+ Reply to Thread
Page 1 of 15 1 11 15 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 289

Thread: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

  1. Link to Post #1
    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
    Join Date
    7th February 2010
    Location
    Ecuador
    Posts
    34,268
    Thanks
    208,995
    Thanked 457,534 times in 32,788 posts

    Default Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    There's a pattern here, if we just can figure out what it is. In Chile (this thread), the riots were triggered [merely!] by subway fare hikes, that were later canceled. But that was too late. The people went on the rampage, looting, firing supermarkets, and there were deaths. That's not over at all, by any means.

    In Ecuador (this thread), there's good evidence that some of the protests a couple weeks ago were fueled by militant infiltrators from Venezuela and Colombia. But I saw for myself at first hand how local people jumped on the chaos bandwagon to just PROTEST.

    I remarked on that thread that after 11 days, the people brought the government to heel, which is what's supposed to happen.

    Governments are our representatives. NOT our managers.

    But look at Brexit in the UK (this thread). Catalonia, in Spain (this thread). The Yellow Vests in Paris (this thread). People have had enough.

    One wonders what may happen next, and where. A morphic field may be spreading its invisible influence. Or a future historian might write that there was so much injustice and drip-drip-drip repression all over the world, for so long, that in the end the worm just turned.*
    * For non-English-speaking members here: this odd idiom means that someone who usually obeys another person or accepts their bad behavior unexpectedly starts resisting that person and/or expresses their anger.
    In each case, the governments concerned seemed SO out of touch that they had no idea what would happen, and they were totally ambushed by the violent reactions. They just never suspected or anticipated what would be triggered. This could EASILY happen in the UK, is already happening in Catalonia, and could happen in many European countries, also (maybe pretty likely at some point) the US.

    But it won't happen in China (this thread), because the Chinese government have taken early pre-emptive action to make sure the population is docile and emasculated. (Go figure...)
    Last edited by Bill Ryan; 22nd October 2019 at 10:06.

  2. The Following 45 Users Say Thank You to Bill Ryan For This Post:

    Alecs (15th July 2022), Alekahn2 (27th October 2019), anandacate (23rd October 2019), Apulu (22nd October 2019), Bruce G Charlton (27th March 2023), Cara (22nd October 2019), Casey Claar (21st July 2022), Chester (23rd October 2019), ClearWater (24th October 2019), Ernie Nemeth (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Gracy (23rd October 2019), Hervé (21st October 2019), Ioneo (22nd October 2019), Ivanhoe (22nd October 2019), James Newell (25th October 2019), Johnnycomelately (17th July 2022), kfm27917 (26th October 2019), Mare (22nd October 2019), Mark (Star Mariner) (22nd October 2019), Mashika (26th October 2019), Matthew (2nd June 2021), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), Mr.Write (27th October 2019), muxfolder (22nd October 2019), onevoice (29th October 2019), palehorse (27th April 2020), Parsi-X (9th April 2023), perolator (4th December 2020), Phoenix1304 (24th October 2019), Satori (22nd October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), silvanelf (21st October 2019), silverchimes (2nd November 2019), Sophocles (22nd October 2019), sunwings (22nd October 2019), T Smith (21st July 2022), Tintin (22nd October 2019), toppy (22nd October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019), Wind (21st October 2019), XelNaga (26th November 2019), Yoda (21st October 2019), Zanshin (25th October 2019)

  3. Link to Post #2
    France On Sabbatical
    Join Date
    7th March 2011
    Location
    Brittany
    Posts
    16,763
    Thanks
    60,315
    Thanked 95,891 times in 15,481 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    World in Flames: Why Are Protests Raging Around The Globe?

    RT
    Mon, 21 Oct 2019 20:42 UTC

    Protests and demonstrations have rocked every corner of the world in recent days, with tax hikes, corruption and supposed environmental injustice all raising public anger. But why have they spread?

    Watching the news over the last week, one would be convinced that the world has devolved into a series of flashpoints, with corrupt governments across the political spectrum facing the wrath of their enraged citizens. To be fair, that's not far from the truth.

    Four continents have seen anti-government demonstrations over the last week, many of them sparked by seemingly innocuous taxes or changes to the law. In Lebanon, protesters have set Beirut ablaze in response to a proposed fee of 20 cents per day on internet voice calls, dubbed the "WhatsApp tax." Chileans set metro stations on fire following a $1.17 increase in public transport fares, and the streets of Ecuador are filled with rubble after a planned removal of fuel subsidies triggered mass unrest.

    Elsewhere, perennial corruption has the West African nation of Liberia in a state of near-constant protest; a change to presidential term limits in Guinea caused deadly riots; Mexicans are demonstrating against corruption and drug cartel violence; and masked rioters in Hong Kong are still rallying against their government, months after the withdrawal of the Chinese extradition bill that sparked their anger.

    Europe, meanwhile, has seen a general strike and mass marches in Barcelona following the jailing of Catalonian independence leaders on Monday. Dutch farmers have also shut down the country's motorways after the government introduced new emissions regulations; and in France, already rocked by almost a year of 'Yellow Vests' demonstrations, thousands of firefighters have marched for more funding and better working conditions.

    Protests can break out over a relatively minor issue, before spiralling into national crises. French President Emmanuel Macron learned this the hard way last November, when demonstrations over a fuel tax hike turned into a nationwide rejection of his corporate-friendly policies. Likewise, Lebanon's "WhatsApp tax" was simply the final straw for protesters, who have now called for "the downfall of the regime," following years of perceived government ineptitude.

    And, while Chilean students kicked off the fare-hike protests earlier this month, violent anti-government riots have since broken out, with at least eight people killed in arson and looting attacks, and the military were called out to enforce a curfew.

    It's contagious
    So why has unrest seemingly erupted all over the world at once? According to a University of Arizona study, protest is contagious. The study's authors found that "violent domestic conflicts spread between countries via spillover effects and the desire to emulate events abroad." Non-violent movements too spread across borders in a similar fashion, with the researchers noting that "observation of collective action abroad" inspires would-be protesters at home.

    The Chinese government has pointed the finger squarely at Hong Kong for inspiring similar protests elsewhere. An editorial in the state-run Global Times on Sunday accused the Hong Kong demonstrators of "exporting revolution to the world," while former Chinese diplomat Wang Zhen wrote in the Beijing News that "the disastrous impact of a 'chaotic Hong Kong' has begun to influence the Western world."

    Though the Chinese government has its own political reasons to publish articles condemning the Hong Kong movement, the accusation that the protesters there are "exporting revolution" is spot-on, at least if the University of Arizona study is to be believed.
    Quote SOTT Comment:
    It's one factor to consider, certainly, but even though we live in a world where, thanks to the availability of mass communication, everyone can 'see' what everyone else is up to, most people really only choose to see what goes on in their own neighborhood. In cases where protesters were triggered by the latest tax their govt wished to introduce, these were 'straws that broke the camel's back' because they are just the latest in a sequence of onerous taxation/austerity measures.
    The question remains; why did so many countries reach breaking point at roughly the same time?
    A minefield
    Dealing with mass unrest is a minefield for governments. Though the respective governments of Lebanon, Chile, Ecuador and Hong Kong have all canceled the measures that angered the public in the first place, protests have only intensified. This presents decision-makers with a dilemma: signal weakness by doing nothing, or inflame tensions further with a police crackdown.

    Former Madison, Wisconsin Police Chief David Couper literally wrote the book on handling protests. In 'Arrested Development,' Couper wrote that he would instruct his officers to "get in close, talk, stay in contact" with demonstrators, as he found that "the further the police positioned themselves from people in the crowd, the greater the chance the crowd would depersonalize them."

    Similarly, former Washington DC Police Chief Jerry Wilson told author Radley Balko that he would hide his riot-control teams away on buses until needed, as the mere presence of heavily-armed cops "didn't prevent confrontation, it invited it."

    This cautious approach has not been taken by Chile, whose president Sebastian Pinera declared "We are at war against a powerful enemy, who is willing to use violence without any limits," and summoned up thousands of troops to patrol the streets. Nor has it been taken by Ecuador's Lenin Moreno, who announced the "militarization" of the capital, Quito, and authorized "the use of public force" to clear the streets of protesters.

    While the state cannot allow destruction and looting, a heavy-handed crackdown can backfire, as happened in France when images of wounded and maimed protesters gave the Yellow Vests a new issue to rally around, and mired the government and police forces in legal action.

    Moreover, giving in to the protesters' demands is one thing, but it's another when rival groups of demonstrators demand clashing measures. While Dutch farmers are fuming at being labeled a climate change threat and punished with new nitrogen emissions regulations, Extinction Rebellion eco-activists took to the streets of more than 70 cities worldwide - including Amsterdam - to demand more of precisely the same kind of regulations, up to a complete abolition of livestock farming.

    Contagious, difficult to control, and often contradictory, the season of unrest gripping much of the world presents governments - even those that acquiesce to their citizens' demands - with few easy solutions.

    ==================================

    ... it apparently all started with a simmering that got the "Gilets jaunes" out on the streets... same pattern: increases in taxes got the frogs out of the pot at boiling point.

    Now, one wonders who could intimidate governments into implementing such dumb moves... couldn't be the IMF and their "Austerity measures", could it?
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

    Troll-hood motto: Never, ever, however, whatsoever, to anyone, a point concede.

  4. The Following 28 Users Say Thank You to Hervé For This Post:

    anandacate (23rd October 2019), Bill Ryan (21st October 2019), Billy (22nd October 2019), Cara (22nd October 2019), Chester (23rd October 2019), Delight (22nd October 2019), Frank V (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Gracy (23rd October 2019), Ioneo (22nd October 2019), Ivanhoe (22nd October 2019), kfm27917 (31st October 2019), Mare (22nd October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), Mr.Write (27th October 2019), Phoenix1304 (24th October 2019), Rich (22nd October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), silvanelf (21st October 2019), Sophocles (22nd October 2019), Star Tsar (21st October 2019), Tintin (22nd October 2019), toppy (22nd October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019), Wind (21st October 2019), XelNaga (26th November 2019), Zanshin (25th October 2019)

  5. Link to Post #3
    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
    Join Date
    7th February 2010
    Location
    Ecuador
    Posts
    34,268
    Thanks
    208,995
    Thanked 457,534 times in 32,788 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    This was published in Business Insider:
    And then I saw the date of the article... 3 October, 18 days ago. That was before Ecuador or Chile.

    The piece refers to protests in Hong Kong, Cairo, Paris, Moscow, Jerusalem, the Netherlands, Peru, Haiti, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Indonesia.

  6. The Following 23 Users Say Thank You to Bill Ryan For This Post:

    anandacate (23rd October 2019), Billy (22nd October 2019), Cara (22nd October 2019), Chester (23rd October 2019), Delight (22nd October 2019), Frank V (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Hervé (21st October 2019), Ioneo (22nd October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), silvanelf (21st October 2019), Sophocles (22nd October 2019), Star Tsar (21st October 2019), sunwings (22nd October 2019), T Smith (21st October 2019), Tintin (22nd October 2019), toppy (22nd October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019), Wind (21st October 2019), XelNaga (26th November 2019), Yoda (22nd October 2019)

  7. Link to Post #4
    Canada Avalon Member Ernie Nemeth's Avatar
    Join Date
    25th January 2011
    Location
    Toronto
    Age
    66
    Posts
    5,659
    Thanks
    26,233
    Thanked 36,600 times in 5,379 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    Quote Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
    There's a pattern here, if we just can figure out what it is. In Chile (this thread), the riots were triggered [merely!] by subway fare hikes, that were later canceled. But that was too late. The people went on the rampage, looting, firing supermarkets, and there were deaths. That's not over at all, by any means.

    In Ecuador (this thread), there's good evidence that some of the protests a couple weeks ago were fueled by militant infiltrators from Venezuela and Colombia. But I saw for myself at first hand how local people jumped on the chaos bandwagon to just PROTEST.

    I remarked on that thread that after 11 days, the people brought the government to heel, which is what's supposed to happen.

    Governments are our representatives. NOT our managers.

    But look at Brexit in the UK (this thread). Catalonia, in Spain (this thread). The Yellow Vests in Paris (this thread). People have had enough.

    One wonders what may happen next, and where. A morphic field may be spreading its invisible influence. Or a future historian might write that there was so much injustice and drip-drip-drip repression all over the world, for so long, that in the end the worm just turned.*
    * For non-English-speaking members here: this odd idiom means that someone who usually obeys another person or accepts their bad behavior unexpectedly starts resisting that person and/or expresses their anger.
    In each case, the governments concerned seemed SO out of touch that they had no idea what would happen, and they were totally ambushed by the violent reactions. They just never suspected or anticipated what would be triggered. This could EASILY happen in the UK, is already happening in Catalonia, and could happen in many European countries, also (maybe pretty likely at some point) the US.

    But it won't happen in China (this thread), because the Chinese government have taken early pre-emptive action to make sure the population is docile and emasculated. (Go figure...)
    Great observation about the sentiment of the vast silent majority.

    I don't think it will happen in Canada for reasons I can't put my finger on, and I am not sure this translates well for those who do not live here. Canadians are strange...but...if ever this wild and crazy sentiment caught on here, I think the cities of Canada would turn into a bloodbath. There is a very palpable antimony among the city dwellers here, smoldering quietly under the surface...
    Last edited by Bill Ryan; 22nd October 2019 at 10:07. Reason: edited the quote after I'd edited my pwn post
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

  8. The Following 13 Users Say Thank You to Ernie Nemeth For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (22nd October 2019), Cara (22nd October 2019), Chester (23rd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Hervé (22nd October 2019), Ivanhoe (22nd October 2019), kfm27917 (26th October 2019), onevoice (29th October 2019), Patient (23rd October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), Tintin (22nd October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019)

  9. Link to Post #5
    Moderator (on Sabbatical) Cara's Avatar
    Join Date
    12th February 2014
    Location
    Dubai, United Arab Emirates
    Language
    English
    Posts
    1,431
    Thanks
    9,850
    Thanked 7,481 times in 1,331 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    This poem by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) and written in 1919 seems apt here:

    Quote THE SECOND COMING

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

  10. The Following 16 Users Say Thank You to Cara For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (22nd October 2019), Billy (22nd October 2019), Frank V (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Hervé (22nd October 2019), Ivanhoe (22nd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), Mare (22nd October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), Satori (22nd October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), shijo (23rd October 2019), Sophocles (22nd October 2019), Tintin (22nd October 2019), TomKat (26th October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019)

  11. Link to Post #6
    Moderator (on Sabbatical) Cara's Avatar
    Join Date
    12th February 2014
    Location
    Dubai, United Arab Emirates
    Language
    English
    Posts
    1,431
    Thanks
    9,850
    Thanked 7,481 times in 1,331 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    Shared by Catherine Austin Fitts on her twitter feed:

    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

  12. The Following 10 Users Say Thank You to Cara For This Post:

    anandacate (24th October 2019), Bill Ryan (22nd October 2019), Frank V (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Hervé (22nd October 2019), Ivanhoe (22nd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), onevoice (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), Tintin (22nd October 2019)

  13. Link to Post #7
    UK Avalon Member sunwings's Avatar
    Join Date
    23rd May 2016
    Location
    Barcelona
    Age
    40
    Posts
    659
    Thanks
    3,253
    Thanked 4,666 times in 638 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)

    Great observation about the sentiment of the vast silent majority.

    I don't think it will happen in Canada for reasons I can't put my finger on, and I am not sure this translates well for those who do not live here. Canadians are strange...but...if ever this wild and crazy sentiment caught on here, I think the cities of Canada would turn into a bloodbath. There is a very palpable antimony among the city dwellers here, smoldering quietly under the surface...
    I would have said the same here in Catalonia. I have always been amazed by their pacific stance. Millions have protested every year. Not one problem, not one smashed window in Mcdonalds or Starbucks. Zero incidents of aggression reported to the police. However, things can turn quickly. The same people who have been sitting on their hands are now fighting back!

    In regards to Canadians...look what happens when they lose a game of Ice hockey. Imagine if something important happened, that really affected their lives.

    Last edited by sunwings; 22nd October 2019 at 09:31.

  14. The Following 7 Users Say Thank You to sunwings For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (22nd October 2019), Cara (23rd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Hervé (22nd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019)

  15. Link to Post #8
    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
    Join Date
    7th February 2010
    Location
    Ecuador
    Posts
    34,268
    Thanks
    208,995
    Thanked 457,534 times in 32,788 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    It wasn't much fun in Ecuador during the 11 days of protests there. (Only 11 days! In France, see this thread, the Yellow Vests have been active for a whole year now.) And I acknowledge that there was probably opportunist infiltration from militant groups from Colombia and Venezuela.

    But although there was chaos and some violence, in a way I was VERY pleased to see People Power actually working. The best recent example has been in Puerto Rico, where the protests that ousted Governor Rosselló were more like a huge street carnival, with the young people setting the example.

    In the 60s and 70s, there were massive protests in the US against the Vietnam war. People Power made a big difference there, too. The Deep State resorted to mind-controlling the protest groups with drugs and music to quell it all. (And that absolutely worked, form their point of view.)

    That brief era in the US was the second major attempt to take back the planet from evil control. The first attempt was 2000 years ago, and the third and likely last chance is right now. Just maybe, something's currently working as it should.

    I'd LOVE to see extended, non-violent, popular protests in the US. And in the UK, too, and also Sweden. God knows that's needed. Re the US, apart from relatively minor (but sadly violent) incidents, the populace is apathetic.

    All you Americans, that means you. Posting your invective on social media (whatever you believe in!) just doesn't cut it. That's just a way, highly convenient for the establishment and very possibly engineered by them, of venting relatively harmlessly, like talking to the wall (or preaching to the converted).

    Retweeting rhetoric from Qanon (or even Alex Jones) makes no difference. It's just hot air. The Deep State doesn't care about that at all. It's no threat. With Alex Jones, they simply turned the switch and silenced him. Job done.

    Tweet or post on Facebook all you like, and it makes almost no difference to anything. But in Ecuador, even the indigenous people have social media now. They didn't forward angry videos to each other. They swung into action and blocked all the highways, and they did it from nothing in 12 hours flat.

    Blockading supply chains really makes a government pay attention. And this, in Holland, just brings the country to a total standstill. Will this ever happen in the US and Canada? Answers, please.

    Last edited by Bill Ryan; 22nd October 2019 at 10:47.

  16. The Following 16 Users Say Thank You to Bill Ryan For This Post:

    Cara (23rd October 2019), conk (24th October 2019), Frank V (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Hervé (22nd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), kfm27917 (26th October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), onevoice (29th October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), silvanelf (28th October 2019), sunwings (22nd October 2019), toppy (22nd October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019), Yoda (22nd October 2019)

  17. Link to Post #9
    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
    Join Date
    7th February 2010
    Location
    Ecuador
    Posts
    34,268
    Thanks
    208,995
    Thanked 457,534 times in 32,788 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    Quote Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
    This was published in Business Insider:
    And then I saw the date of the article... 3 October, 18 days ago. That was before Ecuador or Chile.

    The piece refers to protests in Hong Kong, Cairo, Paris, Moscow, Jerusalem, the Netherlands, Peru, Haiti, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Indonesia.
    Here's the whole article, which is quite an education.

    World on fire: 13 major protests happening around the globe right now
    Oct 3, 2019


    Riot police stand guard during a demonstration on China's National Day, in Mong Kok, Hong Kong, China, on October 1, 2019.
    Protests have long been a powerful political tool for enacting change and expressing discontent.

    From the Civil Rights Movement's the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to Indian independence, protests have left powerful marks upon the world. Historically, protests have served as an outlet for marginalized groups to articulate their frustrations — and make their demands known. One such example is New York's Stonewall riots, which kicked off the modern Pride movement and mainstream LGBTQ visibility.

    Today, protests like last month's Global Climate Strike and Hong Kong's ongoing mass protests are calls for politicians to change their policies. The climate strike, for example, drew over 6 million protesters around the world, making it the biggest demonstration against climate change in history.

    While protests have changed significantly with the rise of technology and social media, they're still powerful agents for change.

    In an interview with WNYC's On The Media, technological sociologist Zeynep Tufekci said that modern protest has the "capacity for changing the narrative."
    "The thing is, though in the past, you can think of the protest as an exclamation mark at the end of a long sentence, whereas right now it's just the first word in a potential sentence," Tufekci told WNYC.

    Protests are happening right now, all over the world, from the "yellow vest" protests in Paris to Indonesian protests against a draconian criminal code.
    Here are the protests currently happening around the world.

    In Hong Kong, a new extradition law sparked protests back in June, but the conflict is escalating.


    A protester makes a gesture during a protest on June 12, 2019, in Hong Kong.

    Tens of thousands of protesters have been demonstrating in the streets of Hong Kong since June, against a new law that would extradite people accused of crimes to China to stand trial.

    Protesters have thrown petrol bombs, rocks, and acid at police, who in turn have sprayed tear gas. The protests reached a new level of violence on Tuesday when one protester was shot in the chest by police, the first use of live rounds during the conflict. The protester, an 18-year-old man, is thought to be in critical condition.

    Tuesday also marked the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, which protesters commemorated by wearing all black, calling it a "national day of mourning."

    A criminal code in Indonesia has led to protests against its draconian laws.


    A student throws a rock during a rally in front of the People's Representative Council building on September 30, 2019 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

    Last week, thousands of protesters in Jakarta clashed with police after a new criminal code was announced. The code would outlaw sex outside of marriage and set a jail sentence of six months for unmarried couples living together, among other laws.
    Indonesian police fired tear gas and water cannons at the protesters, most of whom were students. As a result of the protests, the Indonesian parliament has delayed a vote on approving the code.

    The protests are the largest since 1998, which led to the toppling of Indonesian president Suharto.

    In the Netherlands, thousands of Dutch farmers clogged highways with their tractors.


    Farmers block the A28 Highway with their tractors between Hoogeveen and Meppel on October 1, 2019 during a national protest of farmers.

    Dutch highways were jammed with thousands of farmers driving their tractors to The Hague on October 1.

    They came to protest claims from members of Dutch parliament that agriculture was responsible for high emissions, and that some cattle farms should be shut down. The farmers, in turn, said that the aviation industry was responsible for high emissions, but wasn't getting the same share of blame.

    According to Dutch automobile association ANWB, over 700 miles of traffic plagued Dutch roads at the peak of rush hour as the tractors descended on The Hague.

    Several protests are ongoing in France, including demonstrations by Paris police officers.


    A newly-wed couple take selfies pictures next to "yellow vest" protesters during an anti-government protest in Paris on September 28, 2019.

    In addition to Dutch farmers, French farmers are also angry with their country's agricultural policy. Farmers are planning to demonstrate on October 8 with roadblocks on major French highways, according to Reuters.

    Farmers are just one of several groups protesting the French government's policies. After 45 consecutive weeks of protests by the "yellow vest" (gilets jaunes) demonstrators, the protests show no signs of slowing down. During the Global Climate Strike last month, which drew tens of thousands of demonstrators in Paris, "yellow vest" protesters, and their anarchist counterparts, the "black bloc" protesters, turned violent, and were met with around 7,500 police to control them.

    The protests, which were sparked by rising fuel taxes, have since spread to smaller cities, like the southwestern city of Toulouse.

    Meanwhile, thousands of Paris police officers are holding demonstrations of their own, in the wake of the rising suicide rate among French officers, which many attribute to the strain of containing the "yellow vest" protests for weeks on end. In 2018, 35 officers committed suicide in France. In 2019 so far, that number grew to 49.

    In Russia, thousands gathered to demand the release of protesters who were arrested on charges of rioting.


    Protester holds a banner saying "Putin!, opinion is not a crime!" in a demonstration for the release of the arrested activists during the summer riots in Moscow, on September 29, 2019.

    In Moscow on Sunday, protesters gathered to call for the end of prosecutions against those who were arrested during last summer's mass protests. Russian police estimated the number of demonstrators to be 20,000, but organizers claim the number is much higher.

    The summer's protests drew even larger crowds, with an estimated 60,000 protesting Russian President Vladimir Putin's policies. The crowds were the largest since Putin's reelection in 2012.

    Opposition leader Alexei Navalny spoke to the crowd on Sunday, saying that those who were arrested on charges of violence against police officers and rioting will be released in the wake of the new demonstration.

    (continued below...)

  18. The Following 15 Users Say Thank You to Bill Ryan For This Post:

    Cara (23rd October 2019), Frank V (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Hervé (22nd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), Mark (Star Mariner) (22nd October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), Phoenix1304 (24th October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), silvanelf (28th October 2019), toppy (22nd October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019), XelNaga (26th November 2019), Yoda (22nd October 2019)

  19. Link to Post #10
    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
    Join Date
    7th February 2010
    Location
    Ecuador
    Posts
    34,268
    Thanks
    208,995
    Thanked 457,534 times in 32,788 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    (... continued)


    Peruvians protested the confusion surrounding President Vizcarra’s government in the streets of Lima.


    A police barricade at Avenida Abancay is set to prevent the passage of protesters and protect public institutions on October 1, 2019 in Lima, Peru.

    Peru's president, Martin Vizcarra, dissolved the country's congress on Monday after months of efforts to eliminate corruption proved fruitless due to right-wing lawmakers stonewalling new policies. In response, the lawmakers attempted to have Vizcarra removed, naming Vice President Mercedes Araoz to take over as president. It's unclear whether Vizcarra will remain in office, and the uncertainty has led to mass protests.
    On Tuesday, Peruvians took to the streets of Lima to protest the crumbling government, meeting Lima's police force, which expressed loyalty to Vizcarra.

    Protesters in Haiti called for the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse.


    A man uses burning tires to cut off a street to protest against fuel shortages and to demand the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on September 20, 2019.

    An already tumultuous Haiti erupted into more violent protests on September 25, Azam Ahmed reported for The New York Times. Protesters had called for the resignation of President Jovenel Moïse. They took to the streets again after he gave a 2 am speech calling for unity and saying he would not step down.

    Moïse has not been seen publicly since. The country is contending with food, oil, and power shortages.

    The current round of protests originated in July 2018, according to the Times, when Moïse attempted to end fuel subsidies. He has since been dogged by corruption allegations over management of a Venezuelan oil subsidy program.

    Moïse, according to the Times, has unsuccessfully attempted to appoint a new prime minister several times, with opposition leaders blocking all of his picks since the allegations broke. His most recent attempt — and fourth nominee since 2017 — was last Monday.

    Egypt saw another wave of protests calling for the resignation of authoritarian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.


    Protesters shout slogans during a rare anti-government protest in Cairo on September 21, 2019.

    A second wave of protests calling for authoritarian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to step down broke out last Friday, The New York Times reported. Protests first began on September 20, defying the country's ban on demonstrations. According to the Times, one cited cause for protest has been economic grievances, with a third of Egyptians living in poverty.

    During el-Sisi's tenure as president, the Egyptian government has jailed opposition figures, and blocked independent media. The Times reported that over 2,000 protesting Egyptians have been arrested by authorities. Some news services and websites have also been blocked, with Twitter cutting in and out.

    Lebanon is experiencing protests due to its slowing economy.


    A masked Lebanese protester flashes the V-sign for victory as another carries a burning tire during a demonstration in Lebanon's capital Beirut on September 29, 2019.

    Protests over worsening economic conditions broke out across Lebanon on September 29, Bassem Mroue reported for the Associated Press.

    According to the Associated Press, the exchange rate for Lebanese pounds to dollars has been stable since 1997 — but last week, people had difficulty getting currency at this rate. The country is contending with a hard currency shortage.

    Protesters pointed to political leaders as the cause of economic problems. Reuters reported that hundreds of protesters chanted "Down with capitalism" and "Leave!" as they marched near parliament.

    Lebanon has one of the highest debt ratios in the world, and, despite heavy investment, a myriad of infrastructure issues, according to the Associated Press.

    Syria's Kurdish population is protesting their exclusion from a UN committee.


    A member of the Kurdish Internal Security Police Force stands guard during a demonstration in front of the United Nations headquarters in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeast Syria on October 2, 2019, over the Kurds exclusion from the UN-backed constitutional committee.

    Members of Syria's Kurdish population protested their exclusion from a United Nations committee meant to redraft the Syrian constitution, French news channel France24 reported.

    According to the United Nations, the committee — announced on September 23 — will be comprised of 150 members, divided evenly between government, civil society, and opposition members.

    UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the committee "a step along the difficult path out of this conflict."

    While individual Kurd representatives will be on the committee, the Kurdish administration overseeing almost one-third of the country will not be presented, according to France24.

    The US has supported Kurds in fighting against the Islamic State, Karen DeYoung,
    Souad Mekhennet, and Louisa Loveluck reported in The Washington Post. However, The Post reports that Turkey considers the Kurdish fighters a "terrorist threat."

    Protests erupted in Iraq against Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's government.


    Protesters chant slogans during a demonstration against corruption and lack of basic services in the central Iraqi shrine city of Najaf on October 1, 2019.

    Protests that broke out on October 1 in Iraq have already left two dead, according to The New York Times.

    The protests signal the most recent discontent with Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's year-old government. The Times reported that protesters were displeased with the government's inability to improve public services and unemployment, as well as with Abdul Mahdi's recent removal of popular counterterrorism chief Lieutenant General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi.

    Mustafa Salim and Louisa Loveluck at The Washington Post reported that police first fired tear gas, and then live ammunition, into crowds of protesters in Baghdad. In addition to the two deaths, 286 people were injured nationwide, according to the Post; 40 were on the security force.

    In Jerusalem, Palestinians protested the hospitalization of a Palestinian detainee accused of killing an Israeli teenager.


    Palestinians demonstrate with signs in support of, and with the pictures of Samer al-Arbeed, a Palestinian arrested by Israeli on suspicion of leading a cell allegedly behind an attack near Dolev settlement, near the Hadassah Medical Center Mount Scopus in Jerusalem on October 1, 2019.

    On October 1, Palestinians protested in Jerusalem and the West Bank over the hospitalization of a Palestinian detainee accused of killing an Israeli teenager, Ali Sawafta reported for Reuters.

    Samer al-Arbid was hospitalized during his interrogation by Israeli forces. al-Arbid was arrested and detained for being a suspect in the bombing near an Israeli settlement that killed a 17-year-old Israeli hiking with her family, according to Reuters.

    Shin Bet, Israel's security service, said that al-Arbid felt ill during their interrogation, while Palestinian officials — and al-Arbid's lawyer — accused them of torturing him, Reuters reported.

    Simultaneously, Arab-Israeli students in the north walked out of school to protest violence against Arab communities, The Times of Israel reported. More than 60 members of the Arab community have been killed in 2019, with four killed on September 20, according to The Times of Israel.

    UAW workers have been on strike for two weeks in the United States.


    UAW General Motors workers on strike.

    General Motors members of the United Auto Workers have been on strike for over two weeks — marking the longest labor action of its type since 1982, Business Insider reported.

    On October 1, the union rejected a GM proposal that would end the walkout of almost 50,000 workers. However, the union did progress by offering up a counterproposal, according to Business Insider.

    "We continue to negotiate and exchange proposals, and remain committed to reaching an agreement that builds a stronger future for our employees and our company," a GM spokesperson told Business Insider.

  20. The Following 13 Users Say Thank You to Bill Ryan For This Post:

    Cara (23rd October 2019), Frank V (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Hervé (22nd October 2019), Mark (Star Mariner) (22nd October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), Rich (23rd October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), toppy (22nd October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019), XelNaga (26th November 2019), Yoda (22nd October 2019)

  21. Link to Post #11
    UK Avalon Member sunwings's Avatar
    Join Date
    23rd May 2016
    Location
    Barcelona
    Age
    40
    Posts
    659
    Thanks
    3,253
    Thanked 4,666 times in 638 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    Now Bolivia has felt the Morphic field!

    Bolivia election: Anger mounts over result confusion

    Violent protests have erupted in at least nine cities in Bolivia amid ongoing confusion about the result of Sunday's presidential election.

    Suspicion arose among opponents of the incumbent, Evo Morales, after the quick count was surprisingly halted.

    His main rival, Carlos Mesa, said the quick count's results were fraudulent.

    Counting is still under way with Mr Morales in first place but currently with not enough of a lead to stave off a second round.


  22. The Following 11 Users Say Thank You to sunwings For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (22nd October 2019), Cara (23rd October 2019), Frank V (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Hervé (22nd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), toppy (22nd October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019)

  23. Link to Post #12
    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
    Join Date
    7th February 2010
    Location
    Ecuador
    Posts
    34,268
    Thanks
    208,995
    Thanked 457,534 times in 32,788 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    Quote Posted by sunwings (here)
    Now Bolivia has felt the Morphic field!
    And Malta.

  24. The Following 10 Users Say Thank You to Bill Ryan For This Post:

    Cara (23rd October 2019), Frank V (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Hervé (22nd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), toppy (22nd October 2019), Valerie Villars (22nd October 2019)

  25. Link to Post #13
    France On Sabbatical
    Join Date
    7th March 2011
    Location
    Brittany
    Posts
    16,763
    Thanks
    60,315
    Thanked 95,891 times in 15,481 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    ...

    ... adding a pinch of German grumbling:

    Over 200 Tractors Block Traffic in Berlin as Farmers Protest Gov't Agricultural Policies - Video

    Sputnik Europe
    15:57 22.10.2019


    © REUTERS / ANNEGRET HILSE

    BERLIN (Sputnik) - More than 200 tractors arrived on Tuesday in Berlin and blocked traffic in the centre of the city as part of a rally, organised by the non-profit farmers' movement known as Land Schafft Verbindung (Countryside Creates Connection), against the government's agricultural and climate policies.

    The demonstration started on Monday morning in the state of Brandenburg. The participants then headed to the Tiergarten park near the government quarter in Berlin. Some farmers who are currently joining the rally are also moving toward the park.

    Additional police forces are trying to prevent the passage of tractor columns into the city centre, while as of noon on Tuesday, traffic on the streets around the park is partially blocked.
    The protesters turned off their car engines and said that they intended to stay in Tiergarten until more demonstrators arrived.

    Those opposing government policies, in particular, the so-called environmental package, which imposes higher taxes on carbon emissions, were seen on the hoods of some vehicles.
    The German government presented its climate change plan for the period until 2030 in September. Planned measures include higher taxes on CO2 emissions; increased prices for petrol, diesel, gas and mazut; as well as preferences for buyers of more environmentally-friendly heating systems. The programme costs some €50 billion (some $55 billion).
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

    Troll-hood motto: Never, ever, however, whatsoever, to anyone, a point concede.

  26. The Following 10 Users Say Thank You to Hervé For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (22nd October 2019), Cara (23rd October 2019), Frank V (22nd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), sunwings (22nd October 2019), toppy (22nd October 2019)

  27. Link to Post #14
    Canada Avalon Member Ernie Nemeth's Avatar
    Join Date
    25th January 2011
    Location
    Toronto
    Age
    66
    Posts
    5,659
    Thanks
    26,233
    Thanked 36,600 times in 5,379 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    For Canada, I will say this: if minority-rich Toronto and area continues to win elections it will cause a great deal of trouble. The cities of Toronto do not reflect the mood of the country at all. But the rural vote, and the vote of the small towns, where the sentiment is far different, matters not a whit. And the western vote has never had a chance. Most elections, the victory is won before the west even heads to the voting booths.

    The only good that came out of our vote yesterday is that the Liberals lost their majority and will now have to bend to the will of the Conservatives or form a block with the NDP.

    The take away is that minorities of all types decide the vote here now...sorry, I meant new Canadians and anyone who for any reason feels like they have been marginalized because of a lifestyle choice.
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

  28. The Following 9 Users Say Thank You to Ernie Nemeth For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (22nd October 2019), Cara (23rd October 2019), Franny (22nd October 2019), Ivanhoe (22nd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), shaberon (23rd October 2019), toppy (22nd October 2019)

  29. Link to Post #15
    United States Avalon Member
    Join Date
    1st April 2016
    Posts
    4,358
    Thanks
    16,600
    Thanked 21,517 times in 4,009 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    From what I have seen, the situation in Lebanon appears to be pretty directly against a sitting Oligarchy.

    In Iraq, whatever is happening is said to be "inflamed by social media", whereas about 80% of the traffic comes from Saudi funded news sources in the UK and so forth. It is said that around 6% of the actual complaints or plans to protest were internal to Iraq.

    In my view, there is always an element of rebellion which may be justified, but in practice, there is a purely violent element that is typically foreign interference. It's a bind because some form of government is necessary, or things would be even more brutal, but I am not impressed with most of them.

    Someone told me a long time ago that the European tractor blockades were a tradition. And Cairo seems to be some kind of magnet for demonstrations. The Irish more or less settled one of the longest running conflicts in the world with two bombs in the City of London.

    I would tend to agree that examples are legitimate in the case when the worm turns and the government is brought to heel. Jefferson said this should happen approximately every generation, which seems reasonable. But if so then your motive is not to destroy things or kill people. Nevertheless, any violent act can easily have a chain reaction.

    Also that "if they keep you talking about it, nothing happens". However I am not a single-issue type of person to be motivated by some new tax, it is something more fundamental and complete, which as far as I know is the removal of citizenship.

    One is no longer eligible for any benefits, which are part of the way to keep you talking and complaining about it.

    So for someone like me, having paid into social security, then if I sever the relationship, they will have stolen it from me outright. That is why there should be a freaking huge warning label on that card "may be hazardous to your health" so that someone can understand what it means before you take it.

    "U. S. Citizen" does not mean "were you born here", it is a surrender to an authority, where you act as an unpaid employee and a status criminal. Without consent, there is no authority. One has to say, I was not born in the United States, I was born in a State. They will leave you alone and you will be unable to use any of the system such as banks or real estate.

    A big march is built into that. As far as I can tell, it is a legally correct way to change one's relationship. At that point, one is only affected by Code. But unless you are domiciled on private property, then you have no land.

    In other words the American revolution did establish the situation where a person is not a subject of any government; but none of the other ones have. There is no option but to revolt over some issue.

  30. The Following 9 Users Say Thank You to shaberon For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (23rd October 2019), Caliban (24th October 2019), Cara (23rd October 2019), Frank V (23rd October 2019), Franny (23rd October 2019), Hervé (23rd October 2019), kfm27917 (31st October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), silvanelf (28th October 2019)

  31. Link to Post #16
    UK Avalon Member sunwings's Avatar
    Join Date
    23rd May 2016
    Location
    Barcelona
    Age
    40
    Posts
    659
    Thanks
    3,253
    Thanked 4,666 times in 638 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    Just came across this 30 minute segment where it talks about these uprisings.


  32. The Following 7 Users Say Thank You to sunwings For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (23rd October 2019), Cara (23rd October 2019), Frank V (23rd October 2019), Franny (23rd October 2019), Hervé (23rd October 2019), Kryztian (26th October 2019), seko (29th October 2019)

  33. Link to Post #17
    France On Sabbatical
    Join Date
    7th March 2011
    Location
    Brittany
    Posts
    16,763
    Thanks
    60,315
    Thanked 95,891 times in 15,481 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet


    by Thierry Meyssan Voltaire Network
    Damascus (Syria) 22 October 2019

    Thierry Meyssan underlines the extreme gravity, not of the US withdrawal from Syria, but of the collapse of the world’s current landmarks. According to him, we are entering a short transition period, during which the current masters of the game, the "financial capitalists" - and those he refers to here have nothing to do with either original capitalism or the original bank - will be rejected in favour of the rules of law laid down by Russia in 1899.


    King Salman receives President Vladimir Putin, the Peacekeeper.

    It’s a time that only happens once or twice a century. A new world order is emerging. All previous references disappear. Those who were doomed to grieve triumph, while those who ruled are thrown into hell. The official statements and interpretations made by journalists clearly no longer correspond to the events that follow one another. Commentators must change their discourse as quickly as possible, overturn it in its entirety or be caught up in the whirlwind of history.

    In February 1943, the Soviet victory over the Nazi Reich marked the turnaround of the Second World War. The next steps were inevitable. It was not until the Anglo-American landing in Normandy (June 1944), the Yalta conference (February 1945), the suicide of Chancellor Hitler (February 1945) and finally the surrender of the Reich (8 May 1945) that this new world emerged. In one year (June 44-May 45), the Great Reich had been replaced by the Soviet-US duopoly. The United Kingdom and France, which were still the world’s two leading powers twelve years earlier, were to witness the decolonization of their empires.

    It is a moment like this that we are experiencing today.

    Each historical period has its own economic system and builds a political super-structure to protect it. At the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the USSR, President Bush Sr. demobilized one million US soldiers and entrusted the search for prosperity to the bosses of his multinationals. They formed an alliance with Deng Xiaoping, relocated US jobs to China, which became the world’s workshop. Far from offering prosperity to US citizens, they monopolized their profits, gradually causing the slow disappearance of the Western middle classes. In 2001, they financed the September 11 attacks to impose on the Pentagon the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy of destroying state structures. President Bush Jr. then transformed the "Broader Middle East" into a theatre of "endless war".

    The liberation in one week of a quarter of Syrian territory is not only the victory of President Bashar al-Assad, "the man who had to leave eight years ago", it marks the failure of the military strategy aimed at establishing the supremacy of financial capitalism. What seemed unimaginable has happened. The world order has changed. Further events are inevitable.

    President Vladimir Putin’s very grand reception in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates testifies to the spectacular turnaround of the Gulf powers, which are now shifting to the Russian side.

    The equally spectacular redistribution of cards in Lebanon sanctions the same political failure of financial capitalism. In a dollarized country where there have been no dollars left for a month, where banks are closing their counters and bank withdrawals are limited, anti-corruption demonstrations will not stop the overthrow of the old order.

    The convulsions of the old order are spreading. Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno attributes the popular revolt against the measures imposed by financial capitalism to his predecessor, Rafael Correa, who lives in exile in Belgium, and to a symbol of resistance to this form of human exploitation, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, although they have no influence in his country.

    The United Kingdom has already withdrawn its special forces from Syria and is attempting to leave the supranational state of Brussels (European Union). After thinking about preserving the Common Market (Theresa May’s project), it decided to break with the whole of European construction (Boris Johnson’s project). After the mistakes of Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron, France suddenly lost all credibility and influence. Donald Trump’s United States ceased to be the "indispensable nation", the "policeman of the world" in the service of financial capitalism, to once again become a great economic power itself. They are withdrawing their nuclear arsenal from Turkey and are preparing to close the CentCom in Qatar. Russia is recognized by all as the "peacemaker" by assuring the triumph of the international law it had created by convening the "International Peace Conference" in The Hague in 1899, the principles of which have since been trampled underfoot by NATO members.


    The International Peace Conference of 1899. It took more than a century to understand its implications.

    As the Second World War ended the League of Nations to create the United Nations, this new world is likely to give birth to a new international organization based on the principles of the 1899 Conference of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the French Nobel Peace Prize winner, Léon Bourgeois. This will require first dissolving NATO, which will try to survive by enlarging to the Pacific, and the European Union, a refuge state for financial capitalism.

    We have to understand what is going on. We are entering a period of transition. Lenin said in 1916 that imperialism was the supreme stage of the form of capitalism that disappeared with the two World Wars and the stock market crisis of 1929. Today’s world is that of financial capitalism, which is devastating economies one by one for the sole benefit of a few super-rich people. Its supreme stage implied the division of the world into two parts: on the one hand, stable and globalised countries, and on the other hand, regions of the world without states, reduced to being mere reserves of raw materials. This model, contested by President Trump in the United States, the yellow vests in Western Europe or Syria in the Levant, is dying before our eyes.


    Translation Roger Lagassé
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

    Troll-hood motto: Never, ever, however, whatsoever, to anyone, a point concede.

  34. The Following 12 Users Say Thank You to Hervé For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (23rd October 2019), Cara (23rd October 2019), Chester (23rd October 2019), Ernie Nemeth (23rd October 2019), Frank V (23rd October 2019), Franny (23rd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), Phoenix1304 (24th October 2019), Satori (23rd October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), silvanelf (28th October 2019)

  35. Link to Post #18
    France On Sabbatical
    Join Date
    7th March 2011
    Location
    Brittany
    Posts
    16,763
    Thanks
    60,315
    Thanked 95,891 times in 15,481 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    Pepe Escobar: Watch neoliberalism burn

    Pepe Escobar Strategic Culture Foundation
    Wed, 23 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC



    Neoliberalism is - literally - burning. And from Ecuador to Chile, South America, once again, is showing the way. Against the vicious, one-size-fits-all IMF austerity prescription, which deploys weapons of mass economic destruction to smash national sovereignty and foster social inequality, South America finally seems poised to reclaim the power to forge its own history.

    Three presidential elections are in play. Bolivia's seem to have been settled this past Sunday - even as the usual suspects are yelling "Fraud!" Argentina and Uruguay are on next Sunday.

    Blowback against what David Harvey has splendidly conceptualized as accumulation by dispossession is, and will continue to be, a bitch. It will eventually reach Brazil - which as it stands continues to be torn to pieces by Pinochetist ghosts. Brazil, eventually, after immense pain, will rise up again. After all, the excluded and humiliated all across South America are finally discovering they carry a Joker inside themselves.

    Chile privatizes everything
    The question posed by the Chilean street is stark: "What's worse, to evade taxes or to invade the subway?" It's all a matter of doing the class struggle math. Chile's GDP grew 1,1% last year while the profits of the largest corporations grew ten times more. It's not hard to find from where the huge gap was extracted. The Chilean street stresses how water, electricity, gas, health, medicine, transportation, education, the salar (salt flats) in Atacama, even the glaciers were privatized.

    That's classic accumulation by dispossession, as the cost of living has become unbearable for the overwhelming majority of 19 million Chileans, whose average monthly income does not exceed $500.

    Paul Walder, director of the Politika portal and an analyst for the Latin-American Center of Strategic Analysis (CLAE) notes how less than a week after the end of protests in Ecuador - which forced neoliberal vulture Lenin Moreno to ditch a gas price hike - Chile entered a very similar cycle of protests.

    Walder correctly defines Chile's President Sebastian Pinera as the turkey in a long-running banquet that involves the whole Chilean political class. No wonder the mad as hell Chilean street now makes no difference between the government, the political parties and the police. Pinera, predictably, criminalized all social movements; sent the army to the streets for unmitigated repression; and installed a curfew.

    Pinera is Chile's 7th wealthiest billionaire, with assets valued at $2.7 billion, spread out in airlines, supermarkets, TV, credit cards and football. He's a sort of turbo-charged Moreno, a neoliberal Pinochetist. Pinera's brother, Jose, was actually a minister under Pinochet, and the man who implemented Chile's privatized welfare system - a key source of social disintegration and despair. And it's all interlinked: current Brazilian Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, a Chicago boy, lived and worked in Chile at the time, and now wants to repeat the absolutely disastrous experiment in Brazil.

    The bottom line is that the economic "model" that Guedes wants to impose in Brazil has totally collapsed in Chile.

    Chile's top resource is copper. Copper mines, historically, were owned by the US, but then were nationalized by President Salvador Allende in 1971; thus war criminal Henry Kissinger's plan to eliminate Allende, which culminated in the original 9/11, in 1973.

    Pinochet's dictatorship later re-privatized the mines. The largest of them all, Escondida, in the Atacama desert - which accounts for 9% of the world's copper - belongs to Anglo-Australian giant Bhp Billiton. The biggest copper buyer in world markets is China. At least two-thirds of income generated by Chilean copper goes not to the Chilean people, but to foreign multinationals.

    The Argentine debacle
    Before Chile, Ecuador was semi-paralyzed: inactive schools, no urban transport, food shortages, rampant speculation, serious disturbances on oil exports. Under fire by the mobilization of 25,000 indigenous peoples in the streets, President Lenin Moreno cowardly left a power void in Quito, transferring the seat of government to Guayaquil. Indigenous peoples took over the governance in many important cities and towns. The National Assembly was AWOL for almost two weeks, without the will to even try to solve the political crisis.

    By announcing a state of emergency and a curfew, Moreno laid out a red carpet for the Armed Forces - and Pinera duly repeated the procedure in Chile. The difference is that in Ecuador Moreno bet on Divide and Rule between the indigenous peoples' movements and the rest of the population. Pinera resorts to outright brute force.

    Apart from applying the same old tactics of raising prices to obtain further IMF funds, Ecuador also displayed a classic articulation between a neoliberal government, big business and the proverbial US ambassador, in this case Michael Fitzpatrick, a former Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere matters in charge of the Andean region, Brazil and the Southern Cone up to 2018.

    The clearest case of total neoliberal failure in South America is Argentina. Less than two months ago in Buenos Aires, I saw the vicious social effects of the peso in free fall, inflation at 54%, a de facto food emergency and the impoverishment of even solid sectors of the middle class. Mauricio Macri's government literally burned most of the $58 billion IMF loan - there's still $5 billion to arrive. Macri is set to lose the presidential elections: Argentines will have to foot his humongous bill.

    Macri's economic model could not but be Pinera's - actually Pinochet's, where public services are run as a business. A key connection between Macri and Pinera is the ultra-neoliberal Freedom Foundation sponsored by Mario Vargas Llosa, who at least boasts the redeeming quality of having been a decent novelist a long time ago.

    Macri, a millionaire, disciple of Ayn Rand and incapable of displaying empathy towards anyone, is essentially a cipher, pre-fabricated by his Ecuadorian guru Jaime Duran Barba as a robotic product of data mining, social networks and focus groups. A hilarious take on his insecurities may be found in La Cabeza de Macri: Como Piensa, Vive y Manda el Primer Presidente de la No Politica, by Franco Lindner.

    Among myriad shenanigans, Macri is indirectly linked to fabulous money laundering machine HSBC. The president of HSBC in Argentina was Gabriel Martino. In 2015, four thousand Argentine accounts worth $3.5 billion were discovered at HSBC in Switzerland. This spectacular capital flight was engineered by the bank. Yet Martino was essentially saved by Macri, and became one of his top advisers.

    Beware the IMF vulture ventures
    All eyes now should be on Bolivia. As of this writing, President Evo Morales won Sunday's presidential elections in the first round - obtaining, by a slim margin, the necessary 10% spread for a candidate to win if he does not obtain the 50% plus one of the votes. Morales essentially got it right at the end, when votes from rural zones and from abroad were fully counted, and the opposition had already started to hit the streets to apply pressure. Not surprisingly, the OAS - servile to US interests - has proclaimed a "lack of trust in the electoral process".

    Evo Morales represents a project of sustainable, inclusive development, and crucially, autonomous from international finance. No wonder the whole Washington Consensus apparatus hates his guts. Economy Minister Luis Arce Catacora cut to the chase: "When Evo Morales won his first election in 2005, 65% of the population was low income, now 62% of the population has access to a medium income."

    The opposition, without any project except wild privatizations, and no concern whatsoever for social policies, is left to yell "Fraud!", but this could take a very nasty turn in the next few days. In the tony suburbs of southern La Paz, class hate against Evo Morales is the favorite sport: the President is referred to as "indio", a "tyrant" and "ignorant". Cholos of the Altiplano are routinely defined by white landowning elites in the plains as an "evil race".

    None of that changes the fact that Bolivia is now the most dynamic economy in Latin America, as stressed by top Argentine analyst Atilio Boron.

    The campaign to discredit Morales, which is bound to become even more vicious, is part of imperial 5G war, which, Boron writes, totally obliterates "the chronic poverty that the absolute majority of the population suffered for centuries", a state that always "maintained the population under total lack of institutional protection" and the "pillaging of natural wealth and the common good".

    Of course the specter of IMF vulture ventures won't vanish in South America like a charm. Even as the usual suspects, via World Bank reports, now seem "concerned" about poverty; Scandinavians offer the Nobel Prize on Economics to three academics studying poverty; and Thomas Piketty, in Capital and Ideology, tries to disassemble the hegemonic justification for accumulation of wealth.

    What still remains absolutely off limits for the guardians of the current world-system is to really investigate hardcore neoliberalism as the root cause of wealth hyper-concentration and social inequality. It's not enough to offer Band-Aids anymore. The streets of South America are alight. Blowback is now in full effect.

    Related:
    Last edited by Hervé; 23rd October 2019 at 15:21.
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

    Troll-hood motto: Never, ever, however, whatsoever, to anyone, a point concede.

  36. The Following 11 Users Say Thank You to Hervé For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (23rd October 2019), Caliban (24th October 2019), Cara (24th October 2019), Frank V (23rd October 2019), Franny (23rd October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), mountain_jim (24th October 2019), Philippe (23rd October 2019), Phoenix1304 (24th October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), silvanelf (28th October 2019)

  37. Link to Post #19
    Brazil Avalon Retired Member
    Join Date
    30th June 2019
    Location
    Rio de Janeiro
    Language
    Portuguese
    Posts
    408
    Thanks
    1,854
    Thanked 2,019 times in 377 posts

    Question Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    interestingly, the electoral agenda for follow-up at the last meeting of Foro de Sao Paulo, in Caracas (Venezuela) jul-2019, did not foresee a runoff in Bolivia presidential elections, where Evo Morales was surprised that didn't win in the first round, and even announced that there is a coup (with foreign powers).



    note: Foro de São Paulo is an International Entity, created by Fidel Castro, Lula and Hugo Chaves (1990), which aims to unify all governments of the South and Central Americas.

    Last edited by RogeRio; 23rd October 2019 at 20:38.

  38. The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to RogeRio For This Post:

    Frank V (24th October 2019), Franny (23rd October 2019), Hervé (24th October 2019), seko (29th October 2019)

  39. Link to Post #20
    UK Avalon Member sunwings's Avatar
    Join Date
    23rd May 2016
    Location
    Barcelona
    Age
    40
    Posts
    659
    Thanks
    3,253
    Thanked 4,666 times in 638 posts

    Default Re: Turmoil and Chaos all over the Planet

    We are seeing a Democratic crisis around the world. The British Prime Minister will soon call an election which will result in another government without a majority. The Spanish government is in the same predicament.

    Politics has become polarised probably because human beings have to take part. The whole Brexit farce was best summed up when after 2.5 years of negotiating the Prime minister decided to start a conversation with the opposition parties to get their point of view.

    For me, democracy must change. I have the power, I will do what we want not what you want is not acceptable anymore. Not in any business around the world do you have two separate boards of directors trying to achieve opposite results.

  40. The Following 11 Users Say Thank You to sunwings For This Post:

    Bill Ryan (24th October 2019), Frank V (24th October 2019), Franny (23rd October 2019), greybeard (23rd October 2019), Hervé (24th October 2019), Jayke (24th October 2019), Mark (Star Mariner) (25th October 2019), RogeRio (23rd October 2019), seko (29th October 2019), Valerie Villars (30th October 2019), Wind (24th October 2019)

+ Reply to Thread
Page 1 of 15 1 11 15 LastLast

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts