Answer to Kissinger

See previous posts on the breakup of Russia. You should know at the outset the following things:

• I’m married to a Russian and have relatives there. The war has prevented my wife and son, not to mention me, from visiting them. I’m furious with Putin about that.
• I had significant investments in Russian mutual funds in 2014. Putin’s action cost me a million dollars. I’m willing to kill him on that count alone. I had the residuals of that, still, on February 24th. The war rendered them valueless, and sanctions confiscated them. If I could resurrect him and kill him twice, I’d do it slowly both times.
• I visited Ukraine 4 times between 2009 and 2011, staying a week each time, twice in the west and twice in the east. I took a trip from Kharkiv to Luhansk by myself (i.e. without a guide/translator). I felt perfectly safe there. Safer than I felt in Russia the many times I’ve been there. I had many friends there. I’ve lost touch with all of them since the war.
• I hired several Ukrainian musicians through Fiverr.com. One was living in Kharkiv. I’ve lost touch with her. The other one, though living in the US, is working much too hard and has developed health problems. If you want to hear what kind of music, see https://youtube.com/@RobertShulerMusic .
• Ukraine was greatly affected by the US 2008-9 financial crisis. They sell goods and export labor to the EU, and the EU was curtailed by lack of business from the US. This was practically all they talked about, well, except for when Stalin tried to starve them to death. Russia was not much affected by the 2008 events. My wife never mentioned it. When in 2013 Putin tried to override Ukraine’s desire to go more toward the EU, of course they rejected him.
• While the Ukrainians may have had some rough edges while trying to define their country, they definitely are the victim. How many Russans within Russia’s pre-2014 border have died from Ukrainian rockets? Zero. How many Russians fled rather than fight in the war? Half a million. How many Ukrainians? 7.5 million. At least. There are many orders of magnitude difference in the crimes of the Russians and the misdemeanors of the Ukrainians. If you disagree, go out in our back yard and shoot yourself. For sure don’t tell me about it.

Now we begin the analysis I wrote first for my group of friends, who already know all that stuff about where I’m coming from.

Russia launched 76 rockets today.  16 hit their targets.  60 were shot down.

(1) Update from Ukraine | Ruzzia Attacks again | Ukraine gets more military support from USA – YouTube

1. Expecting another massive ground attack on Kyiv in February or March
2. Politico expects war to stalemate, possibly for years, due to lack of resources on both sides
3. Russia continues to inch forward in Donbas

Where were you when the rockets hit?  Going about your daily life?  You should be holding a protest sign in front of the White House.  If I were aware of an organized demonstration, I would go.  I looked for a protest to join early in the war.  No one seems to be coordinating anything.    If just ten other people will go, I will go.

Musk’s suspension of journalists could embolden authoritarians, free speech experts warn (msn.com)

Musk has lost everything.  Especially respect.  People I know who once liked him now say he’s nuts.  See also One of Tesla’s Largest Shareholders Calls to Ditch Elon Musk (msn.com) .

Japan to Build a More Powerful Military, Citing China as Its No. 1 Menace (msn.com)

When I was young, the idea of Japan rebuilding their military scared people crazy.

Sasse’s exit from Senate prompts GOP unease over replacement (msn.com)

I don’t know these guys, but here is what even fellow Republicans are saying:

“It looks bad. It smells bad. What it looks like is two rich guys using their money and power to grab a Senate seat,” said Jeremy Aspen, an Omaha Republican and former state party delegate. “This is how authoritarian countries operate, where a powerful few ride roughshod to get what they want. Things like this stay on voters’ minds.”

Russia Suffering Crippling Loss in Ukraine Threatens World Order: Kissinger (msn.com)

Henry Kissinger in my opinion had a more negative impact on the world than Hitler.

Hitler’s impact was pretty much limited to WWII.  Kissinger’s legacy continues on, still today endangering the world.  Kissinger and Nixon opened up recognition of communist China, eventually displacing Taiwan on the UN security council, handing a second totalitarian communist country a UN veto, rendering that organization completely helpless and hopeless.

This move toward China eventually exported most US manufacturing jobs there, and from the rest of the world as well, giving China unprecedented power to use economic blackmail, and financing their military buildup at the expense of the United States.

Now Kissinger says we should leave Russia intact, to continue their imperialistic manipulations to expand their territory and their energy blackmail and nuclear blackmail.

Someone needs to take Kissinger out.  Even at 99, he is too dangerous to leave alive.  If I publish a counter to his arguments, it doesn’t get noticed.  This is the thing.  Kissinger at 99 has the power to command the world’s attention.  He should not have that power.  No one elected him.  He was appointed an advisor to Nixon, the only US President whose actions were so criminal he was removed from office.  The House approved the resolution to impeach Nixon by a vote of 410 to 4.  Kissinger should have been ignored after that, and all his policies reversed.  Woe be unto anyone who follows Kissinger’s advice.

Russia should, and I believe will, be broken up and its nuclear weapons destroyed.  If Kissinger gets his way, Russia will continue building their arsenal until they convince themselves they can pull off a first strike, and they we WILL have the world war Kissinger warns about.

Kissinger doesn’t want the legacy of his own world order taken apart, and something better built.  He wants to be the architect of the world.  I think we should hang him up by his toes.

If you don’t believe me, look at what the Russian Press is saying Kissinger says it’s time to resolve conflict in Ukraine through talks – World – TASS Remember that Russia defines negotiation as achieving their aims, all of them, through peaceful means.  Another way of saying that is “unconditional surrender.”

And this article Kissinger outlines Ukraine peace proposal — RT World News “Urgently negotiating an end to hostilities in Ukraine would prevent another world war.”  Actually, defeating Russia and breaking it up would prevent another world war.

California county considers secession to become new US state (msn.com)

I have driven through this county one time.  Frankly, I think it would be no loss at all, possibly a gain, if it were to secede not only from California, but from the U.S.  It is a combination of people building big new houses on flammable hillsides and, er, ah, mostly nothing else except desert.  No one should live there.  2.2 million people living there is just because there is no space left in LA that they can afford.  So better to reduce the population of LA and let them move where they really want to live.  Would greatly reduce traffic also.

US responds to Russia’s threats over Patriot missile systems (msn.com)

“The only provocative measures that have been taken over the course of this entire conflict are being made by Russia,” State Department Deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told CNN – accurate

adding that the U.S. “is not now nor has it ever been at war with Russia.” – total lie.  Us saying we are not at war is just as inane as Russia’s use of the term “special operation”.

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Ukraine Will Invade Russia

Ukraine will invade Russia eventually, and the weakened state will be dismembered one way or another, by its neighbors or by the international community, and its nuclear weapons confiscated (whatever is left if they don’t use them – most of them probably don’t work).

This following results from cold logic.  A computer could figure it out.  (An old fashioned expert system, not the namby-pamby neural nets they use now which are incapable of sequential reasoning).

Dictionary redefining ‘man’ and ‘woman’ is what happens when you reject reality for one group’s fantasy (msn.com)

“Pete Buttigieg is an adult female human being who identifies as male and is attracted to other female human beings who identify as male.”

I actually can’t even figure out what that means, and I’m an ace with the logic of English sentences.  Language is evolutionary, it is the way people talk, not what anyone defines. 

What does this have to do with Ukraine?  The article suggests that language is the result of people living in a fantasy with regard to their sexual identification.  The Ukraine issue results from the fantasy that Ukraine can just take back its territory and the war is over.  It won’t be over for the Ukrainians abducted by Russia, nor will the rain of Russian missiles end.

What Percentage of Americans Are LGBT? (gallup.com)

For “Generation Z” the number is 20%, one out of five.

The survey is misleading, and provides an excellent example of how pollsters control results by the way they ask questions.  “Bisexual” was popular when I was in college, and likely a large fraction of females and at least some mails fancied experimenting with group sex, which was at the time initiated with the codeword “I’m bisexual”.  It was the invitation to the orgy. 

I have to take my roommate’s word on this.  Whenever he took me with him, we got an answer something like “my boyfriend’s due to show up a little later, not tonight.”  Engineers are the anti-sex among human particle types. 

A major sub-headline in the above article is “Bisexuals make up 4% of all U.S. adults.”  Subtract from 7% LGBTQ and you get only 3% that are actually LGTQ, not enough to sway the definition of a word with long history like “man.”

Four things have changed since then.  (1) It is legal for gay couples to marry, and they are incentivized to do so in order to obtain health insurance if one of them is working a decent job.  (2) It is illegal to fire people for saying they are gay, so they are willing to answer surveys.  (3) Gallup polls is asking the question, loaded with the bisexual term. (4) Couples are having far fewer children, often in single parent families.  A boy will feel he must be like his mother to be successful.  A girl will feel like she must not be dependent on a man.  And some parents who prefer to have a child of a particular sex, will unwittingly apply pressure to an only child of the other sex.  Cheryl, who grew up down the street, swears she is gay because her father wanted a boy and sent her out for sports, especially basketball, where ALL her teammates were gay.  100%.  All.  

Cheryl is married to a hot younger female, living in Austin working for the secret service protecting George Bush.  She doesn’t and won’t have any children.  There is no danger of society being overrun with this trend.  It’s self-extinguishing.

THE UKRAINE WAR IS *NOT* SELF-EXTINGUISNING (though optimistic pundits on both sides hopefully forecast the other side will run out of ammunition).

Russia is destroying Ukraine’s economy, raising costs for U.S. and allies (msn.com)

Ha!  What did I tell you?

Kyrsten Sinema’s slam dunk. Arizona independent says what Democrats are afraid to say (msn.com)

Sinema wrote, “Americans are told that we have only two choices — Democrat or Republican — and that we must subscribe wholesale to policy views the parties hold, views that have pulled further and further toward extremism.” She added this is a “false choice.”

It is not a false choice.  Game theory dictates people will amalgamate to gain control, and this results in accommodating other people’s views, and results in the dichotomy Sinema complains about.  Her move to be independent, and her statement above, suggest she’s never heard of game theory and is remarkably naïve for a politician.  The Dems are better off without her.  She would sabotage their efforts just like Manchin did in a heartbeat.

OTHER PEOPLE’s VIEWS

Wait, what?  We will amalgamate for power and thus accommodate other people’s views?  Then the more power available, the more amalgamation.  The higher the population the more amalgamation.  Pretty soon, only other people’s views, and power, are important.  TRUTH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.  Thus the whole Trump phenomenon, and the redefinition of MAN are aspects of the same thing.

We live in a fantasy of other people’s wishes.  That is the most important thing governing our thoughts and our behavior.  THAT IS WHY ENGINEERS ARE THE ANTI-SEX.  Then do not easily grasp that truth is what others say it is, not the results of their experiments.  They are trying to get physical machines to work.  This is INTRINSICALLY ANTI-SOCIAL and makes them hard to control with ordinary social means.

Putin tried to control Ukraine this way.  They remembered the Holodomor and preferred European control.  Putin had to kill them.  They were a direct challenge to his ability to control anyone at all.

Nearly half of young adults in the US are living at home with their parents, and all that saved rent is fueling a luxury boom (msn.com)

Living at home is normal.  Normal is defined as what people have traditionally done.  For 2 million years they lived at home.  Even after their parents died, they carried the ancestral bones around with them when they migrated, perhaps decorating their tents or caves with a skull or two, or keeping the bones under the floor.  That’s normal.  Ask any archaeologist.  What we do now is an aberration.  It won’t last.  And I’m chronicling the end of it with my CHRONICLES OF THE END TIMES.

This many people haven’t lived at home since the Great Depression.  But that came on suddenly.  The current situation came on gradually as actual labor jobs were exported to other countries.  The idea of this that economists had was very simple.  Here it is . . .

1. There is enough money in the US & Europe to make the whole world rich.
2. If we just give it away, the recipients won’t build anything, won’t have jobs, it’ll be squandered.
3. If we let them make stuff for us, that will give them stable job-based lives, permanently enriching them at the expense of the US and Europe

What do you do when the money runs out?

Economists don’t have a concept for that.  Our economist friend Rajnish Mehra has admitted to me he doesn’t understand what money is.  That still true, Rajnish?  I do understand.  See https://www.amazon.com/Equity-Premium-Puzzle-Intrinsic-Monetary-ebook/dp/B00Q67IN8M/ .  Chapter 3, “Finance Dawning”.  This is in the preview section on Amazon.  You can read it online without paying the whopping 99 cents I charge for the book.

Money is an IOU, a promise to produce future goods and services.  Inflation is just reneging on that debt.  We have to have inflation because the U.S. is no longer producing anything much, neither is Europe, and the money collected in exchange for our former productivity is running out. 

Since ancient times, really ancient like 5000 BC, when you run out of money you have two choices:

1. Sell yourself into slavery.  This could be temporary.  Only the exploiters of the Western world much later attempted to make it permanent.  The modern term for it is “get a job” but it is the same thing.  Look at the way Musk treats his employees.
2. Take up arms and lead a rebellion, or start your own empire and take over other people’s means of production.  This is what Russia is doing in Ukraine, taking over farmland, mining, and eventually the newly discovered energy deposits.

THE WARS WE NOW HAVE, UKRAINE AND THE ONGOING WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND ELSEWHERE, ARE THE RESULT OF THE SHORT SIGHTED POLICY OF TRADING U.S. AND E.U. WEALTH FOR WORLD PEACE.

When did relations with China break down?  And Why?  They broke down when Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, threatening the peace-bribe that the US had been providing for decades. 

So what was the reaction?  Take over the means of production of the most valuable commodity consumed by the US, chips.  They couldn’t figure how to make them (they tried), so the solution is to just take Taiwan, where they are made.

With young adults living at home, retail spending will not crash as expected.  With the US not producing anything, inflation will not come under control.  I am now leaning a little more pessimistic.

In past decades, the U.S. ramped up productivity over and over and that kept inflation low.  The U.S. was still producing “stuff” but not jobs.

Twitter and Facebook do not produce anything.  Apple only produces the 14^th iteration on something we already have.  Probably you have a drawer full of old iPhones.  Will you buy an iPhone 27?  233?  40,687? 

I’ve ridden on a train like this.  2.8 million Ukrainians were told war is coming and they will be killed unless they boarded such a train.  The trains were only running one way, to Russia.

300,000 children were kidnapped and sent to Russia as orphans.

Russia is still able to make 40 missiles a month in spite of sanctions.

IF UKRAINE TAKES BACK EXACTLY THE TERRITORY THEY HAD BEFORE 2014, THEY HAVE *NO* NEGOTIATING POSITION TO SECURE THE RETURN OF THEIR CITIZENS OR STOP THE RUSSIAN MISSILES.

This objective can only be stopped in one of two ways:

1. Give Russia all the land they eventually want.  Anything else is just a delay until they start up again.  They want, of course, all of Ukraine, and probably some other countries (the Baltics at a minimum).  So this is a non-starter.
2. Take Russian land and keep taking it and offer to stop if they return the civilians and stop their missile attacks.  Any fixed amount of land without demonstrated ability and willingness to keep taking it will just be viewed as a pause to regroup by Russia.

This is the logical conclusion that even a computer could reach.

Here is a map I’ll use to illustrate what needs to be done.

Ukraine is blue and yellow, with orangish captured territory.  Russia is pink.  A buffer zone needs to be established, up to and including important roads.

Then offer to restore Russian administration if it stops rocket attacks and gives back abducted people.  Russian ability to launch low cost rockets, by the way, is reduced but not eliminated by this move.  They often launch from the Caspian Sea, so control of that has to be taken eventually.  After Russia’s refusal, the next step is this:

Ukraine must push to the Caspian Sea along the near-canal that already exists starting from Rostov-on-Don, gaining enough territory to the north to defend it, isolating and “eliminating” Russian resistance in that ridiculous southern extension of Russia.  This will end threats to Georgia and Armenia, and Azerbaijan will cease hostilities with Armenia.  Georgia already wants to join NATO (suggested by President Bush), and Armenia is increasingly looking to the West for support.  Both are Caucasian countries, and Republicans should have no objection to supporting Ukraine in this regard.

The canal to the Caspian Sea has long been proposed.  It would solve the problem of the evaporation of the Caspian Sea, and allow Ukraine and thus NATO to control it. 

Russia could be offered reconstruction assistance in addition to return of Ukrainian population and cessation of hostilities, in return for reforms to its government and business practices. 

If Russia resists these generous terms, the next step is to sever it at the Ural Mountains, administer the western portion for 100 years to instill democratic institutions, and let its Asian former surrogates carve up the eastern portion to suit themselves:

If Russia continues to make trouble, the western portion would be divided as follows:

The northern portion gets a lot of energy resources, but limited ocean access.  It’s capital remains Moscow.

The middle portion gets the farmland and some access to Black and Caspian Seas.  It’s capital could be Volgograd or Voronezh.  If there is argument, split it further.

The Southern Portion would be ruled from the palace at Sochi, and become primarily a resort.

Perhaps now you see that Russia is ridiculously large, an empire in need of breaking up.  YOU CAN FIT THE UNITED STATES INTO IT TWICE.  INCLUDING ALASKA AND HAWAII!!!

How Civilizations Fail

Dec. 8th, 2022, Houston, TX, US

Since writing this, and one other on the breakup of Russia, which I will get posted here shortly, Henry Kissinger has advocated Russia not be broken up or even significantly defeated. I’ll get around to rebutting that too. One thing at a time.

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This story just appeared, related to my comments about opposition to an actual Russian defeat.  In addition to making you aware of the self-serving Ukrainian remarks, and the additional background on those who resist Russian defeat, I wish to provide my own response.  First a summary of the already short article:

Ukraine Says Western Allies Shouldn’t Fear Russia Falling Apart – WSJ

1. Ukraine FM urges allies not to fear breakup of Russia, defends their right to attack bases on Russian territory.
2. Though united on preventing Ukraine defeat, not all support re-acquisition of territory lost in 2014.
3. Some of these allies worry that such an outcome could profoundly destabilize the nuclear-armed Russian state, potentially leading to its fragmentation and wide-scale unrest, with unpredictable consequences for the rest of the world.
   1. Anthony Blinken claims US supports re-taking all territory
   2. But we know US limited HIMARS to not attack Russian bases, and Miley does not support full re-take
   3. I have urged you to call for Miley’s replacement.  If you value civilization on Earth, write now.  That I have largely given up urging you (only a few respond) does not mean I don’t write myself.
   4. In “Chicken Kiev” speech of 1991. Then, President George H.W. Bush in a speech to Ukrainian lawmakers warned against “suicidal nationalism,” urging Ukrainians to preserve the Soviet Union and abandon their quest for independence from Moscow.
      1. GHW Bush was former director of the CIA and the only person in America who does not remember where he was when JFK was assassinated.  Photos place him on a street corner in Dallas.
4. “I’m calling on the world not to be afraid of Russia falling apart. If the wheels of history begin to turn, no human will change it,” Mr. Kuleba said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in Kyiv.

I can’t help but like Kuleba.  He calls them as he honestly sees them, and that is right.  IF the wheels of history begin to turn, no human will change it.

I believe we have choices.  I suspect, strongly, on evidence, that millions or billions of civilizations in the Universe have made choices that limited their lifespans to a few thousand years, and went kaput.  As Mr. Kuleba points out, we have to make those choices before the wheels start to turn.  Once turning, no human will stop them.

I do not believe the present crisis is existential.  It is reminiscent of the qualities of an existential crisis, and thus I “chronicle the end times”.  But most likely there will be no nuclear war, Russia will be left intact, and will rot from within.  Russia or China or other countries will take ambiguous lessons, and the wheels will turn unexpectedly on another day.

If you have thought about this for a few years, without dismissing it as hopeless or irrelevant, you will have reached the same conclusion I have, which is the only logical conclusion to reach:

1. We must act in the moment in an entirely unpredictable manner, in a way no responsible civilization would act.  Any reasonable action has already been tried by the millions of civilizations that failed.  Better to be a cockroach dodging at random than a genius who is wrong.
2. We must in the long run seek to understand the dynamics of civilization in a novel way, not biased by our own accidental survival (which reveals nothing of our future chances), or on our over-confident narrow-specialist academic disciplines, or our politics which amount to everyone for themselves, nor our idealism which amounts to everyone for anyone but themselves.  None of the things which didn’t work for other civilizations are relevant.

Natasha was wondering today about North American Indians, which didn’t leave any big cities.  They had them.  But there are almost no stones in the Mississippi River Valley, so when de-occupied these cities disappeared except for the mounds on which buildings were built. 

Ancient Native Americans Once Thrived in Bustling Urban Centers – HISTORY

Cahokia: North America’s massive, ancient city – Big Think

Mound Builders – Wikipedia

There aren’t great and stable river valleys in Central America or in the narrow land west of the Andes in South America.  Cities there were based on either cisterns or natural aquifers.  The weather in the Western Hemisphere is horrible.  Decades of drought are followed by decades of flood.  The mountain configuration causes the jet stream to rise to the north pole, then dip down all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.  The cold winters and sweltering summers shocked the hell out of early European Settlers, destroyed the first colony, and 90% of the second.  Check out the tornado frequency map:

North America is the only place in the world that has “violent tornadoes”.  South America, Central America, Africa and Asia are nearly tornado free.  Europe’s tornadoes are mild.  You may wonder why I continue to risk Hurricanes here south of Houston and north of Galveston.  Just 10 miles north of me most of the violent weather peters out.  Hail storms cease.  Tornadoes disappear.  I am balanced on a knife edge of moderate weather.  To improve my situation I’d have to go north to central Canada, or west to the desert.  Some of the places that have fewer tornadoes have loads of hurricanes:

Notice that most of the category 5’s are in the Pacific and threaten Asia.  Here they mostly go to New Orleans or Corpus Christy, and all rapidly dissipate in south central Texas (those curving toward Mississippi last longer over land).

This is not something I just observed after living here half a century.  I checked flood plain maps when buying a house.  I was aware of the quiet region from my first couple of years here.  By the time Claudette flooded all the high-value homes I admired near me in 1979, I resolved never to move.

The Mound Builders had a Great River Civilization.  With NO STONES for hundreds of miles in any direction, they build no lasting structures.  With the WORST WEATHER ON THE PLANET what they did build, except the mounds themselves, was rapidly wiped away once they were no longer maintaining it.

In the Amazon Basin, you can’t have a Great River Civilization.  The Jungle will swallow up any such thing.  There are too many insidious and ferocious things wanting to eat any pile of stored grain.  Grain was wealth in the early civilizations.  If you can’t store it, you can’t build wealth, and you can’t have civilization.  Harsh, but I tell the truth.

In Central America, cities dependent on stored water were wiped out by periods of drought.  After a couple hundred years at the most, inhabitants would return to their plots of land or the jungle. 

In the American West, a similar strategy of stored water was adopted to supply cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles.  How did the much-vaunted Europeans do at managing what was essentially the giant cisterns of Lake Powell and Lake Mead?

Hmm, not any better than the Central Americans, I see, and in less time.

River civilizations are stable as long as there is rainfall anywhere in the river basin, and the civilization learns to withstand floods (thus the commonality of flood stories).  The longest lasting one that I know of is the first really large one, Ur.  Founded in 3800 BC and abandoned on 500 BC when the river changed course, it lasted 3300 years.  Yet it was unknown in biblical times.  Completely forgotten by the ancient Romans and Greeks. 

Rome was founded in 753 BC and became a republic in 509 and the most powerful empire on Earth in the first century BC.  By 400-something AD Rome was sacked and the empire in the west gone.  In Constantinople it lasted until 1453.  Giving the benefit of the doubt, the Roman empire lasted at most 2000 years, only locally important for much of that time, barely half as long as Ur.  Athens remained a great power for only 180 years.  The British Empire lasted about 400 years if you really stretch the end dates.

Civilizations do not last long in the grand scheme of archaeological time.  Where is the new knowledge that would suggest we are different?

Ah, yes, that.  There isn’t any, is there?  When our river dries up, we’ll be gone.  I think you should not even worry about man-made disasters.  And if defeating a genocidal expansionist extortionist empire seems a little bold, like a reasonable civilization would not take such a risk, it’s probably the right thing to do.