It Is Not Going To Make A Difference.
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/11/it-is-not-going-to-make-difference.html
Putin Skewers Us Ineptitude
https://popularresistance.org/putin-skewers-us-ineptitude/
Self-Destructive Social Habits, Loneliness, and Propaganda
https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/11/self-destructive-social-habits-loneliness-and-propaganda/
Scandinavia is already cold enough, they really don’t need a new Cold War. And most certainly not against Russia.[A different take on Lula’s win. WB]
As I write this, the progressive Lula (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) has very narrowly won the election for the Brazilian presidency, with the current right-wing President Bolsonaro losing. This is good news for the Amazon rainforest, and probably the poorer members of Brazilian society as they will benefit from small government income transfers. However, I am careful to call Lula progressive rather than left-wing. After being beaten three times by candidates of the elite in presidential elections, with the elite using all the tools available to it (state patrimony, the reactionary Evangelical and Catholic churches, the oligarch-owned media etc.) to win, Lula became a Blair-style progressive to get elected in 2002. He was re-elected for a second four-year term in 2006. With a massive global commodity boom driving Brazilian growth, Lula was able to use government revenues to fund income transfers to the poorer parts of Brazilian society, while at the same time being a very good neoliberal; just like Blair in the UK:
[Source: russiancouncil.ru][In Part Two of this three-part series on foreign mercenary fighters in Ukraine, (see Part 1) the nexus between mercenaries with experience in Syria, Ukraine and U.S.-EU-NATO armed forces becomes more apparent. This second part of the investigation looks at Shaun Pinner, Alexander Tobiassen, John Harding, Sjoerd Heeger, Craig Lang and Ben Fischer.—Editors]
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Lula, the fiery trade union leader, berating free-market reforms of President Cardoso, Brasilia, circa 1999 (File photo)The former president of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, popularly known as Lula, has won the country’s presidential election by an incredibly narrow margin of 50.90% of the vote against his right-wing rival and incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro’s 49.10%.
Liz Truss Official Portrait (Photo: Number 10 / Flickr)The most intriguing question with regard to Liz Truss’ resignation as the prime minister of Britain after a mere 44 days in office is this: what is it about her economic programme that the “market” (read “finance capital”) found unpalatable? At its core after all was tax-cuts for the rich, which the “market” should have lapped up. True, the tax-cuts were to be financed through a fiscal deficit which the “market” generally does not like; but since the fiscal deficit was meant to finance transfers to the rich, and not any direct stimulation of aggregate demand by the State, there should have been little objection from the “market”. Some have suggested that since the tax-cuts were “unfunded”, that is, financed by a fiscal deficit entailing a sale of government bonds, the proposal introduced uncertainty about the future course of the bond rate which made “investors” dump government securities, sharply raising the bond rate and creating panic in the “market”. But that is precisely the question which needs to be answered: even before any actual sale of government securities for financing a fiscal deficit had occurred, why did the “market” panic? And if it expected higher rates then that should have led to a strengthening of the pound-sterling with financial inflows occurring into Britain, rather than a collapse of the pound-sterling as we actually saw.
The New Dark Age 