Bulletin N° 1111
“Russia
Ukraine War Live: ‘20 Days In Mariupol’
Illuminates The Plight Of Civilians”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_lfWZH9NM4
Directed by Mstyslav Chernov
(11:54:58)
+
“It’s
Horrible! Don’t Watch it!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOz1ca698JM&feature=youtu.be
with Col. Douglas Macgregor
(15:35)
+
“There
Are Very Few Good Films About War. ‘20 Days in Mariupol’ Is An Exception.”
by Chris Hedges
+
“The
Real History of the War in Ukraine: A Chronology of Events and Case for
Diplomacy”
by Jeffrey D. Sachs
+
“OPERA
BUFFA IN UKRAINE”
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/opera-buffa-in-ukraine?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
by Seymour Hersh
As
the war drags on, delusions mount, with no end, or victory, in sight
+
“Meet
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Conspiracy Theorist (2013)”
https://www.corbettreport.com/flashback-brzezinski/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
with James Corbett
(39:20)
+
"'Not
One Inch': A Brief Review Of The Archives On NATO
Expansion"
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/not-one-inch-brief-review-archives-nato-expansion
by Michael Chapman
Although
the Joe Biden administration and much of the major media contend that Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine has nothing to do with NATO expansion, U.S. Army Col.
Douglas Macgregor (ret.) told Valuetainment Founder
Patrick Bet-David that Vladimir Putin has opposed “the movement of NATO to his
borders” for “at least 15 years” because he sees such expansion “as a threat.”
Macgregor’s
view is shared by the University of Chicago’s Distinguished Service Professor
John Mearsheimer, considered one the world’s leading scholars on “realist”
foreign policy. He argues that Russia considers NATO expansion into Ukraine as
an “existential threat,” a position it has publicly held since at least 2008.
+
“U.S.-NATO
Involvement in the 2014 Ukraine Coup and Maidan
Massacre: The Soft Power Ecosystem and Beyond”
by Jim Cole
[This is Part II in a four-part series analyzing the
2014 Maidan coup. Part I is here.
It discusses the psycho-social aspects of color revolutions; some of the
thousands of think tank/NGO change agents which received billions in U.S. and
EU funding since 1989 in Ukraine; outlines some of the regime-change techniques
of weaponized aid and political, diplomatic and
economic methods; the novel use of tech and social media operations employed in
Ukraine during the Obama years; and, lastly, the shift from soft power to dark
power, the point at which violence is required to achieve regime
change.—Editors]
+
“Lord
of the Underworld: Meet the Paratrooper from North Carolina who Helped
Orchestrate
the War in Ukraine”
by Evan Reif
One
of the great mysteries surrounding the Maidan coup
and the civil war which has followed is how the rabble of soccer hooligans and
neo-Nazis who orchestrated the coup were able to become an army capable of
subjugating the nation so quickly.
Despite
Western narratives, the Maidan was a violent coup,
and their government was imposed on most of the nation by force. However, 70%
of the Ukrainian Army deserted or defected after the coup. This left the new
government with both a great need for soldiers and very few of them at its
disposal.
The
solution was to deputize the fascists who had served as storm troopers in the Maidan, but these were drunken brawlers and petty
criminals, not soldiers. How can a gang of street fighters be turned, in a
matter of months, into the brutal Special Tasks Patrol police who terrorized
Ukraine on a scale not seen since the 1940s?
As
it turns out, they had a good teacher: an American paratrooper by the name of
Brian Boyenger.
The Swarm
“Men,
it is time to go hunting. You’re the hunter. You’re the predator.
You’re
looking for the prey.
Rakkasans!”
– Col. Michael D. Steele
Brian
Boyenger did not come out of the womb as a killer. He
was a normal young man in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, before he joined the
U.S. Army. It was there that he learned his trade, working under one of the
most brutal commanders in the Army. Like many young Americans, he joined the
Army in the wake of America’s illegal
full-scale invasion of Iraq and was deployed in the country for 14 months
starting in 2006 as part of the 3rd
Brigade Combat Team
of the 101st Airborne Division. The 3rd BCT is the
remnant of the former 187th Airborne, also known as “Rakkasans,” which was merged into the 101st but
retained its traditions.
Insignia
of the 101st Airborne.
[Source: en.wikipedia.org]
His
first lesson was Operation Swarmer, a so-called counter-terrorism operation in
outlying villages near the city of Samarra, Iraq. True to the name, 1,500 Iraqi
and American forces descended on the region like a swarm of locusts. The U.S.
and its associated propagandists touted the operation as the largest air
assault since 2003, and even George W. Bush mentioned the operation as a great
triumph.
Insignia
of the 187th Airborne [Source: Wikimedia.org]
It
was anything but.
Despite
ominous (and entirely unsourced) claims of insurgent
leadership in the raided villages, U.S. and Iraqi forces found nothing of
value. Of the 48 people detained by force, 17 were released immediately, and
the rest were illegally detained and then sent to prisons and black sites where
torture is rampant. Iraqi intelligence claimed that several hundred weapons and
bombs were found in the searches, but no evidence was ever provided of this and
none of those arrested was ever charged. Journalists were not allowed to
accompany the troops on this operation and were only brought in after the raid
was mostly finished to witness some carefully staged propaganda.
They
watched as American and Iraqi forces ransacked a family farm, making note of
the emaciated cattle juxtaposed against the multibillion-dollar war machine
tearing apart the modest home. Despite all their effort, the Americans and
their lackeys found no weapons, no people of interest, and no contraband at
this home. However, they did not leave empty-handed. After they kidnapped a
family by force, raided their home, and held them on their knees at gunpoint,
they helped themselves to the dinner
the Iraqis were cooking before their lives were interrupted by terrorists.
American
forces were baffled as to why they met no resistance on this raid. They
concluded that the terrorists must have been tipped off and fled the area
rather than admit the truth that they had raided and pillaged peaceful villages
for no reason. American forces claimed that they did not fire a shot, and neither side sustained any casualties. As was
usual for America’s illegal war, this was a lie.
+
“CIA
analyst Ray McGovern speaks about the war in Ukraine with US veteran Matthew
Hoh”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4M63gd326M
with George McGovern
(12:44)
+
“Exposed:
Disturbing Details of New Pentagon ‘Perception Management Office’”
by Kit Klarenberg
Ken
Klippenstein, an investigative journalist at The Intercept, has exposed how the
Pentagon very quietly launched a new internal division, dubbed the “Influence
and Perception Management Office” (IPMO), in March.
Its
existence is not strictly secret, although there has been no official
announcement of its launch, let alone an explanation from Department of Defense
(DoD) officials as to its
raison d’être or modus operandi. Its budget likewise remains a mystery but
purportedly runs into the “multimillions.”
+
“Ukrainian
Counteroffensive a Dud as War Hawk Predictions Are Wrong Again”
by Jeremy Kuzmarov
Grenoble, France
Grenoble,
France
July
29, 2023
Subject: Capitalist
exploitation, the dehumanization process, and the natural Right to self-defense.
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
We are pleased to send you another sample of
important discussions, all of which urge us to reclaim our humanity in the face
of venal, mechanical powers searching for private profits through the classic capitalist
formula: Production-Destruction-Reconstruction.
How do we free ourselves from the clutches of this murderous
political economy has become the existential issue of our century.
The 25+ items below speak to our instinctive desire
to live, which has come into conflict with the intentions of predators and opportunists
whose short-term ambitions are to accumulate the largest mass of political power
and economic wealth they are able to, regardless of the human cost. These are
the two nations which inhabit our planet, and the masturbatory fantasies of the
latter group constitute the pollution of our democratic culture, a culture which the multitude of contradictions
within the capitalist system have generated over the past centuries. The toxic ideology of
the ruling class, supported by thousands of billionaires over the past decades,
has weakened the democratic urge of the masses. The death wish of this ruling class is our suicide,
if they prevail. The various levels of violence we are now witnessing around
the world can only be overcome by a restructuring of the political economy so that it is guided
by participatory democratic principles and a concern for human freedom in
voluntary and unregimented relationships of social equality.
Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
___________
Professeur honoraire
de l'Université Grenoble-Alpes
Ancien Directeur des
Researches
Université de Paris-Nanterre
Director of The Center for the Advanced Study
of American Institutions and Social Movements
(CEIMSA-in-Exile)
The University of California-San Diego
http://www.ceimsa.org
a.
Population
Control and Official USG Policy
by Robert W Malone
+
“Kissinger and Xi Keep Great Reset
on Track”
https://www.corbettreport.com/nwnw524/
with James Corbett
(27:08)
+
“Wealth Transfer and Population
Control”
https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1818-wealth-transfer-and-population-control-on-chd-tv/
with James Corbett
(1:05:37)
+
“Brzezinski's
Warning”
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57694.htm
by Mike Whitney
July 20,
2023: Information Clearing House - The
Vilnius Summit Communique is a crude attempt to NATO-ize Washington’s list of enemies in order to enlist broader
support for the impending global conflict. The intended targets of this
campaign are Russia and China, the main opponents of the so-called “rules-based
order”. Neither of these countries pose a direct security threat to NATO or the
United States, but their sudden re-emergence on the Asian continent makes them
Washington’s de facto enemy. The United States is determined to dominate
Central Asia, which means that all potential rivals must be contained or
crushed. The purpose of the Vilnius Communiqué is to identify these rivals,
divulge their alleged offenses, and denounce them in the harshest terms
possible. This is how NATO makes its case for war and lays the groundwork for
future hostilities. This is an excerpt from the Communique:
The
Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’
security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area… Russia bears
full responsibility for its illegal, unjustifiable, and unprovoked war of
aggression against Ukraine, which has gravely undermined Euro-Atlantic and
global security and for which it must be held fully accountable. We continue
to condemn in the strongest terms Russia’s blatant violations of international
law, the Charter of the United Nations, and OSCE commitments and
principles. We do not and will never recognize Russia’s illegal and
illegitimate annexations, including Crimea. There can be no impunity for
Russian war crimes and other atrocities, such as attacks against civilians
and the destruction of civilian infrastructure that deprives millions of
Ukrainians of basic human services. All those responsible must be held
accountable for violations and abuses of human rights and international
humanitarian law, particularly against Ukraine’s civilian population…. Vilnius Summit Communiqué, NATO
The strident
tone of the announcement is intended to quash any counter-argument or opinion.
The author’s approach is rigid and inflexible. Russia is portrayed as a
serial offender with whom negotiations are impossible. Thus, diplomacy is
reflexively precluded with a wave of the hand. The only way to deal with a war
criminal is though military force. That is the underlying message of the
Communiqué. Peace talks must be avoided at all cost so that Russia can be
dealt a strategic defeat in Ukraine. That remains the primary objective.
Here’s more from the Communiqué:
Russia
must immediately stop this illegal war of aggression, cease its use of force
against Ukraine, and completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its
forces and equipment from the territory of Ukraine within its
internationally recognized borders, extending to its territorial waters. Vilnius Summit Communiqué, NATO
+
“The Revolt of the Pawns”
https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/the-revolt-of-the-pawns?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
by James Corbett
=======
b.
From Stalinism to the ‘Most
Avoidable War in History’
Russian President Vladimir Putin in
February, at a World War II memorial in Moscow. (President of Russia)
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/07/21/from-stalinism-to-the-most-avoidable-war-in-history/
by Natylie
Baldwin and Geoffrey Roberts
Geoffrey Roberts is an historian, biographer and political
commentator. A renowned specialist in Russian and Soviet
foreign and military policy and an expert on Stalin and the Second World War,
his books have been translated into numerous languages. He is emeritus
professor of history at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish
Academy.
Natalie Baldwin: How did you become interested in the Soviet Union and Russia?
Geoffrey Roberts: Mainly, it was a political interest in the Soviet socialist system. As a
teenager I was enthused by the Prague Spring and [Alexander] Dubcek’s
vision of socialism with a human face. Together with others, I studied the
Soviet system for lessons — positive and negative — that could inform the
achievement and building of socialism in my own country and elsewhere in the
world.
I studied
international relations as an undergraduate and that led to specialization in
Soviet foreign policy but I have always been interested in all aspects of
Soviet history. People assume I’m a Russophile, which I’m not (though I do have
many Russian friends) — only in recent years have I become more interested in
pre-revolutionary Russian history.
Baldwin: A big part of your specialty is Joseph Stalin as well as World
War II. What made you focus on Stalin and what is the most interesting thing
you learned about him?
Roberts: When I started studying Soviet history I wasn’t much interested in
Stalin as an individual. I thought his Marxism was mechanistic, crude and
dogmatic. I agreed with Nikita Khrushchev’s critique of his dictatorial rule at
the 20th Party Congress.
What
interested me was not Stalin but “Stalinism” — the political, ideological and
economic functioning of the Soviet system. In that regard, I was unconvinced by
Khrushchev’s explanation of Stalinism as a function of the cult of Stalin’s
personality. It seemed to me that the mass repressions of the 1930s and 1940s
and the ongoing authoritarianism of the Soviet system — softer though it was
after Stalin’s death — were the result of the collective failings and defects of
the party and its ideology.
+
UN or NATO?
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/07/23/un-or-nato/
by Vijay Prashad
The communique
from the summit in Vilnius earlier this month underlined Ukraine’s path into
the Western military alliance and sharpened NATO’s self-defined universalism,
writes Vijay Prashad.
The North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation ‘s communiqué released after the first day of its annual
summit earlier this month claimed that “NATO is a defensive alliance,” a
statement encapsulating why many struggle to grasp its essence.
A look at
the latest military
spending figures shows, to the contrary, that
NATO countries, and countries closely allied to NATO, account for nearly
three-quarters of the total annual global expenditure on weapons.
Many of
these countries possess state-of-the-art weapons systems, which are
qualitatively more destructive than those held by the militaries of most
non-NATO countries.
Over the
past quarter century, NATO has used its military might to destroy several
states, such as Afghanistan (2001) and Libya (2011), shattering societies with
the raw muscle of its aggressive alliance. It ended Yugoslavia (1999) as a
unified state. It is difficult, given this record, to sustain the view that NATO
is a “defensive alliance.”
Currently,
NATO has 31 member states, the most recent addition being Finland, which joined in April. Its membership has more than doubled since its
12 founding members (all European and North American nations that had been part
of the war against the Axis powers) signed its founding Washington or the North
Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949.
It is
telling that one of these original members — Portugal — remained under a
fascist dictatorship at the time, known as Estado Novo (in place from 1933
until 1974).
Article 10
of the treaty declares that NATO members — “by unanimous agreement” — can “invite
any other European state” to join the military alliance. Based on that
principle, NATO welcomed Greece and Turkey (1952), West Germany (1955) and
Spain (1982), expanding its membership at the time to include 16 countries.
Doubling
Down
The
disintegration of the U.S.S.R. and communist states in Eastern Europe — the
purported threat that compelled the need for NATO to begin with — did not put
an end to the need for the alliance.
Instead,
NATO’s increasing membership has doubled down on its ambition to use its
military power, through Article 5, to subdue anyone who challenges the
“Atlantic Alliance.”
The
“Atlantic Alliance,” a phrase that is part of NATO’s name, was part of a wider
network of military treaties secured by the U.S. against the U.S.S.R. and,
after October 1949, against the People’s Republic of China.
This
network included the Manila Pact of September 1954, which created the Southeast
Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO), and the Baghdad
Pact of February 1955, which created the Central Treaty Organisation
(CENTO).
Turkey and
Pakistan signed a military agreement in April 1954, which brought them together in an alliance against
the U.S.S.R. and anchored this network through NATO’s southernmost member
(Turkey) and SEATO’s westernmost member (Pakistan).
The U.S.
signed a military deal with each of the members of CENTO and SEATO and ensured
that it had a seat at the table in these structures.
+
NATO Summit Serves Up Cringe
Nothing-Burger
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57672.htm
by Scott Ritter
The
Vilnius Summit was intended to showcase the alliance’s unity and resolve in the
face of the challenges presented by Russia and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
There had been a great deal of discussion prior to the summit about the
prospects of Ukrainian membership in NATO. It was understood by all parties
that, while the conflict between Ukraine and Russia remained in an active
phase, Ukrainian
membership was impossible, if for
no other reason that, under Article 5 of the NATO charter, NATO would
immediately find itself in a war with Russia which had a good chance of going
nuclear.
The
working premise going into the Vilnius Summit was that NATO would empower
Ukraine to carry out a massive counteroffensive designed to break through the Russian defenses and drive to the Sea of
Azov, thereby severing the land bridge between Crimea and Russia, forcing
Russia to negotiate an end to the conflict. At that juncture, having “frozen”
the conflict on terms that would be unfavorable to Russia, NATO would extend an
invitation to Ukraine for membership, thereby shrouding Ukraine’s gains with
Article 5 protections while effectively checking any future Russian offensive
operations.
In the
weeks leading up to the summit, Ukraine was desperately trying to do its part,
throwing its newly constituted NATO-trained and equipped assault brigades at
prepared Russian defenses in actions which made the infamous “Charge of the
Light Brigade” seem like the epitome of military planning and execution by
comparison. With much of its NATO-provided weaponry, including the much-touted
Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, destroyed or damaged
without ever reaching the main Russian defensive positions, and some 20,000
Ukrainian casualties, the Ukrainian counteroffensive fizzled out. Instead of
presenting his NATO partners with a decisive Ukrainian victory, Zelensky confronted his erstwhile allies with the harsh
reality that not only would the conflict with Russia not be ending any time
soon, but also the growing realization that, when it did end, it would be as a
decisive Russian military victory.
Confronted
with this reality, NATO sought to soften expectations about Ukrainian
membership. Rather than provide Ukraine with a concrete road map to membership,
NATO declared that it would extend an invitation to Ukraine when “conditions
are met”, one of which is that the conflict with Russia must be over. NATO
offered up as a consolation prize the establishment of a NATO-Ukraine Council
“to advance political dialogue, engagement, cooperation, and Ukraine’s
Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO,” and promised to “continue
our support for as long as it takes.”
For Zelensky, these words ring hollow in the face of a
deteriorating situation on a battlefield largely defined by the previous
support of NATO. And the harsh reality of the battlefield looms large as Zelensky departs Vilnius with little more than assurances
that NATO will continue to support Ukraine along the lines of what it has done
to date. But all that this support has done is condemn hundreds of thousands of
Ukrainian soldiers to death, while stripping bare both the armories and coffers
of Ukraine’s NATO partners.
Zelensky must likewise reflect on the
words of President Joe Biden who, in an interview with CNN, noted that Ukraine
was “not ready for membership in NATO,” adding that any such dialogue was
“premature” while Ukraine was in the middle of a conflict. Biden also stated
that he did not “think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring
Ukraine into the NATO family now, and that the process could take place only
after a peace agreement with Russia was in place.”
But to
achieve a peace that created the conditions favorable to Ukraine joining NATO
meant that Ukraine must first defeat the Russian army on the field of battle.
To do that, Ukraine would need NATO to radically alter the formulation upon
which current levels of military assistance were being calculated, if for no
other reason that the current formulations were, simply put, not working. But
NATO is neither inclined nor capable of changing this formulation. Its goal has
never been to defend Ukraine, but rather defeat Russia, a cause it is willing
to pursue to the last Ukrainian.
Zelensky came to Vilnius like customers
flock to fast food restaurants, full of expectations about the delicious burger
they are going to order and consume, only to find himself cast in the role of
Clara Peller, shouting out in exasperation, “Where’s
the beef?”
It's not
the role Zelensky wanted or expected rolling into the
Vilnius Summit. For more than 500 days he had been cast as the modern-day
incarnation of Winston Churchill, a heroic figure standing firm against the
forces of evil. But Zelensky operates in the theater of the absurd, where perception trumps reality until which time reality hits hard, and
the script changes. The narrative has flipped, with Ukraine transformed from
the leading character into part of the supporting cast. Zelensky
the politician must be disappointed by this turn of events. But Zelensky the actor simply looks down at the words put
before him, written by others, takes his cue, and reads aloud.
“Where’s
The Beef?”
=======
c.
David
Graeber vs Peter Thiel: Where Did the Future Go"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0cz9OmCGw&feature=youtu.be
with David Graeber and Peter Thiel
(1:03:06)
Peter Thiel: We live in an advanced, technological society which
is too sophisticated for a "radical democracy." Also, Peter Thiel: In spite of all our advanced, technologicalology,
we can't handle the complexity of a "radical democracy" Peter Thiel: "Radical democracy" would require too much
planning and bureaucracy, which is not ideal. Also, Peter Thiel:
Your radical democracy COULD NOT POSSIBLY plan and be bureaucratic, and that is
not ideal. It's all in the transcript folks. The definition of diabolical
(scattered). Sad. Pathetic.
+
“Democracy’s Demise”
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/07/24/craig-murray-democracys-demise/
by Craig Murray
What we had
from roughly 1920 to 1990, when voting really could make a difference, is not
what we have now. We live instead in a post-democratic society.
Western
democracy appears to have failed in the sense that elections can achieve
nothing that makes any difference to the lives of ordinary people. They only make
a difference to lives of members of the political class, who jump on or off the
gravy train according to the result.
This is not an
accident. Those who have threatened the neoliberal order have been destroyed by
lies like Jeremy Corbyn — lies which the
billionaire-and state-controlled media were delighted to amplify — or cheated
out of election like Bernie Sanders.
In the United
States, the current lawfare attempts to remove Donald
Trump as a presidential candidate are an extraordinary
denial of democracy. Trump is accused of paying off sexual partners and of
retaining classified documents.
Bill Clinton
paid off sexual partners in a much more egregious fashion and Hillary’s
data-handling arrangements were much worse, with zero legal consequences for
either, but that does not seem in the least to concern the “liberal”
Establishment.
The role of
the U.S. security services in the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story
during the last Presidential election should have been a giant wake-up call.
But liberals were more interested in stopping Trump than in preventing the
security state from manipulating the result of elections.
There is an
“end justifies the means” approach by supposedly liberal thinkers that supports
any action against Trump, as it supports the banking ostracism of Nigel Farage, because their views are not entirely those of the
neoliberal Establishment.
=======
d.
“Excess deaths, lack of debate”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB0Tp1oM_t0
with Dr. John Campbell
(17:23)
+
“It's Evil to Fake Deaths to Panic
People...”
by Robert W Malone MD, MS
+
“One in
35”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd_RTf_ForA
with Dr. John Campbell
(18:09)
Myocardial
Injury after COVID-19 mRNA-1273 Booster Vaccination.
+
COVID-19: Newly Published Research
and CDC Data
by Robert W Malone MD, MS
+
“European excess deaths”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovyI17TYaP8&feature=youtu.be
with Dr. John Campbell
(19:09)
+
Across the West, people are dying
in greater numbers. Nobody wants to learn why
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57692.htm
by Jonathan Cook
There’s only one plausible
explanation for continuing silence on excess deaths: governments, media and
regulators are frightened of what the research may uncover.
+
Watch “US Excess Deaths, and What
Topics To Discuss Next?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZuo35rL2OM
with Dr. Mobean Syed
(55:32)
+
“Dr Manniche and John are abused”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7G3_yrY9II&feature=youtu.be
with Dr. John Campbell and Dr. Vibeke Manniche
(14:44)
In order to talk to you, some of the
world’s leading scientists and doctors are prepared to talk with me. This is of
course a privilege that leaders in their field talk to me. However, there are
individuals, and vested interests, that seek to be as deleterious to the
individuals as possible. This is not only disrespectful, but hinders the open
dialog of ideas that we all need to progress. Here, John and Dr Vibeke Manniche discuss abuse and
threats they have experienced. This talk was based on the first video we
recorded based on this new research on vaccine batches with different adverse
reaction reports.
=======
e.
“New Vaxx
Data From Australia Should Shock Your Conscience!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-sknniq4Ls&feature=youtu.be
with Jimmy Dore
(26:49)
+
“Spike Protein Accumulates in Brain and Skull and Causes
Damage. Brand New Study”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmje9djPd5o
(56:04)
+
WATCH: “Covid
‘vaccines’ and all-cause mortality”
https://off-guardian.org/2023/04/28/watch-covid-vaccines-and-all-cause-mortality/
with Professor Denis Rancourt
(1:10:41)
+
Latest Covid
Vaxx Study Is Absolutely OUTRAGEOUS & ENRAGING!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtxvIuit5VE&feature=share
with Jimmy Dore
(19:34)
+
“Every Mask is a Nail in the
Coffin of Humanity”
https://off-guardian.org/2023/07/22/every-mask-is-a-nail-in-the-coffin-of-humanity/
by Todd Hayen
=======
f.
“The US Hegemonic Rule Is Part of The Past”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5rDkPi3lXU&feature=share
with George Galloway and Richard Wolff
(14:40)
You can’t
shift the economic tectonic plates favouring the
east" says Professor Richard Wolff. War with China is a dead end. Nuclear
war is the end!
+
“A Yellen
in the China Shop”
https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/12/patrick-lawrence-a-yellen-in-the-china-shop/
by Patrick Lawrence
Given where the Biden regime sets
the bar for its trans–Pacific statecraft these days, you have to wonder whether
they chant “Limbo lower now!” as they send off the next official on one of
these pointless demarches.
Janet Yellen did an excellent job during her just-completed
four-day visit to Beijing, we are now able to read in
the corporate press. The Treasury secretary managed not to break any more China
in the China shop.
This
counts as a diplomatic success for Americans. Given where the Biden regime sets
the bar for its trans–Pacific statecraft these days, you have to wonder whether
they chant “Limbo lower now!” as they send off the next official on one of
these pointless demarches.
Yellen’s trans–Pacific overture was
another in a long line of such journeys the Biden regime’s top officials have
made since they made a mess of Sino–American relations as soon as they took
office.
There seem
to be only two ways these adventures can come out: Either it ends in disaster
or nothing gets done. Yellen chose the latter course,
and let us be satisfied: Avoiding another diplomatic breach is the best we can
hope for from these people.
Yellen made no mention of “the
international rules-based order” during her four days of talks, which were
actually two days, given that she filled a good deal of her time with American
business executives, not Chinese officials.
This was
an improvement over the performances of Antony Blinken,
America’s secretary of state, who reads from some imperial catechism on such
occasions and must always sermonize those who do not
conform to the rules-based-order commandment.
+
“Debt, Empires, and Oligarchs -
Dr. Michael Hudson (Part 1/2)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyybzneS0To
with Michael Hudson
(1:28:34)
See also
“Debt in Discussion” (cut and paste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koXLsw2ve44)
+
“On Debt, Service, and the Origins
of Capitalism”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0t50D4lQrs
with David Graeber
(1:17:16)
+
“Global Capitalism: Capitalism
Turns to the Authoritarian State”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0c5Gfh2ZWY
with Richard Wolff
(58:54)
Capitalism
Turns to the Authoritarian State · Why Private Capitalism Makes That Turn · Why
State Capitalism Makes That Turn · Will the Authoritarian State Save or End
Capitalism? (United States vs. China) · Socialism and the Authoritarian State.
=======
g.
How and Why the US Cannot Recover:
Is It a Failed State?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9Ds1h_WMpQ
with Michael Hudson
(1:16:11)
+
“Life and Thought 20180507”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH9pzzIIEj4&feature=youtu.be
with Michael Hudson
(1:05:49)
The
interview with Professor Michael Hudson was conducted on 7 May 2018 in Beijing,
by Professor Lau Kin Chi and Professor Sit Tsui Jade.
Professor Hudson talked about his formative years, and
his turn to economics from music as he found his mentor Terence McCarthy's
speech about economics beautiful and asethetic. He
recalled his experiences in research and teaching, and the background leading
to his writing the many books on imperialism, balance of payment, history of
debt, and fictitious capital. English subtitles are available,
please click CC or Settings to display them. The interview was edited by George
Lee, and produced by the Global University for Sustainability, July 2018.
+
“Debt, Service, and the Origins of
Capitalism”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0cz9OmCGw&feature=youtu.be
with David Graeber
(1:03:06)
+
“It's A Way To
Destroy The Dollar” Jim Rickards Warns Of Supply
Chain Fragility & BRICS Currency Plan
Via
Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,
+
“The digital ruble: It's finally
here!”
by Edward Slavsquat
The Bank
of Russia's CBDC is officially Russia's third form of currency
+
Russell Brand Sounds Alarm on
CBDCs: “They’ll Know Exactly What You’re Doing”
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/russell-brand-central-bank-digital-currency-rb/
by Monica
Dutcher with Russell
Brand
As central
banks develop new digital currencies, critics like Russell Brand warn that
expanded government controls could enable unprecedented surveillance and freeze
individuals out of the financial system
+
“The Bank of Russia's CBDC: Myth vs Reality”
by Edward Slavsquat
The Bank
of Russia’s digital ruble was officially signed into law on
Monday by President Vladimir Putin, after the legislative framework for
Russia’s “third form of currency” was ratified by
the State Duma earlier this month.
Excluding
state and corporate media, the digital ruble has not been particularly well
received in Russia—probably because most Russians understand the grave dangers
and risks that come with the adoption of a centralized, programmable digital
token issued and controlled by an IMF-obedient central bank that operates
independently from the Russian state.
However,
in Western “alternative media” there still seems to be some confusion about the
digital ruble. While Western CBDCs are obviously a tool of total control,
Russia’s CBDC is apparently checkmating the globalists—so goes the logic.
I’m sure
it’s just a coincidence, but many of the talking points used by digital ruble
disciples can be found on a helpful FAQ
page on the Bank of Russia’s website.
+
“Chase Bank Shuts Down Dr. Joseph Mercola's Business Bank Accounts, Including CEO, CFO, And Their Family Members”
by Celia Farber
No Reason Given
+
Do the Rothschilds
Own the Fed?
https://www.corbettreport.com/qfc-rothschilds/
with James Corbett
(55:47)
+
Prof. Richard Wolff: The Truth About Inflation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0XvKrrQsu0
with RJ Eskow
and Richard Wolff
(32:24)
+
Here’s how the end of the US
dollar’s global dominance will play out
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57678.htm
by Marcel Salikhov
The
de-dollarization of the global financial system is set to continue. This will
be facilitated by the development of new financial technology. Central banks
will seek to settle directly with each other without using the currencies of
developed countries. In the future, central banks’ digital currencies may also
be used for international transactions, reducing costs for economic
transactions. However, this process will be rather slow.
The US
dollar has long been the world’s dominant currency. Its use in international
transactions has for many decades far exceeded the American share of the global
economy, which now stands at around 24%. For example, according to the IMF the
dollar accounted for 58.4% of central banks’ international reserves by currency
at the end of 2002. According to SWIFT, the Greenback’s share of interbank
transfers in April 2023 was 59.7 per cent. This was significantly higher than a
year earlier.
Several
factors contribute to the active use of the US dollar, even in transactions
between third countries: the size of the American economy (the largest and most
liquid market for financial instruments, including reliable ones), political
influence and the role of US multinationals in global markets. All these
aspects interact and are mutually supportive over a long period of time. It’s
also worth remembering that the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, which
originated in the US economy itself, did not affect the position of the dollar
globally.
However,
the blocking of the Bank of Russia’s reserves by Western countries, as well as
large-scale financial sanctions against Russian banks and companies, have
caused many to question whether the advantages of dollarization might not be
all they seem. The non-economic risks of US dollar transactions and dollarized
assets have become apparent to everyone, especially central banks. In
particular, Article 21 of the 2004 UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities
of States and their Property guarantees immunity for central bank assets. However, this did not protect the assets of the Bank of Russia from
being frozen, which has now set a precedent.
=======
h.
“War
Made Invisible”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9gYNChLJk4&feature=youtu.be
with RJ Eskow and Norman Solomon
(38:32)
+
“UKRAINE REVENGED BLOODY ATTACK!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11JWP9yLUag
with Douglas Macgregor
(14:58)
+
Ukraine grain revenue gone. Latin America isolates EU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AHEdCW4pM0
with Alex Christoforou
and Alexander Mercouriz
(31:55)
=======
i.
“France's War on Free Speech”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdbVcBJqewY&t=29s
by Reclaim the Net
(16:26)
+
Young Arab and Black Men Jailed
and Fined in France’s Riot Trials
https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/23/young-arab-and-black-men-jailed-and-fined-in-frances-riot-trials/
by M. Jesuthasan
In a
courtroom in Marseille this month, a young man was handed an eight-month prison
sentence, suspended for two years, and an €800 fine. He had been accused of
stealing €20.
Just days earlier the man had picked up a roll of 50 cent coins outside a
make-up shop that was being looted in the southern French city. There was no suggestion he entered the store, and the company made no
damage claims against him. But he was arrested almost immediately.
“I wasn’t
thinking of the consequences,” the man, who is of North African descent, said
during the trial, which openDemocracy
attended.
The man’s
story is not unusual. Across France, young Arab and Black men from low-income neighbourhoods are being tried over the unrest that plagued
the country for a week after Nahel, a 17-year-old of
Moroccan and Algerian descent, was killed by police
during a routine traffic stop in Nanterre, a Parisian suburb, on 27 June.
Police
initially claimed Nahel was shot in self-defence by an officer he was trying to drive into,
but a video released by a witness contradicted this. It showed an officer shouting and pointing a gun
directly into Nahel’s car, before shooting him as he
tried to drive away.
+
Nahel's France: Neo-Colonized and
Pan-African Voices Speak Up
https://www.workers.org/2023/07/72518/
by Julia Wright
Two days ago, my client told me he was thinking of committing
suicide because his profession has been attacked for two to three weeks now
even though he is convinced he acted right – he is convinced he acts right everyday. He says to me: “How do I get out of this? So I
told him to switch to another job, leave the police, there are other
professions. And he replies: “Yes, but this is who I am, I live for my work, I
want to be a police officer, I want to go arrest people, I want to be able to
strangle them when they struggle”. Statement by the lawyer who is defending the police officer
who killed Nahel on June 27, 2023.
Richard
Wright voluntarily expatriated himself with his family (Ellen, my mother, and
myself) in 1947 and was welcomed there by the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and
Simone de Beauvoir – who later both became “suitcase carriers” in the Francis Jeanson network, which was supplying weapons to the
National Front for Liberation [FLN], Algeria’s national liberation
movement.
My father
wholeheartedly condemned the colonial war conducted by the French in Algeria.
When Simone de Beauvoir used to ring at our door to give my parents the latest
news about the war, I noticed her suitcase-carrying hands were covered with
nervous eczema. She later co-authored a book about the torture of an FLN
activist, Djamila Boupacha,
who was raped by the French army with a broken beer bottle.
+
SPEECH: French Nuclear Tests in
the Sahara, Tawia Adamafio,
1960
https://www.blackagendareport.com/speech-french-nuclear-tests-sahara-tawia-adamafio-1960
by Editors, The Black Agenda Review
A reminder
of when Accra was at the center of struggles against nuclear imperialism.
African people have always been at the forefront of peace and sanity.
=======
Biden’s Corruption Led to
Ukraine’s Destruction: Former Kiev Diplomat
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57684.htm
with Aaron Maté
(1:23:26)
Former
Ukrainian government official and diplomat Andrii Telizhenko joins Aaron Maté to
discuss how, in his view, powerful US figures including Joe Biden have used
Ukraine for personal corruption and the geopolitical aim of bleeding Russia —
all to the detriment of Ukrainians.
+
“NATO & the Perilous Black
Sea”
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/07/24/nato-the-perilous-black-sea/
by M.K. Bhadrakumar
The NATO
Summit in Vilnius earlier this month signaled that there is absolutely no
possibility of talks to settle the Ukraine war in the foreseeable future. The
war will only intensify, as the U.S. and its allies still hope to inflict a
military defeat on Russia although that is clearly beyond their capability.
On July
14, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of U.S. joint chiefs
of staff said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is “far from a failure” but the
fight ahead will be “long” and “bloody.” Milley has a
reputation for speaking what the White House wants to hear, no matter his
professional judgment.
Indeed, on
July 19, the Biden administration announced additional security assistance of about $1.3 billion for Ukraine. The Pentagon said in a statement
that the announcement “represents the beginning of a contracting process to
provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine.”
That is to
say, the U.S. will be using funds in its Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative
program, which allows the administration to buy weapons from industry rather
than pull from U.S. weapons stocks.
According
to the Pentagon, the latest package includes four National Advanced
Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and munitions; 152 mm artillery rounds;
mine-clearing equipment; and drones.
Meanwhile,
in an ominous development, no sooner had Russia let the U.N.-brokered grain
deal expire on July 17, than Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky disclosed that he had sent official letters
to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and
Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan suggesting the continuation of the grain deal
without Russia’s participation.
From left, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg with U.S.
President Joe Biden and Turkey’s Erdogan on July 12
in Vilnius.
(NATO)
On the
very next day, Kiev followed up with an official letter to the U.N.’s
International Maritime Organization spelling out a new maritime corridor passing through Romania’s territorial waters and exclusive maritime
economic zone in the north-western part of the Black Sea.
Evidently,
Kiev acted in concert with Romania (a NATO member country where the 101st Airborne
Division of the U.S. army is deployed). Presumably, the U.S. and NATO are in
the loop while the U.N.’s imprimatur is being arranged. It goes
without saying that NATO has been working on a new maritime route in the Black
Sea for some time already.
This is a
serious development, as it seems a precursor to involving NATO in some way to
challenge Russia’s domain dominance in the Black Sea.
NATO’s
Vilnius Summit Communique on July 11 forecast that
the alliance is gearing up for a vastly enhanced presence in the Black Sea
region, which has been historically a Russian preserve, where it has
important military bases.
The
relevant paragraph in the NATO Communique said:
“The Black
Sea region is of strategic importance for the Alliance. This is further highlighted
by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. We underline our continued
support to Allied regional efforts aimed at upholding security, safety,
stability and freedom of navigation in the Black Sea region
including, as appropriate, through the 1936 Montreux
Convention. We will further monitor and assess developments in the region
and enhance our situational awareness, with a particular focus on
the threats to our security and potential opportunities for closer
cooperation with our partners in the region, as appropriate.” [Emphasis
added.]
Four
things to note:
·
One, the Ukraine conflict has been
singled out as the context; the focus is on Crimea;
·
Two, “freedom of navigation” means an
assertive U.S. naval presence; reference to the 1936 Montreux
Convention hinted at the role of Turkey, both as a NATO member country and the
custodian of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits;
·
Three, NATO flags its intention to
enhance its “situational awareness,” which as a military term involves four
stages: observation, orientation, decision and action. Situational awareness
has two main elements, namely, one’s own knowledge of the situation and,
secondly, one’s knowledge of what others are doing and might do if the
situation were to change in certain ways. Simply put, the NATO surveillance of
Russian activities in the Black Sea will intensify; and,
·
Four, NATO seeks closer cooperation
with “our partners in the region” (read Ukraine).
Map of the Black Sea and some prominent ports around it. Sea
of Azov and Sea of Marmara also labelled. (Norman
Einstein, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Most
certainly, a new maritime route in northwestern and western regions of the
Black Sea along Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey (all of which are NATO member
countries) will cut off the Russian garrison in Transnistria
(Moldava) and would boost Kiev’s capability to strike
at Crimea. The NATO involvement would complicate any future Russian operations
to liberate Odessa as well, which is historically a Russian city.
Apart from
the huge legacy of culture and history, Odessa is a port head for the
industrial products of Russia and Ukraine.
=======
k.
“People’s Summit in Brussels Calls
for Respect of Democracy and Self-Determination”
by Zoe Alexandra
Over 1,000
people participated in the People’s Summit that brought together the people of
Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe.
Without sovereignty and mutual respect, dialogue between regions is
impossible. Throughout the days of debate and work at the People’s Summit held
parallel to the III CELAC-EU Summit, trade union activists, community leaders,
left political leaders, artists, and students from across Latin America and the
Caribbean and Europe ratified the importance of spaces for democratic and
plural debate between equal partners. The summits occurred simultaneously in
the Belgian capital of Brussels from July 17-18 after a
eight-year pause.
The People’s Summit, held at the Free University of Brussels, was organized by a broad
coalition of over 100 organizations, collectives, unions, political parties,
and movements. The organizers included ALBA Movimientos,
INTAL, CELAC Social, IPA, Jornada Continental for
Democracy Against Neoliberalism, the Network of
Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity (REDH), and
the Party of the European Left.
+
And, Their Hearts and Minds Will
Follow
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/25/and-their-hearts-and-minds-will-follow/
by James C. Nelson
The ideal
subject of totalitarian rule is not the
convinced . . . [authoritarians] . . . but people for whom
the distinction between fact and fiction and
the distinction between true and false no longer exist.
– Hanna
Arendt
I have written previously about the
existence of the authoritarian playbook. It is the template for totalitarian
power, control, and cultism that has been and is being followed by every
fascist, authoritarian and dictator, commencing with Mussolini and on through
Hitler, Franco, Gaddafi, Pinochet, Mobutu, Berlusconi, Erdoğan,
Putin, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Modi, Orbán, and Donald Trump. (Indeed, Trump is openly
planning to become America’s dictator if he wins election in 2024.)
A critical component of the
authoritarian’s playbook involves not only the disparagement, elimination, or
control of the free press, but also the use of propaganda. The latter is my
focus here.
Propaganda is a communication
strategy designed to: obtain attention management through repetition, sow
confusion and uncertainty, discourage critical thinking, instill loyalty and fear,
motivate the masses to carry out the purveyor’s agenda of nationalization and
persecution, and persuade the recipients that reality is whatever the cult
leader says it is.
+
“The Atrocity Mill: How the West
Conjures Up Atrocities Overseas to Cover for its Own”
by Evan Reif
Recently,
American doctor and ex-Marine Pete Reed was killed
near the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine. Since his death,
Reed has been lionized as a selfless hero who lived a life of service.
Ukrainian sources are quick to condemn his death as a horrible atrocity and
Russian war crime.
Reed was a
doctor working for his charity, Global Response Medicine, which he
founded in 2017 to build “something good from the destruction of Mosul,”
apparently without much thought to just who destroyed the city as he has worked
in close collaboration with U.S. forces ever since.
The
reaction to Reed’s life and death is illuminating. The political class and
their thralls in the media are content to ignore American interventions
overseas, and their rationalization of them, as they condemn Russia and accuse
its soldiers of genocide. Through the life and death of Pete Reed, we can see
how readily this system has conjured up atrocities from its enemies to justify
its own wars and its own atrocities. The “human rights” that America so
frequently accuses its enemies of violating are little more than a cudgel that
this government wields against its enemies.
A Tale of Two Cities . . . .
=======
Matt Taibbi:
How the Left lost its mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfyw3xA2hv0&feature=share
with Jimmy Dore
(57:31)
+
THE CANADIAN TRUCKERS ACTUALLY WON? "It might just have
been the most successful individual protest in human history."
by Celia Farber
DEEP ANALYSIS FROM THE AFTERMATH
+
The Weaponization of Psychology
https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1820-james-corbett-on-the-weaponization-of-psychology/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
with James Corbett
(1:11:01)
+
“Serf’s Up !”
https://off-guardian.org/2023/07/21/serfs-up/
by Sylvia Shawcross
The people did not create the
situations that caused them to react the way that they have. That was mostly
orchestrated. The WEF website and all their stated goals are there for all to
read. The truth about the vaccine at best not working and at worst damaging
people has come out. The things being done in the name of carbon emissions is long
and terrifying. The destruction of american/western
culture is happening quickly. The new cultural inculcation and the rewriting of
history is well under way. The relentless alienation
provided by technology continues its rampage.
This is not psychology but tangible
manufactured reality.
+
We’re All Suspects Under the Government’s Precrime
Program
“There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in
America.”
-- James Bamford, journalist
https://off-guardian.org/2023/07/14/were-all-suspects-under-the-governments-precrime-program/
by John & Nisha Whitehead
+
America's Poverty Epidemic-- A Disease Of
Global Banking, (Covid As Death Blow,) Media Won't
Cover The Story—Obsessed With Race, Gender, Woke Blinders To Deflect From A
Collapsing Society
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/eb6?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
by Celia Farber
“Entrapment is this society’s sole
activity.” —Ed Dorn
=======
m.
“Court-Ordered Pfizer Documents
They Tried To Have Sealed For 55 years Show 1223
Deaths, 158,000 Adverse Events in 90 Days Post EUA Release”
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/court-ordered-pfizer-documents-they
by Celia Farber
The Most
Shocking Document Release Of The Last 100 years
=======
n.
The One Chart That Explains
Everything
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57673.htm
by Mike Whitney
Look carefully at the chart above. What do you see?
You see the development of a
high-speed rail system that is unrivaled anywhere on earth. You see the actualization of plan to connect all parts of the country
with modern-day infrastructure that reduces shipping costs, improves mobility
and increases profitability. You see a vision of the 21st century in which
state-directed capital links rural populations with urban centers lifting
standards of living across the board. You see an expression of a new economic
model that has lifted 800 million people out of poverty while paving the way
for global economic integration. You see an industrial juggernaut expanding
in all directions while laying the groundwork for a new century of economic
integration, accelerated development and shared prosperity.
Is there a
high-speed rail system in the United States that is comparable to what we see
in China today?
Are You Tired Of The
Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?
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Media
No, there
isn’t. So far, less than 50 miles of high-speed rail has been built in the
United States. (“Amtrak’s Acela, which reaches
150 mph over 49.9 miles of track, is the US’s only high-speed rail service.”)
As everyone knows, America’s transportation grid is obsolete and in a shambles.
But, why? Why is the United States so far
behind China in the development of critical infrastructure?
It’s
because China’s state-led model is vastly superior to America’s “carpetbagger”
model. In China, the government is directly involved in the operation of the
economy, which means that it subsidizes those industries that enhance growth
and spur development. In contrast, American capitalism is a savage free-for-all
in which private owners are able to divert great sums of money into
unproductive stock buybacks and other scams that do nothing to create jobs or
strengthen the economy. Since 2009 US corporations have spent more than $7 trillion on stock buybacks which is
an activity that boosts payouts to rich shareholders but fails to produce
anything of material value. Had that capital been invested in
critical infrastructure, every city in America would be linked to a gigantic
webbing of high-speed rail extending from “sea to shining sea”. But that hasn’t
happened, because the western model incentivizes the extraction of capital
for personal enrichment rather than the development of projects that serve the
common good. In China, we see how fast transformative changes can take
place when a nation’s wealth is used to eradicate poverty, raise standards of
living, construct state-of-the-art infrastructure, and lay the groundwork for a
new century.
Here’s
more from a report by the Congressional Research Service on “China’s Economic
Rise…”
+
CIA Has Been Working to Overthrow
the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Since Its Inception in 1949
by Jeremy Kuzmarov
New book details saga of two CIA
officers, Jack Downey and Richard Fecteau, who were
imprisoned for 19 years in China following a botched covert operation in the
“Asian Bay of Pigs.”
Six years
ago, The New York Times reported that the Chinese government systematically dismantled CIA spying operations in the
country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over
two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.
While one
might regard China’s actions as harsh, the CIA has been working in vain since
1949 to overthrow the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which was established
with the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the Guomindang (GMD) in China’s civil war.
+
China’s Faltering
Economy and Its Implications
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/25/chinas-faltering-economy-and-its-implications/
by Mel Gurtov
China’s
economy is going through some of the same growing pains that Japan once
experienced: lower consumer spending, overbuilding on homes and offices, local
government debt that runs into the trillions of dollars, and high unemployment
among young people. The run of impressive growth rates seems to be over; it’s
now hovering around three percent.
By just
about any measure—GDP, exports, prices of goods and services—China’s economy is growing much more slowly than before the COVID pandemic hit. The
Xi Jinping regime is trying to get people to spend
more, get the real estate market to halt construction of office buildings
without renters, and get local governments to become more financially
responsible.
China had
been the world’s leading exporter. Exports have driven a good deal of China’s
rise, and account for about a fifth of the economy. But as happened in Japan in
the 1980s, Chinese exports have slumped badly, with exports to the US falling
most of all. China’s imports are down too.
Mexico has
replaced China as the US’s biggest trade partner. Chinese officials are wooing
foreign investors with talk of 2023 as the “Year of Investment in China.” But
investors are wary, and many are abandoning China for more favorable climes.
Is China,
like Japan back then, on the verge of long-term stagnation? Should US and European leaders be happy about that? Will Xi need to
pump up the economy with some kind of stimulus program?
Questions
of this sort point to just how important China’s economy is to the world, not
to mention to the fate of China’s party-state leadership. Some China watchers
think Beijing’s economic woes are behind the renewed interest in dialogue with
the US.
Keith Bradsher of the New
York Times, for instance, writes: “Now the faltering economy appears to have helped prompt a shift in the
willingness of senior Chinese officials to engage in diplomatic talks with
geopolitical rivals abroad, and to show more openness on economic policy at
home.”
I don’t
know what’s behind “appears to have helped,” since—as I’ve written recently on
treasury secretary Janet Yellen’s China
trip—resumption of dialogue with US officials has not altered either side’s
position on the most pressing issues that divide the two countries.
I think
the connection Bradsher tries to make between
economic weakness and greater foreign policy flexibility is flawed, just as it
was last November, following the Biden-Xi summit meeting in Bali, when some top
US officials also thought Beijing was ripe for making concessions because of
its economic and social challenges.
Then came
the spy balloon incident and all bets were off. Bradsher
is more accurate when he writes later in his article:
+
False Witnesses and Sinister
Plots: Exposing the CIA Connection in the ‘Chinese Police Station’ Narrative
by Kit Klarenberg
For
months, mainstream media across the Western world – in particular
English-language outlets based in the constituent members of the ‘Five Eyes’
global spying network – have been rabidly awash with terrifying news of secret “Chinese police stations” operating the
world over.
It is
claimed these “stations” are unofficial, covert Chinese Communist Party (CPC)
security and intelligence cells concealed in private businesses run by Chinese
émigrés, such as restaurants. From behind benign facades, they surveil and harass pro-democracy ex-pats, among other
nefarious activities.
By
contrast, Beijing denies their existence, claiming purported examples to merely
be anodyne initiatives constructed by regional public security bureaus during
the COVID-19 pandemic. They are primarily said to offer Chinese citizens
overseas administrative services, such as driving license renewal.
=======
o.
Remembering Staughton
Lynd's life of defiance
https://therealnews.com/remembering-staughton-lynds-life-of-defiance
by Chris Hedges
(37:07)
Alice Lynd
and Luke Stewart recall the life of historian, lawyer, and activist Staughton Lynd, whose writings and speeches on the Vietnam
War were recently published in a collection called ‘My Country Is the World’.
+
Employers can't use your
'passions' as an excuse not to pay you
https://therealnews.com/employers-cant-use-your-passions-as-an-excuse-not-to-pay-you
by Vince Quiles
(51:21)
The
Philadelphia Art Museum is an icon of the City of Brotherly Love, and there’s
no shortage of art lovers who wouldn’t consider a chance to work there to be a
dream job. But passion and prestige don’t pay the bills, as many museum workers
have found while being severely undercompensated for their labor. After a
public spreadsheet displaying the vast disparities in salaries at the museum
was circulated in 2019 by a group called Art Museum and Transparency, workers
at the PMA began to organize for a union. In summer 2022, the PMA Union held a successful three-week strike after two years of contract
negotiations. The Real News speaks with Adam Rizzo, museum educator and president of
AFSCME Local 397, and Amanda Bock, assistant curator and co-lead shop steward of the PMA Union.
+
Union freight has hit rock bottom.
Can the Teamsters turn it around?
https://therealnews.com/teamsters-union-freight-contract-truckers
by Teddy Ostrow
In the 2002 documentary American Standoff, Teamster John Murphy stars as the protagonist in the fight to organize Overnite Transportation, then one of the largest freight
trucking companies in the United States. Between 1999 and 2002, the Teamsters
union struck the company in an effort to win union recognition across all the
carrier’s terminals and secure a first contract. They treated the struggle as
existential for the future of the Teamsters—and its new leadership within the
union.
In the early minutes of the film, Murphy set the stakes for the filmmakers. The
deputy director of organizing and a vice president at the international
Teamsters union, he leaned forward in his chair and raised his eyebrows during
the interview. “It’s a do or die situation. Failure is
not an option,” he said soberly.
“For us to
be an effective labor organization, we have to keep this industry unionized,”
Murphy explained. “If we can’t be a major force in the trucking industry in
this country, why would any workers want to join us from other industries?”
+
The UPS showdown: What to expect
from a strike
https://therealnews.com/the-ups-showdown-what-to-expect-from-a-strike
by Maximillian
Alvarez
With just
a week left for the Teamsters and UPS to work out a new contract, the prospects
of a massive 340,000-strong strike grow greater by the day.
=======
p.
So what’s the REAL point of “Just
Stop Oil” protests?
https://off-guardian.org/2023/07/19/so-whats-the-real-point-of-just-stop-oil-protests/
by Kit Knightly
No
sporting event has been spared the orange dust and hi-viz vest of Just Stop Oil, and wherever they go they
are either cheered on for their antics, or the subject of vigilante justice…which
likewise gets a cheer.
But are these videos and protests
organic? And if not, what is the point of these clashes?
First of
all, let’s agree the protests themselves are pointless, even on
their own terms.
Not only
do none of the people being inconvenienced by the blocked traffic or disrupted
sporting events have any power at all to “just stop oil”, but slowing down
traffic actually increases emissions whilst the destruction and disruption will
certainly turn many people against the movement.
But that
doesn’t actually matter anyhow because the entire movement is FAKE.
Yup, stop
the presses guys, news incoming is that Just Stop Oil are not actually a
guerilla band of desperate anti-petrol hippies!
Turns out
they have branding and funding and social media managers.
Turns out
they are a product being marketed as much as anything else,
and they are backed by the Climate Emergency
Fund, a US-based NGO.
Shocking, right.
Ok, before any of you get apoplectic, it’s perfectly
possible some (or all) of the JSO people out there actually wearing their hi-viz and chanting their slogans genuinely believe they’re
doing the right thing.
But it’s
just as possible they’re all being paid to be there.
Yes, just
like charity collectors or seat fillers, paid protesters
exist.
Hell, it’s possible the “ordinary people” doing the violence are
paid too and the many of the “viral videos” are entirely staged.
Staged or
not, paid or not, the violent videos will certainly encourage real violence
eventually. And even if they don’t spawn more physical violence, they provide
endless ammunition for violent disagreement.
Yes, you
guessed it, it’s another fake binary.
A dialectic construction to control the conversation. Making the question on the public mind not “is climate change a problem?”, but “is protesting hydrocarbon production this way right?” or “is violence against protesters acceptable?”.
And, of
course, no matter how you answer those questions you’re providing support for
one establishment narrative or another.
See, if
you support the protesters, you’re agreeing we should be using any means
necessary to reduce CO2 emissions etc. You agree that the problem these people are reacting to requires a solution. That way lies
carbon taxes and a laundry list of restrictive policies that contol and impoverish people in the name of “saving the
planet”.
But, on
the other hand, if you’re anti-protesters you’re going to be gaslit into supporting “new anti-protest legislature” to “stop environmentalists disrupting daily life” or “prevent outbreaks of violence” or
something.
This
anti-protest legislation will be used to stamp-out REAL protests when they
inevitably occur in response to Great Reset policies down the line.
See how it
works? It’s a win-win for the establishment.
That’s the
nature and purpose of the false binary. Violent disagreement across a very
narrow band of opinion, and no matter which side you take you’re
partaking in a constructed reality that directs your behaviour
and responses into endorsing a New Normal policy.
This is
almost literally everything that’s been in the news since Covid
sputtered out, and the solution is always the same: Keep objective and refuse
to take a side.
+
How Congolese Students are Taking on Big Oil
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/25/how-congolese-students-are-taking-on-big-oil/
by Pascal Mirindi
and Alexanderia Shaner
Student
activists are traveling thousands of miles across the Democratic Republic of
Congo to mobilize communities against the expansion of Big Oil.
Pétrole Non Merci, or Petrol No Thanks,
is a national campaign to oppose the proposed sale of 27 oil blocksand three gas
blocks, most of which overlap protected areas. Anglo-French oil company Perenco recently bid to buy the new blocks and would export the oil using the EACOP pipeline.
The
campaign has a two-pronged strategy. First, they are mobilizing communities
where the new oil blocks are located to build local power and hold officials
accountable. Second, they are linking up with communities like Moanda, which have already been exploited and abused by Perenco for decades.
The
traveling activists are building a self-organizing network to take nonviolent
action throughout the DRC, with coordinated popular uprisings.
I spoke
with Pascal Mirindi, a student at the University of Goma who is involved with Extinction Rebellionand LUCHA, a Congolese citizens’ movement, about the campaign and their recent
creative actions.
Could you tell us about the ‘Pétrole Non Merci’ campaign and ‘Extinction Rebellion’ at
the University of Goma?
+
How the Climate Crisis is Most
Detrimental to the Black Community
https://www.blackagendareport.com/how-climate-crisis-most-detrimental-black-community
by Forrest Palmer
The earth recently experienced its hottest days on record.
Here in the U.S. Black people face the worst consequences of the climate
crisis.
There was
no more defining moment in modernity than the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution. Within that revolution domestically to the United States, the most
significant incident was the Titusville, Pennsylvania oil drilling find , which
began our internal deluge of oil. This was the beginning of the troika of
oil, coal and gas being the foundation of our modern economy.
As the
saying goes “there are no free lunches”. With this abundance of cheap
energy, the release of
carbon in our environment has caused a constant rise in our temperatures
globally over the past approximately 180 years .
Although
the Global South is
most susceptible to being afflicted by climate change (even though they are most innocent of contributing to this issue), there
are internal
communities in the United States that are vulnerable to many of the climate
instability issues that are a direct result of our carbon emissions for decades
.
In that
vein of vulnerability, there is no more
unprotected collective in the United States than the Black community in general . This is
due to the historical economic disenfranchisement of Black people in the United
States. As the only key to being insulated from the worst aspects of
climate change in its current form is through financial stability, the economic
fragility that has been a hallmark of this community due to systemic racism
makes it most susceptible to feeling the effects of climate change more than
any other group.
“The rates
of emergency department visits for heat-related causes increased by 67% for
African Americans, 63% for Hispanics, 53% for Asian Americans and 27% for white
people from 2005 to 2015, according to a report in the Wilderness and
Environmental Medicine journal.”
This is
revelatory as far as the vulnerability of Black people and non-Anglos in
general by comparative standards when it comes to ethnicity. And as we
are seeing increasing temperatures as our carbon emissions are growing with
each and every year, these numbers will continue to increase for the U.S.
population. This is an unspoken truth in mainstream media for the most part
since this is construed as divisive by many people to acknowledge there is an
ethnic component that is prevalent when it comes to the climate crisis.
As temperatures
across Asia, Europe and the U.S. have reached historic levels
, one of the things that presently
is needed to combat the potential heat prostration is air conditioning.
As this is an infrastructure issue and conducive to dealing with the current
heat problem that is increasing with each and every year, slowly but surely, we
will have to address the increasing cost of heating and cooling and the lack of
resources available to the Black community.
The
numbers show that we are assured of seeing a 3.6 to 7.2 degree
Fahrenheit change in the global environment by
2100. As people primarily
on the right believe that the climate has always been changing and not
indicative of any real problem, the fact
of the matter is that the human species needs a relatively stable
climate to allow us to survive in perpetuity.
Now, in
releasing more carbon into the atmosphere and seeing a current 2.0
Fahrenheit (1.5 Celsius) increase in global temperature , this has been one of the most devastating aspects of our
contemporary survival and the ability to insulate ourselves from the calamitous
effects of climate instability.
Under the
current system, there has been nothing as bipartisan as the lack of concern
about the climate crisis by both political parties. However, what is most
disingenuous is that the Democratic Party expresses faux concern about climate
change but offers no meaningful policy changes.
+
“British Petroleum’s Wars, Coups & Dictator”
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/07/20/bps-wars-coups-dictators/
by Mark Curtis
From Iran to Azerbaijan, Iraq to
Nigeria, Russia to Venezuela, British foreign policy is largely captured by the
global climate polluter….
Declassified recently revealed that BP has pumped Iraqi oil worth £15 billion since the U.K. and
U.S. militaries invaded the country in 2003.
Governments
in London and Washington long denied the Iraq war was about oil. Yet BP
returned to the country in 2009 after a 35-year absence and was awarded a
significant interest in Iraq’s largest oil field near British-occupied Basra in
the south of the country.
Something
similar happened in Libya following another U.K. military intervention in 2011.
Eleven
years after that war, in October last year, Libya’s National Oil
Corporation agreed that BP would start drilling for natural gas in the country. BP
controls exploration areas in Libya covering nearly three times the size of
Wales.
British
officials have a longstanding habit of fighting wars which they claim to be in
the interests of human rights that are really about oil or geopolitics.
Declassified
files show that Harold Wilson’s Labour government
secretly armed and backed Nigeria’s aggression against the secessionist region
of Biafra in the late 1960s. The priority was again oil interests, then owned
jointly by BP and Shell.
The
impacts of Britain’s oil wars could hardly be greater. The war over Biafra was
the world’s worst humanitarian crisis of the late 1960s, causing the deaths of
up to 3 million people.
In Iraq,
hundreds of thousands were killed amidst a humanitarian catastrophe.
Libya,
meanwhile, was turned into a safe haven for terrorism and slave markets and was
plunged into a civil war from which it is yet to recover.
[See: How
the West’s War in Libya Spurred Terrorism in 14 Countries]
Dictatorships. . . .
=======
q.
Palestine in Pictures: June 2023
https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-pictures-june-2023/38091
+
Shadowy, Israel-Linked Group
Attempts to Censor Pro-Palestine Spotify Artists
by Alan Macleod
A shadowy,
Israel-linked pressure group is attempting to remove artists supporting
Palestinian liberation from Spotify. We Believe in
Israel, an outgrowth of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Center
(BICOM), is lobbying both the U.K. government and the popular music streaming
platform in their efforts to censor a range of artists – including MintPress News’ Lowkey.
Studying these organizations’ key figures, MintPress can reveal that the
lobby group may have sympathetic ears in key positions in both.
+
“Israel's war on Jenin and the push for 'final victory'”
https://therealnews.com/israels-war-on-jenin-and-the-push-for-final-victory
by Marc Steiner
(38:45)
+
Israel Killed Civilians, Targeted
Hospitals in Jenin With US
Weapons and Support
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57674.htm
by Marjorie Cohn
Israel could not mount its military
operations against Palestinians without $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military
aid.
From July
3-4, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) — using weapons funded by the United
States — mounted the most violent military assault in the occupied West Bank in
two decades.
In what
Israel dubbed “Operation Home and Garden,” more than 1,000 ground troops
invaded the Jenin refugee camp. Assisted by
helicopter gunships and armed drones, the IOF killed 12 Palestinians —
including six civilians (five of them children) — and wounded more than 120
others (including 14 children), according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. The IOF partially destroyed 109 houses, extensively damaged the
infrastructure, leveled the streets and created a power outage. About 4,000
Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes.
While the
IOF has used armed drones against Gazans, they are now using them against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as well.
Meanwhile,
the U.S. government, as usual, issued no criticism of the brutal IOF assault on Jenin. Instead, the White House declared that the United States “supports
Israel’s security and right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian
Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups.”
Under
international law, the occupying power (Israel) is not entitled to self-defense against the people it occupies (the Palestinians). A UN-appointed
Commission of Inquiry determined last year that Israel’s
occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal and called on the General
Assembly to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice.
+
Isaac Herzog's Visit to Congress:
A Showcase of Apartheid Apologetics
https://www.mintpressnews.com/isaac-herzog-visit-congress-showcase-apartheid-apologetics/285305/
by Miko Peled
As the
anticipation built for Israeli president Yitzhak Hertzog’s (Isaac Herzog) visit
to Washington, DC insiders scrambled to hide the fact that Israel is a racist
state. At first, the center of the crisis was the incomprehensible fact that
someone had told the truth about Israel. Yet House Representative Pramila Jayapal, a progressive
democrat, would later apologize for calling Israel what it is, a racist state.
Her
remarks at an event in Chicago where she called Israel a racist state were seen
to be so controversial that House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries weighed in.
He and three top leadership aides quickly took to the media, proclaiming,
“Israel is not a racist state.” According to Reuters, the most criticism they could muster was, “There are individual members
of the current Israeli governing coalition with whom we strongly disagree.”
+
Israel's Jenin
operation amounts to war crimes, say experts
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israels-jenin-operation-amounts-war-crimes-say-experts
by MEE Staff
Legal
experts have said that Israel's military operation in Jenin earlier this
month, which killed 12 Palestinians and wounded 100 others, fits into the parameters of war crimes under the
Geneva Conventions.
Susan Akram, a clinical professor at Boston University's School
of Law, said the raid on Jenin clearly amounts to war
crimes for a number of reasons, including intentionally attacking a civilian
population and attacking medical units.
"The
Geneva Conventions include as war crimes during occupation, willful killings,
willfully causing great suffering to an occupied population and extensive
destruction of property not justified by military necessity," Akram said during a webinar on Thursday hosted by the Arab Center Washington, DC.
"There's
no doubt that what Israel carried out in Jenin
constitutes war crimes."
The other
panelists on the webinar, Daniel Levy of the US/Middle East Project and
journalist Dalia Hatuqa, agreed that Israel's actions
in the West Bank amount to war crimes.
+
Jenin is Just the Start: Did
Palestinians Finally Bury the Ghosts of the Past?
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57682.htm
by Ramzy Baroud
The deadly
Israeli invasion of Jenin on July 3 was not a
surprise.
Also,
unsurprising is the fact that the killing of 12 Palestinians, wounding of 120
more and the destruction of nearly 80 percent of the Jenin
Refugee Camp’s homes and infrastructure will not make an iota of a difference.
Even
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his lofty promises of
destroying the “safe haven … of the terrorist enclave in Jenin”,
must have known that his bloody exercise was ultimately futile.
Indeed, as
the Israeli military machine was toppling homes, smashing cars and harvesting
lives, several Palestinian retaliatory attacks were reported, including in Tel Aviv, on July 4, and in the Kedumim illegal settlement on July 6.
In fact,
unlike the Israeli response to the Second Palestinian Uprising (Intifada) of
2000, extreme violence will not weaken, but heighten Palestinian Resistance and
counter attacks.
Back then,
the Palestinian Authority had a degree of control over Palestinian groups and
managed, although with great difficulties, to contain the Palestinian street.
Now, the
PA has no such leverage.
+
Cracks are emerging in Israel’s
military. Reservists threaten not to serve if government plan passes
by Tia Goldenberg
+
Sierra Club Workers Challenge
Leadership's Greenwashing ‘Apartheid Tours’
by Jessica Buxbaum
In June,
members of the Sierra Club unit of the Progressive Workers Union (PWU) passed a
resolution pledging solidarity with the Palestinian people as the environmental
organization pushes forward with its planned trips to Israel.
The
workers’ resolution puts its words into action by ensuring union funds aren’t
investing in Israel’s settler enterprise and contributing to the oppression of
Palestinians. It also calls for establishing a Palestine solidarity committee
to foster relationships with Palestinian-led organizations and help educate
members on the connections between Palestine and Indigenous struggles in the
U.S.
“Our
members overwhelmingly voted to recognize that colonialism is part of the
climate crisis here and abroad, making it clear that we have the power to put
our values into practice, even when our employers don’t,” Zach Kopkin, Sierra Club employee, Progressive Workers Union
member, and spokesperson for the PWU Palestine Solidarity Group, said in a
statement.
+
'Israel Is an Apartheid State':
Progressives Explain Decision to Boycott Israeli President's Speech
https://www.commondreams.org/news/progressives-boycott-speech-israel
by Julia Conley
"It's
contradictory to claim to support human rights when you're arming the
oppressors with billions of dollars of bullets and bombs," said Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush.
Two U.S.
House progressives on Tuesday made clear that their decision to stand up
against the violent apartheid policies of the Israeli government is not viewed
as controversial by international human rights experts and that the facts are
on their side, even as the vast majority of Democratic lawmakers joined
Republicans in welcoming Israel's president to deliver a joint address to
Congress.
Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the first Palestinian-American to be elected to Congress, was
joined by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) in explaining the position of several progressive lawmakers who boycotted President
Isaac Herzog's speech on Wednesday.
+
Israel's Military-Settler State:
There are no Jewish 'civilians' in the West Bank
by Robert Inlakesh
US
President Joe Biden recently called out Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as
being the “most extreme” he’s seen, and pointed to members of the Israeli Prime Minister’s
coalition as being “part of the problem."
His
comments immediately drew attention to Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, along with
Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, and illegal West Bank settlers in general.
But
Israeli settler extremism is not isolated to the West Bank, nor
to Israel’s current far-right government’s ministers like Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Israeli
settlers occupy the highest positions in the military and government, while
extremists are operating special militias inside the Israeli army - with its
approval - and additionally receiving funds from US charitable organizations.
Israeli
settler attacks on Palestinians have been steadily on the rise over the past
years, with an average of three violent incidents occurring per day in 2023,
compared to two in 2022 and one in 2021, according to the United Nations.
One of the
worst recorded attacks this year came on February 26, when a settler militia
force, at least 400 strong, descended upon several villages surrounding the Palestinian city of
Nablus, including the town of Huwara.
The
settler attack, even described as a pogrom by top Israeli general Yehuda Fuchs, resulted
in the murder of a Palestinian man, in addition to the burning down of at least
30 homes and 100 cars.
In support
of the settler assault, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel
Smotrich openly proclaimed that he thought “the village of Huwara needs
to be wiped out. I think the State of Israel should do it."
In
mid-June, another 400 armed Israeli settlers attacked Turmusaya and surrounding villages,
torching 30 homes and around 60 cars, additionally resulting in over 100
injuries and the murder of another Palestinian man; while he was attempting to
save children.
The two
most notorious far-right members of Israel’s current coalition government are
ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir,
both of whom live in illegal settlements and were longtime activists as part of
the settler movement.
Ben Gvir, who has faced a laundry list of criminal charges ranging
from terror group affiliations to incitement of racism, resides in the
extremist settlement of al-Khalil (Hebron). Smotrich currently resides in Kedumim,
a settlement located just a short drive from Yitzhar
– the other infamous settler community.
Their
unified list, running under the name Religious Zionism, secured the
third-highest number of votes from the Israeli public and now holds the
position of the second-largest party in the current coalition government.
Not ‘a few bad apples’ . . . .
+
“Prisoners are alive but without
life”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/prisoners-are-alive-without-life/38196
by Rajaa
Salah
Yusri Atiya
al-Masri will never forget the day he was transported
from Nafha prison in southern Israel to Soroka hospital in Bir al-Saba.
The
transport vehicle had metal seats, and Israeli prison guards sat on either side
of him. He was in restraints, and the pain was so excruciating that he was
uncertain if he would survive the trip.
For the
past several years in prison, he had endured an undiagnosed debilitating
illness, experiencing fainting episodes and severe weight loss.
Yet
Israeli prison authorities withheld medical care until al-Masri’s
fellow prisoners organized protests calling for his urgent treatment.
Finally,
in January 2012, nearly nine years into his imprisonment, he was on his way to
the hospital to receive a diagnosis and, hopefully, treatment.
“When I
arrived at the hospital, my turn for examination by the doctor came after
attending to the treatment of everyone else in the hospital,” he said. “I spent
nights in a cell near the clinic.”
He was
diagnosed with thyroid cancer and received no treatment besides painkillers
until November 2013.
“It was a
moment of triumph for me because I finally discovered the cause of my pain,”
al-Masri said. “The prison doctor used to tell me
that I was lying or imagining things and that my pain was due to
psychological disorders.”
+
Biden, Jayapal,
and Liberal Zionists Rush to Prop Up the Israel Lobby for 2024
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57696.htm
by Philip Weiss
In the
last couple of days we have seen a historic moment in the life of the Israel
lobby. And a sign of its eventual crackup.
As you
know by now, on a panel at the progressive Democratic
event Netroots Nation in Chicago Saturday, pro-Palestinian demonstrators demanded that Illinois
Rep. Jan Schakowsky support a bill in Congress that would leverage U.S. aid to Israel so as to protect Palestinian
children, a bill she has not signed on to; Schakowsky threatened to walk out;
and Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal,
who has signed on to the bill, tried to end the demonstration by saying that
she was on their side.
As
somebody who’s been in the streets and participated in a lot of demonstrations,
I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a
racist state… etc.
So Israel
is a racist state. An “offhand” “gaffe,” liberal Zionists argued later. But all hell broke loose.
Within a
day, “Israel is a racist state” was a giant scandal. Republicans leaped all
over the comment. So did the Democratic leadership. It denounced Jayapal’s comment, and 40-some Democrats signed on, saying Jayapal’s comments were “unacceptable,” and the U.S.-Israel
relationship is “ironclad.” The Republicans introduced a bill to reaffirm U.S. support for Israel because it is not a “racist or
apartheid” state.
=======
r.
“Why are we tempting nuclear
annihilation?” Watch Max Blumenthal address UN Security Council
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/29/nuclear-annihilation-max-blumenthal-security-council/
with Max Blumenthal
(14:06)
+
MintPress News Is Being Targeted: Join Us
in Standing up to the War Machine
with Mnar Adley
(7:09)
+
Censorship of the Black Left
https://www.blackagendareport.com/censorship-black-left
by Margaret Kimberley
As the empire crumbles, the neoliberal capitalist order run
by a corrupt duopoly is working to silence dissent. The Black left, of course,
is always the first target.
In recent
days and weeks both Black Power Media and Revolutionary Blackout Network have received what are called “strikes” on Youtube
which ban them from uploading new content for one week. Just as in the game of
baseball, on YouTube three strikes put a channel out if received in a 90-day
period. At Black Agenda Report
we have long noted that the drive to censor is directed most heavily towards
the Black left.
The regime
of censorship began in earnest during the 2016 presidential campaign as Hillary
Clinton sought to paint Donald Trump as a Russia agent, “Putin’s puppet,” as
she said. From that time on she and her friends in the corporate media and
surveillance state did everything they could to continue the falsehood. There
are many things one can say about Trump but he is no Russian asset. But it was
the Democratic National Committee law firm that paid for the Steele Dossier, a
phony document meant to make the case against Trump.
We have
seen an ever worsening atmosphere since the 2016 election and Trump’s
unexpected triumph. The neoliberal capitalist order has worked to make sure
that no outsider will have a voice, even though Trump proved to be like every
other American president and followed the same imperialist directive. Fear of
someone succeeding electorally from outside the
duopoly created greater censorship immediately after the election.
The group Propornot, whose work appeared in the Washington Post, the paper of the
surveillance state, whose owner, Jeff Bezos, provides
cloud computing services for the CIA. Propornot
created a list of those said to be under Russian influence,
and included Black Agenda Report.
The Russian influence trope continues and the same people still want to silence
anyone who presents a narrative that might gain traction among the
public.
Now that
Dr. Cornel West has announced his candidacy for the Green Party presidential
nomination, those outlets which give him a space to talk about politics
domestically and internationally are under attack. It isn’t surprising that it
is the Black outlets that are receiving this treatment from YouTube and from
other platforms as well.
It is
ironic that the left media needs the very platforms that are so closely aligned
with the state and that the liberal class is playing the biggest role in this
censorship regime. It was the Democratic Party, after all, that used the state
apparatus and corporate media to begin what Trump accurately called a witch
hunt against him.
The man
whose politics have been described as fascistic, who has been labeled as the
most racist president, is one whom they cannot defeat politically. That is
because the Democratic Party isn’t really much different. And so they are at a
loss as to how to secure victory without silencing anyone who might expose
their fraudulence. So it is the liberal class which has led the fight to
silence the left.
+
Watch “The REAL Reason NATO Bombed
Yugoslavia”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXmHcq7C3tY&feature=youtu.be
with Vijay Prashad
(4:33)
+
Why Did NATO Bomb Yugoslavia? |
Flashback with Palki Sharma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvQS-vIjGE
with Palki
Sharma
(9:06)
=======
s.
Failed Fukushima System Should
Cancel Wastewater Ocean Dumping
by John Laforge
From the
Fukushima-Daiichi triple-reactor meltdown wreckage, Japan’s government and “Tepco,” the owner, are rushing plans to pump 1.37 million
tons (about 3 billion pounds) of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific.
Their
record is poor. Their lies are documented. This is
not safe, at all.
To keep
the three meltdowns’ wasted fuel from melting again, Tepco
continuously pours cold water over 880 tons of “corium,” the red-hot rubblized fuel amassed somewhere under three devastated
reactors. “That water leaks into a maze of basements and trenches beneath the
reactors and mixes with groundwater flowing into the complex,” Reuters reported Sep. 3, 2013.
Most of
this water is collected and put through Tepco’s
jerry-rigged mechanism dubbed ALPS, for Advanced Liquid Processing System,
which it turns out hasn’t processed much of anything.
Tepco, Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory
Authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and much of the media
endlessly repeat that ALPS removes over 62 radioactive materials from the
ever-expanding volume of wastewater. Reports regularly
claim the planned dumping is
routine, safe, and manageable.
This
unverified PR loop has fooled a lot of people, but
the ALPS is a fraud. As early as 2013, the filter system
stalled and the IAEA reported that
April that ALPS had not “accomplished the expected result of removing some radionuclides,” Reuters reported.
In
September 2018, the ALPS was revealed to have
drastically failed, forcing Tepco to issue a public apology and a promise to re-filter huge volumes of the waste.
According to
Reuters, Oct. 11, 2018, documents on a government
committee’s website show that 84 percent of water held at Fukushima contains concentrations
of radioactive materials higher than legal limits allow to be dumped.
Among the
deadly isotopes still in the waste are cesium-137, strontium-90, cobalt-60,
ruthenium, carbon-14, tritium, iodine-129, plutonium isotopes, and more than 54
more.
In a June
14, 2023 op/ed for the China Daily, Shaun Burnie, the Senior
Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia, reported that the ALPS “has been
a spectacular failure,” and
noted:
“About 70
percent or 931,600 cubic meters of the wastewater needs to be processed again
(and probably many more times) by the ALPS to bring the radioactive
concentration levels below the regulatory limit for discharge. Tepco has succeeded in reducing the concentration levels of
strontium, iodine, and plutonium in only 0.2 percent of the total volume of the
wastewater, and it still requires further processing. But no secondary
processing has taken place in the past nearly three years. Neither Tepco nor the Japanese government has said how many times
the wastewater needs to be processed, how long it will take to do so, or
whether the efforts will ever be successful. … none of
these issues has been resolved.”
Tepco says it will re-filter more than
70 percent of the wastewater through ALPS again, a process that itself leaves
massive amounts of highly radioactive sludge that must be kept out of the
environment for centuries.
+
The Problem with Environmentalism, and Why a Recession is Definitely Coming,
with Second Thought's JT Chapman
with Alan Macleod and JT Chapman
(49:27)
It ain’t easy being a YouTuber—at
least, not a political one. The platform is a giant, Byzantine organization
filled with secret rules and algorithms that content creators constantly fall
afoul of. This is especially true for radical voices, who
are incessantly shadowbanned and suppressed by the
Google-owned platform.
One person
who has broken through the algorithmic barriers better than almost anyone is JT
Chapman, host of the Second Thought channel. Chapman makes engaging video essays about some of the most
pressing issues of the day, and the quality of his
work has drawn 1.6 million subscribers to his main channel. He is also the
founder of the YouTube news show First Thought and the co-host of The Deprogram podcast. Today, he discusses his tips for YouTube success, climate
change, the economy, and what radicals could learn from Walmart.
=======
t.
Deconstructing Marianna in Conspiracyland – Part 4
https://off-guardian.org/2023/07/24/deconstructing-marianna-in-conspiracyland-part-4/
by Iain Davis
“Marianna In Conspiracyland” is the 10 part
podcast series presented by the BBC’s specialist disinformation and social
media correspondent Marianna Spring.
As we
approach Episode 3, titled “Trestle Tables for Truth,” previous
‘deconstructions’ have established some important facts that will inform our
ongoing investigation.
If you haven’t yet, please read the introduction, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 to familiarise yourself with the evidence
presented.
Marianna
Spring has yet to report any evidence to substantiate her claims. She has not
established the existence of a “conspiracy theory movement.” The entire
premise, upon which “Marianna in Conspiracyland” is
based, is false.
Instead
she has spread disinformation and deployed a series of propaganda techniques to
cast ordinary people who hold anti-Establishment opinions (AEOs) as a some sort of threat. She has promoted anti-democratic
opinions, misled her audience, both overtly and by omission, and has created a
pejorative mythology about people exercising the essential democratic right to
question power.
Her clear
objective is to seed, in the minds of the BBC audience, fear of a fictitious
bogeyman: the conspiracy theorist.
Therefore,
as we continue to deconstruct Marianna in Conspiracyland
we will explore the reasons why Marianna and the BBC are so heavily invested in
this propaganda. Why does the BBC want their audience to fear AEOs? What is it
about the democratic principle of questioning power that the BBC is so opposed
to? Why is the BBC promoting censorship and the
dictatorship that inevitable comes with it?
This will
lead us to the apex of global power. The BBC is not acting alone. Like many
other ‘actors’ in the mainstream media, it is part of a global network that is
seeking absolute control of all information.
But first,
to Episode 3 – Trestle Tables for Truth.
Marianna
Spring starts by introducing her audience to Stephen Hopwood with the unwarranted accusation that he is “one of the leaders of
the conspiracy theory movement in Totnes.” Having
fixed her fictitious “conspiracy theory movement” narrative in the minds of her
audience, she is now building upon her own disinformation to deploy the propaganda technique of “demonising” her enemy.
Marianna
depends upon her listener’s unquestioning acceptance of the “conspiracy theory”
label and all that it implies. She offers no explanation in “Conspiracyland,” nor has she ever explained,
why most people consider “conspiracy theorist” to be a pejorative term.
“Conspiracy theory” was
originally “weaponised,” for propaganda purposes, by
merging the philosopher Karl Popper’s “conspiracy
theory of society” with the historian Richard Hofstadter’s politically
motivated, psychological concept of the “paranoid style.” The US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) first suggested using the “conspiracy theorist” label
as a weapon to attack people with AEOs who questioned the findings of the
Warren Commission Report into the assassination of US President John F.
Kennedy.
The CIA’s
internal dispatch Document 1035-960: Concerning Criticism of
the Warren Report stated:
“From the
day of President Kennedy’s assassination on, there has been speculation about
the responsibility for his murder. [. . .] In most cases the critics have
speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy [. . .], a public
opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think
that Oswald acted alone [. . .]. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern
to the US government, including our organization [the CIA]. Innuendo of such
seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole
reputation of the American government. [. . .] Conspiracy theories have
frequently thrown suspicion on our organization [. . .]. The aim of this
dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the
conspiracy theorist, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims[.]”
As we can
see, the CIA were talking about an assault on public “opinion” (AEO) that
questioned the state and its Establishment, including the intelligence agencies:
the so-called “epistemic authorities.” The original dispatch document was marked “PSYCH” indicating the intention to run a “psychological
operation” or “psyop.”
=======
u.
How a Notorious Georgia Army
School Became America's Training Ground for Global Torture
by Alan Macleod
+
Why Capitalism Is Leaving the US
in Search of Profit
https://scheerpost.com/2023/07/24/why-capitalism-is-leaving-the-us-in-search-of-profit/
by Richard Wolff
+
“A World Shrouded in Secrecy”
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/07/17/caitlin-johnstone-a-world-shrouded-in-secrecy/
by Caitlin Johnstone
Listen
to Tim Foley reading this article.
In a video clip from 2010, Julian Assange, speaking in London, made an
important observation while explaining the philosophy behind his work with WikiLeaks.
All our
political theories are to some extent “bankrupt,” he said, because our
institutions are so shrouded in secrecy that we can’t even know what’s really
going on in the world.
“We can
all write about our political issues, we can all push for particular things we
believe in, we can all have particular brands of politics, but I say actually
it’s all bankrupt,” Assange said.
“And the
reason it’s all bankrupt, and all current political theories are bankrupt and
particular lines of political thought, is because actually we don’t know what
the hell is going on. And until we know the basic structures of our
institutions — how they operate in practice, these titanic organizations, how
they behave inside, not just through stories but through vast amounts of
internal documentations — until we know that, how can we possibly make a
diagnosis? How can we set the direction to go until we know where we are? We
don’t even have a map of where we are. So our first task is to build up a sort
of intellectual heritage that describes where we are. And once we know where we
are, then we have a hope of setting course for a different direction. Until
then, I think all political theories — to greater and lesser extents of course
— are bankrupt.”
=======
v.
Nice technocrats promise
"safe & comfortable conditions" for Russia's Smart City inmates
by Edward Slavsquat
Many smart
things were said at the "Smart City - Smart Country" forum in Ufa
=======
w.
News from Underground by Mark Crispin Miller
“In memory of those who "died
suddenly" in the United States and worldwide, July 18-July 24, 2023”
by Mark Crispin Miller
+
“In memory of those who ‘died
suddenly’ in the United States and worldwide, July 11-July 17, 2023”
by Mark Crispin Miller
Athletes
in the US (7), Brazil, UK, Germany, Denmark, N. Macedonia, Italy (2); coaches
in US, Brazil, UK, Germany, Italy, Russia (2); actors in US, Belgium, Poland,
Serbia, India, Philippines; & more
+
“2 cardiac arrests @ Ed Sheeran
concert, 17 hospitalized; Ron McElhenney diagnosed
with ‘neurodevelopmental disorders’ (at 46); Ty
Pennington intubated; Morgan Freeman's ‘medical
emergency’”
by Mark Crispin Miller
Wrestler
Lodi undergoes quintuple bypass surgery after near-fatal heart attack; ‘UFC
fighter's debut called off because of rare brain disease’
+
“Rosanna Arquette crashes into shopping center; Dick Vitale
diagnosed with cancer for third time; Tiffany Chen (Robert de Niro's girlfriend) has Bell's palsy; Chika hospitalized
with kidney failure”
by Mark Crispin Miller
Madonna
accused of faking her medical emergency; NY high school football player (with
no history of heart problems) in a coma after "cardiac event"
mid-game
+
Johnny Depp
shows canceled ("health crisis"); Paramore
postpones SF concert ("sickness"); Ozzy Osbourne cancels show ("health issues"); Lil Durk cancels shows ("health issues")
by Mark Crispin Miller
"Bianca
Belair health concerns force SmackDown
changes"; Dan Sugarman updates fans about his
thyroid cancer
+
Pentagon confirms myocarditis cases in troops spiked after COVID vax rollout
by Mark Crispin Miller
"Pentagon
confirms myocarditis cases in troops spiked [151%]
after COVID vax rollout"; Casey DeSantis tells Fox News about her "cancer battle"
+
“We reserve the right to inject
you”
by Edward Slavsquat
Russia's
Ministry of Health wants to make Sputnik V mandatory for half the adult
population in the event of another COVID "outbreak"
=======
x.
“The Media Matrix”
https://www.corbettreport.com/media/
with James Corbettt
(1:05:23)
+
“Censorship, Polarization and
Corruption is Destroying our Country”
by Robert W Malone MD, MS
Kennedy
speaks Truth to power.
+
“Tell-Lie-Vision”
https://www.corbettreport.com/tell-lie-vision/
with James Corbett
(54:11)
=======
y.
Children’s Health Defense July 15, 2023
“Ed Dowd:
'They Can't Run From This Data'” + “Global Health Death Trap With
James Corbett” + More
http://support.childrenshealthdefense.org/site/MessageViewer?dlv_id=9061&em_id=6861.0
+
Global Research: Selected Articles: - July 24, 2023
“Trudeau, NATO and Climate Change,
Another Boondoggle”
+
OffGuardian: This Week in the New Normal #67 – July 23, 2023
https://off-guardian.org/2023/07/23/this-week-in-the-new-normal-67/
+
MintCast MintPress News Audio Archives
https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/mintcast/id1460817064