Friday, October 28, 2022

EN — LARRY ROMANOFF — Democracy , The Most Dangerous Religion — Part 3 – Choosing Government Leaders



 

Democracy, The Most Dangerous Religion

Part 3 - Choosing Government Leaders

 

By Larry Romanoff, October 29, 2022

 

 

 

One of the greatest things about the United States of America is that it is truly a land of unlimited political opportunity, a country where a man with no education, training or experience, a man bereft of both intelligence and ability, a man with a character eminently corruptible, can rise to become the President of the United States. And many do. And not only in America.

 

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

EN -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- Democracy,  The Most Dangerous Religion -- Part 2 -- Rubber-Stamp Parliaments


 

Democracy,  The Most Dangerous Religion

Part 2 - Rubber-Stamp Parliaments

 

By Larry Romanoff, October 21, 2022

 

British Parliament Rubber Stamp imagem 2

 

 

 

We often read in the Western press that China has a "rubber-stamp" parliament. That isn't true, and I will deal with it below but, if we want a genuine example of a real rubber-stamp parliament, we can look much closer to home - Canada.

 

In Canada, the leader of the party that wins the election automatically becomes the Prime Minister. He then selects the cabinet, which will include ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs, Health, and so on, and which body determines all legislation to be proposed and passed. These appointments are done entirely by one man, at his option, with cabinet members freely appointed and dismissed at will. It should be apparent that a Prime Minister will appoint to his cabinet only those persons seeing the world through his pair of eyes; he is looking for compliance and conformity, not diversity and conflict. All must be reading from the same script.

 

The Prime Minister determines the character and the landscape, the "psyche" of the current government, which is reflected in his choice of cabinet ministers. No legislation will proceed to Parliament without the approval of the Prime Minister. In fact, no topics, legislative or otherwise, will be raised for discussion within the cabinet, without the express permission of the Prime Minister. Any cabinet member presuming to introduce unwanted topics will be shut down and/or dismissed. When Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Trudeau, was Prime Minister of Canada, his traditional method of dealing with naïve junior cabinet members who dared question or contradict his proposals, was to listen carefully then to state, "Does anyone else have anything stupid they want to say.?" Once was usually enough; the cabinet members know their place. When new legislation or government initiatives are discussed within the cabinet, there may be disagreement and open debate on details, but the final form will inevitably be one that reflects the wishes of the Prime Minister. Actually, in real life, it will reflect the wishes of his external handlers and those who paid for his leadership campaign, but we needn't go there now.

 

When a piece of legislation is decided upon, it is presented to Parliament for debate which, in real life, is a mere condescension to the pretense of democracy since it is already decreed that the legislation will pass. The opposition party can debate within limits, as they do, but the legislation will always pass because the governing party has a majority of votes. In the real world of politics, the parliamentary debates are a sham. Members of the governing party always debate in favor while members of the opposition invariably debate against. The opposition's only intent is to delay and hamstring, perhaps to embarrass, the government, and to score political points that may be valuable in the next election. The ostensible purpose of the opposition, as every school child is taught, is to keep the government on its toes, and honest, to present alternatives, to illuminate flaws or dangers, but the political system is rather more abrupt and vicious than this. Government politics in every democracy is quite a dirty business, not at all the high-minded and selfless system presented in elementary text books.

 

When new legislation is put to a vote, members of the governing party always vote in favor; they have no choice. To vote against your own government's bills would mean eviction from the party and the end of a political career. It is virtually unheard of. Of course, all opposition members vote against the bills but, since they are in a minority, this is of no consequence and the bills always pass. No members of a democratic parliament are permitted to "vote according to their conscience" except on the most trivial of matters when the Prime Minister grants approval, and this almost never happens. In fact, the news media make a great commotion when the government leader occasionally gives his party members the "freedom" to vote as they wish rather than as they are told, presented as a great thing. Unfortunately, it's always on a trivial issue that cannot be hijacked by some ideology.

 

In truth, in the real world of democratic politics, the opposition party serves no useful purpose and accomplishes nothing, simply being an enormous waste of time and money. The opposition has no power to influence the trajectory of the ruling government. It can only delay, but cannot influence or prevent any legislation or action of the governing party. The opposition is entirely emasculated, totally impotent. In real life, this is such a useless body the members might as well go home and prepare for the next election four years hence.

 

The situation is not different if the governing party does not have a majority of the seats in Parliament and is forced to form a coalition with one of the minor parties. There will be some give-and-take, but the coalition agreement will state that the minority party will support the government in all Parliamentary votes, thus maintaining a majority. It is true that the ideology of the coalition party may prevent a particular piece of legislation from being presented to Parliament, but otherwise all is essentially the same.

 

This is not only a true, "rubber-stamp" parliament, but constitutes in the real world of democratic systems, a one-man four-year dictatorship. This is how it really is, at least in Canada and, from the information available, the situation is essentially the same in all democracies, Western or otherwise. The US is an exception due to the different structure, but the results are in many ways comparable.

 

The only place where this narrative encounters difficulty is when we have, as sometimes occurs, a weak and/or incompetent Prime Minister, and a majority of the members of cabinet and Parliament lose faith in their leader and force a change. But after the change, the situation reverts to normal, that is, to the one-man dictatorship and his rubber-stamp parliament.

 

In summary, in a Western "democracy" like that of Canada, the Leader of the Party - the Prime Minister - has 100% control over his cabinet, and the cabinet has 100% control over all voting issues presented to the House. The Prime Minister also has 100% control of the party members’ voting who can either fall into line or leave the party, and that means the entire party will either "rubber-stamp" the Prime Minister's wishes and decisions or be politically executed. You must vote for your 'team'. To do otherwise is both heresy and suicide. Thus, we have, in real life, in actuality, a one-man dictatorship. In truth, it is the Western countries like Canada, not China, that have "ceremonial" and "rubber-stamp" parliaments, and that are “authoritarian dictatorships”.

 

China's Parliament

Here is an extract from a 2010 article in London's Sunday Times:

"When deputies gather in the ornate meeting rooms of the Great Hall of the People, they demonstrate little willingness to engage in hard-hitting discussion of the hot issues of the day - housing, inflation or job opportunities. It is not for nothing that the National People’s Congress is described by such fitting clichés as "rubber stamp" and "ceremonial"."

 

You would almost have to think this was a joke, but the Times went on to tell us about some of the 'hot issues of the day' that China's parliament demonstrated 'little willingness to discuss': "One woman submitted a proposal to ban all private internet cafés. Other suggestions have included a call to prohibit the national anthem as a mobile phone ring tone, and another for a law demanding husbands pay salaries to their wives for the housework." What can we say? Shame on China's parliament for their unwillingness to engage in "hard-hitting discussion" of these hot issues.

 

Westerners are accustomed to the pompous, fractious, and often juvenile, posturing debates occurring in their respective parliaments. In Australia and South Korea, the "hard-hitting discussions" are literally that, since the elected members often come to blows, or hurl books and furniture at each other. Other Western Parliaments are not much better. In the US, one senator referred to an opposition member as "just a chicken-shit thief"; presumably he was enraptured by one of the "hot issues of the day". Westerners strangely accept this as normal, and make various - and vacuous - excuses for it. But there should be no excuse for the most senior leaders and officials of a nation to engage in such emotionally juvenile behavior. The mere absence of this kind of immature stupidity in China's parliament is used as proof of its ceremonial and rubber-stamp status, apparently implying that there is no power without idiocy.

 

China is managed by an open-door meritocracy with nearly 100 million members, of which the national parliament is an extension. The NPC is not a rubber stamp for a non-existent communist dictator. The nation's annual sessions of parliament occur in Beijing with meetings of almost 3,000 deputies and advisors who represent China's 1.4 billion people. To suggest that crucial issues are not addressed is nonsense. China's system is simply different from that of Western countries, and that difference is arguably far superior. Once again, China is a pluralistic society, very unlike the US and most of the West. The Chinese discuss and debate as much as anyone, but the objective is consensus as to what is in the long-term best interests of the nation as a whole.

 

This should be easy for Westerners to understand, but perhaps not. A major difference is that with only one party, everyone is on the same team and searching for the best long-term solution for the entire nation. China does not have two or three "teams" whose members' primary preoccupation is obtaining control in the next election. Thus, Chinese government officials are not "politicians" competing on ideology, but rather "government management officials" looking for solutions. It should be obvious that such a large Parliamentary group will contain points of view from every corner of the social spectrum. The members of China's parliament are absolutely reading from the same script when it comes to the rejuvenation of their nation, but those within the group reflect every possible kind of opinion or position.

 

This is true in the same way it is true for a corporation, where the senior executives and Board members may initially have widely-differing opinions on the future of the company, but their task is to amalgamate all those positions into a coherent future path. There may be prolonged and even heated discussions until the opposing points of view can all be assuaged and accommodated into a unanimous agreement but, through it all, everyone is on "the same team" and searching for the most acceptable result for the company as a whole.

 

By contrast, in all "democracies" we have two or more parties whose primary interest is not the good of the nation or the welfare of the people, but of winning the next election and being in power. The governing of a nation is thus reduced to a kind of team sport where the most important consideration is a victory for "our team". It is legend that any corporation run in this manner is heading for bankruptcy, and the inescapable truth is that this is not different for government. This is one of the flaws omitted from our elementary school textbooks.

 

But there is more. The Chinese culture is different from that of the West. When the members of China's Parliament are discussing new legislation and new 5-year plans, they are not there to create a "TV moment" or garner votes at the expense of another - a claim nobody can make about Western governments. Those who work in Asian countries will know there are many discussions offline, that the debates, the critical examination of all aspects of issues, are done beforehand by many people in many groups until a consensus emerges. It is undoubtedly true that many of these discussions are intense, perhaps even heated, but unlike the US, Canada, and the West generally, the Chinese prefer to not hysterically hang out their dirty linen for the world to see. Family arguments are kept inside the home where they belong, with a unified face presented to the foreign neighbors. China cannot be faulted for that. If anything, the NPC is an example of how adults make decisions without the juvenile posturing and bickering that goes on in the Western political systems. Of course, this is all assisted by the existence of only one political party. Since there are no ideological 'teams' designed to create conflict, the members simply get down to business. It should be strikingly obvious that nobody needs those extra political parties, but the jingoists cannot think in other terms. To them multiple parties are theological in nature.

 

China's major Parliamentary meetings are usually to present the final agreement. By the time the issues are presented to China's Parliament, there may have been months of discussions in variable mixed groups of every size, with all individuals exploring all the alternatives, weeding out the inappropriate or unworkable, until everyone is on the same page. They have all participated in the evaluations, in the debates, and have already achieved the consensus sought. To object then is in some sense already too late. They then conduct a formal vote to simply to confirm the decisions they have already made. This is how the proposals reach the point where they are finally voted on, and why they normally receive overwhelming approval. It sometimes occurs that a few outliers of extremely firm conviction refuse to compromise and thus vote against a proposal, but these people are usually obstructionist and not very good "team players", and perhaps not long for the government world. It's really quite disingenuous to suggest that the Chinese process is a "rubber stamp" approval by people who have no power and no say. And it's especially hypocritical since Western democracies themselves most closely resemble what they condemn.

 

China's system also has an 'opposition', but this body has two major differences from Western governments. Also, it functions intelligently, so let's make that three major differences. First, it does not function to 'oppose' but rather to consult. This body is charged with the responsibility to consider not only the government's directions and policies but also to devise alternatives and make recommendations. And the government must by law consider and respond to all these consultations - which it does. Second, this opposition group are not the marginalised 'losers' as in the Western systems but a second tier of extremely competent people who were not selected to the top governing positions. And, rather than lose all this expertise, this secondary group was created to contribute to the development of their country.

 

*

Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).

His full archive can be seen at:

http://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

He can be contacted at:

2186604556@qq.com


Copyright © Larry Romanoff, Blue Moon of Shanghai, Moon of Shanghai, 2022

IT -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- La misura di una nazione


 

La misura di una nazione

Stati Uniti

By Markus On 18 Ottobre 2022 12,056

Larry Romanoff

unz.com

 

 

CHINESE   ENGLISH   ITALIANO



 

Una delle principali iniziative di propaganda americana pretenderebbe di misurare e giudicare le altre nazioni, un teatrino in cui gli Americani, con la preziosa assistenza dei media di proprietà ebraica, si appropriano dell’unico microfono e fanno valere il loro presunto diritto di giudicare la validità morale intrinseca delle altre nazioni, delle altre forme di governo, e persino delle altre culture nazionali. Ma la maggior parte degli standard applicati a queste enunciazione di “com’è bello essere Americani” sono vacui, misure indefinite e in gran parte indefinibili, praticamente non misurabili e, per lo più, utopiche sciocchezze. Veniamo costantemente bombardati da vuote affermazioni sulla “libertà,” sui “valori democratici,” sullo “Stato di diritto,” sull'”ordine internazionale basato sulle regole” o su cose come “una società debba essere genuinamente libera e aperta.” Le frasi, pur essendo accattivanti, sono talmente generiche da essere prive di significato.

 

RO — LARRY ROMANOFF — MAI TAMP DECAT OMUL MEDIU

 

MAI TAMP DECAT OMUL MEDIU

 

De Larry Romanoff
Fragmente

Traducerea: CD

CHINESE   ENGLISH   ROMANIAN

 

America conduce lumea. Sau ba?
Calitatea educației americane, așa cum vom vedea, este mult mai scăzută decât a fost făcută lumea să creadă, iar calitatea ei în China este mult superioară celei din SUA. Americanii s-ar putea interesa de ce elevii chinezi de liceu care se mută în SUA sunt adesea promovați cu una sau două clase mai sus. Motivul este că ei știu mult mai multe decât omologii lor americani si că ar suferi o plictiseală terminală dacă ar fi forțați să rămână la nivelul clasei.

 

Monday, October 24, 2022

NO — LARRY ROMANOFF — Demokrati, en farlig religion: Del Èn


 

Demokrati, en farlig religion: Del Èn

 

Demokrati = dumskapsstyre


ENGLISH   NORWEGIAN

 

 

Etter å ha vokst opp i et vestlig demokratisk politisk miljø har folk flest fra fødselen blitt formidlet en overbevisning om at en eller annen form for et flerpartisystem, som vi løst kan betegne «demokrati», er den den eneste måten å styre på.

 

NO -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- «Stalins jøder» — En beretning om historisk hykleri, løgn og forledelse


 

«Stalins jøder» — En beretning om historisk hykleri, løgn og forledelse

«Stalins jøder» — En beretning om historisk hykleri, løgn og forledelse

CHINESE   ENGLISH   HELLENIC/GREEK   NEDERLANDS  NORWEGIAN   PORTUGUESE  SPANISH

 

Av Larry Romanoff

Dette emnet er ikke bare viktig i seg selv, men fordi det også inneholder koblinger som hjelper oss å sette andre historiske hendelser i et bedre perspektiv i tillegg til at det er et forbløffende eksempel på hvordan historien forandres i fremstillinger, hvordan utelatelsen av bare noen få avgjørende fakta eller ord kan forvrenge et helt avgjørende segment av historien. Resultatet av slikt er at mye av det man «vet» om historien er feil og at slikt provoserer oss til å forakte uskyldige mennesker mens vi sympatiserer med de skyldige.

 

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

EN -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- Superman Reboots America


Superman Reboots America

By Larry Romanoff, October 18, 2022

 

DC Comics Rebirth: Pros and Cons

 

 

In June of 2014, the National Post carried an article by Ira Wells, titled 'America through the lens of its superheroes', which presented some insightful observations on the American fascination not only with its superheroes but with their serial resurrections, the proliferation and domination of what Wells called "the origin story", a repeat of the discovery of Superman or the maiden voyage of the Enterprise. He said this wasn't just an ingenious marketing device for Hollywood studios but represented something much deeper in the cultural mind of Americans, noting that these archetypical American superheroes are people without a past, not circumscribed by what has come before. He then stated that there is "an unquenchable thirst, a kind of inbuilt narrative desire in America to go back to the origins of things, to punch history’s reset button, reboot our lives and start again." He asked whether Americans essentially lived "outside of history", like their superheroes, not circumscribed by what has come before, being people without a past. He then noted that America’s own "origin story" seemed to be in a constant state of regeneration, with a new beginning always on the horizon, and he ended with the notion that the American imagination seemed almost supernaturally well-suited to this re-booting of society and of historical memory, noting importantly that the launching of the new history was intimately linked to the repression of old histories.

 

It wasn't clear from the article if Wells appreciated the depth of his own perception, and I found myself wishing he had developed his theme a bit further. He was of course correct in the notion that Americans have been living 'outside of history'. That is precisely where they have been, their lack of a unifying history and culture being an insurmountable impediment to their progress as a people, their only adhesion coming from their mythical political religion. But America, and Americans, still fail and still have existential crises, in spite of their almost superhero powers. And whenever America appears again to be failing as a nation, as it has been especially since 2008, we have another flood of resurrected superheroes which represents precisely Americans "punching history’s reset button and starting again". The economy has collapsed, democracy has failed everyone except the Jewish lobby and the top 1%, the American Dream is dead and the future looks hopeless. But then suddenly Superman is reborn, and America can re-boot and start over.

 

In an earlier article I wrote that whenever pressure is placed on Americans by unpleasant truths knocking on their doors, they employ the standard tools of denial, rationalisation and self-adoration, after which they just re-boot the system, clearing the data from all open files and erasing the (historical) memory. Then we re-start as if nothing untoward had ever happened. This is where America is today. The economic, authoritarian, judicial and political environments have created an existential crisis for which Americans have no powers to repel or even guide. It is increasingly apparent to them that the fundamentals on which their emotional well-being has been predicated, have been increasingly trashed by their own government, and their ability to 'feel good to be an American' rapidly disappearing in consequence. And of all the possible responses available to them, Americans turn desperately to juvenile Hollywood imagery and replenish their emotional emptiness by flocking to the cinema to celebrate the rebirth of Superman, vicariously celebrating their own imaginary rebirth through a cartoon character. While this imagery might be appropriate for eight-year-old children, it is a bit ridiculous when adopted by adults, but this seems to be an accurate indication of the American mentality, the result of a century of mass manipulation and programming.

 

Such is the power of the sympathetic imagery created by Lippman and Bernays, arousing emotional experiences even more fake than those at Starbucks - and of much more human consequence. We can recollect Neal Gabler's observations that the Jews of Hollywood created a shadow America, with a cluster of images and ideas so powerful that they colonized the American imagination, and that, ultimately, American values came to be defined largely by the movies the Jews made. The rebirth of Superman and the rebooting of America constitute one of those values.

 

 

*

Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).

His full archive can be seen at:

http://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ and https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

He can be contacted at:

2186604556@qq.com

 

Copyright © Larry Romanoff, Blue Moon of Shanghai, Moon of Shanghai, 2022


Monday, October 17, 2022

EN — LARRY ROMANOFF — Political Indoctrination




Political Indoctrination

By Larry Romanoff, October 16, 2022

 

 

 

Americans don't believe China should adopt US-style multi-party politics because it's a good system, or even because they believe it's a good system. Most Americans aren't sufficiently educated to know if a system is good or bad. Instead, they are deluded that their entire belief system and set of values is held in their minds as the world's default position, representing the natural order of the universe. And they presume to measure the world according to this political religion.

 

One American wrote: "I'm really tired of hearing about democracy. Time and again, people are saying, maybe the Western style isn't right for this country, or maybe the country isn't ready for democracy. Well, when, pray tell, is a country finally ready for democracy?" We can't help but pity this pathetic fool. You can feel his frustration. To him, it is self-evident that American-style multi-party politics is the natural human condition, the inexorable result of human evolution, and it is beyond the limits of his shrunken intellect to imagine that the correct answer to his question is "Well, maybe never." Here's another American, this one with a kind heart. He is tolerant and counsels patience. I like this guy. "We need to recognize that our ideology is not for everybody. The Chinese are still evolving upward, and without an educated society, US-style democracy will not work." Now we know. The Chinese cannot adopt democracy because they are still primitive, having only just taken their first baby steps from apehood to Americanism. Those who reject our system do not do so because it's unsuitable, dysfunctional and corrupt, but because they aren't sufficiently educated.

 

Saturday, October 15, 2022

CH -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- 美国劳工运动与战后社会契约  -- 2022年9月27日



America’s Labor Movement and the Post-War Social Contract

美国劳工运动与战后社会契约

 

By Larry Romanoff, September 27th, 2022

拉里·罗曼诺夫2022年9月27日

UAW leader Walter Reuther took a few minutes off from negotiating to speak at Cadillac Square, Sept. 4, 1961.

UAW leader Walter Reuther took a few minutes off from negotiating to speak at Cadillac Square, Sept. 4, 1961. Tony Spina, Detroit Free Press. Source

1961年9月4日,美国汽车工人联合会(UAW)领导人沃尔特·鲁瑟(Walter Reuther)在凯迪拉克广场(Cadillac Square)谈判时休息了几分钟。托尼·斯皮纳(Tony Spina),底特律自由出版社。来源

 

 

 与大多数其他工业化国家相比,无论是美国政府还是其公司,都没有在多大程度上留住过工人或雇员,美国也从未接受过工会的概念。媒体总是将工会贬低为一种剥削工人的危险社会主义,但实际上剥削工人的是北美资本主义,而社会主义是没有试图保护他们。

 

多亏了媒体,今天的大多数美国人仍然背离了现实。正如我们将看到的那样,在第二次世界大战后的一个短暂时期,对社会动荡的强烈恐惧产生了一种“开明的企业利己主义”,从而形成了一种良性的劳动环境,但这种幻觉在20世纪80年代和大变革时期被消除了,工会成员减少了约70%,主要是由于严峻的资本主义和立法气候。大多数美国工人仍然想要(并且需要)工会,但反工会阴谋太强大了。

 

几乎从最早的日子起,联邦调查局就渗透到工会,并设置腐败官员,试图从内部摧毁工会。这是在打击“敲诈勒索劳工”的幌子下进行的,其中一些实际上存在,但渗透主要是为了破坏和摧毁工会。[1] 当这些尝试失败,劳工组织机构显示出成功的迹象时,他们要么被谋杀,要么被陷害,被判有罪,经常被处决。美国政府在其所有历史中,无论何时法律对手头的目的变得不方便,都绝对无视法律。其中一个目的是镇压劳工,政府不仅经常捏造针对工会组织者的刑事指控,还根据从未存在过的法律对他们定罪。在一个著名的案件中,试图在宾夕法尼亚州建立煤矿工人工会的工会组织者被州政府指控谋杀和阴谋。当这些指控未能成立时,组织者和十几名工会成员因“顽固不化”而被处以绞刑。

 

EN — LARRY ROMANOFF — The Measure of a Nation




The Measure of a Nation

By Larry Romanoff, October 14, 2022

 

 

One of the major American propaganda initiatives pretends to measure and judge nations, a stage performance in which Americans, with the invaluable assistance of the Jewish-owned media, hog the only microphone while exercising their presumed right to set the norms of evaluation of the inherent moral validity of other nations and forms of government, and even of national cultures themselves. But most of the standards applied in these exercises of 'Feeling good to be an American' are vacuous, measures undefined and largely undefinable, virtually all unmeasurable, and mostly utopian nonsense. We are constantly patronised with foolish claims of 'freedom', of 'democratic values', 'rule of law', the 'rules-based international order', or things like being 'a genuinely free and open society'. The phrases, while appealing, are so general as to be meaningless.

 

Moral superiority doesn't come from mouthing platitudes or pretending to utopian values, but from actions. It's what you are, not what you say you are. I don't much care what you claim to stand for or to believe in; I'm interested in your actions, which is where the proof resides. These juvenile PR performances consist mostly of Americans wasting everyone's time in claiming foolish mythical ideals and providing long lists of things they 'believe' but never practice, their religious convictions proof of nothing except mass hysteria, especially the parts about democratic values. Americans believe they are 'good', but in what way are they, as individuals or as a nation, better or morally superior to a Canadian, a German, a Chinese or a Brazilian? The simple truth, obvious to everyone but Americans themselves, is that they are not superior, and there is compelling evidence they are worse.

 

Friday, October 14, 2022

IT -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- Eccezionalismo americano



Eccezionalismo americano

Larry Romanoff - August 22, 2020

Tradotto da CptHook.

中文    ENGLISH   ITALIANO   ESPAÑOL    PORTUGUÊS

 

"Benvenuti in America, la Terra della Libertà", recitano i cartelli all'aeroporto internazionale di Washington, mentre vi mettete in fila per farvi prendere le impronte digitali e ispezionare le vostre cavità corporee alla ricerca di mini ordigni nucleari.

 

Avrei potuto intitolare questo articolo “Gettare il sasso nello stagno”. Nel tentativo di prevenire la prevedibile valanga di dissensi, confermo la mia conoscenza delle statistiche prodotte da un'ampia gamma di individui e istituzioni, con intenti e ideologie molto diversi, e che possono "dimostrare" quasi tutto ciò che si vuole dimostrare, come il coefficiente GINI. Le statistiche su cui si basa questo articolo non sono state selezionate in modo incauto e non sono invalidate dalla disaffezione di un lettore.

 

Gli Stati Uniti sono i migliori solo nell'essere i peggiori

 

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

EN — LARRY ROMANOFF — A Small Tapestry of Lies



A Small Tapestry of Lies

Two Canadian Lies

Freedom Lets You Live Longer

Democracy Makes you Happy

Revolutions Also Make You Happy

Hurray for India, Twice

Bad Russia

Nuts to You, Too

The Missing Half

The Fingers Were Live, but the Strings Were Fake

80% of Chinese Scientists use Google

Let's Win an Olympic Medal

China's Pollution Problem

China Copies Everything

The Dark Side of the Moon

Propaganda, Media, Lies

Cropping, Cutting and Pasting

Toppling of Saddam Hussein's Statue in Baghdad

China Brutalises Tibetans (Again)

Tiananmen Square

China’s Jasmine Revolution

A Lie of Omission is Still a Lie

China: Bullying to Prosperity

China Imprisons yet another Human Rights Lawyer

Jessica Lynch

The Death of Osama bin Laden


By  Larry Romanoff, October 11, 2022

 

Credit Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Obama_and_Biden_await_updates_on_bin_Laden.jpg

 

One of the conditions of Western society today in which all citizens are immersed, is that the lie has become the truth and the truth a lie. The lies that have become the truth, emanate primarily from governments and corporations, while the truths which are lies are on the part of the people. These latter are at the very least "misinformation" bordering on domestic terrorism, the telling of which is attracting increasingly onerous and even frightening repressive and punitive measures. We seem to be 80% of the way to the end game.

 

I cannot be certain but, delving back into my memory, this condition seems to have appeared or at least gained enormous vigor around 1980, the time of "The Great Transformation" of Western society. That was the time when all of the West took an alarming turn to the extreme political Right. There have always been lies of course, from governments, militaries, corporations, religions, and by the media themselves but, prior to 1980, such events would have been rare, scandalous, and considered unforgivable, and possibly heads would have rolled somewhere. But today, lies are the norm, the accepted response to all challenges, and the media are absolutely in the front lines. Today, the lies are so common they seem to elicit no response. We Westerners have become so inured that we no longer resist or protest although, in fairness, our protests today would be futile.

 

Monday, October 10, 2022

IT -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- Una Nazione Carceraria



Una nazione carceraria

Stati Uniti  Giustizia  Società

By Markus On 09 Ottobre 2022 10,352

Scelto e tradotto da Markus per comedonchisciotte.org

ENGLISH   ITALIANO

 

AVVISO PER I LETTORI: Abbiamo cambiato il nostro indirizzo Telegram. Per restare aggiornato su tutti gli ultimi nostri articoli iscriviti al nostro canale ufficiale Telegram


Larry Romanoff

unz.com



Oltre alla tortura e alla democrazia, c’è un altro ambito in cui gli Stati Uniti possono affermare di essere leader mondiali: la popolazione carceraria. L’America ha solo il 4% della popolazione mondiale, ma ha il 25% dei detenuti nelle carceri, con più di una persona su 30 in prigione, in libertà condizionale, in libertà vigilata o in sorveglianza correzionale [1][2]. Ciò significa che negli Stati Uniti circa una persona su tre ha precedenti penali. Gli Stati Uniti hanno più detenuti dei primi 35 Paesi europei messi insieme e, con poco più di 300 milioni di persone, hanno nelle carceri un numero assoluto di detenuti superiore a quello della Cina, che conta 1.400 milioni di abitanti. Il tasso di incarcerazione in Cina e nei Paesi europei è in media di circa 100 [detenuti ogni 100.000 abitanti], mentre negli Stati Uniti è quasi 8 volte superiore. Di fatto, il tasso di incarcerazione degli Stati Uniti è più alto di quello dei Paesi elencati da Amnesty International come Paesi con problemi urgenti in materia di diritti umani.

 

Anche Hillary Clinton è d’accordo [3]:

 

“È un dato di fatto che gli Stati Uniti hanno meno del 5% della popolazione mondiale, ma hanno quasi il 25% della popolazione carceraria totale del pianeta. I numeri di oggi sono molto più alti di quelli di 30 o 40 anni fa, nonostante il crimine sia ai minimi storici.” Hillary Clinton, discorso sulla giustizia penale alla Columbia University, 29 aprile 2015.

 

La privatizzazione delle carceri

 

Sunday, October 9, 2022

EN — LARRY ROMANOFF — US Military Casualties in Vietnam


 

US Military Casualties in Vietnam 

By Larry Romanoff, October 09, 2022

 

John Olson’s famous photo of wounded Marines being evacuated during the Battle of Hue in February 1968. 

John Olson/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images

 

When considering war fatalities, we tend to construct a simple framework in our minds, of the form: "50,000 soldiers were sent into battle; 40,000 returned; fatalities 10,000. End of story." But things are not so simple as this, for reasons both valid and fraudulent.

 

For one, the US government and military inevitably understate all the bad parts of their wars. It may be true that all governments and militaries do this, but here we are discussing the US. A few examples:

 

For the fire-bombing of Tokyo, any estimate of deaths less than one million is not even remotely plausible, yet I can recall that for many years the "official" US military estimate was 35,000.[1] The generally-accepted death totals for the Vietnam war (including Laos and Cambodia) is around five million; the US adamantly states the totals at only one million on the grounds that "Vietnamese statistics are notoriously unreliable". Bonnie Triyana, an Indonesian historian, has documented the death toll during the American "pacification" of her country, of at least three million, while the NYT ran an article headlined "U.S. Stood By as Indonesia Killed a Half-Million People, Papers Show",[2] reducing the death total by 85% and blaming the deaths on Indonesians rather than the US CIA and military. It is more or less an axiom that the greater the atrocities and the more horrific the war crimes, the greater the understatement, and also the more extensive the media censorship on the topic.

 

EN — LARRY ROMANOFF — INCARCERATION NATION


 


Incarceration Nation

By Larry Romanoff, October 6, 2022

 

 

 

In addition to torture and democracy, there is yet another place where the US can claim to be the world's leader, and that is throwing people into prisons. America has only 4% of the world's population, but has 25% of the world's prisoners in jails, with more than one person in every 30 either in prison, on parole, probation, or in correctional supervision.[1][2] This means that about one person in three in the US has a criminal record. The US has more prison inmates than the leading 35 European countries combined and, with a little over 300 million people, has a larger absolute number of prisoners in jails than does China - which has 1,400 million people. The incarceration rate in China and the European nations is around 100, while the US is at almost 8 times this number. In fact, the US rate is higher than those countries listed by Amnesty International as having urgent human rights issues.

 

Even Hillary Clinton agrees:[3]

 

"It’s a stark fact that the United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population. The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40 years ago despite the fact that crime is at historic lows." Hillary Clinton, speech on criminal justice at Columbia University, April 29, 2015

 

Privatisation of Prisons

 

EN -- LARRY ROMANOFF -- Life in a Failed State -- Part 2 -- September 27, 2022



Life in a Failed State

Part 2

By Larry Romanoff, September 27, 2022

 


ENGLISH   ITALIANO



The Crumbling of America

America the Shrunken

The World's Richest Banana Republic

Abandoning the American Dream

 

The Crumbling of America

 




In June of 2013 an Interstate bridge on a main commercial corridor between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, Canada, collapsed and fell into the river below after being hit by a truck. This was not a high-speed collision; the truck simply bumped one of the main support pillars at low speed, but the weakened and dilapidated pillar broke from the strain and, without that extra bit of support, the entire bridge immediately collapsed into the river. In prior examinations, the heavily-travelled bridge had not only been rated as functionally obsolete but structurally deficient and requiring replacement.

 

This is only one of thousands; the great majority of the physical infrastructure of the US is in a similar condition, involving roads, dams, bridges and more. More than 160,000 bridges in the US are officially categorized as dangerous, at risk of collapse, with such collapses now regularly occurring.[1][2][3]

 

iNTERNET ARCHIVE


 

TO INTERNET ARCHIVE -- Re: An urgent request

Please remove this file from archive.org:

Step 1: (a) This is the URL that I want excluded from your website:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230414194235/https://www.moonofshanghai.com/2023/04/en-larry-romanoff-power-behind-throne.html Sincerely, Luisa Vasconcellos

 

 

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What part will your country play in World War III?

By Larry Romanoff, May 27, 2021

The true origins of the two World Wars have been deleted from all our history books and replaced with mythology. Neither War was started (or desired) by Germany, but both at the instigation of a group of European Zionist Jews with the stated intent of the total destruction of Germany. The documentation is overwhelming and the evidence undeniable. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11)

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