[K-Dog]

What sort of article do you expect from a cultural insider?  The 'system is in peril'.

What system is that?  The one they like?

Any article that screams about democracy is not worth a read.  This author screams about democracy but he belives in 'Shock and Awe^*'.  America does not have democracy.  Any American who has had a website that does not concern itself with 'god' or stamp collecting with any political bent at all is under 24-7 surveillance.  Things get taken down when the powers that be do not like what you say.  Free speech.  Forgettaboutit.  It has happened here four times.  Is that democracy?

I do not think so.

More insidious is the shadow banning phenomena in all it's many variations.  A person can think they have an audience when they do not.  As an example, there are so many surveillance bots watching this website that I could imagine we have an audience and that someone could find us on Google.  If I did not know better.  Democracy my ass.  America is Fascism Lite.  Like a beer.  Same great oppression, but far less obvious.  The main page has been 'cleaned' three times and the Diner has been 'cleaned' once since it started being hosted here.

Democracy actually has a definition and America ain't it.

Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."

This explicitly mandates a republican form of governance.  Congress is comprised of the House of Representatives and the Senate, both of which are elected by the people. (Article I).  The president is elected indirectly through the electoral college to make sure the faux vote does not pick the wrong guy.

Who really votes?  In America money votes, people don't.  Advertisement buys votes sans serious debate, discussion or edification of any political position.  An 'attack on democracy'  does not mean shit.  It is like TDOS showing up to claim Ugo Bardi said something on facepalm a few years ago which he half remembers, but damn?  He can't find it when asked. 

Find me some democracy please.  I have looked high and low.  I do not see any.

Money runs everything.  People are complaining about democracy because the wealth gap grows and 'their money' does not have as much say as it used to have now that huge corporations and billionaires have bank accounts guaranteed by god big enough to buy any American politician they want to buy.  So it seems.  An article author who rants about democracy in America rants about sour grapes that they can't have because the idea that America has any democracy to lose in the first place is ludicrous.

This woman defines what American Democracy is.  Kill your opponent.  Dominate the other side.  Reaching a consensus is for wimps.  As long as I can remember it has not been different.  But cultural insiders prefer a narrative that compares America to an ancient Greek utopia.  It hides the reality of American imperialism.  Which they like.  They want to keep the evil side of things on the downlow.


^*Harlan Kenneth Ullman, is Chairman of the Killowen Group that advises leaders of government and business; Chairman of CNIGuard Ltd and CNIGuard Inc, engaged in protection of critical infrastructure; Senior Advisor of the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC; and active on a number of private boards. Wikipedia

A soldier of the BAU.

[RE]

Find me some democracy please.  I have looked high and low.  I do not see any.

The distinction and contrast made between the FSoA & NATO countries as having superior goobermint to Russia & China because the former are "democratic" while the latter are "autocratic" is ludicrous.  All 3 goobermints are Plutocracies.  In the FSoA the real power lies with the Billionaires & CEOs, in Russia with the Oligarchs who side with Putin and in China the elite top tier of the CCP.

The main difference is the FSoA President is merely a Puppet, while Putin and Xi actually have real power.  Both of those goobermints function better than almost all the so-called "democracies" of NATO.  I wouldn't say I agree with the direction of either China or Russia, but at least they have one.  The polarization of Western goobermints is so thorough now they are almost in total lockup and ineffectual at resolving any problem at all.  Pick any issue, and it's divided exactly in half and everything is Black or White with no shades of gray.

A soldier of the BAU.

Given the Think Tank he presides over, he's a bit more than a soldier.  More of a modern day Kissinger as a strategist.  I would liken the Killowen Group to the Tri-Lateral Commission.

RE

[TDoS]

It is like TDOS showing up to claim Ugo Bardi said something on facepalm a few years ago which he half remembers, but damn?  He can't find it when asked. 

I know more about it than you do. Because you weren't there. And compared to what you know about that conversation ( 0 ) I certainly know infinitely more (something divided by 0 is a number so big it has no meaning!).

I know more about that conversation than you do, because you know nothing. Making you as much an expert on a single conversation you weren't involved in as you are an expert on peak oil. Because an old oil man (not me) told you about rod lift systems one time.

I made this for you K-Dog, just to show how much YOU understand about peak oil (let alone my conversation with Ugo). HUBBERT GOT IT SO RIGHT!!!! AN OIL MAN IN OKLAHOMA TOLD ME SO ONCE!!!!

[K-Dog]

I made this for you K-Dog, just to show how much YOU understand about peak oil (let alone my conversation with Ugo).

A conversation now.  It has gone from a Facepalm post to a conversation.  Next it will be tea with sugar.  The graph you published is essentially correct regarding liquid petroleum, so why do you waste your time proving Hubbert correct.  I already know he is.  And I also know your endless droning on about fracked oil being the same thing as liquid petroleum shows monumental ignorance.  The economics is completely different.  It is a different product despite the end result smelling the same. 

As the supplicant to existing order and imperialist thought that you are, I do understand that you would see commodities as all being the same if they look, feel, and smell the same.  Forgetting as all capitalists do about the labor materials and history it takes to bring something to market.

In Hubbert's time the technology to extract fracked oil did not exist.  A huge infrastructure is needed to get fracked oil, and in the days of stick a pipe in the ground and it will gush that expertise did not exist despite what you say about dropping sticks of dynamite down drill pipes in 1880.  Given the right social disruption that tech will vanish.

That is one idea you find here and nowhere else.  The fragility of current arrangements is generally ignored.

[RE]

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last.

Julian is out of the clink, heading for a hearing in Saipan where he will plead guilty to 1 count of conspiracy and then supposedly head home to Oz.

Will he actually get home, and will we hear from him again?

https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/25/julian-assange-plea-deal-with-us-free-to-return-australia

RE