Welcome, Aliens!

[Bienvenue chez nous, aliens !]
[Willkommen, Aliens!]

Dear Alien,

We are very pleased that you have chosen to come to our wonderful country. We are truly honored to receive you in our midst. There are just a few formalities to get out of the way, to make sure that you and our country are a good match.

Shrinking the Technosphere, Part VII

[Réduire la techno-sphère, Partie VII]

You have survived your first winter on the land. Congratulations! The worst part of the ordeal is quite possibly over. Gone are whatever addictions and expectations with which you arrived, be they internet access or coffee. Your new world consists of the few people around you, and a huge number of plants and animals. But it is a world that is indisputably yours—to make the best of, and to pass along to your children and grandchildren.

Shrinking the Technosphere, Part VI

[Réduire la techno-sphère, Partie VI]

Suppose your situation is such that you need to effect a swift change of venue. The circumstances that prompt this relocation can be quite varied, but the common and foreseeable ones are:

A Most Convenient Massacre

[Un massacre qui tombe à pic !]
[Ein Massaker, das sehr gelegen kam]

What a difference a single massacre can make!

• Just a week ago the EU couldn't possibly figure out anything to do to stop the influx of “refugees” from all those countries the US and NATO had bombed into oblivion. But now, because “Paris changed everything,” EU's borders are being locked down and refugees are being turned back.

• Just a week ago it seemed that the EU was going to be swamped by resurgent nationalism, with incumbent political parties poised to get voted out of power. But now, thanks to the Paris massacre, they have obtained a new lease on life, because they can now safely embrace the same policies that a week ago they branded as “fascist.”

• Just a week ago the EU and the US couldn't possibly bring themselves admit that they are utterly incompetent when it comes to combating their own creation—ISIS, that is—and need Russian help. But now, at the après-Paris G-20 summit, everybody is ready to line up and let Putin take charge of the war against terrorism. Look—the Americans finally found those convoys of tanker trucks stretching beyond the horizon that ISIS has been using to smuggle out stolen Syrian crude oil—after Putin showed them the satellite photos!

Shrinking the Technosphere, Part V

[Réduire la techno-sphère, Partie V]

Before we proceed any further in describing how political technologies can be used to bring about the sort of dramatic social change that might grant humanity a new lease on life on planet Earth, let's describe what “naturelike technologies” might look like. By “naturelike” we mean something that is in balance with nature—its rhythms, both diurnal and annual, and its cycles: of water, carbon dioxide, organic nutrients—and human generations. By “technologies” we mean the know-how, passed from generation to generation, which one needs in order to survive—not any fancy gadgets or machinery, not the internet of things, nano-this or genetically-engineered-that.

Of course, there must also exist political technologies that can sustain and defend such an effort, especially against the predations of profit-driven psychopaths who have imperiled human survival through rapid resource depletion and out of control industrial development, but let's put this question aside for now...

A serious error of omission in RT's reporting on Germany

This article on rt.com makes it sound as if PEGIDA is specifically demonstrating today because it's the anniversary of Kristallnacht, whereas in fact they are demonstrating today because it's Monday—like they do every Monday. For them to not have demonstrated today would only have provided fodder for the antifascists. Note that I am not taking sides, simply pointing out a flaw in RT's coverage. To correct it, they would simply need to add one sentence: "PEGIDA was demonstrating on Monday as they have done every Monday for a year now."

Supporting Evidence

[Note: a number of comments in response to this post were along the lines of "this is right-wing" or "this is left-wing" and of course I dutifully deleted all of them. You see, attempts to arrange all of humanity along a left-right axis are attempts at manipulation/coercion. Human preferences, even if artificially made into "issues," form a multidimensional object. People insisting on being on the left or on the right are like sheep that insist on going through the left gate or the right gate, both of which lead to the abatoir. And so there is just one thing to say to people who think that what follows isn't sufficiently left-leaning or liberal: "baa!"]

The English translation of last week's editorial by Alex elicited some strange reactions from readers. Some called it “hysterical.” Some imagined that it signals some sort of political realignment of this blog with right-wing nationalism (I find it hilarious that people can be so clueless).

Overwrought phrases flew about, such as “rumor-mongering of a far-right fantasist,” “a hysterically exaggerated account,” “a terrible hodgepodge of healthy skepticism, dirty innuendo and paranoia,” “full of racism and xenophobia,” and so on and so forth.

An Exit Strategy for Traitors

[Ein Fluchtplan für Verräter]
[Une strategie de sortie pour les traîtres]
[Предательская стратегия ухода]
[Una strategia di uscita per Traditori]

[Germany—the country at the center of the European Union and its economic powerhouse—is something of a black hole. 70 years after the fall of Nazism, it is still an occupied country, under military and political domination of the US. The national press, popularly referred to as Lügenpresse (the lying press) faithfully echoes the party line set in Washington. Germany's spineless politicians, popularly renamed from Volksvertreter (people's representatives) to Volksverräter (traitors to the people) are no better. And so we are unable to see what is actually happening there, as the European Union is, in the words of Russia's FM Sergei Lavrov, “committing suicide” by letting in the invading hordes from the Middle East. And so this short report by Alex, who tells us what he sees, is most welcome.]

Do you remember the last time you saw a man with wild eyes, strange clothes and a giant sign around his neck saying “The End Is Nigh”? “How ridiculous and pathetic!” you might have thought. Now, imagine the reality of your country changing within weeks to a point where you come to the same conclusion as him, suddenly feeling that his approach might be ever so reasonable. When a large part of your fellow-humans catch a strange sort of illness, one which leads to complete insanity faster than in the worst zombie outbreak, you might find yourself out of more viable strategies.

Предательская стратегия ухода

[An Exit Strategy for Traitors]
[Ein Fluchtplan für Verräter]
[Une strategie de sortie pour les traîtres]
[Una strategia di uscita per Traditori]

[Германия—центральная страна Евросоюза и главный источник её экономической мощи—извне кажется чем-то вроде чёрной дыры. 70 лет прошло после победы над нацизмом, а Германия—до сих пор оккупированная страна, живущая под военным и политическим господством США. Немецкая пресса, которую немцы всё чаще величают Lügenpresse (лгущая пресса) систематично отражает линию партии, провозглашаемую из Вашингтона. Бесхребетные немецкие политики, всенародно переименованные из Volksvertreter (представителей народа) в Volksverräter (предателей народа) её ни чем не лучше. И потому невозможно увидеть, что там на самом деле происходит, по мере того как Евросоюз, как выразился Сергей Лавров, «совершает самоубийство, открывая дорогу беженцам» со Среднего Востока. И потому этот репортаж от Алекса, рисующий ситуацию во всех красках, достоин самого радушного приёма. -Дмитрий Орлов]

Когда в последний раз вам попался человек с сумасшедшими глазами, одетый в отрепье, держащий огромный знак со словами «Конец близок»? «Как нелепо и жалко!» подумали бы вы скорее всего. А теперь представьте себе, что ситуация в вашей стране за какие-то несколько недель изменяется до такой степени, что вы приходите к тому же выводу, что и он, и неожиданно чувствуете, что его подход, возможно, вполне разумен. Увидев, как многие из ваших собратьев-человечков вдруг подхватывают какую-то странную болезнь, которая приводит к полнейшему безумию быстрее, чем при самом серьёзном нашествии зомби, вас может осенить, что нет более перспективного подхода.