Bulletin N° 875

 

 

Films for the Humanities & Sciences

“Human, All Too Human” - Nietzsche

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

BBC production, directed by Simon Chu and published by Ilker Yoldas,

June 2015

 (50min)

 

 

 

 

Subject : “Where you see ideals, I see what is human; alas, all too human.” – F. Nietzsche.

 

 

 

January 10, 2020

Grenoble, France

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

 

In his book Human, All Too Human (1878), Friedrich Nietzsche wrote of “free will” as a delusion, using hundreds of aphorisms in which he discussed metaphysics, the Christian idea of good and evil, religious worship, the idea of divine inspiration in art, social Darwinism, the respective roles of men, women, and children in society, the power of the state, and in a final section “Man Alone with Himself”:

 

At the waterfall. When we see a waterfall, we think we see freedom of will and choice in the innumerable turnings, windings, breakings of the waves; but everything is necessary; each movement can be calculated mathematically. Thus it is with human actions; if one were omniscient, one would be able to calculate each individual action in advance, each step in the progress of knowledge, each error, each act of malice. To be sure the acting man is caught in his illusion of volition; if the wheel of the world were to stand still for a moment and an omniscient, calculating mind were there to take advantage of this interruption, he would be able to tell into the farthest future of each being and describe every rut that wheel will roll upon. The acting man's delusion about himself, his assumption that free will exists, is also part of the calculable mechanism.(Human, All Too Human,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human,_All_Too_Human#cite_note-8 )

 

 

Nietzsche's radical study is echoed in the pathos expressed in the writings of the late American historian, Professor Gabriel Kolko, who in one of his many classic works, Century of War: Politics, Conflicts and Society since 1914 (1994), wrote this sensitive description of “The Polish Torment” at the advent of World War Two.

 

The nuances and complexities in fathoming and making judgments on the relationship between the Nazi occupiers and those who administered the governmental and economic institutions they sought to utilize are so problematic in western Europe because the personal risks for anyone in a senior post who hesitated or refused to participate in Nazi plans involved their careers and fortunes, or the material welfare of their families, but their lives were not often at stake. Organizations as such had few choices, for the Nazis had both the power and the will to utilize them, but those who headed them were dispensable and there were always people eager, and generally able, to replace them. Concerning those in less exalted positions, until 1943 even worker’s or farmers, who were essentially anonymous and whom the Nazis disregarded outside their roles in institutions (of which they were but small cogs), could also usually choose courses that spared them the hazards of destructions.

 

     Moral judgments regarding the conduct of people facing such predicaments are possible, and to the degree that the context in which men and women exist is nonlethal, they become less and less problematic. For in a world full of crises constantly threatening to undermine, erode and destroy national values and social organizations, moral judgments regarding the objective consequences of individual action or inaction are not only possible and far easier, but are obligatory insofar as preserving minimal norms for necessary individual reactions to evil and oppression become a prerequisite for continuity of civilized human behavior and life itself, above all in situations that intrinsically require of the difficult and even dangerous personal choices. Although not everyone can or even should play a heroic role, the perpetuation and attainment of rational human values and institutions depends very heavily upon the existence of a sufficient number of foolhardy and selfless idealists preparing at a cost to their own material and physical welfare to inhibit or resist instructional oppression and stimulate needed social changes, for if only egoists and opportunists peopled the world, then chaos would quickly replace human civilization in the positive meaning of that term. After 1942 a very small number of west Europeans began to confront such issues and take what actions their values demanded.

 

     For those living every day in eastern Europe’s vortex of total oppression, where the risks of death were overwhelming, each individual was required to adopt altogether distinctive criteria for personal conduct when survival became the principal objective of his or her life. The measure of acceptable or ideal human behavior, if not theoretically for moral philosophers reflecting comfortably after the events then at least in reality, became radically more problematic in those situations where everyone’s choices of action were tantamount to decisions involving life or nearly certain death. Once we comprehend the irreversible predicaments that millions on the verge of destruction confronted, the standards for praise and condemnation become far more difficult, notwithstanding the need to maintain a socially responsible basis for judging individual conduct in the face of evil. The very notion of people acting in a minimally socially responsible manner implicitly precludes the prospect of instant death of those behaving with a modicum of decency. In western Europe such risks existed but were not the inviolable rule, but in Poland they were: one could easily die any day in countless ways, and for reasons that were often wholly capricious - nearly 6 million Poles perished and the imminence of death became integral to existence. Even today, after nearly a century of barbarism and war, there are simply no sufficiently nuanced and sensitive moral criteria for facilely evaluating human comportment in the midst of cataclysms.

 

     It was the existence of such cataclysmic options that profoundly affected the relationship of Poles to the Nazi-managed government, which employed about 280,000 of them. The Nazis ignored entirely The Hague conventions on occupied countries that they nominally respected in western Europe, but collaborators and members of the Polish Home Army alike were eager to work in the Nazi regime, for only in that manner could one markedly improve one’s chances of survival or, in many instances, assist the Resistance. There were upwards of 1 million genuine collaborators by the summer of 1944, according to Nazi estimates, not including the many Poles among the 100,000 prewar residents of Poland who claimed to be Germans by blood.

 

     Wartime Poland was a nightmare. Blackmailing Jews in hiding or secret Resistance members became widespread. Banditry, much less ordinary thievery, became an increasingly common and ultimately widespread fact of existence that far transcended servicing the black market or the corruption endemic in maintaining it. All of these activities were simply basic forms of survival for those determined to live at any price. Indeed, banditry assumed ostensibly patriotic shapes also, although the population itself could never tell the difference, and it extended the grave problems of living in urban areas to the far more affluent countryside. Disputes between underground organizations or over property, or personal and even family squabbles were resolved when someone sent an anonymous denunciation to the Nazi police – which occurred in at least hundreds of cases. Profound and growing social disintegration and social anarchy produced all the other symptoms associated with violence; alcoholism was the most common by far, but occult practices also flourished in diverse forms: the belief in millennial rumors, fortune-telling, astrology, and the like. Criminal behavior, usually for personal but sometimes for social ends, became pervasive.

 

     In effect, Poland’s social organization, and the human bonds and obligations upon which a normal society is based, disintegrated to such an extent that widespread collaboration became integral to the antisocial context which suffused the nation. The population was to an extraordinary degree desocialized and reduced to the most private existences as individuals and their families sought ways to survive. The systemic corruption built into the economy and daily existence reinforced this destruction of a sense of community and social solidarity among much of the population. This insensitivity to each other was also an inevitable concomitant of the large majority of Poles’s profound anti-Semitism and indifference, if not initial sympathy among many toward the Nazi persecution of the Jews – which eventually moderated to mere neutrality when the Poles realized that the Nazis were committing genocide. Although there was absolutely nothing that the Poles in their adversity could safely do to prevent it, the fact remains that much Jewish property fell into the hands of many of them, few of whom welcomed any changes that might require them to return it.

 

     Both Jews and Poles suffered a common tragedy in the large areas of Poland where ethnic Ukrainians and White Russians were dominant. The bulk of the latter were farmhands who, like people everywhere, were victims caught in the maelstrom of war: they might become Red Army soldiers or partisans, or be suspected of being enemies and killed; or they could volunteer to become menial auxiliaries of the initially victorious German army, and possibly live. Not many had political convictions but merely wanted to survive the war in the face of the Nazi colossus. Most detested the Poles, who had persecuted all of its minorities for decades. Some unquestionably accepted Nazi arms to murder at least 60,000 of their Polish neighbors, or to avenge themselves against Polish partisans who slaughtered entire Ukrainian villages. When the Nazis began to use some of them as concentration–camp guards or policemen, the Ukrainians or White Russians who volunteered for the Nazi-created auxiliaries were the inevitable deadly products of the intense nationalist prejudices and violence that had inspired Poland’s rulers until then. The Nazis recruited almost a half-million of these support forces by the summer of 1942, only about one-fifth of whom lived in Poland itself and then lost track of their growth, which may have reached as high as 1.2 million the following year. They helped to kill countless numbers of Jews, Poles, and their own countrymen.

 

     This profoundly destructive transformation of human attitudes and behavior in the face of imminent death affected even the Jewish community, whose manpower the Nazis sought to use for the time- and labor-consuming tasks of the Holocaust in much the same way that they also attempted elsewhere to employ Europe’s people and economy to extend their own resources. The Nazi-sponsored Judenräte – Jewish councils – grew out of the prewar organizations that had for generations dealt with the outside political authorities on behalf of the Jewish community, although the Nazis established them anew in the USSR; 43percent of the members of the Judenrat had been active in Jewish councils and organizations before the war, principally as Zionists. The Judenrat’s major assignment was to list and deliver Jews for ‘resettlement.’ Many Jewish leaders heroically refused the Nazi demands that they share the Judenrat’s work and died for it, but thousands agreed, and some even volunteered. Many of them, vainly in the case of four-fifths, hoped to save their families and themselves thereby. Some treated their Judenrat roles as simply a means of prospering; a few were very corrupt. At first many of them handed over lists of the old, the very young, and the sick, but during the great harvest of lives in Lodz and Warsaw in 1942 the Judenrat names became more ‘democratic.’ In 1942 the councils worked too slowly for the Nazis, who supplemented them with their own forces, but the majority of the Judenräte also opposed resistance and did much to discourage it.

 

     The Nazis unquestionably would have destroyed the Jewish community without the aid of the Judenräte, although they would have been less efficient and lives may have been overlooked or spared thereby, and no one doubts that the vast majority of its members detested the unenviable positions into which they had fallen. But the Judenräte needed their own staffs to fulfill their tasks, and in Warsaw they had about 6,000 employees, over one-third as police – all but 100 of whom were essentially unpaid volunteers. A majority of the Jewish policemen had been merchants and artisans by trade, and the Nazis preferred to hire refugees with no close ties to the local community. A small portion of them were Resistance members seeking to exploit the police forces, and some of the police attempted to maintain good relations with the underground, which meant they could perform useful tasks at various times. Two-fifths of the police were members of Zionist parties, among whom the Revisionists (who before the war had evolved a quasi-fascist ideology and wore brown shirts) composed almost a half of this excrescence of the human condition in extreme distress. But all were uniformly detested and feared by those over whom they ruled with mounting arrogance. They normally had wooden and rubber clubs, but during the Vilna roundup on October 1942 the Nazis entrusted them with guns. Notwithstanding exceptions, as a whole these volunteer police exploited fully the potential for corruption inherent in their control over the fates of people; many lived very well, they were key figures in the smuggling trade, and they became reliable collaborators with the Nazis in their demonic project to destroy all Jews.(pp.233-237)

 

And in the following section of the same chapter, “European Responses to World War Two,” Kolko continues his comparative description of the process of mass socialization when fully collaborating with totalitarian culture, and occasionally the subsequent mental migration beyond - a condition he calls Atantisme.’ He introduces this section, “Attentisme and Public Opinion,” with the following observations:

 

Collaboration was widespread everywhere in occupied Europe, above all among the small group of prewar business and government leaders whose decisions had always compelled the masses to conform to their policies. But independently of the overwhelming constraints others imposed on their opposition, Europe’s people felt beaten and demoralized, and what very little defiance there was at the inception went virtually unrecorded. Collaboration unquestionably harnessed much of the Continent’s economic resources and manpower to the Nazi war effort, and so long as Hitler succeeded, the willingness of countless millions to tolerate such a course persisted in spite of the war’s mounting costs to the occupied peoples in terms of lives lost or recast, and of hunger and want. However much they disliked the Nazi cause, Europe’s people obeyed their orders, and at least two years passed before significant exceptions arose.

 

     The motives for collaboration varied so radically – from the weight of a sense of overwhelming defeatism, to sheer terror and oppression, to a genuine preference for fascist solutions, and much else – that simplistic explanations remain misleading. Poland revealed how the Nazis ultimately defined almost completely the parameters of possible behavior, disintegrating the very fabric of social life and organization in the course of imposing total terror. Vichy France favored the defeat of the USSR and Great Britain, aligning a traditional, eminently respectable, and reactionary ruling class with Hitler for reasons that principally reflected their free choice. In Belgium and Holland, notwithstanding the earlier-mentioned fascination among big-business and financial elements for an integrated European economy akin to the Nazi ‘New Order,’ the basic influence guiding the traditional leaders of both nations’ collaboration was their belief during 1940-41 that the Nazis had won the war and that they had to prepare to live as well as possible with the calamity. By comparing the Belgians and Dutch to the French we can better assess how many fewer compromises the former made than they might have, and these should not be minimized. But in all three nations the pillars of the business community operated as normally as possible, and while very few could have kept their factories from operating, many sought also to profit.

 

     The transition from collaboration to attentisme,’ which involved people conforming in their daily conduct but also beginning to withdraw the moral or political support they once gave a regime, while at the same time passively waiting for it to be replaced, is a stance inherently too ambiguous to measure or even describe precisely. There were many who always subjectively disliked, even detested, the Nazi-dominated status quo and yet aided it greatly in many functional ways for diverse reasons, including for some a belief that only by working with an authority could they mitigate its evils. Attentisme is a transitional phase between support and opposition to a ruling power, inspired by anything from a wholly opportunistic urge to be on the winning side, whichever it is, to a critical posture as yet incapable of finding expression in personal behavior. It is less an individual endorsement of a new political option than a mental retraction of toleration or support for an old one. For many it leads no further, for others it is a stage before becoming a part of the opposition when the risks are no longer so overwhelmingly dangerous. The politics of withdrawal and survival can remain politics nonetheless, because beneath the external posture of caution there frequently exists a set of residual attitudes, including perceptions of reality, which are often an intermediate stance fully capable of later being organized at the right time if the leadership or proper context arises. Forces and events inevitably affect people and produce a latent, potentially radicalized consciousness among many of those who have lost the material preconditions for survival or are exhausted. By itself inconclusive, attentisme among the masses is an interval pregnant with potential.

 

     But in social terms and certainly at least in the short run, the practical consequences of individuals’ behavior immeasurably outweighs the often opaque meaning of their subjective feelings, which are in the last analysis proper topics for psychologists or intellectual historians rather than social analysts.(pp.237-238)

 

 

Professor Kolko, whose writings are much influenced by the teachings of Karl Marx and Max Weber, emphasizes the political aspects of Political Economy. In our age of Monetarism-gone-wild, this emphasis on behavior is justified for a better understanding of the matrix in which we live; reminding us that when we study contemporary economic activities we are not simply examining the natural laws of some immutable System and the function of its intricate inner-relationships; rather, very often we are investigating criminal behavior at the highest level against civil society.

 

 

The 18 +  items below will bring to the attention of readers those activities of contemporary capitalists which are, at best, criminal negligence and often constitute nothing less than premeditated homicide and even ecocide. The private ownership of production and the private profit motive, which governs our behavior today, has infected society on the scale of a global epidemic, affecting all individuals in institutions and organizations, at every level, making empathy all but impossible and resistance almost unimaginable.

 

 

 

Sincerely,

Francis Feeley

---

Professeur honoraire de l'Université Grenoble-Alpes
Ancien Directeur de Researches
Université de Paris-Nanterre
Director of The Center for the Advanced Study
of American Institutions and Social Movements
(CEIMSA-in-Exile)
The University of California-San Diego
http://www.ceimsa.org 

 

 

 

a.

“Surveillance Capitalism

https://youtu.be/hIXhnWUmMvw

 (video, 50min)

with Shoshana Zuboff

 

+

David Harvey Talks about “The Crimes of Capitalism”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5zLfhGIR0c

(audio, 30min)

with Jeremy Scahill

 

For the past year, we’ve all experienced an intense sort of political or news vertigo. It’s making us dumber by the day. Of course, part of this is due to the fact that Donald Trump is president and he constantly scoops the story of the latest outrage about himself by performing yet another outrage just as we start discussing the previous one. It’s exhausting and brain melting. But this is also because major media organizations have all chosen to constantly chase the rabbit. In a way, all of us in media are complicit. When we’re constantly on the run, it’s very difficult to take stock of where we are and where we’ve been. To take a good look at the big picture becomes a luxury that none of us seem able to afford. And this is going to have serious consequences. Our brains are actually being altered. The way we process news and information, our ideas about what constitutes resistance and what constitutes tyranny. In general, we live in a society that doesn’t study its own history — its unvarnished history. And often current events are analyzed in a vacuum that almost never includes the context or history necessary to understand what’s new, what’s old, and how we got to where we are. We’ve become detached from our own reality and our own work.

+

From: CovertAction Magazine [mailto:info@CovertActionMagazine.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2020
Subject: JULIAN ASSANGE: Countdown to Freedom--new podcast series--interviews on upcoming extradition trial

https://mailchi.mp/f184082c7c12/julian-assange-countdown-to-freedom-news-breaking-radio-series-on-his-upcoming-extradition-trial-852079?e=361aa6282e

 

===========

 

b.

 

The Assassination of Qassem Soleimani:

What Would Crassus Say?

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/06/the-assassination-of-qassem-soleimani-what-would-crassus-say/

by John Wight

 

===========

 

c.

 “Trump Kills #1 Enemy Of Isis In Iran, WTF?”

https://youtu.be/wjWllto0Xzg

with Jimmy Dore & Max Blumenthal

+

Trump Sparked “Unnecessary Crisis” by Killing Soleimani,

Barely Avoiding War

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/9/andrew_bacevich_iran_iraq_qassem_soleimani

with Andrew Bacevich

 

===========

 

d.

America Escalates Its “Democratic” Oil War in the Near East

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/06/america-escalates-its-democratic-oil-war-in-the-near-east/

by Michael Hudson

 

===========

 

e.

Axis Of Resistance Announces How It Will Avenge Qassem Soleimani

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52815.htm

+

Iran blacklists U.S. Pentagon as "terrorist organization"

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52816.htm

by Xinhua

+

 “IRANIANS HAVE TO RETALIATE”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjWllto0Xzg&feature=youtu.be

with George Galloway

+

Iran's FARS News Agency Posts Video Of Sniper Assassinating

US President Donald Trump

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52818.htm

 

===========

 

f.

Why Trump is escalating the US-Israeli war on Iran

https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-trump-escalating-us-israeli-war-iran/29231

by Ali Abunimah

+

Europe Cravenly Appeases Trump

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52819.htm

 

===========

 

g.

Iran missile strike was to “save face”!

https://youtu.be/Wc-tGER4G5g

with Ned Ryun

 

===========

 

h.

Iran didn’t want to kill US troops with its strike, it wanted to make point to Trump about its missile tech & resolve. It did that

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/477759-iran-missiles-subdued-us-strike/

by Scott Ritter

+

Iraq PM confirms receiving ‘signed’ US pullout letter

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52817.htm

by Press TV

 

Amid confusion over a reported US letter to Iraq announcing the steps its military would take to move out of Iraq, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi confirms that Baghdad has actually received "signed and translated" copies from the US Army concerning the withdrawal.

In a televised cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Abdul Mahdi clearly refuted all US claims that the letter had been sent by mistake or it had been inauthentic.

On Sunday, the Iraqi Parliament voted unanimously in favor of a bill demanding the withdrawal of all foreign military forces led by the United States from the country.

The vote came only two days after US airstrikes assassinated senior Iranian commander Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) anti-terror group, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in the Iraqi capital.

Earlier, various news agencies reported that Brigadier General William Seely, who oversees US Task Force Iraq, had sent a letter to the head of Iraq’s Joint Operations Command on Monday, suggesting potential withdrawal of the forces belonging to a US-led coalition, which has been operating in Iraq since 2014 under the pretext of fighting Daesh.

 

===========

 

i.

Trump Hints NATO Should Take US Place in Middle East; Lies About Iran and Slaps on More Humiliating Sanctions

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/08/trump-hints-nato-should-take-us-place-in-middle-east-lies-about-iran-and-slaps-on-more-humiliating-sanctions/

 by Joe Lauria

+

"Trump stops neocon drive towards war with Iran"

https://youtu.be/vWtQofUvHiE

 with Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris

 

===========

 

j.

 

From: CODEPINK [mailto:info@codepink.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2020
Subject: Is Iran the only adult in the room?

 

CODEPINK.ORG

Dear friends,

Last night bombs were falling and it seemed like another major Middle East war was breaking out.

But Iran intentionally didn’t cause any casualties with its missile attack on the Ain al-Assad and Erbil U.S. military bases Iraq. Iran warned Iraq and probably even the U.S. before the strike so people could evacuate the area. Iran announced that its retaliation for General Soleimani’s assassination would be complete as long as the U.S. does not retaliate, leaving the ball in Trump’s court. 

Even though Trump is not striking back militarily, we are still on the brink and we must MOBILIZE QUICKLY to stop this war. 

Tomorrow, on January 9, in over 100 cities across the U.S., people will be taking to the streets to say PEACE WITH IRAN!

Rounded Rectangle: Find and join a protest in your city!

Find and join a protest in your city!

The assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani is the most dangerous foreign policy decision that Trump has made to date and responsibility for the present crisis rests solely at his feet. Trump’s tearing up of the Iran nuclear deal and imposing brutal sanctions laid the groundwork for the conflict to snowball. It is now up to us the people to stop the escalation and push Trump to lift the sanctions and withdraw U.S. forces from the Middle East.

 

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/codepink/mailings/4081/attachments/original/Iran_Children_peace.jpg?1578501712

 

 

Along with attending a protest tomorrow, Thursday, January 9, here are a number of other actions for you to take:

·         Add your name to our letter to the Iranian people apologizing for the actions of the Trump administration and pledging to do all that you can to stop a war and end the sanctions. We will stream the letter and names in both English and Farsi on January 25, the NO WAR WITH IRAN International Day of Action.

·         Tell Congress to pass a war powers resolution ensuring that Trump cannot go to war with Iran without congressional legislation. A floor vote is expected in the House next week and the Senate soon after that.

·         Get started on plans for an action in your city on Saturday, January 25, the No War With Iran International Day of Action. CODEPINK is here to help you organize and advertise your event and provide you with posters, talking points, press release templates, chants, social media graphics and more. 

We are proud to be partnering with the National Iranian-American Council, Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, ANSWER, Black Alliance for Peace, Veterans for Peace, Pastors for Peace and almost 100 other organizations. We must do everything that we can to stop Trump’s war on Iran, including the economic warfare of sanctions. 

While Trump tries to goad Iran into war—going so far as to threaten war crimes—we will continue to respond with principled love for the people of the Middle East, who have already suffered for way too long from U.S. violence and aggression.

We must stop the next war,

Ann, Ariel, Asia, Carley, Caty, Cody, Emily, Enas, Jodie, Leonardo, Medea, Michelle, Nancy, Paki, Teri, and Tighe

P.S. Two webinars on Iran coming up:

·         On Friday, January 10 at 12pm EST learn what it is like on the ground in Iran as Ariel Gold speaks with Foad Izadi of the University of Tehran.

·         On Sunday, January 12 at 12pm EST, join us for a webinar conversation between Medea Benjamin and Iranian-American peace activist Leila Zand. (Please note date/time change: this event was originally scheduled for Wednesday, January 8.)

 

https://www.codepink.org/r/o?e=f5a27f3701435157eb7bffed15fec1da&utm_source=codepink&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=j8_iran_national_alert

===========

 

k.

“Putin’s Big Lie : Putin Blames Poland for World War II”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/putin-blames-poland-world-war-ii/604426/

by Anne Applebaum

 

In a series of comments in late December, the Russian president appeared to blame Poland for the outbreak of the Second World War.

+

Putin accuses Poland of colluding with Hitler

https://www.france24.com/en/20191224-putin-accuses-poland-of-colluding-with-hitler

 

+

Poland's president decides to boycott Holocaust memorial in Israel

https://www.euronews.com/2020/01/07/poland-president-will-not-speak-at-holocaust-memorial-despite-boycott-threat

 

===========

 

l.

Geopolitical puzzle: What is behind Pompeo’s visit to Kazakhstan?

https://www.rt.com/news/477028-pompeo-visit-kazakhstan-geopolitical-reasons/

 

===========

 

m.

From: Carolyn Eisenberg via H-PAD
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2020
Subject: [H-PAD] Iran/Iraq Emergency Message #1

 

In view of the escalating Middle East crisis, now intensified by the US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, expect additional H-Pad messages with updates on possible action and helpful resources. 

 

H-PAD Legislative Coordinators:

Carolyn Eisenberg and Prasannan Parthasarathi

 

The immediate need is to contact your member of Congress, urge them to block any further acts of war by the Trump Administration and demand diplomacy

 

To reach your Senators and Representatives call the Capitol Switchboard 202 -224-3121

 

Some resources: 

 

Oona Hathoway, "The Soleimani Strike Defied the US Constitution
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/soleimani-strike-law/604417/

 

Andrew Bacevich,  Trump’s Suleimaini Strike is More of the Same Old Losing US Game Plan

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-03/qassem-suleimani-donald-trump-iran-drone-assassination

 

Triti Parsi, Could Trump's Credibility Problems Impact Belief of his Iran Assertions

https://quincyinst.org/2020/01/05/could-trumps-credibility-problems-impact-belief-of-his-iran-assertions/

 

Ervand Abrahmian, Phyllis Bennis, Impact of Suleimani Assassination

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/3/right_wing_populists_will_sweep_the

 

Juan Cole, Making America Hated Again

https://www.juancole.com/2020/01/america-thousands-soleimani.html

 

===========

 

n.

 

From: Medea Benjamin and Leila Zand, CODEPINK [mailto:info@codepink.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2020
Subject: URGENT! Congress to Vote on Iran

 

CODEPINK.ORG

 

 

 

 

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/codepink/mailings/4078/attachments/original/Iran_Day_Jan_25_2020_City_Protests.jpg?1578406970

Dear friends,

This is the first time since the 2002 lead up to the Iraq war that things have been this terrifying and dangerous—maybe even worse given that President Trump is a sociopath with the emotional maturity of a toddler. Since assassinating General Qasem Soleimani, Trump has been threatening the use of disproportionate force and taunting Congress with such tweets as: “these Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress.” 

Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced War Powers resolutions to put a stop to Trump’s violent madness—the votes will start this week. If passed, Rep. Slotkin and Senator Kaine’s resolutions will mandate that without congressional authorization, the Trump Administration must cease its military actions in Iran within 30 days. Send a message now to your representatives in Congress telling them to stop a war with Iran. We need a veto-proof majority to get this done. 

Of course, a lot can happen in 30 days and Trump has already proven his disregard for the checks and balances the American system was set up to have, so our work can’t end at the steps of Congress. We need the public to take to the streets. WE NEED PEOPLE POWER! Join the January 25 International NO WAR WITH IRAN Day of Action. Sign up here to organize or attend an event in your city. We will supply you will materials, help you get the word out, support you to outreach to local media, and more. Last Saturday, over 80 cities across the U.S. took to the streets in protests. For January 25, we need even more. 

On Sunday, Trump tweeted out threats to bomb Iranian cultural sites—a clear war crime. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper responded by saying that no, the U.S. would not do this and would abide by the international rules of armed conflict. But then Trump doubled down, tweeting: “We're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way." 

Iranians in Iran, the U.S., and across the world responded to Trump’s vile hatred in the most beautiful way possible. They took to Twitter to post pictures of their favorite cultural sites, from the ancient ruins of Persepolis to the striking beauty of the Jāmeh Mosque of Isfahān

We must help Iranians save their beautiful culture—and their lives. Now is the moment for us to come together in a newly revived peace movement. While B-52 bombers are being deployed—they are—we must make sure that Congress passes war powers resolutions and that our numbers in the streets are overwhelming. Sign up now to be part of the January 25 International No War With Iran day of action

Towards peace with Iran,

Medea, Leila, and the entire CODEPINK team: Ann, Ariel, Asia, Carley, Caty, Cody, Emily, Enas, Jodie, Leonardo, Michelle, Nancy, Paki, Teri, and Tighe

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/codepink/mailings/4078/attachments/original/Iran_deleg_2019.jpg?1578407035

February 2019 CODEPINK Peace Delegation to Iran at the Peace Museum in Tehran, Iran

P.S. How much do you know about Iran? 

Pick up Medea’s book Inside the Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Medea_Book_FB_share.jpg

Tune in Wednesday 8pm EST, webinar conversation between Medea and Iranian-American peace activist Leila Zand. RSVP now!

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/codepink/mailings/4078/attachments/original/IRAN_webinar_JAN_8_2020.jpg?1578407219

Join us Friday 12pm EST, webinar discussion with Professor Foad Izadi from the University of Tehran, speaking with us live from the ground. RSVP now!

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/codepink/mailings/4078/attachments/original/Ariel_webinar_J10.jpg?1578407175

 

https://www.codepink.org/r/o?e=f5a27f3701435157eb7bffed15fec1da&utm_source=codepink&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=iran_national_tues_j7

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o.

News From Underground

 

From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2020
Subject: [MCM] "Operation Blackout": Mossad-connected tech firm is running doomsday drills for next Election Day (if any)

 

Aside from the preposterous claim that "voting machine software" is one

of the "key pillars of American democracy" (!), this is an important article.

 

(When will brave and able journalists like Whitney Webb get up to speed

on the corruption of the US voting system? That they know nothing of 

this urgent subject istestament to the effectiveness with which our Masters 

have erased it, through long use of the "conspiracy theory" meme.)

 

MCM 

 

 

OPERATION BLACKOUT Why a Shadowy Tech Firm With Ties to Israeli Intelligence Is Running Doomsday Election Simulations

https://www.mintpressnews.com/cybereason-israel-tech-firm-doomsday-election-simulations/263886/

by Whitney Webb

 

A shadowy tech firm with deep ties to Israeli intelligence and newly inked contracts to protect Pentagon computers is partnering with Lockheed Martin to gain unprecedented access to the heart of America’s democracy.

access to the heart of America’s democracy.

 

January 04th, 2020

By Whitney Webb Whitney Webb 

25 Comments

FacebookTwitterRedditEmailMore1.3K

Election Day 2020: 32 Americans dead, over 200 injured, martial law declared and the election itself is canceled. While this horrific scenario seems more like the plot of a Hollywood film, such was the end result of a recent simulation examining the preparedness of U.S. officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Secret Service against “bad actors” seeking to undermine the upcoming presidential election.

Yet, this simulation was not a government-organized exercise but was instead orchestrated by a private company with deep ties to foreign and domestic intelligence services, a company that is also funded by investors with clear connections to individuals who would stand to benefit if such a catastrophic election outcome were to become reality.

Much of the rhetoric since the last presidential election in 2016 has focused on the issue of foreign meddling by U.S. rival states like Russia, while China has emerged as the new “meddler” of choice in American corporate media as the 2020 election approaches. Though time has revealed that many of the post-2016 election meddling claims were not as significant as initially claimed, the constant media discussion of foreign threats to U.S. democracy and electoral processes – whether real or imagined – has undeniably created a climate of fear.

Click on the link for the rest: https://www.mintpressnews.com/cybereason-israel-tech-firm-doomsday-election-simulations/263886/

 

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p.

The End of Cheap Money and Cheap Loans

https://youtu.be/KfYW4gJbvqE

 with Richard Wolff

+

Inflation and the Crisis in Brazil

https://youtu.be/Y6v0_FbQrQU

with Richard Wolff

+

World Bank warns of global debt crisis amid borrowing buildup

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/08/world-bank-global-debt-crisis-borrowing-build-up

+

The Three Key Economic Issues of 2020

https://youtu.be/2QZC0g6FvgY

(1h 22min)

with Richard Wolff

 

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q.

Trump is a Criminal, But the Democrats Belong to the Same Mafia

 

Trump is a Criminal, But the Democrats Belong to the Same Mafia

Trump is a Criminal, But the Democrats Belong to the Same Mafia

 

https://blackagendareport.com/trump-criminal-democrats-belong-same-mafia

by Glen Ford

 

The Republicans and Democrats are united under the American imperial banner, and only differ on details of strategy to maintain Washington’s global domination.

“None can be free of the scourge of war – the ultimate crime against humanity, from which all others flow – while the warmakers

are in power in the Citadel of Capital.”

The grievously wronged Iranians have apparently fired a purposely harmless salvo of missiles into several U.S.-occupied bases in Iraq to avenge last Friday ’s U.S. drone assassination of Revolutionary Guards commander Qassi Suleimani. Although the Fars news agency  claimed, for Iranian popular consumption, that “at least 80 US armed personnel have been killed and around 200 others wounded," American and other NATO forces in Iraq report no casualties, giving Trump an opportunity to claim victory and back off from further aggressions. Trump followed the Iranian lead, holding a press conference  to dance away from continued armed hostilities, on Wednesday.

Since there is no “peace party” with any influence on governance in the United States, a U.S. retreat from Armageddon is the most that the world can hope for, in the near term. Trump’s mafia-style hit on the revered Iranian general – yet another Nuremburg-level U.S. crime against peace and humanity, for which death by hanging is the historical punishment – seemed designed to set the stage for a reprise of George Bush’s 2003 “Shock and Awe” demonstration of U.S. imperial firepower, this time with an orange tinge.

“A U.S. retreat from Armageddon is the most that the world can hope for, in the near term.”

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r.

French protests show that it is Macron’s vision that is the real utopia
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/477819-france-protests-macron-utopia/
by Slavoj Zizek