Even if the conspiracy theory is true, the question is who carried it out? Establishment! If Establishment had refused, conspiracy would have died. Then why beg the same establishment for forgiveness? Below is interesting interview by IK and Sheikh Rashid. Worth noting points: Ik wanted to use Intelligence agency against political opponent also (Nawaz Sharif), Nawaz wanted to control the Army also (civilian control) but not him. He always used merit and he will sit with Shehbaz but not shake his hands. Why such desperation to please Establishment? IK serve the nation as exemplary opposition leader and keep Government honest, it will help the nation-and above all will help to keep Establishment out of politics which is the core problem. Excerpts of interviews:

“Imran then went on to give the example of former premier Nawaz Sharif, who according to him, was controlling all institutions of the country and wanted to control the army as well by appointing his own army chief.”

“I have never had an issue with army because I have never interfered [in their matters]. I never wanted to bring my own army chief. I always wanted to make the institutions of army, police and judiciary strong,” Imran went on to say.

The PTI chairman also said that he had started receiving news of PML-N’s campaign against him last July which was another reason why he wanted to continue with the intelligence chief, who in difficult times is the “eyes and ears” of the government.

“To date, I have never done anything against merit,” he said. “So I can’t even think of going against merit for the [appointment of] the army chief.”

https://www.dawn.com/news/1688271/never-wanted-to-bring-my-own-army-chief-says-imran

https://www.dawn.com/news/1688043/imran-khan-ready-to-sit-with-pm-shehbaz-on-early-polls-issue-sheikh-rashid

Engels titled it The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. I’ll call it The Origin, for short.

The Origin is like Yuval Noah Harari’s blockbuster Sapiens (2014) but written by a 19th-century socialist: a sweeping take on the dawn of property, patriarchy, monogamy and materialism. Like many of its contemporaries, it arranged societies on an evolutionary ladder from savagery to barbarism to civilisation. Although wrong in most ways, The Origin was described by a recent historian as ‘among the more important and politically applicable texts in the Marxist canon’, shaping everything from feminist ideology to the divorce policies of Maoist China.

Of the text’s legacies, the most popular is primitive communism. The idea goes like this. Once upon a time, private property was unknown. Food went to those in need. Everyone was cared for. Then agriculture arose and, with it, ownership over land, labour and wild resources. The organic community splintered under the weight of competition. The story predates Marx and Engels. The patron saint of capitalism, Adam Smith, proposed something similar, as did the 19th-century American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan. Even ancient Buddhist texts described a pre-state society free of property. But The Origin is the idea’s most important codification. It argued for primitive communism, circulated it widely, and welded it to Marxist principles.

Full Article

posted by f.sheikh

The centerpiece of shock and awe of the West’s economic response to Russia’s invasion and bombardment of Ukraine was the freezing of Russia’s central bank assets. In the March 7 edition of his Global Money Dispatch newsletter, the Credit Suisse investment strategist Zoltan Pozsar writes that the G7 seizure of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves marks a regime change in the global monetary system. Pozsar pronounces this new regime Bretton Woods III. He anticipates that Asian sovereigns, fearing that their dollar- and euro-denominated foreign reserves are at risk of expropriation in the event of future foreign policy disputes, will park their surplus funds outside of the reach of Western financial authorities. For Pozsar, this heralds the rise of “commodity-backed currencies in the East” and spells the denouement of dollar hegemony.

In a follow-up piece published on March 31, Pozsar speculates that recent developments will drive China to replace the West as the buyer of last resort of Russian oil. As a result, oil tankers will have to be rerouted from the quicker East-West route via the Suez to a longer passage (one requiring ship transfers) from Russia to China. Geopolitics will shape the reorganization of real infrastructure networks, slowing down supply chains and increasing the cost of credit. Pozsar predicts that this rearrangement of global commodity and money flows presage a new world economic order, one in which China will replace the US as the monetary hegemon. The petrodollar, he envisages, will be replaced by the petro-yuan. 

Pozsar’s analysis—as well as Adam Tooze’s response to it—appreciates the asymmetry in the world economy: between advanced economies that dominate global finance, and developing countries that produce the majority (about sixty percent) of world GDP. Asia may be the center of gravity of world manufacturing, but European and North American firms still command the bulk of the profits embedded in global supply chains. This tension in the global economy is unlikely to resolve anytime soon, but it has become increasingly fractious. The weaponization of trade policy by the previous Republican administration has only been reinforced by the current Democratic one. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent speech advocating “the friend-shoring of supply chains”—wherein the US strengthens trade ties with those it shares strategic interests and “core values,” while severing the rest—captures the new mood. (In her speech, Yellen also calls for revitalizing Bretton Woods based on her view that the dollar-based economic order “benefits us all.”)

Full Article

Politics has become about setting a narrative which can help one to win an election or achieve political goals. It matters little whether that narrative is true, a lie, factual or fake. The narrative is instilled in supporters in such a persistent and repeated way that the supporters become very convinced of it being the only truth. As supporters become vehicle, willingly or unconsciously, to propagate this narrative through whatever means necessary, especially social media, they feel that they have a personal stake in it and its failure or defeat becomes personal defeat or failure. It is not limited to volunteer supporters only, but general public supporters also feel the same way. Any contrary argument, fact, evidence, or truth has no meaning for them. Repeated contrary arguments further harden their position and accepting mistake or correcting the course becomes almost impossible.

It is more often a trait of a populist leader; whose rhetoric and rosy promises diverts the public attention away from scrutinizing false narratives.

Prime example is Trump’s “Stop the Steal” narrative. Despite no evidence of election fraud and many courts decisions of no fraud, more than 70% of Republicans, and even some Democrats believe Biden stole the election. Unfortunately, after Trump, some other world leaders are also shamelessly following Trump’s path.

F. Sheikh