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Archive for the 'Empire' Category
Dying Of A Broken Heart Is The Evolutionary Thing To Do
Is dying of a broken heart an evolutionary trait? Yes. Because it saves energy whena person's utility to the group has vanished. The sudden death of Queen Elizabeth drew attention to this: one day she commented on a dark cloud coming to a photographer, as she could see a storm gathering in the distance, from her Balmoral castle in Scotland… a few minutes before receiving the new female Prime Minister, Liz Truss. The next day the Queen was dying.
WHY WOULD DYING OF A BROKEN HEART BE EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGEOUS?
Survival of the fittest means also not just the fittest individual, but the fittest group of individuals. With human species, old individuals didn't bring the bacon in, but brought in how to bring the bacon in, and many other pieces of wisdom only revealed in the fullness of time…
In other words old individuals such as Queen Elizabeth, the elderly, weak and difformed could still bring irreplaceable know-how which prehistoric people needed to survive.
However, such Old individuals tend to die readily when their heart is broken. And not only them, but younger ones too.
How and why did the broken heart trait evolve?
Because the "heart" is an indicator of happiness. That happiness flows, in part, from the social need the individual feels to be personally filling up. A broken heart indicates one has lost social utility.
True happiness also flows from satisfying animal needs: hunger, thirst come first.
However, for the old, many of these animal needs stopped being so pressing, for a number of reasons, including sensory failure and other basic mechanisms failure: for example, there is less hunger and thirst to satisfy when one feels neither hungry nor thirsty. Cuddling is probably still an oxytocin enhancer, but a cat will do.
What remains in older age is the need to fulfill a social function. In prehistoric society that meant the old teaching to the less experienced. A broken heart, though, indicates that this function is not fulfilled anymore. The old one has just become a mouth to feed. Short in food yet pragmatic, many North American Indian tribes left the old to die in the wilderness.
Queen Elizabeth at 96…
Charles III was amply prepared, the queen, undermined by infirmities didn't have the love of her life by her side, Philip, who died at 99, after driving until 98 (and causing an accident when he was blinded by the low sun). Philip, an authentic war hero (he played a crucial role as a commander in a crucial sea battle against the fascist italian navy), was of great counsel and the queen may have felt out of her usual depth advising all including Prime Ministers and family members, now that she had lost her sounding board.
The queen had lost her utility, her broken heart told her, so she died.
Some have professed to want the queen to die an "excruciating death". They are typically employed, not to say owned, by the plutocratic establishment so called "universities" which has put them in charge of stupidifying the youth. The idea was that she should suffer for the enslaving empire (except slavery stopped being lawful in England in 1066 CE… when England was really born and not just a Viking playground anymore). However, we do not choose how we were born. Queen Elizabeth had a dignified life and made pretty well out of it. Could she have done better according to my own criterions? Of course, but that's from out there, Africa, America, and in insight.
"I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying," Dr. Uju Anya, an associate professor of second language acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote in a tweet on Thursday. "May her pain be excruciating."
Anya knows no history: none of the alleged crimes happened during Elizabeth's life.
Jeff Bezos, the world's third-richest man in stock market capitalization, then quoted Anya's tweet and tweeted back: "This is someone supposedly working to make the world better?"
"I don't think so," Bezos added. "Wow."
Later Carnegie Mellon said Anya's hatred "absolutely do not represent the vie of the university"…
But Anya's Deep State satanic influencers who direct that her and her ilk be employed in making the youth better, Pluto's way, saw hatred through division. Anya does her job well. However hatred, in this day and age, in its ultimate expression, is nuclear war. Anya then pushes for it by glorifying misplaced hatred, and teaching that this is the righteous way.
Elizabeth never did that. That made her a better role model than many a "humanity" department has to offer nowadays…
Elizabeth Philip was her man when she met him, and she was 13…
P/S: I am of course against the monarchy, an institution obsolete already 25 centuries ago. However, it would have been better if the British-Indian Raj had kept Elizabeth as queen (no silly wars between Muslims and Hindus, killin millions, as happened). The preceding essay is just about a broken heart, and one must recognize that, given her karma, as an individual, except for not expressing herself clearly on the question of Brexit (she was against it), she did a very good job… Whatever her job was supposed to be.
Monarchy keeps on reappearing. In Britain, it's constitutional… Yet, all the way down the Eighteenth Century, it could be nasty.
Queen Anne, upon accessing the throne in 1701, immediately declared war on France (Louis XIV of France had recognized earlier the rightful heir, James III ,the "Old Pretender", as rightful king of England and Scotland (September), prompting Parliament to legislate for an oath requiring a public abjuration of the Stuarts' claim to the throne). Queen Anne, upon dying in 1714, was succeeded by someone from… Hannover (Germany). It's British plutocracy which rules…
Last time a monarch intervened, in England, with a veto against parliament was Queen Anne in 1708, when she blocked the reestablishment of a Scottish militia by the London Parliament in Scotland, "An Act for settling the Militia of that Part of Great Britain called Scotland"… the fear of the Queen being then that Scotland would join France in battling England…
It is the ongoing exercise of the veto power of the monarch which precipitated the US war of independence, because George III kept on refusing "assent" for many laws proposed by local governments in America…
Tyrant Putin is a monarch, but he doesn't have the excuse Elizabeth did, to have inherited the charge… so that makes him technically what the Greeks called a tyrant (from unique in Greek)…. besides his advertised desire to bury the world in radioactive ashes if it doesn't accept Kremlin suzerainty.
Tags:Broken Heart, Evolution, Queen Elizabeth, Social Utility
Posted in Emotional Logic, Empire, England, Evolution, Love | 4 Comments »
Did Biden Just Tell Putin To Attack Ukraine? That Would Make Sense: The US Deep State Loves Wars In Europe! Yet, It Would Be Better To Deter Putin…
On Wednesday 1/20/2022, US President Biden told a news conference that Mr Putin would pay a "serious and dear price" for invading Ukraine, but also indicated that it will depend on how Russia went about it. Maybe, after all, there would be… no price. That would be nice for the hundreds of millions of Europeans who depend upon the astounding quantities of liquids and gas that farting Russia provides them with. Europe gets 40% of its gas, and 25% of its oil, from Russia (2022)… making all too many powerful Russians feel indispensable, and their ways, splendid.
"What you're going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades and it depends on what it does," Biden said. "It's one thing if it's a minor incursion, and then we end up having to fight about what to do and not do etc."
Thus Biden said that a "minor incursion" by Russia into Ukraine could make "we end up having a fight" with European allies about the appropriate response! Those comments flustered European leaders with their suggestion of divisions that could further embolden the aggressive imperialist, Mr. Putin
Biden, logic, and proper sentence constructing are different concepts… Biden also predicted that Mr Putin will "move in" to Ukraine anyway. To make sure that Putin got the hint, Biden said, speaking of Putin:"He has to do something!" Full sentence: "I'm not so sure he has, he's certain what he's going to do. My guess is he will move in. He has to do something."
Democratically elected Ukraine president Zelensky replied in a tweet: "There are no minor incursions. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones."
Hey dictator Putin, Uncle Joe told you to do something! Remember Yalta, and before that, when Uncle Sam saved th skin of Uncle Joe? The other Joe, Stalin…
It's freezing hard now in Ukraine… Finally… And Biden just gave the green light… For Putin's "minor incursion"… Biden will apply minor sanctions, he hinted, thus, in practice, egging Putin on to attack… All that Putin worries about is to be able to sell his liquids and gas to Europe. Nothing else counts… relative to the great purpose of reconstituting imperial Russia… At its peak.
The US Deep State, a form of subconscious, and breathing or partying together, and also a business, the biggest business of them all, has long profited from wars in Europe. Starting in 1914-1918, then 1939-1945. The US was ambivalent: on June 1, 1914, Colonel House, right hand man of president Wilson, proposed a "racial" alliance to the Kaiser… against France!
As the world war started, US plutocrats provided to the Kaiser and his goons what they needed to pursue the war, while accumulating great profits… by breaking the Franco-British sea blockade. The short term profit motive was engaged, naturally. But the basic fact is that, while the two leading democracies, France and Britain, were fighting for their survival after being assaulted by the racist German dictatorship, US plutocrats were busy making a fortune from it, and the US government was betraying not just its allies and fellow democracies, but its parents and creators. In 1914-1917, the US was committing parricide, and again during the elaboration of the Versailles Treaty in 1919, and again in 1939-1941…
In 1939, 1940, even 1941, US plutocrats profited from countless deals with Hitler. Prescot Bush quit his position as manager of "my most important war corporation" (dixit Hitler), only in August 1942. IBM leased his computer to the Reich throughout the war: IBM, managed from New York, had the monopoly of computing in the Reich.
By 1945, all the victors were clients of the USA, depending on US big business to eat and reconstruct.
Is this the US Deep State at work?. Once again? The US Deep State, made of countless universities, foundations, and businesses which live in symbiosis with the US government may, out of habit, believe that it would love another war in Europe…
But nowadays, things are different. Twentieth Century wars were mostly fought by proxies and drastically weakened European democracies… As intended by the US Deep State. Now the US can't hide, and nuclear bombs could cause in the USA, in a few minutes, the sort of devastation which Poland (unsupported by the US in 1939-1945, and betrayed in 1945) suffered in World War Two. In World War Two around 20% of the Polish population was killed (including dozens of thousands of the Polish elite at the hand to the Soviets so admired by Putin). That was around six million people. In the USA, nowadays, that would mean 70 million killed…
Now let's be intellectually honest: the reason that the US Deep State betrayed France and Britain, its parents, and the leading democracies in 1914-1917 and 1939-1941 were multiple. There was, of course, the question that the USA was then a racist country (remember the work of MLK and the Kennedys, and even LBJ, to correct that, in the 1960s). Germany was racist, so the US, or at least its white leading classes, had great empathy for racist Prussianized Germany. More fundamentally even, the USA hoped to displace the European empire… as happened after 1945.
Now the latter point has been achieved, with America First and Amerika Uber Alles… The domineering instinct is still here, and pretty grotesque sometimes: consider the abrogation of Australian contracts with France in submarines and helicopters, under America First Biden. However, the US is only 350 million people, and Europe is closer to 600 million (excluding Russia, which is 146 million).
However, realism implies that the USA should make a strong alliance with NATO (30 countries; 945 million people…) and the European influence zone. Indeed to NATO one has to add the ex-European ex-empires (Commonwealth, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.) which share lots of values in common (consider for example Brazil, and all the Americas…) So the time of abuse and Americanization in the guise of decolonization should be over. As Biden himself pointed out many times, a conflict between (representative) democracy and dictatorships is looming. A conflict between open, democratic societies and closed, fascist oligarchies.
Putin and his goons, Xi and his politburo, plus their propaganda machines are claiming,and have apparently persuaded themselves that the "West" is corrupt, weak and degenerating. They confuse the severe critique of progressives such as yours truly, with the superiority of their fascism… forgetting that one of the main arguments is the alliance of Western plutocrats with Russian and Chinese autocracies… The same maneuver of outrageous alliance of Western plutocrats with fascists as in 1914-1917 and 1933-1945 (IBM had the monopoly of computing with, and for, the Nazis, until 1945…)
So we have seen it before… Actually the fascist Lenin got the military alliance with the fascist Kaiser going as early as 1916… Lenin even joked about his alliance with the "capitalists", aka plutocrats… "they are so greedy they would sell you the rope to hang them with"… The Harrimans would develop the Baku oil fields which enabled the USSR to defeat the Nazis…
Being persuaded of the weakness of democracy, because democracy argues with itself, was the mistake the Achaemenids Persians already made… As Persia discovered at Marathon, then Salamis and Platea… Among other enlightening battles… The Kaiser, and then Hitler, made the same mistake. Putin and Xi are repeating it presently.
Putin will understand one thing well, and only one: the inability to win. For several weeks, the ground in Ukraine was muddy. Then it became harder, but it snowed a lot and visibility was no good: what is the point of having aerial superiority, when one cannot see from the air?
Ukraine should be given anti-aircraft means, ASAP. To be able to defend itself. United Nations law recognizes the right to self-defense (and the right to help those who self-defend).
Because, after Ukraine, if a dictator is left to conquer it, in the name of ethnic purity, same as Hitler in 1936-1939, it will be the rest. And when the "West" threatens to switch to carbon free energy sources, Putin and, or his cultural successor(s) will be faced with the same dilemma as the Kaiser and his goons in 1912-1914: time was a wasting asset, militarily… Nothing to lose, let's use it now. Having killed, poisoned, terrorized or jailed all his opponents, Putin, or his psychological successor(s) will have nothing to lose… Putin and, or, his goons just threatened the West with another Cuban missile crisis. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the deployment's possibility of nuclear missiles to Venezuela and Cuba "depends on the actions by our US counterparts". This is a silly bluff, but indicative of a seriously delusional mindset in the Kremlin relative to the gullibility of the Western population.
Russian tanks deploying in Putin Occupied Crimea, Tuesady 18 January, 2022:
"We know that there are plans in place to increase that [Russian] force even more on very short notice, and that gives President Putin the capacity, also on very short notice, to take further aggressive action against Ukraine," US Sec of State Blinken said on 1/20/2022.
Nota Bene: In an article the New York considered consequences of Biden's "minor incursion" proposal.
Biden Strengthens Words on Ukraine After Flustering European Partners
After the president laid bare divisions over Russian meddling in Ukraine, his administration scrambled to get on the same page with European allies.
By Michael Crowley and Steven Erlanger, Jan. 20, 2022
BERLIN — President Biden on Thursday strengthened his warning to Russia about a potential attack on Ukraine, saying that any movement of Russian units across the Ukrainian border would be taken as an invasion, a day after the president triggered alarm in European capitals with his suggestion of divisions among allies.
I sent a first comment, critical of the US Deep State misadvising Biden, which was censored… and then, understanding that my critique of the Deep State had been censored, I sent a second comment, which was also censored. Here it is:
The US profited from WW1 and WW2 in several ways… in both cases intervening too late to enable the democracies to nip in the bud the fascist violations of civilization.
Cynics could argue that it could well be a US tradition to favor war in Europe, hence the trial balloon of the "minor incursion". Or maybe it was not a trial balloon?
This, that US institutions do not look too unfavorably to war in Europe, is a subject which is very hard to evoke in the US cultural sphere. One is immediately considered a "conspiracy theorist". However, the fact is clear that, after 1945, the US displaced Europe. Worldwide. Yalta was also very clear: over the objections of France (not invited) and Britain (invited but furious), the US administration decided to give half of Europe to Stalin (then an accord was made by the dying FDR with Ibn Saud) .
Fortunately Biden seems inclined to express solidarity with democratic Europe, this time… It's not the Suez crisis of 1956, when the USSR invaded Hungary, killing 40,000+, and threatening London and Paris with atom bombing while the US was condemning France and Britain in the UN General Assembly (yes, amazing, but it can be readily checked).
So Biden slipped, and corrected himself the next day… The main problem remains, though, that Europe depends energetically upon Russia. And the worst is that this will not stop: Putin makes no mystery that he would be happy to reconquer the entire Russian empire at its maximal extent ("USSR")…
I view this sort of censorship as extremely despicable, and I claim that it should be unlawful. Who elected Mr. Erlanger and Crowley to adjudicate the level of thinking and knowledge the general population should be exposed to? Who, what, authorize them to force the level of considerations they hold, barely higher than gossip, to be the limit of what the population should be exposed. Or then, as agents of US plutocracy, how come do they get also support from the government and thus taxpayers, with the special prerogatives they have, as journalists?
In particular, unelected censors Erlanger and Crowley block the apparition of the concept of "Deep State"… Also known as "established, institutionalized plutocracy". Since they are employees of it, and its existence depends upon not being noticed, and not being theorized about… There is a clear ethical conflict.
Want to prevent further invasion by dictator Putin? Send anti-aircraft missiles discreetly right away, by executive order!
Tags:Biden, Putin, Ukraine, US Deep State
Posted in Empire, Uncategorized, War, World War One, World War Two | 4 Comments »
Diminishing The Majesty Of The Republic, A Crime In Rome, Enforced Stupidity
LAWS TO MAKE US ALL STUPID: WHEN JOKES ABOUT SOME SUBJECTS ARE NOT ALLOWED, And Authorities Impose Their Purity Of Essence
Rome fell into plutocracy, and fell and fell, and fell… the famous case of the Saxons who committed suicide rather than becoming gladiators, show that some who arrived in Rome were deeply revolted by the Roman plutocracy, and absolutely refused to play along. But the Romans themselves were so dull that they didn't revolt until the mid-Sixth Century in Constantinople, against emperor Justinian, and that happened just once, and utterly failed (although the Arbogast struggle against Theodosius should be viewed as another revolt, it is telling that it was led by a Frank, not a genuine Roman… And it failed in part because Theodosius bought some of Arbogast force… Another example of greed superseding all other values in Late Rome.)
The comparison with the European Middle Ages is enlightening. After the terrible "Black Plague" of 1348 CE, which killed around half of Europe, workers, now fewer in numbers, asked for higher wages. The French and British monarchies passed laws cancelling the rises and forcing people to work. Extremely ferocious revolts ensued, complete with noble families roasted on spit like vulgar pigs. No less than 1,000 revolts would happen on the next two centuries. They soon got entangled with major wars. However, real progress, in all sorts of dimensions, came out all of these rebellious spirits…. whereas the Roman intellectual life, supposing it ever existed, seemed to have died long before it turned to Christian Derangement Syndrome. Why were the Romans so dull?
Why was Rome so intellectually lackluster, and Athens so bright? A factor was the ancient nature of Greek civilization: by the time (753 CE) Rome was founded, Minoan-Greek civilization was 23 centuries old, and was re-emerging after the Bronze Age civilizational collapse. It had been closely entangled with many civilizations just as old in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Egypt… Athens was resting on a colossal accumulated civilizational base.
One thing clear in Homer is that intelligence is the most human, most domineering quality, and triumphs from adversity best. Intelligence is born of debate. Intelligence is also born out of adversity. Thus Athens went all out for Direct Democracy, fostering debate, increasing intelligence.
Athens was not ruled by the enforced respect for the greatness of the state as much as by the greatness of reason, directly. Even Socrates pretended this [1]…
In Republican Rome, the respect for the "greatness of the state" was imposed. By law. It was a criminal offense to adversely affect the greatness of the state: major + status; MAJE-STA = greatness-state [2]. This meant, in particular, not making fun of elected Roman officials, let alone criticizing them (that worked well until Tiberius Gracchus tried to enforce the limit on wealth). Whereas Aristophanes pursued a relentless war against the major demagogue Kleon…
In the Roman Republic the word "majestos" (biggest) was used in the case of major magistrates and We The People. The title "Majesty" transferred from emperor to emperor, but Trajan, one the best emperors refused to use it, contenting himself with "Optimus", the best.
Ulpian (170-228 CE) was a top jurist and top adviser of emperor Severus Alexander. Ulpian (Dig. 48 tit. 4 s1), defined crimes against majesty to be "crimen illud quod adversus Populum Romanum vel adversus securitatem ejus committitur.""The crime that is committed against the Roman People or against its security."
Further, "crimen majestatis" was defined as "crimen laesae, imminutae, diminutae, minutae, majestatis." That is: "crime against majesty as any offense which hurt, reduced, diminished, minimized the greatness of the state (majesty)."
Ulpian glorified in Belgica. It is interesting to see modern states (here is the Belgiae Palais de Justice) glorifying fascist imperially stupid Rome… An unwitting symbol of the continuity of plutocracy.
The expression "minuere majestatem" consequently signifies any act by which this majestas is impaired; and it is thus defined, 250 years earlier, by Cicero (de Invent. II.17), "Majestatem minuere est de dignitate, aut amplitudine, aut potestate Populi aut eorum quibus Populus potestatem dedit, aliquid derogare." (See Cic. ad Fam. III.11. "Majestatem auxisti.")
"Minimizing majesty is any lessening of the dignity, or greatness of People power, or of those to whom the People gave power to." [Personal translations.]
Reporting crimes, such as attacking the majesty, the greatness of the state, was encouraged under the Republic. In the late republic patriotism waned and so those who reported grave crimes were encouraged with the potential reward of acceding to the position of the suspect, if convicted. Thus the domination by the majesty of the law was replaced by greed.
Under Augustus, self-described son of a god, the respect for majesty was transferred to his person, and not just for affairs regarding his safety. Any disrespect, of whatever excited his caprice, jealousy, disquiet or frustration, even relating debauched intrigues women of his household engaged in, were viewed as treason.
Inquisitors and informers kept the salacious suspicion flowing up, in the hope to extract more advantages from confiscated property.
Emperor Domitian insisted to be called a master and god (dominus et deus). He was stabbed, starting in the groin, and, although he killed his hired special force assaillant, he died from his wounds.
Domitian seemed to have been a good, fastidious emperor in many ways. He pushed the legions all the way to Azerbaijan. He also heavily prosecuted corruption among public officials, removing jurors if they accepted bribes and rescinding legislation when a conflict of interest was suspected.
However, Domitian ensured that libellous writings, especially directed against himself, were punishable by exile or death. Actors were likewise regarded with suspicion, as their satire at the expense of the government was feared. Mimes were forbidden from appearing on stage in public. It's too bad, because Domitian was (contrarily to repute) a relatively good emperor. Had he learned to suffer humor, he would have been more open to philosophy beyond stoicism (the only philosophy Domitian liked) … and his complete tolerance of Judaism and Christianism (contrarily to future Christian lies, there was no persecution whatsoever).
In the Dominate, or Late Empire period, the emperors eliminated the Republican trappings of their predecessors and began to identify the state with their person. Although legally the princeps civitatis (the emperor's official title, meaning, roughly, 'first citizen') could never become a sovereign because the Roman Republic was never officially abolished, emperors were deified as divus, first posthumously but by the Dominate period, while reigning. Deified emperors enjoyed the same legal protection that was accorded to the divinities of the state cult; by the time it was replaced by Christianism, emperor Constantine modestly adopted the title of "13th Apostle", and what was in all but name a sacred monarchical tradition had already become well-established.
Could it have been different? Could Rome have acquired a sense of humor? Possibly. Caesar, disembarking in Africa for war against his Optimates enemies, falls on the beach, flat on his belly. According to Roman religion, a very bad omen. But the general grabs the sand with both hands and exclaims:"Now I hold you, Africa!". But that was Caesar (was that one of his mini strokes?) Two centuries earlier, a Roman high lady was caught in a traffic jam. She got infuriated. Her brother was a famous admiral. His fleet, the entire Roman fleet, had been completely sunk in action against Carthage. Hundreds of ships sunk, dozens of thousands of sailors and soldiers, drowned. The irate lady exclaims:"How come there are still so many Romans? Couldn't my brother have killed more?"
So there was some hope for Roman humor and thus, transcendence of the spirit.
However, the crime of Lèse-majesté (hurt majesty) prevented the expansion of the mind. It was one thing for the grandees of Rome to dare to joke. Lesser orders couldn't risk it: Roman magistrates were "majestos", and it was crime to risk a joke. Early Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence were careful to present their plays as mostly translated from the Greek and happening in Greece, lest they be accused of having offended the Roman Republic.
The final prosecution for lèse-majesté occurred in 1715 CE in the United Kingdom. In France it partly survived as "offense contre le président de la République" until 1898, when it was used to re-establish Dreyfus. Zola and company accused the president of being a liar, ensuring a trial which would demonstrate for all to see the shaky evidence on which Dreyfus had been convicted. The plan worked perfectly well, except that a lunatic chimney sweep took it on himself to kill Zola with carbon monoxide by blocking his chimney. By 1908, Dreyfus was retired with great honors, and would become a lieutenant-colonel in WW1… while Zola enjoyed the dubious pleasure to be buried at the Pantheon (the original Pantheon is in Rome, and is smaller).
Fundamentally, Rome died of a lack of appetite for high mental performance, the call of the honor of the human spirit. This was no doubt forged by centuries of criminalizing, under the Republic any demonstration of "esprit". In other words, the Republic imposed mental fascism, through its humorless magistrates… for centuries.
The opposites happened in France, from Rabelais to Saint Just… and actually, one could go back as early as Clovis who seemed to have enjoyed making fun of Catholicism, in the guise of celebrating it. Certainly, in the century preceding the Revolution of 1789, avoir de l'esprit, making fun of others, came to be seen as the highest art… It prepared the revolution, because that form of humor criticized all authority. In a way, humor directed against others, is the opposite of the self-deprecating humor which is viewed as the highest refinement in the USA. Of course, with self-deprecating humor, one only lowers oneself relative to the masters… whereas, to resist masters, especially the humorless, abominable sort, one first has to learn to enjoy disrespecting them, in such a way that they are completely defenseless.
Confronted by a host of problems, defenseless after the assassination of Caesar, the betrayed Populares were excluded from the leadership of the state, leaving the army and the wealthiest to fight, and help, each other for the control of the empire. Neither of these actors worried a bit about the honor of the human spirit, the only thing which could have saved Roman civilization. Roman civilization, or lack thereof, had to be burned; something Christianism did very well. Thus the better angels of the Greco-Roman world could be reborn like phoenixes, but not all of them have spread their wings of wisdom have not fully spread yet.
The fundamental lesson from the failure of Rome is that civilization has to be led, not by plutocracy, but by optimal thinking, the best thinking which can be achieved at the time. And that thinking always originates from outside of the box of privilege and the establishment.
Middle Age Europe understood this need for the highest thinking, after the fall of Rome. Examples abound, here are a few. Look at Bathilde, the highly educated queen who outlawed slavery, but originally, a slave captured in Kent. Look at Charlemagne, surrounded by philosophers, some, like Alcuin, from the British isles (not yet part of the Frankish empire then). And the French and British monarchs would keep on being advised by intellectuals: several French kings took advice from Buridan, François I used Leonardo Da Vinci (a top physicist, among other things) as a substitute father, and of the deeply iconoclast writer, physician and Pagan philosopher François Rabelais (?1494 – 1553 CE). Henri IV and Margot, queen of France and Navarre were so close to Montaigne she co-worked on his essays (and thus Henri IV was one the very best kings, his passions moderated by the other two)… Even the dreadful Louis XIV would fund many intellectuals, including the top Dutch physicist Huyghens, author, among other things, of the wave theory of light.
Top intellectualism feeds revolution in science and technology, necessary to insure not just the progress, but the survival of civilization. Because no civilization can stand still, not anymore than a bicycle can, be it only because of the back reaction its own success brings. The short of it, is that Rome didn't have enough brains to survive… or even to distinguish itself from the invading Barbarians.
P/S: Plutocratic authorities can be publishers such as Twitter, and other social platforms, deciding what's tolerable, and what's not, and being a law onto themselves. Many have, behind my back, decided what they would show of my work, to whom… Thus some religious terrorists published by, say, Twitter, can get away with fatwas to prevent publications of others, such as yours truly…
[1] Two cases are opposed here: Aristophanes, and the one he harshly criticized and ridiculized, Socrates. Aristophanes said whatever, about whoever, including the greatest politicians. Socrates ended with hemlock… Well, Socrates was fundamentally accused of the greatest betrayal: having taught his students to become dictators. So he was a special case (and the only one to whom the general amnesty was not applied!)
[2] maiestas) "greatness, dignity, elevation, honor, excellence
Tags:Honor Human Spirit, Lèse-majesté, Majesty of Republic, No Humor
Posted in Empire, Fall of Rome | 4 Comments »
Gibbon's "Decline & Fall of Roman Empire" In Pluto Context (Fall of Rome Part 2)
The British, yet French educated historian Edward Gibbon explained that he accomplished the work of "philosopher" in his justly famous "Decline and Fall of Rome" (DFR). 3,000 pages of dense text! Gibbon explained that the art of the "genius" historian was to select, as a "philosopher", among a morass of facts "which are just facts", those of higher significance. The irony, of course, is that his life's work eschew highest significance, although he himself pulls the curtains for a brief instant, flashing the reality his work misses entirely…
To detect facts of the highest significance, and make them speak, is the fundament of the art of highest thinking. (This is true for all of philosophy, including of the natural sort, as Albert Einstein pointed out.).
Under Trajan, the Empire was at greatest MILITARY & territorial extent, when Gibbon starts his story. Later, the empire would extent much further, spiritually speaking through the concept of "Christian Republic".
Trajan also introduced welfare and taxes on the richest. He could have gone further, but bemoaned he was too old to emulate Alexander (who didn't introduce welfare and taxes on the richest, BTW…) Indeed he promptly died and his successor Hadrian was not cut from the same cloth, and precipitously evacuated much of the empire Trajan had conquered. (The map above shows clearly that the German barbarians were too close from the heart of the empire, just north of Italy, and sure enough, Marcus Aurelius spent his reign repelling them there; his ignorant son, Commodus withdrew further, Hadrian style…).
Under Augustus, legions reached Ethiopia and Yemen, but Augustus was full of avarice, and the notion of a world civilization didn't appeal to him. In any case, he had none to propose. So he pulled the legions back from Germany, Africa and the Indian Ocean shore, and left a will, read in the Senate, advocating a shrunken empire, the exact opposite notion from his great uncle, Julius Caesar….
The "Decline and Fall of Rome" embraced not just the Roman empire from 100 CE to 1453 CE, but also Islam, and the Crusades. Gibbon, rightly, wrote an entire history of the West, from 100 CE, to 1500 CE!
Indeed, the idea that Rome survived the Decline and Fall of Rome was not a new observation: the empire of the Franks, the Imperium Francorum, was, de facto, Rome: it used the latest refurbished (Justinian legal code) Roman law, etc. It could be argued that the Frankish Empire was more Roman than Constantinople, because it spoke Latin, not Greek. By 800 CE, the Imperium Francorum proclaimed itself "RENOVATION of The Roman Empire"..
Thus, then, of course, Gibbon, by his own implicit admission, should have called his book: The Decline, Fall and Resurrection of Rome! When Gibbon was writing his book, the British empire was much larger than the Roman empire, and arguably better organized and centralized. The French empire was not far behind, and, by his own admission, Gibbon recognizes that the Russian empire dwarfed Rome, in some sense.
Something even stranger is that Gibbon recognizes the obvious: most of the Roman Empire was created under the Republic. And it was because the soldiers defended their rights and their properties. Whereas, in the period Gibbon considers, when the Republic has been replaced by what he calls a "monarchy", soldiers were motivated by greed, obedience and "religion".i
Thus, however broadly he encompassed the history of the West after 100 CE, Gibbon could only miss the true cause of the corruption which he bemoaned, and caused the decline and fall of the Roman State.
But there was no choice: for 8 years a Member of Parliament (where he was "mute"), Gibbon enjoyed fame and clout in the British plutocracy. Gibbon could not sing the praises of the Republic. All the more as he made clear, in 1793 CE, that however admirable French artillery was, the valor of French soldiers deserved a better cause (or words to this effect). Gibbon had seen the conspiracy and alliance of European plutocrats attacking the French Republic. Gibbon had actually seen a battle (and was part of a militia ready to defend England against a French invasion, a rather ironical matter, as it was France which was invaded by everybody from the gang of all "aristocrats" united, not England!.
However deliciously informative reading him is, Edward Gibbon was deeply biased. So was all of history, ever since "politics" was founded. "Politics" means "looking at the City-State". That look was not friendly, because most Greek City-States had democratic characters lost, ever since. To the sort of regimes Gibbon admired… and was a part of.
Gibbon didn't draw the obvious conclusion from the sketch, in a few lines which he made of the Roman Republic, or how the Roman Empire came to be. His entire "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is biased, from context alone. From the universe which he chose to consider.
Today the British Parliament voted 326 to 290 the previously named "Great Repeal Bill" overturning the law from 1972 infeodating British law to European law (by accepting the supremacy of the latter). This displaces sovereignty on 12,000 laws.
It's as Mick Jagger put it in an excellent video "England lost". In it a dishevelled English gentleman loses his mind from imagined frights, and dashed hopes to turn England into Singapore. At the end, the Briton runs straight into the sea, then stops, dazzled. A black man helps pull him out. A terse blonde 14 year old.girl tells him:"where do you think you could go?..pull yourself together".
Clearly, by the time of Gibbon, the delusion was going strong. We don't harbor it here. To understand the Decline and Fall of Rome is to understand the decline and fall of the RESPUBLICA Romana. It's the Republic and its republicans which built the empire, not the evil imperial baboons the English plutocrat Gibbon is fascinated by…
Tags:Fall of Rome, Fall of Rome Part 2, Gibbon Decline Fall Roman Empire, Pluto Context
Posted in Empire, Foundation Plutocracy, Plutocracy, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Rihanna, Education, Administration, Empire
Rihanna is another miracle on legs similarly to the hyper blonde Colombian Shakira, or Beyonce a very pretty package who incorporated tricks invented in places such as 1950s strip bars, all over. I must recognize she seems to have more brains and more advanced, more intelligent and controversial passions.
63 million of children are known to not go to school in developing countries But the delightful future billionaire exhibitionist Rihanna, expert in sideways glances, eyelids down, wants to help.
RihannaVerified account @rihanna Jun 23 bonjour @EmmanuelMacron, will France commit to #FundEducation?
Glad to see Rihanna cares about getting educated, this site is all about education. Rihanna has pretty violent videos out there, which meet, of course, my approbation, as thoroughly educative programs. I approve of showing violence, because violence there is, and it festers more if it can stay stealthy. Making it obvious deprives it of stealth, hence surprise, half of a successful aggression.
https://www.vevo.com/watch/rihanna/bitch-better-have-my-money-(explicit)/QM5FT1590005
Rihanna has sold more than 250 million records, and was named the 2017 Harvard University Humanitarian of the Year (so, apparently Harvard doesn't mind so much the violence anymore…). Intriguingly, Rihanna's latest boyfriend, Hasan Jameel, is a wealthy plutocrat (two billion dollars plus), a Saudi heir. No doubt she can improve his education, open new perspectives on the worth of woman.
So the pulpy Caribbean native may get money for education, but the problem of poorly-developing countries do not arise because not enough money has been thrown at education. One problem is that throwing money at developing countries just enrich plutocrats, local or global. If a country is headed by plutocrats, feeding them is like feeding crocodiles in a crocodile farm.
Rihanna, here in Paris, July 25th 2017, to feed Macron fleshy perspectives top pop to pop top.
Poorly developing countries have fundamentally the same two problems:1. bad administration arising from dictatorship and, or wrong ideology. 2. Not being part of an empire. It goes without saying that self-described good people will view such views with a jaundiced eye, because their own "good" logic tells them developing countries are good and empires are bad.
Take Islam, where women are legislatively, half of men, cloistered and forbidden the freedom human ethology gives them. They end up somewhat stupid and acculturated. As women are frontlines for educating children, the next generation of Islamist children will be more stupid and uneducated than they would be otherwise.Hence a vicious circle.
When Lebanon and Syria were administered by France, they were doing well. They didn't do good before that, under the Caliphate, or after that, under the dictatorships.
National education without appropriate administration to make it sustainable is a non sequitur. One can't have an appropriate administration without proper command and control. In other words, an appropriate empire.
When thinking of empire, people tend to think of malevolent empires on military rampages; the invasive Caliphates, the Mongols, Napoleon, etc. But the greatest civilizations were, and are, empires. China formed giant empires and owe its persistence to empires (as its brush with annihilation when Genghis Khan conquered it shows). The Greco-Roman world defined an empire which in turn defines today's civilization, when properly extended to its roots (Egypt, Phoenicia, Crete) and its successors (the Franks who created the "Occident" in which we all bathe now).
Right now, whether we like it or not, we are in a world empire. It's called the United Nations, and it's not a democracy. And that's very good as some nations proved culturally unable to distinguish between civilization and genocide (of Japan, Germany, Italy and their allies we think).
The UN is composed essentially of two components: the West, and China. (Russia and the USA are two colonies of the West; Russia, from the Vikings, plus back influence from the Greeks mostly; the USA is the double descendant of France, as England herself was a Franco-Frankish creation.)
The UN empire has not been extended in all corners. Actually "decolonization" was more of a de-administrationalization substituting often a republican form to more dictatorial variants. For example, under the french, Algeria was arguably under the (defective and unjust) administration of various (French) parties, some on the right, some on the left. Since "independence", Algeria has been under the administration of just one party. Actually, the present president of Algeria, Bouteflika, was one of the principals of the Algerian "revolution", so he has been in power personally for nearly 70 years… Yes, he is in a wheelchair, and gets repaired periodically in France.
Now the empire needs to be re-extended in all corners. It is in these distant corners not under direct imperial control that war and lack of education, rule. An example is the confines of Congo where an unsavory interaction between Rwanda military, and plutocratic corporations anxious for minerals, brought five million dead, let alone poor education.
Other muscular interventions are needed. Interpretations of Islam which subjugate women more than men need to be discouraged much more (although with Saudi Arabia in charge of enforcing this at the UN, the situation has become surrealistic…)
It's a violent world. The violence is supported by, and supports, a violent lack of advanced, all-encompassing education. Unfortunately impositions of mass violence are nearly never solved pacifically, contrarily to legend(those who are already rolling out Gandhi and Martin Luther King, as they read this, are rolling out people who didn't make the main effort: the Brits were pulling out of India, anyway, Gandhi arguably made things worse; MLK came long after military force was used massively to end racism in the USA, by president Lincoln, and Eisenhower…)
Lack of education is an imposition of mass violence (teaching is not very costly, so the obstacle to education is not cost, but will, will to impose brutishness). Thus it has to be solved with massive power, the power of proper administration, on the heels of imperial intervention (imperial intervention does not necessarily start with special forces, it can start with judges and accountants).
I don't doubt Rihanna's sincerity, which is more than eleven years old. I don't doubt that micro and local humanitarian help is important. However, it's little relative to the big picture. When France decolonized itself out of Africa, there was a hospital every one hundred kilometer. France left, the hospitals are mostly gone. In a related phenomenon, the growth of literal Islamist schools directed to very small children, at the detriment of real, secular education, has been all over. Consequence? Islamist invasion and military counter-offensives from the French Republic. Some will whine: leave them alone. But then they contradict themselves. Children don't chose to die and be uneducated: it's imposed on them by local potentates, symbiotic with global plutocracy (to which they extent access to resources). Once again, the framework already exists: the UN, with its mighty Security Council.
Want a correct, massive world educational system? Impose a correct, appropriate world empire!
Let Rihanna sing about that!
Tags:Africa, France, FundEducation, Macron, Rihanna
Posted in Education, Empire | 11 Comments »
Long Live The Euro: 2) Friedman Ignorant Anti-Euro Rant
Is Europe an "optimum currency area"? Milton Friedman believed it was not, and he gave apparently cogent, and now much repeated reasons, why it was not. However one should remember that appearances are deceiving, the most venomous snakes look like pretty leaves. Some people do not know how to add, but they claim they can multiply.
American economist have been lying, they are paid to lie, because their lies in economy give justification to otherwise unjustifiable policies. The policies of the USA have been, overall comfortable: having eliminated the Natives, American and Canadians, like the Australians, enjoy entire continents for themselves, far removed from the rest of the world, and its often crowed, overwhelmed realities.
Whereas France is in a different situation. French major policies have not been comfortable, since 360 CE (when the elite Parisian legions revolted, refused to leave France, and proclaimed the Caesar Julian, Augustus; the central government in Constantinople was not happy, and those in-between, distinctly uncomfortable).
France did not just declare war to the Nazis in the 1930s, when the USA was busy doing profitable business with them. France has been fighting Islamists since 721 CE (before that the Franks' James Bonds were spying on said Islamists in the Middle East).
The war with the Islamists requires much power and determination. Here is a picture from April 2015, taken at night, with a high resolution radar. The famous Second Foreign Parachute Regiment (2 REP) is dropping at night on the Salvador Pass, in the middle of the Sahara, at the Libya-Niger border. It then engaged Islamists in combat:
Reality Check: Economics Serves War. Combat In More Than Half A Dozen Countries Costs France Beaucoup Euros
[The dots are French soldiers, and equipment, not trees. The area is the most barren desert on Earth.]
Here is Milton Friedman, that supposedly great economist, as we will see a great liar, a little man, a European war lover, in the conclusion of his famous essay supposedly demolishing the Euro. That essay is oft-repeated with glee since, by pseudo-"liberal" luminaries such as Paul Krugman, and, in general, all faithful, one should even say, obsequious, servants of Uncle Sam:
"The European Commission based in Brussels, indeed, spends a small fraction of the total spent by governments in the member countries. They, not the European Union's bureaucracies, are the important political entities. Moreover, regulation of industrial and employment practices is more extensive than in the United States, and differs far more from country to country than from American state to American state. As a result, wages and prices in Europe are more rigid, and labor less mobile. In those circumstances, flexible exchange rates provide an extremely useful adjustment mechanism.
If one country is affected by negative shocks that call for, say, lower wages relative to other countries, that can be achieved by a change in one price, the exchange rate, rather than by requiring changes in thousands on thousands of separate wage rates, or the emigration of labor. The hardships imposed on France by its "franc fort" policy illustrate the cost of a politically inspired determination not to use the exchange rate to adjust to the impact of German unification. Britain's economic growth after it abandoned the European Exchange Rate Mechanism a few years ago to refloat the pound illustrates the effectiveness of the exchange rate as an adjustment mechanism."
This sounds all very smart, but, it's mostly poorly informed BS. When one knows enough, and when one is in a mood favorable to European Unification, Milton Friedman just sound like a highly paid prostitute. What he sells is lies.
Examples of Friedman ignorance, or deliberate lying:
The member countries are more important, true, but only to some extent.Even France and Germany are tied up by the various European institutions, because the latter are part of the member countries national laws (that's called the Single European Act). So France, for example, cannot contradict the European Court of Justice, without contradicting the FRENCH Constitution.
Member countries are of three types: great powers (France, Germany, Britain), middle powers (Spain, Italy, Poland; Italy is a middle power because its north is more Franco-German than Sicilian, so it's de facto divided; Spain has the same problem: Catalonia historically is more French, or Roman, than Spanish). And then small powers. Small powers can stand in the way, but not for long (Greece being the best example).
That "regulation of industrial and employment practices… differs far more from country to country than from American state to American state" is simply, a lie. A lie disguised as a truth. European regulations are extremely similar to each other, and very far from the American ones. The exception is Great Britain, which asked for an exemption, and got it.
Labor is less mobile in Europe, because Europe is made of different nations talking different versions of English.
"If one country is affected with negative shocks": the entire idea of Europe, Friedman, is to have no more "negative shocks".
When Friedman talks of France, he brays like an ass. The strong Franc policy is an atavism of France. France invented the strong currency thing, like 12 centuries ago. Those who did not believe in it, were boiled in wine. Alive. France applied it in the 1920s and 1930s, when the USA, the UK, Germany, and other critters tried to devaluate themselves to health (some got mad in the process). The strong Franc is a case of Germany coming to think like France, not conversely. (True France devalued in the 1960s, but then Germany wrote off more than half of its debt, with the benediction of its allies, in the 1950s.)
The United Kingdom has been highly successful with its currency policies in the 1990s, and after 2008. However that is, first of all, because enough money was provided to run the economy. Although having a national currency allowed it to do so, currency independence is neither necessary, nor sufficient.
Wages, prices, regulations, national laws are under convergence in Europe. Recently Germany finally imitated France and introduced a high minimum wage. German workers are now for the first time as expensive as French workers.
Friedman ignores ways in which European countries are more similar to each other, than to American states: no death penalty, universal health care, strong privacy laws, labor protection are examples.
The important political entities in the Eurozone are France and Germany. United, they form a superpower, especially when adding their automatic influence zone (Austria, The Benelux, Northern Spain, including Catalonia, Northern Italy, and yes, Switzerland). Since May 8, 1945, France and Germany did not have ONE serious differences, and have pursued a steady program of "ever closer union" (to use the language of the European de facto constitution). The heads of France and Germany sit together at the European Parliament, during important events. I believe, and French and German leaders believed
All right, so Friedman does not know what he is talking about.
Friedman also asserts what is well-known, that the Euro is a political project (what he does not say is that it is a French political project, because he is not anxious to spoil his hidden bias with obvious francophobia). Notice that, if some project is mostly driven by politics, that does not mean that it cannot turn out to be economical. Says Friedman:
"The drive for the Euro has been motivated by politics not economics. The aim has been to link Germany and France so closely as to make a future European war impossible, and to set the stage for a federal United States of Europe."
Of course a USE, a United States of Europe, would be a formidable rival to the USA, and probably less friendly to the people who paid Friedman for his flood of BS venom. Then Friedman, in his conclusion, slips into psycho-politics, a domain which mixes psychology and politics, for which, considering the long list of erroneous ideas I exposed above, he has no expertise whatsoever. Friedman is like somebody who does not know how to add, and now he wants to multiply:
"I believe that adoption of the Euro would have the opposite effect. It would exacerbate political tensions by converting divergent shocks that could have been readily accommodated by exchange rate changes into divisive political issues. Political unity can pave the way for monetary unity. Monetary unity imposed under unfavorable conditions will prove a barrier to the achievement of political unity."
The truth? Milton Friedman, the economist does not the history of economics. Let me give him a F. F for "Failed". The Thaler/Tollar, functioned as a currency in Europe for centuries without any political unification.
The truth? France and Germany are unifying ever more. The last divergence was about Libya: France decided to overthrow the dictator there, and Germany did not help. However in Syria, Germany, and Britain are now helping France. Germany is presently sending troops for occupation and control in Mali, because and while France is getting its shock troops for attacks in Syria and Libya.
The truth? When Saddam Hussein, Iraq's president, decided to switch to the Euro for international transaction, thus exiting Washington's orbit, Washington decided to make Iraq an example for those who switch to the Euro. The Washington strategists wanted a murderous mess for those who switch to the Euro, and now they have it, and one must them chuckling at night, far from prying eyes. (People like Paul Krugman absolutely refuse to understand any of the preceding, as it would murder their careers to do so. At the very least.)
The truth? In the 1940s, the Nazis and the French resistance, the Free French and the French Republic agreed that "divisive political issues" and "exacerbated tensions" came from "converting divergent shocks". To eliminate divergent shocks, eliminate differences. In this respect, the Euro is helping France and Germany achieve an ever closer union. (Notwithstanding the sea of lies American economists swim in.)
And it's all that matter. American Jews such as Friedman, Krugman, and all these other "mans", should remember that, when "Francia", the Renovated Roman empire, Franco-Germania, extended from Barcelona to Berlin and beyond, there was no discrimination against the Jews.
Why? Because the very nature of a sustainable, vast empire, is tolerance. So let a common European currency be, it will be more comfortable to divergences, hence ideas.
Tags:Euro, Europhobia, Francophobia, Friedman, Germany, Islamists, Lies, Optimal Currency Area, war
Posted in Currencies, Dollar, Economy, Empire, Euro, Europe, Europhobia, France | 7 Comments »
No Assimilation: Racism & Destruction
We have to be guided by history. The present ecological, plutocratic, immigration and Islamist crises (in order of importance) are informed by history. However neither our delusional "leaders" nor the herds they guide know enough history to inform decisively the present crises. Verily, history is the best teacher.
The Ancient Greeks and Romans were also guided by history, but we are in a much more advantageous position than they were: history in Greco-Roman times was at most 1,000 year old. Now the history we know of, much of it from increasingly detailed archeological work, is more than 10,000 years old.
An example: detailed archeology, recently done, revealed that the Late Roman empire was much richer than previously believed. There was no evidence of economic decay, far from it. So the catastrophes which struck it in the Sixth Century were of a different nature than Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".
Small Surviving Portion of Diocletian Baths (Circa 300 CE). Christian Hated Bathing, So They Destroyed Baths.
The Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Franks were stuck by the story of Troy, which was the limit of what they thought they knew for sure (modern archeology has not decisively determined the exact events of Troy's adventures: it's a work in progress). But they did not really know the truth: soon thereafter the "Greek Dark Ages" nearly obliterated history.
Something was learned though: the Franks (barely) avoided the total collapse which had struck the Greeks 15 centuries earlier. The Franks (like the Romans before them) claimed they descended from Troy. Whether that's true or not, what they meant is that they knew how to avoid catastrophe.
And they did.
How did the Franks do it? By NOT doing what the Romans had done. Or, more exactly, by doing civilization in the spirit of Ancient Republican Rome, not the degenerated self-obsessed imperial fascism of emperor Commodus and his successors.
I am a bit unfair to the successors here: Commodus perpetuated a mood actually launched by Augustus himself: Augustus, differently from his great uncle, Julius Caesar, had not understood the necessity to expand the empire. Augustus explicitly advised his successors to NOT conquer Germany. The advice was respected, and therein all the problems of Rome.
Had the Romans made a determined effort to conquer Germany, they would have had to reinstitute the Republic in full. If the Republic had been reconstituted, in full, Roman governance would have been much smarter, and capable of solving the problems thrown at Rome.
Thus, when speaking of war, and whining about it, the herd forgets that democracies make war best (as the Athenians demonstrated at Marathon, when they charged irresistibly the immense multitude of fascist imperial Persian storm troopers).
Thus, to push things a bit, to make war better, one has to make democracy better. Thus the army was an important factor of de-segregation in the USA.
Speaking of segregation, that was the problem which killed Rome the most. The Romans had basically renounced ASSIMILATING the Germans. Germans were viewed as hopeless, yet too strong, barbarians.
The analogy with what is going on today is total. The Germans came in with their own legal systems, their own Sharias. The Romans respected that. So states within the state grew (a bit as has been observed in France and especially Belgium, where at least one city should be de-Islamized).
And why were the Germans so strong? Because the state had grown weak, from not taxing the hyper-rich enough. Just like now. Lack of taxation of the hyper-rich has made Europe weak. Military weak. Germany is going to send 650 soldiers in Mali, to relieve the French Army there (which then will be able to attack the Islamist State). One is talking about pathetically small numbers here, for a country as large as today's Germany. Meanwhile the French don't have enough air refueling capacity to bomb as much as they could (Germany there is speaking to provide air refueling for the French Air Force).
When the Roman state decomposed in the "Occident", very small numbers of warriors were involved, roughly equivalent to those the Islamist State and its various faction have.
Verdict: one has to forcefully assimilate, and make the Republic stronger, as needed to do so. Both phenomena are entangled.
And don't try to assimilate Islam instead: that was tried before. Not just with Islam, but Christianism itself: to convert Germans to the empire, the Roman leaders (Constantine and his successors) used Christianism. Christianism is a sort of superstitious republicanism claiming all men are equal, under fascist god, etc… Well, it did not work: Christianism devoured civilization, and did so, in particular, in the Orient. The Orient was suddenly destroyed, within a generation by the wars, and the weakness, physical, intellectual and moral, which fanatical Christianism brought. In particular it brought Islam (just read the Qur'an, Muhammad himself explains it very well!)
I am perfectly aware that the ignorant view assimilation as racism. This mentality was launched by a herd of European pseudo-philosophers who loved fascism (either Kaiser, see the deluded Bertrand Russell, Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin style). Loving fascism provided them with perks, including from American pluto-imperialism (which was delighted to see proper critique replaced by non-sense).
That assimilation was racism has been the main driving force to create racism and segregation in French society (against the very people those who denounced assimilation pretended to protect!) Same, and worse in Belgium, a state representing well the sort of degeneracy which affected Rome. Actually Belgium's only justification, as I have explained many times, was to weaken France, by cutting off from it the fiercest part of Gaul ("Gallia"; reference on that: Julius Caesar). It's working splendidly: France nearly lost the two world wars against fascist Germany thanks to the existence of Belgium as a mentally, and militarily tiny independent kingdom.
(For those who do not understand the preceding paragraph: all the recent terrorism in France was planned in Belgium, by pseudo, unassimilated "Belgians", who were simply barbarians educated by the Sharia.)
Hollande seems to be taking his war against the Islamist State seriously; that's a political U-turn: just as Rome needed to conquer Germany, the empire needs to reconquer the Orient . Because, indeed, before it got subjugated by Islam, with the results presently observed, the Orient was to Rome, and before that to the Macedonio-Greeks, and, even before, to the Zoroastrians (I don't expect the admirers of the late Edward Said to understand any of this).
Philosophy has to guide. Philosophy which knows history, and thought about it, that is. But force is to observe that most so-called philosophers of the Twentieth Century knew no history, or then so little, that they could use it to justify their madness (this is an attack against Michel Foucault, Althusser, etc.). Simone de Beauvoir, who knew enough history to teach it to all of France under the fascist Vichy regime, was rightly infuriated by Foucault's distortions of history. Now all these obnoxious, and cruel, self-obsessed dwarves are viewed as pinnacles of wisdom. No wonder our politicians went mad. Now they have to quit the Fourth Century Roman political line they have been repeating.
And be happy! Or the strength will not be found. One has to learn to be happy through the worst. Especially when it's only bad news affecting others.
Tags:Assimilation, Diocletian Baths, Germans, Orient, plutocracy, racism
Posted in Culture, Empire, Europe, Islam, Plutocracy, politics, War | 20 Comments »
IMF: NSA Trojan Horse?
It is known the German government spied France, and her state of the art industries, on the behalf of the NSA (even the New York Times mentions it in "Germany, Too, Is Accused Of Spying On Friends", "Another Spying Scandal In Germany…"). Gregor Gysi, a prominent German from the opposition Left party, accused Ms. Merkel of "treason."Is Merkel's government betraying some more? Such as deliberately sabotaging the Euro?
I am not making all of this up out of thin air, in a sudden attack of crazed conspiracy fever. Please consult that other leftist institution, the Wall Street Journal:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/german-government-is-accused-of-spying-on-european-allies-for-nsa-1430437603
"What is the IMF doing in this Greek mess? Wonders Jacques Attali, Jul 1, 2015. My thesis is simple:
Sarko l'Americain & Merkel, NSA Spy, Offer IMF Trojan Horse To Greeks
The National Security Agency American spy, Angela Merkel, and the USA obsessed Sarkozy (Sarkozy's brother worked for the Carlyle Group, a shadowy organization specializing in satanic investment in military procurement at the time; heading the Carlyle Group is the sort of dream job Obama can only dream of, when he graduates from the drone dispatching center he heads in a White House)
Attali observes:
"The Greek situation, in all its dimensions, has become more grotesque with every passing day, and more specifically in the last year, by the very negative and preposterous role the International Monetary Fund plays in this.
An observer from Mars landing on Earth this week would ask in astonishment how Europeans had allowed three non-European economists working for an institution dominated by the US, we have no idea who appointed them, to decide the fate of the euro!?"
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-imf-doing-greek-mess-jacques-attali
Jacques Attali is an important European, because of the judiciousness of his advice to many a European leader, and his heading various institutions and commissions (including one suggesting many reforms in France, few of which have been applied so far). Attali is also a classical symphonic conductor of international renown and practice. Attali was founding head of the European Investment Bank, a EU institution based in London, and close adviser to presidents Mitterrand, and Sarkozy.
Says Attali: …"the Eurogroup political leaders have allowed the IMF to creep in among the negotiators of all Greek debt… Attali notice that, whereas the Greek debt was strictly between Greece, the EU and the ECB, European leaders after a while decided they would not do anything without the IMF's agreement.
Attali: "…when European experts came to realize that it was not by destroying the last resorts of Greek growth that their debt would be reduced, the so-called experts from the IMF, power crazy, continued to seek to impose suicidal savings on that country, without seeing that it will never be able to repay a debt that must be canceled urgently and in a formal way….
The only thing one would have hoped from the IMF, in this debacle, is that the Americans, on which it heavily depends upon, find a way to explain… the major geostrategic importance of Greek stability, and thus Greece continued participation in the eurozone. No, the Americans could not, or would not, do more than call the Greeks every day to ask them to surrender to the diktat of the IMF.
Attali thinks the IMF ought to be destroyed:
"At a time when Asians are challenging the very existence of the Bretton Woods institutions, because they are not given their rightful place there, it is time for Europeans to question the sustainability of an institution that will be, if circumstances turn for the worse, really responsible for the tragedy that would follow a Greek default.
The solution, though, is simple, and the Europeans would have probably applied it a long time ago if the intellectual terrorism of the so-called IMF experts was not present: a reasonable savings plan, socially just, without requiring further assistance, but also with a reduction of the Greek debt to below 100% of GDP, through the cancellation of a significant part of public, bilateral and multilateral debts, that they all know cannot be reimbursed, and that some continue to claim, to save face. And for that, create urgently a genuinely European Monetary Fund, precursor of a Euro Treasury, and a Eurozone Ministry of Finance."
All excellent observations, Jacques. The IMF is located less than half a mile from the White House. Christine Lagarde was already the head of one the world's largest law firms, an American law firm, based in Chicago, long ago. She seems to be a professional figurehead, French looking, but actually simply an agent of the empire of the USA. Much of the European leadership seems to be in debt to the USA.
Consider the head of the European Central Bank: PhD MIT, vice-chairman at Goldman Sachs (as Mario Monti, an Italian PM). So what is the IMF doing inside the Eurozone governance? Making sure that individuals employed in and by Washington DC are in command. Of Europe: https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/selection-of-the-dirtiest/# The empire of the USA does not have any interest in a strong and independent Europe: healthy is what it wishes, yet dependent is what it requires. Dependence means submission, a lower status, fewer riches, more work, less comfort, no control of one's destiny. It's about making sure structures, institutions, which favor and select for the power and wealth of the USA are in place.
Europe Is Under Plutocratic Attack, Hence The Need For Union:
Some suggest that one cannot have a monetary union without a political union. That's not correct. The Dollar is named after a currency, the "Thaler", or "Tolar" (it has other names). The Tolar existed for centuries over much of Central Europe, without any political union. It was so famous that the currency of the USA is named after it.
So what is going on now? Why can't the Eurozone survive without political union? The reason is simple: the USA's establishment is hostile to the Euro (it's trying its best, and succeeding, to hide its immense anger at the uppity Europeans, with their arrogant currency).
It looks like economics, but it's all politics. Before Greece got in the European Union, Greece was controlled by colonels controlled by the USA. Many operators in the USA, those of the "Deep State", the Wolvowitzs of the USA, would love to see Greece revert to full control of the USA. And that was probably the entire idea of putting the IMF inside the Eurozone.
Who asked for controlling Europe with the IMF? Germany, in 2010. At the same time, we learn that Germany acted like a spy on the French government, on behalf of the NSA (French and German governments are in very close, permanent contact).
So just like the NSA asked Germany to spy on France, did the NSA ask Germany to bring the IMF Trojan Horse inside Europe?
Americans have been programmed to say that "conspiracy theorists" are insane. Indeed. One has to be insane to expose the various conspiracies which insure USA dominance. USA plutocracy makes sure that it is dangerous, and not profitable.
https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/plutophiles-grexit/
Europe has a social model that the owners of the USA, those who pay for American universities, find unbearable. That's why they want to destroy it.
More prosaically and cautiously, Attali concludes that:
"Europeans, solve your problems among yourselves. Rely on your own forces alone. Do not give in to pressures or ways of thinking that came from across the Atlantic or the Pacific. Give yourself a project and take action. It really is about time you did."
As the European elite has been put in place, or in power, or made rich, by American plutocracy, independence is not so easy to implement (Africa has long known this problem, the problem of the elite controlled by greater forces, a perfect illustration of which is Barack Obama himself).
Tags:Attali, Greece, IMF, International Monetary Fund, Trojan Horse
Posted in Banks, Banksters, Empire, Finance, USA | 12 Comments »
Europe Immigration Massacre
Something went wrong in the general picture of Europe as the den of horrendous colonialists, projecting force worldwide: the previously allegedly exploited masses swim across the Mediterranean like lemmings, in their apparent desire to be exploited some more.
And they drown like lemmings.
Greece and Italy suffer the brunt of the "invasion" (which should be properly viewed as an opportunity). Just last year Italy imprisoned 171,000 refugees from Africa, and more than 50,000 from the Middle East.
Mass Death By Hypocritical Bureaucracy
Amnesty International condemned the very latest European measures as "Mesurettes" (little measures in French). I agree. Maybe to compensate for the appearances of measurettes, France and Britain speak about going to the United Nations to get the authorization to sink the boats of the enemy (apparently, the enemy would be all fishers, trawlers and commercial boats from Algeria to Turkey?)
It reminds one of Obama's drone policy (now "under review", after killing Western hostages, announced a contrite Obama yesterday). Hey what could go wrong with bombing civilians one has observed, doing stuff? If bombing civilians is good for Obama, worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, why is it not good for France and Britain? Eternal peace beckons…
In truth, the immigration problem to Europe forces a complete revision of what it means to be a "progressive", dismantling 70 years of "anti-colonialist" hare-brained self-glorification discourse by pseudo-intellectuals of great renown.
Europe wants the advantages of empire to persist, such as material wealth, health, lack of risk taking, social laziness, and philosophical comfort. While Europe does not want to endure the costs of empire.
Europe is an empire which wants fate to provide, but does not want to contribute to fate with an enlightened vision.
The cost of empire means, first to master one's vital space (Lebensraum in German). An empire masters its environment through military force, used, threatened, or implicit. Military means are viewed as primitive by (most) Europeans. So are demographic means. Overall, Europe has a timid, not to say senile, approach to the world, a mix of greed, fear, and laziness, physical and philosophical.
The case of Libya is typical: France and Britain finally finished the war France had been engaged with the Libyan dictator, on and off, for decades. However, they were mostly alone in Europe. Strong support came only from Obama's USA. Any follow-up was no of the advantage of China, Russia, and, generally, all the countries in the world, which do not want to see Europe behave as if it were an empire.
It is OK for Russia, China, the USA, Indonesia, and even Australia, to behave like empires, ravaging the planetary environment, imposing their ways and means, but, for Europe to do so, the Europeans agree that it should not be.
Thus Libya, long part of Europe, as part of its ancestral civilizations of Phoenicia, Greece and Rome, was left to its own instruments, after having been decapitated.
This European self-flagellation and mortification is all for the better, as it fits the mood of dolce vita which Europeans are very much attached to.
In particular, it was self-congratulatory, rather than analytical, for European intellectuals to rant against colonialism. So now here we are: tens of millions of people are trying to get into Europe, thousands are dying, trying to do so.
This is not without similarities with the crisis that put an end to the Roman empire. Rome was depopulating, and increasingly senile. Various barbarians were trying to get in, by force. Rome accepted refugees, but, often without integrating them well.
So here we are again.
Rome ought to have projected force, mental and physical. But plutocracy is fundamentally idiotic, so Rome became ever more stupid. All the moral force provided was Christianism (and thank god for that). So, when the barbarians more or less conquered the empire, at least they were philosophically compatible with Rome.
Fix Africa, fix the Middle-East, by projecting the mental and physical force necessary for the continuation of the advantages of the European empire. Yes, it means American sized military budgets. It also means a strong immigration policy, a chosen immigration and integration policy (as Canada and the USA use).
If this path is not chosen, actors unfriendly to Europe, such as Daesh, the USA, China, will extend their empire in Africa and the Middle East, Europe's doorstep, and the door will soon give way.
The number one problem of Europe is demographic and cultural depopulation. Poorly managed immigration and empire make it worse. In a way the migrants are saying that it is empire (of law and goodness), or death. Let's listen, and learn.
Tags:Africa, Anti-Colonialism, Colonialism, empire, Europe, Immigration, Middle East, Progressive, war
Posted in Empire, European History, France, Immigration, Law, War | 2 Comments »
Let's Not Do With Putin As We Did With Hitler
Things Are Getting Serious with Vlad the Mad, Kremlin dictator:
Paul Krugman noble and Noble propagandist extraordinaire at the New York Times, was in a Dubai conference, by the elite, for the elite, plutocratizing, in denial naturally, that the world plutocracy has been leading the world to catastrophe, as usual. Kremlin tyrant Putin is pretty much a product of WEF, the World Economic Forum, or is it World Exploitation F*ck-up? And Putin has been revealing, once again, his true nature, evil-power, pluto-cracy, invading and destroying. Wrote Krugman:
"A lot of the conference was actually about geopolitics, and I don't want to think about the quite grim stuff from that end."
Yes, let's not think too much, or too grimly, when things are getting interesting. This is all fun and games! It must be! Fun and game world demonstrate the seriousness of the global elites! In Lima 196 countries decided that Global Warming was a problem, and all and any country had to present a plan to reduce CO2 emissions within 6 months.
Global temperatures seem ready for a significant jump-up, the exact thing I have been saying, for more than a decade, that it would happen someday. Amusingly, at this rate, in ten years, temperature would jump as high as the worst predictions… made meekly by official scientists officially paid, regarding temperatures they feared we would enjoy… a century in the future….
The gigantic Gulf of Maine has already warmed up. It was the stronghold of cod, ever since Europeans, more than 5 centuries ago, started to massively fish there. From Boston to the Bay of Fundy, the Gulf of Maine has become too hot for cods, and they vote with their fins to go somewhere fresher. At the rate we are going, cods may run out of planet within twenty years.
Back to Krugman: "Venezuela-with-nukes (Russia) keeps looking more vulnerable to crisis. Long-term interest rates at almost 13 percent, a plunging currency, and a lot of private-sector institutions with large foreign-currency debts. You might imagine that large foreign exchange reserves would allow the government to bail out those in trouble, but the markets evidently don't think so. This is starting to look very serious."
It is called war. War with Putin. War is serious. It's better done early, on democracy's own agenda, not according to the plans of the nuclear tyrant. Cratering the price of oil is part of it.
Russia's central bank, in a bid to prevent the Ruble to turn into ruble, raised its key interest rate Tuesday, Dec. 15 2014, to 17% from 10.5%. The repo rate went up to 18%.
War with Putin, is better than the alternative, namely peace with the dictator. Fortunately, we are not following the script from January 1933 (election of Hitler) to December 1941 (Hitler declares war to the USA). During that terrible period of history, the US had betrayed democracy and its own parents, France and Britain. Now the USA is behaving in a more civilized manner…
Hitler Blossomed Because As Assad And Putin, He Had Western Plutocratic Allies:
War with Hitler started in 1933, as far as the French Republic was concerned (and the French economy got seriously affected by the war preparations: enormous fortifications, and being ready to field more than 100 divisions).
However, all of France's potential allies signed deals, official or not, with Hitler. Poland inaugurated this with a January "Non-Aggression Treaty with Hitler.
Great Britain signed a so-called "Naval Treaty" with Hitler in 1935, with the understanding that Hitler could invade the East as he pleased. The Treaty allowed Hitler to re-arm as much as he pleased, in violation of the Versailles Treaty.
Meanwhile American plutocrats invested massively in the Reich. Texaco provided Hitler with all the oil he needed to transport a fascist army from Africa into Spain, and wage war there. Standard Oil (Exxon) provided secretly the Nazis with synfuel technology (not to be shared with the Anglo-Saxon militaries), IBM was given the monopoly of computing in the Reich, Ford (Hitler's first sponsor) build thousands of military vehicles, and so on ad nauseam: the Reich had turned into an Eldorado for American plutocrats.
When France (1936) declared her intention to give weapons to the Spanish Republic, she was opposed on the world scene & had to back-off. France could not afford to antagonize the Anglo-Saxons, so the Spanish Republic got no weapon, and was progressively devoured in the next three years by Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and their goons.
Spain fell in 1939. Millions more Spaniards would be eliminated by the fascists in the next few years. Great Britain had not supported the French-Czech alliance, and Czechoslovakia had been invaded. Finally the UK understood how serious the situation was, and agreed to support the French-Polish Alliance's fine print.
Hitler supported German minorities, he said, and gave an ultimatum to Poland. This time France declared her intent to declare war. So Hitler allied himself with Stalin, and invaded Poland. But France, now joined by Britain, which had no army to speak of, declared war. The British Commonwealth soon followed (Canada, Australia, India, etc.)
What did the USA do? The President of the USA, acting on the "Neutrality Act" signed a law making it unlawful for American citizens to support France or Britain, or even set a foot on their ships. Why? France and Britain were viewed as "belligerent".
Meanwhile, American plutocratic support for Hitler augmented.
Hitler Got Lucky In May 1940:
The rest is well known: the Nazis' 150 divisions got lucky against the 100 French divisions in May 1940, however the French made it so that the small British army escaped at Dunkirk, and that prevented Hitler to establish a bridgehead in Britain.
Less well known is the fact that the top German generals asked Britain and the USA to simply say that they would support France. Then the generals were to get rid of the Nazis to save Germany. Instead, the British and Americans told Hitler that his generals were plotting against him (this happened in 1937-1939).
Lesson of all this?
The Anglo-Saxon support of Hitler was crucial in allowing Hitler to pursue his apocalypse…
And even encouraged it: Hitler made countless discourses about the democracies having no will.
Is Putin Hitler?
Not exactly, but Putin has nukes. And the foundations of their ideologies have a lot in common. Hitler thought that, to develop economically, Germany needed a greater "vital space" (Lebensraum). Putin has made it clear that he had to reconstitute a greater empire, the USSR
If we do not want to renew the mistakes of the 1930s, the lessons are clear:
France, Britain and the USA have to be united, and promote civilization. They are now joined by Germany, and the rest of Western Europe. The traitors of 1939, among them Sweden and Switzerland, are now firmly on the side of (greater) democracy and against blatant dictatorship (with which they had collaborated in 1939).
When the French Republic went to war against the awful troika from hell, Hitler, Stalin and American plutocrats, the odds were long. Right now, the odds are excellent: the GDP of Russia is less much less than that of France. The Russian economy is in free fall.
United We Have To Stand:
The difference with the 1930s is that, this time, the West is united. Hitler would have been killed by his own generals if the USA and Britain had been solidly behind the French Republic in the 1930s (instead the USA and Britain informed dictator-president-Kanzler Hitler that his own generals were plotting against him).
A non-difference with the present plutocracy in the West is that Moscow has the greatest number of billionaires in residence. Putin was encouraged by what plutocracy got away with in the West, and tried to go a bit further… big mistake.
Now the West has to grimly pursue the job.
In the 1930s, the war of democracy against fascism, by proxy, was in Spain. Democracy lost, fascism was encouraged. Now the show by proxy is in Syria. It's an enormously complicated situation.
But, as I said, the (representative) democracies had to get involved. They all are: Australia is bombing Iraq. Great. All right, the mentally unbalanced supports of Islamism come out, and fire their weapons in Sydney's harbor. Not surprising… except to those who did not read the Qur'an.
Mayhem comes from two sources: bad guys, and bad situations. They are entangled: bad guys create bad situations, bad situations create bad guys.
The ultimate bad situation is the CO2 crisis. There too the lesson is that the West has to be united (it was not united in the last two decades, as the USA pursued its own selfish CO2 splurging, namely 20 tons per person per year of CO2, more than double the EU's; fortunately, Kerry went to Lima).
Hitler was encouraged by his Anglo-Saxon plutocrat friends to get ever worse, until the bad situation he had created escaped his control, September 3, 1939, when France and Britain declared war.
Putin had a bad situation, namely the kleptocratic plutocracy he created led Ukraine to break formally away by associating itself with the European Union. He tried to stop that with threats, and then, prisoner of its own rhetoric, and his thirst for oil, by invading Crimea, and annexing it.
It was the first unilateral annexation in Europe since Hitler annexed parts of France in 1940.
It will not stand, it cannot stand.
Let's not do with Putin as we did with Hitler, appeasing a dictator all the way to an holocaust.
Tags:Crimea, Dictatorship, French Republic, Hitler, Nukes, Oil, Putin, Ruble, war, West
Posted in Empire, Energy, Plutocracy, politics, Systems Of Moods, Systems Of Thought, USA, Weapon Systems | 1 Comment »
What about British economy has grown faster than France since 1066? That's actually true (multiplied by three)... e… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 hour ago


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SHOT Webinar
Published: 15 Apr, 2021
SHOT (Supporting Hyperplane Optimization Toolkit) is a deterministic solver for mixed-integer nonlinear programming problems (MINLPs).
Originally, SHOT was intended for convex MINLP problems only, but now also has functionality to solve nonconvex MINLP problems as a heuristic method without providing guarantees of global optimality. However, SHOT can solve certain nonconvex problem types to global optimality as well. For convex MINLP problems, SHOT is among the most efficient solvers (see https://doi.org/10.1007/s11081-018-9411-8 ) and is guaranteed to find the global optimal solution. SHOT can be run as fully open source with CBC and IPOPT as subsolvers, but the performance is significantly improved by using either CPLEX or GUROBI as a subsolver.
SHOT is mainly developed by Andreas Lundell (Åbo Akademi University, Finland) and Jan Kronqvist (Imperial College London, UK).
In this webinar, the two developers explain the basics of their algorithm, and how to utilise SHOT from GAMS.
This webinar has been recorded in November 2020.
Andreas Lundell
Department of Information Technologies
Åbo Akademi University, Finland
andreas.lundell@abo.fi
Andreas is currently a researcher at the Department of Information Technologies at Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU) in Finland. His research is mainly focused on global optimization and mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP).
Andreas received his PhD in applied mathematics from ÅAU in 2009, and has since then been involved in several optimization-related research projects. One of these is the development of the SHOT solver, for which he is currently the project manager. Since 2013 he is an adjunct professor at ÅAU.
Jan Kronqvist
Imperial College, London, UK
j.kronqvist@imperial.ac.uk
Jan has just finished a 2-year postdoc at Imperial College London, and will start as Assistant Professor in Optimization and Systems Theory at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden in May 2021. His research is focused on mixed-integer optimization, specifically in theory and algorithms for mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) and applications of mixed-integer optimization in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Jan graduated in 2018 with honors from Åbo Akademi University in Finland, and was awarded best PhD thesis at the Faculty of Science and Engineering. After his PhD, he was awarded a Newton International Fellowship by the Royal Society in 2018, and a grant by the Foundations Post Doc Pool (given by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland) to support his postdoc research. From 2019 to 2021, Jan worked as a postdoc at Imperial College London (Royal Society- Newton International Fellow).
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Taj Exotica Resort & Spa
Havelock Island, India
'Paradise' is an overused word in our trade, but in this case, we don't hesitate – paradise it most definitely is. The natural beauty of the place is mesmerising. The untouched tropical two-mile swathe that is Radhanagar Beach Number 7 slopes into calm crystal-clear waters rich in marine life, such as manta rays and the leatherback turtle we saw before. It's a total no-brainer why this was recently voted Asia's best beach. It feels as if we've stumbled upon a secret castaway island and, like the characters in Alex Garland's The Beach, our initial instinct was to keep it to ourselves. But it's a secret we're letting you in on, as well as that of the magnificent Taj Exotica Resort & Spa.
The resort's villas were inspired by an architectural form adopted by the indigenous Jarawa people, which allows the structures to nestle in the lush, green landscape. The subtle, understated exterior of each one is in stark contrast to the luxurious space inside. We fell instantly in love with our Grand Luxury Two Bedroom Pool Villa, a stilted structure spread over nearly 3,000 sq ft, with a private pool overlooking perfectly landscaped gardens from a private deck. From the pool, through a wall of sliding glass doors, we stepped in onto a floor of polished coconut wood that kept us connected to nature throughout the space. And the fragrance… Everywhere we ventured in this sprawling villa, we could smell the forest. We often talked about bottling it and taking it home with us.
The modernist interiors enhanced the feeling of calm. Leaving the sumptuous comfort of our heavenly four-poster bed each morning was a challenge and showering in the luxury en-suites that were attached to both the villa's bedrooms felt like being at one with nature.
Nestled in the cultivated forest within a forest is a seductive, Olympic-size infinity pool. Shaded by the natural canopy, it's set on a sprawling elevated deck that looks out to the beach and is home to the Turtle House bar and grill – a great place for poolside meals and cocktails.
For a more intimate meal, The Settlers is a private dining experience that took our tastebuds on a gastronomic tour of the Andaman Islands and the diverse populations that have settled here over the years. The menu features dishes from Tamil, Bengali, Bihari and Keralan cuisines, as well as some influenced by migrants from Burma and Indonesia. Even the food here is experiential, it seems.
Our favourite place of all was the shoreline restaurant, set on a deck with views out towards the ocean. Fish curries from the Indian mainland, shellfish so fresh it tasted as if it had just been caught and desserts made from fruit grown in the garden are all served up with a generous helping of refreshing sea breeze.
This Basecamp review is an extract from a longer feature article, first published in print. To read the full article, click here.
The Escapist IXZ GMT +5.5
Venture to Swaraj Dweep bazaar – also called market number three – is definitely worth experiencing and provides a snapshot of local, Andaman Islands life. As you wander around, pick from the array of street-food, then wash it down with sweet chai.
www.tajhotels.com
Photography courtesy of Taj Hotels & Resorts
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From: London, UK | From, from: Hampshire, UK | Traveller type: Escapist
Written in the wind
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Anegundi, India
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Agra, India
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Rishikesh, India
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