Bulletin N° 851

9 to 5

(1980 Film)

https://www.putlockers.me/movie/nine-to-five-2416.html

Subject :

Logical Positivism vs. Historical Materialism

24 June 2019

Grenoble, France

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

Historical knowledge is not a parlor game; it is more like a gyrator, indispensible for navigation. Without historical knowledge we are most certainly lost, without a clue of where we are heading. Like navigation itself, historical knowledge requires interpretation and discussion. In the end, the best results come from informed social interaction. With all the cards on the table, in full transparency, the results are more likely to be satisfactory.

In this spirit, we look once again at the book by R.D. Laing and his colleagues, Interpersonal Perception, A theory and a method of research, (London, 1966 & 1972) in search of a method for understanding the future prospects of post-imperial international relations.

Discussing the “spiral of reciprocal perspectives,” this book presents an optimistic view that ontological misunderstandings can be overcome, or at least recognized.

There is a peculiar satisfaction in feeling that one understands another person, and in feeling that one is being understood.

Patently, however, two people may neither understand each other completely nor wish to. They may understand each other while supposing that they do not understand. Understanding may be greater over some issues than in others. The relationship may be relatively symmetrical, in that each understands the other to about the same extent over the same issues, or it may be lopsided, one person, in Jung’s sense, being the container and the other the contained. The feeling of being understood entails feeling that the other person’ meta-perspective

is correct, in other words, that one’s own meta-meta feeling corresponds to one’s direct perspective. One is now operating between all three levels. The feeling of being understood or misunderstood may be desired or feared. Its presence may be comforting or disconcerting. Its presence may mean a sense if being together, its absence a sense of solitude.

People will vary as to whether or not they would rather be understood or understand. An important aspect of each person’s self-concept is the extent to which he feels capable of being understood. An important aspect of one’s image of the other is the extent to which one feels the other can or does understand oneself.

Whether or not it is easier to make guesses between second and first order perspectives, or between third and second order perspectives, is an interesting question, and one towards which our method can contribute an answer.

We must remember that some people feel extremely persecuted because they persist in attributing to the others a capacity to know what is going on in them fare higher than the others actually do posses. This may be because they grew up with another who had such an ability (e.g., identical twin), or who in fact laid claims to such understanding. In intergroup and international as well as in interpersonal dyadic systems, the desires to be understood in some respects, the fears of being known in others, the efforts taken towards being understood, and the precautions taken against being known, together with the complementary maneuvers to achieve knowledge of the other, legitimately and illegitimately (espionage), quite evidently play a large part.

From the point of view of the subject, the starting point is often between the second and the third order level of perspective. Jill thinks that Jack thinks that she does not love him, that she neglects him, that she is destroying him, and so on, although she says she does not think that she is doing any of these things. In this position, it is open to Jill to do a number of things. She may constantly complain to Jack that Jack does not realize how much she is doing for him, and that he is always sorry for himself. He may protest that he thinks she is doing all sorts of things for him, but she does not believe him. She may express fears lest he think that she thinks that he is ungrateful to her for all she is doing, when she wants him to know that she does not think that he thinks she thinks he thinks that she does not do enough. Here, the initial situation from Jill’s point of view is: Jill thinks that Jack thinks that Jill neglects him. One move that the other may make in order to break such a unilateral spiral is to break into it at one level of perspective. Thus, Jill thinks Jack does not believe that Jill loves Jack. Jack’s move may be to say: “But I do believe you do.” This direct contradiction, in this case intended as reassurance, is usually thought by psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, marriage counselors, and so on to be ineffective.

A way to enter such a situation therapeutically is to get both Jack and Jill to define their criteria for generosity and to define how their parents defined generosity. One discovers that Jack’s father treated his mother very differently than Jill’s father treated her mother. Jack’s father was too poor to have brought home enough money to make his family feel secure against the possibility of being evicted or not having enough food. Jack remembers vividly how his mother complained to his father about his inadequate income. From this Jack developed the viewpoint that if his father had simply made enough money his mother would have been eternally grateful. Since he is now successful financially, he expects Jill to be eternally grateful to him for providing her with a security that his mother never had. On the other hand, Jill has come from a wealthy family in which there was never any comparable issue of financial insecurity. In Jill’s family, consideration, love and kindness were expressed through the giving of gifts, the remembering of anniversaries, etc. She had leaner to take it for granted that the man will provide her with an economically secure home. What she looks for are the little niceties which she feels indicate true considerateness, kindness and love. For Jack these niceties are irrelevant; they are minor details, trivia by comparison to the other things he does for the family. However, if each can discover his or her own and the other’s value system and thereby see the conjunctions and discrepancies between them, it becomes possible for each to explain himself or herself to the other. It is now, for the first time, feasible for Jack to say: “Well, if it really is that important to you that I remember your birthday, I’ll do my darndest to try”. It is now possible for Jill to “appreciate” Jack more as a provider in the family. If bitterness and revenge (I am going to hurt you for the hurt you have done to me) have not intensified too much, it may still be relatively simple for each to satisfy the other’s expectations according to their idiosyncratic value systems. Such an incredibly simple move can sometimes produce very powerful effects, particularly, early in a relationship. Once a history has been developed of pain and misery, the matter becomes correspondently more complex and difficult to reorient.

There are innumerable such unilateral and bilateral spirals as well as those of giving-taking, trust-mistrust, indifference and concern. There are “ascending” “manic” spirals (I’m happy that you’re happy I’m happy), and “descending” “depressive” ones (I’m sad that you’re sad, etc.); all are in a sense ‘obsessive”. Such spirals can be attempts to get out of a fake or untenable position. The danger to the persons involved is that the next move may be catastrophic. It may be the last move ever; it may be the end of the relationship, or the end of the world.

Here we are particularly concerned with how such a unilateral spiral functions in the dyad system. After the twists of the spiral have been extended to a third, even fourth, level at some point a relatively steady state of reciprocal mistrust, precarious happiness, common misery or terror becomes established. It may be that the only hope at the pre-catastrophic position is to make a move to change the whole axis of orientation, to change the issue, both in content and direction, and one person has to make the change initially.(pp.38-42)

At the end of this book - which is divided into an exposition of the theory followed by a careful elaboration of the Interpersonal Perception Method (IPM) used for testing this theory - the authors provide a series of 60 IPM items for the purpose of testing dyadic relationships, each item containing three sections that reflect “direct”, “meta”, and “meta-meta” perceptions, each of which, in turn, contains four permutations within a given dyadic relationship. One example of this method from an examination of interpersonal perception is item N°47, taken as a quickly administered “pencil-and-paper” test, to be answered with one of the following four responses : (++) (+) (- -) (-) .

47. A. How true do you think the following are?

1. He is bitter towards me.

2. I am bitter towards him.

3. She is bitter towards herself.

4. I am bitter towards myself.

B. How would SHE answer the following?

1. “I am bitter towards him.”

2. “He is bitter towards me.”

3. “I am bitter towards myself.”

4. “He is bitter towards himself.”

C. How would SHE think you would have answered the following?

1. She is bitter towards me.

2. I am bitter towards her.

3. She is bitter towards herself.

4. I am bitter towards myself.(p.210)

The authors suggested at the end of their book in 1966 that improved interpersonal perceptions could reduce misunderstandings,

The future of East and West depends upon East-West finding some way of resolving their reciprocal mistrust enough for each to throw away their means of deterrence.(p.173)

While this positivist science might be of some value for a partial understanding of interpersonal experiences and behavior, it hardly offers the final word on the subject. Knowledge of the historical, social and material context is essential for any true comprehension of relationships, domestic or international.

This is illustrated in Paul L. Williams' history of “the unholy alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia,” entitled, Operation Gladio (New York, 2018). Citing Steve Kangas, author of “A Timeline of CIA Atrocities” (1994), Williams writes:

The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, six million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this as “American Holocaust.” The CIA justifies these actions as part of the its war against communism. But most coups do not involve a communist threat. Unlucky nations are targeted for a wide variety of reasons: not only threats to American business interests abroad, but also liberal or even moderate social reforms, political instability, the unwillingness of a leader to carry out Washington’s dictates, and declarations of neutrality in the Cold War. Indeed, nothing has infuriated CIA Directors quite like a nation’s desire to stay out of the Cold War.(p.23)

. . .

Poetry and Paranoia

[Allan] Dulles was not the only OSS official involved in establishing stay-behind units [in Europe after WW II]. He was aided by James Jesus Angleton, one of the strangest spooks to emerge from the shadow world of the US intelligence community. A tall figure of spectral thinness, with owlish glasses, Angleton was a rabid anti-Communist, an ardent Anglophile, and a devout Roman Catholic. He bred orchids, wore a black homburg, and drank bourbon for breakfast. A graduate of Yale, Angleton possessed a gift for poetry and had established close friendships with Ezra Pound, E.E. Cummings, and T.S. Eliot. Fluent in several languages, including German and Italian, he arrived in Rome as the commander of the Secret Counterintelligence (SCI) unit of the OSS. Few were more qualified for the position. Unfortunately, Angleton was not only brilliant but also dangerously paranoid, seeing the world as a “wilderness of mirrors.” In these mirrors, he saw reflections of spies and counterspies (many of whom he felt compelled to eliminate) and the unfolding succession of conspiracy upon conspiracy – all of which required immediate and, at times, murderous resolution.(p.27)

. . .

On May 15, 1945, When Borghese was arrested and charged with war crimes, Angleton managed to secure his release into US Army custody. The Black Prince was dressed in an American uniform and transported from Milan to Rome. Angleton needed Borghese and the 10,267 fascists who fought under his command to help establish the stay-behind units that would ward off any Soviet aggression.

. . .

Under Borghese, the Gladio forces in Italy were divided into forty main groups: ten specialized in sabotage; six each in espionage, propaganda, and escape tactics; and twelve in guerrilla activities. A special training camp for members of the stay-behind units was set up in Sardinia, off Italy’s western coast. The camp, thanks to the efforts of Gehlen and Wolff, was soon swarming with new gladiators from Germany, France, and Austria. By 1946, when the OSS morphed into the Central Intelligence Group (the precursor of the CIA), hundreds of Gladio units were in place throughout Western Europe.(pp.28-29)

President Harry S Truman is reputed to have once remarked: “The only thing new under the sun is the history I didn't know!” Positivist social critics would do well to heed this warning and adjust their criticisms of social behavior to historical material realities.

The 16 + items below speak to the historic debacle of the US Empire and the threat this collapse represents to all of us, in the absence of historical knowledge, social class consciousness and political will.

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/

a.

May 14, 2018

Yanis Varoufakis on Lost U.S. Credibility in Middle East, from Iran Deal to Israel Embassy Move

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/14/yanis_varoufakis_on_lost_us_credibility

with Yanis Varoufakis

+

The Middle East's cold war, explained

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

How two feuding countries are tearing apart the Middle East. The Saudis and Iranians have never actually declared war on each other. Instead, they fight indirectly by supporting opposing sides in other countries and inciting conflicts. This is known as proxy warfare. And it’s had a devastating effect on the region. Countries, especially poor ones, can’t function if there are larger countries pulling strings within their borders. And that’s exactly what's happening in the Middle East. The Saudi-Iranian rivalry has become a fight over influence, and the whole region is a battlefield.

===========

b.

"Treason!" NYT Story Reveals US Cyber Ops Against Russian Power Grid Hidden From Trump

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51773.htm

by Tyler Durden

President Trump has hurled the dire charge of "Treason" at the New York Times for its lengthy investigative piece alleging US intelligence has stepped up systematic cyber attacks on Russia's power grid. “This is a virtual act of Treason by a once great paper so desperate for a story, any story, even if bad for our Country…” Trump tweeted Saturday evening in response to the story which ran hours earlier.

He then hastily added in a follow-up tweet in all caps, "ALSO, NOT TRUE!" — as if only then realizing his initial tweet seemed to actually vouch for the story. The follow-up further excoriated the Times for their reporting with "not even the slightest thought of consequence!"

Whether this means the president is outraged that a true and verified report could be detrimental to US credibility and national security, or that fake news could hurt the US and invite unnecessary cyber retaliation is still not fully evident, but Trump's impulsive Saturday evening tweets appear to back the former.

.....ALSO, NOT TRUE! Anything goes with our Corrupt News Media today. They will do, or say, whatever it takes, with not even the slightest thought of consequence! These are true cowards and without doubt, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2019

And the Times was quick to respond to the "treason" charge as follows:

Accusing the press of treason is dangerous.
We described the article to the government before publication. As our story notes, President Trump’s own national security officials said there were no concerns. https://t.co/MU020hxwdc pic.twitter.com/4CIfcqKoEl

— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) June 16, 2019

The NYT report outlines an alleged ongoing US operation to infiltrate and implant malware in Russia’s power grid as preparation for any potential major cyber warfare operation in the future, and further as "a warning" to the Kremlin. However, the story is light on details and heavy on the usual anonymous "current and former officials".

According to the Times, “officials described the previously unreported deployment of American computer code inside Russia’s grid and other targets.” The officials described that “it has gotten far, far more aggressive over the past year,” and that they are “doing things at a scale that we never contemplated a few years ago.” Though US operations hadn't reached the level of specific attacks, the malware constitutes what's described as a “persistent presence” within Russia’s infrastructure.

The report casts the latest ramped up cyber efforts targeting Russia as part of a broader campaign to clandestinely probe the country’s electrical grid going back to 2012 — efforts which grew following alleged Russian hacking and election meddling connected with the 2016 election. 

Crucially, as CNN describes of the NYT report, "Two administration officials told the Times they believed President Donald Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the US computer code being implanted inside the Russian grid."

And further, the story is outright suggesting the White House's own intelligence briefers are actually withholding vital national security information from the president . . .

+

NYT pushes Power Grid Cyberwar between US & Russia, as Trump & Putin prepare for G20

https://youtu.be/LC7sc8b1Qyw

with Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris

+

The Danger of Leaving a President Out of the Loop

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/06/16/the-danger-of-leaving-a-president-out-of-the-loop/

by Caitlin Johnstone

Donald Trump was kept in the dark about a possible U.S. nuclear response to a Russian cyber-weapon attack. The U.S. has now ramped up offensive cyber-warfare against Russia’s power grid, putting Trump in a deep bind.

The New York Times has published an anonymously sourced report titled “U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid” about the “placement of potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before” which could potentially “plunge Russia into darkness or cripple its military,” with one anonymous official reporting that “We are doing things at a scale that we never contemplated a few years ago.”

Obviously this is yet another serious escalation in the continually mounting series of steps that have been taken into a new cold war between the planet’s two nuclear superpowers. Had a report been leaked to Russian media from anonymous Kremlin officials that Moscow was escalating its cyber-aggressions against America’s energy grid, this would doubtless be labeled an act of war by the political/media class of the US and its allies with demands for immediate retaliation.

To put this in perspective, The New York Times reported last year that the Pentagon was pushing for the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review to include the strategy of retaliating against serious Russian cyberattacks on American power grids with nuclear weapons.

===========

c.

Corporate News Pushes Iran War For Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgQzb4ErYWQ&feature=youtu.be

with Jimmy Dore

+

Watch: US releases video it says shows Iran

removing unexploded mine from ship

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51767.htm

by ICH and Agencies

President Trump blamed Iran for the attacks, but confusion has taken hold over the events after separate reports on what happened appeared to contradict each other. Asked how he planned to address Tehran and prevent any further incidents, Trump told Fox News: "We're going to see."

China, the European Union and others have called for restraint from all sides. Germany said the U.S. video was not enough to apportion blame for Thursday's attack.

"These accusations are alarming," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, adding that blaming Iran for Thursday's attacks was "convenient" for U.S. officials.

+

Proof U.S. Is Provoking Iran Into WAR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOudBT4S4y0

&

Corporate News Pushes Iran War For Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgQzb4ErYWQ

with Jimmy Dore

+

“US Further Isolate Itself Over Iran”

https://youtu.be/uB5FSRdlfyA

with Larry Wilkerson

+

“‘Ridiculous, dangerous': Iran denies US claims over Gulf tankers”

https://youtu.be/zSrDf0FpkcQ

+

Trump Pulls Back from Iran Attack as Bolton & Pompeo Continue

to Push for War

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/21/trump_cancels_iran_strikes_after_drone

with MOHAMMAD MARANDI

===========

d.

Trump’s Trade Threats are really Cold War 2.0

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51769.htm

by Michael Hudson

President Trump has threatened China’s President Xi that if they don’t meet and talk at the upcoming G20 meetings in Japan, June 29-30, the United States will not soften its tariff war and economic sanctions against Chinese exports and technology.

Some meeting between Chinese and U.S. leaders will indeed take place, but it cannot be anything like a real negotiation. Such meetings normally are planned in advance, by specialized officials working together to prepare an agreement to be announced by their heads of state. No such preparation has taken place, or can take place. Mr. Trump doesn’t delegate authority.

He opens negotiations with a threat. That costs nothing, and you never know (or at least, he never knows) whether he can get a freebee. His threat is that the U.S. can hurt its adversary unless that country agrees to abide by America’s wish-list. But in this case the list is so unrealistic that the media are embarrassed to talk about it. The US is making impossible demands for economic surrender – that no country could accept. What appears on the surface to be only a trade war is really a full-fledged Cold War 2.0.

America’s wish list: other countries’ neoliberal subservience.

At stake is whether China will agree to do what Russia did in the 1990s: put a Yeltsin-like puppet of neoliberal planners in place to shift control of its economy from its government to the U.S. financial sector and its planners. So the fight really is over what kind of planning China and the rest of the world should have: by governments to raise prosperity, or by the financial sector to extract revenue and impose austerity.

U.S. diplomacy aims to make other countries dependent on its agricultural exports, its oil (or oil in countries that U.S. majors and allies control), information and military technology. This trade dependency will enable U.S. strategists to impose sanctions that would deprive economies of basic food, energy, communications and replacement parts if they resist U.S. demands.

The objective is to gain financial control of global resources and make trade “partners” pay interest, licensing fees and high prices for products in which the United States enjoys monopoly pricing “rights” for intellectual property. A trade war thus aims to make other countries dependent on U.S.-controlled food, oil, banking and finance, or high-technology goods whose disruption will cause austerity and suffering until the trade “partner” surrenders.

China’s willingness to give Trump a “win”.

Threats are cheap, but Mr. Trump can’t really follow through without turning farmers, Wall Street and the stock market, Walmart and much of the IT sector against him at election time if his tariffs on China increase the cost of living and doing business. His diplomatic threat is really that the US will cut its own economic throat, imposing sanctions on its own importers and investors if China does not acquiesce.

It is easy to see what China’s answer will be. It will stand aside and let the US self-destruct. Its negotiators are quite happy to “offer” whatever China has planned to do anyway, and let Trump brag that this is a “concession” he has won.

China has a great sweetener that I think President Xi Jinping should offer: It can nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. We know that he wants what his predecessor Barack Obama got. And doesn’t he deserve it more? After all, he is helping to bring Eurasia together, driving China and Russia into an alliance with neighboring counties, reaching out to Europe.

Trump may be too narcissistic to realize the irony here. Catalyzing Asian and European trade independence, financial independence, food independence and IT independence from the threat of U.S. sanctions will leave the U.S. isolated in the emerging multilateralism.

America’s wish for a neoliberal Chinese Yeltsin (and another Russian Yeltsin for that matter).

A good diplomat does not make demands to which the only answer can be “No.” There is no way that China will dismantle its mixed economy and turn it over to U.S. and other global investors. It is no secret that the United States achieved world industrial supremacy in the late 19th and early 20th century by heavy public-sector subsidy of education, roads, communication and other basic infrastructure. Today’s privatized, financialized and “Thatcherized” economies are high-cost and inefficient.

Yet U.S. officials persist in their dream of promoting some neoliberal Chinese leader or “free market” party to wreak the damage that Yeltsin and his American advisors wrought on Russia. The U.S. idea of a “win-win” agreement is one in which China will be “permitted” to grow as long as it agrees to become a U.S. financial and trade satellite, not an independent competitor.

Trump’s trade tantrum is that other countries are simply following the same economic strategy that once made America great, but which neoliberals have destroyed here and in much of Europe. U.S. negotiators are unwilling to acknowledge that the United States has lost its competitive industrial advantage and become a high-cost rentier economy. Its GDP is “empty,” consisting mainly of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) rents, profits and capital gains while the nation’s infrastructure decays and its labor is reduced to a prat-time “gig” economy. Under these conditions the effect of trade threats can only be to speed up the drive by other countries to become economically self-reliant.

+

The Coming War On China (China Documentary) | History Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot-acn1whrc

by John Pilger

The Coming War on China, from award winning journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn’t – that the world’s greatest military power, the United States, and the world’s second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, may well be on the road to war. Nuclear war is not only imaginable, but planned. The greatest build-up of NATO military forces since the Second World War is under way on the western borders of Russia. On the other side of the world, the rise of China is viewed in Washington as a threat to American dominance. To counter this, President Obama announced a ‘pivot to Asia’, which meant that almost two-thirds of all US naval forces would be transferred to Asia and the Pacific, their weapons aimed at China. A policy which has been taken up by his successor Donald Trump, who during his election campaign said “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country and that’s what they’re doing”. Filmed on five possible front-lines across Asia and the Pacific over two years, the story is told in chapters that connect a secret and ‘forgotten’ past to the rapacious actions of great power today and to a resistance, of which little is known in the West.

+

In China Again

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/19/in-china-again/

===========

e.

London: Julian Assange Defence Committee

lobbies Jeremy Corbyn’s Constituency Labour Party

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/06/21/jadc-j21.html

+

This Assange Supporter Excoriating The Press Is The Best Thing You’ll Watch All Day

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/14/this-assange-supporter-excoriating-the-press-is-the-best-thing-youll-watch-all-day/

Julian Assange’s latest US extradition hearing was a brief affair which saw the WikiLeaks founder’s next hearing scheduled for sometime after the end of February, nearly at the end of his 50-week sentence for a bail conditions violation. According to Reuters Assange was lucid and spirited enough to argue with the prosecution a bit, telling the American lawyer via videolink, “I didn’t break any password whatsoever.”

So that’s somewhat encouraging. A short time earlier, on the other side of the Westminster Magistrates courthouse wall, a far more animated scene had just been live-streamed to the world.

During a lively pro-Assange demonstration outside, independent reporter and political commentator Gordon Dimmack took the bullhorn, pointed it at the press crew which had gathered awaiting news from the courthouse, and delivered a scathing rebuke to them which is about the most delightful and cathartic thing that an Assange supporter can possibly watch.

+

UN Rapporteur on Torture Says Assange Could Die in Prison

https://www.blackagendareport.com/un-rapporteur-torture-says-assange-could-die-prison

+

"New details of 'blackmail' attempt

against Julian Assange emerge"

https://youtu.be/rDSMIqY0k9Q

+

Dr. Gabor Maté- Julian Assange is Guilty of TELLING THE TRUTH!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQV-BpETwBc

On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Dr. Gabor Maté who discusses the second anniversary of the Grenfell tower tragedy, the impact of austerity on the UK, drugs and addiction and why they are becoming so prevalent in today’s society, the role of Tory Leadership favourite Boris Johnson in creating the environment in which drugs and addiction are booming, as well as the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange. Next we speak to John Shipton, Julian Assange’s father after he visited his son Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison. Finally, we speak to former Minister of the Interior of IcelandÖgmundur Jónasson on how he kicked out a team of FBI investigators from Iceland who were trying to frame Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange.

+

Julian Assange Indictment “Criminalizes the News Gathering Process,” Says Pentagon Papers Lawyer

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/18/pentagon_papers_lawyer_julian_assange_case

with James Goodale

+

Watch "LIVE: Imperialism on Trial - Free Julian Assange"

https://youtu.be/iRvh6-CvDGs

with George Galloway

+

Assange lawyer reveals Pentagon behind pursuit of WikiLeaks publisher

https://www.rt.com/news/462359-assange-lawyer-pentagon-wikileaks/

+

Extradition Process a 'Very Long Uphill Road' for Assange

https://therealnews.com/stories/john-pilger-extradition-process-a-very-long-uphill-road-for-assange

with John Pilger

+

Assange will never see fair trial amid ‘industrial-grade

demonization campaign’

https://www.rt.com/news/461919-assange-fair-trial-demonization-blumenthal/

by Max Blumenthal

===========

f.

From: "World BEYOND War" <info@worldbeyondwar.org>
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2019
Subject: WBW News & Action: Upcoming Free Webinar

Click here to go to  an online version with language translation.

+

New European air force will ‘duplicate NATO’

https://youtu.be/8Yy9r1aT46A

with George Galloway

+

The end of western driven globalization

https://youtu.be/xxVTzfiiCOc

+

Russia, China warn US over sending 1,000 new troops to the Gulf

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/russia-china-warn-sending-1000-troops-gulf-190618085512481.html

+

Trump says he would ‘certainly’ go to war with Iran ‘over nuclear weapons’, but not right now

https://www.rt.com/news/462149-trump-iran-nuclear-weapons/

===========

g.

Black Agenda Report

How the Democratic Party Strangled Black Politics

https://www.blackagendareport.com/how-democratic-party-strangled-black-politics-1

+

Did a Coverup of Who Caused Flint Michigan’s Contaminated Water Continue During Its Investigation?

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/17/did-a-coverup-of-who-caused-flint-michigans-contaminated-water-continue-during-its-investigation/

+

“16 Shots”: Chicago Police Killing of Laquan McDonald Exposed a System Built on Lies

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/17/16_shots_rick_rowley_showtime_documentary

===========

h.

Tear gas in Toulouse as Yellow Vests

protests continue for 31st straight weekend

https://www.rt.com/news/461974-yellow-vests-toulouse-paris/

===========

i.

DOJ Bloodhounds on the Scent of John Brennan

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51765.htm

by Ray McGovern

With Justice Department investigators’ noses to the ground, it should be just a matter of time before they identify Brennan as fabricator-in-chief of the Russiagate story.

The New York Times Thursday morning has bad news for one of its favorite anonymous sources, former CIA Director John Brennan.

The Times reports that the Justice Department plans to interview senior CIA officers to focus on the allegation that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian intelligence to intervene in the 2016 election to help Donald J. Trump. DOJ investigators will be looking for evidence to support that remarkable claim that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report failed to establish.

Despite the collusion conspiracy theory having been put to rest, many Americans, including members of Congress, right and left, continue to accept the evidence-impoverished, media-cum-“former-intelligence-officer” meme that the Kremlin interfered massively in the 2016 presidential election.

One cannot escape the analogy with the fraudulent evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As in 2002 and 2003, when the mania for the invasion of Iraq mounted, Establishment media have simply regurgitated what intelligence sources like Brennan told them about Russia-gate.

No one batted an eye when Brennan told a House committee in May 2017, “I don’t do evidence.”

Leak Not Hack.

As we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have warned numerous times over the past two plus years, there is no reliable forensic evidence to support the story that Russia hacked into the DNC. Moreover, in a piece I wrote in May, “Orwellian Cloud Hovers Over Russia-gate,” I again noted that accumulating forensic evidence from metadata clearly points to an inside DNC job — a leak, not a hack, by Russia or anyone else.

So Brennan and his partners, FBI Director James Comey and National Intelligence Director James Clapper were making stuff up and feeding thin but explosive gruel to the hungry stenographers that pass today for Russiagate obsessed journalists.

Is the Jig Up?

With Justice Department investigators’ noses to the ground, it should be just a matter of time before they identify Brennan conclusively as fabricator-in-chief of the Russiagate story. Evidence, real evidence in this case, abounds, since the Brennan-Comey-Clapper gang of three were sure Hillary Clinton would become president. Consequently, they did not perform due diligence to hide their tracks.

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j.

Brutally Simple Illustration Shows Climate Change's True Scale Everywhere on Earth

https://www.sciencealert.com/flawless-visualisation-distils-the-true-colour-of-climate-change-everywhere-on-earth

by Peter Dockrill

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Interactive

Warming Stripes for GLOBE from 1850-2018

https://showyourstripes.info/

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Climate change ‘switchboard’ visualization shows every country on the planet turning red-hot

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/08/28/climate-change-switchboard-shows-every-country-on-the-planet-turning-red-hot/

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k.

The Electronic Intifada

Why Israel wants Iran destroyed

https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-israel-wants-iran-destroyed/2

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Drones, F-35s feature in Israel’s largest military drill in years

as Iran tensions rise

https://www.rt.com/news/462256-israel-military-drill-tensions-iran/

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Palestine: The Arab 'deal of the century'

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/palestine-arab-deal-century-190618094825714.html

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A Jerusalem hospital where Palestinian babies die alone | Israel |

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/20/a-jerusalem-hospital-where-palestinian-babies-die-alone

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'Joints will be separated': Grim new details of Khashoggi murder

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/separated-grim-details-khashoggi-murder-190619165104493.html

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l.

RT NEWSLETTER (June 22, 2019)

https://subscribe.rt.com/preview/GyQUed

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m.

Big Tech’s War for Your Wallet: Facebook Sparks Outrage After Announcing Plans for Digital Currency

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/19/big_techs_war_for_your_wallet

with David Dayen

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Century of Enslavement: The History of the Federal Reserve

https://www.corbettreport.com/federalreserve/

by James Corbett

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n.

As U.S. and Iran Face Off, Europe Is Stuck in the Middle

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/world/europe/iran-us-nuclear-europe.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_190619?campaign_id=2&instance_id=10241&segment_id=14434&user_id=c033ace0cafd4e382df6ea2372e519e5&regi_id=301006720619

by Steven Erlanger

BRUSSELS — As tensions between Washington and Tehran escalate, European leaders find themselves in an uncomfortable place they have feared ever since President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal 13 months ago and restored punishing sanctions against Tehran.

While the Europeans want to preserve the deal — which they see as important for their own security and for the stability of the Middle East — they are basically powerless in the face of American military and financial clout.

Iran is calling on Europe to solve its economic problems brought on by the sanctions or face a collapse of the nuclear deal as Iran begins to exceed limits on uranium enrichment. But Washington wants the Europeans to join in pressing Iran to enter humiliating new negotiations to shut down Tehran’s nuclear program entirely, limit its missile programs and restrict its regional ambitions.

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White House Pushes 'Trump Pulled Back' Story - He Likely Never Approved To Strike Iran

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51806.htm

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VIPS Memo to the President: Is Pompeo’s Agenda the Same As Yours?

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/06/21/vips-memo-to-the-president-is-pompeos-agenda-the-same-as-yours/

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o.

From: "CODEPINK" <info@codepink.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2019
Subject: Psst: have you heard our plan for the Pentagon?

Dear francis,

We can’t seem to stop talking about defense spending. Maybe that’s because folks everywhere are starting to demand a decrease of the obscene percentage of our federal discretionary budget going to the Pentagon. We’re thrilled to join forces with our partners in the peace movement and shout this message out from the rooftops: We demand an end to funding endless wars! In the U.S. we’ve already spent a mind-boggling $5.9 trillion on our Middle East wars since 2001.

Congress was squabbling this week over whether to give the Pentagon the full $750 billion President Trump is demanding or a paltry $16 billion less as the Democratic party is pushing for. Amidst the two-party consensus that provides endless funding for war, the People’s Moral Budget is a guiding light in an ocean of war hawks. We fully support this amazing project.

Here’s how you can help:

Contact the 2020 presidential candidates now and ask them to commit to cutting Pentagon funding by $350 billion!

How can the Pentagon ask us every year to support endless wars, arms sales to Saudi Arabia we know will be used on innocent Yemenis, and constant threats of new wars of aggression against Venezuela, Iran, and other places?

All this death and destruction simply to enrich the CEOs of weapons companies and to keep the Pentagon in business while almost half of us in the U.S. live in poverty, affordable housing is nowhere to be found, and the Pentagon is one of the top contributors to climate change is unacceptable . Recent research shows we can save $250 billion of the $350 billion we want to reduce annually by cutting the Pentagon’s funding for endless wars, closing 60% of our 800 foreign bases, dismantling nuclear weapons and cutting unnecessary weapons. Will you send a message now to the 2020 candidates demanding action?

Towards Peace,
Ann, Ariel, Carley, Clara, Jodie, Kelly, Kirsten, Lily, Maya, Mark, Medea, Nancy, Paki, Ryan, Sarah, Tighe, Ursula, and Zena

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p.

News From Underground

From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2019
Subject: [MCM] Guaido team accused of embezzling humanitarian aid funds

NYTimes missed this story, somehow....

MCM

Guaido Staffers Accused of Embezzling Venezuela Humanitarian Aid Funds

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14545

by Ricardo Vaz

Guaido envoys reportedly spent tens of thousands of dollars on upscale restaurants, hotels, and nightclubs.

Guaido addressing military deserters in Cucuta, Colombia. (@jguaido)

Caracas, June 17, 2019 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Allegations of corruption have surfaced implicating envoys of Venezuela’s self-proclaimed “interim president,” Juan Guaido.

A report published in Miami-based Panampost claims that Rossana Barrera and Kevin Rojas, members Guaido’s Popular Will party, misappropriated funds earmarked for so-called “humanitarian aid” in Colombia. Barrera and Rojas were tapped by the opposition leader to supervise operations in the Colombian border town of Cucuta, which included tending to the soldiers who deserted from the Venezuelan armed forces. Barrera is the sister-in-law of Popular Will lawmaker Sergio Vergara, who is considered one of Guaido’s closest confidants.

The Venezuelan opposition attempted to force US-supplied aid across the closed Venezuelan-Colombian border on February 23, while also calling on the armed forces to turn against the Maduro government. The day saw violent skirmishes and the desertion of a few dozen soldiers, while one of the humanitarian aid trucks caught fire on Simon Bolivar bridge. The New York Times would later reveal that the fire was caused by a Molotov cocktail-wielding opposition activist.

Venezuelan military personnel who heeded Guaido’s call to rebel made headlines in recent weeks after being evicted from the hotels where they were staying over unpaid bills. The Panampost article states that the hotels had unpaid bills worth up to US $20 thousand.

The report goes on to detail an elaborate embezzlement scheme whereby Barrera and Rojas allegedly solicited funds for all Colombian hotels lodging military deserters and their families, despite Bogota and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) paying for all but two. Both Guaido officials have also been accused of inflating by more than half the number of soldiers in their care, spending tens of thousands of dollars of the allocated funds on private dining, shopping and hotels. A number of supposed copies of receipts submitted by Barrera are included in the article.

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From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2019

Subject: [MCM] What to do about 5G? (1) Learn all about it, and (2) fight hard to STOP it. (MUST-READ)

From Douglas Yates:

Excellent sources and accounts of people and orgs resisting 5G technology. 

In the absence of answers that justify its risks, consider: If the US govt’s financial stability requires wiping future liabilities from the books, is 5G a solution that reduces the number of SSI recipients by an order of magnitude? 

The Corbett Report -5G is a surveillance dragnet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXbvL0uZkrY

Transcript of video and sources:

https://www.corbettreport.com/5g/

Mine comments for useful nuggets.

Details of telecomms ‘war gaming’ political resistance:

www.democracynow.org/2018/4/5/how_big_wireless_war_gamed_the

Global awareness campaign:

https://www.5gspaceappeal.org/the-appeal

One guy on Facebook - amazing library of info and outreach: https://www.facebook.com/notes/bruce-cain/a-template-for-activists-to-demand-an-end-to-5g-and-smart-meters-in-their-commun/3133538826672084/

As it relates to technocracy, and its tendency toward fascism, more than 50 years ago, Aldous Huxley offered a prescient one-liner:

"People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”

The trail is steeper than Seward’s Mt. Marathon. It will test all of us.

dy