CEIMSA/Bulletin 814 : THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND TOWARD THE ABYSS.

Bulletin N° 814

The 1991 American road film, “Thelma and Louise,” directed by Ridley Scott and written by Callie Khouri

http://putlockers.fm/watch/yGDaNyd6-thelma-amp-louise.html

Subject : THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND TOWARD THE ABYSS.

9 September 2018

Grenoble, France

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

In chapter 3 of his remarkable study of William Morris (1834-1896), E. P. Thompson (1924-1993) discusses the pioneering socialist years of the famous 19^th-century poet and designer. In this chapter, entitled “The Split,” he describes the historical moment of the upheaval within The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) toward the end of 1884, giving birth to The Socialist League. The Federation was founded in London in 1881, by Henry Mayers Hyndman (1842-1921), a British writer and politician who converted from conservatism to socialism after reading Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Morris joined the Federation in 1883, and agreed to serve on its executive committee. He signed his membership card, “William Morris, Designer” but soon was giving public lectures advertised as delivered by “William Morris, Author of ‘The Earthly Paradise’,” the title of his bestselling book of poetry which had been first published back in 1868.

Morris became a tireless propagandist for socialism, giving lectures throughout the United Kingdom, in an effort to extend socialist ideas in the working class milieux of Great Britain. The sincerity of his efforts would lead to a factional fight within the SDF executive committee, where Morris played a leading role, and eventually to a schism in late December 1884, when the majority of the Federation’s Executive Committee under Morris's influence unexpectedly resigned, soon to form the new Socialist League. Suspicion and conflict had grown between Morris’s faction - which included the Austrian immigrant Andreas Scheu, Karl Marx’s youngest daughter Eleanor and her husband Dr. Edward Aveling, as well as Bruce Glasier, an English stonemason – and the remainder of the Comitttee, which was dominated by Hyndman with his followers such as the Scottish socialist from Glasgow, W. J. Nairne.

An echo of the growing dispute in London was interfering with organizing within the working class of Scotland. A diversity of views and biases was to be expected in the workingmen’s Federation, but calumny and intrigue soon entered the disagreements, and eventually spurious rumors against the Morris faction began to appear at organizational meetings.

The difference in style between Morris and Hyndman was recorded in notes taken by Glasier. In October 1884, Hyndman was invited to inaugurate the new Glasgow branch of the SDF, and Glasier found this lecture to an audience of about 1,200 to be “brilliant and convincing.”

Racy, argumentative, declamatory, and bristling with topical allusions and scathing raillery, it was a hustings masterpiece . . . . The reverberating note, in feeling if not in phrase, was ‘I accuse, I expose, I denounce.’ He seemed to look round on the civilized world and see there noting but fraud, hypocrisy, oppression, and infamy on the part of the politicians and money-mongers on the one hand, and on the other only wooden-headed ignorance, stupidity, and servility on the part of the working class. . . . He was jauntily cynical. . . . ‘I am an educated middle-class man. I derive my living from the robbery of the workers. I enjoy the spoil . . . and the workers are content. . . . Why therefore should I object to their slaving for my enjoyment if they themselves don’t!’ Yet nevertheless there was in his protagonism a fiery and even fanatical zeal. He appealed for better things – for justice and democracy – for a new system of politics and economics. . . . (William Morris, Romantic to Revolutionary (1955), p.408)

Hyndman was 42 years old when he spoke at the Glasgow meeting of workers. A couple of months after his successful visit, he wrote to the SDF Glasgow Branch, warning them of the “anarchist” tendencies of Andreas Scheu and by implication the SDF faction in London with which Morris worked closely on the Executive Committee. It was precisely at this moment that Morris arrived in Scotland to speak first at the “Scottish Land and Labour League” in Edinburgh, then on to Glasgow to the less affluent “Sunday Lecture Society,” where an audience of about 3,000 awaited him in a large starkly furnished room above a warehouse. The Glasgow Branch of SDF held its meetings in the industrial zone of Glasgow. Bruce Glasier again left an account of the SDF meeting, this time with Morris:

He was then fifty-one years of age, and just beginning to look elderly. His splendid crest of dark curly hair and his finely textured head were brindling into grey. His head was lion-like, not only because of his shaggy mane, but because of the impress of strength of his whole front. . . . I noted . . . the constant restlessness of his hands, and indeed of his whole body, as if overcharged with energy.(p.409)

The Glasgow audience, Glasier went on to write, gave Morris “an exceedingly friendly and respectful reception.”

He read his lecture, or rather recited it, keeping his eye on the written pages, which he turned over without concealment. . . . Every now and then, [he] walked to and fro, bearing his manuscript . . . in his hand. Occasionally he paused in his recital, and in a ‘man to man’ sort of way explained some special point, or turned to those near him on the platform for their assent . . . . Of the lecture itself I only remember that it seemed to be something more than a lecture, a kind of parable or prediction, in which art and labour were held forth, not as mere circumstances or incidents of life, but as life or the act of living itself. As we listened, our minds seemed to gain a new sense of sight or a new way of seeing and understanding why we lived in the world. . . .(p.409)

E. P. Thompson comments on Glasier’s descriptions of the lectures by Hyndman and Morris in Scotland: “It is not difficult to see why working men and craftsmen like Glasier himself, whose interests were in artistic and intellectual fields, should come to Morris’s side: not difficult also to see why a few middle-class sympathizers, who were flirting with Socialism – like James Mayor of the Glasgow Branch – would think it more respectable to take Morris’s part, even if they would soon find themselves disillusioned: and, equally, not difficult to see why some of the most earnest of the working-class comrades should distrust Morris as a dreamer, and – knowing little of the London issues – instinctively gravitate to Hyndman’s party.”(pp.409-410)

The Glasgow Branch had been notified of the London quarrel in the slanderous letter written by Hyndman, on December 9, attacking the character of Morris’s group; thus, Morris found himself being heckled in the question and answer session following his talk, much as if he had been an avowed opponent of Socialism. Glasier recorded what followed after the talk:

Morris showed no resentment, but answered the questions quite good-naturedly, and it was evident that the meeting felt drawn towards him, though the greater number . . . were, as I knew, ranged with Nairne on the Hyndman side.

On his rising to go, Nairne, as a sort of parting shot, put to him the question: ‘Does Comrade Morris accept Marx’s theory of value?’ Morris’s reply was emphatic. . . . ‘I am asked if I believe in Marx’s theory of value. To speak quite frankly, I do not know what Marx’s theory of value is, and I’m damned if I want to know.’ Then he added: ‘Truth to say, my friends, I have tried to understand Marx’s theory, but political economy is not in my line, and much of it appears to me to be dreary rubbish. But I am, I hope, a Socialist none the less. It is enough political economy for me to know that the idle class is rich and the working class is poor, and that the rich are rich because they rob the poor. That I know because I see it with my eyes. I need read no books to convince me of it. And it does not matter a rap, it seems to me, whether the robbery is accomplished by what is termed surplus value, or by means of serfage or open brigandage. The whole system is monstrous and intolerable, and what we Socialists have got to do is to work together for its complete overthrow, and for the establishment in its stead of a system of co-operation where there shall be no masters or slaves, but where everyone will live and work jollily together as neighbours and comrades for the equal good of all. That, in a nutshell, is my political economy and my social democracy.(pp.410-411)

E. P. Thompson continues with Glasier’s account: “Leaving the meeting –once again in the company of Glasier and James Mayor – Morris remarked good humouredly on the stairs:”

‘Our friend Nairne was putting me through the catechism a bit, after your Scottish Kirk-Session fashion, don’t you think? He is, I fancy, one of those comrades who are suspicious of us poetry chaps, and I don’t blame him. He is in dead earnest, and will keep things going, I should day.’(p.411)

The complete split in the SDF would occur before the end of the year, and the new Socialist League took as its slogan: AGITATE, ORGANIZE, EDUCATE! There was no room for opportunists, authoritarians, or cynical hypocrites in this agenda. The schism, however, left the SDF members bewildered. They were uninformed as to why it had occurred, and the London leadership of the SDF continued to produce authoritarian propaganda proping up the hierarchical structure which rewarded obedience and punished creativity. As so often happens, the institution became a protection racket, while the Socialist League, with the poetic efforts of William Morris & Co., continued its work to lower “the threshold of tolerance” by spreading socialist ideas among workers.

The 31 items below will serve to remind readers that their options today involve more than simply the choice of which sort of overlord you wish to have – which gender; what age, religious affiliation, ethnic/national origin, sexual preference, etc., etc., etc. . . . .

Sincerely,

Francis Feeley

Professor emeritus of American Studies

University Grenoble-Alpes

Director of Research

University of Paris-Nanterre

Center for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements

The University of California-San Diego

http://www.ceimsa.org/

An Age of Racist and Imperialist Impunity

https://blackagendareport.com/age-racist-and-imperialist-impunity

by Paul Street

An Age of Racist and Imperialist Impunity

This is an age of murderous, racist, and imperial impunity -- and it isn’t just about the orange beast Donald Trump.

Look at the prolonged celebration of the dearly departed mad-dog mass killer and warmonger John McCain. For day after day last week, the man was hailed as a messianic clarion of peace and justice. One almost wondered if media that lovingly covered the McCain Festival were watching for a resurrection.

Last Saturday morning, MSDNC proclaimed McCain’s funeral “poignant testimony to a life well-lived.” Never mind that McCain’s existence had been fiercely dedicated to the slaughter of predominantly nonwhite innocents around the world – and to the preservation and deepening of racialized inequality and oppression at home and abroad.

“Get Out of Here You Low-Life Scum”

It was wryly entertaining to hear McCain praised to the highest reaches of heaven for his purported noble commitment to civic decency, respectful discourse, and rational debate. The deliverers of these paeans must have forgotten what their stiff hero said to Code Pink activists who had the elementary decency to call for the arrest of the epic, blood-drenched war criminal Henry Kissinger during a U.S. Senate hearing on “global security” in 2015. As Capitol police dragged the activists away, McCain growled “Get out of here, you low-life scum!”

Skipping the Black Queen of Soul, Sanctifying, a White Killer

Who (except for the ex-Senator’s wild-eyed daughter Meghan) gave the longest funeral speech in honor of Jesus H. McCain as the lifeless killer’s death tour reached its sick imperial apotheosis in the [White] National[ist] Cathedral last Saturday? It was Barack Obama, who once joked to a White House staffer that it “turns out I’m pretty good at killing people.” Obama,the Drone King champion of targeted assassination.

The first technically Black U.S. president couldn’t be bothered to attend the Friday funeral of that life-giving Black Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. But here he was on Saturday, conferring sainthood on the great white death-dealer and longtime South African apartheid supporter John McCain.

With Bill Clinton (who befouled the Franklin funeral along with his chastened spouse) looking on jealously, Obama praised killer McCain as “a warrior, statesman, and patriot who embodied so much that is best in America.” Obama said that the dead warmonger “made this country better” and had “answered the highest of callings by serving his country in a time of war” – that is, by enlisting in the US Navy and flying 23 bombing mission that killed hundreds if not thousands of Vietnamese civilians before thankfully losing control of his plane.

“Obama will have a hard time living down snubbing Aretha and then giving a nauseating eulogy to Colonizer

Israel's Fifth Column
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50205.htm
by Phili Giraldi

Exercising control from inside the government

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Ceuta Onslaught: How Gaddafi's Grim Prophecy for Europe is Coming True

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201808011066827297-europe-africa-gaddafi/

Alexei Druzhinin

The flow of migrants coming to Europe from Africa is likely to grow in the coming years, writes Sputnik Germany contributor Bernhard Schwarz. For decades Libya served as a firewall halting the tide of refugees heading to the EU. Now when Libya lies in ruins European leaders see that late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was right, Schwarz stressed.

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's "prophecy" is turning into reality with destitute Africans storming the Spanish-Moroccan border on July 26, writes Sputnik Germany contributor Bernhard Schwarz, stressing that the event sends a strong signal to Berlin.

"Driven by desperation and hunger, they are ready to risk their own lives and the lives of border guards to get to Europe. They will not take no for an answer. Their brutality against the police is shocking and should set the alarm bells ringing for Brussels. So far, the EU has not reacted to the incident, but unless a concrete action plan is presented soon, there is a risk that damaging violence and anarchy will be at the heart of Europe," the German journalist warned.

600 Migrants Break Through Spanish Border in Morocco Using "Flamethrowers" (VIDEO)

On July 26, 800 migrants from Africa stormed a seven-meter high fence separating Morocco from Spain in an attempt to cross the border between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta with 602 migrants making it onto Spanish soil. The migrants threw stones, sticks, Molotov cocktails, feces and hashish at law enforcement officers. The assault resulted in 132 migrants and 15 police officers being hurt.

France ‘ready to strike’ Syria if chemical weapons used during Idlib offensive

https://www.rt.com/news/437790-france-threatens-airstrikes-syria/

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From: "Jim O'Brien via H-PAD"
Sent: Friday, 7 September, 2018

Subject: [H-PAD] H-PAD Notes, 9/7/18: Links to recent articles of interest

Links to Recent Articles of Interest

"John Dower in Conversation: Part I"

Historian John Dower interviewed by Patrick Lawrence, The Nation, posted September 6

The noted historian of Japan talks about his career and about the challenges of writing history in times like the present. Another Pulitzer Prize-winning Asian historian, Herbert Bix, was also part of the interview.

"Remembering Jesse Lemisch, Radical Historian"

By Marcus Rediker, The Nation, posted September 6

The author teaches history at the University of Pittsburgh.

"The Undoing of Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin's Friendship, and How It Changed Both of Their Countries"

By Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, posted September 5

On the impact of NATO's 1998 bombing of Serbia on U.S.-Russian relations.

"Donald Trump's Latest Immigration Outrage"

By Richard E. Frankel, History News Network, posted September 4

Compares the denial of passports to many U.S. citizens living near the Mexican border with the gradual rollout of Nazi policies in the 1930s. The author teaches German history at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

"The U.S. Military Is Winning. No, Really, It Is!"

By Nick Turse, TomDispatch.com, posted September 4

An engagingly written analysis of the US war in Afghanistan and the steady shrinking of its stated goals.

"Remembering Jesse Lemisch through His Fiery Assault on Popular Front Culture"

By Louis Proyect, The Unrepentant Marxist blog, posted September 3

"The Crisis That Created Putin"

By Tony Wood, Jacobin, posted August 30

A historical analysis of Putin's rule, beginning with his rise to power following the rouble crash of 1998. Tony Wood is the author of the forthcoming Verso Press book Russia Without Putin: Money, Power and the Myths of the New Cold War.

"In Kabul, Echoes of Saigan"

By Ahmed Rashid, New York Review of Books, posted August 28

The author is a longtime journalist who has written several books on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia.

"Duke History Professors Ask to Rename Building Honoring White Supremacist Who Dedicated 'Silent Sam' Statue"

By Susan Svrluga,Washington Post, posted August 27

"What the Brennan Affair Really Reveals"

By Stephen F. Cohen, The Nation, posted August 22

The author is an emeritus professor of Russian history at Princeton University and New York University.

Thanks to an anonymous reader who suggested several of the above articles, and to Steve Gosch, who suggested several and consulted on the final composition of the list. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.

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What Lies Beneath: The US-Israeli Plot to ‘Save’ Gaza

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/06/what-lies-beneath-the-us-israeli-plot-to-save-gaza/

by Ramzy Baroud

Israel wants to change the rules of the game entirely. With unconditional support from the Trump Administration, Tel Aviv sees a golden opportunity to redefine what has, for decades, constituted the legal and political foundation for the so-called ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict.’

While US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy has, thus far, been erratic and unpredictable, his administration’s ‘vision’ in Israel and Palestine is systematic and unswerving. This consistency seems to be part of a larger vision aimed at liberating the ‘conflict’ from the confines of international law and even the old US-sponsored ‘peace process.’

Indeed, the new strategy has, so far, targeted the status of East Jerusalem as an Occupied Palestinian city, and the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees. It aims to create a new reality in which Israel achieves its strategic goals while the rights of Palestinians are limited to mere humanitarian issues.

Unsurprisingly, Israel and the US are using the division between Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, to their advantage. Fatah dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah while Hamas controls besieged Gaza.

A carrot and a stick scenario is being applied in earnest. While, for years, Fatah received numerous financial and political perks from Washington, Hamas subsisted in isolation under a permanent siege and protracted state of war. It seems that the Trump Administration – under the auspices of Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner – are turning the tables.

The reason that the PA is no longer the ‘moderate’ Palestinian leadership it used to be in Washington’s ever self-serving agenda is that Mahmoud Abbas has decided to boycott Washington in response to the latter’s recognition of all of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. True, Abbas’ subservience has been successfully tested in the past but, under the new administration, the US demands complete ‘respect’, thus total obedience.

Hamas, which is locked in Gaza between sealed borders from every direction, has been engaging Israel indirectly through Egyptian and Qatari mediation. That engagement has, so far, resulted in a short-term truce, while a long-term truce is still being discussed.

The latest development on that front was the visit by Kushner, accompanied with Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, to Qatar on August 22. There, Gaza was the main topic on the agenda.

So, why is Gaza, which has been isolated (even by the PA itself) suddenly the new gate through which top US, Israeli and regional officials are using to reactivate Middle East diplomacy?

Ironically, Gaza is being particularly suffocated these days. The entire Gaza Strip is sinking deeper in its burgeoning humanitarian crisis, with August being one of the most grueling months.

Jean Ziegler : « Le capitalisme tue, il faut qu’il disparaisse »

https://la-bas.org/newsletter/jean-ziegler-le-capitalisme-tue-il-faut-qu-il-disparaisse

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South Front

https://southfront.org/

In Idlib, Final Offensive in Syrian War May Come at Horrific Cost

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/world/middleeast/syria-idlib-assad.html

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The Weaponization of the US Dollar

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50172.htm
by Pepe Escobar

Crashing Currency Chaos Spreads Across the Global South

The Iranian rial: crash. The Turkish lira: crash. The Argentine peso: crash. The Brazilian real: crash. There are multiple, complex, parallel vectors at play in this wilderness of crashing currencies. Turkey’s case is heavily influenced by the bubble of easy credit created by European banks.

Argentina’s problem is mostly to do with the neoliberal austerity of President Mauricio Macri’s government admitting it won’t be able to fulfill payment targets agreed with the IMF less than three months ago.

Iran’s has to do with harsh United States sanctions imposed after the Trump administration’s unilateral pullout from the Iran nuclear deal.

Brazil’s has to do with what the Goddess of the Market considers anathema: a victory by the imprisoned Lula (former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) or his appointed candidate in the presidential election next October.

This is a serious currency crisis affecting key emerging markets. Three of these – Brazil, Argentina and Turkey – are G20 members, and Iran, absent external pressure, would have everything to qualify as a member. Two – Iran and Turkey – are under US sanctions while the other two, at least for the moment, are firmly within Washington’s orbit.

Now, compare it with currencies that are gaining against the US dollar: the Ukrainian hryvnia, the Georgian lari and the Colombian peso. Not exactly G20 heavyweights – and all of them also inside Washington’s influence.

Ex-European Central Bank Chief Warns

of Possible New Global Financial Crisis

https://sputniknews.com/business/201809041067725028-former-ecb-chief-warns-new-financial-crisis/

by Daniel Roland

Europe's top central banker during the 2008 financial crisis outlined that the current premises could create the same meltdown as ten years ago.

Jean-Claude Trichet, who ran the European Central Bank between 2003 and 2011, told AFP in an interview that the amount of debt accumulated in the current financial market made the world’s financial system as vulnerable as it was 10 years ago.

“The growth in debt, especially private debt, in advanced countries has slowed, but this slowdown has been offset by an acceleration of emerging country debt,” said Trichet, noting that this situation could be even more devastating than the financial crisis of 2008.

He also outlined that there is now agreement that the excessive debt level in the advanced economies was a key factor that triggered a global crisis in 2007 and 2008, thus this is the vulnerability of the markets that could potentially trigger a new economic meltdown.

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Update on Empire Files Shutdown from Abby Martin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6cGKTxEGEQ

Artificial Intelligence: It Will Kill Us

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50185.htm

by Jay Tuck

Watch - TEDxHamburgSalon

US defense expert Jay Tuck was news director of the daily news program ARD-Tagesthemen and combat correspondent for GermanTelevision in two Gulf Wars. He has produced over 500 segments for the network.

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From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Thursday, 30 August, 2018
Subject: [MCM] How "Russia-gate" was crafted by the Department of Homeland Security

http://markcrispinmiller.com

Francis,

Please send this far and wide, in hopes that those deranged by their fixation on the Orange Monster will finally see that they're being played like tom-toms by the US

war machine.

MCM

How the Department of Homeland Security Created a Deceptive Tale of Russia Hacking US Voter Sites

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/08/28/how-the-department-of-homeland-security-created-a-deceptive-tale-of-russia-hacking-u-s-voter-sites/

Save

by Gareth Porter

The narrative about Russian cyberattacks on American election infrastructure is a self-interested abuse of power by DHS based on distortion of evidence.

The narrative of Russian intelligence attacking state and local election boards and threatening the integrity of U.S. elections has achieved near-universal acceptance by media and political elites. And now it has been accepted by the Trump administration’s intelligence chief, Dan Coats, as well.

But the real story behind that narrative, recounted here for the first time, reveals that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created and nurtured an account that was grossly and deliberately deceptive.

DHS compiled an intelligence report suggesting hackers linked to the Russian government could have targeted voter-related websites in many states and then leaked a sensational story of Russian attacks on those sites without the qualifications that would have revealed a different story. When state election officials began asking questions, they discovered that the DHS claims were false and, in at least one case, laughable.

The National Security Agency and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigating team have also claimed evidence that Russian military intelligence was behind election infrastructure hacking, but on closer examination, those claims turn out to be speculative and misleading as well. Mueller’s indictment of 12 GRU military intelligence officers does not cite any violations of U.S. election laws though it claims Russia interfered with the 2016 election.

A Sensational Story

On Sept. 29, 2016, a few weeks after the hacking of election-related websites in Illinois and Arizona, ABC News carried a sensational headline: “Russian Hackers Targeted Nearly Half of States’ Voter Registration Systems, Successfully Infiltrated 4.” The story itself reported that “more than 20 state election systems” had been hacked, and four states had been “breached” by hackers suspected of working for the Russian government. The story cited only sources “knowledgeable” about the matter, indicating that those who were pushing the story were eager to hide the institutional origins of the information.

(Erik Hersman/CC BY 2.0)

Behind that sensational story was a federal agency seeking to establish its leadership within the national security state apparatus on cybersecurity, despite its limited resources for such responsibility. In late summer and fall 2016, the Department of Homeland Security was maneuvering politically to designate state and local voter registration databases and voting systems as “critical infrastructure.” Such a designation would make voter-related networks and websites under the protection a “priority sub-sector” in the DHS “National Infrastructure Protection Plan, which already included 16 such sub-sectors.

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson and other senior DHS officials consulted with many state election officials in the hope of getting their approval for such a designation. Meanwhile, the DHS was finishing an intelligence report that would both highlight the Russian threat to U.S. election infrastructure and the role DHS could play in protecting it, thus creating political impetus to the designation. But several secretaries of state—the officials in charge of the election infrastructure in their state—strongly opposed the designation that Johnson wanted.

On Jan. 6, 2017—the same day three intelligence agencies released a joint “assessment” on Russian interference in the election—Johnson announced the designation anyway.

Media stories continued to reflect the official assumption that cyber attacks on state election websites were Russian-sponsored. Stunningly, The Wall Street Journal reported in December 2016 that DHS was itself behind hacking attempts of Georgia’s election database.

The facts surrounding the two actual breaches of state websites in Illinois and Arizona, as well as the broader context of cyberattacks on state websites, didn’t support that premise at all.

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5 Must-read Clinton-Yeltsin Exchanges Released

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50175.htm

by RT

Clinton sends 'his people' to get Yeltsin elected

Election influence, NATO expansion and Vladimir Putin were just some of the hot button topics discussed twenty years ago by US President Bill Clinton and Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, newly released transcripts reveal.

Nearly 600 pages of memos and transcripts, documenting dozens of personal exchanges and telephone conversations between Clinton and Yeltsin, were made public by the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas last month.

Although dating from January 1993 to December 1999, many of the documents touch upon issues that now dominate the news cycle, providing often overlooked historical perspective and context to the current state of US-Russia relations.

Amid unceasing allegations of nefarious Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, the Clinton-Yeltsin exchanges reveal how the US government threw its full weight behind Boris – in Russian parliamentary elections as well as for the 1996 reelection campaign, which he approached with 1-digit ratings.

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How Obama’s Foreign Policy Options

Were Continually Limited By Netanyahu And The Lobby

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50169.htm

by Philip Weiss

Ben Rhodes’s memoir of serving as a top foreign policy aide to President Obama, titled The World As It Is, came out in June to highly favorable reviews. I got the book to scratch my itch on Israel/Palestine and was surprised by how candid Rhodes is about the power of the Israel lobby in a Democratic administration down to the fact that chief of staff Rahm Emanuel nicknamed Rhodes “Hamas” for speaking up for Palestinian human rights.

The memoir documents that at almost every turn, Barack Obama was painted into a corner by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the engaged support of the organized Jewish community. In doing so, it echoes a book Rhodes never dares to cite, but surely read, The Israel Lobby, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, and backs up their most serious charge, that the lobby helped get us into the war in Iraq in 2003.

The book is hardly flattering to the former president. Obama emerges as a magnetic/enigmatic personality, but not very strong when it comes to international and intellectual challenges. He’d rather play cards than read a book. And he prefers the company of a cold young cipher/sycophant like the author to a mature thinker.

Rhodes shows that Israel’s American friends had access to the Obama administration at all times.

As Obama prepared his famous speech to the Muslim world, delivered in Cairo in 2009, the lobbying was “intense,” Rhodes says. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “and other organizations friendly to Netanyahu had established themselves as the adjudicators of what was pro-Israel, and they had zero tolerance for any pressure on the Israeli government.”

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In the 1960s, America Planned to Nuke Russia and China Back Into the Stone Age

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/1960s-america-planned-nuke-russia-and-china-back-stone-age-30202

by Michael Peck

But what would have happened to the homeland is obvious.

“Bomb them back into the Stone Age,” ex-Air Force general Curtis LeMay is reported to have once urged as a way to defeat North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

But it turns out that had global nuclear war erupted during the early 1960s, it would have been the Russians and Chinese who would have reverted to living like the Flintstones.

U.S. nuclear war plans called for the destruction of the Soviet Union and China as “viable societies,” according to documents revealed by the non-profit National Security Archive .

The document in question pertains to the Single Integrated Operational Plan, or SIOP, which governs the numerous war plans and their associated options that govern how America would fight a nuclear war. In June 1964, senior military leaders (including Air Force Chief of Staff LeMay) were sent a staff review of the current SIOP.

The report included questions and answers regarding the various nuclear targeting options. These ranged from attacks on enemy nuclear and conventional forces while minimizing collateral damage to enemy cities, to attacking cities as well as military forces on purpose. This latter option would have been "in order to destroy the will and ability of the Sino-Soviet Bloc to wage war, remove the enemy from the category of a major industrial power, and assure a post-war balance of power favorable to the United States."

“Should these options give more stress to population as the main target?” asked one question.

The answer was that Pentagon war plans already included the destruction of cities as a way to destroy the urban and industrial backbone. “This should result in greater population casualties in that a larger portion of the urban population may be placed at risk.”

China and Russia Have Set a Nuclear Collision Course With the United States

https://www.thedailybeast.com/china-and-russia-have-set-a-nuclear-collision-course-with-the-united-states

by Gordon G. Chang

Backed up by growing nuclear arsenals, China and Russia are waging little ‘asymmetric’ wars to expand their territory and influence. Can the U.S. stop them? They think not.

What Should Putin Do?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50189.htm
by Paul Craig Roberts

Andrei Martyanov has answered my question.

I agree with everything Martyanov says. But I believe my question remains unanswered.

Probably it is my fault. Perhaps I framed the question so sharply that it came across as an attack on Putin’s level-headed policy. Also, my use of the phrase “turning the other cheek” could have implied denigration of Putin rather than my admiration for his level-headedness and humane approach to his great responsibility.

I understand Putin’s policy. I agree with Martyanov that it is the only policy that makes sense. I also agree with Martyanov that the correlation of forces has changed dramatically in Russia’s favor. But to use another phrase, I am concerned about the slip between the cup and the lip. I think something needs to be done to halt Washington’s provocations before they become so extreme that matters get out of hand.

Historically, provocations do tend to get out of hand, more often than not.

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Censored documentary a testament to ‘incredible’ power of Israel lobby

https://www.rt.com/usa/437266-blumenthal-documentary-israel-lobby/

A short video presentation by Max Blyumenthal

‘Stay on message – SJP is hate group!’ :

Leaked footage reveals US Israel lobby ‘astroturfing’ event

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At Gaza protests, medical workers face great danger

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1365076/middle-east

The Gaza health ministry says Israeli gunfire wounded 50 Palestinians protesting along the border with Israel, and scores were treated for tear gas inhalation. (AP)

· Israel accuses Hamas of using the protests as cover to carry out attacks and says it is defending its border from infiltration attempts

· The Israel army denied targeting medical workers but said they operate very close to the fence

KHUZAA, Gaza Strip: Each Friday, volunteer medic Asmaa Qudih goes through a tense ritual: She prays, kisses her mother’s hand and packs a bag with medical supplies as she heads off to work at the weekly mass protests along Gaza’s border fence with Israel.
Treating the wounded has become dangerous for Gaza’s emergency workers. In the past five months, three medics were killed by Israeli army fire, while dozens more, including Qudih, were hurt by live fire or tear gas canisters.
Qudih, 35, says the weekly routine is terrifying, but that national pride, religious devotion and professional ambition drive her and other medics to risk their lives.
“As long as you go to work in the field, you expect at any time to get injured or killed,” she said on a recent Friday as she prepared to head to the frontier.
Before leaving home, she inspected her red backpack, filled with bandages, sticky tape and the saline spray that soothes the effects of tear gas on the eyes and skin. She hugged her young nieces and nephews, and then solemnly kissed her mother farewell.
“She goes against my will,” said her mother, Fatma, as she showered Qudih with blessings. “But this is her decision.”
In the latest violence, witnesses said volunteer paramedic Shorouq Msameh was shot in the back Friday while standing about 300 meters (yards) from a fence during a protest east of Rafah as demonstrators tried to launch a burning tire toward Israeli territory. Msameh, who was wearing a white coat marking her as a medic, was listed in critical condition at a hospital in nearby Khan Younis.
The plight of Gaza’s medics lies at the heart of a debate over Israel’s use of force in the protests. European and UN officials, along with international rights groups, accuse Israel of using excessive force, citing the large numbers of civilian casualties, including medical workers. The UN and World Health Organization have both said Israel is obligated to allow medics to work safely.
Israel says it does not intentionally target medics and even tries to protect them but accuses militants of mixing in with the crowds. Last month, Israel said a Palestinian nurse from the group Doctors Without Borders tried to carry out a late-night cross-border shooting attack on Israeli troops. Israel apparently killed the man, but has not revealed details.
Qudih never planned to work at the protests, which are aimed in part at trying to break a blockade of Gaza imposed by Israel and Egypt to weaken the ruling Islamic militant group Hamas. The marches, led by Hamas but also driven by the desperation of Gaza residents over blockade-linked hardships, typically take place on Fridays along a perimeter fence.
On March 30, the day of the first march, Qudih walked about half an hour from her home in the southern town of Abassan to the nearest protest site to watch.
She saw thousands of Palestinians marching close to the frontier, burning tires and hurling rocks and firebombs in the direction of Israeli soldiers, including snipers behind earthen mounds on the other side of the fence. Soldiers responded with live fire and tear gas.
Fifteen people, mostly young men, were killed that day, and hundreds more were badly wounded. Protesters and medics struggled to evacuate the wounded, in many cases carrying them “improperly and hastily” to ambulances or private cars, she recalled.
Noticing the shortage of paramedics, Qudih volunteered as an emergency responder.

===========

IDF Confirms: Israel Provided Weapons, Cash to Syrian "Rebels"

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50188.htm

Editors Note

The article below was published by the Jerusalem Post On September 04, 2018. It has since been removed and is no longer available as the screen grab below shows.

===========

From: "IAK Blog" <contact@ifamericansknew.org>
Sent: Thursday, 6 September, 2018

Spying on US citizens, video on the mission of IAK, Israeli racism, Netanyahu's threat...

https://iak.salsalabs.org/blogdigest09062018/index.html?wvpId=9623ec16-0340-11e6-ab9d-12c35146c141

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The Torture Of Assange: A Blight On The US Justice System

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50176.htm

by Ron Paul

Wikileaks founder and chief editor Julian Assange has been in solitary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy for more than six years. Though the original charges have been dropped against him, he remains in the Embassy for fear of being extradited to the US for prosecution. His "crime"? Publishing things the government does not want us to know. It is past time for Assange to be freed.

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An Online Vigil in Defense of Julian Assange With Daniel Ellsberg, Craig Murray, Bill Binney and Ray McGovern

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqB_NhQZT5g&list=PLPf90W3gtZzuJ2V073BXNphPK1Y0bqdKl&index=1

In a world of divide and conquer, unity is the ultimate act of resistance. Friends of publisher Julian Assange are bringing together a diverse group of high-profile supporters of all political stripes in this online vigil event to advocate for Julian's freedom and protection. As is being widely reported, WikiLeaks’ Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange has had his human rights of freedom of association and to freely communicate restricted at the Ecuadorean Embassy, in which he is arbitrarily detained. This includes the ability for him to receive visitors, and all phone signals are being electronically jammed. There have also been countless reports of an imminent threat to his liberty in recent weeks, suggesting he is in danger of being expelled from the embassy and extradited to the United States to face espionage charges (which can invoke the death penalty). His friends, supporters and loved ones find this unacceptable and are again coming together to demand Julian's access to them be restored immediately, his political asylum respected and his human rights restored. We are calling upon members of the public in the UK to undertake solidarity actions at the Ecuadorian Embassy (3 Hans Crescent, opposite Harrods. Nearest tube station: Knightsbridge) to show their support for Julian. Everyone unable to attend the Embassy in person is encouraged to support these online events to help raise awareness about Julian's situation. Please amplify the hashtags: #Unity4J and #ReconnectJulian and share this video everywhere. Watch and share the short promo video about the online vigil series here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSrxS... Watch and share the full playback of the original 10-hour vigil here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2GEYS7Xvec For more details visit: http://unity4j.com/ For credible information about Julian and WikiLeak's legal situation please visit iamwikileaks.org and justice4assange.com

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Julian Assange's associate cyber security expert

mysteriously missing in Norway

https://www.rt.com/news/437460-assange-associate-missing-police-probe/

https://www.rt.com/news/437460-assange-associate-missing-police-probe/?utm_source=miximedia&utm_medium=miximedia&utm_campaign=Miximedia

Police in Norway are looking into the disappearance of Arjen Kamphuis, a Dutch citizen with links to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Versions on Twitter have ranged from a hiking incident, to a secret assignment, to a CIA hit.

Kamphuis, a cyber security expert and co-author of a handbook for investigative journalists on how to keep themselves and their work safe from government spying, has been missing since August 20th, when he checked out of a hotel in the town of Bodø in northern Norway.

The disappearance was first reported on Twitter by Ancilla Van De Leest, former Dutch Pirate Party frontrunner and privacy activist on Friday. She wrote that Kamphuis was going to board a train from Bodø to Trondheim, which usually takes 10 hours.

On August 22, Kamphuis was expected to leave Trondheim for Amsterdam. De Leest said he had already bought the plane ticket but nobody has heard from him since he left the hotel in Bodø. That means the man might have gone missing either in Bodø, in Trondheim, or somewhere in between during the train journey.

The WikiLeaks Twitter account posted an update on Kamphuis' strange disappearance on Saturday.

===========

The End of Work as We Know It

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-end-of-work-as-we-know-it/

by Larry Gross

As automation increases and pointless jobs become obsolete, our work lives may finally become more enjoyable; Pew has a new way of looking at religion in the U.S.; meanwhile, an analysis reveals that the majority of civilians killed by police are young men of color. These discoveries and more below.

In the Future, Who Will Still Work for a Paycheck?
Many jobs are pointless. Others are being automated away.

Evolving Tactics of the National Prison Strike

https://blackagendareport.com/index.php/evolving-tactics-national-prison-strike

(audio)

with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford

The tactics of imprisoned activists have evolved since the prison strike of 2016, which was brutally repressed, especially in Georgia, said Bruce Terpstra, of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. “Tactics have developed and enlarged,” said Terpstra, “to include not only work stoppage but boycotts and sit-downs and lay-downs, so that all prisoners can take part” in the August 21 to September 9 action.

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Battlefield America:

The Ongoing War on the American People

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50157.htm

by John W. Whitehead

“A government which will turn its tanks upon its people, for any reason, is a government with a taste of blood and a thirst for power and must either be smartly rebuked, or blindly obeyed in deadly fear.”—John Salter

Police in a small Georgia town tasered a 5-foot-2, 87-year-old woman who was using a kitchen knife to cut dandelions for use in a recipe. Police claim they had no choice but to taser the old woman, who does not speak English but was smiling at police to indicate she was friendly, because she failed to comply with orders to put down the knife.

Police in California are being sued for using excessive force against a deaf 76-year-old woman who was allegedly jaywalking and failed to halt when police yelled at her. According to the lawsuit, police searched the woman and her grocery bags. She was then slammed to the ground, had a foot or knee placed behind her neck or back, handcuffed, arrested and cited for jaywalking and resisting arrest.

In Alabama, police first tasered then shot and killed an unarmed man who refused to show his driver’s license after attempting to turn in a stray dog he’d found to the local dog shelter. The man’s girlfriend and their three children, all under the age of 10, witnessed the shooting.

In New York, Customs and Border Protection officers have come under fire subjecting female travelers (including minors) to random body searches that include strip searches while menstruating, genital probing, and forced pelvic exams, X-rays and intravenous drugs at area hospitals.

At a California gas station, ICE agents surrounded a man who was taking his pregnant wife to the hospital to deliver their baby, demanding that he show identification. Having forgotten his documents at home in the rush to get to the hospital, the husband offered to go get them. Refusing to allow him to do so, ICE agents handcuffed and arrested the man for not having an ID with him, leaving his wife to find her way alone to the hospital. The father of five, including the newborn, has lived and worked in the U.S. for 12 years with his wife.

These are not isolated incidents.

These cases are legion.

===========

Boots Riley on His Anti-Capitalist Film “Sorry to Bother You,”

the Power of Strikes & Class Struggle

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/3/boots_riley_on_his_anti_capitalist

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Freedom Rider: Prison Strike 2018

https://blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-prison-strike-2018

by Margaret Kimberley

Inmates in states across the nation are on strike against the world’s largest and most racist prison system. Hopefully, they won’[t be betrayed by quisling civil rights misleaders, as in 2010.

“The prison strike is a means of bringing attention to a system that is rotten and must be abolished.”

Incarcerated people and their advocates are the very definition of a resistance movement. The United States leads the world in many shameful measures, and mass incarceration is at the top of an infamous list. No other nation has as many people behind bars nor applies such overt racism in maintaining its penal system.One out of every eight incarcerated people in the world are black Americans. That is why the prison strike declared by the incarcerated and their supporters is so crucial. Their actions prove that this country lies when it claims to be an upholder of human rights.

The 2018 prison strike commemorates two anniversaries, the murder of George Jackson in San Quentin prison on August 21, 1971 and the Attica uprising and massacre which ended on September 9, 1971. Since that time the prison population has grown tremendously. In the early 1970s only 300,000 people were locked away in jails and prisons, but 50 years later that number has mushroomed to 2.2 million.

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'The Worst Refugee Camp On Earth'
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50171.htm
Video - BBC
Children as young as ten attempting suicide and almost constant horrific violence. This is life inside a European refugee camp.

The BBC has been given rare access inside Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. Workers for the charity MSF say it is the worst refugee camp on earth. It has a capacity for around two thousand refugees yet houses around eight thousand. On just one day the BBC visited two people were stabbed. Catrin Nye went inside.

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Black Agenda Radio, Week of August 27, 2018

https://blackagendareport.com/black-agenda-radio-week-august-27-2018

with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford

Dr. Milton Allimadi: Arrest of Ugandan paliamentarian Bobi Wine a sign of desperation; Macarena Gomez-Barris: Indigenous people may have keys to saving the biosphere; Julietta Singh: liberation movements seek to elevate the colonized to full humanity.

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US threatens India with sanctions over S-400 defence system deal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLmIqFestN4&feature=youtu.be

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California Climate Assessment: Heat Waves, Forest Fires, and Floods to Increase Dramatically due to Climate Change

https://therealnews.com/stories/california-climate-assessment-heat-waves-forest-fires-and-floods-to-increase-dramatically-due-to-climate-change

Video Interview by Gregory Wilpert

The state of California released a climate assessment that points to “apocalyptic” conditions if climate change is not halted or mitigated in the next 30 years. We discuss the report with one of the co-authors and a California EPA deputy director

===========

zz.

As Wildfires Rage, Fatigue Puts Firefighters at Greater Risk

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/as-western-wildfires-rage-fatigue-puts-firefighters-at-greater-risk/

by Keith Riddler

BOISE, Idaho—Randy Brooks’ son had a request three years ago: What could his dad do to make wildland firefighting safer?

To Brooks, a professor at the University of Idaho’s College of Natural Resources who deals with wildland firefighting, it was more of a command.

His son, Bo Brooks, is a wildland firefighter who a few days earlier during that 2015 fire season fled a wall of flames that killed three of his fellow firefighters in eastern Washington.

The result of the conversation was an online survey that drew some 400 firefighters who mostly identified mental and physical fatigue as the primary cause of injuries to firefighters who are often confronted with a changing, dangerous environment.

===========

zzz.

From: Alan Haber & Odile Hugonot Haber
Subject: draft. 2020 vision, change the world leaflet, full spectrum cooperation.

Dear Friends in the Peace movements

This introduction letter is an invitation into a hopeful peace initiative long percolating... The action begins circulating a one page,”change the world,” leaflet (draft.3 at the end.)

The intent is a 2 year strategic plan to identify “the war system” as a “system,” and to introduce into politics a high-drama of the “people of the world” calling the “powers that be,” the war powers, to the table to negotiate peace, “a new social-political-economic contract” ending the war system.

Naming the System is a beginning

In 1965, at the first US national demonstration against the Vietnam war, organized by the Students for a Democratic Society, our keynote talk challenged that we "name the system."

In the 1980's, peace activists working the United States suffered "solidarity whip-lash" shifting from calls for help from El Salvador, South Africa, Nicaragua, while it was clear the same system and dynamics underlay all these wars.

Naming the system... remains a challenge, capitalism? patriarchy? corporatism? neo-liberalism? imperialism? empire? military-industrial-complex? what?

This initiative urges that we roll these all into one and call it what, in effect, it is: a "war system." and to demand it be ended.

The war system [...another telling of the sorry story. skip ahead if need be] The people of the world have suffered under the war system for at least the last 5000 years. The boundaries of our countries are drawn in blood and the agonies of soldiers contending in violence, and of the innocents swept in its tides.

History, (his story,) is often taught pre-war, post-war, between the wars, cold war...the war of roses and a hundred years. Entertainments tell its glories and horrors, Wall Street records its profits.

States are defined by Constitutions and Laws often imposed by violence and sustained by pacifications of uprisings and the umbrellas of "protection" like old feudal barons lording it over vassals and serfs.

A culture of war has permeated all aspects of our common life.

The War System is a system of power based on domination, hierarchy, command, imposition, impunity, and ultimately violence to keep in power those who often got into power by those means, including aggression, corruption, deceit, bullying, and manipulations of democracy and fear..

The war system exists in a concurrent consensus among the powerful on the divisions of resources, terms of trade and alliances to keep things relatively stable,... until there is a rift in the fabric and arms are called to re-establish order.

The war system is a siphon that sucks money and wealth and the fruit of labor from the poor and the working many to the coffers of the gun makers, financiers and politicians who profit from the mayhem.

The war system is hot now in 40 plus places on this planet., and simmering in many more. creating sufferings beyond measure. Nations have bonded into huge coalitions and are making war in some of the poorest nations like Yemen.

So it has been, beyond memory. People endure, persevere People resist, organize, protest all over the world, on a thousand and ten thousand local fronts...advances are made, humanity keeps hope alive.

However, even in our victories the war system has maintained itself and two looming realities send alarms that make perseverance and steadfastness not enough.

First: Alarm The destructive capacity of the weapons of war and the instability of power, and people in power, pressed by distress everywhere, make urgent a reversal of increasing militarization... and a ban against the bomb and weapons of mass destruction.

And Second Alarm, The planetary climate change consequences of human activity, threatening the life system as a whole, require economic and political shifts in policies and cooperation hardly conceivable in the world of war, with the war system itself contributing mightily to the fossil fuel dependence and pollution

The peace movements are rising, reasons for hope. Often our movements have been separated and siloed in different specialties, localities and vocabularies...(and ideologies, identities and egos, too.) No longer need it be so,

The basis of unity in the Call of Life for Peace is far deeper than the particulars of difference, and cooperation is a way differences are resolved.

First, the movements for peace and justice and freedom and liberation have never been more diverse, extensive, stronger, active. Every identity has become more conscious of itself and its history and dignity. Increasingly, every facet of repression and oppression is resisted and challenged. People inspire one another across boundaries. Incredible work has already been done.

Second, the capacity for communication with the world wide web, internet and social media allows a degree of cooperation, information sharing and thinking and planning together, never possible before.

Third, this is a new time in the whole human story. Now, for the first time since humans first came out of Africa and populated the world, or however it happened, for the first time since the old book said, "the sins and iniquities of the fathers are on to the 3rd and 4th generation," that there are actually 3 and 4 generations active and conscious and trying to figure out our human predicament and to extricate ourselves from the consequences of the actions of the past generations which we have inherited. The opportunity for four intergeneration thinking might point a strategic path that does not reproduce the problems that got humanity to this mess in the first place.

Fourth, there is a new generation of courage and honesty, individuals who have it together and speak authentic truth... and challenge power right in its face, and have compassion and understanding too. Women and those schooled in the worlds of oppression and carriers of the ancient wisdoms are in new prominence.

Fifth, there are the continuing movements of consciousness and spirit and human potential, general systems thinking, trauma recovery and healing, and permaculture that allow a wider global life system perspective in political work.

Six, almost everyone, in every country feels an apprehension...people are alert. not yet enough, but more than ever, restless, like animals before a storm, possibly receptive.

And Seventh: a viable alternative exists. A set of policies and best practices that could set in motion a transition out of the economy and culture of war, into a culture of peace and non-violence, reproachement and a wider justice and freer life for all.

And Eight, war is not anywhere necessary. It is not good for children and other living things. Everyone could be better off if the whole enterprise were closed down, money reallocated, swords beaten into plowshares, and people set to doing better things for human needs. Past belligerents can agree on mutual recognition.

So, given the necessity imposed by the First and Second Alarm, , and the strengths and potentialities suggested by 1 through 8, what can be done….

***********************************

System change

Challenge the war system as a system.

How?

every way we have, and are doing and adding one new way: provide the warriors an exit option, and the people a way of participating.

Stage, choreograph and act out a mythic meta-drama of the "people of the world" challenging the "old powers that have been," to give up their wars, put down their guns, to let their hearts be touched, and turned, and come to the table to talk...to face the people of the world

Every person, every human in the world, to the extent we can, is invited to the peace table, to become a living character in this drama, a passion play for our time, to put their voice in the "one human voice"...(or taking on the voice of the masters of war and makers of the big guns,) ...or to be spectators, ... or perhaps members of a chorus of lamentation, or silent.

On the everyday level of organization actions and missions, everyone keeps doing what we do, ...forward on all fronts. Resisting and proposing. Advancing coordinated direct action demonstrations and non-violent civil disobedience. Struggling for the commons and democratic space.

On the meta level of system change: First, create an open public process to invite the self expression of the "one human voice," and, then, compose out of the particulars of response, a draft of a "new social-political-economic contract," for after the wars, and for the transition time to after the wars, that the "people of the world" call the "powers that have been" to the table negotiate.... and to agree..

Make it "News" and loud by the 2020 political campaigns, in America, and all over the world, wherever there are elections..

Challenge in the United States the wars powers long announced plan of "full spectrum dominance" with the people power plan of "full spectrum cooperation," beginning now with cooperation among peace organizations in sharing in "crowdsourcing" the peoples' voice, and in composing a document ---and video and song and whatever in its expression.

Create a bank of win-win solutions that have occured. Problems versus solutions so all could access possibilities that have worked and won the day lessening dispute or wars, that help also to create long term decisions.

********************************************************

"Time Line" 2 year plan

1. Now through Peace Day, 2018:

>send out draft "leaflet" and introductory letter for responses. and rework for better expression, WILPF, WBW, others 2 questions:

What would help make peace in the world where you live, from what you know? Who are the people and powers you are up against?

>invite a "reception committee" to design a way of receiving, organizing and sharing responses

>invite a "software committee" to help

2. September 2018 through February, Presidents Day, 2019

>open Megiddo web site portal as initial reception point of responses

>seek co-initiators, and proliferators and pollinators

>begin general distribution, promotion of the initiative,

22 friends

Meeting in the Fall: Nuclear Accountability Boulder meeting

World Beyond War Toronto meetings

Women's March Washington

Armistice Day veterans rallies Washington November 9-11

1400 organizations in Housemans World Peace Directory

others

3. Presidents Day 2019 through Summer 2019

> reception committee continues to receive and organize responses

> invite a "presentation committee" to undertake reading, synthesis, writing and other expressions to present the Demand

considering:

207 country codes, and "world citizens"

40 war zones and displaced persons, and people without documents

recurrent questions: land, water, security, privilege, power,

care of life system, traditional enemities and historic memories

whole system elements: justice, governance, infrastructure, economics environment, science, education, media, health, relations, spirituality, arts

"revolution of values:" racism, materialism, militarism nationalism

questions of morals, bigotry, greed, brutality, arrogance...

what peace looks like ...actual on the ground projects and pieces of the peace,

next system economic transition policies

gender and transgender perspectives

4 generational perspectives, young and youth, and old and elder, and two generations between.

4. Peace Week 2019 Sundays September 15 to 22. International Day of Peace Saturday September 21. Peoples of the World Convocation.

To receive and discuss the work of the "presentation committee." emulating the aspirations of the 1999 Hague Appeal for Peace, plus 20, and the First Hague conference, 1899 plus 120...

Invent a beautiful way of doing it, with music art and ideas, broadcast everywhere

An inclusive peace circle with its center everywhere and circumference surrounding, embracing the whole world

>invite a "convocation planning consortium," all organizations that want to cooperate

>choose a central meeting site, or multiple inter-connected sites

>create a computer world wide web interconnect design so any one or group at any peace table in the world can have a presence in the world convocation

>present "the Presentation," seek consensus and identify continuing questions

>issue the Demand.

> Address the Powers that have been, the Masters of War: those identified as the ones we are up against.

End of the War System, your part a the whole system.

put down the guns, come to the people's peace table to talk. consider to accept a "new social-political contract," articulated in minute particular at this convocation, a better system, where everyone wins: "full spectrum cooperation." partnership, generosity, caring, sharing, healing, helping, truth and reconciliation, demanding all governments become "governments for peace."

In the United States, for instance, formulate a 4 year economic, political diplomatic transition program to demobilize the military industrial complex and convert to the peace system and an alternative global security system.

5. Peace Week 2019 to Election Days 2020, November 3, 2020 in the United States

> introduce the peace demand in political debates,

> challenge all political candidates to read and endorse the Demand and the "new social-political-economic contract." ...Press National House and Senate candidates, State and Local candidates, and especially those contending for the Presidency

> challenge the Democratic and Republican Conventions Seek to introduce and end the war system platform Summer 2020

> consider options for independent political action

6. after the elections 2020:

> re-evaluate

>press the 4 year plan on congress

>prepare for 2022 and 2024.

To the End Game

A conscious social political evolution can happen.

Awakening is possible, especially when alarms are sounded

People can choose to change old habits, especially when help is at hand

Learned behaviors and beliefs can be unlearned, especially when teachers are at hand

It is also true, not to be denied, as one woman said:

"nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom

by appealing to the moral sense, of the people, who were oppressing them"

Yet ending the war system, creating a world beyond war is changing history, and changing the world as it has been since before memory.

One human voice speaking truth to power Circulating this leaflet, asking people to respond and to pass it on, listening, working to synthesize one human voice of the many, ...the actions here...undertakes to create an articulated public voice of the ”people of the world”, speaking directly to the powers of war and politics, demanding they come to the table to talk, demand they consider "transformational surrender," going through the eye of the needle, accepting a new social-political-economic contract, ending the whole war system and beginning the next age of humanity, after the wars, becoming heros for the future..

Asking them to change...each of them, . identified by the people who respond to the question, “who are the people and powers you are up against?” Personalize the system, by names and deeds, named by the people on whose neck is their war system foot.

It is an appeal to the heart, and reason, and care for the children, their own, and grandchildren, and the next generations, and for the polar bears too.

Look for splinterings in the ruling class concurrent consensus that keeps the war system in place.

The Demand, distilled out of all the”Reception Committee” was able to receive, is intended to be policy specific, ---local, state, national, regional, global -- with links to sources, for peace in the world and in all and each of the wars now hot and simmering. "What is needed for peace where you are?" our first basic question.

"The Presentation" will likely be in many media forms...more than words. The words though are important, hoped to be beautifully said, clear and in big print, explicite about the minute particulars, in multiple languages. Other forms of presentation may be videos, songs, dances, tweets, who knows how the people of the world, if asked, would express it themself.

20/20 clear vision : full spectrum cooperation. End the war system.

In the political campaigns of 2020, the universal inclusive demand can be put to every politician in the political process, country by country, reinforcing itself across borders---changing the terms of debate globally, and helping all of us better work together.

And ideally, too, it will help stir an increasing awakening, and a way for people, wherever they are, to participate in a conscious social evolution.., to be characters in the drama.

This initiative projects a two year process, also ideally, that we become more the "we" that we can be, a big us...world wide...collaborating in both intentional action, and in a big hug, of mutual recognition around the world, across boundaries of class and race and gender and age and organization and religion... to a common purpose, broad enough to embrace all our purposes.

In this effort toward full spectrum cooperation, no organization loses its autonomy or independence in what it does.

Each "co-initiator organization" keeps connection with the responses that come through its portal to the "reception committee" All organizations can spread the initiative invitation leaflet in their own outreach and program efforts

This work is also hoped to increase our knowledge of one another and opportunities to cooperate.

>a "collaboration consortium" of participating organizations will figure out how to proceed as we go along to the Peace Table

*******************************************************************

The Megiddo Peace Project, the organizing "lets do it," of this initiative, has, since its inception in 1986, focused on "the peace table." Peace requires a meeting, (or many, but one to seal it,) and a meeting requires a table, and peace requires putting down the gun and coming to the table to talk, and people have to agree on the shape of the table at which to sit and see eye to eye. The project began with a physical table, family size, designed to be receptive to all outstanding questions, --artistically representing the coming together of the 4 corners of the square of our earthly dilemmas, rising through the eye of the needle transformed to support the circle of community--- and it was given to the movement to do with what we can. Tel Megiddo is an archeological site in the Holy Lands, the foretold place of "Armageddon" the bloody war at the "end of days"... which it is our purpose to preempt and prevent and transform. and make peace instead.

We are long time activists, Odile Hugonot Haber, a nurse, and Alan Haber a woodworker, We call this effort an "initiative" because without our initiative it would not have been talked out, presented at the WILPF international congress in Ghana, and now in our world of friends and colleagues in the movements... and to you.

We hope what we do produces a positive response and generates the momentum and spread necessary for success.

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Scale of this ,endeavor:

There are 7 billion people in the world and almost all of them would include their voice for peace in the one human voice, if they heard they were asked. In the short run this would overload any capacity to receive the responses.

So practically speaking, how many people responding are enough?

As many as we get.is the best we can do. Looked at another way, a psychologist of visual perception told me, there were 1.2 million neural fibers in the optic nerve, carrying information about what is out there to what is seen in the mind, giving the clarity of the human eye.

If we could among us receive 1.2 million inputs, and integrate them, we could perhaps see together. adequately enough to approach true human vision. ...of the one human family.

>We invite information engineers to join the "software committee" to help design a receiver, adequate to receive a wider world web of inputs.

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money:

Run the whole project on voluntary donations of work, love and knowledge.

Money needed for postage and printing

Money needed for the Peace Week meeting 2019

Each committee and consortium would develop its own budget and fundraising plan

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REPLY: Megiddo Peace Project megiddo@umich.edu POBox 7213, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48107, usa

( ) I am interested

real name, email address, country code, age, gender and other self identification.

my answer to the questions, now ( ) or ( ) later

1. what would help make peace in the world, and my life where I live, from what I know?

2. who are the people and powers you are up against?

I am willing to help

( ) Software Committee: help design reception portals, ways to share information

( ) Co-Initiating Organization: establishing a partner portal

( ) Reception Committee: to receive responses

( ) Presentation Committee:to integrate and to present what is received

( ) Convocation planning consortium , peace week 2019 conference

( ) Collaboration consortium...figuring it out as we go along.

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copy of draft .3 leaflet adapted from “Greetings” circulated at to the 2018 Women's International League for Peace and Freedom International Congress, Accra, Ghana

Women, and men, of every country, and the world, are enmeshed in the war system.

System change is what we need.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, after the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948

"It is for the people of the world to make the peace"

The states can't do it. They define the war system.

>power concedes nothing without demand<

The Inclusive Demand is Ending the whole System of War.

This Demand needs to be put at the center of the political agendas in 2020.

Wars kill, mutilate, rape, pollute, starve, do not increase human security,

and cause horrendous moral injury.

The war powers have many nuclear bombs --and weapons and violences proliferate.

beyond tolerance

The people of the world need to transform this war worn system into a system of peace making and healing

moving forward in economics and culture to support life on our planet.

...the inclusive we ...need to bring together our knowledges from our organizations and struggles and to craft a presentation of comprehensive demands that express in one voice the peace call of the human family

offering solutions, and putting system change demands to the politicians and powers that be.

*************

We are inviting a cooperative endeavor to harvest from the knowledge of the movements

a clear program statement of what it means, in specific policies required, to end the war system...

and to transition, retrain and repurpose to build what will be the new, next system that serves,

life and humanity, all species, full spectrum cooperation ...the peace system.

We invite you to join this 2020 20/20 clear vision initiative.

What would help make peace in the world where you live, from what you know?

Who are the people and powers you are up against?

The Megiddo Peace Project is undertaking to provide an initial "portal" to help gather these particulars of demand and solution, calling the war powers to the peace table Much help is needed.

Please write and send your responses as part of your part in the composite one voice for Peace. send: your "statements of demand," what is needed, and ideas and questions .

We will share what we receive. We hope many organizations will become co-initiators, and a cooperative process will be invented to sort out what we learn and write what needs to be said.

An aim of this initiative is to stimulate the broad peace and justice and freedom movements in every country to become more coordinated and to press common policy programs for each government...expressing an ideal,...to become a "government for peace."

We are both WILPF members of Ann Arbor, Michigan US Section Odile Hugonot Haber is a nurse,

long active in the US section, and Alan Haber, a carpenter, made a peace table receptive to all questions.

Contact Megiddo Peace project PO Box 7213 Ann Arbor Michigan 48107.

e-mails: Megiddo@umich.edu, odilehh@gmail.com www.personal.umich.edu/~megiddo

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Just How Dangerous Is Amazon's Facial Recognition Program?

(Audio and Transcript)

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/just-how-dangerous-is-amazons-facial-recognition-program-audio/

by Robert Sheer

You Tube Screen Grab

In May, the Congressional Black Caucus penned a letter to Amazon expressing its concern about the potential unintended consequences of the company’s new facial recognition software, ReKognition. “It is quite clear that communities of color are more aggressively policed than white communities,” the letter read. “This status quo results in an oversampling of data which, once used as an input to an analytical framework leveraging artificial intelligence, could negatively impact outcomes in those oversampled communities.”

Just how much danger does the online behemoth’s new technology pose? To answer this question, Truthdig’s Robert Scheer sat down with American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jacob Snow to discuss the close partnership between private enterprise and the surveillance state, as well as Snow’s latest article, “Amazon’s Face Recognition Falsely Matched 28 Members of Congress With Mugshots.”

“We’re in an environment where immigrants are being targeted and harmed, and where people of color are being targeted and are being persecuted,” says Snow in the latest installment of “Scheer Intelligence.” “And the idea that facial recognition could become widespread as a tool of law enforcement is going to have disproportionate impacts on people of color, on political protesters and also on immigrants. And once that infrastructure is built, once face surveillance is widespread in society, the damage to those communities can’t be undone.”

What was once the military-industrial complex has rapidly transformed into a military-industrial information complex, with data flowing seamlessly between intelligence agencies and even local police departments. Yet despite our society’s slow descent into Orwellian dystopia, Snow remains cautiously optimistic.

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From: "Mark Crispin Miller" <markcrispinmiller@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, 7 September, 2018
Subject: [MCM] That "anonymous official" whose op-ed ran in the New York Times is actually the New York Times (2)

http://markcrispinmiller.com

We Are Being Played

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/09/06/we-are-being-played/

by Caitlin Johnstone

If any evidence existed to be found that Donald Trump had illegally colluded with the Russian government to rig the 2016 presidential election, that evidence would have been picked up by the sprawling surveillance networks of the US and its allies and leaked to the Washington Post before Obama left office.

Russiagate is like a mirage. From a distance it looks like a solid, tangible thing, but when you actually move in to examine it critically you find nothing but gaping plot holes, insinuation, innuendo, conflicting narratives, bizarre mental contortions to avoid acknowledging contradictory information, a few arrests for corruption and process crimes, and a lot of hot air. The whole thing has been held together by nothing but the confident-sounding assertions of pundits and politicians and sheer, mindless repetition. And, as we approach the two year mark since this president’s election, we have not seen one iota of movement toward removing him from office. The whole thing’s a lie, and the smart movers and shakers behind it are aware that it is a lie.

I Know Who the “Senior Official” Is Who Wrote the NY Times Op-Ed

September 6, 2018 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: | Print This Article

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/09/06/i-know-who-the-senior-official-is-who-wrote-the-ny-times-op-ed/

Dear Readers: Your website needs your support. It cannot exist without it.
When you read my column below, you will read what you cannot find anywhere else–a clear, concise, correct explanation of who the author is of the New York Times op-ed falsely attributed to a “senior Trump official.”

I Know Who the “Senior Official” Is Who Wrote the NY Times Op-Ed

Paul Craig Roberts

I know who wrote the anonymous “senior Trump official” op-ed in the New York Times. The New York Times wrote it.

The op-ed (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50194.htm) is an obvious forgery. As a former senior official in a presidential administration, I can state with certainty that no senior official would express disageeement anonymously. Anonymous dissent has no credibility. Moreover, the dishonor of it undermines the character of the writer. A real dissenter would use his reputation and the status of his high position to lend weight to his dissent.

The New York Times’ claim to have vetted the writer also lacks credibility, as the New York Times has consistently printed extreme accusations against Trump and against Vladimir Putin without supplying a bit of evidence. The New York Times has consistently misrepresented unsubstantiated allegations as proven fact. There is no reason whatsoever to believe the New York Times about anything.

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Trump’s Biggest Crime Isn’t Being Covered by the Mainstream Media

https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-biggest-crime-isnt-being-covered-by-the-mainstream-media/

by Tom Engelhardt

It’s been overlooked, but it probably makes him the most criminal president in history.