And yes, MSM is guilty of magnitudes of hyperbole and hysteria, continually ratcheting up the sensationalism in the quest for viewers, listeners, and clicks. With right-wing media being even worse, of course.
A very strong argument could be made that an appropriate term for many aspects, features, and characteristics of America today is "Cluster Fuck Nation."
I've watched with similar concerns as every former Biden red line disappears as the next wonder weapon is handed over to Ukraine. Soon, we will pass F16's and be on the way to F35's.
I agree with a commentator I've read is that Putin is holding back from offensive operations to be seen as a force of moderation for the rest of the global community, and in accordance with the wishes of China.
But there will be a red line Russia can no longer tolerate and its main military units will go on the offensive. Read any account of its operations on the eastern front in the latter half of WWII to understand how Russia wages war. The neocons and MSM are deluded in their thinking that the Russian army is weak. Hopefully Russia will stop at the Dnieper River - after seizing Kharkov and Odessa.
That, I think, will be the point of maximum danger - with either introduction of NATO troops into western Ukraine or a request from Zelensky (or his successor) for tactical nukes to stop further moves west.
Unfortunately, the only possible way out of this is an outright collapse of NATO after next's meeting in Vilnius - something the US will not allow. And with Biden, in whatever moments of clarity he has, wanting to be seen as a wartime President, and with the neocons firmly in control, there doesn't appear to be any hope of the US government turning from this path.
I know we need a massive peace movement, but I doubt it would even be covered by the MSM.
Your last statement about tactical nukes was hidden in broad daylight throughout your article. I worry, we were the first and only country to use nukes. Will we do it again, be the first, be the only, as a way to break the stalemate? God relieve us of these madmen.
If the current crop of sociopaths inhabiting the White House go ahead and provide the cluster bombs, I think it is time to add them to the list of US war criminals that oversee the lawless "rules based order." It's quite a list of thuggery and criminality, including but not limited to the following acts of military aggression:
1) Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara---invasion of Vietnam
2) Ronald Reagan--invasion of Grenada
3) George H.W. Bush--invasion of Panama
4) Bill Clinton--bombing of Serbia; bombing of Iraq
5) George W. Bush/Dick Cheney/Condoleezza Rice/Donald Rumsfeld/Paul Wolfowitz/Colin Powell--invasion of Iraq
6) Barack Obama--regime change in Syria; drone hitman
7) Joe "Cold War" Biden/Anthony Blinken/Lloyd Austin/Jake Sullivan/Victoria Nuland--proxy war in Ukraine
All of the above, of course, were undertaken in the name of "spreading freedom and democracy" and "defending American values."
Great additions! I was terribly negligent in leaving off the list two of the worst war criminals around. Point #1 should be divided into 1a) and 1b) Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger---war against Vietnam and bombing of Cambodia and Laos.
Nukes? - Prominent Russian geopolitical advisor Sergei Karanagov has seriously proposed a Strangelovian plan to save the world: Threaten to and actually initiate a nuclear war with a firm willingness to expand such a war by striking several Western countries, this being for the noble purposes of preserving a healthy and growing Russia and saving humanity from the horrors of a devastating nuclear war. (https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/a-difficult-but-necessary-decision/)
A common meme on Western Media today is that Biden had to supply Zelenskyy with Cluster Munitions (CCM) because those evil Russians are using them in the conflict.
A quick Google search finds Human Rights Watch® reporting that there have been only 9-incidents of Russian use of cluster munitions in an attack in the entire 18-months of the war to date.
Happy to see you call the people advising Biden "madmen" as they surely are; and anyone who hasn't already come to that conclusion would surely know it now with the appointment of Mr Evil himself, Eliot Abrams. I cannot imagine what could be drifting through Biden's deluded brain to have come up with that, though probably it wasn't his idea but one of his "advisors". Who do you think it was?
The appointment is to a bipartisan commission, so Abrams possibly got tapped by McConnell or some other Republican, though Biden(‘s operators) could still have said no, try again, if they had the least interest in repudiating his nightmarish record.
Movies such as this (and others) , along with discussion about the implications should be part of every student's curriculum. Instead, most citizens get bombarded with patriotism and fear-mongering propaganda about how evil & dangerous the enemy is. The words, "nuclear war" don't really even register. They will avert their gaze, reflexively putting the words and concept out of mind... until it hits them personally. To the extent that it does even register, it's often now in the context of being normalized in MSM. Most don't want to think about any of it and simply trust their 'leaders'- usually their Party's elites- to do what is right and necessary. It's a sadly cynical view, I know; but I fear that this is what most of the population has already been reduced to.
14-Trident subs x 20-missiles each x 12- MIRV's* per missile
14 x 20 x 12 = 3,360 Independant warheads
*A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target.
The introduction of MIRV led to a major change in the strategic balance. Previously, with one warhead per missile, it was conceivable that one could build a defense that used missiles to attack individual warheads. Any increase in missile fleet by the enemy could be countered by a similar increase in interceptors. With MIRV, a single new enemy missile meant that multiple interceptors would have to be built, meaning that it was much less expensive to increase the attack than the defense. This cost-exchange ratio was so heavily biased towards the attacker that the concept of mutual assured destruction became the leading concept in strategic planning and ABM systems were severely limited in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) in order to avoid a massive arms race.
Purpose: To enhance first-strike proficiency for strategic forces.
It is because of their first-strike capability that land-based MIRVs were banned under the START II agreement. START II was ratified by the Russian Duma on 14 April 2000, but Russia withdrew from the treaty in 2002 after the US withdrew from the ABM treaty.
I was just 11 then. I recall so clearly, though, the 'duck and cover' exercises in which our teachers, upon the signal, would all have us try to squeeze under our tiny desks. AS IF !
I recall equally vividly, some nightmares I had at the time, watching as my siblings were getting blown up in the back yard. My parents might not have made a big deal about it, but no one thought it unimportant or a laughing matter.
I think you're right... we're closer to a real one now, because at least at that time there was a President who understood that there would be no winners; and that preservation of humankind was more important than dominance and maintaining the position as global hegemon. That President was able and willing to talk with his Russian counterpart. This one is probably both unwilling AND incapable- and I doubt that those who pull his strings would let him in any case.
Worsening the risks is that now we ARE at war... the proxy war in Ukraine, and the West-driven escalations are heightening the existential threat to Russia; which only engaged this fight in the first place to address the already-extant existential threats. For Russia, crossing into the Donbass militarily was a HUGE step; one it would NEVER have taken if not for the lack of any alternative to guarantee its survival and autonomy. I think it safe to conclude that Russia will NOT back down in retreat now that it has expended so many lives and other costs.; unless those security demands are satisfied. Neither Zelensky nor the U.S. and its NATO managers/partners is willing to meet those demands- they wouldn't discuss them before, and now have dug in heels to insist that there'll be no cessation of hostilities until Russia withdraws to pre-2014 conditions - something it can't do for above reasons.
So that means likely continued escalations to try to PUSH Russia into something it can't do... and the escalatory pathway only ends with either the sudden injection of sanity (unlikely) OR the introduction of nuclear elements. As there is already commitment (by UK) of depleted uranium munitions, which cracks the door to nuclear weapons), I can't envision a happy outcome.
For its part, the Kremlin has heretofore been remarkable in the restraint of its military - too restrained in the eyes of many Russians, letting the war drag on. This will likely change; and that, too spells danger in terms of a possible spiraling out of control. Given all Zelensky's pronouncements about an expected Russian 'attack' on it, I worry about the possibility of a false flag incident at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant , already threatened by the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. Zelensky appears to me to have a major goal now: continue the massive flow of weapons (and money) into Ukraine, and induce NATO into a more direct participation in the war.
The Rutherford Institute’s John & Nisha Whitehead begin their 27 June piece A STATE OF MARTIAL LAW: AMERICA IS A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP DISGUISED AS A DEMOCRACY as follows:
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?”—Thomas Jefferson
The government is goosestepping all over our freedoms.
Case in point: America’s founders did not want a military government ruled by force. Rather, they opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution.
Yet sometime over the course of the past 240-plus years that constitutional republic has been transformed into a military dictatorship disguised as a democracy.
Most Americans seem relatively untroubled by this state of martial law.
Incredibly, when President Biden bragged about how the average citizen doesn’t stand a chance against the government’s massive arsenal of militarized firepower, it barely caused a ripple.
As Biden remarked at a fundraising event in California, “I love these guys who say the Second Amendment is—you know, the tree of liberty is water with the blood of patriots. Well, if [you] want to do that, you want to work against the government, you need an F-16. You need something else than just an AR-15.”
The message being sent to the citizenry is clear: there is no place in our nation today for the kind of revolution our forefathers mounted against a tyrannical government.
For that matter, the government has declared an all-out war on any resistance whatsoever by the citizenry to its mandates, power grabs and abuses.
By this standard, had the Declaration of Independence been written today, it would have rendered its signers extremists or terrorists, resulting in them being placed on a government watch list, targeted for surveillance of their activities and correspondence, and potentially arrested, held indefinitely, stripped of their rights and labeled enemy combatants.
This is no longer the stuff of speculation and warning.
For years, the government has been warning against the dangers of domestic terrorism, erecting surveillance systems to monitor its own citizens, creating classification systems to label any viewpoints that challenge the status quo as extremist, and training law enforcement agencies to equate anyone possessing anti-government views as a domestic terrorist.
A 2008 Army War College report revealed that “widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.” The 44-page report goes on to warn that potential causes for such civil unrest could include another terrorist attack, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters.” …..
And they conclude it with:
Brace yourselves.
There is something being concocted in the dens of power, far beyond the public eye, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of this country.
Anytime you have an entire nation so mesmerized by political theater and public spectacle that they are oblivious to all else, you’d better beware.
Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you’d better beware.
And anytime you have a government so far removed from its people as to ensure that they are never seen, heard or heeded by those elected to represent them, you’d better beware.
The architects of the police state have us exactly where they want us: under their stamping boot, gasping for breath, desperate for freedom, grappling for some semblance of a future that does not resemble the totalitarian prison being erected around us.
The government and its cohorts have conspired to ensure that the only real recourse the American people have to express their displeasure with the government is through voting, yet that is no real recourse at all.
Yet as I make clear in my book BATTLEFIELD AMERICA: THE WAR ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE and in its fictional counterpart THE ERIK BLAIR DIARIES, what is unfolding before us is not a revolution. This is an anti-revolution.
Meanwhile in Other News: There is something almost poetically profound [or profoundly poetic] about the fact that July 4, 2023 ~ the 247th birthday of The United States of America ~ broke the all-time record for the hottest single day globally on record. Which was set on July 3, 2023. And then that the July 4 record was subsequently broken again on July 5, and then again on July 6.
According to the World Meteorological Organization: “It was the hottest June on record globally, with record-high sea surface temperatures, especially in the Atlantic Ocean. Antarctic sea ice extent at unprecedented low values for the time of year.”
“Mid-2023 seems destined to go down as a pivotal period in climate change history — a time when planet Earth seemed to go from a simmer to a full rolling boil in a matter of weeks. What’s jumping out isn’t a single heat wave, but a one-after-another series of global and regional heat records astounding in both scope and persistence.
“What’s happened in recent weeks to turn the drip-drip-drip of climate warming into a full-on torrent?” .....
Henson then provides a detailed, graphically illustrated overview of current data and historical context look at several of the most prominent global and regional records and some of the factors that may be leading to the recent spikes:
~ HOTTEST SINGLE DAYS GLOBALLY ON RECORD [cited above].
~ HIGHEST GLOBAL MONTHLY AVERAGE FOR ANY JUNE.
~ WARMEST GLOBAL SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES ON RECORD, RELATIVE TO AVERAGE.
~ SLOWEST-GROWING ANTARCTIC SEA ICE ON RECORD..
He then provides what he calls A ROGUE’S GALLERY OF CULPRITS; again with details:
~ First and Foremost of All: GLOBAL WARMING.
~ EL NIÑO.
~ JET-STREAM WEIRDNESS.
~ THE AZORES HIGH.
~ REDUCTION IN SULFUR DIOXIDE AEROSOLS BELCHED OUT BY SHIPPING.
~ THE JANUARY, 2022 ERUPTION OF THE HUNGA TONGA–HUNGA HA’APAI VOLCANO.
If 1967 has been termed “The Long Hot Summer” of American History because of the more than 150 Race Riots that happened [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long,_hot_summer_of_1967 ], the Summer of 2023 may be even Hotter in many more ways than one.
FFF’s Jacob Hornberger’s conclusion is as follows: “The national-security state is a malignant tumor on the American body politic. Although our nation faces lots of problems, the priority should be given to the removal of this cancer and to the restoration of our founding governmental system of a limited-government republic, before it is too late.”
THE CANCER OF THE NATIONAL-SECURITY STATE by Jacob G. Hornberger / The Future of Freedom Foundation 062923
Suppose that after you visit your doctor for a physical examination, he informs you that you are suffering from the following ailments:
A stiff knee, which requires six months of physical therapy.
Being overweight, which requires a big change in diet.
Kidney problems, which require you to give up drinking.
A growing malignant tumor on your stomach that can be removed by surgery.
The doctor recommends that you give priority to ailment 4, but you instead decide to give priority to the first three ailments.
At the end of six months, you have resolved your knee problem, you have brought your weight down to an acceptable level, and you have totally given up drinking. At your six-month review, your doctor commends you on your accomplishments.
There is just one big problem, however. Your malignant tumor has grown so large that it can no longer be removed. Worse, the cancer has spread throughout your body. Your doctor advises you to get your affairs in order because you only have three months to live.
That’s the situation that the American people face with respect to the society in which we live. There are multiple problems facing our nation. But the biggest one is the national-security state form of governmental structure under which we have been living for some 75 years. It is this governmental structure that is a malignant tumor on the American body politic. This political cancer is taking us down from within. That’s why it is imperative that Americans make its removal their top priority.
Consisting of the Pentagon, the vast military-industrial complex, the enormous empire of domestic and foreign military bases, the CIA, and the NSA, along with its foreign policy of interventionism, the national-security establishment is the root cause of the perpetual wars in which the United States has been embroiled since 1947, when the federal government was converted from a limited-government republic to a national-security state.
The Cold War. The Korean War. The Vietnam War. The Persian Gulf War. The war on terrorism. The war on Islam. The War on Afghanistan. The War on Iraq. The war on Syria. The war on Yemen. The war on China. The war on Iran. Multiple military incursions. Multiple coups and state-sponsored assassinations. And now the renewed Cold War on Russia, which has gotten us perilously close to all-out, life-destroying nuclear war, just like it did back in October 1962.
Of course, there is lots of focus on ending America’s “endless wars.” But that’s akin to focusing on our knee problem rather than on our cancer problem. Ending one forever war accomplishes nothing from a long-term perspective because always around the corner is another forever war. That’s because the national-security state apparatus is the root cause of each forever war in which they embroil America.
A national-security state necessarily depends on forever wars or, at the very least, crises, dangers, and threats from official enemies, adversaries, opponents, and competitors in order to justify its existence and its ever-growing taxpayer-funded largess. The wars, crises, dangers, and threats keep people agitated and afraid. They become convinced that without the national-security establishment keeping them safe, the nation would inevitably be conquered by the Reds, the terrorists, the Muslims, the illegal immigrants, the drug dealers, the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, or some other scary boogeyman.
There is, of course, the out-of-control federal spending, debt, and monetary debauchery that comes with all this to consider. It’s not just the welfare state (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, etc.) that is taking us down from within. It’s also the warfare state, which is costing American taxpayers close to a trillion dollars a year.
There is also the omnipotent, totalitarian-like, dark-side powers that come with a national-security state, such as assassination, kidnapping, torture, and indefinite detention. Such powers are able to be exercised against both foreigners and American citizens.
For many years, I have been recommending a book titled NATIONAL SECURITY AND DOUBLE GOVERNMENT by Michael J. Glennon, who is a professor of law at Tufts University and served as counsel to the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.
Glennon’s thesis is a simple but extremely ominous one. He persuasively makes the case that it is the national-security branch of the government — that is, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — that is actually running the federal government, especially in foreign affairs. The other three branches — the executive, legislative, and judicial — are permitted to maintain the veneer of power. But that’s all it is — an appearance. The real power, Glennon argues, lies with the national-security establishment.
That means that it is the Pentagon, not the deferential executive or legislative branches, that is calling the shots and running the show in Ukraine. Given the extreme anti-Russia hostility that drove the national-security establishment and its willingness to risk nuclear war during the Cold War, Glennon’s thesis does not bode well for the long-term future and well-being of the American people.
The national-security state is a malignant tumor on the American body politic. Although our nation faces lots of problems, the priority should be given to the removal of this cancer and to the restoration of our founding governmental system of a limited-government republic, before it is too late.
~ 1. It’s easier to understand what’s going on in the world when you mentally “mute” people’s narratives about what’s going on and just look at the material movements of wealth, resources, weapons, and people. That’s how you separate what’s real from the manipulations and empty narrative fluff, how you see who’s doing the taking and hoarding, and how you figure out who the real aggressors are in international conflicts.
~ 2. The three most overlooked and under-appreciated aspects of the human experience are consciousness, the extent to which conditioned thought patterns dictate our lives, and the influence of propaganda.
~ 3. We live in a civilization that’s so pervasively steeped in lies and manipulations that the only way to have a truth-based relationship with reality is to drop all your assumptions and premises about what’s true and begin examining everything from the very beginning with fresh eyes.
~ 4. The phenomenon known as spiritual enlightenment is a real thing which we are all capable of realizing, and the fact that this potential exists within our species has many far-reaching implications for what we are capable of attaining as a civilization.
~ 5. Everything is beautiful. Not seeing the beauty in something is always the failure of the perceiver, not the thing being perceived.
~ 6. Happiness is the natural default position of human consciousness. It’s only through egoic delusions that we trick ourselves into unhappiness.
~ 7. There are strange untapped potentials within our species which our philosophies don’t touch on, our religions don’t anticipate, our academia doesn’t acknowledge, and our common worldviews don’t account for.
~ 8. Reality is nondual. There’s no real separation between the perceiver and that which is perceived, or between any of the objects in sense perception. All is indivisible.
~ 9. The self is an illusion held together by believed mental narratives and fear-based energetic fixations. This illusion can be seen through and transcended.
~ 10. It’s possible for two people to keep falling more and more deeply in love with each other for their entire lives, as long as they’re both intensely curious about each other and both keep growing and discovering new parts of themselves to love.
~ 11. The feeling of guilt is useless and can safely be dropped entirely. The only people who might benefit from feeling some guilt are the sociopaths and psychopaths among us who never experience it anyway. For those among us with healthy empathy centers, guilt is unnecessary to motivate good behavior and often becomes a tool that manipulators use to control us.
~ 12. Antisocial personality disorder, more commonly known as sociopathy and psychopathy, is one of the greatest obstacles to human thriving. That there really are creatures among us who don’t think or feel like the rest of us do and frequently use their lack of empathy to climb the ladders of wealth and power sounds made up (and even sounds like the basis of many racist belief systems), but it is a fact. Not until our species becomes so emotionally intelligent and awake that sociopaths and psychopaths are unable to thrive in it or go unseen will this problem disappear.
~ 13. You can recognize sociopaths, psychopaths, and other narcissists in your life by paying attention to how much energy they pour into convincing you to believe stories about others, about themselves, and especially about you. Someone who often spends energy trying to get you to believe negative things about yourself is someone you should get out of your life as quickly as possible.
~ 14. There really is a struggle in our world between light and darkness, though it doesn’t look how the movies tell us to expect it. Those in power seek to keep their dark deeds hidden in darkness by maintaining government secrecy, propaganda and censorship. The manipulators in our own lives seek to keep their manipulations and misdeeds hidden in the same way. Even within our own personal psychology there are dysfunctional structures which seek to remain hidden in the unconscious. Humanity’s struggle is to bring that all into the light.
~ 15. A sincere devotion to knowing the truth is the path toward happiness, health and harmony, for humans as individuals and for humanity as a collective. Knowing what’s true about ourselves uncovers our inner dysfunctionality and leads to healing and enlightenment. Knowing what’s true about our world leads to an understanding of the abusive nature of our power structures and societal systems. Continually striving toward the light of truth will bring us all home.
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
[Note: The same Question can also be asked about the next Pandemic Event]
What will you do when your government once again fails its Constitutionally-mandated duty and responsibility to preserve and protect the Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, and The Pursuit of Happiness of America’s citizens from all enemies, foreign and domestic? Will you meekly and absent-mindedly accept the fact that, once again, not one single elected politician, not one single entrenched civilian or military career bureaucrat, not one single anointed political appointee is to be held accountable or made to be responsible and to pay for his or her failures?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
What will you do when thousands more of your countrymen are murdered before your very eyes on live television? Will you once again dutifully and diffidently shrug off your absolute, inalienable, and unconditional Right to know the Real, Whole Truth about WHAT actually happened, about HOW it actually happened, about WHY it actually happened, about WHO actually made it happen, and about Who actually LET it happen? Will you once again passively and patriotically accept the Official “conspiracy theory” version of events as explained to you by your government, and as packaged and presented, marketed and sold to you by its experts, cheerleaders, gatekeepers, and champions in what used to be called The Media – mainstream, corporate, liberal, alternative, conservative, progressive, patriotic, radical, which, what, and/or wherever?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
What will you do when the so-called War Against so-called Terrorism abroad and at home is transparently, clearly, and undeniably demonstrated to be a total, abject failure and thus lie, scam, hoax, and sham? Will you once again give even more untaxed money, unchallenged political power, and unchallengeable legal authority to the very people, offices, organizations, and agencies by whose failures this “War” was created and is waged, and who can promise you only that your -- and their -- investment in it will last forever?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
What will you do when your elected and appointed officials further dismantle Constitutional government in the name of “civilization,” further diminish individual and civil liberties in the name of “freedom,” and finally destroy the last vestiges of whatever power We, the People, may have once commanded, all in the name of “democracy” and “security”? Will you obediently and obsequiously once again hide and watch the next stage in the biggest seizure of government power on this planet since Stalin’s Russia in the 20s, Hitler’s Germany and Roosevelt's New Deal in the 30s, and Mao’s China in the 40s?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
Will you rush out to buy brand new flags and ribbons and bumper stickers, buttons, posters and signs, to replace the torn, shredded, faded, matted, pealed, and rusted ones you rushed out to buy after the first 9/11? And then once again go on with your lives, desperately hoping that you can somehow continue pretending to pretend that nothing has really changed, that life does indeed go on the Day After The End of The World As We Knew It, Once Again.
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
Will you piously, stoically, and heroically accept a Draft as part of the necessary, national sacrifice demanded in this time of new national peril and challenge? Particularly if you get to keep your tax breaks and gas in your SUVs, and your kid gets to get his or her Deferment?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
Will you, the so-called “peace, anti-War, and social justice” community of America, once again walk right past GROUND ZERO -- The Real, Whole Truth -- looking for something more significant, something more relevant, something more important? Will you once again rush to hold your episodic, Gatherings Of The Tribe to rail and rant and beat your breasts and massage your gums and egos against the newest extension and expansion and endless continuation of this so-called “War” at home and abroad?
This War about which you have -- from DAY ZERO, from September 11, 2001 -- completely refused and thus failed to “think the unthinkable,” and thus understand, and thus first prevent and then and now stop?
Will you ever succeed? Will you ever stop ANY War? Will you ever really want Peace instead of just Power, Justice instead of the Judicial Authority that comes with that Power, and Truth instead of nothing more or less than simply your fair share of the Loot?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
What will you do when those who benefited most from its happening the first time determine that the time has come for another major Terror Event, because maximal strategic and tactical political, economic, and, above all, psychological gain and advantage is to be achieved with another, with a second “New Pearl Harbor”? Will you once again feign ignorance of their -- and your -- history?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN THOSE WHO BENEFITED MOST FROM THE FIRST 9/11 DETERMINE THAT THEY STAND TO GAIN EVEN MORE WITH A SECOND ITERATION?
Who and/or What is going to stop them?
DO YOU HAVE THE COURAGE TO EVEN ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS? LET ALONE ANSWER THEM?
[Originally written and posted online in late December, 2001.]
All of this just highlights the failure of Congress over at least the last 30 years to exercise its role in declaring and funding war, and limiting the actions of imperial Presidents. Presidents can involve the US in any conflict and escalate with no pushback. When was the last time we even heard about the War Powers act being invoked?
"President Nixon was an early critic of the War Powers Act, and he vetoed the law on the grounds that it was an “unconstitutional and dangerous” check on his duties as commander-in-chief of the military. In a message accompanying his veto, Nixon argued that the resolution “would attempt to take away, by a mere legislative act, authorities which the President has properly exercised under the Constitution for almost 200 years.”
Congress overrode Nixon’s veto, but he wasn’t the last chief executive to bristle at the restrictions of the War Powers Act. Since the 1970s, every sitting president has either sidestepped some of the law’s provisions or labeled it unconstitutional.
One of the first major challenges to the War Powers Act came in 1981, when President Ronald Reagan deployed military personnel to El Salvador without consulting or submitting a report to Congress. In 1999, President Bill Clinton continued a bombing campaign in Kosovo beyond the 60-day time limit cited in the law.
A more recent War Powers Act dispute arose in 2011, when President Barack Obama initiated a military action in Libya without congressional authorization.
Members of Congress have occasionally objected to the executive branch’s disregard for the War Powers Act, but attempts to take the issue to court have been unsuccessful. In 2000, for example, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case on whether the law had been violated during military operations in Yugoslavia.
Ever since its passage in 1973, politicians have been divided on the War Powers Act’s effectiveness. Supporters of the resolution maintain that it is a much-needed check on the president’s ability to make war without Congressional approval.
Critics, meanwhile, argue the law has failed to create better coordination between the executive and legislative branches. Some believe the law is too restrictive on the president’s ability to respond to foreign emergencies, while others contend that it gives the president free reign to commit troops overseas.
Most experts tend to agree that the War Powers Act has rarely worked as intended. According to one study by the Congressional Research Service, presidents have traditionally avoided citing certain provisions of the resolution whenever they submit reports to Congress. As a result, the 60-day time limits of the law have rarely been triggered, and it has never been used to bring an end to a foreign military operation.
Because of the War Powers Act’s contentious history, there have occasionally been calls for the resolution to be repealed or amended. One notable attempt came in 1995, when the U.S. House of Representatives voted on an amendment that would have repealed many of the Act’s main components. The measure was narrowly defeated by a vote of 217-204."
Dennis, that was a good summary. I agree it's not been effective and often been ignored, but something is needed and Congress doesn't appear to be willing to do much but sit by and let the Presidents do as they will.
Insanity rules.
And yes, MSM is guilty of magnitudes of hyperbole and hysteria, continually ratcheting up the sensationalism in the quest for viewers, listeners, and clicks. With right-wing media being even worse, of course.
For all his faults, JFK was right about a lot of critical issues.
I dunno' That almost seems appropriate since the U.S. Foreign Policy seems like one gigantic Cluster F---K anyhow.
I was tempted by the title: Cluster (Fuck) Munitions
A very strong argument could be made that an appropriate term for many aspects, features, and characteristics of America today is "Cluster Fuck Nation."
I've watched with similar concerns as every former Biden red line disappears as the next wonder weapon is handed over to Ukraine. Soon, we will pass F16's and be on the way to F35's.
I agree with a commentator I've read is that Putin is holding back from offensive operations to be seen as a force of moderation for the rest of the global community, and in accordance with the wishes of China.
But there will be a red line Russia can no longer tolerate and its main military units will go on the offensive. Read any account of its operations on the eastern front in the latter half of WWII to understand how Russia wages war. The neocons and MSM are deluded in their thinking that the Russian army is weak. Hopefully Russia will stop at the Dnieper River - after seizing Kharkov and Odessa.
That, I think, will be the point of maximum danger - with either introduction of NATO troops into western Ukraine or a request from Zelensky (or his successor) for tactical nukes to stop further moves west.
Unfortunately, the only possible way out of this is an outright collapse of NATO after next's meeting in Vilnius - something the US will not allow. And with Biden, in whatever moments of clarity he has, wanting to be seen as a wartime President, and with the neocons firmly in control, there doesn't appear to be any hope of the US government turning from this path.
I know we need a massive peace movement, but I doubt it would even be covered by the MSM.
Your last statement about tactical nukes was hidden in broad daylight throughout your article. I worry, we were the first and only country to use nukes. Will we do it again, be the first, be the only, as a way to break the stalemate? God relieve us of these madmen.
If the current crop of sociopaths inhabiting the White House go ahead and provide the cluster bombs, I think it is time to add them to the list of US war criminals that oversee the lawless "rules based order." It's quite a list of thuggery and criminality, including but not limited to the following acts of military aggression:
1) Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara---invasion of Vietnam
2) Ronald Reagan--invasion of Grenada
3) George H.W. Bush--invasion of Panama
4) Bill Clinton--bombing of Serbia; bombing of Iraq
5) George W. Bush/Dick Cheney/Condoleezza Rice/Donald Rumsfeld/Paul Wolfowitz/Colin Powell--invasion of Iraq
6) Barack Obama--regime change in Syria; drone hitman
7) Joe "Cold War" Biden/Anthony Blinken/Lloyd Austin/Jake Sullivan/Victoria Nuland--proxy war in Ukraine
All of the above, of course, were undertaken in the name of "spreading freedom and democracy" and "defending American values."
Under #2:: Add Osama bin Laden and Da Boyz in our Holy Crusade against the USSR in Afghanistan, and Ollie North's Holy Crusade in Central America.
Under #3: Add Operation Desert Storm and the Sanctions against Iraq.
Under #4: Add continuation of Sanctions against Iraq,
Under #5: Add Afghanistan again, and the whole so-called "Global" so-called "War On" on so-called "Terrorism," aka "The Forever War."
Under #6: Add regime change in Ukraine and Libya.
And don't forget POTUS Maxximmuss XLV and his doing absolutely nothing to reign in the folks #6 put in power, paving the way for #7.
Great additions! I was terribly negligent in leaving off the list two of the worst war criminals around. Point #1 should be divided into 1a) and 1b) Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger---war against Vietnam and bombing of Cambodia and Laos.
ps: Between #1 and #2, add Nixon, and his "Secret Plan to end the war in Vietnam" by starting a new one in Cambodia and Laos.
Wow, I guess I was writing my reply exactly as you posted your update!!
Great minds think alike, eh?
Nukes? - Prominent Russian geopolitical advisor Sergei Karanagov has seriously proposed a Strangelovian plan to save the world: Threaten to and actually initiate a nuclear war with a firm willingness to expand such a war by striking several Western countries, this being for the noble purposes of preserving a healthy and growing Russia and saving humanity from the horrors of a devastating nuclear war. (https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/a-difficult-but-necessary-decision/)
A common meme on Western Media today is that Biden had to supply Zelenskyy with Cluster Munitions (CCM) because those evil Russians are using them in the conflict.
A quick Google search finds Human Rights Watch® reporting that there have been only 9-incidents of Russian use of cluster munitions in an attack in the entire 18-months of the war to date.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/05/29/cluster-munition-use-russia-ukraine-war
Killing in total (17) people. And wounding (58). Out of (~160,000) claimed killed in Ukraine.
Not saying it is moral or right - it's disgusting
These just facts for your data base.
It doesn't need to be true. It just needs to be a catchy slogan. (sarc)
Happy to see you call the people advising Biden "madmen" as they surely are; and anyone who hasn't already come to that conclusion would surely know it now with the appointment of Mr Evil himself, Eliot Abrams. I cannot imagine what could be drifting through Biden's deluded brain to have come up with that, though probably it wasn't his idea but one of his "advisors". Who do you think it was?
Antony Blinken, perhaps?
The appointment is to a bipartisan commission, so Abrams possibly got tapped by McConnell or some other Republican, though Biden(‘s operators) could still have said no, try again, if they had the least interest in repudiating his nightmarish record.
Zelensky will want small nukes next. Just the small ones. Not the really big ones that do a lot of damage. (sarc)
Just a small nuke. 15 kilotons. One Hiroshima. No big deal.
We sent them 23 of those but now they can account for only 12. Hey, no worries. For as long as it takes. (sarc)
Movies such as this (and others) , along with discussion about the implications should be part of every student's curriculum. Instead, most citizens get bombarded with patriotism and fear-mongering propaganda about how evil & dangerous the enemy is. The words, "nuclear war" don't really even register. They will avert their gaze, reflexively putting the words and concept out of mind... until it hits them personally. To the extent that it does even register, it's often now in the context of being normalized in MSM. Most don't want to think about any of it and simply trust their 'leaders'- usually their Party's elites- to do what is right and necessary. It's a sadly cynical view, I know; but I fear that this is what most of the population has already been reduced to.
Thanks for posting that excellent piece. It expresses what many of us think and feel.
Thanks Ray,
14-Trident subs x 20-missiles each x 12- MIRV's* per missile
14 x 20 x 12 = 3,360 Independant warheads
*A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target.
The introduction of MIRV led to a major change in the strategic balance. Previously, with one warhead per missile, it was conceivable that one could build a defense that used missiles to attack individual warheads. Any increase in missile fleet by the enemy could be countered by a similar increase in interceptors. With MIRV, a single new enemy missile meant that multiple interceptors would have to be built, meaning that it was much less expensive to increase the attack than the defense. This cost-exchange ratio was so heavily biased towards the attacker that the concept of mutual assured destruction became the leading concept in strategic planning and ABM systems were severely limited in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) in order to avoid a massive arms race.
Purpose: To enhance first-strike proficiency for strategic forces.
It is because of their first-strike capability that land-based MIRVs were banned under the START II agreement. START II was ratified by the Russian Duma on 14 April 2000, but Russia withdrew from the treaty in 2002 after the US withdrew from the ABM treaty.
I was just 11 then. I recall so clearly, though, the 'duck and cover' exercises in which our teachers, upon the signal, would all have us try to squeeze under our tiny desks. AS IF !
I recall equally vividly, some nightmares I had at the time, watching as my siblings were getting blown up in the back yard. My parents might not have made a big deal about it, but no one thought it unimportant or a laughing matter.
I think you're right... we're closer to a real one now, because at least at that time there was a President who understood that there would be no winners; and that preservation of humankind was more important than dominance and maintaining the position as global hegemon. That President was able and willing to talk with his Russian counterpart. This one is probably both unwilling AND incapable- and I doubt that those who pull his strings would let him in any case.
Worsening the risks is that now we ARE at war... the proxy war in Ukraine, and the West-driven escalations are heightening the existential threat to Russia; which only engaged this fight in the first place to address the already-extant existential threats. For Russia, crossing into the Donbass militarily was a HUGE step; one it would NEVER have taken if not for the lack of any alternative to guarantee its survival and autonomy. I think it safe to conclude that Russia will NOT back down in retreat now that it has expended so many lives and other costs.; unless those security demands are satisfied. Neither Zelensky nor the U.S. and its NATO managers/partners is willing to meet those demands- they wouldn't discuss them before, and now have dug in heels to insist that there'll be no cessation of hostilities until Russia withdraws to pre-2014 conditions - something it can't do for above reasons.
So that means likely continued escalations to try to PUSH Russia into something it can't do... and the escalatory pathway only ends with either the sudden injection of sanity (unlikely) OR the introduction of nuclear elements. As there is already commitment (by UK) of depleted uranium munitions, which cracks the door to nuclear weapons), I can't envision a happy outcome.
For its part, the Kremlin has heretofore been remarkable in the restraint of its military - too restrained in the eyes of many Russians, letting the war drag on. This will likely change; and that, too spells danger in terms of a possible spiraling out of control. Given all Zelensky's pronouncements about an expected Russian 'attack' on it, I worry about the possibility of a false flag incident at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant , already threatened by the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. Zelensky appears to me to have a major goal now: continue the massive flow of weapons (and money) into Ukraine, and induce NATO into a more direct participation in the war.
The Rutherford Institute’s John & Nisha Whitehead begin their 27 June piece A STATE OF MARTIAL LAW: AMERICA IS A MILITARY DICTATORSHIP DISGUISED AS A DEMOCRACY as follows:
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?”—Thomas Jefferson
The government is goosestepping all over our freedoms.
Case in point: America’s founders did not want a military government ruled by force. Rather, they opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution.
Yet sometime over the course of the past 240-plus years that constitutional republic has been transformed into a military dictatorship disguised as a democracy.
Most Americans seem relatively untroubled by this state of martial law.
Incredibly, when President Biden bragged about how the average citizen doesn’t stand a chance against the government’s massive arsenal of militarized firepower, it barely caused a ripple.
As Biden remarked at a fundraising event in California, “I love these guys who say the Second Amendment is—you know, the tree of liberty is water with the blood of patriots. Well, if [you] want to do that, you want to work against the government, you need an F-16. You need something else than just an AR-15.”
The message being sent to the citizenry is clear: there is no place in our nation today for the kind of revolution our forefathers mounted against a tyrannical government.
For that matter, the government has declared an all-out war on any resistance whatsoever by the citizenry to its mandates, power grabs and abuses.
By this standard, had the Declaration of Independence been written today, it would have rendered its signers extremists or terrorists, resulting in them being placed on a government watch list, targeted for surveillance of their activities and correspondence, and potentially arrested, held indefinitely, stripped of their rights and labeled enemy combatants.
This is no longer the stuff of speculation and warning.
For years, the government has been warning against the dangers of domestic terrorism, erecting surveillance systems to monitor its own citizens, creating classification systems to label any viewpoints that challenge the status quo as extremist, and training law enforcement agencies to equate anyone possessing anti-government views as a domestic terrorist.
A 2008 Army War College report revealed that “widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.” The 44-page report goes on to warn that potential causes for such civil unrest could include another terrorist attack, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters.” …..
And they conclude it with:
Brace yourselves.
There is something being concocted in the dens of power, far beyond the public eye, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of this country.
Anytime you have an entire nation so mesmerized by political theater and public spectacle that they are oblivious to all else, you’d better beware.
Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you’d better beware.
And anytime you have a government so far removed from its people as to ensure that they are never seen, heard or heeded by those elected to represent them, you’d better beware.
The architects of the police state have us exactly where they want us: under their stamping boot, gasping for breath, desperate for freedom, grappling for some semblance of a future that does not resemble the totalitarian prison being erected around us.
The government and its cohorts have conspired to ensure that the only real recourse the American people have to express their displeasure with the government is through voting, yet that is no real recourse at all.
Yet as I make clear in my book BATTLEFIELD AMERICA: THE WAR ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE and in its fictional counterpart THE ERIK BLAIR DIARIES, what is unfolding before us is not a revolution. This is an anti-revolution.
We are at our most vulnerable right now.
The full article is at https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/a_state_of_martial_law_america_is_a_military_dictatorship_disguised_as_a_democracy .
Meanwhile in Other News: There is something almost poetically profound [or profoundly poetic] about the fact that July 4, 2023 ~ the 247th birthday of The United States of America ~ broke the all-time record for the hottest single day globally on record. Which was set on July 3, 2023. And then that the July 4 record was subsequently broken again on July 5, and then again on July 6.
According to the World Meteorological Organization: “It was the hottest June on record globally, with record-high sea surface temperatures, especially in the Atlantic Ocean. Antarctic sea ice extent at unprecedented low values for the time of year.”
Yale Climate Connection’s Eye On The Storm’s Bob Henson asks: THE WORLD JUST BROKE A STUNNING SLEW OF HEAT RECORDS. WHY RIGHT NOW? [ Full article at https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/07/the-world-just-broke-a-stunning-slew-of-heat-records-why-right-now/ .]
“Mid-2023 seems destined to go down as a pivotal period in climate change history — a time when planet Earth seemed to go from a simmer to a full rolling boil in a matter of weeks. What’s jumping out isn’t a single heat wave, but a one-after-another series of global and regional heat records astounding in both scope and persistence.
“What’s happened in recent weeks to turn the drip-drip-drip of climate warming into a full-on torrent?” .....
Henson then provides a detailed, graphically illustrated overview of current data and historical context look at several of the most prominent global and regional records and some of the factors that may be leading to the recent spikes:
~ HOTTEST SINGLE DAYS GLOBALLY ON RECORD [cited above].
~ HIGHEST GLOBAL MONTHLY AVERAGE FOR ANY JUNE.
~ WARMEST GLOBAL SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES ON RECORD, RELATIVE TO AVERAGE.
~ SLOWEST-GROWING ANTARCTIC SEA ICE ON RECORD..
He then provides what he calls A ROGUE’S GALLERY OF CULPRITS; again with details:
~ First and Foremost of All: GLOBAL WARMING.
~ EL NIÑO.
~ JET-STREAM WEIRDNESS.
~ THE AZORES HIGH.
~ REDUCTION IN SULFUR DIOXIDE AEROSOLS BELCHED OUT BY SHIPPING.
~ THE JANUARY, 2022 ERUPTION OF THE HUNGA TONGA–HUNGA HA’APAI VOLCANO.
If 1967 has been termed “The Long Hot Summer” of American History because of the more than 150 Race Riots that happened [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long,_hot_summer_of_1967 ], the Summer of 2023 may be even Hotter in many more ways than one.
And not just because of the Heat.
FFF’s Jacob Hornberger’s conclusion is as follows: “The national-security state is a malignant tumor on the American body politic. Although our nation faces lots of problems, the priority should be given to the removal of this cancer and to the restoration of our founding governmental system of a limited-government republic, before it is too late.”
THE CANCER OF THE NATIONAL-SECURITY STATE by Jacob G. Hornberger / The Future of Freedom Foundation 062923
Suppose that after you visit your doctor for a physical examination, he informs you that you are suffering from the following ailments:
A stiff knee, which requires six months of physical therapy.
Being overweight, which requires a big change in diet.
Kidney problems, which require you to give up drinking.
A growing malignant tumor on your stomach that can be removed by surgery.
The doctor recommends that you give priority to ailment 4, but you instead decide to give priority to the first three ailments.
At the end of six months, you have resolved your knee problem, you have brought your weight down to an acceptable level, and you have totally given up drinking. At your six-month review, your doctor commends you on your accomplishments.
There is just one big problem, however. Your malignant tumor has grown so large that it can no longer be removed. Worse, the cancer has spread throughout your body. Your doctor advises you to get your affairs in order because you only have three months to live.
That’s the situation that the American people face with respect to the society in which we live. There are multiple problems facing our nation. But the biggest one is the national-security state form of governmental structure under which we have been living for some 75 years. It is this governmental structure that is a malignant tumor on the American body politic. This political cancer is taking us down from within. That’s why it is imperative that Americans make its removal their top priority.
Consisting of the Pentagon, the vast military-industrial complex, the enormous empire of domestic and foreign military bases, the CIA, and the NSA, along with its foreign policy of interventionism, the national-security establishment is the root cause of the perpetual wars in which the United States has been embroiled since 1947, when the federal government was converted from a limited-government republic to a national-security state.
The Cold War. The Korean War. The Vietnam War. The Persian Gulf War. The war on terrorism. The war on Islam. The War on Afghanistan. The War on Iraq. The war on Syria. The war on Yemen. The war on China. The war on Iran. Multiple military incursions. Multiple coups and state-sponsored assassinations. And now the renewed Cold War on Russia, which has gotten us perilously close to all-out, life-destroying nuclear war, just like it did back in October 1962.
Of course, there is lots of focus on ending America’s “endless wars.” But that’s akin to focusing on our knee problem rather than on our cancer problem. Ending one forever war accomplishes nothing from a long-term perspective because always around the corner is another forever war. That’s because the national-security state apparatus is the root cause of each forever war in which they embroil America.
A national-security state necessarily depends on forever wars or, at the very least, crises, dangers, and threats from official enemies, adversaries, opponents, and competitors in order to justify its existence and its ever-growing taxpayer-funded largess. The wars, crises, dangers, and threats keep people agitated and afraid. They become convinced that without the national-security establishment keeping them safe, the nation would inevitably be conquered by the Reds, the terrorists, the Muslims, the illegal immigrants, the drug dealers, the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, or some other scary boogeyman.
There is, of course, the out-of-control federal spending, debt, and monetary debauchery that comes with all this to consider. It’s not just the welfare state (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, etc.) that is taking us down from within. It’s also the warfare state, which is costing American taxpayers close to a trillion dollars a year.
There is also the omnipotent, totalitarian-like, dark-side powers that come with a national-security state, such as assassination, kidnapping, torture, and indefinite detention. Such powers are able to be exercised against both foreigners and American citizens.
For many years, I have been recommending a book titled NATIONAL SECURITY AND DOUBLE GOVERNMENT by Michael J. Glennon, who is a professor of law at Tufts University and served as counsel to the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.
Glennon’s thesis is a simple but extremely ominous one. He persuasively makes the case that it is the national-security branch of the government — that is, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — that is actually running the federal government, especially in foreign affairs. The other three branches — the executive, legislative, and judicial — are permitted to maintain the veneer of power. But that’s all it is — an appearance. The real power, Glennon argues, lies with the national-security establishment.
That means that it is the Pentagon, not the deferential executive or legislative branches, that is calling the shots and running the show in Ukraine. Given the extreme anti-Russia hostility that drove the national-security establishment and its willingness to risk nuclear war during the Cold War, Glennon’s thesis does not bode well for the long-term future and well-being of the American people.
The national-security state is a malignant tumor on the American body politic. Although our nation faces lots of problems, the priority should be given to the removal of this cancer and to the restoration of our founding governmental system of a limited-government republic, before it is too late.
Source: https://www.fff.org/2023/06/29/the-cancer-of-the-national-security-state/ .
FIFTEEN USEFUL FACTS by Caitlin Johnstone 070223
~ 1. It’s easier to understand what’s going on in the world when you mentally “mute” people’s narratives about what’s going on and just look at the material movements of wealth, resources, weapons, and people. That’s how you separate what’s real from the manipulations and empty narrative fluff, how you see who’s doing the taking and hoarding, and how you figure out who the real aggressors are in international conflicts.
~ 2. The three most overlooked and under-appreciated aspects of the human experience are consciousness, the extent to which conditioned thought patterns dictate our lives, and the influence of propaganda.
~ 3. We live in a civilization that’s so pervasively steeped in lies and manipulations that the only way to have a truth-based relationship with reality is to drop all your assumptions and premises about what’s true and begin examining everything from the very beginning with fresh eyes.
~ 4. The phenomenon known as spiritual enlightenment is a real thing which we are all capable of realizing, and the fact that this potential exists within our species has many far-reaching implications for what we are capable of attaining as a civilization.
~ 5. Everything is beautiful. Not seeing the beauty in something is always the failure of the perceiver, not the thing being perceived.
~ 6. Happiness is the natural default position of human consciousness. It’s only through egoic delusions that we trick ourselves into unhappiness.
~ 7. There are strange untapped potentials within our species which our philosophies don’t touch on, our religions don’t anticipate, our academia doesn’t acknowledge, and our common worldviews don’t account for.
~ 8. Reality is nondual. There’s no real separation between the perceiver and that which is perceived, or between any of the objects in sense perception. All is indivisible.
~ 9. The self is an illusion held together by believed mental narratives and fear-based energetic fixations. This illusion can be seen through and transcended.
~ 10. It’s possible for two people to keep falling more and more deeply in love with each other for their entire lives, as long as they’re both intensely curious about each other and both keep growing and discovering new parts of themselves to love.
~ 11. The feeling of guilt is useless and can safely be dropped entirely. The only people who might benefit from feeling some guilt are the sociopaths and psychopaths among us who never experience it anyway. For those among us with healthy empathy centers, guilt is unnecessary to motivate good behavior and often becomes a tool that manipulators use to control us.
~ 12. Antisocial personality disorder, more commonly known as sociopathy and psychopathy, is one of the greatest obstacles to human thriving. That there really are creatures among us who don’t think or feel like the rest of us do and frequently use their lack of empathy to climb the ladders of wealth and power sounds made up (and even sounds like the basis of many racist belief systems), but it is a fact. Not until our species becomes so emotionally intelligent and awake that sociopaths and psychopaths are unable to thrive in it or go unseen will this problem disappear.
~ 13. You can recognize sociopaths, psychopaths, and other narcissists in your life by paying attention to how much energy they pour into convincing you to believe stories about others, about themselves, and especially about you. Someone who often spends energy trying to get you to believe negative things about yourself is someone you should get out of your life as quickly as possible.
~ 14. There really is a struggle in our world between light and darkness, though it doesn’t look how the movies tell us to expect it. Those in power seek to keep their dark deeds hidden in darkness by maintaining government secrecy, propaganda and censorship. The manipulators in our own lives seek to keep their manipulations and misdeeds hidden in the same way. Even within our own personal psychology there are dysfunctional structures which seek to remain hidden in the unconscious. Humanity’s struggle is to bring that all into the light.
~ 15. A sincere devotion to knowing the truth is the path toward happiness, health and harmony, for humans as individuals and for humanity as a collective. Knowing what’s true about ourselves uncovers our inner dysfunctionality and leads to healing and enlightenment. Knowing what’s true about our world leads to an understanding of the abusive nature of our power structures and societal systems. Continually striving toward the light of truth will bring us all home.
Source: https://substack.com/@caitlinjohnstone/note/c-18042682 .
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
[Note: The same Question can also be asked about the next Pandemic Event]
What will you do when your government once again fails its Constitutionally-mandated duty and responsibility to preserve and protect the Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, and The Pursuit of Happiness of America’s citizens from all enemies, foreign and domestic? Will you meekly and absent-mindedly accept the fact that, once again, not one single elected politician, not one single entrenched civilian or military career bureaucrat, not one single anointed political appointee is to be held accountable or made to be responsible and to pay for his or her failures?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
What will you do when thousands more of your countrymen are murdered before your very eyes on live television? Will you once again dutifully and diffidently shrug off your absolute, inalienable, and unconditional Right to know the Real, Whole Truth about WHAT actually happened, about HOW it actually happened, about WHY it actually happened, about WHO actually made it happen, and about Who actually LET it happen? Will you once again passively and patriotically accept the Official “conspiracy theory” version of events as explained to you by your government, and as packaged and presented, marketed and sold to you by its experts, cheerleaders, gatekeepers, and champions in what used to be called The Media – mainstream, corporate, liberal, alternative, conservative, progressive, patriotic, radical, which, what, and/or wherever?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
What will you do when the so-called War Against so-called Terrorism abroad and at home is transparently, clearly, and undeniably demonstrated to be a total, abject failure and thus lie, scam, hoax, and sham? Will you once again give even more untaxed money, unchallenged political power, and unchallengeable legal authority to the very people, offices, organizations, and agencies by whose failures this “War” was created and is waged, and who can promise you only that your -- and their -- investment in it will last forever?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
What will you do when your elected and appointed officials further dismantle Constitutional government in the name of “civilization,” further diminish individual and civil liberties in the name of “freedom,” and finally destroy the last vestiges of whatever power We, the People, may have once commanded, all in the name of “democracy” and “security”? Will you obediently and obsequiously once again hide and watch the next stage in the biggest seizure of government power on this planet since Stalin’s Russia in the 20s, Hitler’s Germany and Roosevelt's New Deal in the 30s, and Mao’s China in the 40s?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
Will you rush out to buy brand new flags and ribbons and bumper stickers, buttons, posters and signs, to replace the torn, shredded, faded, matted, pealed, and rusted ones you rushed out to buy after the first 9/11? And then once again go on with your lives, desperately hoping that you can somehow continue pretending to pretend that nothing has really changed, that life does indeed go on the Day After The End of The World As We Knew It, Once Again.
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
Will you piously, stoically, and heroically accept a Draft as part of the necessary, national sacrifice demanded in this time of new national peril and challenge? Particularly if you get to keep your tax breaks and gas in your SUVs, and your kid gets to get his or her Deferment?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
Will you, the so-called “peace, anti-War, and social justice” community of America, once again walk right past GROUND ZERO -- The Real, Whole Truth -- looking for something more significant, something more relevant, something more important? Will you once again rush to hold your episodic, Gatherings Of The Tribe to rail and rant and beat your breasts and massage your gums and egos against the newest extension and expansion and endless continuation of this so-called “War” at home and abroad?
This War about which you have -- from DAY ZERO, from September 11, 2001 -- completely refused and thus failed to “think the unthinkable,” and thus understand, and thus first prevent and then and now stop?
Will you ever succeed? Will you ever stop ANY War? Will you ever really want Peace instead of just Power, Justice instead of the Judicial Authority that comes with that Power, and Truth instead of nothing more or less than simply your fair share of the Loot?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN 9/11 HAPPENS ONCE AGAIN?
What will you do when those who benefited most from its happening the first time determine that the time has come for another major Terror Event, because maximal strategic and tactical political, economic, and, above all, psychological gain and advantage is to be achieved with another, with a second “New Pearl Harbor”? Will you once again feign ignorance of their -- and your -- history?
WHAT WILL YOU DO, AMERICA, WHEN THOSE WHO BENEFITED MOST FROM THE FIRST 9/11 DETERMINE THAT THEY STAND TO GAIN EVEN MORE WITH A SECOND ITERATION?
Who and/or What is going to stop them?
DO YOU HAVE THE COURAGE TO EVEN ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS? LET ALONE ANSWER THEM?
[Originally written and posted online in late December, 2001.]
Russia has plenty of cluster munitions to respond with….
A year or so ago it seemed USA was demilitarizing its cluster ordnance….. It seems not!
Press released dud rates are malarkey, the older twirling ribbon fuse mech is highly unreliable.
Also USA has provided ‘alternate warhead’ for MRLS, which is like a 200# shotgun shell with tungsten beads.
It is possible USAis low on conventional donations.
Again in this direction Russia can more than match the increasing carnage.
Cluster Munitions are tool of low manpower versus third world. Not apparent here in clash of US V Russia.
Who runs out of meat?
We'll demilitarize our arsenal of cluster munitions by sending it all to Ukraine.
All of this just highlights the failure of Congress over at least the last 30 years to exercise its role in declaring and funding war, and limiting the actions of imperial Presidents. Presidents can involve the US in any conflict and escalate with no pushback. When was the last time we even heard about the War Powers act being invoked?
"President Nixon was an early critic of the War Powers Act, and he vetoed the law on the grounds that it was an “unconstitutional and dangerous” check on his duties as commander-in-chief of the military. In a message accompanying his veto, Nixon argued that the resolution “would attempt to take away, by a mere legislative act, authorities which the President has properly exercised under the Constitution for almost 200 years.”
Congress overrode Nixon’s veto, but he wasn’t the last chief executive to bristle at the restrictions of the War Powers Act. Since the 1970s, every sitting president has either sidestepped some of the law’s provisions or labeled it unconstitutional.
One of the first major challenges to the War Powers Act came in 1981, when President Ronald Reagan deployed military personnel to El Salvador without consulting or submitting a report to Congress. In 1999, President Bill Clinton continued a bombing campaign in Kosovo beyond the 60-day time limit cited in the law.
A more recent War Powers Act dispute arose in 2011, when President Barack Obama initiated a military action in Libya without congressional authorization.
Members of Congress have occasionally objected to the executive branch’s disregard for the War Powers Act, but attempts to take the issue to court have been unsuccessful. In 2000, for example, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case on whether the law had been violated during military operations in Yugoslavia.
Ever since its passage in 1973, politicians have been divided on the War Powers Act’s effectiveness. Supporters of the resolution maintain that it is a much-needed check on the president’s ability to make war without Congressional approval.
Critics, meanwhile, argue the law has failed to create better coordination between the executive and legislative branches. Some believe the law is too restrictive on the president’s ability to respond to foreign emergencies, while others contend that it gives the president free reign to commit troops overseas.
Most experts tend to agree that the War Powers Act has rarely worked as intended. According to one study by the Congressional Research Service, presidents have traditionally avoided citing certain provisions of the resolution whenever they submit reports to Congress. As a result, the 60-day time limits of the law have rarely been triggered, and it has never been used to bring an end to a foreign military operation.
Because of the War Powers Act’s contentious history, there have occasionally been calls for the resolution to be repealed or amended. One notable attempt came in 1995, when the U.S. House of Representatives voted on an amendment that would have repealed many of the Act’s main components. The measure was narrowly defeated by a vote of 217-204."
https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/war-powers-act
Dennis, that was a good summary. I agree it's not been effective and often been ignored, but something is needed and Congress doesn't appear to be willing to do much but sit by and let the Presidents do as they will.