Bulletin N° 968

 

Naked Lunch

https://archive.org/details/116584811078

by Williams Burroughs

(1:55:08)

Naked Lunch is a 1991 science fiction drama film co-written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, and Roy Scheider. It is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs' 1959 novel of the same name, and an international co-production of Canada, Britain and Japan.

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The film was released on 27 December 1991 in the United States, and 24 April 1992 in the United Kingdom by 20th Century Fox. It received positive reviews from critics, but was a box office bomb, garnering only $2.6 million out of a $17–18 million budget due to a limited release. It won numerous honours, including the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director and seven Genie Awards, notably Best Motion Picture. Naked Lunch has since become a cult film, acclaimed for its surrealistic visual and thematic elements.

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William S. Burroughs Reads From Naked Lunch

https://www.openculture.com/2014/03/william-s-burroughs-reads-his-controversial-1959-novel-naked-lunch.html

(5:47)

Published in 1959, Williams S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch ranks with other mid-twentieth century books like Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and the works of Jean Genet as literature that sharply divided both critical and legal opinion in arguments over style and in questions of obscenity. Among its disturbing and subversive characters is the sociopathic surgeon Dr. Benway, who inspired the medical horrors of J.G. Ballard and was inspired in turn by Aldous Huxley’s Brave New WorldBenway provides some of the more satirical moments in the book, as you can hear in the section below, which Burroughs reads straight with his distinctive nasally Midwestern twang. A short film of the scene (sadly unembeddable), called “Dr. Benway Operates,” has Burroughs himself playing the doctor, in a dramatization that looks like low rent farce as directed by John Waters.

 

 

 

Subject:  Blue Pill/Red Pill and the Horrors within the Capitalist Machine.

 

 

April 20, 2021

Grenoble, France

 

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

 

We truly live in a period of transparency, when the traditional hypocritical mediation of elected politicians has receded, and the voice of the corporate ruling class has taken almost complete control of state governance, exposing the plutocrats for what they really are: spoiled children seeking to conduct experiments that will ruin us and wreck our planet. 

 

I came to the study of history via comparative literature and political science. I’ve never had cause to regret this intellectual voyage.

 

Recently, I walked past a local book exchange in my neighborhood and picked up a copy of H. D. Lawrence’s novel, The Plumed Serpent (1926), the famous psychological study of European encounters with indigenous Mexican culture, following the fall of Porfirio Díaz in1911, and the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920.

 

In the three scenes below selected from Lawrence’s story, readers will discover how the artistic imagination can expose enigmas within us and enrich our understanding of the human condition for a deeper historical appreciation of society and the role we play. The global historical context, of course, remains that of capitalism.

 

1)    The Bull-Fight.

 

The story opens in Mexico City at the start of the last bull-fight of the season. Four foreigners meet at a ticket office to buy tickets to the event. Kate an Irish woman, graduate of Oxford, was with her American friend Owen, a socialist “who preferred to sit among the crowd.” Neither had seen a bull-fight before and neither spoke much Spanish. They were joined by a young American named Villiers, who spoke Spanish and helped them purchase their tickets. He accompanied them to the stadium in a Ford taxi, accompanied by a Polish acquaintance Owen introduced to Kate.

 

The taxi drew up in a side street under the big iron scaffolding of the stadium. In the gutters, rather lousy men were selling pulque and sweets, cakes, fruit, and greasy food. Crazy motorcars rushed up and hobbled away. Little soldiers in washed-out cotton uniforms, pinky drab, hung around an entrance. Above all loomed the network iron frame of the huge, ugly stadium.

 

Kate felt she was going to prison. But Owen excitedly surged to the entrance that corresponded to his ticket. In the depths of him, he too didn’t want to go. But he was a born American, and if anything was on show, he had to see it. That was ‘Life.’(p.12)

 

Their seats were only three tiers from the arena, guaranteeing a close inspection of what they were about to see. Lawrence describes the scene in unforgettable terms:

 

     There was no glamour, not charm. A few commonplace people in an expanse of concrete were the elect, and below four grotesque and effeminate-looking fellows in tight, ornate clothes were the heroes. With their rather fat posteriors and their squiffs of pigtails and their clean-shaven faces, they looked like eunuchs, or women in tight pants, these precious toreadors.

 

     The last of Kate’s illusions concerning bull-fights came down with a flop. These were the darlings of the mob! These were the gallant toreadors! Gallant? Just about as gallant as assistants in a butcher’s shop. Lady-killers? Ugh!

 

     There was an Ah! of satisfaction from the mob. Into the ring suddenly rushed a smallish, dun-coloured bull with long flourishing horns. He ran out, blindly, as if from the dark, probably thinking that now he was free. Then he stopped short, seeing he was not free, but surrounded in an unknown way. He was utterly at a loss.

 

A toreador came forward and switched out a pink cloak like a fan not far from the bull’s nose. The bull gave a playful little prance, neat and pretty, and charged mildly on the cloak. The toreador swished the cloak over the animal’s head, and the neat little bull trotted on round the ring, looking for a way to get out.

 

     Seeing the wooden barrier around the arena, finding he was able to look over it, he thought he might as well take the leap. So over he went into the corridor or passage-way which circled the ring, and in which stood the servants of the arena.

 

     Just as nimbly, these servants vaulted over the barrier into the arena, that was now bull-less.

 

     The bull in the gangway trotted inquiringly round till he came to an opening on to the arena again. So back he trotted into the ring.

 

     And back into the gangway vaulted the servants, where they stood again to look on.

 

    The bull trotted waveringly and somewhat irritated. The toreadors waved their cloaks at him, and he swerved on. Till his vague course took him to where one of the horsemen with lances sat motionless on his horse.

 

     Instantly, in a pang of alarm, Kate noticed that the horse was thickly blindfolded with a black cloth. Yes, and so was the horse on which sat the other picador.

 

     The bull trotted suspiciously up –to the motionless horse bearing the rider with a long pole; a lean old horse that would never move till Doomsday, unless someone shoved it.

 

     O shades of Don Quixote! Oh four Spanish horsemen of the Apocalypse ! This was surely one of them.

 

     The picador pulled his feeble horse round slowly to face the bull, and slowly he leaned forward and shoved his lance-point into the bull’s shoulder. The bull, as if the horse were great wasp that had stung him deep, suddenly lowered his head in a jerk of surprise and lifted his horns straight up into the horse’s abdomen. And without more ado, over went the horse and rider, like a tottering monument upset.

 

     The rider scrambled from under the horse and went running away with his lance. The old horse, in complete dazed amazement, struggled to rise as if overcome with dumb incomprehension. And the bull, with a red place on his shoulder welling a trickle of dark blood, stood looking around in equally hopeless amazement.

 

     But the wound was hurting. He saw the queer sight of the horse half reared from the ground, trying to get to his feet And he smell blood and bowels.

 

     So rather vaguely, as if not quite knowing what he ought to do, the bull once more lowered his head and pushed his sharp flourishing horns in the horse's belly, working them up and down inside there with a sort of vague satisfaction.

 

     Kate had never been taken so completely by surprise in all her life. She had still cherished some idea of a gallant show. And before she knew where she was, she was watching a bull whose shoulders trickle blood gorging his horns up and down inside the belly of a prostrate and feebly plunging old horse.

 

     The shack almost overpowered her. She had come for a gallant show. This she had paid to see. Human cowardice and beastliness, a smell of blood, a nauseous whiff of bursten bowels! She turned her face away.

 

     When she looked again it was to see the horse feebly and dazedly walking out of the ring, with a great ball of its own entrails hanging out of its abdomen and swinging reddish against its own legs as it automatically moved.

 

      And once more, the shock of amazement almost made her lose consciousness. She heard the confused small applause of amusement from the mob. And the Pole, to whom Owen had introduced her, leaned over and said to her, in horrible English:

 

     ‘Now, Miss Leslie, you are seeing Life! Now you will have something to write about in your letters to England.’

 

     She looked at his unwholesome face in complete repulsion and wished Owen would not introduce her to such sordid individuals.

 

     She looked at Owen. His nose had a sharp look, like a little boy who may make himself sick but who is watching at the shambles with all his eyes, knowing it is forbidden.

 

     Villiers, the younger generation, looked intense and abstract, getting the sensation. He would not even feel sick. He was just getting the thrill of it, without emotion, coldly and scientifically, but very intent.

 

     And Kate felt a real pang of hatred against this Americanism which is coldly and unscrupulously sensational.

 

     ‘Why doesn't the horse move? Why doesn't it run away from the bull?’ she asked in repelled amazement of Owen.

 

     Owen cleared his throat.

 

     ‘Didn't you see it was blindfolded,’ he said.

 

     ‘But can't it smell the bull?’ she asked.

 

     ‘Apparently not. - They bring the old wrecks here to finish them off. -  I know it's awful but it's part of the game.’

 

     How Kate hated phrases like ‘part of the game.’ What do they mean, anyhow! She felt utterly humiliated crushed by a sense of human indecency, cowardice of two-legged humanity. In this ‘brave’ show she felt nothing but reeking cowardice. Her breeding and her natural pride we're outraged.

 

     The ring servants had cleared away the mess spread new sand. The toreadors were playing with the bull, unfurling their foolish cloaks at arm's length. And the animal, with the red sore running on his shoulder, foolishly capered and ran from one rag to the other, here and there.

 

     For the first time, a bull seemed to her a fool. She had always been afraid of bulls, fear tempered with reverence of the great Mithraic beast. And now she saw how stupid he was, in spite of his long horns and his massive maleness. Blindly and stupidly he ran at the rag, each time, and the toreadors skipped like fat-hipped girls showing off. Probably it needed skill and courage, but it looked silly.

 

     Blindly and foolishly the bull ran ducking its horns each time at the rag, just because the rag fluttered.

 

     ‘Run at the men idiot,’ said Kate aloud, in her overwrought impatience. ‘Run at the men, not at the cloaks.’

 

     ‘They never do, isn’t it curious!’ replied Villiers, with a cool scientific interest. ‘They say no toreador or will face a cow because a cow always goes for him instead of the cloak. If a bull did that, there’d be no bull-fights. Imagine it!’

 

     She was bored now. The nimbleness and the skipping tricks of the toreadors bored her. Even when one of the banderilleros reared himself on tiptoe, his plump posterior much in evidence, and from his erectness pushed two razor sharp darts with frills at the top into the bull’s shoulder, neatly and smartly, Kate felt no admiration. One of the darts fell out, anyway, and the bull ran on with the other swinging and waggling in another bleeding place.

 

     The bull now wanted to get away, really. He leapt the fence again, quickly, into the attendant’s gangway. The attendants vaulted over into the arena. The bull trotted in the corridor, then nicely leaped back. The attendants vaulted once more into the court corridor. The bull trotted around the arena, ignoring the toreadors, and leaped once more into the gangway. Over vaulted the attendants.

 

     Kate was beginning to be amused, now that the mongrel men were skipping for safety.

 

     The bull was in the ring again running from cloak to cloak foolishly. A banderillero was getting ready with two more darts. But at first another picador put nobly forward on his blindfolded old horse. The bull ignored this little lot, too, and trotted away again, as if all the time looking for something, excitedly looking for something. He stood still and excitedly pawed the ground, as if he wanted something. A toreador advanced and swung a cloak. Up pranced the bull, tail in air, and with a prancing bound charged - upon the rag, of course. The toreador skipped around with a ladylike skip, then tripped to another point. Very pretty!

 

     The bull, in the course of his trotting and prancing and pawing, had once more come near the picador. The bold picador shoved forward his ancient steed, leaned forward and push the point of his lance in the bull’s shoulder. The bull looked up, irritated and arrested. What the devil !

 

     He saw the horse and rider. The horse stood with that feeble monumentally of a milk horse, patient as if between the shafts, waiting while his master delivered the milk. How strange it must have been to him when the bull, giving a little bound like a dog, ducked its head and dived its horns upward into its belly, rolling him over with his rider as one might push over a hat-stand.

 

     The bull looked with irritable wonder at the incomprehensible medley of horse and rider kicking on the ground a few yards away from him. He drew near to investigate. The rider scrambled out and bolted. And the toreadors, running up with their cloaks, drew off the bull.  He went caracoling around, charging it more silk-lined rags.

 

     Meanwhile an attendant had got the horse on its feet again, and was leading it totteringly into the gangway and round to the exit, under the Authorities. The horse crawled slowly. The bull, running from pink cloak to red cloak, rag to rag, and never catching anything, was getting excited, impatient of the rag game. He jumped once more to the gangway and started running, alas, on towards where the wounded horse was still limping its way to the exit.

 

     Kate knew what was coming. Before she could look away, the bull had charged on the limping horse from behind, the attendants had fled, the horse was up-ended absurdly, one of the bull's horns between his hind legs and deep in his inside. Down went the horse, collapsing in front, but his rear with still heaved up with the bull’s horn working vigorously up and down inside him, while he lay on his neck all twisted. And a huge heap of bowels coming out. And a nauseous stench. And the cries of pleased amusement among the crowd.

 

     This pretty event took place on Kate’s side of the ring, and not far from where she sat, below her. Most of the people were on their feet craning to look down over the edge to watch the conclusion of this delightful spectacle.

 

      Kate knew if she saw anymore she would go into hysterics. She was getting beside herself.

 

     She looked swiftly at Owen, who looked like a guilty boy spellbound.

 

     ‘I’m going!’ she said, rising.

 

     ‘Going!’ he cried in wonder and dismay, his flushed face and his bald flushed forehead a picture, looking up at her.

 

     But she had already turned, and was hurrying away towards the mouth of the exit-tunnel

 

     Owen came running after her, flustered, and drawn in all directions.

 

     ‘Really going!’ he said in chagrin, as she came to the high, vaulted exit-tunnel.

 

     ‘I must. I’ve got to get out,’ she cried. ‘Don't you come.

 

     ‘Really!’ he echoed, torn all ways.

 

     The scene was creating a very hostile attitude in the audience. To leave a bull-fight is a national insult.

 

     ‘Don’t come! Really! I shall take a tram-car,’ she said hurriedly.

 

     ‘Really! Do you think you’ll be alright?’

 

     Perfectly. You stay. Goodbye! I can't smell anymore of this stink

 

     He turned like Orpheus looking back into hell, and waving made towards his seat again.(pp.19-24)

 

2)    The Campus Art Exposition.

 

A few days later, Kate was invited to visit a university campus to see new revolutionary murals on display. She finds herself once again shocked and disapproves of these cultural expressions. Standing with a student guide in front of caricatures, she comments: “They are too ugly. They defeat their own ends.”

 

     ‘But they are meant to be ugly,’ said young Garcia. ‘They must be ugly? No? Because capitalism is ugly, and Mammon is ugly, and the priest holding his hand to get the money from the poor Indian is ugly. No?’ He laughed rather unpleasantly.

 

     ‘But,’ said Kate, ‘these caricatures are too intentional. They are like vulgar abuse, not art at all.’

 

     ‘Isn’t that true?’ said Garcia, pointing to a hideous picture of a fat female in a tight short dress, with hips and breasts as protuberances, walking over the faces of the poor.

 

     ‘That is how they are, no?’

 

     ‘Who is like that?’ said Kate. ‘It bores me. One must keep a certain balance.’

 

     ‘Not in Mexico!’ said the young Mexican brightly, his plump cheeks flushing. ‘In Mexico you can’t keep a balance because things are so bad. In other countries, yes, perhaps you can remain balanced, because things are not so bad as they are here. But here they are so very bad, you can’t be human. You have to be Mexican. You have to be more Mexican than human, no? You can’t do no other. You have to hate the capitalist, you have to, in Mexico, or nobody can live. We can’t live. Nobody can live. If you are Mexican you can’t be human, it is impossible. You have to be a socialist Mexican, or you have to be a capitalist Mexican, and you hate. What else is there to be done? We hate the capitalist because he ruins the country and the people. We must hate him.’

 

     ‘But after all,’ said Kate, ‘what about the twelve million poor – mostly Indians – whom [the populist presidential candidate] Montes talks about? You can’t make them all rich, whatever you do. And they don’t understand the very words , capital and socialism. They are Mexico, really, and nobody ever looks at them, except to make a casus belli of them.’

 

     ‘Humanly, they can’t exist, they are too ignorant!’ cried Garcia. ‘But when we kill all the capitalists then . . . .’

 

     ‘You’ll find somebody killing you?’ said Kate. ‘No, I don’t like it. You aren’t Mexico. You aren’t even Mexican, really. You are just half Spaniards full of European ideas, and you care for asserting your own ideas and nothing else. You have no real bowels of compassion. You are no good.’

 

     The young man listened with round eyes, going rather yellow in the face. At the end he lifted his shoulders and spread his hands in a pseudo-Mediterranean gesture.

 

     ‘Well! It may be!’ he said, with a certain jeering flippancy. ‘Perhaps you know everything. Maybe! Foreigners, they usually know everything about Mexico.’ And he ended on a little crackling laugh.

 

     ‘’I know what I feel!’ said Kate. ‘And now I want a taxi, and I want to go home. I don’t want to see any more stupid, ugly pictures.(pp.59-60)

 

 

3)    The Transformative Decision to Prolong the Visit to Mexico.

 

As her friends prepare to return home, Kate debates whether to remain a while in Mexico to get to know the Indian culture better. The Mexican culture, per se, she writes off as equivalent to “dirty little boys maiming flies.”

 

     Owen had to return to the United States, and he asked Kate whether she wanted to stay on in Mexico.

 

     This put her into a quandary. It was not an easy country for a woman to be a lone in. And she had been beating her wings in an effort to get away. She felt like a bird round whose body a snake has coiled itself. Mexico was the snake.

 

     The curious influence of the country, pulling one down, pulling one down. She had heard an old American, who had been forty years in the Republic, saying to Owen: ‘No man who hasn’t a strong moral backbone should try to settle in Mexico. If he does, he’ll go to pieces, morally and physically, as I’ve seen hundreds of young American do.’

 

     To pull one down. It was what the country wanted to do all the time, with a slow, reptilian insistence, to pull one down. To prevent the spirit from soaring. To take away the free, soaring sense of liberty.

 

     ‘There is no such thing as liberty,’ she heard the quiet, deep, dangerous voice of Don Ramón repeating. ‘There is no such thing as liberty. The greatest liberators are usually slaves of an idea. The freest people are slaves to convention and public opinion, and more still, slaves to the industrial machine. There is no such thing as liberty. You only change one sort of domination for another. All we can do is to choose our master.’

 

     ‘But surely that is liberty – for the mass of people.’

 

     ‘They don’t choose. They are tricked into a new form of servility, no more. They go from bad to worse.’

 

     ‘You yourself – aren’t you free?’ she asked.

 

     ‘I?’ he laughed. 'I spent a long time trying to pretend. I thought I could have my own way. Till I realized that having my own way meant only running about smelling all the things in the street, like a dog that will pick up something. Of myself, I have no way. No man has any way in himself. Every man who goes along a way is led by one of three things: by an appetite – and I class ambition among appetites; or by an idea; or by an inspiration.’

 

     ‘I used to think my husband was inspired about Ireland,’ said Kate doubtfully.

 

     ‘And now?’

 

     ‘Yes! Perhaps he put his wine in old, rotten bottles that wouldn’t hold it. No! –Liberty is a rotten ole wine-skin. It won’t hold one’s wine of inspiration or passion anymore,’ she said.

 

     ‘And Mexico!’ he said. ‘Mexico is another Ireland. Ah no, no man can be his own master. If I must serve, I will not serve an idea, which cracks and leaks like an old wine-skin. I will serve the God that fives me my manhood. There is no liberty for a man, apart from the god of his manhood. Free Mexico is a bully, and the old, colonial, ecclesiastical Mexico was another sort of bully. When man has nothing but his will to assert – even his good-will – it is always bullying. Bolshevism is one sort of bullying, capitalism another: and liberty is a change of chains.

 

     ‘Then what’s to be done?’ said Kate. ‘Just nothing?’

 

     And with her own will, she wanted nothing to be done. Let the skies fall!

 

     ‘One is driven, at last, back to the far distance, to look for God,’ said Ramón uneasily.

 

     ‘I rather hate this search-for-God business, and religiosity,’ said Kate.

 

     ‘I know!’ he said, with a laugh. ‘I’ve suffered from would-be-cocksure religion myself.’

 

     ‘And you can’t really “find God”!’ she said. ‘It’s a sort of sentimentalism, a creeping back into old, hollow shells.’

 

     ‘No!’ he said slowly. ‘I can’t find God, in the old sense. I know it’s sentimentalism if I pretend to. But I am nauseated with humanity and the human will: even with my own will. I have realized that my will, no matter how intelligent I am, is only another nuisance on the face of the earth, once I start exerting it; And other people’s wills are even worse.’

 

     ‘Oh! Isn’t human life horrible!’ she cried. ‘Every human being exerting his will all the time – over other people, and over himself, and nearly always self-righteous!’

 

     Ramón made a grimace of repulsion.

 

     ‘To me,’ he said, ‘that is just the weariness of life! For a time, it can be amusing: exerting your own will, and resisting all the other people’s wills, that they try to put over you. But at a certain point a nausea sets in a the very middle of me: my soul is nauseated. My soul is nauseated, and there is nothing but death ahead, unless I find something else.’

 

     Kate listened in silence. She knew the road he had gone, but she herself had not yet come to the end of it. As yet she was still strong in the pride of her own – her very own will.(pp.79-80)

 

Later Kate reflects on the Indian culture, stoically coexisting with the Mexican culture. Soul was in the blood, says H.D. Lawrence; Spirit existed in the air.

 

     She thought again of what Don Ramón had said to her.

 

     ‘They pull you down! Mexico pulls you down, the people pull you down like a great weight! But it may be they pull you down as the earth’s pull of gravitation does, that you can balance on your feet. Maybe they draw you down as the earth draws down the roots of a tree, so that it may be clinched deep in soil. Men are still part of the Tree of Life, and the roots go down to the center of the earth. Loose leaves, and aeroplanes, blow away on the wind, in what they call freedom. But the Tree of Life has fixed, deep, gripping roots.

 

     ‘It may be you need to be drawn down, down, till you send roots into the deep places again. Then you can send up the sap and the leaves back to the sky, later.

 

     ‘And to me, the men in Mexico are like trees, forests that the white men felled in their coming. But the roots of the trees are deep and alive and forever sending up new shoots.

 

     ‘And each new shoot that comes up overthrows a Spanish church or an American factory. And soon the dark forests will rise again, and shake the Spanish buildings from the face of America.

 

     ‘All that matters to me are the roots that reach down beyond all destruction. The roots and the life are there. What else it needs is the word, for the forest to begin to rise again. And some man among men must speak the word.’

 

     The strange doom-like sound of the man’s words! But in spite of the sense of doom on her heart, she would not go away yet. She would stay longer in Mexico.(pp.87-88)

 

* * *

 

Bill Gates is as good a symbol as any powerful corporate leader to represent the new fascist corporate order. The minor practitioners in this order might serve on death panels to cull the population and reduce the surplus to a more manageable size. This has historical precedence in Germany, when eugenics was practiced preceding the implementation of death camps during the war.

 

Making the decision between life and death for hundreds, then thousands, then millions of helpless people is a process that develops in stages. By all accounts, it has begun once again. It is a policy that requires mass collaboration on the part of practitioners and the general population.

 

The only alternative to collaboration is resistance, which today would trigger the technology of Artificial Intelligence, turning your life upside down, which to some people is apparently preferable to living right side up in a Fascist State.

 

The Masters of the New Order - people like Gates and Fauci today - justify their experimentations with a spurious science that suppresses any critical thought. 

 

We are confronted with Adolf Eichmann's choice : to think, or to decide not to think and just obey.

 

To resist or to collaborate; history has informed us that there is no third way, and art has shown us why.

 

 

The 19 + items below reflect the multiple crises we are facing, either with our eyes wide open or eyes closed. Our sensibilities are being constantly challenged, and slipping into self-deception is no solution. The role of the artist is essential if we are to awaken from our stupor and confront our own mechanical behavior with deeper understanding.

 

The common ground we share is our knowledge of the world and our courage to make a difference. It is this that makes us human.

 

 

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.

The “Secret Agenda” of the So-called Elite and the Covid mRNA Vaccine

https://www.globalresearch.ca/reflections-secret-agenda-elite-role-us-citizens/5709112

by Dr. Rudolf Hänsel

+

Cuomo faces impeachment probe amid new accusations

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

with Trinity Chavez

(4:05)

+

Rep. Jordan and Dr. Fauci clash over when Covid restrictions can be lifted

https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2021/04/16/anthony-fauci-jim-jordan-maxine-waters-covid-hearing-video-clip

 (6:52)

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, and Rep. Jim Jordan clashed several times Thursday during a congressional hearing on the end of the coronavirus pandemic, with the Ohio congressman at one point drawing a sharp rebuke from one of his colleagues as he continued to talk over others past his speaking time. 

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH and top adviser to President Joe Biden was among several witnesses who testified before the House Coronavirus Crisis Subcommittee on ending the pandemic. 

 

The heated exchanges between Fauci and Jordan emerged as the congressman repeatedly questioned the doctor about what the threshold or metric would be for when Americans can stop wearing masks and stop social distancing, framing the issue of dropping the public health measures as people getting their “liberties and freedom back.”

+

Bill Gates’ Global Agenda and How We Can Resist His War on Life

https://www.globalresearch.ca/bill-gates-global-agenda-how-we-can-resist-war-life/5736577

by Dr. Vandana Shiva

+

How Bill Gates Is Protecting Big Pharma Profits

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

with Alexander Zaitchik

(8:46)

+

This California County Is Launching A 'Vaccine Passport'...Is Yours Next?"

https://youtu.be/XCFNS9AH8DY

with Ron Paul

(34:35)

 

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b.

“Unregistered 161”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5KKR08Id_Y

with James Corbett and Thaddeus Russell

 (1:55:29)

Published April 13, 2021

 

via The Unregistered Podcast: I was joined by James Corbett of The Corbett Report, which was just taken down from Youtube, to discuss open vs. closed conspiracies, the history of eugenics and other forms of social engineering, the ideology of scientism, and the world’s deadliest weapon—narrative.

*NOTE: The video of this podcast is only on the Unregistered YouTube channel at the moment. You can watch it here if you like, but I won’t embed any YouTube videos here. I understand it will be posted to Thaddeus Russell’s Minds channel shortly. The Odysee embed on the front page is a repost by an unrelated third party.

 

===========

 

c.

How militarism eats the poor and destroys the planet - The Marc Steiner Show

https://open.spotify.com/episode/276xYBPlQ47cfXbitFr3Gg

with Marc Steiner

(audio, 71:06)

+

Biden's Empty Gesture: Houthis No Longer “Terrorists” but Yemen's Suffering Only Grows

https://www.mintpressnews.com/biden-empty-gesture-houthis-no-longer-terrorists-but-yemen-famine-grows/276586/

by Ahmed Abdulkareem

 

Human rights groups have warned that levels of famine in Yemen are now among the highest recorded since 2015, suggesting that suffering in the country has actually grown worse under the Biden administration.

+

Military Bases Housing Migrant Children Plagued by Serial Sexual Abuse Claims

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/04/investigative-reports/military-bases-housing-migrant-children-plagued-by-serial-sexual-abuse-claims/

by Whitney Webb

 

The Biden administration is now housing unaccompanied migrant children on military bases in Texas and California. Some of these bases have been plagued for years by record sexual abuse claims, one with the highest in the nation. All of them suffer from dangerous environmental contamination.

+

Anti-war activist visited by police after posting embarrassing AOC video

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/09/anti-war-activist-police-aoc-video/

by Max Blumenthal

+

 “We Must Build A New Party”

https://youtu.be/NYMtX1jbJCE

with Chris Hedges

(55:01)

+

“The War Machine Reloads”

https://youtu.be/1a8DvTzsLUQ

with RJ Eskow

(43:19)

+

Glenn Greenwald Breaks Second Biggest Corruption Story Of Our Time

https://youtu.be/TJDOuvPsjm0

with Jimmy Dore

(28:47)

+

On Contact: Securing Democracy with Glenn Greenwald

https://youtu.be/GkptwyIYsxw

with Chris Hedges

(25:32)

 

===========

 

d.

From: National Security Archive [mailto:nsarchiv@gwu.edu]
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2021
Subject: CIA Assassination Plot Targeted Cuba's Raul Castro

 

As Castro Retires on 60th Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs, National Security Archive Posts Declassified Top Secret CIA Cables, Reports from 1960. Agency Officials Willing to Pay Over $10,000 For ‘Fatal Accident’. Another Assassination Plot against Fidel Castro Was Part of Bay of Pigs Invasion Strategy ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

 

“Questionable Activities”: CIA Assassination Plot Targeted Raul Castro

As Castro retires on 60th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs, National Security Archive posts declassified, top secret CIA cables, reports from 1960

Agency officials willing to pay over $10,000 for ‘fatal accident’

Washington D.C., April 16, 2021 – In the earliest known CIA assassination plot against leaders of the Cuban revolution, high agency officials in 1960 offered the pilot of a plane carrying Raul Castro from Prague to Havana “payment after successful completion of ten thousand dollars” to “incur risks in arranging accident” during the flight, according to formally top secret documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The pilot, who the CIA had earlier recruited as an intelligence asset in Cuba, “asked for assurance that in event of his [own] death the U.S. would see that his two sons were given a college education.” “This assurance was given,” his CIA handler in Havana, William J. Murray, reported in a later memorandum titled “Questionable Activities.”

The “accident plot” was obliquely described in the special 1976 Senate report on Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, but the TOP SECRET documents on which the description was based remained classified for another twenty-five years.  They were declassified as part of the JFK Assassination Records Act and obtained by National Security Archive senior analyst John Prados for the Archive’s digital collection, CIA Covert Operations II: The Year of Intelligence, 1975.

The Archive is posting these records as the Castro era in Cuba comes to a formal end. As the Cuban Communist Party convenes its 8th party congress on the 60th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, Raul Castro is stepping down from his powerful position as party leader.

 “Just as the defeat of the CIA-led invaders at the Bay of Pigs marked a historic turning point for the young revolution,” according to Peter Kornbluh who directs the Archive’s Cuba project, “the official beginning of the post- Castro era marks a major turning point for Cuba’s future.” 

 

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
2130 H Street, NW
Washington
District of Columbia, 20037
202-994-7000
nsarchiv@gwu.edu

Having trouble viewing this email? View it in your web browser

+

 

From: CovertAction Magazine [mailto:info@CovertActionMagazine.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2021
Subject: Colombia: An Ideal U.S. Client-State in the Western Hemisphere

 

View this email in your browser

 

Colombia: An Ideal U.S. Client-State in the Western Hemisphere

By Angelo Cardona on Apr 16, 2021

Washington has long helped fuel the devastating conflict in Colombia that goes back to the era of La Violencia in World War II. Colombia has been living with one of the longest armed conflicts in the world. A peace agreement to end the more than 50-year-old armed civil war was signed in Havana, Cuba, in […]

The post Colombia: An Ideal U.S. Client-State in the Western Hemisphere appeared first on CovertAction Magazine

.


Read in browser »

 

Sincerely,
Chris Agee
Executive Editor
CovertAction Magazine

 

+

Questions about BBC producer's ties to UK intelligence follow 'Mayday' White Helmets whitewash

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/07/bbc-white-helmets-mayday-uk-intelligence/

by Kit Klarenberg·

+

Dangerous Motives Behind US Aggression Toward Russia and China

https://youtu.be/QlNPa2qDJbg

with Richard Wolff

(25:59)

+

Changes in Superimperialism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtHX23Trvy4

with Michael Hudson

(56:41)

+

Ex-MI6 Agent on Iran-China $400 Billion Deal, Israel vs Iran, Failed Regime Change in Syria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRN4D5xDMN8

with former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke.

(27:28)

+

Millionaire Banker and Former Coca Cola Director With Ties to Far-Right Wing Opus Dei Catholic Sect Defeats Socialist Candidate in Ecuador

https://mailchi.mp/covertactionmagazine.com/breaking-news-from-covertaction-magazine-11190422?e=361aa6282e

by Ron Ridenour

 

Dirty Tricks in Race Pay Off

 

===========

 

e.

The 2020-21 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d'État and the “Great Reset”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-2020-worldwide-corona-crisis-destroying-civil-society-engineered-economic-depression-global-coup-detat-and-the-great-reset/5730652

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

 

+

The WHO Confirms that the Covid-19 PCR Test is Flawed: Estimates of "Positive Cases" are Meaningless. The Lockdown Has No Scientific Basis

https://www.globalresearch.ca/nucleic-acid-testing-technologies-use-polymerase-chain-reaction-pcr-detection-sars-cov-2/5739959

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

 

+

The Coronavirus Vaccine: The Real Danger is “Agenda ID2020”. Vaccination as a Platform for "Digital Identity"

https://www.globalresearch.ca/coronavirus-causes-effects-real-danger-agenda-id2020/5706153

by Peter Koenig

+

“The Great Reset” Is Here: Follow the Money. “Insane Lockdown” of the Global Economy, “The Green Agenda”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/great-reset-follow-money/5740424

by  F. William Engdahl

+

In Quest of a Multipolar Economic World Order with Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar

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

Henry George School of Social Science

(2:03:08)

===========

 

f.

Google is poisoning its reputation with AI researchers

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/13/22370158/google-ai-ethics-timnit-gebru-margaret-mitchell-firing-reputation

by James Vincent

 

+

“Class Struggle” Is a Fundamental Core of Capitalism

https://youtu.be/v5JHV2sW6fM

with Richard Wolff

(5:30)

+

“No, Education Still Won’t Solve Poverty”

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/04/cristina-groeger-interview-education-trap-solution-inequality-social-mobility?utm_source=Jacobin&utm_campaign=fb69a94ae7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_01_07_50_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_be8b1b2846-fb69a94ae7-85088009&mc_cid=fb69a94ae7&mc_eid=997d6d360e

an interview with Cristina Groeger

 

===========

 

g.

Amazon waged a brutal

anti-union campaign

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/amazon-bessemer-union-drive-vote-nlrb

by Alex N. Press

 

Amazon has secured a majority of “no” votes from workers at BHM1, the company’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse, on the question of unionizing with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).

Some may be surprised that the vote broke so strongly in Amazon’s favor. After all, isn’t Amazon a notoriously unpleasant place to work? Isn’t this the company that just had a news cycle devoted to how many of their workers pee in bottles?

It’s not so simple. As Rebecca Givan, a labor studies professor at Rutgers University, told Vice, NLRB elections “are not a reflection of whether workers want a voice on the job, but rather show the imbalance of labor law and resources in favor of employers.”

In the United States, every step of the unionization process is stacked against workers. It is a miracle that anyone ever unionizes...

+

Will Worse Side Effects for Moderna's Vaccine Boost Pfizer's Fortunes?

https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/04/13/will-worse-side-effects-for-modernas-vaccine-boost/

by Keith Speights

+

What’s Not Being Said About the Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine:

“Human Guinea Pigs”?

https://www.globalresearch.ca/what-not-said-pfizer-coronavirus-vaccine/5729461

by  F. William Engdahl

+

DNA/RNA Vaccines: “Can They Alter Our Own Genetic Codes”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-i-wont-take-johnson-johnson-vaccine-scientist-perspective/5742576

by Dr. Ken Biegeleisen

 

===========

 

h.

Cyberattack slams Iran's nuclear program — Israel to blame?

https://youtu.be/Pxoyd-rAdho

with Alex Mihailovich

(7:05)

+

Ten Years Ago: The US-NATO-Israel Sponsored Al Qaeda Insurgency in Syria. Who Was Behind the 2011 "Protest Movement"?

https://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-who-is-behind-the-protest-movement-fabricating-a-pretext-for-a-us-nato-humanitarian-intervention/24591

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

(first published May 3, 2011)

+

Just Like in the US, Policing in Israel is Rooted in Racist Violence

https://www.mintpressnews.com/policing-israel-rooted-racist-haganah-violence/276671/

by Jessica Buxbaum

+

Zionist racism gains speed after another Israeli election

https://www.mintpressnews.com/safely-past-another-election-israel-turns-back-policy-de-arabization/276626/

by Miko Peled

 

===========

 

i.

 “Wipe the Soviet Union Off the Map”, 204 Atomic Bombs against 66 Major Cities, US Nuclear Attack against USSR Planned During World War II”

When America and the Soviet Union Were Allies

https://www.globalresearch.ca/wipe-the-ussr-off-the-map-204-atomic-bombs-against-major-cities-us-nuclear-attack-against-soviet-union-planned-prior-to-end-of-world-war-ii/5616601

by  Prof Michel Chossudovsky

(first published November 4, 2017)

 

Nuclear war threatens the future of humanity. We are no longer dealing with a hypothetical scenario. The threat of World War III is real.

 

US-NATO weapons of mass destruction are portrayed as instruments of peace. Mini-nukes are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”. Since the George W. Bush administration, pre-emptive nuclear war has been portrayed as a “humanitarian undertaking”.

While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq, Syria and Yemen, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using “new technologies” and advanced weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality. The US administration has endorsed nuclear war in the name of world peace. “Making the world safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.

The following article first published in 2017 questions the history of the Cold War.

US nuclear threats directed against Russia predate the Cold War. They were first formulated  at the height of World War II under the Manhattan Project when the US and the Soviet Union were allies.

The secret plan to bomb 66 Soviet cities was released in mid-September 1945, two weeks after the formal surrender of Japan.

Had the US decided NOT to develop nuclear weapons for use against the Soviet Union, the nuclear arms race would not have taken place.

Neither The Soviet Union nor the People’s Republic of China would have developed nuclear capabilities as a means of “Deterrence” agains the US which had already formulated plans to annihilate the Soviet Union.

Flash Forward to 2021:

President Joe Biden does not have the foggiest idea as to the consequences of nuclear war.

 

Massive amounts of money have been allocated by the Joe Biden Administration to feed the weapons industry including the Pentagons’ 1.3 trillion dollar nuclear weapons program  first launched under Obama, is ongoing under the Biden administration.

Humanity is at a dangerous crossroads. Nuclear war has become a multi-billion dollar undertaking, which fills the pockets of US defense contractors. What is at stake is the outright “privatization of nuclear war”.

+

Joe Biden and the Pentagon's "Ides of March 2021": Best Month to Go to War?

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-pentagons-ides-of-march-best-month-to-go-to-war-2/5670257

 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

 

===========

 

j.

Towards A Police State in Germany? Live Video of Police Raid into Home of Dr. Andreas Noak

https://www.globalresearch.ca/towards-police-state-in-germany-police-raid-into-home-of-dr-andreas-noak/5729950

by Global Research News

+

Implanted "Vaccine Package" ID: Germany's Parliament Has Ratified GAVI's Digital "Agenda ID2020"

https://www.globalresearch.ca/implanted-vaccine-package-id-germanys-parliament-has-ratified-gavis-digital-agenda-id2020/5736277

by Peter Koenig

 

===========

 

k.

Bill Gates Partners With DARPA & Department of Defense For New DNA Nanotech COVID19 Vaccine!

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2020/05/press/bill-gates-partners-with-darpa-department-of-defense-for-new-dna-nanotech-covid19-vaccine-2/

with Whitney Webb and Ryan Christian

(34:20)

+

“Bill Gates is in my bloodstream!” - Mick Jagger releases pandemic-themed solo track

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/apr/13/mick-jagger-releases-pandemic-lockdown-solo-track-dave-grohl

(3:46)

+

Sweden Axes Gates's Mad Global Warming Scheme

https://www.globalresearch.ca/sweden-axes-gatess-mad-global-warming-scheme/5742546

 by F. William Engdahl

 

===========

 

l.

“On Trauma to Transformation"

https://youtu.be/CqB2GSNJKJM

with Chris Hedges

(33:43)

+

"Former Employee BLASTS "Democracy Now" For Pushing Establishment Propaganda"

https://youtu.be/TZRomf7vkWg

with Jimmy Dore and Aaron Maté

(19:44)

+

Intercept Reporter CAUGHT Falsely Accusing Jimmy Dore Of Lying

https://youtu.be/J40JriWrj2U

with Jimmy Dore

(28:45)

 

===========

 

m.

How Bellingcat launders national security state talking points into the press

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/3b33b8b02bdc833e727219156/images/a6d2e03a-f064-4bb9-beae-3cba9a69f4f6.png

https://www.mintpressnews.com/bellingcat-intelligence-agencies-launders-talking-points-media/276603/
by Alan Macleod  

For a self-proclaimed citizen journalism outfit, an alarming number of Bellingcat’s staff and contributors come from highly suspect backgrounds, including high-level positions in military and intelligence agencies.

In the past month alone, Bellingcat has been described as “an intelligence the people” (ABC Australia), a “transparent” and “innovative” (New Yorker) n the past month alone, Bellhas been described as “an intelligence agency for the people” (ABC Australia), a “transparent” and “innovative” (New Yorker) “independent news collective,” “transforming investigative journalism” (Big Think), and an unequivocal “force for good” (South China Morning Post).
Outside of a few alternative news sites, it is very hard to hear a negative word against Bellingcat, such is the gushing praise for the outlet founded in 2014.
This is troubling because the evidence compiled in this investigation suggests Bellingcat is far from independent and neutral.

In fact, Bellingcat is funded by Western governments, staffed with former military and state intelligence officers, repeats official narratives against enemy states, and serves as a key part in what could be called a “spook to Bellingcat to corporate media propaganda pipeline,” presenting Western government narratives as independent research.

Learn the backgrounds of some Bellingcat contributors and the reality behind the outlet's talking points

===========

n.

 

From: Jim O'Brien via H-PAD
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2021
Subject: [H-PAD] H-PAD Notes 4/9/21: Virtual conference; links to recent articles of interest

 

 

Note:  "Truth, Dissent & the Legacy of Daniel Ellsberg," a virtual national conference commemorating the release of the Pentagon Papers 50 years ago, will take place Friday and Saturday April 30 and May 1, sponsored by the History Department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The speakers list is extraordinary, including Ellsberg himself as well as Edward Snowden, John Dean, Frances FitzGerald, Elizabeth Holtzman, and many others. The conference is "Free, Online, and Open to All."

 

Links to Recent Articles of Interest  

 

"Back to the Future at the Pentagon: Why 2021 Looks So Much Like 1981 - And Why That Should Scare Us"

By William Astore, TomDispatch.com, posted April 8

On the revival of traditional Cold War thinking in US military planning. The author, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools.

 

"'The Most Dangerous Man' Turns 90 - Peter Kuznick on Daniel Ellsberg"

Transcribed interview with Peter Kuznick, theAnalysis.news, posted April 8.

"On the significance of Daniel Ellsberg's decades of fighting against US military policies starting with his release of the Pentagon Papers 50 years ago. Peter Kuznick teaches history at American University, where he is director of the Nuclear Studies Institute.

 

"'This Is Still Being Suppressed': OU Professor's Book of Recovered Photos Preserves History of Tulsa Race Massacre"

By Ari Fife, OU [University of Oklahoma] Daily, posted April 6

A richly illustrated article with scholars' commentary on the long history of suppression and denial of the 1921 massacre of up to 300 Black residents of Tulsa. The author is a journalism student at the University of Oklahoma.

 

"The Painful History of the Georgia Voting Law"

By Jason Morgan Ward, New York Times, posted March 31

"The long struggle to block access to the ballot has always relied on legal maneuvering and political schemes to achieve what bullets and bombs alone could not." The author teaches history at Emory University. Among his books is Defending White Democracy: The Making of a Segregationist Movement and the Remaking of Racial Politics, 1936-1965 (U. of North Carolina Press, 2011).

 

"Will Biden's Central American Plan Slow Migration (or Speed It Up)? The New Border Politics of the Biden Era Are Actually Ancient History

By Aviva Chomsky,TomDispatch.com, posted March 30

The author teaches history at Salem State University. Her new book Central America's Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration is due out later this month from Beacon Press.

 

"A History of Exclusion, of Erasure, of Invisibility: Why the Asian-American Story is Missing from Many U.S. Classrooms"

By Olivia B. Waxman, Time magazine, posted March 30

A readable, illustrated article that gives voice to many educators about ways in which Asian-American history is missing or misrepresented in K-12 education. The author is a Time staff writer.

 

"America's Longest War Winds Down: No Bang, No Whimper, No Victory"

By Andrew Bacevich, TomDispatch.com, posted March 28

A summing-up of twenty years of the US war in Afghanistan. The author is a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University and president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His most recent book is The Age of Illusions: How American Squandered It Cold War Victory (Macmillan, 2020).

 

"Historians for Peace and Democracy Present Free Resources for History Educators"

By Margaret Power and Kevin Young, History News Network, posted March 28

On the Virtual Speakers Program recently launched by H-PAD, along with other resources. The authors teach history at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, respectively. Margaret Power is co-chair of H-PAD and Kevin Young a member of the steering committee.

 

"Argentina's Military Coup of 1976: What the US Knew"

Edited by Carlos Osorio, National Security Archive, posted March 23

A set of declassified documents related to US government knowledge of the plotting behind a military coup that led to seven years of bloody dictatorship in Argentina. The latest of many "briefing books" on episodes in US foreign policy from the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

 

"Washington's Delusion of Endless World Domination: China and the U.S. Struggle over Eurasia, the Epicenter of World Power"

By Alfred McCoy, TomDispatch.com, posted March 21

An overview of strategic moves by China and the US and the need for cooperation amid climate change.The author teaches history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his books include In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power (Dispatch Books, 2017).

 

______________

Thanks to Rusti Eisenberg and an anonymous reader for suggesting some of the above articles. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.

 

===========

 

o.

From: CovertAction Magazine [mailto:info@CovertActionMagazine.com]
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2021
Subject: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin—Former Member of Raytheon Board of Directors—Has Awarded Over $2.36 Billion in Contracts to Raytheon

 

 

 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin—Former Member of Raytheon Board of Directors—Has Awarded Over $2.36 Billion in Contracts to Raytheon Since His Confirmation in January

By Jeremy Kuzmarov on April 19, 2021

The Pentagon has awarded the defense giant Raytheon Technologies over $2.36 billion in government contracts since Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III’s confirmation on January 22nd. 

Austin was on Raytheon’s board of directors prior to his confirmation. […]

 

Sincerely,
Chris Agee
Executive Editor
CovertAction Magazine

 

 

===========

 

p.

From: Cat McGuire [mailto:cat@catmcguire.com]
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2021
Subject: A Dandelion Manifestation -- Council on Foreign Relations -- April 4, 2021

 

Alison McDowell and I recently organized a wonderful manifesting ritual.  On Easter Sunday, about 25 of us in the New York City activist community gathered on Park Avenue in New York City across the street from the Council on Foreign Relations to do a Revocation of Consent and a Transmutation of the Council's actions and energy.

 

In addition to Alison’s brilliant research on the new imprisoning systems we're being inveigled into, we were inspired by her beautiful, heartfelt Dandelion Manifesto, a spiritually prescient call for mending and healing.

 

Watch our Dandelion Manifestation at the Council on Foreign Relations – 30 minutes

 

Our thanks to Diemiruaya Deniran for producing this video.

 

(A longer video made by Cat Watters has a good segment of Alison speaking from 8:16 to 12:04.)

 

Coming up May Day, Alison and I are organizing manifestations at BlackRock, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Harlem Children’s Zone.  We intend to do manifestations all summer long targeting Great Reset bastions of oligarchic power and their many do-gooder proxies.

+

Who Cancel Culture Really Serves

https://youtu.be/3zdyWmiagm4

with Chris Hedges and Julianna Forlano

(23:31)

===========

      

q.

Addressing America’s Homelessness and Squalor: What We Could Do If We Cared

https://www.mintpressnews.com/how-housing-authorities-address-americas-homelessness/276696/

by Eleanor Goldfield

 

The nation’s homeless could be housed for $10 billion a year, less than the price of one aircraft carrier.

+

OUTRAGEOUS! Biden Confiscating Homes To Build Trump's Wall

https://youtu.be/Tn-orqCQe7A

with Jimmy Dore

(8:30)

 

===========

 

r.

Why does the media ignore NATO's eastward expansion?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKQh237CrEQ

by The Duran

(15:57)

+

A School for Spooks: The London University Department Churning Out NATO Spies

https://www.mintpressnews.com/school-for-spooks-kings-college-war-studies-churning-out-nato-spies/276736/

by Alan Macleod

 

Alan Macleod uncovers the deep links between the British security state and the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, responsible for training a large number of British, American, and European agents and defense analysts.

 

===========

 

s.

How to Talk About Race

and Class in America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYMlFgd9sug

with Briahna Gray and Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr.

(32:02)

+

The Unraveling of the American Empire

https://www.mintpressnews.com/chris-hedges-unraveling-empire-united-states/276752/

by Chris Hedges

 

US leadership has stumbled from one military debacle to another, a trajectory mirroring the sad finales of other historical imperial powers.