Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
Turkey, the Kurds and Iraq: The Prize and Peril of Kirkuk / Politics / Turkey
By: STRATFOR
Reva Bhalla writes: In June 1919, aboard an Allied warship en route to Paris, sat Damat Ferid Pasha, the Grand Vizier of a crumbling Ottoman Empire. The elderly statesman, donning an iconic red fez and boasting an impeccably groomed mustache, held in his hands a memorandum that he was to present to the Allied powers at the Quai d'Orsay. The negotiations on postwar reparations started five months earlier, but the Ottoman delegation was prepared to make the most of its tardy invitation to the talks. As he journeyed across the Mediterranean that summer toward the French shore, Damat Ferid mentally rehearsed the list of demands he would make to the Allied powers during his last-ditch effort to hold the empire together.
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
U.S. State Sponsored Assassination Culture / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
The ongoing failures of the Secret Service to provide proper protection for the President have political careerists in a tizzy. Scares that harm could come to the commander-in-chief, also worries the press. Ordinary citizens on principle, accept that the White House should be secure grounds. Rotating blame usually means that the buck does not stop on the oval office desk. Indeed, who could expect any President to be responsible for their own safety? Surely, policy decisions made as a government could not possibly have any bearing on the lunatics that harbor ill will towards our fearless leaders.
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
Dawn of The Quantum Age? State-of-the-Art Quantum Technologies 2.0 or QT2 / Politics / Technology
By: DK_Matai
We are at the beginning of a new era in the application of Quantum Physics which is going to be dominated by subtle effects. From computing to cryptography and from healthcare to energy, many very significant innovations and inventions of our time are manifest at the Quantum Level. Does this herald the onset of the new Quantum Age? Possibly... now that billions upon billions of dollars are being committed to Quantum Technologies 2.0 (QT2) by G20 governments and Multi-Nationals collectively with multiple announcements in recent months and many more overt and covert projects in the pipeline on which sovereignty, national security and industrial competitive advantage depend.
Monday, October 06, 2014
Ron Paul - The Real Status of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq / Politics / US Military
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
After 13 years of war in Afghanistan - the longest in US history - the US government has achieved no victory. Afghanistan is in chaos and would collapse completely without regular infusions of US money. The war has been a failure, but Washington will not admit it.
More than 2,000 US fighters have been killed in the 13 year Afghan war. More than 20,000 Afghan civilians were also killed. According to a study last year by a Harvard University researcher, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost in total between four and six trillion dollars. There is no way of looking at the US invasion of Afghanistan and seeing a success.
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Sunday, October 05, 2014
Escape From New York - Fragility and Delusions / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
I live only a two hour drive from New York City, but it is a world apart from my daily existence. I’ve visited the Big Apple probably a dozen times in my life, but never for longer than two or three days. I have a soft spot in my heart for NYC because it is where I proposed to my wife on a bitterly cold December evening in a horse drawn carriage ride in Central Park, twenty five years ago. But, I can honestly say that I never feel comfortable in the city.
Thursday, October 02, 2014
Hong Kong’s Battle for Democracy, Beijing’s War Against It / Politics / Hong Kong
By: Submissions
Ted Baumann writes: One spring day in 1988, I stood in a crowd of thousands of young people. Over us hovered helicopters; in front of us stood armed riot police. We sought democracy. The power of the state sought to deny it to us, with pepper spray, batons and rubber bullets. Unstoppable force met immovable object. Friction ensued, with all its heat and light. I can still perceive its imprint in my mind’s eye.
The first years of the 21st century have seen this drama repeated on every continent. Yugoslavia in 2000. Georgia in 2003. Ukraine in 2004. Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan, 2005. The Arab Spring of 2001. Venezuela in 2013.
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Wednesday, October 01, 2014
UK Joins U.S. Bombing ISIL, Courting Danger / Politics / War on Terror
By: John_Browne
On September 26th, the English Parliament voted to join the U.S.-led bombing of ISIL, at least in Iraq. The news was received with relief by most in the Anglosphere world and throughout Europe. However, very little regard has been paid to the relative benefits and costs. The military actions that the UK has committed herself to conduct will have a low probability of achieving the stated objective of "degrading and destroying" ISIL. However, there is a much higher likelihood that air strikes from the UK will increase ISIL's stated objective of projecting fear and terrorism deeper into the West. If that were to occur, the resulting implications for business will be difficult to project.
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Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Germany Fights on Two Fronts to Preserve the Eurozone / Politics / Germany
By: STRATFOR
The European Court of Justice announced Sept. 22 that hearings in the case against the European Central Bank's (ECB) bond-buying scheme known as Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) will begin Oct. 14. Though the process is likely to be lengthy, with a judgment not due until mid-2015, the ruling will have serious implications for Germany's relationship with the rest of the eurozone. The timing could hardly be worse, coming as an anti-euro party has recently been making strides in the German political scene, steadily undermining the government's room for maneuver.
Monday, September 29, 2014
The End of Monetary Policy / Politics / Global Financial System
By: John_Mauldin
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar…
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
– T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”
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Monday, September 29, 2014
Ron Paul - Scottish Referendum Gives the People Reasons to be Hopeful / Politics / Social Issues
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Even though it ultimately failed at the ballot box, the recent campaign for Scottish independence should cheer supporters of the numerous secession movements springing up around the globe.
In the weeks leading up to the referendum, it appeared that the people of Scotland were poised to vote to secede from the United Kingdom. Defeating the referendum required British political elites to co-opt secession forces by promising greater self-rule for Scotland, as well as launching a massive campaign to convince the Scots that secession would plunge them into economic depression.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Nihilism And The Unknown Future / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Reject Everything
Nihilism, as US president Obama said in August 2014 following the decapitation of journalist Jim Foley is most certainly ISIS in Syria and Iraq - but he called it an ideology, when in fact it is a non-ideology. Nihilism denies all “conventional knowledge” and “conventional reality”. The only possible future, the nihilists say, will be “exalted” or “ecstatic”. Otherwise, there is no future.
Nihilism is the path to nowhere for the punk killers of ISIS who meander from town to town and cut off human heads in town squares, to thrill the crowd here and there, but nothing more than that. Until the “ecstatic moment”, life will be a shadow play, for ISIS of a threatening and macabre type.
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Monday, September 29, 2014
The US Has No Banking Regulation, And It Doesn’t Want Any / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Raul_I_Meijer
It is, let’s say, exceedingly peculiar to begin with that a government – in this case the American one, but that’s just one example -, in name of its people tasks a private institution with regulating not just any sector of its economy, but the richest and most politically powerful sector in the nation. Which also happens to be at least one of the major forces behind its latest, and ongoing, economical crisis.
Monday, September 29, 2014
UK Saved From I.S. Threat But Scottish Independence Nightmare is Not Over! / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
A week on from when the UK managed to avoid having an I.S. (Independent Scotland) failed state on its northern border, the creation of which would have been literally cataclysmic as an I.S. would have ripped the whole of Britain apart, North, South, East and West as once states start to unravel then events soon gather a momentum of their own where what was thought as unimaginable barely a few months earlier would start to become manifest.
The YES Campaigns victory was achieved by means of Westminister politicians LYING to the Scottish electorate by making promises of bribes that amount to effectively INCREASING Scotland's annual net subsidy from England by 50% as the price to be paid by English workers despite having had no say in the matter.
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Sunday, September 28, 2014
U.S. Aggression - Will Russia and China Hold Their Fire? / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Obama’s September 24 speech at the UN is the most absurd thing I have heard in my entire life. It is absolutely amazing that the president of the United States would stand before the entire world and tell what everyone knows are blatant lies while simultaneously demonstrating Washington’s double standards and belief that Washington alone, because the US is exceptional and indispensable, has the right to violate all law.
It is even more amazing that every person present did not get up and walk out of the assembly.
The diplomats of the world actually sat there and listened to blatant lies from the world’s worst terrorist. They even clapped their approval.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
War on ISIS, Imperial Crusade #989 / Politics / War on Terror
By: LewRockwell
Eric Margolis writes: Having nearly provoked war over Ukraine with nuclear-armed Russia, the Obama administration has now launched a full-scale crusade in Iraq and Syria against the evil Saracens of ISIS.
America’s aerial might, including B-1 heavy bombers, is plastering ISIS miscreants. Washington’s Arab allies and rightwing governments in Canada and Australia have joined the fray. The British will be next.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Regulators Never Understand What they are Regulating / Politics / Market Regulation
By: MISES
Gary Galles writes: People are generally aware of the positive power of compound interest when deferring consumption in favor of productive investments. But more important when it comes to public policy is the destructive power of compound ignorance.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Europe is the Sick Man of Europe, Blame the Socialists, Greens and Euro / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Mike_Shedlock
Joel Kotkin writing for New Geography hits the nail smack on the head with his assessment Sick Man of Europe is Europe.
Read full article... Read full article...Throughout the continent, public support for a united Europe fell sharply last year. Opposition to greater integration has emerged, with anti-EU parties gaining support in countries as diverse as the United Kingdom, Greece, Germany and France.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Darwin And The Climate Apocalypse / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
We All Have to Die
In 2006, Britain's leading exponent of climate change doom, Sir James Lovelock said: “Billions will die from global warming before the end of the century”, perhaps a third of the whole human race.
He calmed down later on, but well over 98% of all known and documented species that ever existed are now extinct. One of Darwin's own musings was that he thought humans should marvel at the wonders of an average beetle rather than the structure of the Universe, because since the late Ordovician geological era beetles and other insects have managed to hang in and hold on. His theory of survival of the fittest in fact concerns the fantastic loss over time of nearly all living things on this planet.
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Saturday, September 27, 2014
Can Money Save The Climate? / Politics / Climate Change
By: Raul_I_Meijer
So PIMCO was going to fire Bill Gross over the weekend, and he chose to leave on his own accord and work for Janus. So what? Gross is 70 years old and still joins another firm geared towards making money, and nothing else at all. As if making money, and nothing else, is a valid goal in a human life.
As if someone who’s done nothing else his entire life, and who’s richer than Croesus, should have nothing else to do with the times that remains him, and is somehow right and justified about not being able to find anything more worthwhile.
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Saturday, September 27, 2014
Why the U.S. Created and Armed ISIS From Libya to Syria / Politics / War on Terror
By: Videos
From Libya in 2011 to Syria in 2013 to Iraq in 2014, how the U.S. armed and trained ISIS following the age old CIA blueprint of arming and training Islamic fundamentilis to fight proxy wars from Afghanistain in 1981 to Syria today for which ISIS acts as a backdoor into Syria with the real target being Assad.