Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
Reserve currency, backing of a currency and value of the financial systems that distribute a currency.
Its going to take years for the US dollar as reserve currency to fully reduce in importance and of course, the US should continue to use their currency as their own even when it changes into a normal currency. Yet there are financial technologies (FinTech) which may accelerate this process via leapfrogging and I would argue that from a Chinese perspective this is happening. (Leapfrogging is easiest understood by looking at an older example: slower developing countries without a well developed terrestrial telephone system, where these countries leapfrogged the building of a terrestrial system, and directly went to cellular telephone technological networks without loss of function.)
Let’s first take a look at some general concepts:
The fact of ownership of financial systems is very powerful. There is value in the currency that the financial system produces, and there is value in the system itself.
The value proposition is similar but differently done in cryptocurrencies and in digital currencies. The backing frequently lies in the system itself, and not as many think, in a hard asset such as gold. This is a large step to take in thinking for most people, as the idea generally still is that money has to be something that is tangible and real – like gold (or cowrie shells). But it is not such a big step to take if one considers that the act of money creation, production and distribution of currency itself is modernizing and is developing on the same trajectory that the rest of our technological and currently digital society is developing in.
As an example, compare the development of current money distribution systems and the new Financial Technologies (FinTech) with fully automated manufacturing plants for example, where the product coming off the production line is as a result of the technological system. Money is the same, it has to be manufactured, distributed or created or somehow brought into being and these systems are now modernizing, just the same as modern fully automated manufacturing.
The current financial systems belong to the west and banking systems technology is expensive, old, legacy, decrepit and not friendly to the ordinary person, not to mention very hard to maintain. Even the ubiquitous credit cards are now old technology and fast becoming deprecated technology and being replaced by wallets on cell phones that work like supermarket scanners.
It is often speculated that China will back their digital Yuan with gold. This is not an accurate speculation. The backing is the same as with other digital and cryptocurrencies, i.e., the work that the system provides to create the financial transactions in the financial ledger confirms that the transaction is secure and someone actually owns digital currency, they can pay for goods or sell goods and they can do it much easier and incredibly cheaper via a scan of a cell phone or other digital device.
The difference between China’s digital Yuan and common crytocurrencies is the ownership of the system. In modern independent cryptocurrencies the system (the technology) is owned by those that use the cryptocurrency – it is open source. Obviously for the digital Yuan ownership of the system lies with the Chinese State. The digital Yuan though retains the strength of other cryptocurrencies. It is secure transactions, tamper proof, immediate, inexpensive, easily distributed, can cross borders and all this by virtue of being a distributed blockchain system. The easiest to explain a blockchain is that it is self-policing because of technology of consensus algorithms that verify the efficacy of financial transactions. Blockchain very simply stated is blocks of financial transactions that are algorithmically created, are by definition encrypted, and chained together in such a way that nobody can meddle with any one of them.
To recap:
– The digital Yuan is not a cryptocurrency. It is a state issued digital electronic currency that happens to run on a blockchain (the FinTech).
– As the Chinese digital yuan is not and will not be backed by gold at least in our term (it is backed by the strength of the yuan as well as its system), we may well ask what the objective is of this currency.
Is it just a cute technological way of using money?
I would argue absolutely not.
Internationalization of the Yuan
Few realize the extent of the internationalization of the Yuan. As example, 20% of French trade with China is currently settled in Yuan and this is 55% of payments made between both countries. The Macron government is encouraging banks and companies to increase Yuan uptake.
I would argue that the digital yuan is a part of the 5th plank of the Belt and Road process of facilitating cross border investments and supply chain cooperation (perhaps not openly stated). If one takes into consideration that belt and road is operating now in infrastructure development and investments in nearly 70 countries and international organizations – this is not such a difficult leap to make.
So how can that bold statement be supported? It may be hard for people in countries with old financial systems (the US would be one), to even imagine the new FinTech operating in many other countries. Where I live, I can go to the local corner store, and literally send cash money to someone on the other side of the country, and they will have it immediately. I don’t have to go to a bank, do a bank transfer, send a check, or interact with a bank or a type of Paypal at all. This is a service that the corner store offers at a very reasonable cost. I can also do this directly from my cell phone. We know that in China there is little use for hard currency, and most transactions take place on internal Chinese financial networks and cell phones for the average person, but business finance still flows through banks.
So, let’s start supporting that bold statement
The Chinese authorities added Crypto (cryptographic as well as cryptocurrency) to the School Curriculum – quite literally ‘educating the future’ in new FinTech.
In reality the distribution of the new Chinese Digital Yuan is proceeding apace. In size, the following is not a massive deal, but in construction of the agreement, this is probably the number one of the new Chinese Digital Yuan Deals and is pure modern FinTech.
“China Baowu Group, the world’s largest iron and steel complex, completed a yuan-denominated, blockchain-technology-based transaction of more than 100 million yuan ($14 million) with Rio Tinto …, a move signaling the rising influence of Chinese currency in pricing major commodities.
Standard Chartered issued a blockchain-technology-powered letter of credit for the Baowu-Rio Tinto deal, which the bank said was the world’s first such certificate pegged with offshore yuan.
The use of blockchain technology – a digital public ledger of transactions that has seen increased usage in the global commodity trade – helped facilitate the trade and reduced costs for all parties involved in the transaction …”.
This is not only a further distribution of the Yuan, but is a further distribution of the digital Yuan. While we do not know how this deal is constructed in detail, the use of the words blockchain-technology-powered letter of credit says it all. It looks like this deal will run completely on a blockchain, in the form commonly known as a smart contract, where each step of the deal and its payment schedule in digital currency are transactions on a blockhain. (Now try and skim off that transaction where the rules are hardcoded at the outset with technical principles of consensus pre-programmed in the smart contract and agreements signed directly on contract existent on the blockchain– those that know project management, will know the value of a self-documenting project).
the “Moodies”
In addition China has become the ranker of record for private cryptocurrency projects.
The health of financial systems or countries are ranked by three major ranking agencies. These are S&P Global Ratings (S&P), Moody’s, and Fitch Group. S&P and Moody’s are based in the US, while Fitch is dual-headquartered in New York City and London, and is controlled by Hearst. These organizations hold the collective global market share of who can be considered good, and who can be considered bad in the global financial system. Not too healthy in my opinion as this is a disproportionate western control over the financial well-being of other countries.
So, as the proverbial quote from Buckminster Fuller states: “You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.”
The old banking and financial systems are indicative of the existing reality and are old, decrepit, ancient technology, needs a bunch of maintenance, and the worst is that they are of course owned by those that use them as weapons against others.
China is doing no less than building a new model in FinTech that will make the old model obsolete and in this way they are simply leapfrogging the current financial systems distributing the dollar with fast, lean and modern systems supporting the Financial Silk Road. They have made their own ranking system in new FinTech, i.e., cryptocurrencies. The June rankings are as follows:
Quite rightly the Asiatimes is asking .. Who is actually decoupling from Whom? And I can add, and using modern FinTech to do so with solutions appropriate contextually to our modern world.
My own expectation is that the notable private cryptocurrency systems (those that actually make it to the Chinese ranking system) will eventually be able to exchange smoothly and seamlessly with the Chinese Digital Yuan.
A quick look for the same trajectory, leapfrogging legacy systems, outside of FinTech
We see this creation of seamless new systems outside of hard FinTech as well. Here are three examples. The current hegemon in its common ‘break it’ style, made errors as it thinks if it breaks something, people will come back begging, to make a new plan. This is not happening any longer, and the world simply decouples and creates new systems, as we see from three seminal events and the hegemon further losing its power base.
– The US attacked the WTO on the basis of refusing to allow it to vote for and institute staff for the appeals body for trade disputes. Usually this would have taken many meetings to solve. This time, what happened is that China has joined 18 other members including the European Union, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong in launching a temporary system for trade disputes at the World Trade Organization, with the agency’s appeal body having ceased to function in December after the United States blocked appointments of new judges to the top trade court.
The needed functionality is now still there, the US having excluded itself (actually shot itself in the foot), while the rest of the world moved forward saying we need this body, and we will have this body, with or without hegemon. The Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) was developed in just over three months, after the members announced at the World Economic Forum in January that they would seek to form a new body to work around the demise of the regular WTO panel.
From a combined statement by the European Union: The new system is designed to preserve the principle enshrined in international trade law that governments have the right to appeal in any dispute.
– Most readers of this blog will know how the US is trying to carve out for itself some way back to the JPCOA, the Iran agreement, after simply breaking this agreement. It is proving to be not so easy to walk this one back and so far, they have lost their power base. Do-overs are not so easy in terms of diplomacy, after one has squandered the world’s goodwill and Iran is receiving widespread help to overcome the results of any further sanctions.
It is no wonder then that the EU policy chief made this statement: US century ceding to Asian one, says EU foreign policy chief. https://tass.com/world/1160031
– The third event is the US stunt at the recent Vienna arms control talks. The US stealthily placed Chinese flags, took photos and posted media – then accused China of being a no-show, knowing full well that China declined to attend these talks and refuses to be roped into an agreement that is not in the least appropriate for it. Clear petulance is the hegemon’s only response to a visible decoupling of the world with the US and western cronies. They have nothing more left than petulance and literal pictures of false flagging to offer.
So, it is clear that both inside and outside of hard FinTech which this writing is about, the trajectory of recreating systems and simply leaving the US out, is alive and well.
A small note on Iran and Venezuela as part of the empire resistance countries. Iran is mining cryptocurrency and Venezuela floated theirs, namely the Petro. Unfortunately (and this is not the focus of this writing), they did not do that cleverly but the newest news is that the Venezuelan government is now beginning to trade in cryptocurrencies, and for example, accepting current private chain cryptos for payment for passports. Bear in mind I said that some private chain cryptos will eventually be exchanged with the digital Yuan, so, very soon now, if a government takes payment in a crypto, they will have digital Yuan if they decide to exchange – and they do not need anyone’s permission (Like a Central Bank).
What is the Chinese View
With ‘the moodies’ rating system, cryptography education in China, a clear project based on the digital yuan and blockchain technology and more to follow, it becomes clear that the Yuan and the digital Yuan is being moved into the global financial sphere, de facto without years of negotiation and agreements and trade type negotiations. My expectation then is that certain cryptography and cryptocurrencies will eventually be seamlessly exchanged on China’s blockchain(s) – and you will have a digital yuan wallet on your phone, or on your computer or even a credit card supporting and in this way, you and I could be right on the Belt and Road. In other words, if I want to use a cryptocurrency to pay for something, and I have digital Yuan or another crypto, I can simply, within my electronic wallet exchange for the right currency that I need. This is how China is distributing their Digital Yuan de facto.
Yet, the decoupling continues. It is interesting to wait to see if the 5 UN security council countries will in fact gather for the summit that Mr. Putin invited them to. My expectation is that if they don’t, Putin will run out of patience and choose others, perhaps the G20 or something new. The decoupling will continue.
We now have clear precedence set on the decoupling part of FinTech and other organizations. It is no longer a big deal to decouple from empire.
What is the Western view?
Forbes stated recently that the launch of the Digital Yuan could create serious problems for the U.S. banking system—potentially forcing the U.S. to digitalize the dollar to compete. The Federal Reserve has warned that central bank digital currencies might one day replace commercial banks, creating “a deposit monopolist” and playing “havoc” with the banking system. (This seemed to me somewhat like gobbeldy-gook and is meaningless – yet, they know something is happening.)
The West is 20 years behind this technology, because China decided to leapfrog and not follow the accepted development trajectory and as such has reconfigured the potentials for the entire planet.
It is high time and in the words of Michael Hudson: “So the United States, through the World Bank, has become I think the most dangerous, right-wing, evil organization in modern history — more evil than the IMF. That’s why it’s almost always been run by a Secretary of Defense. It has always been explicitly military. It’s the hard fist of American imperialism.”
The world is leapfrogging, and elegantly zig-zagging around current imperial financial systems, for a true birth of a new post capitalist post industrial order, without going to war for it.
نفت حملة الرئيس بشدّة إمكانية انسحابه من السباق الانتخابي (أ ف ب )
بالرغم من مهاجمة دونالد ترامب للاستطلاعات التي أجرتها وسائل الإعلام الأميركية، أخيراً، فإنّ واقعاً جديداً فرض نفسه على الرئيس وحزبه الجمهوري، سببه تعاطي الإدارة مع «كورونا» والاحتجاجات… وترامب نفسهيواجه الرئيس الأميركي دونالد ترامب تهديداً من نوع آخر، جسّدته موجة استطلاعات أجراها العديد من وسائل الإعلام الأميركية، أخيراً، من بينها شبكة «فوكس نيوز» المقرّبة منه، والتي أظهرت تخلّفه بشكل كبير عن منافسه الديموقراطي جو بايدن. وإن كانت هذه الاستطلاعات قد دفعت ترامب إلى وصفها بـ«الكاذبة»، إلّا أنّ ذلك لم يكن كافياً لإلغاء المخاوف التي تعتري الحزب الجمهوري بشأن المخاطر التي تصطدم بها فرص إعادة انتخابه.
وفق شبكة «فوكس نيوز»، فقد دفع هذا الواقع ببعض النافذين في الحزب الجمهوري إلى التساؤل عمّا إذا كان ترامب سينسحب من السباق الانتخابي، في حال لم تتحسّن أرقام الاستطلاعات. وبالرغم من تشكيك البعض في إمكانية حصول ذلك، فإن أحد هؤلاء النافذين قال للشبكة إنه «إذا استمرّت الاستطلاعات في التدهور، يمكنك أن ترى سيناريو حيث ينسحب»، بينما راهن آخر على أنّ ترامب «قد ينسحب في حال رأى أن من المستحيل أن يفوز».
الأسباب وراء هذه التكهّنات تعود إلى ما شهدته الأسابيع الأخيرة الماضية من انخفاض كبير لأرقام ترامب في الاستطلاعات، وسط الانتقادات التي طالت إدارته بشأن تعاملها مع جائحة «كورونا»، وردّ البيت الأبيض على التظاهرات والاحتجاجات، على خلفية مقتل جورج فلويد، في أواخر شهر أيار /مايو في مينيابوليس، عندما كان في عهدة الشرطة.
وفي هذا السياق، أظهر استطلاع أجرته شبكة «فوكس نيوز» أنّ الرئيس متأخّر عن بايدن بـ12 نقطة، بينما أفاد معدّل الاستطلاعات الصادر عن موقع «RealClearPolitics» بأنّ بايدن يتقدّم ترامب بحوالى 10 نقاط. وما يعطي هذه الأرقام أهمية أكبر، هو تقدّم بايدن في العديد من الولايات التي تشكّل ساحات معارك أساسية، بينما يظهر جنباً إلى جنب مع ترامب في ولاياتٍ طالما عُدّت معقلاً للجمهوريين، مثل تكساس.
أظهر استطلاع لـ«فوكس نيوز» أنّ ترامب متأخّر عن بايدن بـ 12 نقطة
وعن هذا الواقع بالذات، أوضح موقع «بوليتيكو» أنّ «انفجار» إصابات «كوفيد ـــــ 19» في ولايات «الحزام الشمسي» (المنطقة الممتدة عبر جنوب الشرق وجنوب الغرب من الولايات المتحدة) بات يشكّل عائقاً جديداً أمام آمال إعادة انتخاب دونالد ترامب، ما يفتح المجال أمام فرصة جديدة لجو بايدن والديموقراطيين في تشرين الثاني/ نوفمبر. وأشار الموقع إلى أنّ الحكّام الجمهوريين لولايات فلوريدا، وأريزونا وتكساس، اتّبعوا تعليمات ترامب القاضية بإعادة فتح ولاياتهم، بشكل سريع، بينما اعتمدوا نهجاً متساهلاً في إطار التباعد الاجتماعي. وبالرغم من أن من الصعب تقدير مدى خطورة الوضع بالنسبة إلى ترامب، فإنّ «بوليتيكو» لفت إلى أنّه «في حال خسر واحدة من الولايات الثلاث، تصبح إعادة انتخابه محكومة بالفشل».
في مقابل ذلك، نفت حملة ترامب بشدّة إمكانية انسحاب هذا الأخير من السباق الانتخابي، وانتقدت الاستطلاعات «التي اختزلت الناخبين الجمهوريين بشكل متعمّد». يأتي ذلك بعدما كانت حملته قد أصدرت مذكّرة، بعد الاستطلاعات الأخيرة، يوم الأحد، رفضت فيها الادعاءات بأنّ فرص إعادة انتخاب الرئيس كانت تواجه مشكلة. أمّا ترامب، فلم يلبث أن ردّ، في تغريدة عبر موقع «تويتر»، قال فيها: «آسف لإعلام الديموقراطيين الذين لا يفعلون شيئاً، ولكنّي أحظى بأرقام جيدة جداً في الاستطلاعات الداخلية للحزب الجمهوري». وأضاف: «تماماً مثل عام 2016، استطلاعات ذي نيويورك تايمز كاذبة! استطلاعات فوكس نيوز نكتة! هل تظنّون أنهم سيعتذرون منّي ومن مشتركيهم مجدّداً عندما أفوز؟ الناس يريدون القانون، والنظام والأمن».
مع ذلك، وفي ظلّ اقتراب الانتخابات الرئاسية، بعد أربعة أشهر، يتطلّع المهتمّون بشؤون الحزب الجمهوري وموظّفو حملة ترامب، إلى تحويل مسار الاستطلاعات السيّئة، عبر توجيه هدفهم إلى ما اعتبروه نقاط ضعف بايدن الرئيسية. من هذا المنطلق، تسعى حملة ترامب إلى التركيز على هفوات المرشّح الديموقراطي، إضافة إلى مهاجمته على اعتبار أنه «ناعمٌ» مع الصين، مشكّكين في صحّته العقلية، ومشيرين إلى أنه سيصبح رهينة يسار حزبه، إذا ما تمكّن من الوصول إلى البيت الأبيض.
كذلك، أفادت صحيفة «واشنطن بوست» بأنّ ترامب وفريق حملته يتجادلون حول كيفية إحياء جهود إعادة انتخابه الهشّة. وفي هذا الإطار، أشارت الصحيفة إلى أنّ عدداً من مستشاري الرئيس وحلفائه يدفعون بشكل خاص إلى إحداث تغييرات في حملته، بما فيها تغييرٌ كبير في الموظفين، وذلك بينما يسعون إلى إقناع ترامب بأن يكون أكثر انضباطاً في رسائله وسلوكه.
For months, the Washington Post and the rest of the mainstream media kept a morbid Covid-19 “death count” on their front pages and at the top of their news broadcasts. The coronavirus outbreak was all about the number of dead. The narrative was intended to boost governors like Cuomo in New York and Whitmer in Michigan, who turned their states authoritarian under the false notion that destroying people’s jobs, freedom, and lives would somehow keep a virus from doing what viruses always do: spread through a population until eventually losing strength and dying out.
The “death count” was always the headline.
But then all of a sudden early in June the mainstream media did a George Orwell and lectured us that it is all about “cases” and has always been all about “cases.” Death, and especially infection fatality rate, were irrelevant. Why? Because from the peak in April, deaths had decreased by 90 percent and were continuing to crash. That was not terrifying enough so the media pretended this good news did not exist.
With massive increases in testing, the “case” numbers climbed. This is not rocket science: the more people you test the more “cases” you discover.
Unfortunately our mainstream media is only interested in pushing the “party line.” So the good news that millions more have been exposed while the fatality rate continues to decline – meaning the virus is getting weaker – is buried under hysterical false reporting of “new cases.”
Unfortunately many governors, including our own here in Texas, are incapable of resisting the endless lies of the mainstream media. They are putting Americans again through the nightmare of forced business closures, mandated face masks, and restrictions of Constitutional liberties based on false propaganda.
In Texas the “second wave” propaganda has gotten so bad that the leaders of the four major hospitals in Houston took the extraordinary step late last week of holding a joint press conference to clarify that the scare stories of Houston hospitals being overwhelmed with Covid cases are simply untrue. Dr. Marc Boom of Houston Methodist said the reporting on hospital capacity is misleading. He said, “quite frankly, we’re concerned that there is a level of alarm in the community that is unwarranted right now.”
In fact, there has been much reporting that the “spike” in Texas cases is not due to a resurgence of the virus but to hospital practices of Covid-testing every patient coming in for any procedure at all. If it’s a positive, well that counts as a “Covid hospitalization.” Why would hospitals be so dishonest in their diagnoses? Billions of appropriated Federal dollars are being funneled to facilities based on the number of “Covid cases” they can produce. As I’ve always said, if you subsidize something you get more of it. And that’s why we are getting more Covid cases.
Let’s go back to the original measurements used to scare Americans into giving up their Constitutional liberties: the daily death numbers. Even though we know hospitals have falsely attributed countless deaths to “Covid-19” that were deaths WITH instead of FROM the virus, we are seeing actual deaths steadily declining over the past month and a half. Declining deaths are not a great way to push the “second wave” propaganda, so the media and politicians have moved the goal posts and decided that only “cases” are important. It’s another big lie.
Resist propaganda and defend your liberty. That is the only way we’ll get through this.
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Sanctions on Lebanon in general and Hezbollah in particular are doomed to fail. Trump roars sometimes claiming to impose the harshest batch of sanctions, and shrugs other times when asked by the media about the Middle East, Lebanon, Iran, or even Corona. The best he could do in the current COVID-19 crisis was get a few people killed after advising the consumption of hand sanitizer to protect oneself from the virus. The same shrugs come along with misconception and incorrect answers when he is asked about Lebanon and its resistance movement.
The US ambassador in Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, for her part uses the same old literature of the US administration and dual diplomacy; that of double standards and critical discourse by putting all the blame on the resistance movement that has been preventing ‘Israeli’ attacks on Lebanon and remaining totally silent on all ‘Israeli’ provocations and violations. She attacks the resistance movement and supports US sanctions on Hezbollah and Syria (represented in the Caesar act) and carries out the US non-stop meddling in Lebanese affairs; another Jeffrey Feltman attacking the resistance only without a mustache.
This is America, anyone who expects otherwise is naïve or ill-informed. However, what America should know, or better say “the American government” should know is that no matter how tough the sanctions on Hezbollah get, no matter how much is spent on media campaigns against the resistance movement, and no matter how bad the US government tries to choke the resistance movement and its people, it is doomed to complete failure.
Academic studies can be an interesting source to start the discussion. Some theorists provide empirical evidence that the imposition of sanctions increases state-sponsored repression and suggests that these sanctions contribute to worsening humanitarian conditions of the civilian population. Others find that the imposition of economic sanctions curtails political and civil rights of the citizens, thereby resulting in deteriorating democratic freedom. That can be true; but only in a merely materialistic framework. This does not apply to Lebanon and its people. For those who are not keeping up with the news; Lebanon’s local currency has been deteriorating rapidly. Since October, there has been riots and protests across the country. ‘Israeli’ threats are non-stop and Trump and his surrounding officials keep vowing to choke Hezbollah.
The result of all this propaganda hype and intended pressure is reversed. It is delightful to see that when bakeries were on strike and did not distribute bread to supermarkets for economic reasons and people had to line up to buy bread; bread bags were everywhere for free right on the next day or in wholesale price everywhere especially in the areas where Hezbollah supporters live.
Samer, a young man who volunteered to take the bread and deliver it to some supermarkets and keep the rest on a table at his doorstep for people to take for free told al-Ahed news “This is how we live. The people serve the people. We all support one another when in trouble or in times of hardships.”
Fatima who has been a volunteer with the social groups of Hezbollah for years told al-Ahed news “The tougher it gets the more resilient and creative we get. We provide each other and our society with services at low cost or even through barter. Also a lot of what we do is for free too and in all fields and domains, you just name it.”
Fatima also told al-Ahed news “Oh and by the way, these services are not only limited to the Shiites. Anyone in need can benefit from the services. Since the beginning of the crisis, different NGOs with different religious backgrounds have been helping everyone. This is one of Lebanon’s pretty characteristics, despite political divisions, people from different religious backgrounds try to spread love and peace their own way.”
Propaganda and media reports come with so much reassurance that Trump’s sanctions on Hezbollah threaten Lebanon’s stability. Despite the fact that sanctions can have concrete consequences when they expand and increase, and there will be more impact on the economy but that is momentary. Lebanon has vast rich lands that work quite well for agriculture. With the coming of COVID-19 and the worsening performance of the Lebanese Pound, the Lebanese youth quickly turned to start-ups and small jobs. The thing is, the people of Lebanon are not only thick-skinned when it comes to Trump and his nonsense, but are also steadfast in face of hardships no matter how bad it gets. And when it comes to the resistance movement, there is a huge and steadfast popular platform that would never turn against Hezbollah, keep in mind that the resistance movement along with the army and the people is what preserves Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence.
When we talk about a group of people or a political party, to better know their mindset look at their reference group or ideology. For the Hezbollah supporters, life does not only have one materialistic or capitalist dimension. Money is not everything and human soul is way more important to them. This is called human ethics. The core ideas of Hezbollah are typical to that of the Islamic school of thought resembled by the founder of the Islamic Revolution Imam Khomeini. This is not because Hezbollah decides to be an Iranian follower or proxy as mainstream media keeps propagating; it is rather because they share the same Islamic identity and belong to the same school of thought.
As Imam Khomeini expressed once; “This very economic sanction was a divine blessing, causing the mind of our experts to be set in motion and they are proceeding towards self-sufficiency.”
More into that, Shahid Baker Sadr, who was a Shi’a jurist, exegete of the Qur’an, thinker and also a political activist holds that Islam, through its distribution methods, can regulate the distribution of economic wealth in the best possible way. In the issue of distribution, he considers “oppression” as the fundamental social problem.
These are examples on the Shiite school of thought when it comes to economy and it ought to explain a lot.
It dates back to Islamic history. The main governing principle of the economic notion of Imam Ali (The first governor or Imam of the Shiite faith) is the observance of rights of every person regardless of creed faith and culture and implementation of justice, abstinence and austerity regarding the employees of the government from accumulating illegal wealth, struggle against the rentiers and returning the confiscated estates and properties back to the public treasury, protection of human dignity and observing their sanctity in the society ,social security for the poor and needy whereas these affairs are greatly undermined in today’s governments.
This encapsulates the theory and explanation of the idea of Islamic economy and presents a suitable model for the implementation of justice and struggle against corruption.
This is where Lebanon’s Hezbollah comes from and this is how their people think and act. With such a mindset, no economic sanctions can draw the people or the party weak, and nothing will break them. It is the American administration’s ignorance that leads it to more mistakes and turns the table against it.
It was always a paradox: John Stuart Mill, in his seminal (1859), On Liberty, never doubted that a universal civilisation, grounded in liberal values, was the eventual destination of all of humankind. He looked forward to an ‘Exact Science of Human Nature’, which would formulate laws of psychology and society as precise and universal as those of the physical sciences. Yet, not only did that science never emerge, in today’s world, such social ‘laws’ are taken as strictly (western) cultural constructs, rather than as laws or science.
So, not only was the claim to universal civilisation not supported by evidence, but the very idea of humans sharing a common destination (‘End of Times’) is nothing more than an apocalyptic remnant of Latin Christianity, and of one minor current in Judaism. Mill’s was always a matter of secularized religion – faith – rather than empiricism. A shared human ‘destination’ does not exist in Orthodox Christianity, Taoism or Buddhism. It could never therefore qualify as universal.
Liberal core tenets of individual autonomy, freedom, industry, free trade and commerce essentially reflected the triumph of the Protestant worldview in Europe’s 30-years’ civil war. It was not fully even a Christian view, but more a Protestant one.
This narrow, sectarian pillar was able to be projected into a universal project – only so long as it was underpinned by power. In Mill’s day, the civilisational claim served Europe’s need for colonial validation. Mill tacitly acknowledges this when he validates the clearing of the indigenous American populations for not having tamed the wilderness, nor made the land productive.
However, with America’s Cold War triumph – that had by then become a cynical framework for U.S. ‘soft power’ – acquired a new potency. The merits of America’s culture, and way of life, seemed to acquire practical validation through the implosion of the USSR.
But today, with America’s soft power collapsed – not even the illusionof universalism can be sustained. Other states are coming forward, offering themselves as separate, equally compelling ‘civilisational’ states. It is clear that even were the classic liberal Establishment to win in the November U.S. elections, America no longer has claim to path-find a New World Order.
Yet, should this secularised Protestant current be over – beware! Because its subterranean, unconscious religiosity is the ‘ghost at the table’ today. It is returning in a new guise.
The ‘old illusion’ cannot continue, because its core values are being radicalised, stood on their head, and turned into the swords with which to impale classic American and European liberals (and U.S. Christian Conservatives). It is now the younger generation of American woke liberals who are asserting vociferously not merely that the old liberal paradigm is illusory, but that it was never more than ‘a cover’ hiding oppression – whether domestic, or colonial, racist or imperial; a moral stain that only redemption can cleanse.
It is an attack – which coming from within – forecloses on any U.S. moral, soft power, global leadership aspirations. For with the illusion exploded, and nothing in its place, a New World Order cannot coherently be formulated.
Not content with exposing the illusion, the woke generation are also tearing down, and shredding, the flags at the masthead: Freedom and prosperity achieved via the liberal market.
‘Freedom’ is being torn down from within. Dissidents from the woke ideology, are being ‘called out’, made to repent on the knee, or face reputational or economic ruin. It is ‘soft totalitarianism’. It recalls one of Dostoevsky’s characters – at a time when Russian progressives were discrediting traditional institutions – who, in a celebrated line, says: “I got entangled in my data … Starting from unlimited freedom, I conclude with unlimited despotism”.
Even ‘science’ has become a ‘God that failed’; instead of being the path to liberty, it has become a dark soulless path toward unfreedom. From algorithms that ‘cost’ the value of human lives, versus the ‘costing’ of lockdown; from secret ‘Black Box’ algos that limit distribution of news and thinking, to Bill Gates’ vaccination ID project, science now portends despotic social control, rather than a fluttering standard, hoist as the symbol of freedom.
But the most prominent of these flags, torn down, cannot be blamed on the woke generation. There has been no ‘prosperity for all’ – only distortions and warped structures. There are not even free markets. The Fed and the U.S. Treasury simply print new money, and hand it out to select recipients. There is no means now to attribute ‘worth’ to financial assets. Their value simply is that which Central Government is willing to pay for bonds, or grant in bail-outs.
Wow. ‘The God who failed’ (André Gide’s book title) – a crash of idols. One wonders now, what is the point to that huge financial eco-system known as Wall Street. Why not winnow it down to a couple of entities, say, Blackrock and KKR (hedge funds), and leave it to them to distribute the Fed’s freshly-printed ‘boodle’ amongst friends? Liberal markets no more – and many fewer jobs.
“Today, America’s tumbrils are clattering about, carrying toppled statues, ruined careers, unwoke brands. Over their sides peer those deemed racist by left-wing identitarians and sentenced to cancelation, even as the evidentiary standard for that crime falls through the floor … But who are these cultural revolutionaries? The conventional wisdom goes that this is the inner-cities erupting, economically disadvantaged victims of racism enraged over the murder of George Floyd. The reality is something more … bourgeoisie. As Kevin Williamson observed last week, “These are the idiot children of the American ruling class, toy radicals and Champagne Bolsheviks, playing Jacobin for a while, until they go back to graduate school”.
Is that so? I well recall listening in the Middle East to other angry young men who, too, wanted to ‘topple the statues’; to burn down everything. ‘You really believed that Washington would allow you … in’, they taunted and tortured their leaders: “No, we must burn it all down. Start from scratch”.
Did they have a blueprint for the future? No. They simply believed that Islam would organically inflate, and expand to fill the void. It would happen by itself – of its own accord: Faith.
Professor John Gray has noted “that in The God that failed, Gide says: ‘My faith in communism is like my faith in religion. It is a promise of salvation for mankind’’. “Here Gide acknowledged”, Gray continues, “that communism was an atheist version of monotheism. But so is liberalism, and when Gide and others gave up faith in communism to become liberals, they were not renouncing the concepts and values that both ideologies had inherited from western religion. They continued to believe that history was a directional process in which humankind was advancing towards universal freedom”.
So too with the wokes. The emphasis is on Redemption; on a Truth catharsis; on their own Virtue as sufficient agency to stand-in for the lack of plan for the future. All are clear signals: A secularised ‘illusion’ is metamorphosing back into ‘religion’. Not as Islam, of course, but as angry Man, burning at the deep and dark moral stain of the past. And acting now as purifying ‘fire’ to bring about the uplifting and shining future ahead.
Tucker Carlson, a leading American conservative commentator known for plain speaking, frames the movement a little differently: “This is not a momentary civil disturbance. This is a serious, and highly organized political movement … It is deep and profound and has vast political ambitions. It is insidious, it will grow. Its goal is to end liberal democracy and challenge western civilization itself … We’re too literal and good-hearted to understand what’s happening … We have no idea what we are up against … These are not protests. This is a totalitarian political movement”.
Again, nothing needs to be done by this new generation to bring into being a new world, apart from destroying the old one. This vision is a relic – albeit secularised – of western Christianity. Apocalypse and redemption, these wokes believe, have their own path; their own internal logic.
Mill’s ‘ghost’ is arrived at the table. And with its return, America’s exceptionalism has its re-birth. Redemption for humankind’s dark stains. A narrative in which the history of mankind is reduced to the history of racial struggle. Yet Americans, young or old, now lack the power to project it as a universal vision.
‘Virtue’, however deeply felt, on its own, is insufficient. Might President Trump try nevertheless to sustain the old illusion by hard power? The U.S. is deeply fractured and dysfunctional – but if desperate, this is possible.
The “toy radicals, and Champagne Bolsheviks” – in these terms of dripping disdain from Williamson – are very similar to those who rushed into the streets in 1917. But before dismissing them so peremptorily and lightly, recall what occurred.
Into that combustible mass of youth – so acultured by their progressive parents to see a Russian past that was imperfect and darkly stained – a Trotsky and Lenin were inserted. And Stalin ensued. No ‘toy radicals’. Soft became hard totalitarianism.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered EU envoy Isabel Brilhante Pedrosato to leave within 72 hours after the EU sanctioned a group of Venezuelan officials.
“I have decided to give the European Union ambassador 72 hours to leave the country,” Maduro said in a televised address, also noting that Pedrosato will be allowed to use a plane to leave the country.
“Enough of European colonialism against Venezuela,” Maduro added.
Maduro’s order comes hours after the Council of the European Union on Monday sanctioned 11 additional Venezuelan officials, including parliamentarians, a magistrate and a senior military chief, for acting against the National Assembly, which is dominated by the opposition, Reuters reported. The individuals sanctioned are recognized by the Maduro government but not by the members of the Assembly.
The sanctions include a travel ban and an asset freeze. So far, 36 Venezuelan officials linked to the Maduro government face sanctions.
According to the Council, the 11 newly-sanctioned individuals “are particularly responsible for acting against the democratic functioning of the National Assembly, including stripping the parliamentary immunity of several of its members,” Reuters reported. The Council also accused the individuals of “creating obstacles to a political and democratic solution to the crisis in Venezuela.”
The United States itself has imposed numerous rounds of sanctions against Venezuela in response to the political developments in the country. On January 23, 2019, opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself Venezuela’s interim president, denouncing Maduro’s government as undemocratic and calling for Maduro’s ouster. Since then, several failed attempts have been made to remove Maduro from power.
Last year, the US also imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil and natural gas company PDVSA. Recently, the Trump administration sanctioned three Mexico-based individuals for selling crude oil from Venezuela.
“The illegitimate Maduro regime created a secret network to evade sanctions, which Treasury has now exposed,” US Deputy Secretary Justin G. Muzinich said in a statement at the time. “The United States will continue to relentlessly pursue sanctions evaders, who plunder Venezuela’s resources for personal gain at the expense of the Venezuelan people.”
Last Wednesday, Washington also imposed sanctions on the captains of five Iranian tankers over oil deliveries to Venezuela.
“Today, the United States is sanctioning five Iranian ship captains who delivered around 1.5 million barrels of Iranian gasoline to Venezuela in support of the illegitimate Maduro regime,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.
Maduro has repeatedly stated that the US is using sanctions to choke out his government and gain access to the country’s oil reserves, which are the largest in the world.
“Let’s not allow a Vietnam in Latin America,” Maduro said last year, warning against the dangers of US intervention.”If the United States intends to intervene here, they will have a Vietnam worse than what they can imagine. Let’s not allow violence.”
Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Majid Takht Ravanchi said the US will hear once again the world supporting the July 2015 nuclear deal at the UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday.
Ravanchi made the remarks in an interview held in New York, US, with IRNA on Tuesday.
In his remarks, the ambassador underlined that the US effort to extend arms embargo against Iran is in complete contradiction with the UN Resolution 2231.
Resolution 2231 [2015] urges full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] on the timetable set by the Deal and sets forth the next steps for the eventual removal of Security Council sanctions on Iran.
The international community is after implementation of the JCPOA and following the Resolution 2231, the ambassador stressed, adding that the UN chief and many world leaders have repeatedly expressed their willingness to witness the implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal.
Such willingness indicates that the world is against the US stance on the issue, the senior diplomat noted.
Iran and the six world powers- US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany- signed a landmark nuclear agreement, aka JCPOA, on July 14, 2015, after months of intensive talks.
But the US withdrew unilaterally from the deal on May 8, 2018, and imposed sanctions on Iran at the highest level of its kind.
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