New Details in Turkey’s Failed Coup Indicate External Influences

Not long after Tayyip Erdogan reversed the coup in Turkey by inciting a popular uprising against the coup plotters, some rather unusual details have started to surface.

Erdogan official blames U.S. for coup attempt; U.S. forces at Turkey’s Incirlik air base on high alert

Erdogan has decided to officially blame the US, and claims the organizer of the coup was Fethullah Gulen. Gulen was a former ally of Erdogan before exiling himself to Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania in 1999. The two had fought for control over influence on Turkish courts, media and police forces, and in 2014 Erdogan had allegedly asked for Gulen’s extradition from the US to Turkey but was refused. It is clear that the two were indeed political rivals, but it seems that Gulen was particularly well-connected in American politics.

New Ties Emerge Between Clinton And Mysterious Islamic Cleric

The connections between the Gulen movement and Clinton are not the first to be revealed. They also add to questions about what it is the Gulenists want from Clinton and whether the Democrat has rewarded their financial support with favors.

Last year The Daily Caller reported that numerous Gulen followers have donated to Clinton’s various political campaigns and to her family charity. One Gulen movement leader, Recep Ozkan, donated between $500,000 and $1 million to the Clinton Foundation.

This very specific, albeit circumstantial, evidence seems to point the finger wholly at US involvement. An analysis of recent shifts in attitudes by the Obama administration (and Kissinger and Kerry in particular) towards Russia would suggest the participation of just one faction within the American political establishment. This faction, in theory, would have the goals of complete opposition to Russia, the continuation of war in Syria, and the support of Jihadist and Islamic extremists like ISIS in the Middle East. For those of you in the know, that info might already be enough, but for everybody else there are still more clues:

Turkish commander of air base housing US nukes detained for complicity in coup attempt – official

If this coup were completely Turkish in origin, then why bother with the nukes? No coup organizer would use a nuclear weapon in their own country, and no coup leader would create an international incident and severely undercut their own legitimacy by taking control of them away from NATO. I would suggest that the coup wanted control of the nukes to keep them away from a panicking, desperate Erdogan. His survival via popular revolt looked a lot like a Hail Mary pass, and imagine if Erdogan had a “nuclear option” as well. The political, and literal, fallout of such a possibility would be grave for all parties involved.

Russia Investing in Agriculture to Compete With Future GMO’s

Despite sanctions and a slowing economy, Russia has allocated $3.5 billion to boost agricultural output in 2016.

Agricultural machinery production in Russia surges 35%

What seems like a relatively mundane effort is really an insight into Russia’s plans to exploit the distrust of GMO’s and replace the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.  Considering how the west has vociferously pushed GMO foods with all of their accompanying proprietary products and pesticides, the legal strings attached to using intellectual property, and other reasons (the TTIP among them), only 28 countries have adopted GMO’s and 38 have banned them outright. So why is the west still pushing GMO’s so much? It has to do with the dollar and oil.

The status of the dollar as world reserve currency and the Saudi-American petrodollar scheme set up under Nixon and OPEC has been under seige since 2009. The BRICS bloc is now competing directly with the petrodollar, OPEC, the IMF, and even the SWIFT payments system, but the west has a plan. Now that the world’s oil markets can no longer be monopolized via US foreign policy, the west will relinquish control of this market and establish a new commodity to tie the dollar to. In March, the Rockefeller Foundation dumped all of their shares in Exxon.

That new commodity, I suggest, will be food, and I suspect that this is one of the reasons why the west has pushed for the adoption of GMO’s so doggedly. By creating crops that are more regular in output and resistant to bugs and bad weather, food as a commodity is more stable, predictable and easier to trade and profit from. When the dollar is separated from it, oil as a commodity will be devalued as much as possible in order to tank the Ruble and the Yuan. All of the talk about carbon emissions and climate change will see to that, and there are already investments by the Rockefellers and Jeff Bezos into new types of propulsion and clean energy sources.

But there is still one problem in all of this. A lot of people around the world still don’t trust GMO foods or Monsanto, and Russia has taken note of that. In the event that all of the effort and coordination behind the BRICS oil scheme was for nothing, Russia is still planning to compete with the west in agricultural exports. Unless the western powers can make GMO work, Russia may already have an advantage in offering an organic alternative. That is, if my crackpot theory is correct.

 

 

Erdogan Ends War on Assad, Gets Toppled

Parts of the Turkish military have locked down Istanbul, deployed tanks and helicopters in the capital of Ankara, and are now seizing control of the country after Erdogan went on vacation to the beach.

Turkey coup attempt: Army group says in control

It’s not unusual for coups to take place while a dictator is away, but there is more to the picture and it has to do with Syria and the EU. Two days ago Erdogan reversed course completely on his policy towards Assad and Putin’s involvement in stabilizing the Syrian war. Yes, Erdogan was taking a lot of flak for his use of state-sponsored terrorism and aiding ISIS, but the shifting attitudes in Europe towards the flow of refugees and migrants from the area represents a major issue for Turkey.

The widespread criticism and rejection of the EU’s immigration and border policy was a, if not the, major factor of the Brexit referendum. With Italy now demanding the same reforms and threatening to leave otherwise, it’s clear the backlash could cause fewer refugees to be admitted into Europe in the future. As Turkey shares a border with Syria, that means that fewer refugees will be passing through Turkey and more will end up staying in the country instead. This will put considerable strain on Turkish politics, economy and infrastructure. Therefore, Erdogan’s best option was to end hostilities with Assad and help Russia stabilize Syria to stem the ride of refugees. Which is exactly what he did:

Shifting Allegiances: Did Turkey Just Give Up on Toppling Assad?

Which is exactly what America and the western powers didn’t want him to do. The Pentagon is dead set on Assad’s collapse, and have resisted any course of action that could lead to a stalemate with Assad still in power. The west, and in particular the EU, has also been trying to use Turkish oil pipelines to compete with Russia in the European oil market and fuel the oil glut that has hurt the Russian ruble. Now that Erdogan refuses to play ball, he’s on the menu.

Old Lady Mistakenly Fills in Crossword Art Exhibit, Becomes Art

An $89,000 piece of avant garde artwork was mistaken for a real crossword puzzle and filled in by a 91 year-old retiree in a Nuremburg art museum.

Crossword artwork filled in by German woman in museum

Gerlinde Knopp, who was leading the excursion, said the museum was also full of interactive art, making it easy to lose sight of what one could and could not do there…

The woman had no malicious intent and the art piece was restored, but something else very interesting has happened here. As art becomes more abstract and ugly, it begins to look less like a product of effort, skill, and inspiration and more like a self-conscious expression within a society. This artist was trying to be ironic by deliberately choosing to create, sell, and display, in a museum, an image that is actually printed millions of times a day in newspapers around the world and probably already exists in every living room or driveway, but the whole thing is ironic only within this context. People going to a museum to look at something so mundane and common is only ironic when they expected to see art.

When the context was changed and the crossword art was displayed among many other interactive exhibits, it reverted back to its original purpose- a crossword puzzle to be marked up rather than preserved and admired. This is completely logical when art itself lacks beauty and has no intrinsic value or affect outside of its original context. Playing off of preexisting social conditions and expectations is an easier way to evoke thought or emotion from a public already overstimulated by Michael Bay CG explosions and Avatar in 3D.

When a piece of art represents a reaction to society, the choices made and the decision process of the artist become the subject. That means making art that still has an impact doesn’t necessarily require great skill, discipline, or creativity. This is how art has continued to exist alongside the much more visually impressive creations of computer graphics and other forms of media. The style and intent of the artist can replace substance, so the work itself is allowed to be, and often is, unimpressive. Take for example, the prankster who left a pair of glasses on the floor of a San Francisco museum to be mistaken for a genuine art exhibit, drawing a crowd and photographs. The prank itself stirs more emotion than a lost pair of glasses and the same is true for this scenario. I am amused by the fact that an elderly woman mistook an art exhibit for what it literally is, but I was even more amused that the modern art “experts” working at the museum failed to foresee this level of irony.

Merkel’s Brexit Reprisals an Effort to Snuff Out a Contagion

As China is establishing their own economic union in the South China Sea, the economic union of Europe is still experiencing the aftershocks of the British referendum to leave. The EU’s response to the Brexit came from Angela Merkel:

Merkel throws down gauntlet to May: No free market access while curbing immigration

The immigration issue, particularly in relation to Middle Eastern refugees and migrants, was a major point of contention between the EU bureaucracy and British conservatives and possibly the royal family. The fact that Merkel continues to demand EU control over this policy is somewhat surprising considering that the Chancellor herself admitted that the immigration policies in contention undermined domestic security this past Monday. Other serious criticisms include loss of national sovereignty and rule by non-elected committees, but increasingly unpopular economic policies (and sanctions preventing trade with Russia in particular) are bringing the wealthier entrepreneurial classes into the dispute against the EU. The fact that many member nations are voicing identical grievances should be concerning as the Brexit could spur a contagion of new national referendums to leave. By withholding trade privileges from non-members, Merkel is attempting to establish additional consequences for leaving.

“We will make sure that negotiations will not be carried out as a cherry-picking exercise. There must be and there will be a palpable difference between those countries who want to be members of the European family and those who don’t,” [Merkel] said.

And those additional consequences may be necessary as Italy has rejected the renewal of the Russian sanctions that have affected the Italian economy as much as Russia. Italy’s pro-EU prime minister may be ousted in a fall referendum, and Italian ministers have stated that they will let the EU disintegrate further if there are no reforms.

‘The Unthinkable Is Happening’: Italy Demands EU Reform, Warns Over Full Collapse

Judging from Merkel’s reaction, the fall of the EU, albeit unlikely, is a very real possibility. If Italy leaves, you can expect other southern European nations to leave as well. Both Greece and Spain were subject to repressive austerity measures and both are major trade partners with Italy, and their departures could easily spell the end of the union. The Italians may have forced the EU into making a concession or two, but if we were to see it all come crashing down around the head of Merkel and the European bureaucrats, expect to see Germany picking up the pieces to start over again.

 

South China Sea a Chessboard of the Far East

Adding to yesterday’s piece on Japanese rearmament, the situation in South East Asia develops further as the International Criminal Court has just rejected China’s claims over the South China Sea.

Beijing’s South China Sea Claims Rejected by Hague Tribunal

If Japan has reasons to rearm, a potential conflict in this area would be a prominent one. Control of the South China Sea means control over a vital resource of food in the form of fish, shipping lanes for maritime trade, and an untapped oil field that, by the most optimistic estimates, could be larger than Kuwaiti reserves. China’s commitment to the BRICS system and Russia means that the international oil markets, and therefore currency reserves, are being shaken up. Russia’s economy relies primarily on oil exports, and China has been gaming oil markets by filling its strategic reserves at opportune times. With oil being a crucial component of foreign policy, it would not be illogical for China to slowly take control of the South China Sea.

The tribunal cited interference with fishing and oil exploration, “irreparable” damage to the environment and the construction of a large artificial island in Philippine waters. China has built a military airstrip, naval berths and sports fields on the island, known as Mischief Reef, but the panel said that it was in Philippine waters.

China’s strategy of creating artificial islands as platforms to quickly project military force in the region is just the foundation for a much larger scheme. If the above image from a 2006 report to Congress is accurate, China intends to establish two things with its two barrier-like island chains. The first island chain incorporates all the oil reserves and excludes all other nations south of Japan. The second extends from the east coast of Japan and ends in eastern Indonesia, and effectively cuts off the South China Sea from the Pacific, and the western powers. It’s clear that one purpose of the first island chain is to facilitate Chinese exploitation of the oil reserves, but I believe the purpose of the second chain is to extend Chinese influence, and control over trade, beyond territories like the Philippines and South Korea and to solidify China as the dominant player in an economic union similar to Germany’s position in the European Union. By creating a territorial dispute over undefined maritime boundaries and obfuscating the issue in arbitration, China was expanding its influence without overtly breaking international law similar to Putin’s “slow motion invasion” of the Ukraine. Rulings like the one coming from the Hague today are going to make it harder for China to maintain its innocence.

However, all of this maneuvering and calculating may have come too late as the banking class have recently dumped oil from their portfolios and popular science is all over carbon emissions. Time will tell how many steps the west is ahead of China and Russia. If the Chinese are ultimately successful, don’t be surprised to see an alliance with Japan as Japan has already cooperated with Russia on Siberian oil investments. Having previously demonstrated an understanding of the importance of controlling the trade of a region in their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere concept of WWII, the Japanese have seen the writing on the wall and have started to feel a little uncomfortable.

A New Dawn for Shinzo Abe’s Japan?

 

I feel slightly amused whenever I see an article about secret cults or shadowy organizations running an entire country, and I felt no differently when I saw the following article:

The Religious Cult Secretly Running Japan

Ignore the hooded figures and religious overtones. Shinzo Abe is not some brainwashed puppet working for some monolithic patriarchal conspiracy. The subject of the article, Nippon Kaigi, is very much a nationalist right wing secret society that has attempted to influence Japanese politics. The question is, why has it been allowed to succeed? And what is Abe doing? The answer, in my analysis, is that he is fundamentally trying to reorient Japan’s foreign policy position in relation to the Western powers of the USA and Britain.

The West’s latest spate of unpopular, globalist policy has caused a backlash among the more nationalistic countries like Russia, Japan, and a good part of continental Europe. That policy being the use of GMO crops, trade deals placing corporate power over national sovereignty, and the issue of Middle Eastern refugees and migrants. The recent Brexit could also be a part of that backlash as well. As the global influence of the West has been shaken recently, some seem to be jumping off the bandwagon of American hegemony, or are at least attempting to hedge their bets. Shinzo Abe has been trying to revive Japanese military power for any potential conflict with the PRC in the South China Sea, and he has worked with Russia to invest Japanese money into Putin’s rising oil industry in Siberia (and Putin’s battle against the dollar reserve currency). It’s clear that the Japanese elite are no longer willing to rely on the West and want some measure of independence, and one of biggest obstacles for this push is the Japanese constitution.

The LDP’s proposed constitution, which has been strongly influenced by Nippon Kaigi alumni, according to reports by the Asahi Shimbun and other media, would scrap Article 9, which forbids Japan from engaging in warfare as a means of settling international disputes. It would also severely curtail freedom of speech, taking away the right to speak out on issues “if it is against the public interest.”

Precepts like human rights and an inability to declare war are a few new aspects that the West incorporated into the Japanese constitution during the Potsdam Conference and the post-WWII occupation. After that war, America, Britain and Russia wanted to weaken the Axis nations for as long as possible, so Germany was split in half and Japan became an unofficial client state under the US. Now that the shoe is on the other foot and the US is disadvantaged, the Japanese Zaibatsu families are attempting to slip out from underneath the Western thumb.

 

 

What am I doing here?

 

If the process of expressing oneself may be therapeutic or stress-relieving, then I am due for some therapy. The polarization of this age is tiresome, and I have decided to permanently check out of the echo chambers I once lurked in. So I’m hoping this blog will be my new outlet, as I believe there is so much to talk about.

There is little doubt that the world has become a bizarre place. Possibilities that were once scoffed and snorted at have become reality, people are exposed, and the caricature of mankind grows more grotesque and abstract. We live in inverted times. News media is run by gore hounds, TV has been dumbed down, and music consists of celebrities rather than musicians. In art, the objectification of a great thought or emotion has given way to the subjectification of the act of expression itself. Hence all of the abstract, shock art that has no beauty. Civil discourse and dialogue is very nearly impossible now. Rather than taking in information, forming an opinion, and arguing it with facts and logic, the aim is to ingest analysis from some authority, determine if it supports a preferred world view, and then zealously confront those who are “incorrect” and won’t toe the line. What was once a tool for understanding and finding the truth has become a mechanism for individuals to prove their loyalty to an ideology and go to battle with non-believers.

So why is all of this happening? I believe it’s the fear taking over. It’s the age of terror, Ebola, doomsday asteroids, salmonella, climate change, active shooters, World War III  and the knock-out game. The only way to move forward is to look into the abyss and try and figure it out. So if you are prepared to witness the strangeness, the brilliance, the power, the intrigue, the cunning, and the ensuing revulsion that follows all of that, then subscribe to this blog because I intend to explore every crevice, read between every line, and turn over every rock to see what strange things crawl around out of the light of day.