sshenfield
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I read somewhere that the coup may have had something to do with divisions inside the military, i.e., it was (inter alia) a coup by one military faction against another. I don’t know how well informed this idea is, but the generals may themselves be divided over the country’s foreign policy orientation.
Myanmar seems to be in the same situation as countries like Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan, with alternating periods of military and civilian rule but with the military setting limits and ready to intervene even during periods of civilian rule if the politicians overstep any of those limits.
For centuries TB was a scourge affecting all classes (true, to different degrees). In the years after WW2 effective drugs finally became widely available and almost wiped it out. ‘Almost’ because the funds to finish the job were cut off (at least in the US). They were cut because TB remained only among the very poor and homeless, who ‘didn’t matter.’ Now TB is making a comeback with a vengeance because much of it is multi drug resistant, increasingly difficult and expensive to treat.
Now Biden has bombed Iranian forces in Syria, following in Trump’s footsteps. A peculiarity of US intervention in Syria is that it backs both sides.
Jordan is working on an article that will clarify his analysis of this issue. I suggest deferring this discussion until that article appears. From my exchanges with him it seems that he opposes ‘transgenderism’ as an anti-scientific ideology but he does not deny the existence of ‘transgender’ people or advocate their persecution.
‘Runaway’ global heating is conceivable with sufficiently rapid release of methane from the huge clathrate deposits on the seabed (see Wikipedia article on ‘clathrate gun hypothesis’). This is a worst case scenario but we can’t be sure it will be avoided.
The more rational capitalists are seriously studying geoengineering measures. Bill Gates is funding a trial run of aerosol injection into the stratosphere to cool the surface, like what happens after a big volcanic eruption. In addition to other dire effects, survival in this scenario would be hostage to continued injections; any interruption would cause a sudden leap upward in temperature.
We must distinguish between capitalists who can adapt to a ‘green’ transition (and even make a profit out of it) and capitalists who would lose out, e.g. because they have sunk huge investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure. Even among petro-states some could adapt much more easily than others: Arabia can sell solar energy after giving up oil and gas, but Russia could not do this. Resulting divergence in transition policy may be a new source of international conflict.
