Bulletin N° 857

 

 

 

 

Subject : “You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

 

 

 

August 24, 2019

Grenoble, France

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

 

Lawrence Stone’s classic 428-page histoire des mentalités, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800, opens with a disarming justification for publication of the abridged edition of his larger and more technical book:

 

     A book which weighs 3 pounds 6 ounces, is 800 pages long and costs £16 or $30 is clearly in need of abridgement if it is to reach a wide audience. This edition is therefore approximately half the size of the original. The principals upon which the cuts have been made are as follows. All extraneous matter, intriguing diversions from the mainline of the argument, has been severally pruned. Most sections treating the lower classes have been particularly ruthlessly trimmed, since, as reviewers were quick to point out, the evidence here was very weak. This edition is therefore even more closely concerned than the original with the top levels of society, the upper mercantile and professional classes, the squirarchy and the aristocracy. Space has been saved by cutting out all but the most striking and illuminating of the mass of examples that were used to buttress each point. 

 

     In making this abridgement, I have been much helped by suggestions from my wife.(p.17)

 

 

Professor Stone’s 1977 study suggests, in broad outline, the evolution of the family in different social classes in England from the mid-15th century through the 18th century: “the open lineage family, 1450-1630;” “the restricted patriarchal nuclear family, 1550-1700;” and “the closed domesticated nuclear family, 1640-1800.”  In his introduction to this historical research - which is much influenced by modern anthropological and demographic theory and method -  Stone explains the conceptual framework of this essay.

 

     The subject of this book can be stated fairly simply. It is an attempt to chart and document, to analyze and explain, some massive shifts in world views and value systems that occurred in England over a period of some three hundred years, from 1500 to 1800. These vast and elusive cultural changes expressed themselves in changes in the ways members of the family related to each other, in terms of legal arrangements, structure, custom, power, affect and sex. The main stress is on how individuals thought about, treated and used each other, and how they regarded themselves in relation to God and to various levels of social organization, from the nuclear family to the state. The microcosm of the family is used to open a window on to this wider landscape of cultural change.

 

     The critical change is that from distance, deference and patriarchy to what I have chosen to call affective individualism. I believe this to have been perhaps the most important change in mentalité to have occurred in the Early Modern period, indeed possibly in the last thousand years of Western history.

 

     Four key features of the modern family – intensified affective bonding of the nuclear core at the expense of neighbours and kin; a strong sense of individual autonomy and the right to personal freedom in the pursuit of happiness; a weakening of the association of sexual pleasure with sin and guilt; and a growing desire for physical privacy – were all well established by 1750 in the key middle and upper sectors of English society.

 

. . .

 

     Early Modern English society was composed of a number of very distinct status groups and classes: the court aristocracy, the county gentry, the parish gentry, the mercantile and professional elite, the small property owners in town and country, the respectable and struggling wage-earners, and the totally destitute who lived on charity and their wits. These constituted more or less self-contained cultural units, with their own communication networks, their own systems of value and their own patterns of acceptable behaviour. Internal cultural divisions between social groups ran much deeper than they do today, when the differences are as much between generations as between classes. As time went on and as writing and printing spread to become the main vehicle for the diffusion of ideas, the degree to which different social strata used or were affected by this new means of expression brought with it still more marked divisions. The result was less the suppression of one family pattern and set of family values by another than the provision of a widening number of quite different patterns.(pp.21-23)

 

In the third chapter, Stone describes the structure and values of the “open lineage family” before the appearance of patriarchy in the English family, which, by his estimation, occurred sometime around 1550.

 

     The most striking characteristic of the late medieval and early sixteenth-century family, at all social levels, was the degree to which it was open to external influences, a porosity that is in contrast to the more sealed off and private nuclear family type that was to develop in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Not only its individual members, but the nuclear family itself was strongly other-directed; The principal external agencies varied from class to class: among the landed elite being mainly the kin and the ‘good lord’; and among the peasantry, artisans and laborers being mainly the neighbors. In both cases the nuclear family had only weak boundaries to separate it from wider definitions of social space.

    

     In the late middle ages the nuclear family of the landed elite was no more than a loose core at the centre of a dense network of lineage and kin relationships. The degree to which the kin interacted with the nuclear core depended on social rank. It was dominated among the great aristocracy, very influential among the squirarchy, and still important among the parish gentry. The reason for this is the preoccupation with the preservation, increase and transmission through inheritance and marriage of the property and status of the lineage, of the generations of ancestors stretching back into the remote past. The larger the property and status, the more ancient the family on its ancestral acres, the more intense was the preoccupation with the lineage, and thus the greater the participation of the kin in the formation and daily life of the conjugal family. A great many of the functions now focused upon it, were then shared with kin. The family at this period cannot, therefore, be looked at in isolation, since at ‘every turn it was being affected by and interacting with kin relatives. Since the kin formed a community, marriage meant not so much intimate association with an individual as entry into a new world of the spouse’s relatives, uncles, nephews and distant cousins . . . .

 

     To understand the moral premises upon which such a society is based, it is necessary to rid ourselves of three modern Western culture-bound preconceptions. The first is that there is a clear dichotomy between marriage for interest, meaning money, status or power, and a

marriage for affect, meaning love, friendship or sexual attraction; and that the first is morally reprehensible. In practice in the sixteenth century, no such distinction existed; and if it did, affect was of secondary importance  to interest, while romantic love and lust were strongly condemned as ephemeral and irrational grounds for marriage. The second modern preconception is that sexual intercourse unaccompanied by an emotional relationship is immoral, and that marriage for interest is therefore a form of prostitution; The third is that personal autonomy, the pursuit by the individual of his or her own happiness, is paramount, a claim justified by the theory that it in fact contributes to the well-being of the group. To an Elizabethan audience the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, like that of Othello, lay not so much in their ill-starred romance as in the way they brought destruction upon themselves by violating the norms of the society in which they lived, which in the former case meant strict filial obedience and loyalty to the traditional friendships and enemies of the lineage. An Elizabethan courtier would be familiar enough with the bewitching passion of love to feel some sympathy with the young couple, but he would see clearly enough where duty lay.

 

     Marriage among the property-owning classes in sixteenth-century England was, therefore, a collective decision of family and kin, not an individual one. (pp.69-70)

 

In chapter 9, Stone describes parent-child relations in the “the closed domesticated nuclear family in the period of  1640-1800, when the new mode of family behavior embraced child-oriented, affectionate and permissive attitudes.

    

     There are four possible views about the nature of the new-born child, the adoption of each of which profoundly affects the way he is treated. The first, and most common, was the traditional Christian view, strongly reinforced by Calvinist theology, that the child is born with Original Sin, and that the only hope of holding it in check is by the most ruthless repression of his will and his total subordination to his parents, schoolmasters and others in authority over him. This religious view merely reinforced the current secular position that it is the duty of inferiors, like children, to give full obedience to superiors, like parents, and that early socialization in the need for such obedience and deference is an essential preparation for life in a strictly hierarchical society.

 

     The second view was the environmentalist one, that a child is born with a propensity towards neither good nor evil, but is a tabula rasa, malleable and open to being moulded by experience. As early as 1628 the Anglican John Earle observed that ‘the child is . . . the best copy of Adam before he tasted of Eve or the apple…. His soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with the observations of the world…. He knows no evil.’

 

     The third view was biological, that the character and potentialities of the child are genetically determined at conception, that there is little that subsequent environmental influence and educational efforts can do except to reinforce good habits and restrain bad ones. This view was of course fundamental to astrological theory, according to which both character and fate are largely determined by the configuration of the planets at the moment of birth (or possibly conception). But in practice seventeenth-century parents do not seem to have acted on this assumption, despite their faith in astrology. They continued to break the will of children in the hope of remoulding character. It was a view which only began to affect childrearing during the eighteenth century, and in 1744 Molly Lady Hervey wrote that children ‘acquire arts but not qualities; the latter whether good or bad, grow like their feature; time enlarges, but does not make them.’ Education, she believed, is powerless to change nature, ‘yet one may certainly help it.’

 

     The fourth view was utopian, that the child is born good and is corrupted only by his experience in society. This was an idea which had been propounded by some Renaissance humanists, but it had disappeared under the onslaught of the Calvinist doctrine of Original Sin. Early evidence  of its re-emergence in England appears in connection with the ‘noble savage’ in Mrs Aphra Behn’s play Oroonoko in 1688: ‘God makes all things good: man meddles with them and they become evil.’ The suggestion was ignored, until it was put forward with far greater publicity by Rousseau in the middle of the eighteenth century. Even then, however, it seems to have had little practical influence, although Emile was certainly widely read in England. In eighteenth-century England the environmental theory tended to supersede the Calvinist in middle- and upper-class circles , before it was overwhelmed again in the nineteenth century.

 

     In 1693 John Locke gave wide currency to the second – ‘piece of clean paper’ – point of view in his extremely popular handbook on education. His book coincided with the overthrow of Divine Right monarchy, the rejection of the doctrine of Passive Obedience, the granting of limited religious toleration and the passage of the Bill of Rights. The general relaxation of deferential and hierarchical practice in society, as reflected in these political changes, combined with Locke’s Some Thoughts upon Education to open the way for a new era in parent-child relations, and a much more relaxed and affectionate approach to the problems of child-rearing. The book was a success because the readership was already half prepared to accept its ideas; Its time had come.(pp.254-256)

 

In the second half of this book, Stone goes on to describe the mating criteria and the sexual attitudes and behavior of various social classes. He concluded Chapter 10, “Upper-Class Attitudes and Behavior” with an overview of changes in socially acceptable sexual behavior and the causes of this fluctuation.

 

     In the terms of the sexual attitudes of the upper classes, who more or less successfully imposed their values on their social inferiors, English society thus passed through several phases; a phase of moderate toleration lasting until towards the end of the sixteenth century; a phase of repression that ran from about 1570 to 1670; and a phase of permissiveness, even licence, that ran for over a century form 1670 to 1810. This was followed by a new wave of repression that began in 1770, was spreading fast by 1810, and reached its apogee in the mid-Vicrtorian period. After about 1870 this wave in turn receded, to be followed by a new period of permissiveness that has perhaps reached its apogee in the 1970s. These long-term see-saw oscillations do not seem to be connected to economic or political factors, but rather to cultural – and particularly religious – changes. Both sexual repression and sexual permissiveness eventually generate extremist features, which in turn set in motion counterforces which by a process of ‘social reversion’ slowly turn the pendulum back in the other direction. The duration of each of these swings of religio-ethical attitudes towards sexuality seems to have been about a hundred years. There is no reason to believe that there is a cyclical law in operation, for the swings can be accounted for by specific changes in religious enthusiasm, and by the time it takes for excesses to generate their own opposites.(p.339)

 

 

This chapter is followed by a detailed description of “gentlemanly sexual behaviour” using the diaries of Samual Pepys (1633-1703) and James Boswell (1740-1795).  Then, Stone embarks on the more problematic study of “plebeian sexual behaviour,” for which there is almost total absence of documentary first-hand accounts.  He concludes his discussion with a speculation on the causes of change in plebeian behavior.

 

It is clear that what needs explaining is a three-stage shift in the sexual behaviour of the English poor in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; first to an increase of pre-marital chastity in the early seventeenth century; then in the eighteenth century to greater visual and verbal permissiveness, far more pre-nuptial intercourse (usually followed by marriage), and a more or less simultaneous increase in the proportion of couples who failed to marry after pregnancy had occurred. Later still, in the very late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, a new wave of sexual prudery spread downwards from the lower-middle classes to the respectable poor, leaving unaffected only the very lowest elements of the society, the lumpenproletariat.

 

     The shifting attitude towards sexuality in western Europe in Early Modern times can be studied at three levels, that of the official moral theologians, that of the religious radicals, and that of an increasingly secular society. It seems likely, however, that the first was of critical importance only during the early seventeenth-century Puritan drive and that thereafter it was modified to conform to attitudes among the laity, and is thus a secondary variable from 1660 until the renewed Evangelical drive after 1770. As for the second , it had little or no temporary or permanent influence whatsoever in its own time or afterwards.

 

     There is every reason to believe that the chief cause of the unusually high and rising standard of sexual morality in early seventeenth-century England was the external pressure of Puritan organization and Puritan preaching, which slowly affected the attitudes of nearly all the propertied classes, whether Puritan, Anglican or Arminian. It became part of the generally accepted pattern of internalized and enforced social discipline, and thus seeped downwards through the social hierarchy to the plebs.(p.395)

 

Stone concludes this study on a somewhat pessimistic note, quoting Alexis de Tocqueville on the gains and losses of mankind with the rise of 19th-century democracy:

 

‘I do not know, on the whole, whether society loses by the change, but I am inclined to believe that man individually is a gainer by it. I think that in proportion as manners and laws become more democratic, the relation of father and son becomes more intimate and more affectionate. . . .  It would seem that the natural bond is drawn closer in proportion as the social bond is loosened.’ Such a cautiously favourable final judgement about the results of the rise of affective individualism seems best to fit the confused and conflicting evidence about the evolution of the family. However one assesses it in moral terms, for better or for worse, it is certainly one of the most significant transformations that has ever taken place, not only in the most intimate aspects of human life, but also in the nature of the social organization. It is geographically, chronologically and socially a most restricted and unusual phenomenon, and there is as little reason to have any more confidence in its survival and spread in the future as there is in that of democracy itself.(p.428)

 

 

In a separate work, Past and Present Revisited (1987), Professor Stone discusses historiography in general and specifically “the new history.” Referring to Fernand Braudel’s historic study of The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, as a classic example of the new history, he writes that “without question, [this book is] one of the most influential single works of history to have appeared since the Second World War.”

 

It is significant for two reasons. First, it stresses very heavily geography, ecology, and demography as the constraining factors which set strict limits  on all human action. Second, it frees itself entirely from any national perspective and ranges around the Mediterranean basin, seeing the great clash of Ottoman Islam and Latin Christianity that culminated in the battle of Lepanto in 1571 as a global whole, without any attempt to take sides. Compared with the vast inexorable tides of malaria, timber cutting, soil erosion, demographic growth and decline, bullion transfers, or price revolution, the actions of emperors like Philip II are made to seem of only marginal importance in the evolution of the societies  that developed around the great inland sea. This is deterministic, fatalistic history which is alien to both liberal believers in free will and progress and Marxist beliefs in sociological evolution based on changes in the modes of production. Neither group is happy with this pragmatic pessimism based on the iron limitations of Malthusianism and ecology.  . . .  This is not to argue that the Braudel model is either true or false, but merely to point out the radical shift of historical perspective involved in such borrowings from the social sciences.(pp.19-20)

 

From these readings, we might ask if Professor Stone has not given us a picture of the early cultivation of neo-liberal ideology, later to grow into capitalist globalization and amoral imperialist justifications for expansion and wholesale inequality, both at home and abroad. Is it not the morbid ideology and erroneous science of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) that can be seen today as historic seed grain for the current harvest of neoliberalism, which explains the bitter fruits of contemporary capitalism, as an applied ideology here and around the world?

 

 

 

 

The 17 + items below offer readers a diversity of views into the inner workings of political economy and specifically of class domination. It is a landscape filled with necessary distractions and scapegoats, which is required to keep the ball rolling up hill towards a greater concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Our inattentive participation (affective individualism) is essential for this game of imbalance to be played. Without us there is no game!

 

 

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.

Collective Guilt

A future of collective shame for decades to come,

and future indemnities to pay for the crimes of the rich

(A series of four interviews on state violence at the Mexican border & six essays on the politics of racism)

 

 

Meet Alvaro Enciso, the Artist Placing Crosses in Sonoran Desert to Memorialize Migrant Deaths

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/21/alvaro_enciso_unique_crosses_sonoran_desert

 

Activist Scott Warren, Facing Federal Charges for Aiding Migrants, Says He Won’t Be Deterred

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/19/no_more_deaths_scott_warren

 

“Humanitarian Aid Is Never a Crime”: No More Deaths Volunteers Drop Water in Desert to Aid Migrants

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/19/humanitarian_aid_is_never_a_crime

 

“They Are Irreplaceable, and They Mattered”: Group Identifies Human Remains Along the Border

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/19/robin_reineke_colibri_center_human_rights

 

 

 

 

Walmart Shooter Manifesto

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52053.h

 

Donald and Melania gleefully pose with the baby whose parents were murdered in El Paso shooting

Donald and Melania Trump posing with an infant who's parents were murdered in El Paso

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/9/1877853/-Donald-and-Melania-gleefully-posed-with-the-baby-who-s-parents-were-murdered-in-El-Paso-shooting?detail=emaildkre

 

Supreme Nihilism: the El Paso Shooter’s Manifesto

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/19/supreme-nihilism-the-el-paso-shooters-manifesto/  

by John O'Kane

 

Mass Shootings and Political Misuse of Them Have Unintended Consequences

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52052.htm

by Paul Craig Roberts

 

Blacks Don’t Blame Immigrants for the Boss’s Crimes

https://blackagendareport.com/blacks-dont-blame-immigrants-bosss-crimes

by Glen Ford

 

White Terror: Toni Morrison on the Construct of Racism

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/19/white-terror-toni-morrison-on-the-construct-of-racism/  

by Ipek S. Burnett

 

===========

 

b.

U.S. Sanctions are Meant to Cause Deliberate Human Suffering

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52159.htm

by Gary D. Barnett

+

CEOs Have the Whole System Gamed

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/robert-reich-ceos-have-the-whole-system-gamed/

by Robert Reich

 +

Psychiatrist On ‘The Essential Emptiness Of President Donald Trump’ | The Last Word | MSNBC - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B4nS1-ScYw

 

===========

 

c.

John Pilger warns: “Do not forget Assange. Or you will lose him”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/09/pilg-a09.html

 

 

NYC_Free_Assange_Profilebutton.jpg

Thursday Vigil to Free Julian Assange & Chelsea Manning

Thursday, August 8, 2019

The New York Times Bldg, 8th Ave. @ 40 Street, NYC

4:30 pm - 6:00 pm

+

 

New Fears for Julian Assange

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/07/new-fears-for-julian-assange/

+

Chelsea Manning Can Remain in Jail for Another Year, Judge Rules

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52062.htm

+

The Latest Victim in the Crucifixion of Julian Assange - Trut

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-latest-victim-in-the-persecution-of-julian-assange/

+

Despite briefing by Julian Assange’s lawyer, Australian politicians still refuse to defend him

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/03/assa-a03.html

+

40 rebuttals to the media's smears of Julian Assange

by someone who was actually there

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/20/cnn-media-smears-julian-assange-fidel-narvaez/

+

 

Julian Assange’s father warns WikiLeaks’ publisher’s health

is “declining rapidly” in Belmarsh Prison - World Socialist Web Site

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/20/ship-a20.html

 

+

Watch "Honest Government Ad | Julian Assange"

https://youtu.be/1efOs0BsE0g

+

Media dead silent as Wikileaks insider explodes the myths around Julian Assange - Michael West

https://www.michaelwest.com.au/media-dead-silent-as-wikileaks-insider-explodes-the-myths-around-julian-assange/

+

John Pilger calls out the US and UK for their "barbaric" and "lawless" treatment of publisher/journalist Julian Assange

https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1160659082564571145

 

+

Australian investigative journalist exposes Guardian/New York Times betrayal of Assange - World Socialist Web Site

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/10/assa-a10.html

+

cid:8C50C35F-B83D-4CA9-A443-9DCDB207467E

 

Thursday Vigil to Free Julian Assange & Chelsea Manning

Thursday, August 22, 2019

The New York Times Bldg, 8th Ave. @ 40 Street, NYC

4:30 pm - 6:00 pm

 

Revelations that The New York Times and The Guardian "set up" Assange in 2010, and played a "pivotal and consciously dishonest role in smearing him ever since," were exposed by Mark Davis at an event in Sydney, Australia on August 8, and reported by Kit Klarenberg.

 

We return to The New York Times on Thursday, August 22, to hold them accountable for their betrayal and cowardice as they published, along with The Guardian, and WikiLeaks, the Afgan War Logs.  We demand they now defend and protect Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Freedom of the Press. Please join us.

 

Note:  NYC Free Assange has come together to demand freedom for award-winning publisher and journalist Julian Assange and courageous whistle-blower Chelsea Manning.

 

===========

 

d.

RT NEWSLETTER - August 23, 2019

https://subscribe.rt.com/preview/L6WLSz

 

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e.

From: "Jim O'Brien via H-PAD" <h-pad@lists.historiansforpeace.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019
Subject: [H-PAD] H-PAD Notes 8/8/19: Links to recent articles of interest

 

 

Links to Recent Articles of Interest

 

"There Are No Lone Wolves"

By Juliette Kayyem, Washington Post, posted August 5 

"White-supremacist terror is rooted in a pack, a community." The author is a former assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security. 

 

"The Yakima Terror: Ninety Years Ago in Washington, a Wave of Anti-Immigrant Sentiment Resulted in Horror for Filipinos"

By Steve Ross, Slate, posted August 4

The author teaches history at the University of Southern California. 

 

"Citizens Facing Deportation Isn't New. Here's What Happened When the US Removed Mexican-Americans in the 1930s"

By Jasmine Aguilera, Time,  posted August 2 

On mass deportations, mainly during the Hoover administration. Based principally on the research of scholars Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez, authors of Decade of Betrayal.                                                                                                       

"Remembering the Red Summer 100 Years Later"

By David Krugler, History News Network, posted August 4

The author teaches US history at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. He proposes the term "antiblack collective violence" in place of "race riots."

 

"In the Trump Era, Americans Have Trouble Agreeing on the Past, Let Alone the Future"

By Andrew J. Bacevich, Roanoke Times, posted August 2

The author is a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University. 

 

"A Political 100-Year Flood: Trump's Venom Against the Media, Immigrants, 'Traitors,' and More Is Nothing New"

By Adam Hochschild, TomDispatch.com, posted August 1

On parallels with repression in the US in the World War I era. The author has written several widely read history books including To End All Wars about World War I in Britain.

 

"The Dangerous New US Consensus on China and the Future of US-China Relations"

By Mel Gurtov and Mark Selden, Asia-Pacific Journal, posted August 1.

Both of the authors have written widely over many years on East Asia and US policies toward the region.

 

"The GOP's Sinister New Nationalism: The Party's Assault on 'Globalists' and 'Cosmopolitans' Pushes Against Internationalism When It's Needed Most"

By John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus, posted July 31

The author is director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies.

 

"The Real Reason So Many Republicans Love Israel? Their Own White Supremacy"

By Peter Beinart, Forward, posted July 29

"They conflate love of Israel with love of America because they see Israel as a model for what they want America to be: an ethnic democracy." 

 

Thanks to an anonymous reader for suggesting one of the articles in the above list. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.

 

===========

 

f.

News From Underground

 

From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2019
Subject: [MCM] Five men sentenced to life for Operation Condor killings learned their craft at School of the Americas

 

From some three weeks ago, some news that didn't make the New York Times, 

or any other US corporate outlet (that I know of).

 

MCM

Published on Wednesday, July 17, 2019

By Common Dreams

 

Five Men Sentenced to Life for Operation Condor Killings Trained at

 

School of the Americas

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/17/five-men-sentenced-life-operation-condor-killings-trained-school-americas?

by Brett Wilkins

 

Revelation comes after Italian court sentences 24 men to life behind bars for roles in U.S.-backed state terror campaign.

Five of the 24 men sentenced last week by an Italian court to life in prison for their roles in a brutal and bloody U.S.-backed Cold War campaign against South American dissidents graduated from a notorious US Army school once known for teaching torture, assassination, and democracy suppression.

On July 8 judges in Rome’s Court of Appeals sentenced the former Bolivian, Chilean, Peruvian and Uruguayan government and military officials after they were found guilty of kidnapping and murdering 23 Italian nationals in the 1970s and 1980s during Operation Condor, a coordinated effort by right-wing military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil—and, later, Peru and Ecuador—against perceived leftist threats. The campaign, which was characterized by kidnappings, torture, disappearances and murder, claimed an estimated 60,000 lives, according to human rights groups. Victims included leftists and other dissidents, clergy, intellectuals, academics, students, peasant and trade union leaders, and indigenous peoples.

The United States government—including military and intelligence agencies—supported Operation Condor with military aid, planning, and technical support as well as surveillance and torture training during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations. Much of this support, which the U.S. attempted to justify within the context of the global Cold War struggle against communism, was based at U.S. military installations in Panama. It was there that the US Army opened the School of the Americas in 1946, which would graduate 11 Latin American heads of state over the following decades. None of them became their country’s leader by democratic means, leading critics to dub the SOA “School of Assassins” and “School of Coups” because it produced so many of both.

+

An Open Invitation to Tyranny

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52055.htm

by Paul Craig Roberts

 

The FBI has published a document that concludes that “conspiracy theories” can motivate believers to commit crimes.

Considering the growing acceptance of pre-emptive arrest, that is, arresting someone before they can commit a crime that they are suspected of planning to commit, challenging official explanations, such as those offered for the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King or the official explanation for 9/11, can now result in monitoring by authorities with a view to finding a reason for pre-emptive arrest.  Presidents George W. Bush and Obama created the police state precedents of suspension of habeas corpus and assassination of citizens on suspicion alone without due process.  If Americans can be preemptively detained indefinitely and preemptively assassinated,  Americans can expect to be preemptively imprisoned for crimes that they did not commit.

+

Inside the Submissive Void: Propaganda, Censorship, Power and Control

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52060.htm

 

===========

 

g.

News From Underground

 

From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Subject: [MCM] Israel NEEDS anti-semites, and vice-versa

 

Israel needs anti-semites—or "anti-semites"—to get Jews everywhere, and especially the USA, to

rally round its flag (a strategy that's failing); and (real) anti-semites need the Jewish State, to cast 

their Jew-hatred as anti-Zionism (a strategy that's working all too well).

 

In any case, it's notable indeed, as Mairav Zonszein tweets, that Israel lets in Gavin McInnes, despite

that goon's virulent, outspoken anti-semitism. (Check out his video, "10 things I hate about Jews," at 

https://forward.com/fast-forward/366077/watch-vice-co-founder-makes-10-things-i-hate-about-jews-video/.)

 

And it's also notable that Israel, despite its endless bellowing against the "anti-semitism" of BDS et al.,

supported the US-installed junta in Ukraine—a regime full of outright neo-Nazis—and even armed its

SS-bedazzled forces fighting in the East:

http://markcrispinmiller.com/2018/08/israel-is-arming-ukraines-neo-nazi-fighters/

 

Such Nazi-friendliness should come as no surprise, since Zionism's fiercest champions have always

been racial supremacists, just like the Nazis—with whom they actually saw eye to eye, back in

the Thirties (as Lenni Brenner makes quite clear in his two must-read books, Zionism in the Age of 

the Dictators and 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis.

 

MCM 

 

+

Jewish Settlers Rule the Roost in Israel, but at What Price?

https://www.mintpressnews.com/jewish-settlers-rule-the-roost-in-israel-but-at-what-price/261415/

+

Israel Chooses Short-Term Land Grabs Over Long-Term Legitimac

https://www.mintpressnews.com/with-trumps-help-israel-land-grabs-long-term-legitimacy/261398/

+

Kushner's Threat to Palestine: An Interview with Norman Finkelstein

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/20/kushners-threat-to-palestine-an-interview-with-norman-finkelstein/

+

"Israel: Breaking the Silence” -  DW Documentary

https://youtu.be/zxsWrzpqnRs

+

Iran warns Israel against aiding US mission in Strait of Hormuz

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/iran-warns-israel-aiding-mission-strait-hormuz-190809113216286.html

 

===========

 

h.

China Rising

 

 

 

Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52075.htm

by Ellen Brown

 

Xi’s choice: Destroy Trump, or save him and weaken America - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/xis-choice-destroy-trump-or-save-him-and-weaken-america/2019/08/20/c6e6f934-c384-11e9-9986-1fb3e4397be4_story.html

 

China Just Went Nuclear In The Trade War, And There Is No Turning Back Now

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52058.htm

 

The United States Will Miss China’s Money – Foreign Policy

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/19/the-united-states-will-miss-chinas-money/

 

From trade war to currency war. Global economy braces for difficult times ahead (Video)

https://theduran.com/from-trade-war-to-currency-war-global-economy-braces-for-difficult-times-ahead-video/

 

Is the Federal Reserve losing control of the gold price?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52067.htm

 

Defying U.S. Sanctions, China and Others Take Oil From 12 Iranian Tankers - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/03/world/middleeast/us-iran-sanctions-ships.html

 

Hong Kong protests a ‘Trojan horse’ – Galloway

https://youtu.be/pHphvh2TiQE

 

Hong Kong’s Crisis as Microcosm of the World’s Future

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/31/hong-kongs-crisis-as-microcosm-of-the-worlds-future/

 

"China warns against US rush to plant missiles in Asia"

https://youtu.be/LMqvUWnu3dw

 

Watch "Trump tries to stave off concerns over economic downturn"

https://youtu.be/t5pPNCGpdH

 

===========

 

i.

Hong Kong protests turn violent

as China remains firm in extradition law

https://youtu.be/0jTJhxJX2Cs

+

Hong Kong, Kashmir: a Tale of Two Occupations

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52070.htm

+

The World According to George Galloway

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-world-according-to-george-galloway/

 

===========

 

j.

The Electronic Intifada

How Israeli spies are flooding Facebook and Twitter

https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israeli-spies-are-flooding-facebook-and-twitter/27596?fbclid=IwAR2SKtdwWfklVvzX1xlYUHZZyoEg3aoGIgQKUAIoqiBdUiFrGHwEj0ujJ1g

by Asa Winstanley

+

From: "The National Security Archive" <nsarchiv@gwu.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 9, 2019
Subject: Kissinger Told Soviet Envoy during 1973 Arab-Israeli War: "My Nightmare is a Victory for Either Side" – The Soviet Agreed

 

http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/51540/images/logo-slogan.jpg

 

Kissinger Told Soviet Envoy during 1973 Arab-Israeli War: “My Nightmare is a Victory for Either Side” – The Soviet Agreed

New Kissinger Telcons Shed Light on U.S. Policy during the War as Well as Nixon's Nomination of Gerald Ford for Vice President

Nixon Described Ford to HAK as a “Bright Truman”

Posting Comes on Anniversary of Nixon's Resignation in 1974

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 680

View the posting

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/kissinger-at-one-of-his-first-press-conferences-12-october-1973.jpgWashington, D.C., August 9, 2019 – Several previously unknown Henry Kissinger memoranda of telephone conversations – or telcons – from October 1973, uncovered by the National Security Archive, provide blunt and fascinating vignettes from a significant moment during the Nixon presidency. 

In one record about the Yom Kippur War, the secretary of state candidly tells Soviet envoy Anatoly Dobrynin it would be a “nightmare” if either side won.  In another, the president comments that Gerald Ford, who would soon be named vice president, was a “safe” choice, reminding Nixon of a “bright Truman.”  That telcon consisted of a somewhat disjointed conversation with the president that prompted Kissinger to confide in his deputy later that the “President was loaded.”

The telcons posted today, on the anniversary of Nixon's resignation as president, were included in the National Archives' response to a declassification request by the National Security Archive 19 years ago, in 2000.  It is not clear why they were not part of the previously known major collections released since 2004 by the National Archives and the State Department largely in response to the threat of legal action. 

 

Check out today's posting at the National Security Archive

 

 

Read Unredacted, the Archive blog

 

 

THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by publication royalties and donations from foundations and individuals.

PRIVACY NOTICE The National Security Archive does not and will never share the names or e-mail addresses of its subscribers with any other organization. Once a year, we will write you and ask for your financial support. We may also ask you for your ideas for Freedom of Information requests, documentation projects, or other issues that the Archive should take on. We would welcome your input, and any information you care to share with us about your special interests. But we do not sell or rent any information about subscribers to any other party.

 

 

 

National Security Archive, Suite 701
Gelman Library
The George Washington University
2130 H Street, NW
Washington, D.C., 20037
Phone: 202/994-7000<
Fax: 202/994-7005
nsarchiv@gwu.edu

+

Feeding the Israel Lobby: Congress Gives the Jewish State Whatever it Wants

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52054.htm

 

===========

 

 

k.

From “Spook Air” to the “Lolita Express”: The Genesis and Evolution of the Jeffrey Epstein-Bill Clinton Relationship

https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/whitney-webb/

by Whitney Webb

 

Far from being the work of a single political party, intelligence agency or country, the power structure revealed by the network connected to Epstein is nothing less than a criminal enterprise that is willing to use and abuse children in the pursuit of ever more power, wealth and control.

+

Long Before Epstein: Sex Traffickers & Spy Agencies

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/23/long-before-epstein-sex-traffickers-spy-agencies/

+

The Pseudo Debate Over Jeffrey Epstein’s Suicide

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/20/the-pseudo-debate-over-jeffrey-epsteins-suicide/

+

Jeffrey Epstein Accuser Names Powerful Men in Alleged Sex Ring

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52069.htm

 

===========

 

l.

News From Underground

 

From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2019
Subject: [MCM] Greenpeace warns Korea of Japan's discharge of 1 billion liters of radioactive water

 

Labor & Environment

 

Greenpeace warns Korea of Japan's radioactive water discharge

 

http://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/newsV2/images/plant_100c7da894b13.jpg/dims/resize/740/optimize

Storage tanks for radioactive water are seen at Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, in this picture taken on Feb. 18. Reuters

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2019/08/371_273618.html?fbclid=IwAR30oqH5widBklvDekDWG7wr7nG5osyRrCGqOjG8HCKvDG0PGC5wz1o7R3Q

by Kim Jae-heun



An international environment organization has said that Japan plans to discharge radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean in the near future and Korea will fall particularly vulnerable.

Greenpeace Korea, the global NGO's branch in Seoul, reposted on Facebook, Wednesday, a column by its nuclear specialist Shaun Burnie published in The Economist, saying Japan is planning to discharge more than 1 billion liters of contaminated water stored at the Fukushima nuclear plant since the massive earthquake and nuclear disaster of 2011.

Burnie wrote in his article that the Japanese government has decided recently to take the "cheapest and fastest" way to dispose wastewater, which is to discharge it into the Pacific Ocean.

The scientist added neighboring countries will be exposed to radiation as a result and Korea, in particular, will suffer the most from it. 

He claimed that if 1 million tons of radioactive water is discharged into the ocean, it will take 17 years and 770 million tons of water to dilute it, adding it is impossible not to discharge it without contaminating the ocean, and countries in the Pacific region will be exposed to radiation.

 

===========

 

m.

In-Depth Interview: Author Kris Newby and Prof. Mark Crispin Miller Talk About Chronic Lyme Disease, and Its Likely Origins

https://www.peterbcollins.com/2019/08/06/in-depth-interview-author-kris-newby-and-prof-mark-crispin-miller-talk-about-chronic-lyme-disease-and-its-likely-origins/

+

Watch "Is the Rise in Lyme Disease Due to Weaponized Ticks?"

https://youtu.be/t7lbkyGPPcw

 

===========

 

n.

Climate Chaos

 

"On Contact: Climate Emergency with Roger Hallam, Extinction Rebellion"

https://youtu.be/Y9MQGRI8N48

 

Documents Reveal Monsanto Surveilled Journalists, Activists & Even Musician Neil Young | Democracy Now!

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/9/monsanto_fusion_center_surveillance_of_critics

 

How to Understand the IPCC’s New Climate Warning - The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/how-think-about-dire-new-ipcc-climate-report/595705/

 

Stunning New Map Finally Reveals How Ice Flows From Antarctica to The Sea

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-new-map-combines-decades-of-data-to-reveal-how-ice-flows-from-antarctica-to-the-sea

 

Glaciologists unveil most precise map ever of Antarctic ice velocity | Watts Up With That?

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/30/glaciologists-unveil-most-precise-map-ever-of-antarctic-ice-velocity/

 

Decades-old pollutants melting out of Himalayan glaciers

https://phys.org/news/2019-08-decades-old-pollutants-himalayan-glaciers.html

 

Brazil’s Massive Crime Against Humanity

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52012.htm

 

There's Something You Must Know About Trees And Their Role in Climate Change

https://www.sciencealert.com/how-much-more-carbon-can-our-forests-actually-soak-up


U.N. Calls for Protection of the Amazon as Rainforest Burns at Record Pace
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/23/headlines/un_calls_for_protection_of_the_amazon_as_rainforests_burn_at_record_pace

+

https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2019/8/23?autostart=127.0

Indigenous Communities Say Brazil’s President Is Encouraging Destruction of Forestshttps://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/23/headlines/indigenous_communities_say_brazils_president_is_encouraging_destruction_of_forests

+

https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2019/8/23?autostart=127.0

 

===========

 

o.

From the Avaaz team.

 

Take Action Now!

https://open.avaaz.org/act/open/16143862330.gif

Dear friends,
The Arctic is BURNING, creating a smoke cloud bigger than the European Union!!

The planet hasn’t seen anything like it in 10,000 years -- July was the hottest month ever recorded!
This isn’t global warming. It’s global scorching. And it’s going to get much, much worse…

It's terrifying, but nothing is more dangerous than giving up hope - because
we CAN still turn this nightmare scenario into a beautiful, clean, green future for our children and grandchildren!

That’s why Avaaz is going all out on a 16-month plan to turn things around -- beginning at a decisive UN climate summit next month, and culminating at the end of next year at the most important climate talks since the Paris deal was inked. Here’s how we can win:

  • Push governments to declare a climate emergency and commit to 100% clean energy
  • Help get millions to join brave children for the biggest climate strike in history next month
  • Offer trainings to the most inspiring youth climate leaders around the world
  • Face down Big Oil blockers and their cronies wherever they threaten to take power

But for this to work, we need to get started right now! If 15,000 of us donate just the cost of a coffee per week, we can power this global climate resistance to defend everything we love.

Chip in what you can now -- and
let’s build a world we’re proud to pass onto our children:

Some have already given up on tackling climate change. But the truth is, we already have all the tools we need to create a thriving clean, green global economy! Renewable energy is now often cheaper than fossil fuels, and around the world, an inspiring movement of young leaders is rising, determined to secure a 100% clean future for all of us.

Right now they’re coming under vicious attack from climate deniers and the fossil fuel industry, but together we can throw the power of our movement behind them and go all out ahead of next month’s summit -- then, 
show up at every major political moment in the next 16 months, fighting for everything we love!! 

No other movement has the global reach to do this everywhere, and at scale. Avaaz, and everything we achieve in the world, is funded 100% by small donations like this --
so chip in a small weekly amount, and let’s fight for a future worth living:

Before the Paris climate talks, they said our movement’s goal of 100% clean energy was impossible. But together, we made magic happen, with massive global marches, beautiful actions and smart inside advocacy, and now countries around the world are producing 100% clean plans! But too many are lagging behind, putting everything at risk -- and our movement of millions is needed again.

With hope, love and lots of determination,

Bert, Marigona, Joseph, Risalat, Rosa and the whole Avaaz team

PS - This might be your first donation to our movement ever. But what a first donation! Did you know that Avaaz relies entirely on small donations from members like you? That's why we're fully independent, nimble and effective. Join the over 1 million people who've donated to make Avaaz a real force for good in the world.


More Information:

Climate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months (BBC)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48964736

Huge swathes of the Arctic on fire, ‘unprecedented’ satellite images show (The Independent)
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/arctic-circle-wildfires-climate-change-greenland-alaska-siberia-photographs-a9015851.html

Arctic wildfires spew soot and smoke cloud bigger than EU (The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/12/arctic-wildfires-smoke-cloud 

In Europe, a historic heat wave is shattering records with astonishing ease, may hasten Arctic melt (Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/07/24/europe-historic-heat-wave-is-shattering-records-with-astonishing-ease-may-hasten-arctic-melt/

'Everyone Should Mobilize': Climate Leaders Urge Massive Turnout for Sept. 20 Global Climate Strikes (Common Dreams)
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/24/everyone-should-mobilize-climate-leaders-urge-massive-turnout-global-climate-strikes

 

===========

 

p.

The Yellow Vest Movement in France

 

 

Yellow vests come out in support of nation’s truckers - Portugal Resident

https://www.portugalresident.com/2019/08/08/yellow-vests-come-out-in-support-of-nations-truckers/

 

Macron on brink: French president crisis as support plummets – shock poll  | World | News | Express.co.uk

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1162109/emmanuel-macron-france-news-macron-approval-ratings-yellow-vests-gilets-jaunes

 

Macron on brink: French president accused of ‘contempt’ amid rash of attacks on MP offices | World | News | Express.co.uk

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1163433/emmanuel-macron-france-news-Christian-Jacob-EU-canada-trade-deal

 

French farmers damage more offices of Macron MPs over trade deals | Article [AMP] | Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-protests-idUSKCN1UY1UV

 

France chaos: Police and protesters clash after man's death - Macron under pressure | World | News | Express.co.uk

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1161438/france-protests-Steve-Maia-Canico-nantes-emmanuel-macron-yellow-vest-police

 

Macron minister sparks outrage after comparing Yellow Vests’ actions to a ‘terror attack’ | World | News | Express.co.uk

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1161086/macron-news-yellow-vest-protest-violence-reform-ceta-trade-deal-terror-attack

 

Macron news: Yellow Vest riots to continue as President warned of voters' rage | World | News | Express.co.uk

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1160154/macron-news-france-yellow-vest-protest-economic-reforms-latest

 

French Authorities to Crack Down on Protest as 13,000 Police Mobilize for G7 Summit https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/23/headlines/french_authorities_to_crack_down_on_protest_as_13_000_police_mobilize_for_g7_summit

+
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2019/8/23?autostart=127.0
 

===========

 

q.

Myth of Justness

https://worldbeyondwar.org/category/myths/not-just/

+

The Deep State Hiding in Plain Sight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYS647HTgks

Moyers & Company

(April 15, 2014)

 +

World War 3: The West is ALREADY at war with Russia and China - warns John Pilger

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1169676/World-War-3-Russia-US-Donald-Trump-China-G7-Vladimir-Putin-rt-trade-war-tariffs-video