you like my writing.)

Huge Western Wildfire Season Far Beyond California

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On June 8, 2021

17 Comments

So, this is the drought map for 2020:

Here’s the drought map for this year:

Yeah.

Expect wildfires all through this region and beyond. You should prepare NOW if you live in these areas (check for Mexican or Canadian maps if you live in those countries). Remember, you buy NOW because if you wait everything will be out of stock.

You may need (not a complete list):

  • Respirators
  • Air filters, have extras, especially for any air conditioners
  • A “go bag” in case you’re forced to evacuate.
  • Some sort of back-up electricity, even if only some batteries for your small items.
  • Tape to tape over your doors and windows. Painters tape, perhaps.
  • Internal air filtering fans. (Tutorial on how to make from box fans.)
  • Standard stuff like water and staple foods in case supply chains are disrupted.
  • Asthmatics and other people with breathing problems should make sure they have enough meds, if they can.

 

Larger scale preparations may include:

  • Non-flammable roofing and keep the roof clean of flammable materials like leaves and needles;
  • Change your lawn to something non-flammable; a rock garden perhaps.
  • I hate chopping down trees, but you may wish to consider any too near your house.
  • Be sure any flammable vegetation is not touching your house nor can fall on it.

I’m sure no expert on this sort of thing, so please leave suggestions for preparing in the comments and do your own research.

BUT the main thing is to do your research and preparation NOW. (Really ,it should have been sooner, and I apologize for not writing this article earlier.)

This is, yes, a result of climate change, exacerbated by bad forestry and soil management. But without climate change it wouldn’t have happened. This is how the ecology of local areas is changing to match the new climates. Unfortunately, that means the destruction of what is there now.

(In that vein, we are coming up on a period of serious food inflation. If you can store it, buy food now.)

Be well, be safe.

(The more people subscribe or donate the more I write and the happier I am. So please consider doing so if you like my writing.)

Open Thread

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On June 5, 2021

65 Comments

Use the comments to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

How to Do Single-Payer, Medicare-for-All Properly in the US

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On June 4, 2021

17 Comments

One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer, Medicare-for-all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances, and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors in this: hospitals, drug makers, and appliance makers, among others, have great interest in maintaining high prices. Just switching to, “the Federal government pays” doesn’t fix all the fucked up prices, incentives, and wrong things that are being done.

One thing to understand about single payer is that it can be used to fix hospital and other prices. You make the government a monopoly buyer of health care. The government sets the prices, period. “We will pay X. This is a take it or leave it price. No one else can pay you, it’s not even legal for anything that we pay for.”

Now this doesn’t entirely work if you aren’t a hegemonic or at least a “Great Power,” because too much stuff comes from outside and externally applied laws, especially IP laws, impose limits. It is worth it for providers to just stop selling to you if you won’t pay their over-inflated prices.

But if the US does it, and is serious (meaning it will change other laws if required), it can set almost all prices.

“We’re going to give you cost +5% profit over inflation. And that’s it.”

To do this properly, the next thing you do is have some hospitals run entirely by the federal government so they know the actual price structure. You also have the government do some drug and device design+ manufacturing. This is so you can’t be snowed about cost/price.

This isn’t just on-shoring production; it is having the government do the work itself. This also includes research: Some is done in-house — and not at universities or private firms, again so you can directly observe what the actual cost is and what the processes are. (Universities are terrible actors when it comes to research, often taking 80 to 90 percent of the money that supposedly goes to researchers as “fees and rent.”)

It does not matter if public drugs, hospitals, appliances, or research cost a little more or less, the function isn’t to be the “cheapest” — the function is to make sure government knows how things work and can’t be cheated by private providers.

You also must break up all oligopolies, monopolies, and cartels, so that no private outfit can control prices and try to challenge you with a “we’ll walk.” There should always be the government plus at least five providers in any reasonably large health care-related industry and if the country is large enough, even the government should have more than group doing it. (In the US, the Veterans Admin + HHS or something + various others).

Nothing that is truly important (vaccines, as the most current example) can be just imported unless you truly cannot make it or learn how to make it. Create a domestic industry. Let other countries do so. IP Laws MUST be amended/broken to allow this and yes, the US has sufficient power to more or less “just” do this. (The EU will be a stumbling block, but they don’t have a veto on the US).

If you need things that must be bought, in effect, in a currency you can’t print, you are not free, and you cannot control prices or outcomes. Pure autarky is not possible right now, but you want as much as you can reasonably get on anything essential.

I see no reason why all hospitals shouldn’t be independent, by the way. No groups, no cartels, etc. This will allow for actual innovation.

Finally, as a general rule, you mandate outcomes not processes (except your payment processes) so that various providers, including those operated by your own government, can innovate. Mandate process and innovation dies.

To summarize: Single payer is used to force all the other necessary changes. “You are paid by us, and only us. If you wish to stay in business you will do what we want done.” To do this correctly, you must truly understand what is wrong and what is currently possible and you must remove any actor with sufficient power to distort information or who will try and enforce any type of veto or a compromise on you (i.e., “everyone else has to make cost+5%, but us.”)

Every other country but the US has big problems when doing this because of how the current world order is set up in terms of trade and IP Laws, and even the US will have trouble even though the current trade regime was its own creation more so than any other entity. But the US retains, for now, more freedom to act than any other country in the world. Only China and the EU, if you consider the EU a country, come close.

Now, understand that this is not a “what I think will happen” post. This is an article setting out what would happen if the US government and the American people were serious about doing Single-Payer / Medicare-For-All properly. It is an “ideal type” which allows you to judge proposals and anything that happens. It can, of course, be used to judge doing things properly in other countries too, with the understanding that other countries suffer constraints the US does not, often constraints enforced primarily by the US and the EU.

May we come to a world where posts like this are well-understood because the actions outlined are being done, and where everyone gets the health care they need at a reasonable price and those who create the future of health care are concentrated on cures and good  health throughout everyone’s life, not palliatives, high profit, and just keeping unhealthy people stumbling along as they suffer.

(The more people subscribe or donate the more I write and the happier I am. So please consider doing so if you like my writing.)

 

 

 

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