I have always found it unfathomable that anyone in the US wants their tax dollars spent on military bases and activities around the world. Taxpayers get absolutely nothing for that money, other than the hatred of people where our bases are located. So taxpayers pay big bucks to have their country hated., all while our own country crumbles due to lack of funding for infrastructure, education, healthcare and general welfare. If "Isolationism" means taking care of ourselves, then I am an ardent isolationist.
Yup, and our national debt is now over 36 trillion dollars. All the kids with $150,000 student debt will definitely enjoy the increased taxation throughout their lives that results from that. By the way, when I went to college and graduate school in the 1970s, college was either cheap, or free. As an out of state student in the CA state university system I paid $50 a credit ($150 per course). So that's what you get when you monetize education.
In 1966, before Reagan was elected governor, I paid $50 for full time tuition as a graduate student at a CA state university. And my parking pass was $5.
The bogeyman of "isolationism" is used to instill fear, which is how the National Security State ensures its continued control over all levers of power. There are numerous fear mongering terms that are part of its arsenal---terrorism, communism, isolationism, extremism, anti-semitism, etc. The mainstream media feeds the US public a steady diet of fear mongering to try to kill off any challenge to the status quo neocon/neoliberal order. Why? Because the mainstream media happily regurgitates whatever the National Security State demands. It's like a closed feedback loop. Unless and until there is a total rejection of this charade, not a damn thing is going to change.
Imperialist propaganda formula: Isolationism allowed Hitler therefore America must intervene everywhere IN THE WORLD to prevent another Hitler, so if you are anti-intervention you're a Nazi enabler.
It's based on the theory that if the US had joined the League of Nations, then it would have been strong enough to prevent the rise of Hitler and Tojo. It was one argument for the UN when it was first being formed.
There's absolutely no way to know what would have happened if Wilson had gotten the US to join the League. That argument was propaganda then, and it still is. Historically, it's nothing more than sheer speculation.
For those who don't subscribe for the free email from Professor Michael Brenner (mbren@pitt.edu), who does not have a website, received this email this am,
America’s newly-minted flock of billionaires are a plague upon the land. Their grasping hands blight all that they touch. Insatiable egos drive them to possess or control everything: the financialized economy, the plethora of regulatory agencies, the Congress, and the White House; public education, universities, health care; land management; the judicial system; all foreign dealings that bear on commerce and monetary matters; the ideological underpinnings of public life. Plus, counterparts of the above at the state level. They act with a sense of entitlement, impunity and immunity.
The salvation of our institutions, our collective identity, our national integrity requires that they be curbed, diminished, and held accountable. Otherwise, our virtual near plutocracy soon will become an institutionalized plutocracy – perhaps with an autocratic overlay.
Here are a set of proposals for meeting that daunting challenge. They are presented in bullet fashion.
1. Recognize that most of these nouveau riches have made their fortunes via hedge funds, private equity, and financial maneuvering by banks. Acknowledge that those activities are parasitic – adding nothing to the economic well-being of the country, but rather channeling vast amount of wealth upwards, eroding our industrial base, and corrupting our free-market, capitalistic system.
2. Despite their outsized, and largely negative role in the economy, their activities and influence receive very little critical attention. No Presidential candidate, that I know of, has made them an issue. The exceptional public figure who did – briefly – was Newt Gingrich in his primary campaigns of 2012. That was the reason for his surprise big win in the South Carolina vote. It set up a showdown in Florida against Mitt Romney, his main rival who repeatedly boasted of his success as founder of Bain Capital Investments hedge fund. As the date for the culminating debate loomed, the political world held its breath: would Gingrich tell Romney to his face that “your celebrating of the Bain success impressed him about as much as a claim that you paid your way through college by dealing 3-card monte outside of Bloomingdale’s on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan every summer”? No such thing; Gingrich suddenly lost his voice, making no reference whatsoever to his seeming trump card. Why? He had been handed the black spot signaling that that such perverse behavior would ensure that he’d be eating lunch alone in D.C. forever after – and, would have to finance his various ventures by robbing his piggy bank.
3. Highlight the dependence of universities, foundations, cultural institutions, think tanks and many NGOs on funding from those malefactors of wealth who contribute a portion of their loot in exchange for tax breaks and status. Striking example: the most prestigious private universities have built swollen endowments topped by Harvard’s nearly $40 billion. They routinely rack up returns on investments far exceeding that achieved by ordinary investors. How do they do it? Simple – overwhelmingly through hedge funds and private equity. Together, they represent 70% of Harvard’s portfolio....................
I believe Bill gets the same email and he can go into Brenner's Actions if he so chooses?
"A serious national conversation is needed on what a genuine defense strategy would look like,.."
Instead of investing in weapons and munitions, a good defense strategy would be investing in the health, education and well being of our citizens combined with a restoration of our infrastructure and environment.
TWENTY-SIX THINGS ABOUT THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIS-ISIL-DAESH) THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT by Prof Michel Chossudovsky / Global Research 14 Jan 24 [originally published 18 Nov 14]
Part 1:
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In 2014 President Obama launched a “counter-terrorism campaign” allegedly directed against The Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh). The operation consisted in providing a justification for the extensive bombing of Iraq and Syria, largely targeting residential areas and civilians.
In turn, ISIS-Daesh was covertly supported and funded by the U.S. and its allies including Israel.
Israel was directly involved in President Obama’s “counter-terrorism” bombing raids directed against Syria, while also supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS mercenaries out of the Golan Heights. (See 13 below).
Going after ” Islamic terrorists”, carrying out a worldwide pre-emptive war to “Protect the American Homeland” are used to justify a military agenda.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a creation of US intelligence. Washington’s “Counter-terrorism Agenda” in Iraq and Syria consists in Supporting the Terrorists.
The incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel.
The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism”
The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies. If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June.
The Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory [see map online). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, CF-18) it would have been -from a military standpoint- a rapid and expedient surgical operation
It could not have been undertaken without the unbending support of the Western media which has upheld Obama’s initiative as a counter-terrorism operation.
TWENTY SIX THINGS…
THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF AL QAEDA
1. The US has supported Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations for almost half a century since the heyday of the Soviet Afghan war.
2. CIA training camps were set up in Pakistan. In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, some 35,000 jihadists from 43 Islamic countries were recruited by the CIA to fight in the Afghan jihad.
“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.”
3. Since the Reagan Administration, Washington has supported the Islamic terror network.
Ronald Reagan called the terrorists “freedom fighters”. The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades. It was all for “a good cause”: fighting the Soviet Union and regime change, leading to the demise of a secular government in Afghanistan.
4. Jihadist textbooks were published by the University of Nebraska. “. “The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings”
5. Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman and founder of Al Qaeda was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihadist war against Afghanistan . He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.
Al Qaeda was not behind the 9/11 Attacks. September 11, 2001 provided a justification for waging a war against Afghanistan on the grounds that Afghanistan was a state sponsor of terrorism, supportive of Al Qaeda. The 9/11 attacks were instrumental in the formulation of the “Global War on Terrorism”.
THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIL)
6. The Islamic State (ISIL) was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة).
7. The ISIL brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of Bashar al Assad.
8. NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and Al Nusrah mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011. According to Israeli intelligence sources, this initiative consisted in: “a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011.)
9.There are Western Special Forces and Western intelligence operatives within the ranks of the ISIL. British Special Forces and MI6 have been involved in training jihadist rebels in Syria.
10. Western military specialists on contract to the Pentagon have trained the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons.
“The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. ( CNN Report, December 9, 2012)
11. The ISIL’s practice of beheadings is part of the US sponsored terrorist training programs implemented in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
12. Recruited by America’s ally, a large number of ISIL mercenaries are convicted criminals released from Saudi prisons on condition they join the ISIL. Saudi death row inmates were recruited to join the terror brigades.
13. Israel has supported the ISIL and Al Nusrah brigades out of the Golan Heights.
Jihadist fighters have met Israeli IDF officers as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF top brass tacitly acknowledges that “global jihad elements inside Syria” [ISIL and Al Nusrah] are supported by Israel.
14 The ISIL are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance. Their unspoken mandate is to wreck havoc and destruction in Syria and Iraq, acting on behalf of their US sponsors.
15. US Senator John McCain has met up with jihadist terrorist leaders in Syria.
16 The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, continues to be supported covertly by the US. Washington and its allies continue to provide military aid to the Islamic State.
17. US and allied bombings are not targeting the ISIL, they are bombing the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria including factories and oil refineries.
18. The IS caliphate project is part of a longstanding US foreign policy agenda to carve up Iraq and Syria into separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan.
THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM (GWOT)
19. “The Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) is presented as a “Clash of Civilizations”, a war between competing values and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest, guided by strategic and economic objectives.
20 U.S. sponsored Al Qaeda terror brigades (covertly supported by Western intelligence) have been deployed in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Yemen.
These various affiliated Al Qaeda entities in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are CIA sponsored “intelligence assets”. They are used by Washington to wreck havoc, create internal conflicts and destabilize sovereign countries.
21 Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (supported by NATO in 2011), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in Indonesia, among other Al Qaeda affiliated groups are supported covertly by Western intelligence.
22. The US is also supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. The underlying objective is to trigger political instability in Western China.
Chinese jihadists are reported to have received “terrorist training” from the Islamic State “in order to conduct attacks in China”. The declared objective of these Chinese-based jihadist entities (which serves the interests of the US) is to establish a Islamic caliphate extending into Western China.
HOMEGROWN TERRORISTS
23 The Terrorists R Us: While the US is the unspoken architect of the Islamic State, Obama’s holy mandate is to protect America against ISIL attacks.
24 The homegrown terrorist threat is a fabrication. It is promoted by Western governments and the media with a view to repealing civil liberties and installing a police state. The terror attacks by alleged jihadists and terror warnings are invariably staged events. They are used to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
In turn, the arrests, trials and sentences of “Islamic terrorists” sustain the legitimacy of America’s Homeland Security State and law enforcement apparatus, which has become increasingly militarized.
The ultimate objective is to instill in the minds of millions of Americans that the enemy is real and the U.S. Administration will protect the lives of its citizens.
25. The “counter-terrorism” campaign against the Islamic State has contributed to the demonization of Muslims, who in the eyes of Western public opinion are increasingly associated with the jihadists.
26 Anybody who dares to question the validity of the “Global War on Terrorism” is branded a terrorist and subjected to the anti-terrorist laws.
THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE OF THE “GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM” IS TO SUBDUE THE CITIZENS, TOTALLY DEPOLITICIZE SOCIAL LIFE IN AMERICA, PREVENT PEOPLE FROM THINKING AND CONCEPTUALIZING, FROM ANALYZING FACTS AND CHALLENGING THE LEGITIMACY OF THE INQUISITORIAL SOCIAL ORDER WHICH RULES AMERICA.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS IMPOSED A DIABOLICAL CONSENSUS WITH THE SUPPORT OF ITS ALLIES, NOT TO MENTION THE COMPLICIT ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL. THE WESTERN MEDIA HAS EMBRACED THE CONSENSUS; IT HAS DESCRIBED THE ISLAMIC STATE AS AN INDEPENDENT ENTITY, AN OUTSIDE ENEMY WHICH THREATENS THE WESTERN WORLD. [EMPASIS added. Note: And the Trump and Biden administrations have continued that imposition and consensus.]
The Rutherford Institute’s John and Nisha Whitehead’s 10 Jan 24 piece CRIMINALITY IN THE WHITE HOUSE: THE RISE OF THE POLITICAL PSYCHOPATH begins as follows…:
“’When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.’— Richard Nixon
“Many years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A POLITICIAN AND A PSYCHOPATH?”
“The answer, then and now, remains the same: NONE.
“THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PSYCHOPATHS AND POLITICIANS.
“NOR IS THERE MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE HAVOC WREAKED ON INNOCENT LIVES BY UNCARING, UNFEELING, SELFISH, IRRESPONSIBLE, PARASITIC CRIMINALS AND ELECTED OFFICIALS WHO LIE TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS, TRADE POLITICAL FAVORS FOR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, TURN A BLIND EYE TO THE WISHES OF THE ELECTORATE, CHEAT TAXPAYERS OUT OF HARD-EARNED DOLLARS, FAVOR THE CORPORATE ELITE, ENTRENCH THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, AND SPARE LITTLE THOUGHT FOR THE IMPACT THEIR THOUGHTLESS ACTIONS AND HASTILY PASSED LEGISLATION MIGHT HAVE ON DEFENSELESS CITIZENS.
“Psychopaths and politicians both have a tendency to be selfish, callous, remorseless users of others, irresponsible, pathological liars, glib, con artists, lacking in remorse and shallow.
“Charismatic politicians, like criminal psychopaths, exhibit a failure to accept responsibility for their actions, have a high sense of self-worth, are chronically unstable, have socially deviant lifestyles, need constant stimulation, have parasitic lifestyles and possess unrealistic goals.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans. [Note: As in Biden, the Clintons, and Obama; or Cheney, Bush II, and Trump.]
“Political psychopaths are all largely cut from the same pathological cloth, brimming with seemingly easy charm and boasting calculating minds. SUCH LEADERS EVENTUALLY CREATE PATHOCRACIES: TOTALITARIAN SOCIETIES BENT ON POWER, CONTROL, AND DESTRUCTION OF BOTH FREEDOM IN GENERAL AND THOSE WHO EXERCISE THEIR FREEDOMS.
“Once psychopaths gain power, the result is usually some form of totalitarian government or a pathocracy. ‘At that point, the government operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups,’ author James G. Long notes. ‘We are currently witnessing deliberate polarizations of American citizens, illegal actions, and massive and needless acquisition of debt. This is typical of psychopathic systems, and very similar things happened in the Soviet Union as it overextended and collapsed.’
“In other words, ELECTING A PSYCHOPATH TO PUBLIC OFFICE IS TANTAMOUNT TO NATIONAL HARA-KIRI, THE RITUALIZED ACT OF SELF-ANNIHILATION, SELF-DESTRUCTION AND SUICIDE. IT SIGNALS THE DEMISE OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT AND LAYS THE GROUNDWORK FOR A TOTALITARIAN REGIME THAT IS LEGALISTIC, MILITARISTIC, INFLEXIBLE, INTOLERANT AND INHUMAN.
“Incredibly, despite clear evidence of the damage that has already been inflicted on our nation and its citizens by a psychopathic government, voters continue to elect psychopaths to positions of power and influence… .”
It continues as follows:
“The willingness to prioritize power above all else, including the welfare of their fellow human beings, ruthlessness, callousness and an utter lack of conscience are among the defining traits of the sociopath.
“When our own government no longer sees us as human beings with dignity and worth but as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, conned into believing it has our best interests at heart, mistreated, jailed if we dare step out of line, and then punished unjustly without remorse—all the while refusing to own up to its failings—we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic.
“Instead, what we are experiencing is a PATHOCRACY: TYRANNY AT THE HANDS OF A PSYCHOPATHIC GOVERNMENT, WHICH ‘OPERATES AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF ITS OWN PEOPLE EXCEPT FOR FAVORING CERTAIN GROUPS… .’
“Worse, psychopathology is not confined to those in high positions of government. It can spread like a virus among the populace. As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, ‘[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.’
“People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil.
“Much depends on how leaders ‘cultivate a sense of identification with their followers,’ says Professor Alex Haslam. ‘I mean one pretty obvious thing is that leaders talk about ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ and actually what leadership is about is cultivating this sense of shared identity about ‘we-ness’ and then getting people to want to act in terms of that ‘we-ness,’ to promote our collective interests. . . [We] is the single word that has increased in the inaugural addresses over the last century . . . and the other one is ‘America.’
“THE GOAL OF THE MODERN CORPORATE STATE IS OBVIOUS: TO PROMOTE, CULTIVATE, AND EMBED A SENSE OF SHARED IDENTIFICATION AMONG ITS CITIZENS. TO THIS END, ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ HAVE BECOME ‘WE THE POLICE STATE.’
“We are fast becoming slaves in thrall to a faceless, nameless, bureaucratic totalitarian government machine that relentlessly erodes our freedoms through countless laws, statutes, and prohibitions... .”
And it concludes:
“This much I know: we are not faceless numbers.
“We are not cogs in the machine...we are not slaves.
“We are human beings, and for the moment, we have the opportunity to remain free—that is, if we tirelessly advocate for our rights and resist at every turn attempts by the government to place us in chains.
“The Founders understood that OUR FREEDOMS DO NOT FLOW FROM THE GOVERNMENT. THEY WERE NOT GIVEN TO US ONLY TO BE TAKEN AWAY BY THE WILL OF THE STATE. THEY ARE INHERENTLY OURS. IN THE SAME WAY, THE GOVERNMENT’S APPOINTED PURPOSE IS NOT TO THREATEN OR UNDERMINE OUR FREEDOMS, BUT TO SAFEGUARD THEM.
“Until we can get back to this way of thinking, until we can remind our fellow Americans what it really means to be free, and until we can stand firm in the face of threats to our freedoms, we will continue to be treated like slaves in thrall to a bureaucratic police state run by political psychopaths.”
In his article, Wm. Hartung says that, "A trillion dollars is a hard figure to process."
If you built a stack of $100 bills laid flat one on top of the other, it would reach 680 miles high. Laid on it's side that stack would almost reach Chicago from New York city.
How many trees would you have to kill for that many $100 bills?
Then consider, our national debt is 34 times that amount.
When General-President Eisenhower warned about the rising POWER and influence of the US Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex in 1961, the US Pentagon Defence Budget was $60,000,000,000
Today's Pentagon Defence Budget is close to $1,000,000,000,000, not including the CIA, Homeland Security, and the FBI. Americans obviously feel more insecure within the US than ever before.
That would suggest INFLATION is built-in with the US WAR Machine.
One Israeli Missile, Seven Palestinians Killed, Four of Them Brothers
An Israeli aircraft killed seven young Palestinians in Jenin, after one of them apparently threw an explosive device at an Israeli army jeep – and missed. All seven were from the same extended family and the same village.
A father attends his son's funeral. While standing by the freshly dug grave he receives a message that yet another of his sons is also dead. A short while later he has to bury him, too. In an adjacent plot, a mother is burying her four sons, one after the other. These horrors are no longer the exclusive purview of the war in the Gaza ...........................................................................
You have to pay to see the rest of Gideon Levy's article in Haaretz in Israel. A reader does get the gist of it from the header and brief excerpt, if not the gory details.
A firecracker is an explosive device to the IDF, who killed it's own citizens shirtless, waving a white flag in Gaza as suspected Palestinian terrorists.
An astonishing thing has happened in America that has never occurred in the lifetime of anyone now living. No, it’s not the crushing win of Trump in Iowa, nor the absurd determination of Democrats to run the senile ninny who has made a joke of our Presidency for another term. These, in their way astonishing, are mere trivialities in this time of universal lunacy and deceit.
I mean an honest to god paradigm shift everyone can see that official wise men with public platforms and megaphones have not announced, or perhaps even noticed. I’m talking about the first clear, undeniable instance of the failure of the American Empire’s Propaganda Machine.
It has been clear for decades, generations, that the American political elite has no regard for, and no sense of responsibility to, the actual needs and desires of the ignorant, disorganized public. It has always dealt with their inchoate hopes by indoctrination, by arousing and enlisting their imbecile enthusiasms in a mythology of tawdry, tribal patriotism based on the premise that they are a glorious, superior people whose leaders courageously embody and implement their magnificence all over the world.
The techniques of propaganda are refined, but their effect is entirely due to grotesque pandering to the worst susceptibilities of the human ego: the desire to assert one’s superlative worth as a member of a powerful, violent, conquering nation. The force of that tactic, endlessly repeated, rendered American citizenry, with rare exceptions, one solid, deluded, unthinking mass, devoted to whatever vicious, imperial ends the political elite intended.
Their trained mass response, sure as that of performing seals, has, for the first time ever, failed in regard to the Gaza genocide.
Netanyahu Takes Palestinian State Off the Table, Vows Israeli Control 'From the River to the Sea'
"So it's okay for Netanyahu to say 'from the river to the sea', but not for Palestinians?"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday informed the United States that there will be no independent Palestinian state after the current war on Gaza is over, and that Israel will control Palestine "from the river to the sea."
"For 30 years I have been very consistent. This conflict is not about the lack of a Palestinian state, but the existence of a Jewish state," Netanyahu—who has previously boasted about thwarting the so-called "two-state solution" favored by Washington—said during a nationally televised press conference.
"From every area we evacuate we have received terrible terror against us. It happened in southern Lebanon, it happened in Gaza, and also in Judea and Samaria," he continued, the final part a reference to the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
"Therefore, I clarify that in any arrangement in the future the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea," he stressed. "This is what happens when you have sovereignty."
'Why is the real story of October 7 off-limits to western, but not Israeli, media?'
Israeli army ‘ethics’ chief says crimes committed by soldiers against Israel’s own civilians are ‘horrifying’. How is this not newsworthy for British journalists?
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper interviewed this week the army’s “ethics” chief, Asa Kasher, of Tel Aviv university, about two major incidents on October 7:
1. An Israeli commander ordered a tank to fire into a home in Kibbutz Be’eri knowing that there were 14 Israeli civilians inside, incinerating them.
2. Israeli helicopters fired missiles at dozens of cars with Israeli hostages inside, killing the inhabitants, again often by incinerating them.
In both cases, the official Israeli narrative is that Hamas was responsible for these “barbaric” acts, supposedly justifying the genocide Israel is carrying out – “in response” – against the civilian Palestinian population of Gaza.
Haaretz and Kasher ascribe these “friendly fire” incidents to Israel’s classified “Hannibal directive”, which requires soldiers to stop Israelis being taken hostage at all costs. Kasher thinks – probably wrongly – that the directive was misunderstood and misapplied by commanders on the day..............
Jonathan addresses the Israeli alleged mass rape War Propaganda and much more:
'All Of A Sudden, Leaders All Over The World Are Warning That World War III Is Very Close'
Prominent leaders all over the globe are starting to publicly acknowledge that World War III is coming. In many cases they are expressing hope that it can still be avoided, but that becomes less likely with each passing day. Multiple parties are escalating the conflict in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine has entered a dangerous new phase, and the election that just happened in Taiwan has made a Chinese invasion much more probable. So what is going to happen if major powers start tangling with one another all over the planet? We really are on the brink of the unthinkable, but most people in the general population have no idea how dire things have become.
Mine is the 3rd comment, a long one for those who might want to check it out relative to the Ukraine and Israeli Gaza Armageddon Slaughter when God moved me to make the prophetic DECLARATION on Remembrance/Veterans Day, in the hearing of the Governor-General, Prime Minister, Military Brass other Officials and the Ambassadors of the Nations November 11, 1985. It's unfolding 39 years later these Days, the World can now see .
I have always found it unfathomable that anyone in the US wants their tax dollars spent on military bases and activities around the world. Taxpayers get absolutely nothing for that money, other than the hatred of people where our bases are located. So taxpayers pay big bucks to have their country hated., all while our own country crumbles due to lack of funding for infrastructure, education, healthcare and general welfare. If "Isolationism" means taking care of ourselves, then I am an ardent isolationist.
You can't say we get nothing -- we get BIG DEBT. What more could we want?
Yup, and our national debt is now over 36 trillion dollars. All the kids with $150,000 student debt will definitely enjoy the increased taxation throughout their lives that results from that. By the way, when I went to college and graduate school in the 1970s, college was either cheap, or free. As an out of state student in the CA state university system I paid $50 a credit ($150 per course). So that's what you get when you monetize education.
The US Government is BORROWING $6,000,000,000 every single Day to keep operating.
You don't have to be a Math Whiz to know that's not sustainable. Not only are we living on BORROWED MONEY, we're also living on BORROWED TIME!
In 1966, before Reagan was elected governor, I paid $50 for full time tuition as a graduate student at a CA state university. And my parking pass was $5.
The good thing about BIG DEBT is that BIGGER DEBT doesn't seem that much different (sarc).
If America takes care of America, then Putin wins...... <sarc>
Calling isolationist is a tool of the unarmed debater.
"If America takes care of America, then Putin wins." Thanks for making me smile.
The bogeyman of "isolationism" is used to instill fear, which is how the National Security State ensures its continued control over all levers of power. There are numerous fear mongering terms that are part of its arsenal---terrorism, communism, isolationism, extremism, anti-semitism, etc. The mainstream media feeds the US public a steady diet of fear mongering to try to kill off any challenge to the status quo neocon/neoliberal order. Why? Because the mainstream media happily regurgitates whatever the National Security State demands. It's like a closed feedback loop. Unless and until there is a total rejection of this charade, not a damn thing is going to change.
Imperialist propaganda formula: Isolationism allowed Hitler therefore America must intervene everywhere IN THE WORLD to prevent another Hitler, so if you are anti-intervention you're a Nazi enabler.
It's based on the theory that if the US had joined the League of Nations, then it would have been strong enough to prevent the rise of Hitler and Tojo. It was one argument for the UN when it was first being formed.
There's absolutely no way to know what would have happened if Wilson had gotten the US to join the League. That argument was propaganda then, and it still is. Historically, it's nothing more than sheer speculation.
Just came across 'Einstein’s 7 rules for a better life' They make sense to me.
Here are the rules. Follow the link for the fuller filler.
Rule #1: Expend your efforts on the things that matter.
Rule #2: Do things you love, even if you’re terrible at them.
Rule #3: Have a puzzle mindset.
Rule #4: Think deeply, both long and hard, about things that truly fascinate you.
Rule #5: Don’t let politics fill you with either rage or despair.
Rule #6: Blind obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of the truth.
Rule #7: Science, truth, and education are for everyone, not just the privileged few.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/einstein-rules-better-life
For those who don't subscribe for the free email from Professor Michael Brenner (mbren@pitt.edu), who does not have a website, received this email this am,
America’s newly-minted flock of billionaires are a plague upon the land. Their grasping hands blight all that they touch. Insatiable egos drive them to possess or control everything: the financialized economy, the plethora of regulatory agencies, the Congress, and the White House; public education, universities, health care; land management; the judicial system; all foreign dealings that bear on commerce and monetary matters; the ideological underpinnings of public life. Plus, counterparts of the above at the state level. They act with a sense of entitlement, impunity and immunity.
The salvation of our institutions, our collective identity, our national integrity requires that they be curbed, diminished, and held accountable. Otherwise, our virtual near plutocracy soon will become an institutionalized plutocracy – perhaps with an autocratic overlay.
Here are a set of proposals for meeting that daunting challenge. They are presented in bullet fashion.
1. Recognize that most of these nouveau riches have made their fortunes via hedge funds, private equity, and financial maneuvering by banks. Acknowledge that those activities are parasitic – adding nothing to the economic well-being of the country, but rather channeling vast amount of wealth upwards, eroding our industrial base, and corrupting our free-market, capitalistic system.
2. Despite their outsized, and largely negative role in the economy, their activities and influence receive very little critical attention. No Presidential candidate, that I know of, has made them an issue. The exceptional public figure who did – briefly – was Newt Gingrich in his primary campaigns of 2012. That was the reason for his surprise big win in the South Carolina vote. It set up a showdown in Florida against Mitt Romney, his main rival who repeatedly boasted of his success as founder of Bain Capital Investments hedge fund. As the date for the culminating debate loomed, the political world held its breath: would Gingrich tell Romney to his face that “your celebrating of the Bain success impressed him about as much as a claim that you paid your way through college by dealing 3-card monte outside of Bloomingdale’s on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan every summer”? No such thing; Gingrich suddenly lost his voice, making no reference whatsoever to his seeming trump card. Why? He had been handed the black spot signaling that that such perverse behavior would ensure that he’d be eating lunch alone in D.C. forever after – and, would have to finance his various ventures by robbing his piggy bank.
3. Highlight the dependence of universities, foundations, cultural institutions, think tanks and many NGOs on funding from those malefactors of wealth who contribute a portion of their loot in exchange for tax breaks and status. Striking example: the most prestigious private universities have built swollen endowments topped by Harvard’s nearly $40 billion. They routinely rack up returns on investments far exceeding that achieved by ordinary investors. How do they do it? Simple – overwhelmingly through hedge funds and private equity. Together, they represent 70% of Harvard’s portfolio....................
I believe Bill gets the same email and he can go into Brenner's Actions if he so chooses?
Jeannie, glad you like this post. It's good to see you're still around and reading the discussions in Bill's site even if you're not commenting.
Regards
"A serious national conversation is needed on what a genuine defense strategy would look like,.."
Instead of investing in weapons and munitions, a good defense strategy would be investing in the health, education and well being of our citizens combined with a restoration of our infrastructure and environment.
WELCOME TO THE EMPIRE by Caitlin Johnstone 20 Jan 24
Welcome to the empire
Where genocide is self-defense and peace rallies are genocide
Where war criminals are the victims and the hospitals are terrorists
Where calls for freedom are hateful and ceasefires are anti-semitic
Where civilians get called terrorists and real terrorists get Nobel Peace Prizes
Where the propaganda is journalism and the journalism is propaganda
Where the democracy is real and the apartheid is imaginary
Where the corporations are people and the people are corporate resources
Welcome to the empire
Whose bombs are humanitarian and whose provocations are invisible
Whose veterans are heroes and whose victims are forgotten
Whose wars are always just and whose enemies are always Hitler
Whose cause is always righteous and whose critics are always Russian
Whose sufferings are unforgivable and whose crimes are erased from history
Whose atrocities are always an unfortunate accident and whose enemies kill civilians for fun
Whose disastrous interventions are always innocent mistakes no matter how often they happen
Welcome to the empire
Ever the victim of unprovoked attacks from the people it has been strangling
Ever the shining city on a hill of human corpses
Ever the defender of the poor helpless plutocrats of Wall Street
Ever the savior of the families incinerated by missiles made by Raytheon
Ever the protector of natural resources in the soil of foreign nations
Ever the upholder of the rules-based order of a world with a boot on its throat
The empire loves you with a heart made of dollars and oil
The empire watches over you through your smartphone and your computer
The empire is your only friend
The empire is the only one who will ever love you
You can’t leave
You can’t get rid of the empire
If you get rid of the empire, this world could be taken over by tyrants
TWENTY-SIX THINGS ABOUT THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIS-ISIL-DAESH) THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT by Prof Michel Chossudovsky / Global Research 14 Jan 24 [originally published 18 Nov 14]
Part 1:
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In 2014 President Obama launched a “counter-terrorism campaign” allegedly directed against The Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh). The operation consisted in providing a justification for the extensive bombing of Iraq and Syria, largely targeting residential areas and civilians.
In turn, ISIS-Daesh was covertly supported and funded by the U.S. and its allies including Israel.
Israel was directly involved in President Obama’s “counter-terrorism” bombing raids directed against Syria, while also supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS mercenaries out of the Golan Heights. (See 13 below).
Going after ” Islamic terrorists”, carrying out a worldwide pre-emptive war to “Protect the American Homeland” are used to justify a military agenda.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a creation of US intelligence. Washington’s “Counter-terrorism Agenda” in Iraq and Syria consists in Supporting the Terrorists.
The incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel.
The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism”
The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies. If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June.
The Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory [see map online). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, CF-18) it would have been -from a military standpoint- a rapid and expedient surgical operation
It could not have been undertaken without the unbending support of the Western media which has upheld Obama’s initiative as a counter-terrorism operation.
TWENTY SIX THINGS…
THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF AL QAEDA
1. The US has supported Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations for almost half a century since the heyday of the Soviet Afghan war.
2. CIA training camps were set up in Pakistan. In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, some 35,000 jihadists from 43 Islamic countries were recruited by the CIA to fight in the Afghan jihad.
“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.”
3. Since the Reagan Administration, Washington has supported the Islamic terror network.
Ronald Reagan called the terrorists “freedom fighters”. The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades. It was all for “a good cause”: fighting the Soviet Union and regime change, leading to the demise of a secular government in Afghanistan.
4. Jihadist textbooks were published by the University of Nebraska. “. “The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings”
5. Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman and founder of Al Qaeda was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihadist war against Afghanistan . He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.
Al Qaeda was not behind the 9/11 Attacks. September 11, 2001 provided a justification for waging a war against Afghanistan on the grounds that Afghanistan was a state sponsor of terrorism, supportive of Al Qaeda. The 9/11 attacks were instrumental in the formulation of the “Global War on Terrorism”.
THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIL)
6. The Islamic State (ISIL) was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة).
7. The ISIL brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of Bashar al Assad.
8. NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and Al Nusrah mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011. According to Israeli intelligence sources, this initiative consisted in: “a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011.)
9.There are Western Special Forces and Western intelligence operatives within the ranks of the ISIL. British Special Forces and MI6 have been involved in training jihadist rebels in Syria.
10. Western military specialists on contract to the Pentagon have trained the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons.
“The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. ( CNN Report, December 9, 2012)
11. The ISIL’s practice of beheadings is part of the US sponsored terrorist training programs implemented in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
12. Recruited by America’s ally, a large number of ISIL mercenaries are convicted criminals released from Saudi prisons on condition they join the ISIL. Saudi death row inmates were recruited to join the terror brigades.
13. Israel has supported the ISIL and Al Nusrah brigades out of the Golan Heights.
Jihadist fighters have met Israeli IDF officers as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF top brass tacitly acknowledges that “global jihad elements inside Syria” [ISIL and Al Nusrah] are supported by Israel.
Part 2:
SYRIA AND IRAQ
14 The ISIL are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance. Their unspoken mandate is to wreck havoc and destruction in Syria and Iraq, acting on behalf of their US sponsors.
15. US Senator John McCain has met up with jihadist terrorist leaders in Syria.
16 The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, continues to be supported covertly by the US. Washington and its allies continue to provide military aid to the Islamic State.
17. US and allied bombings are not targeting the ISIL, they are bombing the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria including factories and oil refineries.
18. The IS caliphate project is part of a longstanding US foreign policy agenda to carve up Iraq and Syria into separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan.
THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM (GWOT)
19. “The Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) is presented as a “Clash of Civilizations”, a war between competing values and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest, guided by strategic and economic objectives.
20 U.S. sponsored Al Qaeda terror brigades (covertly supported by Western intelligence) have been deployed in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Yemen.
These various affiliated Al Qaeda entities in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are CIA sponsored “intelligence assets”. They are used by Washington to wreck havoc, create internal conflicts and destabilize sovereign countries.
21 Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (supported by NATO in 2011), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in Indonesia, among other Al Qaeda affiliated groups are supported covertly by Western intelligence.
22. The US is also supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. The underlying objective is to trigger political instability in Western China.
Chinese jihadists are reported to have received “terrorist training” from the Islamic State “in order to conduct attacks in China”. The declared objective of these Chinese-based jihadist entities (which serves the interests of the US) is to establish a Islamic caliphate extending into Western China.
HOMEGROWN TERRORISTS
23 The Terrorists R Us: While the US is the unspoken architect of the Islamic State, Obama’s holy mandate is to protect America against ISIL attacks.
24 The homegrown terrorist threat is a fabrication. It is promoted by Western governments and the media with a view to repealing civil liberties and installing a police state. The terror attacks by alleged jihadists and terror warnings are invariably staged events. They are used to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
In turn, the arrests, trials and sentences of “Islamic terrorists” sustain the legitimacy of America’s Homeland Security State and law enforcement apparatus, which has become increasingly militarized.
The ultimate objective is to instill in the minds of millions of Americans that the enemy is real and the U.S. Administration will protect the lives of its citizens.
25. The “counter-terrorism” campaign against the Islamic State has contributed to the demonization of Muslims, who in the eyes of Western public opinion are increasingly associated with the jihadists.
26 Anybody who dares to question the validity of the “Global War on Terrorism” is branded a terrorist and subjected to the anti-terrorist laws.
THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE OF THE “GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM” IS TO SUBDUE THE CITIZENS, TOTALLY DEPOLITICIZE SOCIAL LIFE IN AMERICA, PREVENT PEOPLE FROM THINKING AND CONCEPTUALIZING, FROM ANALYZING FACTS AND CHALLENGING THE LEGITIMACY OF THE INQUISITORIAL SOCIAL ORDER WHICH RULES AMERICA.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS IMPOSED A DIABOLICAL CONSENSUS WITH THE SUPPORT OF ITS ALLIES, NOT TO MENTION THE COMPLICIT ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL. THE WESTERN MEDIA HAS EMBRACED THE CONSENSUS; IT HAS DESCRIBED THE ISLAMIC STATE AS AN INDEPENDENT ENTITY, AN OUTSIDE ENEMY WHICH THREATENS THE WESTERN WORLD. [EMPASIS added. Note: And the Trump and Biden administrations have continued that imposition and consensus.]
The Big Lie has become the Truth.
Source: https://www.globalresearch.ca/twenty-six-things-about-the-islamic-state-isil-that-obama-does-not-want-you-to-know-about .
The Rutherford Institute’s John and Nisha Whitehead’s 10 Jan 24 piece CRIMINALITY IN THE WHITE HOUSE: THE RISE OF THE POLITICAL PSYCHOPATH begins as follows…:
“’When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.’— Richard Nixon
“Many years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A POLITICIAN AND A PSYCHOPATH?”
“The answer, then and now, remains the same: NONE.
“THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PSYCHOPATHS AND POLITICIANS.
“NOR IS THERE MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE HAVOC WREAKED ON INNOCENT LIVES BY UNCARING, UNFEELING, SELFISH, IRRESPONSIBLE, PARASITIC CRIMINALS AND ELECTED OFFICIALS WHO LIE TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS, TRADE POLITICAL FAVORS FOR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, TURN A BLIND EYE TO THE WISHES OF THE ELECTORATE, CHEAT TAXPAYERS OUT OF HARD-EARNED DOLLARS, FAVOR THE CORPORATE ELITE, ENTRENCH THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, AND SPARE LITTLE THOUGHT FOR THE IMPACT THEIR THOUGHTLESS ACTIONS AND HASTILY PASSED LEGISLATION MIGHT HAVE ON DEFENSELESS CITIZENS.
“Psychopaths and politicians both have a tendency to be selfish, callous, remorseless users of others, irresponsible, pathological liars, glib, con artists, lacking in remorse and shallow.
“Charismatic politicians, like criminal psychopaths, exhibit a failure to accept responsibility for their actions, have a high sense of self-worth, are chronically unstable, have socially deviant lifestyles, need constant stimulation, have parasitic lifestyles and possess unrealistic goals.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans. [Note: As in Biden, the Clintons, and Obama; or Cheney, Bush II, and Trump.]
“Political psychopaths are all largely cut from the same pathological cloth, brimming with seemingly easy charm and boasting calculating minds. SUCH LEADERS EVENTUALLY CREATE PATHOCRACIES: TOTALITARIAN SOCIETIES BENT ON POWER, CONTROL, AND DESTRUCTION OF BOTH FREEDOM IN GENERAL AND THOSE WHO EXERCISE THEIR FREEDOMS.
“Once psychopaths gain power, the result is usually some form of totalitarian government or a pathocracy. ‘At that point, the government operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups,’ author James G. Long notes. ‘We are currently witnessing deliberate polarizations of American citizens, illegal actions, and massive and needless acquisition of debt. This is typical of psychopathic systems, and very similar things happened in the Soviet Union as it overextended and collapsed.’
“In other words, ELECTING A PSYCHOPATH TO PUBLIC OFFICE IS TANTAMOUNT TO NATIONAL HARA-KIRI, THE RITUALIZED ACT OF SELF-ANNIHILATION, SELF-DESTRUCTION AND SUICIDE. IT SIGNALS THE DEMISE OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT AND LAYS THE GROUNDWORK FOR A TOTALITARIAN REGIME THAT IS LEGALISTIC, MILITARISTIC, INFLEXIBLE, INTOLERANT AND INHUMAN.
“Incredibly, despite clear evidence of the damage that has already been inflicted on our nation and its citizens by a psychopathic government, voters continue to elect psychopaths to positions of power and influence… .”
It continues as follows:
“The willingness to prioritize power above all else, including the welfare of their fellow human beings, ruthlessness, callousness and an utter lack of conscience are among the defining traits of the sociopath.
“When our own government no longer sees us as human beings with dignity and worth but as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, conned into believing it has our best interests at heart, mistreated, jailed if we dare step out of line, and then punished unjustly without remorse—all the while refusing to own up to its failings—we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic.
“Instead, what we are experiencing is a PATHOCRACY: TYRANNY AT THE HANDS OF A PSYCHOPATHIC GOVERNMENT, WHICH ‘OPERATES AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF ITS OWN PEOPLE EXCEPT FOR FAVORING CERTAIN GROUPS… .’
“Worse, psychopathology is not confined to those in high positions of government. It can spread like a virus among the populace. As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, ‘[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.’
“People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil.
“Much depends on how leaders ‘cultivate a sense of identification with their followers,’ says Professor Alex Haslam. ‘I mean one pretty obvious thing is that leaders talk about ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ and actually what leadership is about is cultivating this sense of shared identity about ‘we-ness’ and then getting people to want to act in terms of that ‘we-ness,’ to promote our collective interests. . . [We] is the single word that has increased in the inaugural addresses over the last century . . . and the other one is ‘America.’
“THE GOAL OF THE MODERN CORPORATE STATE IS OBVIOUS: TO PROMOTE, CULTIVATE, AND EMBED A SENSE OF SHARED IDENTIFICATION AMONG ITS CITIZENS. TO THIS END, ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ HAVE BECOME ‘WE THE POLICE STATE.’
“We are fast becoming slaves in thrall to a faceless, nameless, bureaucratic totalitarian government machine that relentlessly erodes our freedoms through countless laws, statutes, and prohibitions... .”
And it concludes:
“This much I know: we are not faceless numbers.
“We are not cogs in the machine...we are not slaves.
“We are human beings, and for the moment, we have the opportunity to remain free—that is, if we tirelessly advocate for our rights and resist at every turn attempts by the government to place us in chains.
“The Founders understood that OUR FREEDOMS DO NOT FLOW FROM THE GOVERNMENT. THEY WERE NOT GIVEN TO US ONLY TO BE TAKEN AWAY BY THE WILL OF THE STATE. THEY ARE INHERENTLY OURS. IN THE SAME WAY, THE GOVERNMENT’S APPOINTED PURPOSE IS NOT TO THREATEN OR UNDERMINE OUR FREEDOMS, BUT TO SAFEGUARD THEM.
“Until we can get back to this way of thinking, until we can remind our fellow Americans what it really means to be free, and until we can stand firm in the face of threats to our freedoms, we will continue to be treated like slaves in thrall to a bureaucratic police state run by political psychopaths.”
Full article at: https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/criminality_in_the_white_house_the_rise_of_the_political_psychopath ; EMPHASES added.
In his article, Wm. Hartung says that, "A trillion dollars is a hard figure to process."
If you built a stack of $100 bills laid flat one on top of the other, it would reach 680 miles high. Laid on it's side that stack would almost reach Chicago from New York city.
How many trees would you have to kill for that many $100 bills?
Then consider, our national debt is 34 times that amount.
When General-President Eisenhower warned about the rising POWER and influence of the US Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex in 1961, the US Pentagon Defence Budget was $60,000,000,000
Today's Pentagon Defence Budget is close to $1,000,000,000,000, not including the CIA, Homeland Security, and the FBI. Americans obviously feel more insecure within the US than ever before.
That would suggest INFLATION is built-in with the US WAR Machine.
One Israeli Missile, Seven Palestinians Killed, Four of Them Brothers
An Israeli aircraft killed seven young Palestinians in Jenin, after one of them apparently threw an explosive device at an Israeli army jeep – and missed. All seven were from the same extended family and the same village.
A father attends his son's funeral. While standing by the freshly dug grave he receives a message that yet another of his sons is also dead. A short while later he has to bury him, too. In an adjacent plot, a mother is burying her four sons, one after the other. These horrors are no longer the exclusive purview of the war in the Gaza ...........................................................................
You have to pay to see the rest of Gideon Levy's article in Haaretz in Israel. A reader does get the gist of it from the header and brief excerpt, if not the gory details.
A firecracker is an explosive device to the IDF, who killed it's own citizens shirtless, waving a white flag in Gaza as suspected Palestinian terrorists.
An astonishing thing has happened in America that has never occurred in the lifetime of anyone now living. No, it’s not the crushing win of Trump in Iowa, nor the absurd determination of Democrats to run the senile ninny who has made a joke of our Presidency for another term. These, in their way astonishing, are mere trivialities in this time of universal lunacy and deceit.
I mean an honest to god paradigm shift everyone can see that official wise men with public platforms and megaphones have not announced, or perhaps even noticed. I’m talking about the first clear, undeniable instance of the failure of the American Empire’s Propaganda Machine.
It has been clear for decades, generations, that the American political elite has no regard for, and no sense of responsibility to, the actual needs and desires of the ignorant, disorganized public. It has always dealt with their inchoate hopes by indoctrination, by arousing and enlisting their imbecile enthusiasms in a mythology of tawdry, tribal patriotism based on the premise that they are a glorious, superior people whose leaders courageously embody and implement their magnificence all over the world.
The techniques of propaganda are refined, but their effect is entirely due to grotesque pandering to the worst susceptibilities of the human ego: the desire to assert one’s superlative worth as a member of a powerful, violent, conquering nation. The force of that tactic, endlessly repeated, rendered American citizenry, with rare exceptions, one solid, deluded, unthinking mass, devoted to whatever vicious, imperial ends the political elite intended.
Their trained mass response, sure as that of performing seals, has, for the first time ever, failed in regard to the Gaza genocide.
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/01/19/paradigm-shift-a-time-of-universal-lunacy-and-deceit/14/#
Netanyahu Takes Palestinian State Off the Table, Vows Israeli Control 'From the River to the Sea'
"So it's okay for Netanyahu to say 'from the river to the sea', but not for Palestinians?"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday informed the United States that there will be no independent Palestinian state after the current war on Gaza is over, and that Israel will control Palestine "from the river to the sea."
"For 30 years I have been very consistent. This conflict is not about the lack of a Palestinian state, but the existence of a Jewish state," Netanyahu—who has previously boasted about thwarting the so-called "two-state solution" favored by Washington—said during a nationally televised press conference.
"From every area we evacuate we have received terrible terror against us. It happened in southern Lebanon, it happened in Gaza, and also in Judea and Samaria," he continued, the final part a reference to the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
"Therefore, I clarify that in any arrangement in the future the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea," he stressed. "This is what happens when you have sovereignty."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-two-state-solution
'Why is the real story of October 7 off-limits to western, but not Israeli, media?'
Israeli army ‘ethics’ chief says crimes committed by soldiers against Israel’s own civilians are ‘horrifying’. How is this not newsworthy for British journalists?
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper interviewed this week the army’s “ethics” chief, Asa Kasher, of Tel Aviv university, about two major incidents on October 7:
1. An Israeli commander ordered a tank to fire into a home in Kibbutz Be’eri knowing that there were 14 Israeli civilians inside, incinerating them.
2. Israeli helicopters fired missiles at dozens of cars with Israeli hostages inside, killing the inhabitants, again often by incinerating them.
In both cases, the official Israeli narrative is that Hamas was responsible for these “barbaric” acts, supposedly justifying the genocide Israel is carrying out – “in response” – against the civilian Palestinian population of Gaza.
Haaretz and Kasher ascribe these “friendly fire” incidents to Israel’s classified “Hannibal directive”, which requires soldiers to stop Israelis being taken hostage at all costs. Kasher thinks – probably wrongly – that the directive was misunderstood and misapplied by commanders on the day..............
Jonathan addresses the Israeli alleged mass rape War Propaganda and much more:
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2024-01-18/israel-october-7-western-media/
'All Of A Sudden, Leaders All Over The World Are Warning That World War III Is Very Close'
Prominent leaders all over the globe are starting to publicly acknowledge that World War III is coming. In many cases they are expressing hope that it can still be avoided, but that becomes less likely with each passing day. Multiple parties are escalating the conflict in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine has entered a dangerous new phase, and the election that just happened in Taiwan has made a Chinese invasion much more probable. So what is going to happen if major powers start tangling with one another all over the planet? We really are on the brink of the unthinkable, but most people in the general population have no idea how dire things have become.
https://citizenwatchreport.com/all-of-a-sudden-leaders-all-over-the-world-are-warning-that-world-war-iii-is-very-close/
Mine is the 3rd comment, a long one for those who might want to check it out relative to the Ukraine and Israeli Gaza Armageddon Slaughter when God moved me to make the prophetic DECLARATION on Remembrance/Veterans Day, in the hearing of the Governor-General, Prime Minister, Military Brass other Officials and the Ambassadors of the Nations November 11, 1985. It's unfolding 39 years later these Days, the World can now see .
https://ray032.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/remembrance-day-19853.jpg