Essential questions

The State of Play, By Blake McInerney

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The State of Play

Dogma, theory, law instruct us all
There’s them that’s got and them that’s not
That, without the readies or the wherewithal,
People are nothing but fodder, fit just for the pot.

So strip Creation, Nature, down to the bone,
privatise life ‘til all expire, unbeknown
to all ( save God, whose trappings we now own ! )
become, everlastingly so, free :
free to sanctify inequality,
free to worship Money and Self alone
free to crown the human ape-baboon
future Queens and Kings of Mars or Moon.

Free to oppress and dispossess the poor,
Making Abrahamic chasms wider*,
free to enshrine elites above the law
ensuring none of us may be the wiser,
free to bask as glorious sons of New-Man :
monied incarnations of Space-born Hu-Man.

* Cf. Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Gospel of Luke  16, vv 19 – 31

Pandemic

Forum.eu – The First Year of The Plague. Where Do We Stand?, March 3d 2021

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On Forum.eu. Available as well in French, German, Spanish, Greek and Polish.

Europe and the West have not been able to deliver so far, in contrast to the Chinese, who have been better on this front.

Paul Jorion

Lockdown im Februar 2021. Es gilt weiterhin eine Maskenpflicht.

picture alliance / Daniel Kubirski

The Covid-19 pandemic started over a year ago. Time now for an assessment of how our Western governments reacted to what we more realistically called a plague rather than a crisis in the not so distant past.

Continue reading Forum.eu – The First Year of The Plague. Where Do We Stand?, March 3d 2021 →

United States

United States – November Presidential: The Spectrum of the 1876′ Stalemate

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First in French on July 27

We hear a lot about 1876 these days in the United States. The reason is this: the 1876 presidential election resulted, not in a draw between the two candidates but in the equivalent of a  stalemate in  chess: a block forcing the game to be canceled… which is not – you will agree – an option in a presidential election, therefore, the  outgoing president, General Grant, considered handing over power to the military. We narrowly escaped through bargaining between the two candidates.

This time, however, one of the candidates is not willing to bargain. He has even hinted at (“we’ll see…”) that he would not recognize the result of the election if he were to lose it. The director of his campaign is even clearer: “If the president loses, the election will have been rigged!”  Continue reading United States – November Presidential: The Spectrum of the 1876′ Stalemate →

United States

Has Trump betrayed the values of the Republican Party or revealed its true nature?

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31 August 2020 

If you follow a little bit what I say here, you will know that I believe that there are several tendencies within the Republican Party in the United States and that Trump represents only one of them.

I had the opportunity to mention the existence of a center-right tendency represented during his lifetime by John McCain (died In August 2018), recalling that a close associate of the late senator from Arizona was behind the release to the press of the Steele report.  The most serious accusation of the report, is that Trump is the victim of blackmail by Russia, said to have compromising documents about him, recorded during one of his stays in Moscow. I also pointed out, when speculation abounded about the identity of the whistleblower who revealed the infamous conversation of July 25, 2019, when Trump made the renewal of U.S. military aid to Ukraine conditional on getting compromising information on Joe Biden. Rumor has it that this person was a former close associate of McCain.

Continue reading Has Trump betrayed the values of the Republican Party or revealed its true nature? →

United States

HEARING OF ROBERT MUELLER (07/24/2019)

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The kind persons translating my posts thought it might be a good idea to revive the summary I gave at the time of Robert Mueller’s hearing a little over a year ago. Here it is.

HEARING OF ROBERT MUELLER (07/24/2019)

A SUMMARY BY P. JORION (07/25/2019)

Mr. Robert Mueller is an elderly man. He will turn 75 in a few days (August 7), and several American commentators have complained about this. They were hoping yesterday for someone with more punch, with a more assertive voice. They said that nowadays a 74 year old has more confidence, doesn’t search for his words, as was sometimes the case yesterday.

I guess unlike Robert Mueller and, among others, Paul Jorion, they did not attend the whole 7 hours of hearings, so they did not suffer from exhaustion.

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Ecology, Economy, Extinction threat, United States

Trends-Tendances – The danger zone, August 27 2020

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The danger zone

If someone had solemnly said to me at some point in my life: “in ten years time we will look back and realize that humanity is at a turning point at this very moment, and that its survival depends on the great decisions that must be taken now in a hurry”, I would have asked my interlocutor a question in return, I would have said to him: “Why this moment rather than any other: the human race has gone through many trials”. I might even have added, a bit sarcastically: “Perhaps you know something that the rest of the world doesn’t? Is an asteroid heading straight for us? “».

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Democracy, United States

Why Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as Vice President is a “good” thing…

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United States – Why Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as Vice President is a “good” thing… – August 12, 2020

If I were a citizen of the United States and I had the opportunity to vote in a municipal or state election, I would certainly find a better candidate than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris on the ballot.

So why say that Biden’s choice of Harris as Vice President is a “good” thing?

Because of the state that the United States, this unfortunate nation, is in right now. It is an “unfortunate nation” because, like the pseudo-democracies of the West (“pseudo” because of the distortions of power created by the existence of colossal fortunes), it was not aware of the fact that its institutions based on goodwill and candor, exposed it to the risk that a predator showing no respect for any of these kind features, might eat it up.

Continue reading Why Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as Vice President is a “good” thing… →

United States

The Trump Meteorite Fall. Volume 2: “High treason!” soon to be published

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“The Trump Meteorite Fall”, Volume 1: A Misidentified Populist Object

I’ve written in French a two-volume book on the fall of the Trump meteorite. The first volume was issued in October last year. Here is the introduction of the soon to be published second volume.

The Trump Meteorite Fall. Volume 2: “High treason! ”

Introduction

In the first volume of The Fall of the Trump Meteorite, we saw, as its title indicated, a misidentified populist object appear, which not only would easily find its way into the Republican Party primaries, quickly moving into the lead, but, even more astoundingly, would win the presidential election. Of course, he would have benefited from the complex system of the “Electoral College”, which, in attempting to strike a delicate balance between population and territory in the United States, favors rural areas and disadvantages ethnic minorities residing primarily in urban areas.

Continue reading The Trump Meteorite Fall. Volume 2: “High treason!” soon to be published →

United States

G7 – Trump abusively clashes with Trudeau

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My comment :

Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

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