Metaneos

To announce, I'm still alive. Slogging through the detritus of my own mind, lately. I'm mentally ill, and face difficulties getting out of bed, and after that, getting out of the home. My pessimistic attitude regarding the direction the world is heading helps none, either. But, I'll try. I'll try to make a habit of writing, this year. I'll try to keep up to date on what's happening, these days, and to inform myself of what might happen next. For instance, there's rumblings out there in the world of a serious recession, this year. Are you all saving your money? I hope so. Times will get tough, this year, again. We're at a point, now, where there's a slight danger of entering into an uncontrolled deflationary cycle. Do you think Canada's prepared? The USA? Even if they were prepared to do something, what could they actually do? Not much. Manufacturing was heavily shipped over seas. Manufacturing is the backbone of any economy. And with the remo...

Fittingly, a day after the US' Thanksgiving holiday, we're starting to smell roasted bird. That would probably be Erdoğan. He's well done, as of now. Cooked to perfection. Now, it's a matter of time. Waiting for him to be finished, entirely. For the time being, NATO's hung him out to dry. They've denounced Russia's retaliations, but have actually done nothing else. Article 5's not even in play. It's been skirted around, and all but dismissed entirely. At this point in time, Turkey's only a member of NATO in name only. This is especially important, knowing Russia's not interested in attacking Turkey, but has made it known they'll retaliate to any attack on their forces, going all out. They've basically triple-dog-dared Turkey to attack them, too, brushing aggressively close to Turkey's border, and doubling down on attacks on the people Turkey had demanded Russia not attack, the Turkmen. And now Syria finally has access to Russi...

Turkey's been pissed with Russia for some time. Ostensibly over Russian bombing of Turkmen settlements in Syria. Others claim it may have to do with Russian bombing of illegal oil smuggling chains, or possibly illegal arms trade. Who knows the reason? I don't. What I can say, though, is the reason probably doesn't even matter, anymore. It left, long ago, out the front door, possibly to Europe with the flow of refugees. Turkey downed a Russian jet. They say in defense. Others state in retaliation. Some believe it was a warning. Russia has claimed it to be a stab in the back. Now, Russia's pissed off with Turkey. Overnight, they've halted trade with Turkey. They've pressed their nation's agencies to suspend trips to Turkey. They recalled their minister. And there are rumblings Russia might shut off the gas to Turkey. And possibly as a warning or threat or retaliation, Russia's stepped up their bombing campaign on the Turkey-Syrian border, today. Border...

We've reached a new tipping point. Whether this will be localized to merely Turkey, or if it will involve numerous states (i.e., WWIII), is probably up to NATO's response to whatever Russia decides to do about Turkey. The nation of Turkey's been acting as a spoiler these past few years. A dangerous, and stupid, wildcard. It's been flooding Europe with refugees, and continually allowing radical Syrian militants safe haven within their borders. Russia probably won't attack Turkey, militarily, but instead economically. A not insignificant amount of Turkey's energy needs are met by Russian suppliers. NATO needs to find a way of appearing to have Turkey's back, while also burning Turkey's fingertips. If NATO backs Turkey unconditionally, then we're probably in for a cold and dark winter.

My opinion, let's stay the hell out of Syria. It's Russia's business what happens there, and the less we have to do with it, the better. Let's take care of our selves before we adventure off to some quagmire, and lose many lives in some fruitless search for peace. France, please refrain from a war-like response. However terrible the attacks on your populace were, remember the masterminds behind the attacks should be pursued as criminals. True justice would begin by sending in police investigators to arrest the suspects after gathering strong evidence, rather than soldiers who aren't at all trained for this sort of thing.

It's important to remember, Syria's civil war was probably caused by climate change. There were a myriad of internal factors, that had laid the timber for the flames of war, such as corruption, torture, poverty, and external aggression, but the spark setting it all ablaze was caused by the drought impacting the nation's ability to feed itself. Generally, that's the case. People can put up with all sorts of abuse. An abuse victim will continually return to the abuser. Right up until they've had enough. Usually, that's after the food has run out. What's dismaying is the West's solution to the civil war was to bomb the shit out of Syria. Thank god for Kerry squarely placing his foot in his mouth giving Russia the opportunity to, in a sense, save Syria. Can you imagine the magnitude of the humanitarian disaster that would be playing out, now, had Syria been reduced to complete rubble, as the US had originally wanted? Actually, can you imagine what we sh...

'Helping Assad is shameful,' Mulcair says of proposed mission expansion into Syria Supporting Assad is shameful. He's a terrible man, but at the same time, ISIS is probably worse. But in the end, we probably should've left the whole thing alone to begin with. And by we, I actually mean the US government, which seemed giddy at the time to be working to destabilize another Middle-Eastern/African nation's government. We, Canada, should probably reconsider blindly supporting the US on every one of its military misadventures. The only difference we're making, and by we I mean NATO, is making things worse. Next time, let's not hesitate to refrain from rushing in to the next conflagration. Let's actually take some time to think things through. Using our noggins first might actually make the biggest difference of all. Of course, that's actually quite a whole lot to ask of the Harper regime here in Canada, but still.