Steve's Politics Blog

This interview with Michael Hudson explains lots about what he has spent a career learning and trying to pass on. He also raises more questions for me than he answers.

Reshaping Christianity and the Modern State: A Journey from Usury to Fiscal Power

That’s called a Ponzi scheme. A debtor keeps solvent by borrowing the money to pay the interest and amortization falling due. I began to wonder how long U.S. banks would be able to continue financing this Ponzi scheme by lending debtor countries the money to enable them to pay their creditors.

He talks about debt forgiveness, but does not tell you important details about how it worked.

I thought that people would be more willing to accept the idea that cancelling debts was needed to avoid economic polarization and impoverishment if they could see how societies through the ages had dealt with the problem of debts exceeding the ability of large parts of the economy to pay.

This interview presents a fairly complete explanation by Michael Hudson – Barbarism or Civilization

Here is just a sampling of what is in the interview.

Western textbooks indoctrinate students to believe that neoliberalism is the best way to run an economy efficiently – by not having a government to protect self-reliance and living standards, not to regulate against predatory monopoly and financial rent seeking. The aim is to let capitalism evolve into monopoly capitalism, which is really finance capitalism, because monopolies are organized by the financial sector as “the mother of trusts.”

The Duran has an episode Russia’s final warning to Macron and Cameron. This is so counter to the silencing this story on the corporate, Western news that Facebook won’t allow me to post the link to this Duran episode.

Russia’s final warning to Macron and Cameron
The Duran: Episode 1901

FB’s censors seem to be asleep at the switch, They let me post a link to this post on my blog. I don’t expect that to last long.

This article from INET, Industrial Policy Is a Good Idea, but So Far We Don’t Have One, is worth rememebering,

Does the whole amount to an industrial policy, creating new American competitiveness on the world stage? This seems quite far from the case.

And will all the sound and fury make a difference to voters in 2024? That too remains to be seen. But if so, it will be due mainly to effective marketing of the narrative, and not much to actual achievement of the stated goals.

YouTube has the video The Gaza Zeitgeist w/ Peter Joseph & Abby Martin.

Legendary filmmaker, author and activist Peter Joseph joins Abby to discuss the Gaza genocide, and debunk liberal Zionism through the lens of Bill Maher.

This is such an interesting interview. There are so many deep insights that are touched on, that there is much to think about and research.

Several movies and podcasts were mentioned. I was intrigued by a mention of Thorstein Veblen’s book An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation.

Lot’s of stuff for further research. For Peter’s podcast, articles, films & more visit https://www.peterjoseph.info also https://linktr.ee/empirefiles

The Grayzone has the YouTube video Ukraine exposed as CIA-MI6 beachhead

The Grayzone’s Aaron Mate and Max Blumenthal discuss a stunning New York Times report which was intended to highlight achievements by the CIA and MI6 in Ukraine, but which wound up confirming Russia’s understanding of the post-Maidan government as a blunt instrument of Western intelligence.

YouTube has the video Statement by Democratic Presidential Candidate Marianne Williamson on the War in Gaza.

She makes too many assumptions about Israel. Israel is a perfect example of why it is a bad idea to form a nation based on religion.

New Dawn Magazine has the article Why Did Russia REALLY Invade Ukraine?

The following article by Patrick Henningsen – written only months after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on 24 February 2022 – explains the background dynamics of this war. The facts outlined here – that were suppressed in the West but well known to informed observers – are only now emerging in mainstream media as Western backers of Ukraine begin to face reality.

I wanted to preserve a link to this article. This is the real history as I remember it.

Here is an excerpt from the article that summarizes the point of the history.

After eight long years of bloodshed and failed peace negotiations, the Russian president took to the airwaves to announce Moscow’s formal recognition of the independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. For a legal perspective, this immediately qualified them for official Russian military protection, including the establishment of humanitarian corridors which were quickly opened. After more than seven years of stalled diplomacy, Moscow finally chose to abandon the already dead Minsk agreement and directly deal with the situation in Donbass – and the threat posed by a US-controlled and NATO-occupied Ukraine to its national homeland security.

Tucker Carlson has posted Ep. 73 The Vladimir Putin Interview.

I have spent 2 hours watching this. I do not see why this is such a big deal in the west.

I first learned about Žižek’s Jokes when someone mentioned the term in a comment on Facebook. My search for the term fist led me to the article 10 jokes from philosopher Slavoj Žižek

In an old joke from the defunct German Democratic Republic, a German worker gets a job in Siberia; aware of how all mail will be read by censors, he tells his friends: “Let’s establish a code: if a letter you will get from me is written in ordinary blue ink, it is true; if it is written in red ink, it is false.” After a month, his friends get the first letter, written in blue ink: “Everything is wonderful here: stores are full, food is abundant, apartments are large and properly heated, movie theaters show films from the West, there are many beautiful girls ready for an affair—the only thing unavailable is red ink.”

There is also a book Žižek’s Jokes

The good news is that this book offers an entertaining but enlightening compilation of Žižekisms. Unlike any other book by Slavoj Žižek, this compact arrangement of jokes culled from his writings provides an index to certain philosophical, political, and sexual themes that preoccupy him. Žižek’s Jokes contains the set-ups and punch lines—as well as the offenses and insults—that Žižek is famous for, all in less than 200 pages.