Truly, there are a lot of bullshit conspiracy theories. It’s probably as important for those who do point out uncomfortable truths to also identify the many bullshit conspiracy theories that take off because there is an element of truth, mixed in with an element of falsehood. That’s one of the main methods of subverting debates and pervt…
Truly, there are a lot of bullshit conspiracy theories. It’s probably as important for those who do point out uncomfortable truths to also identify the many bullshit conspiracy theories that take off because there is an element of truth, mixed in with an element of falsehood. That’s one of the main methods of subverting debates and pervting discussion: take something true and mix it in with something bat shit crazy.
People who feel disenfranchised by the standard narratives are drawn to these alternative narratives because they have the semblance of departing from the standard narrative, but these alternative narratives are often also layered with intentional falsehoods. So it’s a difficult situation and I understand people’s hesitancy to get in there, but I mean that should be the job of professional journalists and researches, to actually sift through the falsehoods until they find something true, regardless of how strange it sounds.
The current covid narrative is probably a decent example. Now there is discussion of something coming from a lab, which all the evidence suggested since the beginning, but then what do you know, the narrative has now switched to China unleashing a biological weapon against the world... It just continues the same geopolitical narrative. Of course all the war hawks and neoliberal fanatics are jumping on that bandwagon.
In reality China had no reason to unleash a bioweapon against the US. The US is a militarily bloated bankrupt system trying to “contain” Russia and China, but in doing so they are ultimately just drawing themselves down and expending whatever free energy they have left.
Meanwhile, all the Too Big To Fail institutions are essentially zombie banks. The only reason they haven’t all been vaporized is because of the hyper-inflationary money printing and artificially low interest rates. That will not continue for very much longer. So we are at a critical juncture.
That being said, I don’t think America is the problem. America has been captured by something which existed long before the USA was even a country. The dissolution of the American system is a necessary part of returning things to that “old order.” But the oligarchs on Wall Street and the City of London are in a tight spot, their system is completely bloated and tottering on hyperinflation. On the other hand, Russia, China, much of Eurasia is going down a different economic path, it’s not hostage to that same speculative financial parasite—the slime mold—that has captured the Trans-Atlantic world. And it doesn’t look like any regime change is going to happen in the Eurasian countries, despite the best efforts.
So what are the oligarchs of the Trans-Atlantic system to do as their system implodes and the Eurasian countries remain standing? Therein lies the true danger, in my opinion.
It makes me smile when people like Krystal Ball talk about the lab leak hypothesis and immediately distance themselves in the strongest terms from the suggestion that the leak was deliberate. It's like they're doing what they denounce the MSM for doing just a couple of months ago about an only slightly different hypothesis.
Bit isn't "conspiracy theory" just a way of distancing yourself from something, for the sake of protecting one's rep analogous to "politically correct" or "misinformation". Like an insult used as a shield.
Strictly speaking, when I consider the possibility that Epstein had a suicide done to him or that the feds did the Oct 2001 anthrax attacks, I am theorizing about the possibility of conspiracies. But if you say these are conspiracy theories, you're basically saying they are the ravings of a crazy person.
As far as the other thing goes, C.J. Hopkins calls it Globocap.
And there's another interesting example. Is C.J. Hopkins so beyond the pale that Matt couldn't have him on Useful Idiots? Matt has a rep to look after.
I love C.J. Hopkins and was happy to see Matt do a profile on him.
Naturally, I agree that the word "conspiracy theory" has ultimately just become a rhetorical tool to shut conversation down. That being said, there are a lot of bullshit ideas out there and many other ideas that are only half truths, or perverted truths used to subvert any larger substantial debate. How to separate the lies from the truth when we’re talking about something with so many moving parts, like the world geopolitical situation?
Knowing there are a lot of bullshit ideas, some simply more popular than others, ultimately the only way to overcome that seems to be to first challenge someone on how they think the world works on a fundamental level. That’s ultimately what a “conspiracy theory” is doing: it suggests the way things appear and the way the world actually is are two fundamentally different things. Usually, the real problem isn’t any given conspiracy theory per se, but rather the underlying axioms which prevent someone from thinking such a radical deviation from their worldview might actually be possible.
We could start arguing with someone over x new idea or potentially real conspiracy, which usually just means a tit-for-tat debate, or we could start by challenging the person or audience on their fundamental beliefs about how the world really works.
Are Russia and China really the “bad guys” which the US and Western world are simply trying to stave off? Are Russia and China really hostile actors towards the US and Western world? How many military bases do Russia or China have around the world? How many coups and foreign interventions have Russia or China been involved in over the recent decades? How many bio warfare labs do they have combined compared to the US? How many people fall for the narrative of an enemy image?
I’d say above 80% of the population is ultimately hostage to the enemy image narrative, which means they can’t really think about the strategic world situation in substantial terms, if that narrative is false. What purpose could introducing a new idea or potential real conspiracy among financial and corporate elites really achieve if the person holds fundamentally false axioms about the way the world operates on its most fundamental level?
Wall Street and the City of London banks, their extensions in Brussels, and the spider web of offshore financial havens are ultimately sitting on a financial bubble worth hundreds of trillions, if not quadrillions of dollars in nominal value. The world GDP is only around 80 trillion. So how are these financial interests coping with the fact that their entire financial casino is only still going because of the hyper-inflationary money printing, the Fed repo loans and artificially low interest rates? What happens if a bug appears on even one of these fronts?
I think if we want to have a discussion about the many moving parts in the overall world strategic puzzle, we first have to recognize the existential crisis unfolding within the Western world.
Short of Nuclear war, the US, NATO, and their allies just don’t have the ability to subvert Russia, China and Eurasia generally. So what are they to do?
Even though I am (perhaps because I am) an atheist, my catchphrase is now: I need a sermon. In addition to thundering descriptions of brimstone, you gotta give people some positive, practical guidance on what they can do to escape hell, even if it is just a localized, temporary escape.
Unlike Matt and Krystal and all the rest, I am, for all practical purposes, nobody. Two people follow my blog, give or take. So I just get a bit irritated by the endless repetitive punditry on the symptoms of the corruption of our society and so little about what might be done to make anything even a little bit better.
You’re right. Solution concepts are where many drop the balls. They are probably the best means of measuring someone’s assessment of the situation.
I would just point out that all our economic collapse and fascism has been stopped before. One of the great ironies is that China’s current economic development model is in reality what the US used to do.
What strikes fear into the heart of the oligarchy is the thought that the US, Russia, and China might come to agreements on the need for a new financial architecture, and the need for cooperation on economic development from high speed rail, the Bering Strait tunnel, Nuclear Power, Fusion research.
In short, the first step should be a Glass-Steagall standard banking re-organization. That’s actually probably something Taibi would like and agree on. All the trillions of printed dollars have been going to the zombie banks in order for them to stay afloat, for lending not to freeze up and cause them all to be vaporized overnight. Nothing in the real world, the real economy, farmers, infrastructure, energy grids, water management, new cities, nuclear power, nothing else was built or bailed out. That financial cancer is what has to be cut out. There is no way for the system to go on with that quadrillion dollar problem.
Much of the US infrastructure is ROT, so banking re-organization is a necessary means of making the credit available for reconstruction and the establishment of new infrastructure and economic platforms.
Mathew Ehret is arguably the best journalist out there when it comes to solutions. He’s not bogged down by radical free market ideology or brainwashed with the idea that we need to cover the entire planet with windmills and solar panels and shut down the rest of industrial society.
Truly, there are a lot of bullshit conspiracy theories. It’s probably as important for those who do point out uncomfortable truths to also identify the many bullshit conspiracy theories that take off because there is an element of truth, mixed in with an element of falsehood. That’s one of the main methods of subverting debates and pervting discussion: take something true and mix it in with something bat shit crazy.
People who feel disenfranchised by the standard narratives are drawn to these alternative narratives because they have the semblance of departing from the standard narrative, but these alternative narratives are often also layered with intentional falsehoods. So it’s a difficult situation and I understand people’s hesitancy to get in there, but I mean that should be the job of professional journalists and researches, to actually sift through the falsehoods until they find something true, regardless of how strange it sounds.
The current covid narrative is probably a decent example. Now there is discussion of something coming from a lab, which all the evidence suggested since the beginning, but then what do you know, the narrative has now switched to China unleashing a biological weapon against the world... It just continues the same geopolitical narrative. Of course all the war hawks and neoliberal fanatics are jumping on that bandwagon.
In reality China had no reason to unleash a bioweapon against the US. The US is a militarily bloated bankrupt system trying to “contain” Russia and China, but in doing so they are ultimately just drawing themselves down and expending whatever free energy they have left.
Meanwhile, all the Too Big To Fail institutions are essentially zombie banks. The only reason they haven’t all been vaporized is because of the hyper-inflationary money printing and artificially low interest rates. That will not continue for very much longer. So we are at a critical juncture.
That being said, I don’t think America is the problem. America has been captured by something which existed long before the USA was even a country. The dissolution of the American system is a necessary part of returning things to that “old order.” But the oligarchs on Wall Street and the City of London are in a tight spot, their system is completely bloated and tottering on hyperinflation. On the other hand, Russia, China, much of Eurasia is going down a different economic path, it’s not hostage to that same speculative financial parasite—the slime mold—that has captured the Trans-Atlantic world. And it doesn’t look like any regime change is going to happen in the Eurasian countries, despite the best efforts.
So what are the oligarchs of the Trans-Atlantic system to do as their system implodes and the Eurasian countries remain standing? Therein lies the true danger, in my opinion.
A fun analysis:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/05/19/beijing-five-eyes-or-something-else-who-blame-for-covid-pandemic/
It makes me smile when people like Krystal Ball talk about the lab leak hypothesis and immediately distance themselves in the strongest terms from the suggestion that the leak was deliberate. It's like they're doing what they denounce the MSM for doing just a couple of months ago about an only slightly different hypothesis.
Bit isn't "conspiracy theory" just a way of distancing yourself from something, for the sake of protecting one's rep analogous to "politically correct" or "misinformation". Like an insult used as a shield.
Strictly speaking, when I consider the possibility that Epstein had a suicide done to him or that the feds did the Oct 2001 anthrax attacks, I am theorizing about the possibility of conspiracies. But if you say these are conspiracy theories, you're basically saying they are the ravings of a crazy person.
As far as the other thing goes, C.J. Hopkins calls it Globocap.
And there's another interesting example. Is C.J. Hopkins so beyond the pale that Matt couldn't have him on Useful Idiots? Matt has a rep to look after.
I love C.J. Hopkins and was happy to see Matt do a profile on him.
Naturally, I agree that the word "conspiracy theory" has ultimately just become a rhetorical tool to shut conversation down. That being said, there are a lot of bullshit ideas out there and many other ideas that are only half truths, or perverted truths used to subvert any larger substantial debate. How to separate the lies from the truth when we’re talking about something with so many moving parts, like the world geopolitical situation?
Knowing there are a lot of bullshit ideas, some simply more popular than others, ultimately the only way to overcome that seems to be to first challenge someone on how they think the world works on a fundamental level. That’s ultimately what a “conspiracy theory” is doing: it suggests the way things appear and the way the world actually is are two fundamentally different things. Usually, the real problem isn’t any given conspiracy theory per se, but rather the underlying axioms which prevent someone from thinking such a radical deviation from their worldview might actually be possible.
We could start arguing with someone over x new idea or potentially real conspiracy, which usually just means a tit-for-tat debate, or we could start by challenging the person or audience on their fundamental beliefs about how the world really works.
Are Russia and China really the “bad guys” which the US and Western world are simply trying to stave off? Are Russia and China really hostile actors towards the US and Western world? How many military bases do Russia or China have around the world? How many coups and foreign interventions have Russia or China been involved in over the recent decades? How many bio warfare labs do they have combined compared to the US? How many people fall for the narrative of an enemy image?
I’d say above 80% of the population is ultimately hostage to the enemy image narrative, which means they can’t really think about the strategic world situation in substantial terms, if that narrative is false. What purpose could introducing a new idea or potential real conspiracy among financial and corporate elites really achieve if the person holds fundamentally false axioms about the way the world operates on its most fundamental level?
Wall Street and the City of London banks, their extensions in Brussels, and the spider web of offshore financial havens are ultimately sitting on a financial bubble worth hundreds of trillions, if not quadrillions of dollars in nominal value. The world GDP is only around 80 trillion. So how are these financial interests coping with the fact that their entire financial casino is only still going because of the hyper-inflationary money printing, the Fed repo loans and artificially low interest rates? What happens if a bug appears on even one of these fronts?
I think if we want to have a discussion about the many moving parts in the overall world strategic puzzle, we first have to recognize the existential crisis unfolding within the Western world.
Short of Nuclear war, the US, NATO, and their allies just don’t have the ability to subvert Russia, China and Eurasia generally. So what are they to do?
I think we have to start there.
Understanding and explaining the situation isn't good enough. Hence my impatient comments elsewhere on this page https://taibbi.substack.com/p/interview-on-rising-on-elite-politics/comments#comment-2164577
As I wrote on my own blog not long ago, there is no redemption in narratives. https://thefsb.substack.com/p/dont-just-stand-there-do-something
Even though I am (perhaps because I am) an atheist, my catchphrase is now: I need a sermon. In addition to thundering descriptions of brimstone, you gotta give people some positive, practical guidance on what they can do to escape hell, even if it is just a localized, temporary escape.
Unlike Matt and Krystal and all the rest, I am, for all practical purposes, nobody. Two people follow my blog, give or take. So I just get a bit irritated by the endless repetitive punditry on the symptoms of the corruption of our society and so little about what might be done to make anything even a little bit better.
You’re right. Solution concepts are where many drop the balls. They are probably the best means of measuring someone’s assessment of the situation.
I would just point out that all our economic collapse and fascism has been stopped before. One of the great ironies is that China’s current economic development model is in reality what the US used to do.
What strikes fear into the heart of the oligarchy is the thought that the US, Russia, and China might come to agreements on the need for a new financial architecture, and the need for cooperation on economic development from high speed rail, the Bering Strait tunnel, Nuclear Power, Fusion research.
In short, the first step should be a Glass-Steagall standard banking re-organization. That’s actually probably something Taibi would like and agree on. All the trillions of printed dollars have been going to the zombie banks in order for them to stay afloat, for lending not to freeze up and cause them all to be vaporized overnight. Nothing in the real world, the real economy, farmers, infrastructure, energy grids, water management, new cities, nuclear power, nothing else was built or bailed out. That financial cancer is what has to be cut out. There is no way for the system to go on with that quadrillion dollar problem.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/07/avoid-collapse-means-restoring-glass-steagall-without-green-new-deal/
Much of the US infrastructure is ROT, so banking re-organization is a necessary means of making the credit available for reconstruction and the establishment of new infrastructure and economic platforms.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/09/02/carney-green-bonds-vs-hamiltonian-greenbacks/
Mathew Ehret is arguably the best journalist out there when it comes to solutions. He’s not bogged down by radical free market ideology or brainwashed with the idea that we need to cover the entire planet with windmills and solar panels and shut down the rest of industrial society.