Our consciousness is a bubble of perception and we all need some sense of stability, some structure, of self, of community, of the cosmos, that gives us comfort. Thus the power of religions. At most we want answers to our questions, not universal truths. There are a lot of priests and politicians to give us those answers, but the philosophers are pretty much intellectually neutered and confined to the back alleys of academia. Stoicism anyone?
The problem is, as Philip K Dick so effectively put it, "Reality is what doesn't go away, when you stop believing in it."
I suspect the mother of all reality checks is in the mail and it will rip away far more than just our fantasies of war. As brutal, delusional and criminal as they have been, they really are a distraction from and effect of deeper issues.
Debt, for one thing. Debt doesn't matter, until it does.
Also the founding principle of our country is universal rights. Yet the basis of any healthy society has to be a general acceptance of responsibilities, with rights as reward. When everyone has all the rights they want and responsibilities are optional, the consequence is the Tragedy of the Commons.
When our country was first being imagined, the irresponsible were more likely to starve, so the assumption of a general degree of responsibility was a given, but now people wonder why their lives don't seem to have any meaning, without any clue that being responsible is what gives our lives meaning. What we give, matters more than what we get.
It is sad, but some lessons have to be learned the hard way.
Russia had a bit of a reality check, with the fall of the Soviet Union, thinking they could become good capitalists. Now we are all looking at a much bigger bubble being burst.
Great piece, Patrick. Yes, the ruling elite is currently running a narrative that, as Chris Hedges argues is being carefully managed. Unfortunately as Mr. Merryman points out through Phillip K Dick, reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. Unfortunately, our elites don't seem to recognize that they can't alter reality. Equally unfortunately, we don't have an "allies" to thwart the forces of evil and/or wickedness that are foisting the bubble on us.....
The elites cannot alter reality but they can alter its perception sufficiently to ensure that they can safely conclude their looting before the burning starts.
On despicable deeply corrupt Joe Biden – lying us into war while knowing with 100% certainty that WMD in Iraq is a bipartisan fraud (same as with Bucha and other crimes in Ukraine) – a major US war criminal
you heard "the war has entered a new phase" in the press recently? General Austin said our aim is now OFFICIALLY to degrade Russian capability. That is policy statement. Guess how they do that....they keep Russia fighting...bog them down. How they do that? After reading the below, extrapolating from Fallujah and US experience in mid east: By stinging civilians and turning it into a cross border sectarian hate-fest! Read this:
Try calling your local "Gas Utility", speak to the CEO's office with your caller ID on, and abuse him mercilessly, and threaten to confiscate his pipes, threatening to shut off his supply at the head meter and pumping in your own dubious hot air into the pipes......see how long before cops show up at your door....good luck. Yet, the Anglo Saxon ivy league elite, think they can do this with Russian pipes, on a transnational geopolitical scale, completely ignoring "the other party".
Also, it's high school math that you can not substitute LNG ships for piped gas infrastructure flows. You simply can not. the capacity is not even comparable. Never mind the greenhouse effect of shipping across the atlantic. US hollwood TV news can not even mention this point.
Good Luck EU! The EU are the most chump, compromised, colonized people on the planet. The deal with EU was: Nato will cover your military umbrella expense, in turn EU shovels "carrot payments" further and further into the east as inducement to (1) join the EU (for pay), and (2)join NATO. If you tell the EU as trump did, "pay for your own defense" , then you are breaking the bargain; in effect saying: stop the carrot payments to the new eastern members. Lest you think this carrot payment is a joke of mine, be aware Poland is due " more than 75 billion euros Poland is eligible for from the bloc until 2027" --Financial Times quote. This is what the "european union" is. It's really a US-England colony.
It has been sadly educational to read the accounts of Polish officials sputtering on about "breach of contract for the (seemingly-imminent) suspension of their gas supplies. All contracts have a "Force Majeure" clause that place them in suspense. I would encourage these officials to review theirs with Gazprom in the unlikely chance that there is something there concerning War or, at least, economic sanctions.
It is actually possible - but only with enough time (which Poland and the rest of the EU do not have available) - to substitute LNG for terrestrial pipeline gas. Even so, the costs are not comparable and the substitution would require the EU to adopt a very protectionist stance towards preserving its heavy industry. Under such conditions, EU living conditions would be significantly-reduced.
That's the best case and merely a theoretical one as it would be several years before additional, sufficient LNG capacity would materialize.
Or maybe not?
The lockdowns in China are temporarily reducing LNG demand sharply. Perhaps China can divert some of their existing supply vessels to prevent the EU from falling back into the Bronze Age? If so, one wonders what the USA will make of a scenario in which only the PRC can save the EU...
Should the smart money be placed upon the EU caving and paying the Russians in their Rubles or politely asking the CCP to send some LNG vessels in their direction?
You should read Polish PiS party officials talking about being "sanctioned" by the EU for "breach of democratic governance"!
See the hypocrisy of how THEY like "sanctions" even sanctions on free-EU-money that isn't "theirs" originally. It's unprintable in family settings the things they said about the EU. Just IMagine the hypocrisy!
As to your LNG ship: EU needs ~7000 Q-Max ships PER DAY to equal what it got last year, per Reuters (552 billion cubic meters).
give it time, chances are 80% or more that the entire Balkans will erupt with illicit weapons sales from Ukraine theater to the foot of europe. Von der Leyen ( of 4 years at stanford but no degree fame) will cheer.
This is a powerful response to the situation in Ukraine and the lying provocation of Blinken/Biden and the whole US military industrial WMD sales to Zelensky and the AZOV-mob atrocities and the lying presentation of what is actually happening. I've just been writing to a friend having learnt she read Chekhov's story The Lady and her Dog - some 15 years ago - in Russian - and referencing respected Tony Kevin (former Australian diplomat) and his books on Russia - personal reflection and political analysis (and his influence on me after his book on walking the Camino pilgrimage in Spain - around 20 years ago - to walk the Japanese equivalent - the 88-temple path around Shikoku) and in order to check publication dates I googled his name. I was shocked to find several entries scurrilously portraying him a stooge of Russia. Readers here will no doubt think me naïve? But then yesterday here in Australia (April 25th) was our national day of mourning for all Australians (and those from NewZealand, too) who have fallen in wars ANZAC Day. Which has in many ways become a day for military celebration - and khaki photo opportunities for politicians especially. It is a conflicted day - at the very least but mostly when politicians use it to boost their election chances. As yesterday - when one of the nation's ugliest politicians - Peter Dutton - jumped up and down telling us that the nation has to be preparing for war - against China - because way out in the Pacific north-east from Sydney 2,000 km - the Chinese have negotiated a treaty with the Solomons Islands. The Sky is falling! The Sky is falling! shrieked Peter Dutton - ramping up as best he can the "fear" factor! (Our federal elections less than four weeks away - as you might have guessed!) It makes as much sense as the lies around Russia/Ukraine at the moment.
No chance, our western bubble of unreality is so deeply inculcated it is inescapable. Foucault’s post modern nonsense about power and reality being being only a social construct is imbedded in all institutions and it is how we think, the guiding thought process of all our people. We are steeped in the belief that we can manage our way through anything and all failure is just mismanagement. The end of history, a return to a state of nature and balance is attainable through the redress of power differentials. It is all consuming, physical reality is an encumbrance to be overcome, we love our unreality it is our quest, it gives purpose to our lives. We seek to achieve an achievable utopia, and you Patrick, are a bit of a bummer: truth truth truth, dude buzzkill.
No chance of emerging from this delusion, we have comprehensively lost our way. There is no emerging from this bubble, lest we forget is of course always ironic because we always forget and make the same mistakes: Ukraine narrative management is embraced by us on mass, we love it and want it.
It’s also a very handy war, no Americans are being killed, arms sales to the EU will surge, visible minorities are not involved and then there’s the delicious schadenfreude of seeing our generational foe Russia suffer; our elite can dawn blue and yellow ribbons, bemoan the tragedy and cry freedom unto the last Ukrainian, perfect.
What if there is an alternative and these silly fools are cooking a much larger golden goose than their little minds can possibly comprehend?
Remember democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures, as that was how the Ancients analogized a complex world and multicultural societies. In their view, monotheism equated with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god. The formative experience for Judaism was the forty years isolated in the desert, giving us the Ten Commandments.
The Romans adopted Christianity because it was an amalgamation of pan and monotheism, for the monolithic political implications. All about worshipping the Big Guy. The Republic was long ago and the Empire needed validation.
The Trinity became an afterthought.
When the West went back to pluralistic political systems, it required the separation of church and state, culture and civics.
Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which life rises, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which it fell. The light shining through the film, than the images on it.
Ideals are not absolute, so consider the implications of assuming them to be. It very well explains much of Western political and cultural neuroses. The idea my view is good, so everyone else must be bad.
The reality is more yin and yang, than God Almighty.
Once you really start to peel away the issues of being linear, goal oriented creatures in a cyclical, circular, feedback generated reality, we are still in a pretty spoiled adolescent stage of intellectual evolution and if these billionaires and buffoons assume they can tear down the very structure on which they are perched and they will still be on top, then they have to be informed otherwise. It's all quite provincial.
The adolescent stage idea rings true with me. Freud and psychoanalysis recently taught us that we are self deceiving little creatures and the clerisy of the academic left has applied it willie nillie to everything, like kids infatuated with a new toy! Goddamn, observable reality suggests that there are two sexes and yes a tolerant society needs accommodate young people with dysphoria but they take it to absurd lengths. Need we abandon all previous knowledge? Are we stupid?
Sex is a binary. People are a spectrum. Trying to cancel a facet of biology that predates the split between flora and fauna certainly qualifies as going to extremes.
That's the problem with trying to treat ideals as absolutes. When one ideology says, my beliefs are absolute, is the logical response to say, no, my beliefs are absolute? Would it make more sense to try to dissect the underlaying logic? Or is it not about logic in the first place?
Tech companies are deeply integrated with Deep State "security" apparatus. With all current free speech Tweeter excitement, the critical test will be if TOTAL censorship of contrary views on, e.g. Ukraine’s “democracy” and relentless NATO expansion, will be maintained.
Noble and courageous Scott Ritter has been permanently banned from Tweeter -- will he be allowed to speak again?!?!
"The 'defactualization' of America" -- Ukraine as mirror -- Patrick Lawrence – April 25
A scary piece more than warranted by the times...made more so by my observation of the past ten minutes indicating that President Biden's approval rating continues to slip.
That is not unexpected.
The high-level explanations given suggest that the slip is being driven by his insane policies towards the Russian-Ukranian coflict.
That is not unexpected.
Fruther reading indicates that the dis-satsisfaction with Biden's performance stems from his apparent hesitancy (!) for rapid escalation in the proxy war.
That is not unexpected; it is simply hopeless.
As to what Americans see when they gaze in the mirror I can only fathom:
Hi Patrick, Very good article, pointing to amongst other things, the surreal nature of our present milieu. It’s a recurring theme for me as a writer, and one I’m weaving into an article I’m penning on the Old Gray Lady as we speak. It didn’t go unnoticed you name-checked ‘her’ in this piece. Some of your musings will doubtless be grist to the mill as I bring the project to completion. Being a fan of creative neologisms, the word “defactualisation” appeals! Is this your handiwork? 😎🙏👍
" I do love The Times for its delicate phrasing when describing indelicate matters."
Such falsity is unnecessary and is detractive. It is disingenuous and your readers are aware of its contradiction, its own long-time falsity; at least I am objecting to pretense. You are an iconoclast and you have a good deal of ideologies to strike down. The Times is not worth the spit.
Our consciousness is a bubble of perception and we all need some sense of stability, some structure, of self, of community, of the cosmos, that gives us comfort. Thus the power of religions. At most we want answers to our questions, not universal truths. There are a lot of priests and politicians to give us those answers, but the philosophers are pretty much intellectually neutered and confined to the back alleys of academia. Stoicism anyone?
The problem is, as Philip K Dick so effectively put it, "Reality is what doesn't go away, when you stop believing in it."
I suspect the mother of all reality checks is in the mail and it will rip away far more than just our fantasies of war. As brutal, delusional and criminal as they have been, they really are a distraction from and effect of deeper issues.
Debt, for one thing. Debt doesn't matter, until it does.
Also the founding principle of our country is universal rights. Yet the basis of any healthy society has to be a general acceptance of responsibilities, with rights as reward. When everyone has all the rights they want and responsibilities are optional, the consequence is the Tragedy of the Commons.
When our country was first being imagined, the irresponsible were more likely to starve, so the assumption of a general degree of responsibility was a given, but now people wonder why their lives don't seem to have any meaning, without any clue that being responsible is what gives our lives meaning. What we give, matters more than what we get.
It is sad, but some lessons have to be learned the hard way.
Russia had a bit of a reality check, with the fall of the Soviet Union, thinking they could become good capitalists. Now we are all looking at a much bigger bubble being burst.
Great piece, Patrick. Yes, the ruling elite is currently running a narrative that, as Chris Hedges argues is being carefully managed. Unfortunately as Mr. Merryman points out through Phillip K Dick, reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. Unfortunately, our elites don't seem to recognize that they can't alter reality. Equally unfortunately, we don't have an "allies" to thwart the forces of evil and/or wickedness that are foisting the bubble on us.....
The elites cannot alter reality but they can alter its perception sufficiently to ensure that they can safely conclude their looting before the burning starts.
Unfortunately, I think among the leading factions (the Biden WH appointees,) they're just in it for the Burn. Call it "thrill-kill"(ing.)
Good article, sir. Cynthia Chung's Substack recommended this and I can see why. Will be linking it today @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
And will begin following as well. Have linked several of your Consortium News articles in the past!!!
Thank you patrick. Truth is to many scarier than fiction, thus the need to prvaricate,no matter the cost
On despicable deeply corrupt Joe Biden – lying us into war while knowing with 100% certainty that WMD in Iraq is a bipartisan fraud (same as with Bucha and other crimes in Ukraine) – a major US war criminal
https://youtu.be/ecH1SI9ufr8
you heard "the war has entered a new phase" in the press recently? General Austin said our aim is now OFFICIALLY to degrade Russian capability. That is policy statement. Guess how they do that....they keep Russia fighting...bog them down. How they do that? After reading the below, extrapolating from Fallujah and US experience in mid east: By stinging civilians and turning it into a cross border sectarian hate-fest! Read this:
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/04/26/bidens-new-arms-czar-for-ukraine-has-a-lot-of-blood-on-his-hands-they-are-likely-to-get-even-bloodier/
Which only means Russia will do the same in other venues. Biden is really really really taking this war nastier and nastier.
Try calling your local "Gas Utility", speak to the CEO's office with your caller ID on, and abuse him mercilessly, and threaten to confiscate his pipes, threatening to shut off his supply at the head meter and pumping in your own dubious hot air into the pipes......see how long before cops show up at your door....good luck. Yet, the Anglo Saxon ivy league elite, think they can do this with Russian pipes, on a transnational geopolitical scale, completely ignoring "the other party".
Also, it's high school math that you can not substitute LNG ships for piped gas infrastructure flows. You simply can not. the capacity is not even comparable. Never mind the greenhouse effect of shipping across the atlantic. US hollwood TV news can not even mention this point.
Good Luck EU! The EU are the most chump, compromised, colonized people on the planet. The deal with EU was: Nato will cover your military umbrella expense, in turn EU shovels "carrot payments" further and further into the east as inducement to (1) join the EU (for pay), and (2)join NATO. If you tell the EU as trump did, "pay for your own defense" , then you are breaking the bargain; in effect saying: stop the carrot payments to the new eastern members. Lest you think this carrot payment is a joke of mine, be aware Poland is due " more than 75 billion euros Poland is eligible for from the bloc until 2027" --Financial Times quote. This is what the "european union" is. It's really a US-England colony.
It has been sadly educational to read the accounts of Polish officials sputtering on about "breach of contract for the (seemingly-imminent) suspension of their gas supplies. All contracts have a "Force Majeure" clause that place them in suspense. I would encourage these officials to review theirs with Gazprom in the unlikely chance that there is something there concerning War or, at least, economic sanctions.
It is actually possible - but only with enough time (which Poland and the rest of the EU do not have available) - to substitute LNG for terrestrial pipeline gas. Even so, the costs are not comparable and the substitution would require the EU to adopt a very protectionist stance towards preserving its heavy industry. Under such conditions, EU living conditions would be significantly-reduced.
That's the best case and merely a theoretical one as it would be several years before additional, sufficient LNG capacity would materialize.
Or maybe not?
The lockdowns in China are temporarily reducing LNG demand sharply. Perhaps China can divert some of their existing supply vessels to prevent the EU from falling back into the Bronze Age? If so, one wonders what the USA will make of a scenario in which only the PRC can save the EU...
Should the smart money be placed upon the EU caving and paying the Russians in their Rubles or politely asking the CCP to send some LNG vessels in their direction?
You should read Polish PiS party officials talking about being "sanctioned" by the EU for "breach of democratic governance"!
See the hypocrisy of how THEY like "sanctions" even sanctions on free-EU-money that isn't "theirs" originally. It's unprintable in family settings the things they said about the EU. Just IMagine the hypocrisy!
As to your LNG ship: EU needs ~7000 Q-Max ships PER DAY to equal what it got last year, per Reuters (552 billion cubic meters).
Bulgarian officials, it seems, will now join the sputtering chorus...
give it time, chances are 80% or more that the entire Balkans will erupt with illicit weapons sales from Ukraine theater to the foot of europe. Von der Leyen ( of 4 years at stanford but no degree fame) will cheer.
This is a powerful response to the situation in Ukraine and the lying provocation of Blinken/Biden and the whole US military industrial WMD sales to Zelensky and the AZOV-mob atrocities and the lying presentation of what is actually happening. I've just been writing to a friend having learnt she read Chekhov's story The Lady and her Dog - some 15 years ago - in Russian - and referencing respected Tony Kevin (former Australian diplomat) and his books on Russia - personal reflection and political analysis (and his influence on me after his book on walking the Camino pilgrimage in Spain - around 20 years ago - to walk the Japanese equivalent - the 88-temple path around Shikoku) and in order to check publication dates I googled his name. I was shocked to find several entries scurrilously portraying him a stooge of Russia. Readers here will no doubt think me naïve? But then yesterday here in Australia (April 25th) was our national day of mourning for all Australians (and those from NewZealand, too) who have fallen in wars ANZAC Day. Which has in many ways become a day for military celebration - and khaki photo opportunities for politicians especially. It is a conflicted day - at the very least but mostly when politicians use it to boost their election chances. As yesterday - when one of the nation's ugliest politicians - Peter Dutton - jumped up and down telling us that the nation has to be preparing for war - against China - because way out in the Pacific north-east from Sydney 2,000 km - the Chinese have negotiated a treaty with the Solomons Islands. The Sky is falling! The Sky is falling! shrieked Peter Dutton - ramping up as best he can the "fear" factor! (Our federal elections less than four weeks away - as you might have guessed!) It makes as much sense as the lies around Russia/Ukraine at the moment.
No chance, our western bubble of unreality is so deeply inculcated it is inescapable. Foucault’s post modern nonsense about power and reality being being only a social construct is imbedded in all institutions and it is how we think, the guiding thought process of all our people. We are steeped in the belief that we can manage our way through anything and all failure is just mismanagement. The end of history, a return to a state of nature and balance is attainable through the redress of power differentials. It is all consuming, physical reality is an encumbrance to be overcome, we love our unreality it is our quest, it gives purpose to our lives. We seek to achieve an achievable utopia, and you Patrick, are a bit of a bummer: truth truth truth, dude buzzkill.
No chance of emerging from this delusion, we have comprehensively lost our way. There is no emerging from this bubble, lest we forget is of course always ironic because we always forget and make the same mistakes: Ukraine narrative management is embraced by us on mass, we love it and want it.
It’s also a very handy war, no Americans are being killed, arms sales to the EU will surge, visible minorities are not involved and then there’s the delicious schadenfreude of seeing our generational foe Russia suffer; our elite can dawn blue and yellow ribbons, bemoan the tragedy and cry freedom unto the last Ukrainian, perfect.
Lol.
TINA.
What if there is an alternative and these silly fools are cooking a much larger golden goose than their little minds can possibly comprehend?
Remember democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures, as that was how the Ancients analogized a complex world and multicultural societies. In their view, monotheism equated with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god. The formative experience for Judaism was the forty years isolated in the desert, giving us the Ten Commandments.
The Romans adopted Christianity because it was an amalgamation of pan and monotheism, for the monolithic political implications. All about worshipping the Big Guy. The Republic was long ago and the Empire needed validation.
The Trinity became an afterthought.
When the West went back to pluralistic political systems, it required the separation of church and state, culture and civics.
Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which life rises, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which it fell. The light shining through the film, than the images on it.
Ideals are not absolute, so consider the implications of assuming them to be. It very well explains much of Western political and cultural neuroses. The idea my view is good, so everyone else must be bad.
The reality is more yin and yang, than God Almighty.
Cool, new ideas for me to contemplate.
Once you really start to peel away the issues of being linear, goal oriented creatures in a cyclical, circular, feedback generated reality, we are still in a pretty spoiled adolescent stage of intellectual evolution and if these billionaires and buffoons assume they can tear down the very structure on which they are perched and they will still be on top, then they have to be informed otherwise. It's all quite provincial.
The bull is power. The matador is art.
This little blue ball will keep spinning.
The adolescent stage idea rings true with me. Freud and psychoanalysis recently taught us that we are self deceiving little creatures and the clerisy of the academic left has applied it willie nillie to everything, like kids infatuated with a new toy! Goddamn, observable reality suggests that there are two sexes and yes a tolerant society needs accommodate young people with dysphoria but they take it to absurd lengths. Need we abandon all previous knowledge? Are we stupid?
Sex is a binary. People are a spectrum. Trying to cancel a facet of biology that predates the split between flora and fauna certainly qualifies as going to extremes.
That's the problem with trying to treat ideals as absolutes. When one ideology says, my beliefs are absolute, is the logical response to say, no, my beliefs are absolute? Would it make more sense to try to dissect the underlaying logic? Or is it not about logic in the first place?
Tech companies are deeply integrated with Deep State "security" apparatus. With all current free speech Tweeter excitement, the critical test will be if TOTAL censorship of contrary views on, e.g. Ukraine’s “democracy” and relentless NATO expansion, will be maintained.
Noble and courageous Scott Ritter has been permanently banned from Tweeter -- will he be allowed to speak again?!?!
"The 'defactualization' of America" -- Ukraine as mirror -- Patrick Lawrence – April 25
https://thescrum.substack.com/p/the-defactualization-of-america?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2&s=r
A scary piece more than warranted by the times...made more so by my observation of the past ten minutes indicating that President Biden's approval rating continues to slip.
That is not unexpected.
The high-level explanations given suggest that the slip is being driven by his insane policies towards the Russian-Ukranian coflict.
That is not unexpected.
Fruther reading indicates that the dis-satsisfaction with Biden's performance stems from his apparent hesitancy (!) for rapid escalation in the proxy war.
That is not unexpected; it is simply hopeless.
As to what Americans see when they gaze in the mirror I can only fathom:
Exceptionalism unburdened by consequences.
"They pretend to represent us, We pretend to care about them".....LIberal Democracy ! DNC/Keir Starmer et al.....jokes.
Hi Patrick, Very good article, pointing to amongst other things, the surreal nature of our present milieu. It’s a recurring theme for me as a writer, and one I’m weaving into an article I’m penning on the Old Gray Lady as we speak. It didn’t go unnoticed you name-checked ‘her’ in this piece. Some of your musings will doubtless be grist to the mill as I bring the project to completion. Being a fan of creative neologisms, the word “defactualisation” appeals! Is this your handiwork? 😎🙏👍
In Vietnam the army had its silly inflated "body count" but at least the press was skeptical. See "Five O'Clock Follies."
What's gonna happen when Ukraine loses?
" I do love The Times for its delicate phrasing when describing indelicate matters."
Such falsity is unnecessary and is detractive. It is disingenuous and your readers are aware of its contradiction, its own long-time falsity; at least I am objecting to pretense. You are an iconoclast and you have a good deal of ideologies to strike down. The Times is not worth the spit.