“When the pain of leaving behind what we know outweighs the pain of embracing it, or when the power we face is overwhelming and neither flight nor fight will save us, there may be salvation in sitting still. And if salvation is impossible, then at least before perishing we may gain a clearer vision of where we are. By sitting still I do not mean the paralysis of dread, like that of a rabbit frozen beneath the dive of a hawk. I mean something like reverence, a respectful waiting, a deep attentiveness to forces much greater than our own.”
- Scott Russell Sanders
Folks, I fear our time for such reverence is rapidly approaching.
"The precept: "Judge not, that ye be not judged" is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.The moral principle to adopt in this issue, is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged."
"China’s Incoming Collapse Is Worse Than You Think"
by Epic Economist
"The alarm bells are ringing louder and louder as China's economic crisis enters a defining phase. China's economic collapse is being fueled by the Mortgage crisis engulfing the housing market. But there are a lot of other factors causing this economic collapse.
The country's total public debt now exceeds 300 percent of GDP - 60 percent higher than the average across other countries. The debt-to-GDP ratio is growing at 11 percent per year. China's GDP though has grown far less than 11 percent annually during the past decade, so the debt is comfortably outpacing growth. To top it all off, China is fighting an unwinnable fight against the pandemic. All these issues and their impact on the global economy is explained here.
Debt: China's total public debt now exceeds 300 percent of GDP - 60 percent higher than the average across other countries. This debt-to-GDP ratio is growing at 11 percent per year. China’s GDP though has grown far less than 11 percent annually during the past decade, so the debt is comfortably outpacing growth.
The Housing Bubble: Ever since the 2008 recession, the Chinese stock market has remained stagnant so real estate has been the preferred investment sector for most Chinese people. Right now about 70 percent of household wealth is tied up with real estate. Evergrande is at the center of the crisis that is hurting China. The real estate giant owns 1300 projects in 280 Chinese Cities. But as Beijing started clamping down on borrowing, Evergrande lost access to Capital and most of its projects were stalled. The company started defaulting on its 300 billion dollar debt making it the most indebted company in the world.
China's collapse is hardly a cause for celebration for western powers. Back in 2008, it was China that bailed out the world economy with a 586 Billion dollar stimulus. But now we are in 2022 and the whole world, not just China, is at risk. China’s economy accounts for one-fifth of global GDP, and many countries thrive off trade with China.
2008 was a crisis of Mortgage, it was the crash of housing. But this is the Crash of Everything. There's a gas shock in Europe, interest rate hikes in the U.S, and a housing market crisis exacerbated by never-ending lockdowns in China. A combined effect of it all is a giant cloud of a global recession. The threat is big enough for a consensus that a cold winter is coming for consumers everywhere. China might be at the forefront but no one is safe."
Excerpt: “It’s possible to have more than one reserve currency.” These are the recent words of Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. It was a stunning admission from the one person with the most control over the US dollar - the world’s reserve currency. Reading between the lines, Powell’s remarks are a strong hint that the current international monetary system based on the US dollar is on its way out… and soon. Even the elites running this 50+ year old system can’t go along with the farce of maintaining it anymore.
That conclusion is not surprising; it’s the logical outcome once you put the pieces together to see the Big Picture. However, what is notable is the change in tone. For the first time, the financial establishment is now talking like this out in the open. That tells me a big change could be imminent. Although the elites would prefer to continue milking the current system, they realize it’s failing and the need to bridge the gap to a new system they hope to control.
Nobody knows what the next international monetary system will look like - not even the elites. However, they know what they want it to look like and are working hard to shape that outcome. Here’s the bottom line. The current monetary paradigm is ending, and we will enter a new one as the elites attempt to “reset” the system. We could see…
• A digital currency replace the US dollar.
• The end of paper currency.
• The birth of an Orwellian surveillance system that monitors and controls every penny you earn, save, and spend.
This is the elites’ desired outcome. Unfortunately, the pieces of such a system are already being put into place. The idea is to get it ready, so they can try to implement it when the current monetary system collapses - which could happen much sooner than most realize."
Civilization is fragile. It hinges on ensuring the stuff of life...
by Victor Davis Hanson
"To be able to eat, to move about, to have shelter, to be free from state or tribal coercion, to be secure abroad, and safe at home - only that allows cultures to be freed from the daily drudgery of mere survival. Civilization alone permits humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer aspects of culture. So, the great achievement of Western civilization - consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant self-critique and audit - was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, and an often-unforgiving nature.
But so often the resulting leisure and affluence instead deluded arrogant Western societies into thinking that modern man no longer needed to worry about the fruits of civilization he took to be his elemental birthright. As a result, the once prosperous Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies of the 1930s imploded - as civilization went headlong in reverse. We in the modern Western world are now facing just such a crisis.
We talk grandly about the globalized Great Reset. We blindly accept the faddish New Green Deal. We virtue signal about defunding the police. We merely shrug at open borders. And we brag about banning fertilizers and pesticides, outlawing the internal combustion engine, and discounting Armageddon in the nuclear age - as if on autopilot we have already reached utopia. But meanwhile Westerners are systematically destroying the very elements of our civilization that permitted such fantasies in the first place.
Take fuel. Europeans arrogantly lectured the world that they no longer need traditional fuels. So, they shut down nuclear power plants. They stopped drilling for oil and gas. And they banned coal. What followed was a dystopian nightmare. Europeans will burn dirty wood this winter as their civilization reverts from postmodern abundance to premodern survival.
The Biden administration ossified oil fields. It canceled new federal oil and gas leases. It stopped pipeline construction and hectored investors to shun fossil fuels. When scarcity naturally followed, fuel prices soared.
The middle class has now mortgaged its upward mobility to ensure that they might afford gasoline, heating oil, and skyrocketing electricity.
The duty of the Pentagon is to keep America safe by deterring enemies, reassuring allies, and winning over neutrals. It is not to hector soldiers based on their race. It is not to indoctrinate recruits in the woke agenda. It is not to become a partisan political force. The result of those suicidal Pentagon detours is the fiasco in Afghanistan, the aggression of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the new bellicosity of China, and the loud threats of rogue regimes like Iran.
At home, the Biden administration inexplicably destroyed the southern border, as if civilized nations of the past never needed such boundaries. Utter chaos followed. Three million migrants have poured into the United States. While some cross over clandestinely, others clear border stations without an adequate audit, and largely without skills, high-school diplomas, or capital.
The streets of our cities are anarchical - and by intent. Defunding the police, emptying the jails, and destroying the criminal justice system unleashed a wave of criminals. It is now open season on the weak and innocent. America is racing backwards into the 19th-century Wild West. Predators maim, kill, and rob with impunity. Felons correctly conclude that bankrupt postmodern “critical legal theory” will ensure them exemption from punishment.
Few Americans know anything about agriculture, except to expect limitless supplies of inexpensive, safe, and nutritious food at their beck and call. But that entitlement for 330 million hungry mouths requires massive water projects, and new dams and reservoirs. Farmers rely on steady supplies of fertilizer, fuels, and chemicals. Take away that support - as green nihilists are attempting - and millions will soon go hungry, as they have since the dawn of civilization.
Perhaps nearly a million homeless now live on the streets of America. Our major cities have turned medieval with their open sewers, garbage-strewn sidewalks, and violent vagrants.
So, we are in a great experiment in which regressive progressivism discounts all the institutions, and the methodologies of the past that have guaranteed a safe, affluent, well-fed, and sheltered America. Instead, we arrogantly are reverting to a new feudalism as the wealthy elite - terrified of what they have wrought - selfishly retreat to their private keeps.
But the rest who suffer the consequences of elite flirtations with nihilism cannot even afford food, shelter, and fuel. And they now feel unsafe, both as individuals and as Americans. As we suffer self-inflicted mass looting, random street violence, hyperinflation, a nonexistent border, unaffordable fuel, and a collapsing military, Americans will come to appreciate just how thin is the veneer of their civilization. When stripped away, we are relearning that what lies just beneath is utterly terrifying."
“Follow the handle of the Big Dipper away from the dipper's bowl, until you get to the handle's last bright star. Then, just slide your telescope a little south and west and you might find this stunning pair of interacting galaxies, the 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog.
Perhaps the original spiral nebula, the large galaxy with well defined spiral structure is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (left), NGC 5195. The pair are about 31 million light-years distant and officially lie within the angular boundaries of the small constellation Canes Venatici. Though M51 looks faint and fuzzy to the human eye, the above long-exposure, deep-field image taken earlier this year shows much of the faint complexity that actually surrounds the smaller galaxy. Thousands of the faint dots in background of the featured image are actually galaxies far across the universe.”
"Poor Calvin is overwhelmed with the vastness of the cosmos and no small dose of existential angst. He is not the first, of course. Most famously the 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal wailed his own despair: "I feel engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing and which know nothing of me. I am terrified...The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me."
And he didn't know the half of it. Not so long ago we imagined ourselves to be the be-all and end-all of creation, at the center of a cosmos made expressly for us and at the pinnacle of the material Great Chain of Being. Then it turned out that the Earth was not the center of the cosmos. Nor the Sun. Nor the Galaxy. The astronomers Sebastian von Hoerner and Carl Sagan raised this experience to the level of a principle -- the Principle of Mediocrity -- which can be stated something like this: The view from here is about the same as the view from anywhere else. Or to put it another way: Our star, our planet, the life on it, and even our own intelligence, are completely mediocre.
Moon rocks are just like Earth rocks. Photographs of the surface of Mars made by the landers and rovers could as well have been made in Nevada. Meteorites contain some of the same organic compounds that are the basis for terrestrial life. Gas clouds in the space between the stars are composed of precisely the same atoms and molecules that we find in our own backyard. The most distant galaxies betray in their spectra the presence of familiar elements.
And yet, and yet, for all we know, our brains are the most complex things in the universe. Are we then living, breathing refutations of the Principle of Mediocrity? I doubt it. For the time being, Calvin will just have to get used to living in the infinite abyss and eternal silence. He has Hobbes. We have each other. And science. And poetry. And love."
"In a universe devoid of life, any life at all would be immensely meaningful. We ARE that meaning. "And what we see," says the poet Mary Oliver, "is the world that cannot cherish us, but which we cherish." As though life itself is the great, universal, unrequited love of all time. But there is even more to this. Deep mystery. We are the universe aware of itself. We let the miracle get lost in distractions. On a planet so rich with living companions, much of humanity sentences itself to solitary confinement. Late at night, I used to lie in my boat listening to radio calls from ships to families ashore. There was only one conversation, and it boils down to, "I love you and I miss you: come home safe." Connections make us individuals. Ironic, isn't it? The more connected, the more unique our life becomes…"
"Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth."
"This is not just happening to you. Regardless of where you live in the world banks are cutting off credit lines and limiting the cash that we can take out. Get ready for explosive increases and energy cost for your home between now and the end of the year."
"World War III: Things Just Went INSANE... Buckle Up!"
"North Korea launches largest mobile ICBM EVER; Saudis oil is destroyed- oil price to skyrocket; Biden gaff about sending troops; Russian launches mysterious satellite; some absolutely insane nuclear threats from the Kremlin; NATO draws a red line; Russia diverts attention, changes strategy; Russian generals are missing? Biden mulls first strike; WHAT?!"
“On the meridian of time there is no injustice: there is only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama. If at any moment anywhere one comes face to face with the absolute, that great sympathy which makes men like Gautama and Jesus seem divine freezes away; the monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured – disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui – in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.”
"Massive Central Bank Ponzi Creates Permanent Distortion"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Three-time, best-selling book author Nomi Prins says the reason why there is so much uncertainty and chaos in the global economy comes down to one simple theme, and that is a couple of decades of central bank money printing has created the biggest Ponzi scheme the world has ever seen. Prins explains, “The Fed and other central banks have created basically this idea, and put it into practice, whenever there is real crisis, however they deem it, they are going to print money, and a lot of money, and pushing this envelope forward on the back of a very artificial fabrication of money. That is the Ponzi scheme here. The Ponzi scheme is actually the money that is sloshing around and is somehow owed more to reality. That it is owed to actual profits, actual production, actual growth in the economy, which it isn’t.
Look at the way money gets printed as we saw and everybody woke up from the pandemic. Look at all the closures in the economy, and the economy still has not gotten back to where it was. It is still not stable. People are still facing economic angst, but the Fed created four and a half trillion dollars of money basically overnight. That’s a Ponzi scheme. That is something that is going to keep going whenever there is a crisis, and that is going to paper over the fact we are not actually healthy. That’s the definition of a Ponzi scheme when you always have new money coming in, and in this case, it’s new money being created by the central banks. It will replace any cracks, any faults, any problems that are emerging along the way. The Fed doubled its balance sheet and did not double the economy. That’s a Ponzi.”
Prins goes on to say, “We are not retiring $30 trillion in U.S. debt. We are not retiring $287 trillion in debt around the world. That is not happening. Yes, there are indications we could have a massive crash, but to me I think there is a treadmill that is spinning here that is going to keep spinning instead of completely crashing. That’s why I think there is going to be a lot of mini crashes, followed by mini rallies along the way. I don’t think we are in a period, which is why I call this a permanent distortion, where there is going to be a backing off of all the money that is being created. I don’t see one massive crash. I see massive turbulence, which is this permanent distortion. I don’t see an end point unless there is an external factor. There are things that are coupled with the instability we have in the markets relative to this money being printed, and if they come at the same time, yes, we could have a massive crash, we absolutely could.”
Meanwhile, in the real economy, the struggles for common people will continue to get worse. Prins says, “Right now, about 20 million families in the United States are behind by one or more payments on their electric bill because they cannot afford them at these levels relative to rent and food and all these other things that are going up. 20% of Americans are using their credit cards now to pay their utility bills, and they are starting to get behind on those credit cards for which rates have gone up. So, we are in this situation where all these problems are happening at the same time for most real people in the real economy. Raising interest rates so quickly is hurting people way more than people leveraged in the markets.”
Prins’ advice for common people is to stay away from debt, buy gold, silver and other metals, and hold on to some cash. Prins says, “I do think the dollar will weaken from its high levels, but I think it is going to strengthen first. When we get to the Fed three-part pivot (smaller rate increases, followed by neutral policy and then more money printing), we are going to see a weakening of the dollar.” There is much more in the 55-minute interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with three-time, best-selling author Nomi Prins to talk about her upcoming book called “Permanent Distortion,” as she explains why there is no going back to the way things were.
"In today's vlog we are at Big Lots, and are noticing lots of empty grocery shelves! This is not good as we are seeing massive price increases, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products! "
"There was a time when normal Americans thought about how to survive a nuclear exchange with the Russians. During the Cold War, this seemed like a real prospect, so there was a reason to think about it. Into the 1960’s school kids had to do the hide under the desk thing, which was mostly about conditioning people to accept permanent war, but it conditioned people to the idea of being nuked. How to make it through a nuclear war became something of an industry.
There were two schools of thought on the subject back then. One said that any hint of a nuclear attack by either side would result in a mag dump by both sides. The United States and the Soviet Union were in a prisoner’s dilemma. If either side showed restraint, then they risked the other side striking first and possibly making it impossible to retaliate, so logic said to send all of your missiles first. Both sides accepted this logic which is why a system was put in place to prevent it.
From a survival perspective, such a scenario made the prospects for anyone living through it extremely low. The arsenals at the time were larger than today and the assumption was they could wipe out all life on the planet. The initial blasts would kill most people, but the fallout and nuclear winter would kill the rest. Even if people survived somehow, the numbers would be tiny. There was simply no point in preparing for what would be instant death for almost everyone.
The other school of thought was more optimistic. War would escalate with an initial exchange that might not lead to a mag dump. Even if the will were there to send all the missiles, many people would refuse to push the button. The disruption from the initial strikes would also render communications useless. The example of Vasili Arkhipov seemed like proof that a full scale exchange was unlikely. That meant it was possible to survive a nuclear war if you were prepared.
Today, that last scenario is more plausible. Nuclear arsenals are much smaller than during the Cold War. No one is really sure that the antique systems on which these weapons rely would work under stress. The American ICBM system still relies upon 1970’s technology. The Russian systems are similarly antiquated. The most likely scenario is that the major powers are no longer functional after a nuclear exchange, so lots of people survive the event.
The first step in surviving a nuclear war is to avoid a direct hit. Washington DC will get several direct hits and the initial flash will vaporize most of the population. The shock wave will level most of the city. By now, the Russians and Chinese know to target Northern Virginia, so it will be a saturation bombing. The five percent that survive the initial blast will be radiated and die soon thereafter. Therefore, the first rule of nuke club is to be outside the target zone.
The safe bet is to be away from the coasts. The Rockies or Appalachia are the best bet for making it through the first stage. Denver will be nuked, for sure, but the damage will be contained to that plateau. People in the mountains will escape the flash and the blast, even if Denver takes multiple strikes. The Green Briar will get hit, for old times sake, but most of West Virginia will be spared. There are lots of places to escape the flash and the blast in the mountains.
Once things settle after the final missile strikes, there will be four key things to surviving the aftermath. You will need water, shelter, food and a way to defend yourself from the people who were not prepared. Imagine a land ravaged by mask wearing Covidians and you get the picture. You will have to be prepared to kill a lot of people in order to avoid ending up like them. This means you need to pick a spot that has access to water, a food source and is defendable.
Since a post-nuclear America is going to look like the frontier as far as you are concerned, you are going to need frontier skills. You will need to know how to make a fire, provide yourself basic medical care and know how to hunt and fish. If your location is near a river, then you can initially get by with fishing and water from the river, but you have to boil the water and cook the fish. The ability to make fire without modern items like a lighter or matches is essential.
Once you have sorted the location and provided yourself with the frontier skills required to live in the wild, you need to think about the defense issue. A man alone is easy prey, even to desperate city people roaming the countryside. It would be better to have a tribe that can work together for common defense. That means you either need the skills to create a tribe from who is left or you have to create a tribe now. One way or the other, survival will depend upon community.
This basic framework of preparedness is just scratching the surface, but it does provide the basis for building a survival plan. For example, you will not want modern firearms for defense in the post-nuclear world. Making your own gunpowder for modern ammunition is not realistic. You can make black powder from raw materials. That means the old fashioned muzzleloader is a good weapon to own and master. Of course, older range weapons like spears and bows are an option.
The same applies to tools. Creating your own electric for powering modern tools is possible, but not very practical. If you assume society takes generations to bounce back from the holocaust, then it makes no sense to rely upon modern tools. They will break and you will not be able to fix them. The same would apply to vehicles. Old cars need gasoline and lubricants. Even if you stock those, they will run out eventually and your vehicles become lawn ornaments.
This is why forming communities in advance of the holocaust is critical. You can plan for the two general scenarios. The first scenario is the world steps back to the pre-industrial age and does not bounce back. The other scenario is the people responsible manage to survive and quickly set about recreating the modern world by bringing things like the power grid on-line. Do you want to play a role in that rebuilding or do you want to seek vengeance on them?
Community building in advance lets you wargame these issues. It also makes survival much more likely. No one man can know everything or prepare for everything, so having help increases your odds of survival dramatically. It also provides the means for surviving what comes after the initial devastation. In a post-nuclear world, tribalism will be the key to survival, which means the best tribe wins. Of course, that is also why the world was blown up, but that is a story for another day."
"I am a composer from Norway and I started this channel with a simple vision: to create a place that you can visit whenever you want to sit down and relax. I compose music that can be labeled as for example: sleep music, calm music, yoga music, study music, peaceful music, beautiful music and relaxing music. I love to compose music and I put a lot of work into it.
Thank you very much for listening and for leaving feedback. Every single day I am completely astonished by all your warm support and it really inspires me to work even harder on my music. If you enjoy my work, I would be very happy if you decided to subscribe and join our community. Have a wonderful day or evening!"
- Peder B. Helland, composer for Soothing Relaxation
“These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.
The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid.”
“There is a concept in physics called angle of repose. Set an object, a book say, on a plank. Now slowly tip up one end of the plank until the moment when the book just starts to slide. The angle between the plank and the horizontal is the angle of repose, where the component of the gravitational force down the plank becomes greater than the maximum friction force holding the book at rest. Or, in more evocative terms - as I write I am lying on the couch with the laptop in my lap, in perfect repose. If you started tipping up the couch, at some point I'd go sliding into a heap at the bottom. That's the angle of repose, or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it the angle of the end of repose.
This comes to mind because I just spent fifteen minutes on my knees in the yard watching ants excavate a nest in the ground. One by one they scurry out of the hole carrying a tiny grain of sand, which they dump in a ring around the hole. A circular pile. Now if the ants just dumped their burdens at the mouth of the hole, pretty soon the pile would get so steep that the sand grains would slide back into the hole. Instead, the circular ring gets higher and wider, with a slope that never exceeds the angle at which the grains will slip - the angle of repose. Now here's the thing: the ants almost invariably carry their grain to just beyond the top of the pile. If the grain slips, it will slide away from the hole. These tiny ants, hardly bigger than sand grains themselves, understand a little physics in their mysterious instinctive way.
Wallace Stegner has a novel titled "Angle of Repose." It is indeed an evocative phrase. In a job, in a relationship, in life itself, many of us instinctively seek that maximum degree of individual gratification that will satisfy emotional needs without doing violence to our essential repose, and that of those around us - the art of walking close to the edge, the thrill without the spill. Every day in the news we hear of folks - politicians or celebrities - who tipped the plank too far, whose lives went sliding into self-destruction, who failed to grasp, metaphorically speaking, something that a tiny ant instinctively understands.”
“How vast those Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our Navigations, and all our Wars are transacted, is when compared to them. A very fit consideration, and matter of Reflection, for those Kings and Princes who sacrifice the Lives of so many People, only to flatter their Ambition in being Masters of some pitiful corner of this small Spot.”
"We are at the Pacific Airshow in Huntington Beach California. The banks are going to the mattresses. There is going to be old school fighting it out for survival at our expense. It’s going to be cutthroat and we’re going to be the victims of all this."
"Does A 1904 Geopolitical Theory Explain The War In Ukraine?"
by John Wilder
"When I look at the war in Ukraine and other world events, I see evidence of Sir Halford John Mackinder. It would have been cool if he was the frontman for a 1910s version of Judas Priest, but no. Mackinder was a guy who thought long and hard about mountains, deserts, oceans, steppes, and wars. You could tell Mackinder was going to be good at geography, what with that latitude. The result of all this pondering was what he called the Heartland Theory, which was the founding moment for geopolitics.
What’s geopolitics? It’s the idea that one of the biggest influencers in human history (besides being human) was the geography we inhabit. Mackinder’s first version wasn’t very helpful, since he just ended up with “Indonesia” and the rest of the world, which he called “Outdonesia”.
Mackinder focused mainly on the Eurasian continent. Flat land with no obstacles meant, in Mackinder’s mind, that the land would be eventually ruled by a single power. Jungles and swamps could be a barrier, but eventually he thought that technology would solve that. Mountains? Mountains were obstacles that stopped invasions, and allowed cultures to develop independently. Even better than a mountain? An island.
There’s even a theory (not Mackinder’s) that the independent focus on freedom flourished in England because the local farmers weren’t (after the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Mormons, and Vikings were done pillaging) subject to invasion and were able to develop a culture based on a government with limited powers, along with rights invested in every man.
Mackinder went further, though. He saw the combination of Eurasia and Africa as something he called the World Island. If the World Island came under the domination of a single power, he thought, it would eventually rule the rest of the world – it would have overwhelming resources and population, and it would have the ability to outproduce (both economically and militarily) everything else. “Pivot Area” is what Mackinder first called the Heartland.
Mackinder, being English, had seen the Great Game in the 1900s, which in many cases was a fight to keep Russia landlocked. The rest of Europe feared a Russia that had access to the sea. Conversely, Russia itself was the Heartland of the Mackinder’s World Island. Russia was separated and protected on most of its borders by mountains and deserts. On the north, Russia was protected by the Arctic Ocean, which is generally more inaccessible than most of Joe Biden’s recent memories.
Russia is still essentially landlocked. The Soviet Navy had some nice submarines, but outside of that, the Russians have never been a naval power, and the times Russia attempted to make a navy have been so tragically inept that well, let me give an example: The sea Battle of Tsushima between the Japanese and Russians in 1905 was a Japanese victory. The Japanese lost 117 dead, 583 wounded, and lost 3 torpedo boats. The Russians? They lost 5,045 dead, 803 injured, 6,016 captured, 6 battleships sunk, 2 battleships captured. The Russians sank 450 ton of the Japanese Navy. The Japanese sunk 126,792 tons of the Russian fleet. Yup. This was more lopsided than a fight between a poodle and a porkchop.
Mackinder noted that the Heartland (Russia) was built on land power. The Rimlands (or, on the map “Inner Crescent”) were built on sea power. In the end, almost all of the twentieth century was built on keeping Russia away from the ocean, and fighting over Eastern Europe. Why? In Mackinder’s mind, “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland (Russia); Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.” In one sense, it’s true.
Mackinder finally in 1943 came up with another idea, his first idea being lonely. I think he could see the way World War II was going to end, so he came up with the idea that if the United States were to team up with Western Europe, they could still command the Rimlands and contain the Soviet Union to the Heartland.
There are several reasons that the United States has responded with such an amazing amount of aid to Ukraine. $60 billion dollars? Some people don’t work a whole year and get that much money. No, the idea is to bleed Putin as deeply and completely as they can. Why? If they’re following Mackinder, this keeps Russia vulnerable. It keeps Eastern Europe from being under Russia’s control – if you count the number of “Battles of Kiev” or “Battles of Kharkov” you can see that it’s statistically more likely to rain artillery in Kiev than rain water.
This might be the major driver for Russia, too. A Russian-aligned (or at least neutral) Ukraine nicely plugs the Russian southern flank. And this is nearly the last year that Russia can make this attempt – the younger generation isn’t very big, and the older generation that built and can run all of the cool Soviet tech? They’re dying off. Soon all their engineers with relevant weapons manufacturing experience will be...dead. If Russia is going to attempt to secure the south, this is their only shot. Depending on how vulnerable the Russians think they are, the harder they’ll fight. NATO nations tossing in weapons isn’t helping the famous Russian paranoia.
I think that the United States, in getting cozy with China in the 1970s, was following along with Mackinder’s theory – I believe Mackinder himself said that a Chinese-Russian alliance could effectively control the Heartland and split the Rimland, given China’s access to the oceans. And that’s what China is doing now, with the Belt and Road Initiative. Remember Mackinder’s World Island? Here’s a map of the countries participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative:
"Halford Mackinder, Heartland Theory and Geographical Pivot 1"
by Geopoliticus
"In this presentation we discuss the theory for Geographic Causation in Universal History proposed by Sir Halford Mackinder in his paper - "The Geographic Pivot of History" delivered as a lecture in 1904. The theoretical propositions in the paper regarding how natural geography controls the flow of history of civilizations - with nature acting as a stage for man to act upon - was the most relevant contribution of Halford Mackinder towards developing a philosophic synthesis between geography, history and statesmanship, leading to the development of modern geopolitics.
In this part we see how he proposes the beginning of a new era in the international system from the 1900s, predicts (in a way) the break out of the First World War, and builds a unified model based on Geo-history for understanding the emergence and evolution of European civilization."
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Full screen recommended.
"Halford Mackinder, Heartland Theory and Geographical Pivot 2"
by Geopoliticus
"In this presentation we view Mackinder’s historical analysts by looking at the interactions between different Geographic zones, seeing how the Mongols used land power to unify the core of the World Island and how Europeans circumvented nomadic heartland power by investing in sea power. The core idea of Halford Mackinder’s Thesis was that in the beginning of the 20th century, geographers needed to develop a philosophical synthesis of geographical conditions and historical trajectories of nations over long ranges of time.
He attempted to do this for the history of Eurasia, which he called, the World Island. According to his theoretical model, there was a link between geographical conditions and the nature of geopolitical order, for one, but for further depth in understanding historical trajectories we need to do a wider scale analysis of interactions between different geographically influenced political orders by building a model of Heartland-Rimland interactions across history."
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Freely download "The Geographical Pivot of History",
Why is this important? Consider history, from which we learn nothing...
"The earliest evidence of prehistoric warfare is a Mesolithic cemetery in Jebel Sahaba, which has been determined to be approximately 14,000 years old. About forty-five percent of the skeletons there displayed signs of violent death. Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. According to Conway W. Henderson, "One source claims that 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace." An unfavorable review of this estimate mentions the following regarding one of the proponents of this estimate: "In addition, perhaps feeling that the war casualties figure was improbably high, he changed 'approximately 3,640,000,000 human beings have been killed by war or the diseases produced by war' to 'approximately 1,240,000,000 human beings.'"
The lower figure is more plausible, but could still be on the high side considering that the 100 deadliest acts of mass violence between 480 BC and 2002 AD (wars and other man-made disasters with at least 300,000 and up to 66 million victims) claimed about 455 million human lives in total. Primitive warfare is estimated to have accounted for 15.1% of deaths and claimed 400 million victims. Added to the aforementioned figure of 1,240 million between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, this would mean a total of 1,640,000,000 people killed by war (including deaths from famine and disease caused by war) throughout the history and pre-history of mankind. For comparison, an estimated 1,680,000,000 people died from infectious diseases in the 20th century."
“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.”
- Plato
"The War in Europe presents a plethora of moral dilemmas. The most pressing issue for everyday Americans is the lack of energy coming out of Russia. Mackinder called it “the Heartland” for a reason… Russia as a landmass alone presents itself as extremely rich in resources, and most literally pumps them into Western European countries. The United States only accounts for 4.2% of the world’s population. But we act like we own all the resources on the planet. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has engaged everyone who eats food or burns fossil fuels.
Let’s let President Biden take that bait. The big question, according to Foreign Policy magazine, is whether the Energy Crisis ends up undermining support for Ukraine. In a piece titled “Putin’s Energy War is Crushing Europe,” reporter Christina Lu writes: "Germany is now reportedly moving to nationalize three major gas giants – Uniper, VNG and SEFE – in a historic intervention that would help rescue them from the brink. Mounting economic losses have “brought these companies financially to their knees,” Alex Munton, an expert on global gas markets at Rapidan Energy Group said. Without relief, he added, “At some point, things do reach a breaking point, and that’s sort of where we’ve got to.”
You could potentially have a situation where citizens become really unhappy and they start to blame governments for it, and maybe governments will start to go their own way and look out for their own interests.
Another article accuses: “You have no idea how bad Europe’s energy crisis is.” We beg to differ. After much proselytizing on the part of the EU, the harsh reality of a coming “Nightmare Winter” is revealing that the EU spread themselves too thin with their promises of going green. We agreed with this week’s guest on The Wiggin Sessions, Nomi Prins, that “you can’t simply flip a switch and go from dirty energy to green.” The technology is not there. The resources are not there. And winter is fast approaching.
The fear of war and famine and the cold of winter are proving more powerful than people can handle, and forcing us to reckon with ourselves. So it goes..."
"Wealthy 73-year-old U.S. entrepreneur retreats to one of his three European properties to issue serious warning (and 4 recommendations) for Americans. "It falls on someone like me to warn you clearly. I'm too rich to care about money - and too old to care what anyone thinks." Click here for details...
Excerpt: "With the ink drying on the official annexation declarations newly signed by the heads of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in Friday's historic ceremony - the key takeaway from President Putin's lengthy speech is that he declared a "mission accomplished" of sorts. He said these eastern and southern provinces are now part of Russia "forever". He even touted that the referendums were accomplished in line with the UN charter on self-determination for all peoples, and vowed "They have made their choice... this is the only path to peace. We will protect our land using all our forces and we will protect their security. We will of course rebuild all destroyed towns and continue building hospitals, theaters, and schools."
Putin bluntly informed the large audience of top officials at Saint George's Hall at the Grand Kremlin Palace of Moscow that there are now "four new regions of Russia" - a fait accompli that the Ukrainian government and its Western backers are rejecting, also on fresh reports that pro-Kremlin forces have suffered more setbacks in Donetsk in particular. Earlier in the week Moscow acknowledged that its "special operation" will continue until at least all of Donetsk is captured. At this point, none of the entirety of each of the four regions are yet under total Russian military control, the overwhelming "yes" votes among citizens in favor of joining the Russian Federation notwithstanding.
This means Kiev is of course unlikely to accept Putin's essential assertion of we've taken the four territories, now let the negotiations begin [our paraphrase]. "We call on the Kyiv regime to immediately stop hostilities and sit at the negotiating table," Putin said.
Certainly Washington and London will seek to ensure Kiev isn't enticed by this - also as the weapons shipments continue to ramp up, with longer range missile systems in the pipeline to boot. As for the newly annexed territories, Putin made clear in his speech that we "won't negotiate the status of the annexed territories" and further that he "won't discuss" the now finalized results of the referendums. This follows Crimea having long been taken off the table since its own popular referendum and annexation in 2014."
