Bigger doesn't imply better. Bigger often is a sign of obesity, of lost control, of overcomplexity, of cancerous cells
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May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Bigger doesn't imply better. Bigger often is a sign of obesity, of lost control, of overcomplexity, of cancerous cells |
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If Ronald Reagan was America's neo-Julius Caesar, his adopted son was the first George Bush (just as J.C. adopted Augustus). And look what THAT progeny wrought. I fully expect that over the next century, no fewer than seven Bushes will have run or become president (mimicking the Roman Caesarian line). Goodbye, American Republic.
From review of Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia by Gore Vidal
Skepticism -> Political Skeptic
| We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking,
class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. FDR. speech after the election (1936) polyarchy: A system where the participation of masses of people is limited to voting among one or another representatives of the elite in periodic elections. Between elections the masses are now expected to keep quiet, to go back to life as usual while the elite make decisions and run the world until they can choose between one or another elite another four years later. So polyarchy is a system of elite rule, and a system of elite rule that is little bit more soft-core than the elite rule that we would see under a military dictatorship. But what we see is that under a polyarchy the basic socio-economic system does not change, it does not become democratized.▬William I. Robinson, Behind the Veil, Minute 1:29:15 |
"Neoliberalism -- the current social system in the USA and most European countries, Japan, Russia and China (with some minor variations) -- is a very interesting ideology, one that does not dare to speak its name ;-). After a triumphal march of neoliberalism in late 80th and early 90th (with the collapse of the USSR as the high point).
The crescendo of Triumphal march of neoliberalism which stated in 1980th was the collapse of the USSR, which happened in 1991, when Soviet elite switched sides and preferred to became "entrepreneurs" like their Western counterparts, privatizing and looting their own country. Communists proved to be very corruptible folk, especially at Nomenklatura level and they like dollars more then their country.
But neoliberalism entered the major crisis in 2008. The net result was so called Secular Stagnation. The "end of cheap oil" is another factor that guarantee the continuation of Secular Stagnation. See Peak Cheap Energy.
This site is slightly skeptical as for long-term viability of Neoliberalism as a social system. At the same time as bad as neoliberal as a social system was/is in comparison with New Deal Capitalism, that does not mean the coming successor can't be worse. If there is a way out of this neoliberal mess that was pushed on us since late 70th, I can't see it.
Right now Neoliberalism is seriously sick and remind me Bolshevism after WWII. Bolshevism lasted almost 50 years after 1945, and do not see why neoliberalism can't last even longer then that as currently there is no viable alternatives'. For example, Russia which neocons try to paint as ne "Great Satan" is a yet another neoliberal state. Just with a different flavor of neoliberalism which reminds Trumps "national neoliberalism". After the "triumphal march" of neoliberalism over the globe in the late seventies and 80th with the collapse of the USSR. BTW the collapse of Soviet Union was not what neoliberal propaganda teaches us. In essence Soviet elite (aka nomenklatura) simply changed sides. The collapse of Bolshevism both as an ideology and the society paralleled the collapse of New Deal capitalism in the USA. Like large part of the USA management elite, Soviet nomenklatura became turncoats. And it was the alliance of management elite and trade unions that was at the core of New Deal capitalism. As soon as it collapsed the New Deal capitalism was replaced with neoliberalism.
But neoliberalism proved to be not a sustainable social system. It need countries to loot. From 1991 to 2000 xUSSR area was such a region. And it prospered. It lost traction after 2000 and sled in deep crisis in 2008, the crisis which undermined the neoliberal ideology. That means that after 2008 neoliberalism entered zombie state, much like Soviet communism after WWII.
Due to neoliberalism the USA is no longer a politically stable country. Political animosity after election of Trump reminds a soft civil war, racial hostility is growing, standards of majority of population are either stagnant or fall, neoliberal globalization (with off shoring and outsourcing) as well as automation leave the young unemployed. Epidemic of narco addiction in the USA (which claims 70K victims a year) remind epidemic of alcoholism in the USSR. Both were caused by desperation of people, who can't get a meaningful well paying job and see no future for themselves and their children. Wealth was redistributed to the few and the level of inequality became dangerously high. The working class falls into drugs and anomie. The wars for sustaining and expanding the neoliberal empire and crushing dissenters from neoliberal dogma never end. Meanwhile infrastructure ages and falls behind that of more advanced nations. Anger grows. As the pie shrinks, someone will have to get less pie. And it is not financial oligarchy, or MIC.
Who would thought that 30 years later the winner of the Cold War will enter the phase of decline which in may respects remind many observers the decline of the USSR.
I would like to repeat again that this decline started after the crisis of 2008 (the point at which neoliberal ideology collapsed and was discredited, much like communist ideology was after WWII. Trump election and Brexit were two historical events, after which we can attest that neoliberalism is past its prime and entered the phase of decline. And this decline created polarization of the society in which ruling neoliberal elite lost legitimacy in the eyes of common people. This is the problem which neoliberal elite tried to hide after 2016 Presidential elections under the smoke screen of Russiagate (which is essence is a color revolution with the goal of deposing Trump)
The neoliberal ideology which is, essentially, can be called "market fundamentalism" was discredited earlier, after global financial crisis of 2008. Much like communism was after WWII when it became clear that it can't secure the standard of living for its population superior to the standard of living of common people in Western European countries (and even most of the East European countries), which remained under the capitalism.
Paradoxically golden days of capitalism in Western Europe and the USA (which lasted till 79th) were possible only because communist states such as USSR existed, as it served as a powerful deterrent against the restoration of power of financial oligarchy. So it's not surprising that the New Deal Capitalism was dismantled after the USSR collapse. Moor did its duty, moor can go ;-). In other words, the mere existence of the USSR, while was not threat to the Western countries social system, served as a powerful inhibitor of cannibalistic instincts of the elite in the USA and Western countries. It was communism that helped to secured the dominance of the New Deal capitalism till early 80th.
From this point the standard of living of poor and lower middle class in the West started to slide. The first 20 years, till probably 2000 (dot com crisis) the slide was masked by tremendous technological progress in computers and communications. Still outside top 10-20% of population, the slide of the standard of living and the income is a fact. Outsourcing and offshoring killed many meaningful, well paying jobs. The new level of automation, possible with modern computers, killed some more. The possibility of cheap transcontinental communications also killed IT jobs and helpdesk type which jobs migrated to India and other countries with cheap and qualified labor force. so loss of manufacturing jobs was amplified by loss of some segments of white color jobs as well.
While neoliberal think tanks and powerful MSM propaganda machine (in which the word neoliberalism is still a taboo) now try to contain damage, the fatal flaws of neoliberal ideology after 2008 financial collapse are apparent and can't be hidden. The key neoliberal country and the key enforcer of neoliberalism over the globe -- the USA -- entered "secular stagnation" period in economics. It is also is trying to fend off the challenge that China economic growth presents to its world dominance.
Brexit and the election of Trump mean that the protest against neoliberal globalization entered the political mainstream in the USA in 2016: Hillary Clinton suffered her electoral fiasco because she was the proponent of neoliberal status quo, the proponent of neoliberal globalization and the wars for expansion of neoliberal empire, the candidate who promised to kick the neoliberal can down the road.
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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in
the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. From the Chance for Peace address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953. (Regarded as one of the finest speeches of Eisenhower's presidency.) |
Trump should probably be viewed as a new stage of this decline of American republic (which for a long time is neither democracy not a republic, but a warmongering empire, a new social system of "inverted totalitarism" as Sheldon Wolin called it ). Some trapping of previous "New Deal style" democracy remained, but most of New deal achievement such as using trade unions as countervailing social force to check the greed of capital owners was perverted. During elections Trump used to have anti-globalization inclinations -- anathema to neoliberals -- and that's why he was so viciously attacked after he has won; but those inclinations almost completely disappeared after the election. Trumpism which sometimes is defined as "economic nationalism" (or national neoliberalism, if you wish ;-) includes the following (partially intersecting) elements which are anathema to classic neoliberalism:
Of course, the notion of "Trumpism" is fuzzy and different people might include some additional issues and disagree with some listed here, but the core probably remains. Please note that Trump was emasculated by the "deep state" and turned into neocon in foreign policy just three-four months into his presidency. The only action which is along this lines so far was his decision to withdraw from Syria. Whether it will be implemented remains to be seen. His appointments directly contradict those 14 items. People such as Bolton, Pompeo, Haley are anathema to such a program.
Still the fact remains: in 2016 financial oligarchy not only failed to put the desired puppet into White House, but was forced to unleash a color revolution against new POTUS ( Russiagate witch hunt is only the tip of the iceberg in this sense) to put him into compliance, or depose him. Neoliberals and neocons also failed with their color revolution as Brennan machinations (As Professor Stephen Cohen noted Russiagate should be renamed to Intelgate) with Steele dossier backfired that they got under fire from Trump supporters. And both Brennan and FBI Mayberry Machiavellians suddenly from predators became a pray. Neoliberal Democrats (Clinton wing of Democratic Party, of DemoRats) while managed to preserve political power over the party of suppress Sunders supporters, overplayed their hand with Russiagate and neo-McCarthyism campaign (which was designed to rally nation around the flag) and might face consequences during midterm elections. Their only hope is help from the Grand Inquisitor, appointed as a part of coup d'état against Trump launched by intelligence agencies (the core of the "deep state"), Mr. Mueller.
Neocons are actually a cancel of the US society. May be terminal cancer. In any case they are extremely destructive force, MIC lobbyists without any principles or consciousness. And people without consciousness are called psychopaths.
This is not the first time the "Deep State" (read intelligence agencies+Pentagon+Department of State) in alliance with neocons and "liberal interventionists" tried to depose elected president. JFK was probably the first, Nixon the second and now Trump might be the third. What is new is complete disappearance of anti-war left and the total conversion under Hillary of Democratic Party into another War Party, the party of militant globalists (which can be a perfect new home for neocons). Clinton wing of the Democratic Party doesn't want to admit she lost the election because neoliberalism became unpopular among the US electorate. At the same time "the fifth branch of government" -- the intelligence services proved to be a formidable political force on the US political arena, able to block any attempts to stop feeding and care of military industrial complex. And for this particular reason block any even feeble attempts of rapprochement or cooperation with Russia.
The country now resembles military camp with war propaganda on all major TV channel and newspapers broadcasted 24 x7. But the cost of "guns instead of butter" policies are growing: the cost of post 9/11 War project approaches $5.6 trillion. Stolen from ordinary Americans under false pretences (As President Eisenhower noted "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." If even small part of those funds were invested within the country we would have high speed tail between all major cities, or at lease might not be having such frequent deadly crashes of Amtrak trains. Among other useful things like better roads, bridges and airports.
While I am openly nostalgic for the New Deal capitalism, I understand perfectly well that currently, there is no viable new alternative to neoliberalism. First of all because as in late 70th "managerial class" became yet another turncoat and allied with capital owners, against workers and middle class. That happened not only in the USA, but in the USSR too (that's why the USSR collapsed; in this case USSR "managerial class" (nomenklatura) allied and was partially bought by the USA capital owners)
Still the New Deal remain the most humane form of capitalism invented, and our analysis of neoliberalism has distinct "pro New Deal capitalism" bias. But we need to understand that the restoration of the New Deal capitalism looks impossible because the social base of it -- the alliance of corporate management and trade union leaders, was destroyed due to the defection of corporate managers to the side of capital owners. This realignment of political power made possible the restoration of the rule of the financial oligarchy, which happened in the USA in late 1980th.
The new coalition of anti-globalization forces that emerged during Trump election campaign is still pretty amophic political force and is unable to force changes in the society, as easy emasculation of President Trump by the Deep State proved to all of us. But hopefully it will grow and became better organized politically whether within the Republican Party of outside of it.
And yes, my friends, like Molière's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme character, who was surprised and delighted to learn that he has been speaking prose all his life without knowing it, all of us are living under neoliberal regime at least since 1980, most probably without knowing it. Current events are much easier to analyze if you use the framework of analyzing neoliberalism as a social system proposed in those pages. Neoliberalism as a social system replaced the notion of Political party with the collection of neoliberal think tanks, a new class of "professional revolutionaries" who are mercenary political army that fight for the victory of neoliberalism and comprise kind of global Neoliberal International. On interesting nuance is that the idea of "professional revolutionaries" was one of the key innovations of Bolsheviks and Trotskyites. And we can view neoliberalism as some kind of "Trotskyism for rich." In this sense this social system is almost as far from real democracy as the USSR one party system. It is something Sheldon Wolin called "inverted totalitarism". In certain aspects it is even more anti-democratic than the capitalism of the Gilded Age with which it has some uncanny similarities (enforcement of the "Law of Jungles" in labor market by suppression of trade unions and "atomization" of individuals as agent who sells themselves on some kind of marketplace, not as human being) . As Pope Francis noted neoliberalism in anti-Christian system that despise and demonize poor blaming them as incapable to provide "value" to the marketplace, and ignoring their value as a human beings:
... Such an [neoliberal] economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “disposable” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.
Another interesting aspect of neoliberalism is the existence of so-called "neoliberal rationality" (compare with the "proletarian mindset" of Bolshevism ). As well as the extent of brainwashing of population into this rationality, especially at the university level (via neoclassical economics). As well as the level and the sophistication of the use of propaganda which includes a set of neoliberal myths very similar to what were created by Bolshevism. For example, the neoliberal myths of "Free trade", "free market" (why not "fair" in both cases?) , "labor market", "human capital", etc. In reality, the key idea behind this Potemkin Village-style ideological facade is the redistribution of wealth up toward top 1% (or even more to the top 0.01%). Exactly like was the case with Bolshevism, which while proclaiming the false facade of "dictatorship of proletariat" mercilessly suppressed unions and kept 90% of population at the standard of living much lower than in Western and even Eastern Europe. Although not close to starvation which is the ideal of neoliberal "plantation economy" (implemented, for example, by Wal-Mart, with its below subsistence wages), with atomized and isolated from each other "debt slaves."
In other words, there are some striking similarities between Soviet nomenklatura and neoliberal oligarchy, similarities that no objective scholar studying neoliberalism can ignore. See also Two-Party System as Polyarchy -- "the first after the post system" proved to be ideal for neoliberal regime as it allows financial oligarchy preselect candidates from both Parties. Effectively turning the election into expensive staged event -- a grandiose political spectacle, if you wish. but with predicted outcome as stage directors who perform casting are members of a close circle of neoliberal elite -- mostly financial oligarchy. It could have been adopted by Soviet nomenklatura as well, as it very effectively prevents any real challenges to the existing political regime by pre-selection of two candidates running to the given position and two parties, which are essentially a "soft" and "hard" factions of a single party of financial oligarchy.
The level of "synchronicity" in coverage of foreign events by neoliberal MSM also reminds me the level typical for Soviet Union. With all MSM repeating the State Department talking points and in general going out their skin be politically correct stooges of the neoliberal regime.
Yet another very interesting aspect of neoliberal regime is the level of public apathy, limited public discourse and even vocabulary (try to find the word "neoliberal" in WaPo ;-) as well as epidemic of narco-addition (especially in Rust Belt, which is more severely hit by neoliberal globalization with its offshoring and outsourcing). Which is not that dissimilar to the epidemic of alcoholism under Bolshevism. When common people see no future for themselves and their children they tend to engage in self-destructing behaviour. Sheldon Wolin called this approach to suppressing of dissent "inverted totalitarism."
What is really interesting is that the term "neoliberalism" has the status of a semi-taboo in the USA, and seldom can be found in articles published by the USA MSM, due to some kind of "silence" pact ;-). the intent of this set of pages intent is to fight this trend and present a "slightly skeptical" view of this important social phenomenon.
It is also important to understand that the level of hostility to Trump by the "deep state" is directly connected with three main (and very quickly betrayed) promises that Trump made during elections:
All three were the direct revision of neoliberal ideology postulates, as well as departure from the "neoliberal rationality". That's why the counter-attack of both the "Deep State" and neoliberal MSM on Trump was so vicious, with well coordinated set of leaks, appointment of Special Prosecutor (on fake pretext), re-launch of McCarthyism, and campaign of demonization of Trump and his administration in media. In the level of outrage that writers of Pravda during Stalin "Show Trials" would find completely in line with their own writings -- they so vividly resembles the attacks on "revisionists" in the USSR during Stalinism, that you may wish to revisit books devoted to those trials ;-).
What is new in putsch of intelligence services and neoliberal establishment against Trump is presence of classic elements of color revolutions technology. Which were for the first time used within the USA by "neoliberal nomenklatura" to preserve power. Some people call it Purple revolution. The ultimate goal is to remove Trump from power, and if this is not possible to emasculate his for the next four years. Some elements of this technology were previously used probably to depose Nixon. Watergate also involved intelligence agencies (the core of the Deep State) activities directed at the removal of the sitting President. And going back JFK was probably the first President removed by intelligence services.
Initially color revolution technologies were designed to topple "unfriendly" to neoliberalism regimes in xUSSR space and "resource nationalists" in the Middle East (as well as against China in Hong Cong). That suggests that after the election of 2016 neoliberals felt a real threat from Trump "revisionism".
Deployment of those technologies does not spell well with the social stability because delegitimization of elected government has lasting negative effects. Just look at Ukraine which was the victim of the most recent "color revolution" experiment. They have now two breakaway regions and the drop of the standard of living of population around 200% or more. The country also now is a debt slave. In other words when the gin of color revolution is out of the bottle it is not that easy to put it back and the events can turn in the direction not anticipated by the originators of such a color revolution.
See also Neoliberalism
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| It's easy to pretend to be a great strategist, while sitting on the top of the hill, at the safe distance from the battle in the valley -- Shota Rustavelli (1172–1216) |
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May 21, 2019 | www.unz.com
Mr McKenna , says: May 20, 2019 at 10:35 pm GMT
'Coordinated anti-Trump campaign' on Instagram discovered by data analytics firm
ReutersResearchers have uncovered what they called a "coordinated social media operation"on Instagram intended to undermine US President Donald Trump, with many identical posts using hashtags like #ihatetrump and #ImpeachTrump.
Ghost Data, an Italian analytics firm, said the US president has been targeted by fake profiles created specifically to spread extreme and sometimes even violent anti-Trump messaging in an organized and coordinated way.
Their study identified a network of 350 anti-Trump Instagram accounts, which used graphic language to criticize the US president and found that 19 accounts led the way in promoting the content. Some of the postings could "easily" be regarded as "hate speech," the study said.
What the team uncovered was a "small operation" that is "very likely part of something bigger," the head of research at Ghost Data, Andrea Stroppa, told Reuters.
The posts generated from the operation garnered more than 35.2 million interactions, with 3.9 million of them happening within the last two months when the campaign "swelled dramatically," the researchers said. Interactions for the top 19 accounts are "growing exponentially," generating nearly 70,000 likes and comments in just the first 10 days of May.
The accounts posted "similar or identical content" and many of the messages were published just a few minutes apart, the study noted. More tellingly, the accounts were all "activated and turned off" on the same day.
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Mar 01, 2026 | www.washingtonpost.com
Barr is wrong: Obstruction of justice doesn't require another underlying crime - The Washington Post By Daniel Hemel Daniel Hemel is an assistant professor of law at the University of Chicago. March 26
It took special counsel Robert S. Mueller III nearly two years to conclude that President Trump may have -- but may not have -- obstructed justice. It took Attorney General William P. Barr and his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, only two days to decide that Trump should not be charged with obstruction. How did Barr and Rosenstein make up their minds so quickly on a question that the special counsel struggled with for so long?
Barr sent a letter to Congress on Sunday that offers little explanation for the decision not to prosecute the president. The letter correctly states the elements of obstruction of justice -- corrupt intent, obstructive conduct and a sufficient nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding -- and then states that Mueller's report "identifies no actions that, in our judgment," satisfy all three criteria. The letter says nothing more about the last two elements of obstruction, but it does offer this about corrupt intent: "While not determinative, the absence of evidence [of collusion] bears upon the President's intent with respect to obstruction."
That conclusion is questionable for reasons beyond its haste. It's black letter law that a defendant can satisfy the corrupt intent criterion for obstruction even if the defendant himself committed no underlying crime. For example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit recently ruled that a defendant could be convicted of obstruction "even if [his] primary motivation was to extricate the sister of his childhood friend from a troubled situation." A court in Utah held in 2013 that a defendant could be liable for obstruction where his only apparent motive was to protect a friend from a criminal charge.
Former Detroit mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick went to jail for obstructing justice in 2008 after he lied under oath about an extramarital affair. And in January, a Navy captain in Florida was indicted on a charge of obstruction of justice after he allegedly misled investigators about his extramarital affair with a civilian employee's spouse. Of course, adultery is not a crime. But interfering with an investigation to cover up adultery certainly is.
[ Trump could still have obstructed justice -- even if he didn't break the law ]
By these standards, it's easy to see what possible motives Trump may have had to obstruct justice, even if no collusion with Russia was involved. He may have wanted, for example, to shield Michael T. Flynn, his first national security adviser, from criminal liability. In February 2017, the president told FBI Director James B. Comey that Flynn "is a good guy," according to Comey , and Trump implored Comey to drop the FBI's investigation of Flynn. Flynn later pleaded guilty to charges that he lied to investigators about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Trump fired Comey in May 2017.
Or perhaps the president suspected -- correctly -- that the investigation of his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen would churn up evidence that Trump paid adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about an alleged sexual encounter the two had just months after Trump's wife, Melania, gave birth to Trump's youngest child, Barron. Trump may have feared the political fallout from revelations that he lied to the American people about his business dealings with Russia, and then instructed his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to lie about conversations with Russian representatives during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Or maybe Trump simply wanted to cover up the fact that the Russian government intervened on his behalf during the race -- even if that intervention occurred independently of Trump's campaign. Trump has only begrudgingly acknowledged that the intelligence community agrees that Russia wanted him to win; ever sensitive about his loss to Democrat Hillary Clinton in the popular vote, perhaps he worried that evidence of Russian meddling would cast further doubt on the legitimacy of his presidency.
[ One person the Mueller report didn't 'exonerate'? Vladimir Putin. ]
Of course, the fact that Trump would have had many motives to obstruct justice doesn't mean that he actually did so. Obstruction of justice still requires two more elements beyond corrupt intent: obstructive conduct and a sufficient connection to a pending or contemplated proceeding. The second element -- obstructive conduct -- is arguably the most difficult to establish in Trump's case. Reasonable minds may disagree as to whether the president engaged in obstructive conduct when he fired Comey, tried to fire Mueller and possibly encouraged Cohen to lie to Congress , as Cohen has testified. (Trump has repeatedly said Cohen is lying now.)
Trump or his defenders could argue, for example, that he fired Comey not to interfere in an investigation but because he concluded, as he wrote in his termination letter , that Comey was "not able to effectively lead the Bureau." Comments that Trump made later to NBC News's Lester Holt undermined that explanation , but if charges had been brought, a jury may have concluded that Trump lied to Holt and told the truth in his earlier termination message.
So why did Barr emphasize the absence of collusion -- a fact that is, at most, tangentially relevant to whether Trump obstructed justice?
One possibility is that Mueller's report contains additional evidence of obstructive conduct connected with a contemplated or pending proceeding. What initially looks like the weaker elements of the obstruction case against Trump may be stronger than we think.
A less conspiratorial theory is that Barr simply has an idiosyncratic view of obstruction -- a view that appears to be unmoored from any case law. In his June 2018 memo to top Justice Department officials, Barr -- who at the time was a lawyer in private practice -- opined that "the President's motive in removing Comey and commenting on Flynn could not have been 'corrupt' unless the President and his campaign were actually guilty of illegal collusion."
Barr's view was silly then and is silly now.
Even if Trump's only motive for interfering in the FBI's investigation of Flynn was his personal affection for a loyal aide, the president still could have committed obstruction of justice -- friendship, as mentioned above, is motive enough for obstruction. Barr's memo was roundly criticized in December when the Wall Street Journal first reported its existence. Perhaps that criticism led Barr to double down on his strange and legally unsupportable theory.
Ultimately, understanding what is going on in Barr's mind may be as difficult as understanding what's happening in Trump's. It's hard to see why the attorney general would put so much weight on such a legally flimsy reed. But this much seems clear: Barr's conclusion that Trump did not commit obstruction should persuade no one of the president's innocence.
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May 21, 2019 | www.unz.com
renfro , says: May 21, 2019 at 2:51 am GMT
@tanabearHowever, the firing James Comey is completely legal and allowed by the Executive. A prosecutor cannot event a crime of obstruction when the action was perfectly legal
Wrong again ..its obvious none of you know how to find the legal cites on the elements of obstruction. Whether Trump can 'legally' fire someone or not is immaterial .the court (and the law) looks at the INTENT behind the act. Period.
You can legally hire or fire your maid but if your motivation -- intention in either of those acts is to bribe her or threaten her because she knows something about you that could get you in legal trouble. Then it is obstruction.
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May 17, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org
U.S. ships are involved in provocative "freedom of navigation" exercises in the South China Sea and other ships gather ominously in the Mediterranean Sea while National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo along with convicted war criminal Elliot Abrams conspire to save the people of Venezuela with another illegal "regime change" intervention. But people are drawn to the latest adventures of Love and Hip-Hop, the Mueller report, and Game of Thrones. In fact, while millions can recall with impressive detail the proposals and strategies of the various players in HBO's latest saga, they can't recall two details about the pending military budget that will likely pass in Congress with little debate, even though Trump's budget proposal represents another obscene increase of public money to the tune of $750 billion.
This bipartisan rip-off could not occur without the willing collusion of the corporate media, which slants coverage to support the interests of the ruling elite or decides to just ignore an issue like the ever-expanding military budget.
The effectiveness of this collusion is reflected in the fact that not only has this massive theft of public money not gotten much coverage in the mainstream corporate media, but also it only received sporadic coverage in the alternative media. The liberal-left media is distracted enough by the theatrics of the Trump show to do the ideological dirty work of the elites.
Spending on war will consume almost 70% of the budget and be accompanied by cuts in public spending for education, housing, the environment, public transportation, jobs trainings, food support programs like food stamps and Meals on Wheels, as well as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Most of the neoliberal candidates running in the Democratic Party's electoral process, however, haven't spoken a word in opposition to Trump's budget.
The public knows that the Democratic Party's candidates are opposed to Trump's wall on the southern border, and they expect to hear them raise questions about the $8.6 billion of funding the wall. But while some of the Democrats may oppose the wall, very few have challenged the details of the budget that the U.S. Peace Council indicates . For example:
"$576 billion baseline budget for the Department of Defense; an additional $174 billion for the Pentagon's Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), i.e., the war budget; $93.1 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs; $51.7 billion for Homeland Security; $42.8 billion for State Department; an additional $26.1 billion for State Department's Overseas Contingency Operations (regime change slush fund); $16.5 billion for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (nuclear weapons budget); $21 billion for NASA (militarizing outer space?); plus $267.4 billion for all other government agencies, including funding for FBI and Cybersecurity in the Department of Justice."
The Peace Council also highlights the following two issues: First, the total US military and war budget has jumped from $736.4 billion to $989.0 billion since 2015. That is a $252.6 billion (about 35%) increase in five years. Second, thesimultaneous cuts in the government's non-military spending are reflected in the proposed budget.
Here are some of biggest proposed budget cuts:
+ $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years, implementing work requirements as well as eliminating the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The budget instead adds $1.2 trillion for a "Market Based Health Care Grant" -- that is, a block grant to states, instead of paying by need. It's not clear whether that would be part of Medicaid.
+ An $845 billion cut to Medicare over 10 years. That is about a 10 percent cut .
+ $25 billion in cuts to Social Security over 10 years, including cuts to disability insurance.
+ A $220 billion cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP) over 10 years , which is commonly referred to as food stamps, and includes mandatory work requirements. The program currently serves around 45 million people.
+ A $21 billion cut to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families , an already severely underfunded cash-assistance program for the nation's poorest.
+ $207 billion in cuts to the student loan program, eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and cutting subsidized student loans.
+ Overall, there is a 9 percent cut to non-defense programs , which would hit Section 8 housing vouchers, public housing programs, Head Start, the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program, and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program , among others.
The working classes and oppressed peoples of the U.S. and around the world can no longer afford the unchallenged ideological positions of the Pentagon budget and the associated expenditures for so-called defense that are considered sacrosanct in the U.S. They cannot afford that much of the U.S. public is not concerned with issues of so-called foreign policy that the military budget is seen as part.
The racist appeals of U.S. national chauvinism in the form of "Make America Great" and the Democrats' version of "U.S. Exceptionalism" must be confronted and exposed as the cross-class, white identity politics that they are. The fact that supposedly progressive or even "radical" politics does not address the issue of U.S. expenditures on war and imperialism is reflective of a politics that is morally and political bankrupt. But it also does something else. It places those practitioners firmly in the camp of the enemies of humanity.
The objective fact that large numbers of the public accept that the U.S. can determine the leadership of another sovereign nation while simultaneously being outraged by the idea of a foreign power interfering in U.S. elections demonstrates the mindboggling subjective contradictions that exist in the U.S. For example – that an Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez can assert that she will defer to the leadership of her caucus on the issue of Venezuela or that Barbara Lee can vote to bring Trump's budget proposal out of committee or that Biden can proudly support Trump's immoral backing of a neo-fascist opposition in Venezuela and they will all get away with those positions – reveals the incredible challenge that we face in building an alternative radical movement for peace, social justice and people(s)-centered human rights.
So, we must join with U.S. Peace Council and the other members of the Anti-war, pro-peace, and anti-imperialist communities in the U.S. to "resist and oppose this military attack on our communities, our livelihoods and our lives." This is an urgent and militant first step in reversing the cultural support for violence and the normalization of war that currently exists in the U.S. Now is the moment to demand that Congress reject and reverse the Trump Administration's military budget and the U.S. Government's militaristic foreign policy. But now is also the moment to commit to building a powerful countermovement to take back the power over life and death from the denizens of violence represented by the rapacious 1%. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Ajamu Baraka
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch magazine.
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May 21, 2019 | www.unz.com
mike k , says: May 20, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT@ABC 123 You got that dead right ABC 123. The evil group in the shadows that really runs the government is called "the intelligence community." Some community! More like a giant Mafia.
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May 17, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org
A new book called Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons by Kris Newby adds significantly to our understanding of Lyme disease, while oddly seeming to avoid mention of what we already knew.Newby claims (in 2019) that if a scientist named Willy Burgdorfer had not made a confession in 2013, the secret that Lyme disease came from a biological weapons program would have died with him. Yet, in 2004 Michael Christopher Carroll published a book called Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory . He appeared on several television shows to discuss the book, including on NBC's Today Show, where the book was made a Today Show Book Club selection. Lab 257 hit the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list soon after its publication.
Newby's book reaches the same conclusion as Carroll's, namely that the most likely source of diseased ticks is Plum Island. Newby reaches this conclusion on page 224 after mentioning Plum Island only once in passing in a list of facilities on page 47 and otherwise avoiding it throughout the book. This is bizarre, because Newby's book otherwise goes into great depth, and even chronicles extensive research efforts that lead largely to dead ends, and because there is information available about Plum Island, and because Carroll's best-selling book seems to demand comment, supportive or dismissive or otherwise.
In fact, I think that, despite the avoidance of any discussion of Plum Island, Newby's research complements Carroll's quite well, strengthens the same general conclusion, and then adds significant new understanding. So, let's look at what Carroll told us, and then at what Newby adds.
Less than 2 miles off the east end of Long Island sits Plum Island, where the U.S. government makes or at least made biological weapons, including weapons consisting of diseased insects that can be dropped from airplanes on a (presumably foreign) population. One such insect is the deer tick, pursued as a germ weapon by the Nazis, the Japanese, the Soviets, and the Americans.
Deer swim to Plum Island. Birds fly to Plum Island. The island lies in the middle of the Atlantic migration route for numerous species. "Ticks," Carroll writes, "find baby chicks irresistible."
In July of 1975 a new or very rare disease appeared in Old Lyme, Connecticut, just north of Plum Island. And what was on Plum Island? A germ warfare lab to which the U.S. government had brought former Nazi germ warfare scientists in the 1940s to work on the same evil work for a different employer. These included the head of the Nazi germ warfare program who had worked directly for Heinrich Himmler. On Plum Island was a germ warfare lab that frequently conducted its experiments out of doors . After all, it was on an island. What could go wrong? Documents record outdoor experiments with diseased ticks in the 1950s (when we know that the United States was using such weaponized life forms in North Korea ). Even Plum Island's indoors, where participants admit to experiments with ticks, was not sealed tight. And test animals mingled with wild deer, test birds with wild birds.
By the 1990s, the eastern end of Long Island had by far the greatest concentration of Lyme disease. If you drew a circle around the area of the world heavily impacted by Lyme disease, which happened to be in the Northeast United States, the center of that circle was Plum Island.
Plum Island experimented with the Lone Star tick, whose habitat at the time was confined to Texas. Yet it showed up in New York and Connecticut, infecting people with Lyme disease -- and killing them. The Lone Star tick is now endemic in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.
If Newby agrees or disagrees with any of the above, she does not inform us. But here's what she adds to it.
The outbreak of unusual tick-borne disease around Long Island Sound actually started in 1968, and it involved three diseases: Lyme arthritis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and babesiosis. A U.S. bioweapons scientist, Willy Burgdorfer, credited in 1982 with discovering the cause of Lyme disease, may have put the diseases into ticks 30 years earlier. And his report on the cause of Lyme disease may have involved a significant omission that has made it harder to diagnose or cure. The public focus on only one of the three diseases has allowed a disaster that could have been contained to become widespread.
Newby documents in detail Burgdorfer's work for the U.S. government giving diseases to ticks in large quantities to be used as weapons, as they have been in Cuba in 1962, for example. "He was growing microbes inside ticks, having the ticks feed on animals, and then harvesting the microbes from the animals that exhibited the level of illness the military had requested."
Burgdorfer published a paper in 1952 about the intentional infecting of ticks. In 2013, filmmaker Tim Grey asked him, on camera, whether the pathogen he had identified in 1982 as the cause of Lyme disease was the same one or similar or a generational mutation of the one he'd written about in 1952. Burgdorfer replied in the affirmative.
Interviewed by Newby, Burgdorfer described his efforts to create an illness that would be difficult to test for -- knowledge of which he might have shared earlier with beneficial results for those suffering.
Newby, who has herself suffered from Lyme disease, blames the profit interests of companies and the corruption of government for the poor handling of Lyme disease. But her writing suggests to me a possibility she doesn't raise, namely that those who know where Lyme disease came from have avoided properly addressing it because of where it came from.
Newby assumes throughout the book that there has to have been a particular major incident near Long Island Sound, either an accident or an experiment on the public or an attack by a foreign nation. Burgdorfer reportedly claimed to another researcher that Russia stole U.S. bioweapons. Based on that and nothing else, Newby speculates that perhaps Russia attacked the United States with diseased ticks, coincidentally right in the location where the U.S. government experimented with diseased ticks.
"What this book brings to light," Newby writes, "is that the U.S. military has conducted thousands of experiments exploring the use of ticks and tick-borne diseases as biological weapons, and in some cases, these agents escaped into the environment. The government needs to declassify the details of these open-air bioweapons tests so that we can begin to repair the damage these pathogens are inflicting on human and animals in the ecosystem."
Another product of U.S. bio-weapons tax dollars at work, of course, was the anthrax mailed to politicians in 2001. While Newby speculates that perhaps someone was trying to demonstrate the danger for our own good, I don't think we should forget that one purpose served -- whether or not intended -- by the "anthrax attacks" was a significant augmentation of the Iraq war lies. The attacks were falsely blamed on Iraq, and even if people have forgotten that, they fell for it long enough for it to matter. The one bit of truth in current public understanding of Lyme disease is that it has not been falsely blamed on some country the United States is eager to bomb. Let's keep it that way! Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: David Swanson
David Swanson wants you to declare peace at http://WorldBeyondWar.org His new book is War No More: The Case for Abolition .
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May 21, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org
May 17, 2019 Isn't it obvious? A moronic president with no firm principles other than the preservation of his base's support chose as his third national security advisor the notorious John Bolton. Bolton is using his position to try to guide the supposedly isolationist president into more wars of imperialist aggression. He is the Wormtongue in Trump's court, allied not with Saruman and Mordor but Binyamin Netanyahu, Prince Mohammad bin Salman and the neocon cause for Middle East dominance. He presently tows the administration's line in seeking peace with North Korea, but he has historically urged regime change in the DPRK. He was probably the one who at the last minute sabotaged the announcement of an already worked out agreement in Hanoi.
He has long been a proponent of regime change in Venezuela, and deliberately threatened to post 5000 U.S. troops in Colombia to "assist" Venezuelans (and distribute food to them, and help in the coup). The planned coup fizzled however, much to the disappointment of the corporate media that was expecting high drama last week. Trump reportedly felt he'd been misled to think the clown Guaido would be able to seize power. He may blame Bolton for that.
Bolton has been an advocate of regime change in Syria, too, for over two decades. He has lied before to produce pretexts for U.S. actions (or to justify Israeli ones) against the Syrian state. Most of all he has demanded the bombing of Iran, on the basis of the Big Lie that Iran has ever had anything other than a peaceful, civilian nuclear program (initially supported by General Electric under the Eisenhower "Atoms for Peace" program in the 1950s). Now he is chomping at the bit, thinking his moment has come.
Trump is besieged by investigations, embarrassing revelations about his rather pathetic business history, and fallout from the China trade war. Impeachment is a real possibility, if House hearings show criminality so obvious that Republicans will desert the president. (It is not as though all Republican Senators love him; they are simply too awed by his solid 35-40% to break with him publicly.) The president is no doubt distracted and troubled.
In this context a National Security Council meeting was held in which the acting secretary of "defense" Patrick Shanahan (and Bolton) laid out options for a war with Iran. No fewer than six people present contacted the press afterwards to leak this news, indicating shock that such was even being considered.
Then Bolton, in a highly unusual statement in his own name, and perhaps without even the knowledge of the moron-president, announced that the U.S. was sending an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf to respond to Iranian threats to U.S. troops and interests in the area. Even MSNBC and CNN are questioning the basis for the reported threats, which are obviously more Bolton bullshit.
Trump joked recently, "I'm actually the one who tempers John, isn't that amazing?" implying that it was odd that
Bolton was even more bellicose and outrageous than himself. Hahahaha.Imagine Bolton saying, "Look we can use those explosions on the UAE oil tankers in the Persian Gulf May 13 to blame Iran. Think about the U.S. Maine. You know? Oh you don't? We used this accident on a U.S. navy ship in Havana Harbor in 1898 to blame it on Spain and go to war. Spain wasn't responsible. But we got Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines and Hawaii out of the deal."
Trump perhaps laughs at this reminder (?) of U.S. history. He enjoys interacting with total warmongers. But he promised his base no more foreign wars. Morality has nothing to do with hesitation to send troops; when it comes to bombing and missile strikes Trump has shown his manhood in Afghanistan (dropping the monstrous MOAB bomb for the first time, just to show off what it could do) and Syria (striking some mothballed aircraft at a Syrian air force base in response to a bogus allegation of Syrian government sarin use). But he hesitates to deploy more troops abroad.
Yet suddenly (due to Bolton) we read of plans to dispatch 120,000 U.S. troops to the region around Iran if there's some attack on U.S. forces. Or maybe, allied (Saudi, UAE) forces. Trump's challenge to Iran, expressed in his childlike vocabulary, is both clear and totally unclear: "If they do anything they will suffer greatly." Anything. Will there be war? "We'll see."
Bolton must have now gained enough insight into Trump's malignant narcissistic personality that he knows what times and moods to exploit to pursue his own initiatives. Again, Trump may not even have been aware of Bolton's announcement. But Secretary of State Pompeo would have known, and acting Secretary of War Shanahan (Boeing Aircraft executive with no military experience) would have known as he announced plans for a potential deployment of 120,000 troops.
The warmongers have swiftly risen in the administration, raising worries about war on Venezuela or Iran if not North Korea. Trump is mercurial, impulsive, impressionable, without compassion or conscience. At this point the equally evil Bolton is the worst Wormtongue to have at his side and in his ear.
*****
Breaking news: Trump tells the press that he is not planning to send 120,000 troops to the Persian Gulf. (This is after the British Foreign Minister strongly advised against the move.) He calls it fake news. But, he adds, if he sends troops it will be a lot more than 120,000!
Unless you read that Bolton is fired in the near future, be rationally anxious. He's a despised, crazed monster, as any time Google-searching will convince you. And he serves a man without empathy, who admires outrageously brutal and foul-mouthed men. The combination is terrifying. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Gary Leupp
Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan ; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan ; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900 . He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion , (AK Press). He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
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May 21, 2019 | www.unz.com
onebornfree , says: Website May 20, 2019 at 10:13 pm GMT
M. Whitney says: " .That's the question that will throw open the curtains and shed light on the suspicious ties between the DNC, the CIA, the FBI and the media, .."SWAMPgate: You won't believe how ALL the perps are connected as in joined at the hip!
Excerpt: " ..someone out there cares so much that they've "purged" all Barsoomian court documents for her Clinton representation in Hamburg vs. Clinton in 1998 and its appeal in 1999 from the DC District and Appeals Court dockets. Someone out there cares so much that the internet has been "purged" of all information pertaining to Barsoomian. Historically, this indicates that the individual is a protected CIA operative. Additionally, Lisa Barsoomian has specialized in opposing Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of the intelligence community.
And, although Barsoomian has been involved in hundreds of cases representing the DC Office of the US Attorney, her email address is Lisa Barsoomian at NIH gov. The NIH stands for National Institutes of Health. This is a tactic routinely used by the CIA to protect an operative by using another government organization to shield their activities.
It's a cover, so big deal, right? I mean what does one more attorney with ties to the US intelligence community really matter?
It deals with Trump and his recent tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports, the border wall, DACA, everything coming out of California, the Uni-party unrelenting opposition to President Trump, the Clapper leaks, the Comey leaks, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusal and subsequent 14 month nap with occasional forays into the marijuana legalization mix.
And last but not least Mueller's never-ending investigation into collusion between the Trump team and the Russians.
Why does Barsoomian, CIA operative, merit any mention? BECAUSE She is Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's WIFE! " :
"SWAMPgate: You won't believe how ALL the perps are connected as in joined at the hip!":
http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=122755#more-122755Regards, onebornfree
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May 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Oliver K , May 19, 2019 3:32:24 PM | 5
" Why The Takedown Of Heinz-Christian Strache Will Strengthen The Right | Main May 19, 2019 The story in the American Conservative is very weak: that "the Americans" have already won the war is just due to the built-in superiority: the "land of the free" against "communist dictatorship" (so everybody knows who has to win). Or, a variation, "free market" against "state-owned".A typical statement of that article: "China views commercial relations with other countries as an extension of the political conflict between Western democracies and itself -- that is, an extension of war." -- a very defining element of the "American" character, to project the own aggression onto others.
There was another opinion-piece somewhere, can't find it anymore, where the author argued that hopefully that "trade-war" will do really good for the Chinese economy -- forget about the US, and develop the home market.
As I believe that the sanctions are a great gift to Russia, I also believe that this "trade-war" is a (potential) great gift to China.
Kadath , May 19, 2019 4:21:27 PM | 0
That was an interesting article on psychological vs sociological storytelling and it makes a good companion piece when thinking about how the US media personalizes US geo-political conflicts with the heads of rival state (Putin, Xi, Castro, Kim Jong-un, Khomeini, Gaddafi). If you believe the US media if they just removed Putin, Russia would go back to being a good little puppet state just like under Yeltins. Which is a shockingly naïve way to look at international relations. States have permanent interests and any competent head of State will always represent those interests to the best of their ability. True, you could overthrow the government and replace every senior government figure with a compliant puppet (which the US always tries to do), but the permanent interests that arise from the inhabitants of the State will always rise up and (re)assert themselves. When the State leadership is bribed or threatened into ignoring or acting against these needs it ultimately creates a failed State.KC , May 19, 2019 4:31:39 PM | 1Even the US media seems to subconsciously understand this, when they talk of "overly ambitious US goals of remaking societies", however, they never make the logical next step of investigating why these States do not wish to be remade as per the US imagined ideal, what the interests of these actually are and how diplomacy can resolve conflicts. According to the US media everything boils down to the US = good, anyone who disagrees with our policies = bad and diplomacy is just a measure of how vulgar our threats are during talks. I'm specifically thinking of the US Ambassador to Russia, John Huntsman's boast of a US aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean as being 100,000 tons of diplomacy to Russia - of all the ridiculous and stupid things to says to Russia when supposedly trying to "ease" tensions (I still can't believe Huntsmen, former Ambassador to China under Obama, is regarded a "serious" professional ambassador within the State departments when compared to all the celebrity ambassadorships the US President for fundraiser).
@WJ #8 - That's probably a daily occurrence there anyway.KC , May 19, 2019 4:35:35 PM | 2Somewhat on-topic, China's state media is broadcasting Anti-American movies .William Gruff , May 19, 2019 4:43:17 PM | 4Cresty @9Kadath , May 19, 2019 4:59:33 PM | 5It is not just Chinese but Asian in general. Watch several seasons of the Japanese cartoon "Gundam" and get back to me about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in it.
The whole notion that the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are set in stone is antithetical to any worldview founded in Buddhism/Confucianism, or influenced by the same. Can you imagine western children's programming teaching ambiguity between good and evil? That which is which depends upon the observer's perspective? This is the sort of concept that few western people get exposed to until graduate level ethics and philosophy courses.
Or maybe not. I have never seen a single episode of "Game of Thrones" and maybe that delves into ethical complexities that typical western mass media avoids. I wouldn't know. What I do know is that this moral and ethical complexity is something that most Asian children are introduced to before they hit their teens.
Trump just tweeted "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!". Needless to say, more ridiculousness, Trump is pretty close to plagiarizing himself with his prior comments regarding North Korean "North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the "Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times." Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!". I think Trump is getting desperate now waiting by the phone for the Iranians to call him. Trump is certainly still smarting after the failed Venezuela coup and wants to avoid a second embarrassing defeat, however I doubt the Iranians will care that much about his latest threat by tweet.Nemesiscalling , May 19, 2019 5:18:09 PM | 6GOT was jarring this season. In the penultimate episode, a dragon wreaks havoc on a western capital city, brutally murdering most of its inhabitants.Sasha , May 19, 2019 5:26:49 PM | 7It is impossible not to make the correlation of the dragon as China and kings landing (The city) as Washington d.c.
From this one can glean that they were attempting to show the ascendancy of China and the utter destruction of the U.S. With shades of gray thrown about as to if the people of the city deserved to be burned alive and as to whether the dragon and its rider, China, have become what they originally set out to vanquish. The old Nietzsche maxim...those who fight with monsters...
It was indeed unsettling because there are no moral winners. It is well realised for this reason but poorly written and produced in other aspects as noted above by other posters.
On the alleged Arendt´s banality of evil, well, some more evil than others, if not because o of their clearly over the top ambitions:Jackrabbit , May 19, 2019 6:01:23 PM | 9Interesting comment linking some sources and articles on US military strategy from decades ago , some of which I am not able to get to anymore, as the article at ICH numbered 3011:
"First published From Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14: US Army War College: "There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.""Excerpts From Pentagon's Plan: 'Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival':
"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.
This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.
There are three additional aspects to this objective: First, the U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.
Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role. An effective reconstitution capability is important here, since it implies that a potential rival could not hope to quickly or easily gain a predominant military position in the world."... access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"
Nemesiscalling @16Maximus , May 19, 2019 6:09:55 PM | 1GOT is an allegory that explores the nature of power. If you see China's destruction of Washington it says more about you than the show. Firebombing of Dresden might be a more apt analogy.
People always suffer when they allow corrupt sociopaths to gain power. That is as true today as it was in Germany in 1930's and 40's.
The complaints about poor writing are just fan sadness at unexpected horrors that actually make sense for the show. Loose ends created by these horrors will likely be resolved in the last episode tonight.
Link not working above here it is: https://twitter.com/realgollumtrump?lang=enRoy G , May 19, 2019 7:12:22 PM | 3WJ @13 thanks for the link, I am eternally hopeful that this particular thread gets pulled on until it unravels.Dolores P Candyarse , May 19, 2019 7:30:47 PM | 4One of my distinct memories of the immediate aftermath of 9/11 (I lived in NYC at the time), was the trumpeting of the Post and other tabloids about 'the Dancing Arabs,' which obviously fanned the flames of hatred towards the designated villains. Once it was revealed that they were actually Israelis, then crickets until the whole thing was shoved down the memory hole.
I'm going out today to buy a couple of Huawei 'phones'.Uncoy , May 19, 2019 7:32:02 PM | 5According to news reports since the moron in charge announced that he had signed an executive order 'blacklisting' Huawei, those lovely humans at Google are denying Huawei phones access to gmail and playstore. The android operating system is open source and still available to Huawei.
Doubtless FB and M$ will follow suit. Getting rid of all the nasty stuff that spies on users 24/7/365 now means that Huawei phones have all the advantages with none of the disadvantages.
They put their own chips in newer models and I have no doubt will find enough bright sparks to take over apps integration meaning that this divergence point will become a boon not a hurdle. Even better a Huawei costs 60% of a comparable korean model and half the price of the fbi backdoored american shit.
I really like thinking expressed by an un-named english politician in a Henry Jackson Society report: ""Huawei has long been accused of espionage" – a claim repeatedly denied by the firm – and notes that "while there are no definitely proven cases", a precautionary principle should be adopted."All politicians are crooks and liars, everybody says so, lets lock em all up right now, no need for evidence or trial or any of that due process nonsense, the precautionary principle should apply.
William Gruff wrote:Colin , May 19, 2019 7:39:27 PM | 6I have never seen a single episode of "Game of Thrones" and maybe that delves into ethical complexities that typical western mass media avoids. I wouldn't know.Having suffered through four seasons of Game of Thrones, after a degree in philology and literature, I'd be happy to share my impressions with you. In Games of Thrones, the good characters are regularly disembowled, choked and drowned to death. Or turn evil. The evil characters grow in power and menace and rarely perish. The overwhelming message is that all people and all power are evil. There is no good in the world or what good there is will be quickly stomped out. Resistance is useless.
The main message is really that resistance is futile . If the powers that be can condition the contemporary (and naturally idealistic) Western youth to accept that hypothesis, any threat to their depredations and financial tyranny is rendered impotent. If resistance is futile, said youth will simply have to accept how things are and try to stay out of the way of tyrannical kings, rapacious queens, brutal captains of the guards and wanton dragons. I.e. sit down and shut up while HRC, John Bolton, John Brennan and James Clapper ruin the planet.
Despite impressive production values, excellent acting (for the most part) and majestic locations, Game of Thrones is truly the most evil large scale creative work I've ever seen. On a philosophical level, Game of Thrones has no redeeming features. At best an impressionable mind might come away with a hedonist mindset, i.e. the traditional salve of weak spirits, carpe diem .
PS. There's some very good comments at the tail end of the Takedown of Heinz-Christian Strache including one of my own covering in some depth the Austrian political background to this event. Worth revisiting if you only saw the early comments.
Analysis from a poll sometimes cited by Chomsky.KC , May 19, 2019 8:21:46 PM | 0See Gallup International poll pg 134
https://www.circap.org/uploads/1/8/1/6/18163511/pollsoniraq-nonus15.pdfUsing populations per country from '03 we get the following conclusions:
of the 36 countries outside the US we get 33% of the world population where
less than 8% supported unilateral military action by American and her allies
and 57% supported under no circumstancesthis list excludes 42 additional countries with another 40% of world population who have had their governments overthrown or attempted to be overthrown by the US since WWII
In the US 33% supported unilateral action, 70% of congress voted for the unilateral military action
Being that the invasion was illegal and unpopular, the Bush admin invented a 'coalition of the willing to give the appearance of support.
The Trump admin needed to create a similar type of facade for the Venezuelan coup. Such things are needed specifically because the move is so unpopular and illegal.
At least the alternative media is taking notice of the warmongering tactics ofNemesisCalling , May 19, 2019 9:03:28 PM | 4
John Bolton .@ Jen 29NemesisCalling , May 19, 2019 9:21:34 PM | 5I suppose that is a valid theory. But as the viewer we know the motivations of Dany and why in some small regard the people in King's Landing deserve a little roughing up.
Thomas Jefferson said: "I tremble for my countrymen because I know God is just..."
The difference here is that we judge Assad even though we don't see what he is truly doing.
Here we see what Dany has done, mass slaughter, and think to ourselves...we kinda had it coming.
@25 uncoypsychohistorian , May 19, 2019 9:51:22 PM | 7Concerning your take on GoT: Isn't this really the thesis of Thucydides through and through reflected in GoT almost to a T?
"The powerful do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." GoT is not disturbing to be nihilistic and shocking. It is holding up a mirror to history. But the quality of the show has declined aince they have come to the end of the road in adapting the source material. The show has overtaken the books.
Below is a link from Xinhuanet about the China financial sector opening upvk , May 19, 2019 10:06:03 PM | 8China to further open up financial sector: central bank
The take away quote
"
As of the end of March, overseas investors bought a net of 1.77 trillion yuan (about 260.3 billion U.S. dollars) of bonds at the country's interbank bond market, up 31 percent from a year earlier, and held 5.4 trillion yuan of yuan-denominated financial assets, up 19 percent year on year, according to the central bank.
"
What us peasants don't know is the extent to which China will let foreign investment influence their socialistic ways. That said, China is the new empire, private or public is yet to be determined but guess where all the "smart" money in the world is going? The money movements are a giant sucking sound that will leave America under the global economic bus.Or not and China maintains its socialistic ways including projecting them around the world.
S , May 19, 2019 10:50:33 PM | 3The movies Hollywood produced are often telling psychological conflicts as the central story. Each character has a certain fixed attitude and the interacting of the characters create the story. It does not matter if the setting is in antic times or in the far future. In the end there are always the bad and the good guy slamming it out in a fistfight.The historic Chinese drama which I currently favor are based on sociological storytelling. As they develop the stories form their characters. Their attitudes change over time because the developing exterior circumstances push them into certain directions. Good becomes bad and again good. The persons change because they must, not because the are genetically defined. I find these kind of movies more interesting.
That's the difference between materialism (marxism) and idealism (kantism, hegelianism and noekantism). Besides, an idealist tv series helps selling more merch and doing more sequels, hence the capitalist preference for idealism.
@KC #12:Grieved , May 19, 2019 10:51:22 PM | 4China's state media is broadcasting Anti-American movies.How are these movies "anti-American"? These movies are simply the truth.
@36 Jen, @40 Peter AU 1, karlof1 - and otherspsychohistorian , May 19, 2019 10:55:01 PM | 6I have really appreciated the discussions you've held regarding this US view that places the power of national impetus in the person of one leader - rather than seeing cultural, seasonal, historical, collegial, etc. causes for the way things move.
You and the commentators whom you've cited and drawn from have created a paradigm that we can use moving forward, and will now never fail to see in the future. It is a terrible weakness of the US within the course of global real life.
It seems to be similar to what this TV show is said to be doing by employing psychological causation rather than sociological causation for the flow of events.
In sum, thanks!
Below is my final Xinhuanet link about China/US relationsben , May 19, 2019 10:58:49 PM | 7Chinese FM urges U.S. to avoid further damage of ties in phone call with Pompeo
The take away quote
"
Wang also reiterated the principled stand against the "long-arm jurisdiction" imposed by the United States.
"
Empire is having its hand slapped back in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, ???Where are they going to get their war on?
I see empire as a war junkie and they are starting to twitch in withdrawals which is dangerous but a necessary stage. Trumps latest tweets show that level of energy. The spinning plates of empire are not wowing the crowds like before.....what is plan Z?
Hot tip, GOT is just a movie. Please, no more psychological insights.Grieved , May 19, 2019 11:21:32 PM | 8What fans really need, is some REAL WORLD justice, something that's noticeably missing in today's world.
@5 Oliver Kben , May 19, 2019 11:24:01 PM | 9I agree that the American Conservative article was weak - as b obviously thought. It has the US trade war against China completely wrong. I side with b in his hunch that China will win. My own view is that, as with everything the US has done lately, it already lost the war before it even stepped into battle in the theater.
And let's counter the author's point, in the weak article, that China needs the US trade surplus more than the US needs the imports from China. The author says that China has no way to substitute for exports to the US. There's abundant recent analysis on this, showing the relatively small part of China's economy that hinges on this trade, but here's a good Sputnik interview that illustrates how easily China can simply absorb goods into its own domestic market:
Trade War: US to Pay Heavy Price for Underestimating China – Chinese BusinessmanI especially liked this part:
"...we have our colossal domestic market, which has no competitors throughout the world. Our consumer and innovation markets provide us with a large number of advantages and room, giving China an opportunity to make a manoeuvre. Therefore, their blockage gives China a chance to become even stronger. We must express our appreciation to our mentor, Trump, for this, for this lesson and for forcing China to figure out how to withstand the threats on its own."The US used to be an important nation to do business with - commercial, diplomatic, military. But as it has become "agreement incapable", nations are forced to replace it. This takes a little time and readjustment, but then the change is permanent.
Strangest thing of all that the US itself would do the forcing out of itself from the world's trust.
For those with a penchant for movie dissection, I offer this from Truthdig;Zack , May 19, 2019 11:50:54 PM | 0https://www.truthdig.com/articles/game-of-thrones-an-american-parable/
Trump, Saudi Arabia warn Iran against Middle East conflictKadath , May 20, 2019 12:41:41 AM | 2
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed regional developments, including efforts to strengthen security and stability, in a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Saudi Media Ministry tweeted on Sunday."We want peace and stability in the region but we will not sit on our hands in light of the continuing Iranian attack," Jubeir said. "The ball is in Iran's court and it is up to Iran to determine what its fate will be."
He said the crew of an Iranian oil tanker that had been towed to Saudi Arabia early this month after a request for help due to engine trouble were still in the kingdom receiving the "necessary care". The crew are 24 Iranians and two Bangladeshis .
Is this a veiled threat on the lives of these crew members?
Re@ 51 James, well Sputniknews is reporting that the Saudi's claim that the Houthis are planning to attack 300 critical infrastructure facilities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the coming weeks so that might be the instigating event your concerned aboutkarlof1 , May 20, 2019 12:45:56 AM | 3Grieved @44--somebody , May 20, 2019 1:26:48 AM | 5Thanks for your kudos! As I've written previously, the political philosophers of the nascent USA thought they would have a Natural Aristocracy ( here and here ) somewhat based on a meritocratic system instead of the Old World's Inherited Aristocracy based on blood relations and closed to anyone not within a very small circle. Yet it was still an Aristocracy with all it inherent evils, and it is that vast assortment of evils the US citizenry has yet to overcome in its supposed--idealized--quest for self-government.
Recall that George Washington was deemed safe to become the first president because he could be trusted not to proclaim himself king --something often forgotten by students of US History.
I've often lamented on the nature of the 1787 Constitution because it allows any POTUS to become a king with almost zero hindrances on the power wielded. Sure, compared with other systems of government at the time, the USA's was revolutionary, but only down to the waist to borrow a phrase from Gilbert & Sullivan. Madison's theory, IMO, was--other than being Aristocratic--okay until his most important check/balance was removed--that of the "dueling oval office" where the losing POTUS candidate was awarded the Vice-Presidency--imagine Hillary Clinton as Veep with Trump in the driver seat! IMO, the 12th Amendment fatally wounded Madison's construction of a government that arrived at great decisions based on a consensus of genuine national interests instead of partisanship.
Arguing that action is the great fault that must be corrected doesn't get much play nowadays. Indeed, it's very difficult to debate Constitutional Reform given the engineered political climate since the current situation suits the Ruling Oligarchy just fine.
I hope everyone had an opportunity to click the link I provided to the series of paintings known as The Course of Empire . ICYMI, here it is again . Please note which Empire's being copied and compare that with the predominant architectural theme in the Outlaw US Empire's Imperium. Creditors ruled and eventually destroyed that Empire. That's one historical lesson that's totally omitted from the historiography of the USA.
By and large, we know what and where the problems are. The fundamental question is, will we ever get the opportunity to fix them?
Posted by: Grieved | May 19, 2019 11:21:32 PM | 48TJ , May 20, 2019 5:16:46 AM | 1Their disadvantage is that they have to import energy. So they need export if they do not wish to run a trade deficit. They do not necessarily need the US for this though if they can trade in Yuan.
Speaking of Chinese stories, here in the UK I grew up watching The Water Margin , from the opening titles 'The ancient sages said "do not despise the snake for having no horns, for who is to say it will not become a dragon?" So may one just man become an army.' and also Monkey , the opening titles gave us "The irrepressible spirit of Monkey" .Thirsty , May 20, 2019 7:55:53 AM | 5b, it is generally fund raising time during this time for some publishers (i.e. counterpunch etc) and I would like to send you something as well. Can you please post the payment information. Thanks.Jen , May 20, 2019 8:28:59 AM | 6Peter AU 1 @ 62:Chevrus , May 20, 2019 9:19:33 AM | 0If you are interested in watching a film with a sociological approach to telling a story and you are close to a cinema, Mike Leigh's "Peterloo" just started screening last Thursday in Australia. The film is an exploration of British society during the Regency period (in the early 19th century), the class attitudes and opinions prevalent then, and the conditions and events that led to 60,000 - 100,000 labouring class people gathering at St Peter's Field in Manchester in August 1819, and how it was viciously broken up by cavalry and foot soldiers acting on orders of the aristocracy.
The film is at least 150 minutes long and is a highly immersive experience. There is not much plot in the Hollywood sense of the term. I believe reviews have been mixed with most film critics complaining about the film being too long and boring. But if you are prepared to watch a film that uses a sociological approach to telling a narrative, then you'll agree with me that the film actually isn't long enough.
@Hmpf-59BM , May 20, 2019 9:26:11 AM | 1
Very interesting studies and the ideas that they might spawn. The near parallels of the micro and macro as well as the flow patterns.The culture I am immersed in (USA) is heavily weighted toward the dramatic and two dimensional. Simply put, mass perspective engineering is geared to over simplify and reinforce these views with media imprinting via hollywood, madison ave. etc. The lenses through which impressions from the "outside world" pass through engineered to give the desired results rather than expand consciousness or engender critical thinking. In short, we are breeding for weakness and gullibility.
In regard to large scale dynamics resembling the physics of things like the laws of thermodynamics, I am wondering if phenomena like those alluded to above might be engulfed and influenced by these kinds of natural patterns. So for example: Looking past the drama of sanctions, trade wars, and good guys vs. bad guys, wont the large scale movements caused by these things begin to move according to a kind of physics?
I keep wondering what the result of this latest round of economic warfare will lead to. If the USA continues to sanction, embargo and blockade (at the behest of banking cartels?) will this not cause a mass exodus from dollar reserves, SWIFT, BIS and the like? I hear all sorts of opinions, bushels of dis-info and I'm mostly at a loss as to what to think. We are clearly nearing the end of the Bretton-Woods era so a reset is in order. The USA is a mere 6% of the world population and some would say at the end of it's due date as far an being an "international influencer".
So if they and their EU poodles go ahead and sanction every nation who refuses to bend the knee what's stopping these nations from simply bypassing these decrees and going about their business? I get the sense that this is already happening quietly. Russia, China and various partner nations are creating alternatives in many forms, be they interweb servers, financial networks, OBOR, SCO and more I have never heard of.
Perhaps the ratcheting up of tensions could also be swept up in the turbulence of thermodynamics? If sanctions become embargoes and then blockades, what happens to the "compressions ratios in the Straits of Hormuz?
Re: Game of ThronesWell, I've come across a few advertisements, but I always thought it was some kind of children's video game. I cannot imagine why anyone other than a socially stunted and mis-developed American or Americanised adolescent could want to watch such infantile deranged garbage.
If it is Hollywood, then you can be certain the intention is to manipulate the younger generation to supporting and idolising their permanent wars. On the face of it, that indeed appears to be the case.
OK, I've got that off my chest now!
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May 21, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
With $105 billion in global sales last year, Huawei has a vast web of customers and suppliers on nearly every continent. The company is the world's largest provider of equipment used in 5G telecom networks, and the second largest seller of cellphones. Last week, Huawei said that it spends more than $1 out of every $7 of its annual $70 billion procurement budget buying equipment from U.S. companies.
Google said it would restrict Huawei's access to future updates of its Android operating software, which powers many of Huawei's phones. Other U.S. manufacturers also began suspending business dealings with the Chinese firm.
The markets punished many of those suppliers Monday, including Intel, Broadcom and Qualcomm, as well as Micron and semiconductor manufacturer Cypress. Chip makers Qualcomm and Broadcom fell 6 percent. Intel declined nearly 3 percent, and Lumentum Holdings shares fell more than 4 percent after the company said it would stop selling to Huawei.
The United States said last week it was adding Huawei to a trade blacklist because the company "is engaged in activities that are contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interest." That punishment means U.S. firms aren't allowed to sell to Huawei unless they get special approval from the government.
[ How China's Huawei took the lead over U.S. companies in 5G technology ]
On Monday evening, the Commerce Department slightly eased the timing of the restrictions, saying it would allow some transactions to continue for 90 days, to facilitate "certain activities necessary to the continued operations of existing networks and to support existing mobile services." The temporary reprieve will allow Huawei to receive U.S. equipment to service existing Huawei mobile phone users and rural broadband networks.
Kevin Wolf, a former senior Commerce Department and current partner at Akin Gump, called the reprieve "very narrow." "It's not relief for exporters. It really is to prevent unintended operational problems with existing networks," Wolf said.
The United States views Huawei as a security risk because it believes the company has close ties to the Chinese government, which Huawei has denied. U.S. officials have said Huawei could potentially tap into and monitor sensitive U.S. communications through its network technology.
Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, said that the U.S had underestimated his company as he sought to dismiss the impact of the ban.
"The current practice of U.S. politicians underestimates our strength," Ren said in a group interview with Chinese media Tuesday morning. Huawei had a stockpile of chips and "can't be isolated" from the world, he said.
The 90-day extension "doesn't mean much" and Huawei is fully prepared for the American actions, Ren said, even appearing to brag about luring workers away from U.S. companies.
"We are very grateful to the U.S. companies. They have made a lot of contributions to us," he said in the comments, which were shared in real time by state media. "Many of our consultants are from American companies like IBM."
Earlier, Huawei reacted to Google's decision to stop allowing updates by saying the Chinese company had "made substantial contributions to the development and growth of Android around theworld."
"As one of Android's key global partners, we have worked closely with their open-source platform to develop an ecosystem that has benefitted both users and the industry," said spokesman Joe Kelly, adding that Huawei would continue to provide security updates and after-sales services to its existingsmartphone and tablet products.
Google's announcement came at an awkward time for Huawei, which on Tuesday is expected to unveil its Honor 20 series of smartphones in London, and security experts were divided on how quickly and severely the ban could hurt Huawei.
Some said Huawei is bigger and better prepared for the blockade than its Chinese competitor ZTE was last year when the Trump administration restricted ZTE from doing business with U.S. firms. The U.S. later eased ZTE's punishment.
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May 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Washington announced last week that it would impose new prohibitions on Huawei, including a ban on US companies selling components or services to the telecoms giant. The seriousness of these actions is difficult to understate, as Rosenblatt Securities analyst Ryan Koontz explained. If Huawei is pushed to the brink of collapse, Beijing might label this 'an act of war'.
"The extreme scenario of Huawei's telecom network unit failing would set China back many years and might even be viewed as an act of war by China," Koontz wrote. "Such a failure would have massive global telecom market implications."
But bringing a massive global Chinese firm to its knees is one way to demonstrate to Beijing, and the rest of the world, which ignored Washington's warnings about Huawei, the true reach of American economic power. And it's one way to put a timer on talks with Beijing, ensuring that the trade skirmish won't drag on until the height of campaign season.
American firms weren't the only ones to act. In Europe, German chipmaker Infineon Technologies said it would suspend deliveries to Huawei, at least until it has had a chance to determine the significance of Washington's executive order (though company sources later denied these reports and said shipments to Huawei would continue).
Since hostilities with the US began, Huawei has been stockpiling components. It now has enough of a buffer supply to keep its business running without interruption for at least three months. Nikkei reported late last week that Huawei had reportedly asked suppliers to help it build up enough stockpiles to last it a year, but it's unlikely that Huawei has accumulated enough buffer stock to last it anywhere near as long.
If Washington refuses to back down, this three-month window might become the next critical deadline for the trade talks.
If it wasn't clear before, we now know that President Trump wasn't kidding when he said late last year that Huawei could become 'a bargaining chip' in the trade skirmish. Whether the prosecution of Meng Wanzhou factors into it remains to be seen, but President Trump did tell Fox News over the weekend that he wouldn't allow China to surpass the US on his watch.
Huawei's odds of finding replacement suppliers are slim, as Koontz explained. Huawei "is heavily dependent on U.S. semiconductor products and would be seriously crippled without supply of key U.S. components."
It's clear where Beijing stands on this. We wouldn't be surprised to see a 'consumer movement' emerge in China where middle-class consumers ditch foreign phones and proudly proclaim their support for Huawei.
-- Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) May 20, 2019On Sunday afternoon, President Trump threatened Iran with military intervention via tweet. Yet, analysts blamed the growing pressure on Huawei for the risk-averse trading atmosphere.
US stocks were on track to open lower. Meanwhile, Huawei's dollar-denominated corporate bonds tumbled again on Monday after one of their biggest declines in recent memory on Friday. The selloff comes as fears of a Huawei bankruptcy are beginning to intensify.
Beijing has maintained its aggressive posture, with its Ministry of Foreign Affairs warning in response to news of the Google ban that China would do what it needed to do to protect its companies' "legitimate rights", and also hinted at legal actions it might take. Over the weekend, Beijing compared the trade skirmish with its actions in the Korean War, about as clear a sign as any that we're in for a protracted conflict.
Whatever happens, it looks like the showdown over Huawei has eclipsed the broader trade-war narrative. So much for the Huawei crackdown being a 'separate issue' from the trade talks, like Trump officials had previously insisted.
Bottom line: If we don't get a deal by the end of June, this trade war is going to really heat up.
me or you , 2 minutes ago link
frankthecrank , 5 minutes ago linkImaging a phone without Google spyware or Intel backdoors...it's a win win for all of us.
Herdee , 6 minutes ago linkSo, Huawei is dependent upon Western semiconductor manufacturers. But I thought the Chinese were the leaders in innovation? That's all I hear on here and elsewhere. Seems to me that they should have invented and created their own semiconductor industry back in the 1800's when Westerners began to mess with them. One would think that the great and powerful and super duper intelligent Chinese would have discovered and invented it first in the first place. Certainly the Chinese or their pals in the USSR could have done so sometime in the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s or '90s? No?
giovanni_f , 13 minutes ago linkChristine Lagarde and the IMF team in China:
admin user , 14 minutes ago linkThe US might win this battle but it has already lost the war. It is in a position similar to Ukraine which was the richest and most developed Sovjet republic after the breakup - but which is now one of the biggest shitholes in the entire Galaxy, feasted upon by a bunch of Zionazi oligarchs. Think of the US as an Ukraine on steroids.
Trump and his diverse actions will hurt Huawei. Maybe even badly. Long term, maybe even short term, the US won't gain anything from it. It is in a position where it can only lose. Not because the potential of the US isn't "terrific" (actually it coud be the most promising country) - but because the US is designed to fail as it is basically a failed state already.
cledus , 17 minutes ago linkAlphabet has announced that it will cut off Huawei Mobile's access to most of its Android operating system offerings
android is open source, anyone can download and modify it
you just wont get Google Play Store
Spaced Out , 19 minutes ago linkThe real prob as I see it, Huawei can not be monitored or hacked into by the NSA, CIA and all the other US intelligence agencies.
They've been shut out and don't like it.
Herdee , 27 minutes ago linkLol, there are already better alternatives to android, such as /e/. This dumb move will only hasten the demise of google, etc. Mugs!
HopefulJoe , 34 minutes ago linkChinese news:
To Hell In A Handbasket , 44 minutes ago linkGoogle is EVIL, no way they are walking away from an evil company, have they walked away from China also? No, they are giving them code daily...
CheapBastard , 33 minutes ago linkThe beginning of USSA mercantilism being played out. The USSA simply cannot compete and lagging behind in 5G is only the start.
Shockwave , 44 minutes ago linkWe have some of the best software engineers in the world...ask Sameer and Raja in our IT department.
silverwolf888 , 53 minutes ago linkIm confused, how would not choosing to do business with Huawei possibly be considered an act of war?
Especially when China largely keeps their markets closed to the west?
After speaking to some Chinese immigrrants... according to them, they'll never come to any kind of fair agreement with the west. They're not interested in a level playing field at all. All they care about is making sure the Chinese state gets all the benefits in order to further Chinas power and influence.
yerfej , 45 minutes ago linkGreat news. Huawei already has completed development of its own OS, no doubt an Android clone. This finally gives us a path off of the Goolag/ Android OS. In 19 months Rabbi Trump will be gone, which is good, but his destroying the Android monopoly may be his biggest achievement.
DelusionsCrowded , 39 minutes ago linkAn android clone? No way that would be stealing again. No they will make their own special sauce OS that will electrocute the citizen if they don't adhere to the state directives.
There are so many other better ways to run a phone interface , I wonder if these two systems have been kept as monopolies so that the Spooks at the NSA and CIA are able to find their way around easily
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May 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
charles 2 , May 20, 2019 at 6:43 am
Or maybe it is just one front: I.e. making globalisation difficult for the Chinese :
by pushing non Chinese Asians countries to de-integrate their supply chains with China and
by cutting its supply of oil though shortages induced by tensions in the Gulf.
The US knows that it can't be the sole superpower anymore any longer, so the strategy is to reverse globalisation so that no other global superpower (a Russian-Chinese with a dominating Persia in the Middle East) can emerge.
Far too early to say if the strategy will be successful or not.
As far as I am concerned, the silver linings would be that a long period of oil shortage could finally be the trigger to switch industrial infrastructure worldwide away from liquid and gaseous fossils, and that less globalised supply chain would be more robust to shocks, but if these silver linings were the ultimate goals, I could think of less adversarial ways to achieve that globally, with less money wasted on the militaryjackson , May 20, 2019 at 8:41 am
The benefits of joint pricing mechanisms are also enormous. Currently, Iran has no choice because of the sanctions but to sell its oil – including from the shared fields – at massively reduced pricing that is comprised of its official selling price (OSP) minus the sanctions discount minus the incremental risk discount. This has resulted in Iran offering 'cost, insurance, and freight' cargoes for 'free on board' pricing, with the difference between the two covered by Iran. "Under this new agreement, Iranian oil from these shared fields will be sold based on Iraq's much higher three month moving average OSP pricing for cargoes, with no discounts at all, and the three month moving average for the effective spot market that Iraq has created and now controls," said the oil source.
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Geo , May 20, 2019 at 3:02 am
Thanks for the in-depth info. Lots to digest and research.
the US has acted in such bad faith so often in the early stages of conflicts that it's sensible to wonder how much of this account is accurate. It is very frustrating to be dealing with an informational hall of mirrors.
It's depressing to say but I when I read anything from domestic official sources or the media I can't help but think it's mostly lies. Not under the illusion that foreign actors are all righteous and benevolent, but as you said, our nation's track record with the truth in these scenarios is pretty tainted at this point. Just as we found out with Saddam and Qaddafi, these leaders have little reason to poke the dragon, and a lot of reason to build up defenses.
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PlutoniumKun , May 20, 2019 at 5:35 am
Interesting observations if true, and they certainly do make sense of a lot of the things that have been happening.
I see it hasn't dissuaded Trump though, this morning he is reported as doubling down on his threats to Iran. A big fear now is that Iran does not seem to be in the mood to give Trump the sort of symbolic 'win' he can use to climb down gracefully (and sack Bolton). The Saudi's can probably be scared into stepping back, but the Israeli's and the neocons want a hot war.
Its easy to see this gradually ratchet up step by step into an uncontrolled region wide conflict.
Ignim Brites , May 20, 2019 at 8:54 am
Not sure what to make of this article but the Anglo-American press is not providing much context for the recent ratcheting up of confrontation with Iran.
NotTimothyGeithner , May 20, 2019 at 10:11 am
The MSM is mostly stenographers and right leaning pundits. If no one tells them, they wouldn't know.
Also, the DC elites were pretty irked by Obama's Iran deal. They deferred to Obama and the Europeans who demanded the deal, but I think they live in a world where DC's enemies are the enemies of the American people who overwhelmingly supported the Iran deal. DC hasn't come to grips with this.
JBird4049 , May 20, 2019 at 12:20 pm
but I think they live in a world where DC's enemies are the enemies of the American people who overwhelmingly supported the Iran deal. DC hasn't come to grips with this.
Yes, because all pain, real blood and death, misery and horror that they cause in fighting what they assume putatively are "the American people's enemies" are never suffered by them, but only everyone else including the American people; all the financial benefits do go to them so it is all gain and no cost.
Ian Perkins , May 20, 2019 at 9:11 am
Will Lavrov and Wang Yi's guarantees prevent an Israeli nuclear attack on Iranian facilities, followed by US pledges to fully support Israel's right to self defence?
jackson , May 20, 2019 at 10:01 am
There are two kinds of weapons in the world offensive and defensive. The latter are cheaper, a fighter plane compared to a bomber. If a country does not (or cannot afford to) have offensive intent, it makes sense to focus on defense. It is what Iran has done. Moreover, its missile centered defense has a modern deadly twist -- the missiles are precision-guided. As an Iranian general remarked when questioned about the carrier task force: some years ago it would've been a threat he opined; now it's a target. Iran also has a large standing army of 350,000 plus a 120,000 strong Revolutionary Guard and Soviet style air defenses. In 2016 Russia started installation of the S-300 system. It has all kinds of variants, the most advanced, the S-300 PMU-3 has a range similar to the S-400 if equipped with 40N6E missiles, which are used also in the S-400. Their range is 400 km, so the Iranian batteries are virtually S-400s. The wily Putin has kept trump satisfied with the S-300 moniker without short-changing his and China's strategic ally. The latter continuing to buy Iranian oil.
Iran has friends in Europe also. Angela Merkel in particular has pointed out that Iran has complied fully with the nuclear provisions of the UN Security Council backed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action i.e. the Iran nuclear deal. She is mustering the major European powers. Already alienated with Trump treating them as adversaries rather than friends, they find Trump's bullying tiresome. President Macron, his poll ratings hitting the lowest, is hardly likely to engage in Trump's venture. In Britain, Theresa May is barely able to hold on to her job. In the latest thrust by senior members of her party, she has been asked to name the day she steps down.
So there we have it. Nobody wants war with Iran. Even Israel, so far without a post-election government does not want to be rained upon by missiles leaky as its Iron Dome was against homemade Palestinian rockets. Topping all of this neither Trump nor Secretary of State Pompeo want war. Trump is as usual trying to bully -- now called maximum pressure -- Iran into submission. It won't. The wild card is National Security Adviser John Bolton. He wants war. A Gulf of Tonkin type false flag incident, or an Iranian misstep, or some accident can still set it off. In Iran itself, moderates like current President Hassan Rouhani are being weakened by Trump's shenanigans. The hard liners might well want to bleed America as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thomas P , May 20, 2019 at 12:13 pm
I don't trust those air defenses too much, where have they ever performed well? The scary part is where Iran assumes that USA can through repeated air strikes wipe out their missiles. They will from the start find themselves in a "use them or lose them" scenario and may launch everything as response to even a limited US strike, since they can't know if it is limited or the beginning of a full scale attack, and I doubt Iran is willing to go down without doing everything it can to hurt their enemies. (Possibly excluding Israel which is crazy enough to go nuclear in response).
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May 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Yves here. Glenn F sent along this story about recent events in the US-Iran conflict, many of which don't appear to have been reported in the English language press. Interestingly, the article takes the position that it is the Saudis that have been doing their best and largely succeeding in suppressing these reports.
Going into the weekend, it looked as if the US was trying to turn down the Iran threat meter a notch. Both Iran and the Saudis said they didn't want war but were prepared for one. Then a mystery rocket landed in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Oopsie. From the Wall Street Journal:
No major destruction was inflicted by the rocket, which landed near a museum displaying old planes and caused some damage to a building used by security guards, according to an official in the interior ministry.
The interior ministry official, who declined to be identified, said the rocket had landed around a kilometer from the U.S. Embassy inside Baghdad's Green Zone, where many other diplomatic missions and Iraqi government offices are located.
No group claimed responsibility. But security officials said security forces had found and seized a mobile rocket launcher in an area of Baghdad where Shiite militias, including some with close links to Iran, have a presence.
But also note this:
The Trump administration last week ordered a partial evacuation of its diplomatic missions in Baghdad and Erbil citing increased threats posed by Iran and its allies in Iraq. The Iraqi government has varying degrees of control over an array of armed groups, some of which are closely affiliated with Iran.
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May 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Kadath , May 19, 2019 4:21:27 PM | 0
That was an interesting article on psychological vs sociological storytelling and it makes a good companion piece when thinking about how the US media personalizes US geo-political conflicts with the heads of rival state (Putin, Xi, Castro, Kim Jong-un, Khomeini, Gaddafi). If you believe the US media if they just removed Putin, Russia would go back to being a good little puppet state just like under Yeltins.
Which is a shockingly naïve way to look at international relations. States have permanent interests and any competent head of State will always represent those interests to the best of their ability. True, you could overthrow the government and replace every senior government figure with a compliant puppet (which the US always tries to do), but the permanent interests that arise from the inhabitants of the State will always rise up and (re)assert themselves. When the State leadership is bribed or threatened into ignoring or acting against these needs it ultimately creates a failed State.
Even the US media seems to subconsciously understand this, when they talk of "overly ambitious US goals of remaking societies", however, they never make the logical next step of investigating why these States do not wish to be remade as per the US imagined ideal, what the interests of these actually are and how diplomacy can resolve conflicts. According to the US media everything boils down to the US = good, anyone who disagrees with our policies = bad and diplomacy is just a measure of how vulgar our threats are during talks. I'm specifically thinking of the US Ambassador to Russia, John Huntsman's boast of a US aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean as being 100,000 tons of diplomacy to Russia - of all the ridiculous and stupid things to says to Russia when supposedly trying to "ease" tensions (I still can't believe Huntsmen, former Ambassador to China under Obama, is regarded a "serious" professional ambassador within the State departments when compared to all the celebrity ambassadorships the US President for fundraiser).
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May 20, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
Strategic Culture
Search Editor's Сhoice What Putin and Pompeo Did Not Talk About
Editor's Choice
May 16, 2019 © Photo: kremlin.ru Russia is uneasy over the destabilization of Tehran, and on other hotspots the powers' positions are clear
Pepe ESCOBAR Even veiled by thick layers of diplomatic fog, the overlapping meetings in Sochi between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov still offer tantalizing geopolitical nuggets.
Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov did his best to smooth the utterly intractable, admitting there was "no breakthrough yet" during the talks but at least the US "demonstrated a constructive approach."
Putin told Pompeo that after his 90-minute phone call with Trump, initiated by the White House, and described by Ushakov as "very good," the Russian president "got the impression that the [US] president was inclined to re-establish Russian-American relations and contacts to resolve together the issues that are of mutual interest to us."
That would imply a Russiagate closure. Putin told Pompeo, in no uncertain terms, that Moscow never interfered in the US elections, and that the Mueller report proved that there was no connection between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.This adds to the fact Russiagate has been consistently debunked by the best independent American investigators such as the VIPS group.
'Interesting' talk on IranLet's briefly review what became public of the discussions on multiple (hot and cold) conflict fronts – Venezuela, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran.
Venezuela – Ushakov reiterated the Kremlin's position: "Any steps that may provoke a civil war in the country are inadmissible." The future of President Maduro was apparently not part of the discussion.
That brings to mind the recent Arctic Council summit. Both Lavrov and Pompeo were there. Here's a significant exchange:
Lavrov: I believe you don't represent the South American region, do you?
Pompeo: We represent the entire hemisphere.Lavrov: Oh, the hemisphere. Then what's the US doing in the Eastern Hemisphere, in Ukraine, for instance?
There was no response from Pompeo.
North Korea – Even acknowledging that the Trump administration is "generally ready to continue working [with Pyongyang] despite the stalemate at the last meeting, Ushakov again reiterated the Kremlin's position: Pyongyang will not give in to "any type of pressure," and North Korea wants "a respectful approach" and international security guarantees.
Afghanistan – Ushakov noted Moscow is very much aware that the Taliban are getting stronger. So the only way out is to find a "balance of power." There was a crucial trilateral in Moscow on April 25 featuring Russia, China and the US, where they all called on the Taliban to start talking with Kabul as soon as possible.
Iran – Ushakov said the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal, was "briefly discussed.".He would only say the discussion was "interesting."
Talk about a larger than life euphemism. Moscow is extremely uneasy over the possibility of a destabilization of Iran that allows a free transit of jihadis from the Caspian to the Caucasus.
Which brings us to the heart of the matter. Diplomatic sources – from Russia and Iran – confirm, off the record, there have been secret talks among the three pillars of Eurasian integration – Russia, China and Iran – about Chinese and Russian guarantees in the event the Trump administration's drive to strangle Tehran to death takes an ominous turn.
This is being discussed at the highest levels in Moscow and Beijing. The bottom line: Russia-China won't allow Iran to be destroyed.
But it's quite understandable that Ushakov wouldn't let that information slip through a mere press briefing.
Wang Yi and other dealsOn multiple fronts, what was not disclosed by Ushakov is way more fascinating than what's now on the record. There's absolutely no way Russian hypersonic weapons were not also discussed, as well as China's intermediate-range missiles capable of reaching any US military base encircling or containing China.
The real deal was, in fact, not Putin-Pompeo or Pompeo-Lavrov in Sochi. It was actually Lavrov-Wang Yi (the Chinese Foreign Minister), the day before in Moscow.
A US investment banker doing business in Russia told me: " Note how Pompeo ran like mad to Sochi. We are frightened and overstretched."
Diplomats later remarked: "Pompeo looked solemn afterwards. Lavrov sounded very diplomatic and calm." It's no secret in Moscow's top diplomatic circles that the Chinese Politburo overruled President Xi Jinping's effort to find an accommodation to Trump's tariff offensive. The tension was visible in Pompeo's demeanor.
In terms of substance, it's remarkable how Lavrov and Wang Yi talked about, literally, everything: Syria, Iran, Venezuela, the Caspian, the Caucasus, New Silk Roads (BRI), Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), missiles, nuclear proliferation.
Or as Lavrov diplomatically put it: "In general, Russia-China cooperation is one of the key factors in maintaining the international security and stability, establishing a multipolar world order. . . . Our states cooperate closely in various multilateral organizations, including the UN, G20, SCO, BRICS and RIC [Russia, India, China trilateral forum], we are working on aligning the integration potential of the EAEU and the Belt and Road Initiative, with potentially establishing [a] larger Eurasian partnership."
The strategic partnership is in sync on Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan – they want a solution brokered by the SCO. And on North Korea, the message could not have been more forceful.
After talking to Wang Yi, Lavrov stressed that contacts between Washington and North Korea "proceeded in conformity with the road map that we had drafted together with China, from confidence restoration measures to further direct contacts."
This is a frank admission that Pyongyang gets top advice from the Russia-China strategic partnership. And there's more: "We hope that at a certain point a comprehensive agreement will be achieved on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and on the creation of a system of peace and security in general in Northeast Asia, including concrete firm guarantees of North Korea's security."
Translation: Russia and China won't back down on guaranteeing North Korea's security. Lavrov said: "Such guarantees will be not easy to provide, but this is an absolutely mandatory part of a future agreement. Russia and China are prepared to work on such guarantees."
Reset, maybe?The indomitable Maria Zakharova, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, may have summed it all up . A US-Russia reset may even, eventually, happen. Certainly, it won't be of the Hillary Clinton kind, especially when current CIA director Gina Haspel is shifting most of the agency's resources towards Iran and Russia.
Top Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov was way more scathing . Russia won't break with China, because the US " doesn't have any more a geopolitical currency to 'buy' Russia – she is out of [the] price range for the US."
That left Ushakov with his brave face, confirming there may be a Trump-Putin meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka next month.
"We can organize a meeting 'on the go' with President Trump. Alternatively, we can sit down for a more comprehensive discussion."
Under the current geopolitical incandescence, that's the best rational minds can hope for.
asiatimes.com The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation. Tags: Lavrov Pompeo Putin Russia US
Print this article
Pepe ESCOBAR Even veiled by thick layers of diplomatic fog, the overlapping meetings in Sochi between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov still offer tantalizing geopolitical nuggets.
Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov did his best to smooth the utterly intractable, admitting there was "no breakthrough yet" during the talks but at least the US "demonstrated a constructive approach."
Putin told Pompeo that after his 90-minute phone call with Trump, initiated by the White House, and described by Ushakov as "very good," the Russian president "got the impression that the [US] president was inclined to re-establish Russian-American relations and contacts to resolve together the issues that are of mutual interest to us."
That would imply a Russiagate closure. Putin told Pompeo, in no uncertain terms, that Moscow never interfered in the US elections, and that the Mueller report proved that there was no connection between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.This adds to the fact Russiagate has been consistently debunked by the best independent American investigators such as the VIPS group.
'Interesting' talk on IranLet's briefly review what became public of the discussions on multiple (hot and cold) conflict fronts – Venezuela, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran.
Venezuela – Ushakov reiterated the Kremlin's position: "Any steps that may provoke a civil war in the country are inadmissible." The future of President Maduro was apparently not part of the discussion.
That brings to mind the recent Arctic Council summit. Both Lavrov and Pompeo were there. Here's a significant exchange:
Lavrov: I believe you don't represent the South American region, do you?
Pompeo: We represent the entire hemisphere.Lavrov: Oh, the hemisphere. Then what's the US doing in the Eastern Hemisphere, in Ukraine, for instance?
There was no response from Pompeo.
North Korea – Even acknowledging that the Trump administration is "generally ready to continue working [with Pyongyang] despite the stalemate at the last meeting, Ushakov again reiterated the Kremlin's position: Pyongyang will not give in to "any type of pressure," and North Korea wants "a respectful approach" and international security guarantees.
Afghanistan – Ushakov noted Moscow is very much aware that the Taliban are getting stronger. So the only way out is to find a "balance of power." There was a crucial trilateral in Moscow on April 25 featuring Russia, China and the US, where they all called on the Taliban to start talking with Kabul as soon as possible.
Iran – Ushakov said the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal, was "briefly discussed.".He would only say the discussion was "interesting."
Talk about a larger than life euphemism. Moscow is extremely uneasy over the possibility of a destabilization of Iran that allows a free transit of jihadis from the Caspian to the Caucasus.
Which brings us to the heart of the matter. Diplomatic sources – from Russia and Iran – confirm, off the record, there have been secret talks among the three pillars of Eurasian integration – Russia, China and Iran – about Chinese and Russian guarantees in the event the Trump administration's drive to strangle Tehran to death takes an ominous turn.
This is being discussed at the highest levels in Moscow and Beijing. The bottom line: Russia-China won't allow Iran to be destroyed.
But it's quite understandable that Ushakov wouldn't let that information slip through a mere press briefing.
Wang Yi and other dealsOn multiple fronts, what was not disclosed by Ushakov is way more fascinating than what's now on the record. There's absolutely no way Russian hypersonic weapons were not also discussed, as well as China's intermediate-range missiles capable of reaching any US military base encircling or containing China.
The real deal was, in fact, not Putin-Pompeo or Pompeo-Lavrov in Sochi. It was actually Lavrov-Wang Yi (the Chinese Foreign Minister), the day before in Moscow.
A US investment banker doing business in Russia told me: " Note how Pompeo ran like mad to Sochi. We are frightened and overstretched."
Diplomats later remarked: "Pompeo looked solemn afterwards. Lavrov sounded very diplomatic and calm." It's no secret in Moscow's top diplomatic circles that the Chinese Politburo overruled President Xi Jinping's effort to find an accommodation to Trump's tariff offensive. The tension was visible in Pompeo's demeanor.
In terms of substance, it's remarkable how Lavrov and Wang Yi talked about, literally, everything: Syria, Iran, Venezuela, the Caspian, the Caucasus, New Silk Roads (BRI), Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), missiles, nuclear proliferation.
Or as Lavrov diplomatically put it: "In general, Russia-China cooperation is one of the key factors in maintaining the international security and stability, establishing a multipolar world order. . . . Our states cooperate closely in various multilateral organizations, including the UN, G20, SCO, BRICS and RIC [Russia, India, China trilateral forum], we are working on aligning the integration potential of the EAEU and the Belt and Road Initiative, with potentially establishing [a] larger Eurasian partnership."
The strategic partnership is in sync on Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan – they want a solution brokered by the SCO. And on North Korea, the message could not have been more forceful.
After talking to Wang Yi, Lavrov stressed that contacts between Washington and North Korea "proceeded in conformity with the road map that we had drafted together with China, from confidence restoration measures to further direct contacts."
This is a frank admission that Pyongyang gets top advice from the Russia-China strategic partnership. And there's more: "We hope that at a certain point a comprehensive agreement will be achieved on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and on the creation of a system of peace and security in general in Northeast Asia, including concrete firm guarantees of North Korea's security."
Translation: Russia and China won't back down on guaranteeing North Korea's security. Lavrov said: "Such guarantees will be not easy to provide, but this is an absolutely mandatory part of a future agreement. Russia and China are prepared to work on such guarantees."
Reset, maybe?The indomitable Maria Zakharova, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, may have summed it all up . A US-Russia reset may even, eventually, happen. Certainly, it won't be of the Hillary Clinton kind, especially when current CIA director Gina Haspel is shifting most of the agency's resources towards Iran and Russia.
Top Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov was way more scathing . Russia won't break with China, because the US " doesn't have any more a geopolitical currency to 'buy' Russia – she is out of [the] price range for the US."
That left Ushakov with his brave face, confirming there may be a Trump-Putin meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka next month.
"We can organize a meeting 'on the go' with President Trump. Alternatively, we can sit down for a more comprehensive discussion."
Under the current geopolitical incandescence, that's the best rational minds can hope for.
asiatimes.com © 2010 - 2019 | Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.org . The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.
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Propaganda Intensifies Trade War With China
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© 2010 - 2019 | Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.org . The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.<div><img src="https://mc.yandex.ru/watch/10970266" alt=""/></div>
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May 20, 2019 | www.unz.com
Introduction
The bombing of Dresden remains one of the deadliest and morally most-problematic raids of World War II. Three factors make the bombing of Dresden unique: 1) a huge firestorm developed that engulfed much of the city; 2) the firestorm engulfed a population swollen by refugees; and 3) defenses and shelters even for the original Dresden population were minimal. [1] McKee, Alexander, Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox , New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984, p. 275. The result was a high death toll and the destruction of one of Europe's most beautiful and cultural cities.
Many conflicting estimates have been made concerning the number of deaths during the raids of Dresden on February 13-14, 1945. Historian Richard J. Evans estimates that approximately 25,000 people died during these bombings. [2] Evans, Richard J., Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial , New York: Basic Books, 2001, p. 177. Frederick Taylor estimates that from 25,000 to 40,000 people died as a result of the Dresden bombings. [3] Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, p. 354. A distinguished commission of German historians titled "Dresden Commission of Historians for the Ascertainment of the Number of Victims of the Air Raids on the City of Dresden on 13/14 February 1945" estimates the likely death toll in Dresden at around 18,000 and definitely not more than 25,000. [4] http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/death-t....html. This later estimate is considered authoritative by many sources.
While exact figures of deaths in the Dresden bombings can never be obtained, some Revisionist historians estimate a death toll at Dresden as high as 250,000 people. Most establishment historians state that a death toll at Dresden of 250,000 is an absolute impossibility. For example, Richard Evans states:
Even allowing for the unique circumstances of Dresden, a figure of 250,000 dead would have meant that 20% to 30% of the population was killed, a figure so grossly out of proportion to other comparable attacks as to have raised the eyebrows of anyone familiar with the statistics of bombing raids even if the population had been inflated by an influx of refugees fleeing the advance of the Red Army. [5] Evans, Richard J., Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial , New York: Basic Books, 2001, p. 158.
Population of Dresden
Historians generally agree that a large number of German refugees were in Dresden during the night of February 13-14, 1945. However, the estimate of refugees in Dresden that night varies widely. This is a major reason for the discrepancies in the death toll estimates in the Dresden bombings.
Marshall De Bruhl states in his book Firestorm : Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden :
Nearly every apartment and house [in Dresden] was crammed with relatives or friends from the east; many other residents had been ordered to take in strangers. There were makeshift campsites everywhere. Some 200,000 Silesians and East Prussians were living in tents or shacks in the Grosser Garten. The city's population was more than double its prewar size. Some estimates have put the number as high as 1.4 million.
Unlike other major German cities, Dresden had an exceptionally low population density, due to the large proportion of single houses surrounded by gardens. Even the built-up areas did not have the congestion of Berlin and Munich. However, in February 1945, the open spaces, gardens, and parks were filled with people.
The Reich provided rail transport from the east for hundreds of thousands of the fleeing easterners, but the last train out of the city had run on February 12. Transport further west was scheduled to resume in a few days; until then, the refugees were stranded in the Saxon capital. [6] DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, p. 200.
David Irving states in The Destruction of Dresden :
Silesians represented probably 80% of the displaced people crowding into Dresden on the night of the triple blow; the city which in peacetime had a population of 630,000 citizens was by the eve of the air attack so crowded with Silesians, East Prussians and Pomeranians from the Eastern Front, with Berliners and Rhinelanders from the west, with Allied and Russian prisoners of war, with evacuated children's settlement, with forced laborers of many nationalities, that the increased population was now between 1,200,000 and 1,400,000 citizens, of whom, not surprisingly, several hundred thousand had no proper home and of whom none could seek the protection of an air-raid shelter. [7] Irving, David, The Destruction of Dresden , New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, p. 98.
A woman living on the outskirts of Dresden at the time of the bombings stated: "At the time my mother and I had train-station duty here in the city. The refugees! They all came from everywhere! The city was stuffed full!" [8] Ten Dyke, Elizabeth A., Dresden: Paradoxes of Memory in History , London and New York: Routledge, 2001, p. 82.
Frederick Taylor states in his book Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 that Dresden had been accepting refugees from the devastated cities of the Ruhr, and from Hamburg and Berlin, ever since the British bombing campaign began in earnest. By late 1943 Dresden was already overstretched and finding it hard to accept more outsiders. By the winter of 1944-1945, hundreds of thousands of German refugees were traveling from the east in an attempt to escape the Russian army. [9] Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 134, 227-228.
The German government regarded the acceptance of Germans from the east as an essential duty. Der Freiheitskampf , the official German organ for Saxony, urged citizens to offer temporary accommodation:
There is still room everywhere. No family should remain without guests! Whether or not your habits of life are compatible, whether the coziness of your domestic situation is disturbed, none of these things should matter! At our doors stand people who for the moment have no home -- not even to mention the loss of their possessions. [10] Ibid ., p. 227.
(Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 134, 227-228.)However, Taylor states that it was general policy in Dresden to have refugees on their way to the west to continue onwards within 24 hours. Fleeing the Russians was not a valid justification for seeking and maintaining residence in Dresden. Taylor states that the best estimate by Götz Bergander, who spent time on fire-watching duties and on refugee-relief work in Dresden, was that approximately 200,000 nonresidents were in Dresden on the night of February 13-14, 1945. Many of these refugees would have been living in quarters away from the targeted center of Dresden. [11] Ibid. , pp. 229, 232.
(Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 134, 227-228.)ORDER IT NOW
The Dresden historian Friedrich Reichert estimates that only 567,000 residents and 100,000 refugees were in Dresden on the night of the bombings. Reichert quotes witnesses who state that no refugees were billeted in Dresden houses and that no billeting took place in Dresden's parks or squares. Thus, Reichert estimates that the number of people in Dresden on the night of the bombings was not much greater than the official figure of Dresden's population before the war. [12] Evans, Richard J., Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial , New York: Basic Books, 2001, p. 174.
Reichert's estimate of Dresden's population during the bombings is almost certainly too low. As a RAF memo analyzed it before the attack:
Dresden, the seventh largest city in Germany and not much smaller than Manchester is also [by] far the largest unbombed built-up area the enemy has got. In the midst of winter with refugees pouring westwards and troops to be rested, roofs are at a premium, not only to give shelter to workers, refugees and troops alike, but also to house the administrative services displaced from other areas [13] Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 3, 406. See also River, Charles Editors, The Firebombing of Dresden: The History and Legacy of the Allies' Most Controversial Attack on Germany , Introduction, p. 2.
Alexander McKee states in regard to Dresden:
Every household had its large quota of refugees, and many more had arrived in Dresden that day, so that the pavements were blocked by them, as they struggled onwards or simply sat exhausted on their suitcases and rucksacks. For these reasons, no one has been able to put a positive figure to the numbers of the dead, and no doubt no one ever will. [14] McKee, Alexander, Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox , New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984, p. 177.
The report prepared by the USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University states that "there may probably have been about 1,000,000 people in Dresden on the night of the 13/14 February RAF attack." [15] http://glossaryhesperado.blogspot.com/2008/04/facts....html. I think the 1 million population figure cited in this report constitutes a realistic and conservative minimum estimate of Dresden's population during the Allied bombings of February 13-14, 1945.
Did Only 25,000 People Die?
If the 25,000 death-toll estimate in Dresden is accurate, we are left with the odd result that Allied air power, employed for textbook purposes to its full measure and with no restrictions, over an especially vulnerable large city near the end of the war, when Allied air superiority was absolute and German defenses nearly nonexistent, was less effective than Allied air power had been in previous more-difficult operations such as Hamburg or Berlin. I think the extensive ruins left in Dresden suggest a degree of complete destruction not seen before in Germany.
The Dresden bombings created a massive firestorm of epic proportions, and were in no way a failed mission with only a fraction of the intended results. The fires from the first raid alone had been visible more than 100 miles from Dresden. [16] Cox, Sebastian, "The Dresden Raids: Why and How," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, pp. 44, 46. The Dresden raid was the perfect execution of the Bomber Command theory of the double blow: two waves of bombers, three hours apart, followed the next day by a massive daylight raid by more bombers and escort fighters. Only a handful of raids ever actually conformed to this double-strike theory, and those that did were cataclysmic. [17] DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, pp. 204-205.
Dresden also lacked an effective network of air-raid shelters to protect its inhabitants. Hitler had ordered that over 3,000 air-raid bunkers be built in 80 German towns and cities. However, not one was built in Dresden because the city was not regarded as being in danger of air attack. Instead, the civil air defense in Dresden devoted most of its efforts to creating tunnels between the cellars of the housing blocks so that people could escape from one building to another. These tunnels exacerbated the effects of the Dresden firestorm by channeling smoke and fumes from one basement to the next and sucking out the oxygen from a network of interconnected cellars. [18] Neitzel, Sönke, "The City under Attack," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, pp. 68-69.
The vast majority of the population of Dresden did not have access to proper air-raid shelters. When the British RAF attacked Dresden that night, all the residents and refugees in Dresden could do was take refuge in their cellars. These cellars proved to be death traps in many cases. People who managed to escape from their cellars were often sucked into the firestorm as they struggled to flee the city. [19] Ibid ., pp. 69, 72, 76.
(Neitzel, Sönke, "The City under Attack," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, pp. 68-69.)Dresden was all but defenseless against air attack, and the people on the ground in Dresden suffered the consequences. The bombers in the Dresden raids were able to conduct their attacks relatively free from fear of harassment by German defenses. The master bombers ordered the bombers to descend to lower altitudes, and the crews felt confident in doing so and in maintaining a steady altitude and heading during the bombing runs. This ensured that the Dresden raids were particularly concentrated and thus particularly effective. [20] Cox, Sebastian, "The Dresden Raids: Why and How," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, pp. 52-53. The RAF conducted a technically perfect fire-raising attack on Dresden. [21] Davis, Richard G., Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe , Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1993, p. 557.
The British were fully aware that mass death and destruction could result from the bombing of Germany's cities. The Directorate of Bombing Operations predicted the following consequences from Operation Thunderclap:
If we assume that the daytime population of the area attacked is 300,000, we may expect 220,000 casualties. Fifty per cent of these or 110,000 may expect to be killed. It is suggested that such an attack resulting in so many deaths, the great proportion of which will be key personnel, cannot help but have a shattering effect on political and civilian morale all over Germany." [22] Hastings, Max, Bomber Command , New York: The Dial Press, 1979, pp. 347-348.
The destruction of Dresden was so complete that major companies were reporting fewer than 50% of their workforce present two weeks after the raids. [23] Cox, Sebastian, "The Dresden Raids: Why and How," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, p. 57. By the end of February 1945, only 369,000 inhabitants remained in the city. Dresden was subject to further American attacks by 406 B-17s on March 2 and 580 B-17s on April 17, leaving an additional 453 dead. [24] Overy, Richard, The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War over Europe, 1940-1945 , New York: Viking Penguin, 2014, p. 314.
Comparison to Pforzheim Bombing
A raid that closely resembles that on Dresden was carried out 10 days later on February 23, 1945 at Pforzheim. Since neither Dresden nor Pforzheim had suffered much damage earlier in the war, the flammability of both cities had been preserved. [25] Friedrich, Jörg, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany , New York, Columbia University Press, 2006, p. 94. A perfect firestorm was created in both of these defenseless cities. These cities also lacked sufficient air-raid shelters for their citizens.
The area of destruction at Pforzheim comprised approximately 83% of the city, and 20,277 out of 65,000 people died according to official estimates. [26] Ibid. , p. 91. See also DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, p. 255.
(Friedrich, Jörg, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany , New York, Columbia University Press, 2006, p. 94.) Sönke Neitzel also estimates that approximately 20,000 out of a total population of 65,000 died in the raid at Pforzheim. [27] Neitzel, Sönke, "The City under Attack," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, p. 77. This means that over 30% of the residents of Pforzheim died in one bombing attack.The question is: If more than 30% of the residents of Pforzheim died in one bombing attack, why would only approximately 2.5% of Dresdeners die in similar raids 10 days earlier? The second wave of bombers in the Dresden raid appeared over Dresden at the very time that the maximum number of fire brigades and rescue teams were in the streets of the burning city. This second wave of bombers compounded the earlier destruction many times, and by design killed the firemen and rescue workers so that the destruction in Dresden could rage on unchecked. [28] DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, p. 210. See also McKee, Alexander, Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox , New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984, p. 112. The raid on Pforzheim, by contrast, consisted of only one bombing attack. Also, Pforzheim was a much smaller target, so that it would have been easier for the people on the ground to escape from the blaze.
The only reason why the death-rate percentage would be higher at Pforzheim versus Dresden is that a higher percentage of Pforzheim was destroyed in the bombings. Alan Russell estimates that 83% of Pforzheim's city center was destroyed versus only 59% of Dresden's. [29] Russell, Alan, "Why Dresden Matters," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, p. 162. This would, however, account for only a portion of the percentage difference in the death tolls. Based on the death toll in the Pforzheim raid, it is reasonable to assume that a minimum of 20% of Dresdeners died in the British and American attacks on the city. The 2.5% death rate figure of Dresdeners estimated by establishment historians is an unrealistically low figure.
If a 20% death rate figure times an estimated population in Dresden of 1 million is used, the death-toll figure in Dresden would be 200,000. If a 25% death-rate figure times an estimated population of 1.2 million is used, the death toll figure in Dresden would be 300,000. Thus, death-toll estimates in Dresden of 250,000 people are quite plausible when compared to the Pforzheim bombing.
How Were the Dead Disposed Of?
Historian Richard Evans asks:
And how was it imaginable that 200,000 bodies could have been recovered from out of the ruins in less than a month? It would have required a veritable army of people to undertake such work, and hundreds of sorely needed vehicles to transport the bodies. The effort actually undertaken to recover bodies was considerable, but there was no evidence that it reached the levels required to remove this number. [30] Evans, Richard J., Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial , New York: Basic Books, 2001, p. 158.
Richard Evans does not recognize that the incineration of corpses on the Dresden market square, the Altmarkt, was not the only means of disposing of bodies at Dresden. A British sergeant reported on the disposal of bodies at Dresden:
They had to pitchfork shriveled bodies onto trucks and wagons and cart them to shallow graves on the outskirts of the city. But after two weeks of work the job became too much to cope with and they found other means to gather up the dead. They burned bodies in a great heap in the center of the city, but the most effective way, for sanitary reasons, was to take flamethrowers and burn the dead as they lay in the ruins. They would just turn the flamethrowers into the houses, burn the dead and then close off the entire area. The whole city is flattened. They were unable to clean up the dead lying beside roads for several weeks. [31] Regan, Dan, Stars and Stripes London edition, Saturday, May 5, 1945, Vol. 5, No. 156.
Historians also differ on whether or not large numbers of bodies in Dresden were so incinerated in the bombing that they could no longer be recognized as bodies. Frederick Taylor mentions Walter Weidauer, the high burgomaster of Dresden in the postwar period, as stating
[T]here is no substance to the reports that tens of thousands of victims were so thoroughly incinerated that no individual traces could be found. Not all were identified, but -- especially as most victims died of asphyxiation or physical injuries -- the overwhelming majority of individuals' bodies could at least be distinguished as such." [32] Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, p. 448.
Other historians cite evidence that bodies were incinerated beyond recognition. Alexander McKee quotes Hildegarde Prasse on what she saw at the Altmarkt after the Dresden bombings:
What I saw at the Altmarkt was cruel. I could not believe my eyes. A few of the men who had been left over [from the Front] were busy shoveling corpse after corpse on top of the other. Some were completely carbonized and buried in this pyre, but nevertheless they were all burnt here because of the danger of an epidemic. In any case, what was left of them was hardly recognizable. They were buried later in a mass grave on the Dresdner Heide. [33] McKee, Alexander, Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox , New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984, p. 248.
Marshall De Bruhl cites a report found in an urn by a gravedigger in 1975 written on March 12, 1945, by a young soldier identified only as Gottfried. This report states:
I saw the most painful scene ever .Several persons were near the entrance, others at the flight of steps and many others further back in the cellar. The shapes suggested human corpses. The body structure was recognizable and the shape of the skulls, but they had no clothes. Eyes and hair carbonized but not shrunk. When touched, they disintegrated into ashes, totally, no skeleton or separate bones.
I recognized a male corpse as that of my father. His arm had been jammed between two stones, where shreds of his grey suit remained. What sat not far from him was no doubt mother. The slim build and shape of the head left no doubt. I found a tin and put their ashes in it. Never had I been so sad, so alone and full of despair. Carrying my treasure and crying I left the gruesome scene. I was trembling all over and my heart threatened to burst. My helpers stood there, mute under the impact. [34] DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, pp. 253-254.
ORDER IT NOW
The incineration of large numbers of people in Dresden is also indicated by estimates of the extreme temperature reached in Dresden during the firestorm. While no survivor has ever reported the actual temperature reached during the Dresden firestorm, many historians estimate that temperatures reached 1,500° Centigrade (2,732° Fahrenheit). [35] Alexander McKee cites estimates of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (McKee, Alexander, Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox , New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984, p. 176). Since temperatures in a cremation chamber normally reach only 1,400 degrees to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit [36] http://nfda.org/planning-a-funeral/cremation/160.ht...l#hot. , large numbers of people in Dresden would have been incinerated from the extreme heat generated in the firestorm.
Historians also differ on whether or not bodies are still being recovered in Dresden. For example, Frederick Taylor states: "Since 1989 -- even with the extensive excavation and rebuilding that followed the fall of communism in Dresden -- no bodies have been recovered at all, even though careful archaeological investigations have accompanied the redevelopment." [37] Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, p. 448.
Marshall De Bruhl does not agree with Taylor's statement. De Bruhl notes that numerous other skeletons of victims were discovered in the ruins of Dresden as rubble was removed or foundations for new buildings were dug. De Bruhl states:
One particularly poignant discovery was made when the ruins adjacent to the Altmarkt were being excavated in the 1990s. The workmen found the skeletons of a dozen young women who had been recruited from the countryside to come into Dresden and help run the trams during the war. They had taken shelter from the rain of bombs in an ancient vaulted subbasement, where their remains lay undisturbed for almost 50 years. [38] DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, p. 254.
Conclusion
The destruction from the Dresden bombings was so massive that exact figures of deaths will never be obtainable. However, the statement from the Dresden Commission of Historians that "definitely no more than 25,000" died in the Dresden bombings is probably inaccurate. An objective analysis of the evidence indicates that almost certainly far more than 25,000 people died from the bombings of Dresden. Based on a comparison to the Pforzheim bombing and the other similar bombing attacks, a death toll in Dresden of 250,000 people is easily possible.
Endnotes
[1] McKee, Alexander, Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox , New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984, p. 275.
[2] Evans, Richard J., Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial , New York: Basic Books, 2001, p. 177.
[3] Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, p. 354.
[4] http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/death-toll-debate-how-many-died-in-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-581992.html.
[5] Evans, Richard J., Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial , New York: Basic Books, 2001, p. 158.
[6] DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, p. 200.
[7] Irving, David, The Destruction of Dresden , New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, p. 98.
[8] Ten Dyke, Elizabeth A., Dresden: Paradoxes of Memory in History , London and New York: Routledge, 2001, p. 82.
[9] Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 134, 227-228.
[10] Ibid ., p. 227.
[11] Ibid. , pp. 229, 232.
[12] Evans, Richard J., Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial , New York: Basic Books, 2001, p. 174.
[13] Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, pp. 3, 406. See also River, Charles Editors, The Firebombing of Dresden: The History and Legacy of the Allies' Most Controversial Attack on Germany , Introduction, p. 2.
[14] McKee, Alexander, Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox , New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984, p. 177.
[15] http://glossaryhesperado.blogspot.com/2008/04/facts-about-dresden-bombings.html.
[16] Cox, Sebastian, "The Dresden Raids: Why and How," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, pp. 44, 46.
[17] DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, pp. 204-205.
[18] Neitzel, Sönke, "The City under Attack," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, pp. 68-69.
[19] Ibid ., pp. 69, 72, 76.
[20] Cox, Sebastian, "The Dresden Raids: Why and How," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, pp. 52-53.
[21] Davis, Richard G., Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe , Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1993, p. 557.
[22] Hastings, Max, Bomber Command , New York: The Dial Press, 1979, pp. 347-348.
[23] Cox, Sebastian, "The Dresden Raids: Why and How," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, p. 57.
[24] Overy, Richard, The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War over Europe, 1940-1945 , New York: Viking Penguin, 2014, p. 314.
[25] Friedrich, Jörg, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany , New York, Columbia University Press, 2006, p. 94.
[26] Ibid. , p. 91. See also DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, p. 255.
[27] Neitzel, Sönke, "The City under Attack," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, p. 77.
[28] DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, p. 210. See also McKee, Alexander, Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox , New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984, p. 112.
[29] Russell, Alan, "Why Dresden Matters," in Addison, Paul and Crang, Jeremy A., (eds.), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006, p. 162.
[30] Evans, Richard J., Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial , New York: Basic Books, 2001, p. 158.
[31] Regan, Dan, Stars and Stripes London edition, Saturday, May 5, 1945, Vol. 5, No. 156.
[32] Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, p. 448.
[33] McKee, Alexander, Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox , New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984, p. 248.
[34] DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, pp. 253-254.
[35] Alexander McKee cites estimates of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (McKee, Alexander, Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox , New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1984, p. 176).
[36] http://nfda.org/planning-a-funeral/cremation/160.html#hot.
[37] Taylor, Frederick, Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945 , New York: HarperCollins, 2004, p. 448.
[38] DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden , New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, p. 254.
anon-blonde , says: April 9, 2019 at 3:16 am GMT
Thanks for clearing up another one of grandpa's lies. There are alot of them.anon19 , says: May 20, 2019 at 4:34 am GMTAn unpunished war crime.utu , says: May 20, 2019 at 4:43 am GMTWe should have stayed out of it.
I am glad you are publishing this article here. Few days ago I have cited your articleCarlton Meyer , says: Website May 20, 2019 at 4:49 am GMThttps://inconvenienthistory.com/11/1/6600
on another thread and added the following comment:
http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-how-hitler-saved-the-allies/#comment-3216306
During the war authorities were often lowering the losses so not to give reasons for defeatism. People did not know the true scale of losses. It was not in newspaper. Goebbels decided that playing a victim to the world public opinion would not work anymore but it only would have negative effect on the spirit of German public. Yet police reports from Dresden show very high figures. Much, much higher than 25k And these reports are not post WWII prepared by DDR authorities that liked to talk about American terror bombings in Vietnam. And then several years ago after the reunification some British and Germans historians got together, Dresden became a sister city of Coventry, the Brits helped to rebuild the church in Dresden, the slogans 'never again' were repeated ad nausea and the number of dead became 25k. It is still way too high to be a sister city of Coventry.A key element is to look at the war situation when this bombing occurred. Wiki has a great series of wartime maps, and here is February 1, 1945. The Soviet were closing in on Berlin.Ilyana_Rozumova , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:07 am GMTDresden was not in the Soviet path to Berlin nor in the path of the Allies to the Elbe. So it wasn't bombed for military reasons. Note that the USA not only firebombed the Germans and Japanese, the USA firebombed Chinese cities too:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/rvJgLrgju3k?feature=oembed
In every case regardless of number of casualties, although I do believe in higher number the deed was a definition of war crime. Germans were loosing the war anyway -and the bombing had no strategic significance.White Monkey , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:08 am GMT
The purpose was to kill as many Germans as possible, by burning and suffocating people.
Not very pleasant death.
Proof of bestiality of English.Kurt Vonnegut,who was there as a POW,estimated the death-toll to be 135 000.Biff , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:17 am GMTThe consent factory has permanently put black hats on the Germans, and put white hats on themselves.Ilyana_Rozumova , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:23 am GMT
Facts be damned, so does the number really matter?Even many Jews and other prisoners in cams have died because supply of food to camps become practically impossible by railways. So they have died of starvation.Xityl , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:32 am GMTThis is why Britain is experiencing things like Rotherham. It's all related and karmic.Popeye , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:40 am GMT
Dresden is emblematic of the Anglo's betrayal of Europe, and for that reason Britain will soon be extinguished forever.
I can't say I'm sad about that.By current standards of international law the fire bombing of cities is a war crime and crime against humanity unless attack focuses solely on strategic targets and all efforts taken to minimize civilian casualties. Interesting as well, a major line of thought is that using nuclear weapons against cities is a war crime since no effort could be taken to minimize civilian casualties as fully as possibleWally , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:48 am GMTFrom: http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/Irving/RadDi/2009/240409.htmltac , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:49 am GMT
David Irving states:"AS the day draws on I come across a document which I only half-suspected I might ever find. In 1961, when I was writing my first book "The Destruction of Dresden", I was confidentially approached by a German schoolteacher, Hanns Voigt; he said that after the horrific British air raid, he was put in charge of Dresden's Missing Persons Bureau, Abteilung Tote – the Deceased Section. He built an immense card index, and he kept a diary; and he estimated for me that the final death toll in Dresden would have reached 135,000. This was the figure that I, and after me Kurt Vonnegut and others, always used.
Other city officials gave the same kind of estimates. (Later this year I shall post on my website a full dossier on the Dresden death toll.)
Voigt's estimate was a thorn in the side of both German Governments -- both east and west. They had always played down, even trivialised, the air raid casualty figures caused by the British saturation bombing (even as they hyped the numbers killed in the Jewish tragedy).
Only last year a German Government commission consisting of, not just conformist but kow-towing, line-toeing, bowing-and-scraping historians and Nickeseln, agreed that the death roll in the two hour man-made 1945 holocaust in Dresden was far lower, "only 25,000" (or, if possible, even less).
Without doing any in-depth research -- such scholars are far too important for that -- they relied on the police chief's early March 1945 report (which in fact I was the first to find), because it indicated lower figures than Hanns Voigt's for dead and missing.
In the Deborah Lipstadt Trial, her highly-paid chief expert Professor Richard "Skunky" Evans (left) vilified Voigt; he implied that Voigt was a liar, he questioned whether the Missing Persons bureau had ever existed, and he called him a Nazi with an agenda. (Voigt had, we now know, been given a good post-war position in the Soviet Zone before emigrating legally to the West, so the "Nazi" allegation seems unlikely.) Aping Evans, Mr Justice Gray accused me in his 333-page Judgment of falsifying history.
I was not invited to make any submissions to the Dresden Commission. No surprises there. This afternoon, my quiet patience is rewarded. I have come across this new secret document, signed by the police chief of Dresden, and decoded by the British some weeks after the war."
translation:
At 5:55 p.m. on March 24, 1945 -- the day in fact when I turned eight, I remember it vividly -- the Dresden Polizeipräsident reported in code to SS Oberführer Dr. Dietrichs:
Re: Missing Persons Situation in Dresden Air Raid Defence region.
The Lord Mayor of Dresden City has established (a) a Central Bureau for Missing Persons and nine Missing Persons registries; (b) eighty- to one-hundred thousand missing-person notifications are estimated to have been registered so far; (c) 9,720 missing-person notifications have been confirmed as fatalities; (d) to date, information on twenty thousand missing person cases has been given out; (e) accurate statistical data possibly only later.
"So Voigt was telling the truth.
Even the "hundred thousand" figure for those reported missing must be an under-estimate. There were over half a million homeless refugees in the streets of Dresden, fleeing the Red Army siege of Breslau to the East. Whole refugee families must have been engulfed by the Dresden holocaust, with nobody surviving to report them as "missing".
Another thing seems brutally clear: those listed as "missing" -- in addition to those bodies formally identified and buried or incinerated by this date -- were never going to return. To use the words of the telegram I found yesterday (see above) they were dead, "carbonised," and unidentifiable.
What do these decoded messages tell us about our own lazy and conformist historians, and about "Skunky" Evans in particular? He, and they, would never have found them. It has taken me these many years. Go the extra mile. Eventually, as this morning's Welshman said, "You will be proved right in the end"."
Much, much more:
https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=921View this documentary and make up your own mind:Wally , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:55 am GMThttps://www.hellstormdocumentary.com/
then here:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/NUkdzISOepg?feature=oembed
@anon19 The Allies needed to deflect from their barbarity such as Dresden, which is simply one example, hence their desperate embrace of the fake & impossible 'gas chambers' and the easily debunked '6,000,000 Jews' & '5,000,000 others' propaganda.eah , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:59 am GMTWhile no survivor has ever reported the actual temperature reached during the Dresden firestorm,renfro , says: May 20, 2019 at 6:07 am GMTHow could they?
many historians estimate that temperatures reached 1,500° Centigrade (2,732° Fahrenheit) .
A 'historian' estimating temperature?
Since temperatures in a cremation chamber normally reach only 1,400 degrees to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit,
How hot an (essentially) open air fire can get and whether or not eg such a fire can melt steel was and is part of the 9-11 discussion -- on 9-11 it was jet fuel -- at Dresden it was incendiary bombs -- still it is a little hard to believe even incendiary bombs could result in open air fires with sustained temperatures vastly higher than what are normally seen during cremation -- ??
A raid that closely resembles that on Dresden was carried out 10 days later on February 23, 1945 at Pforzheim.
There's more than one way to destroy a German city:
Data from the end of 2017 indicate 54% of the people in Pforzheim are not 'Biodeutsch' -- 74% of those under 18.
The bombing of Dresden was a war crime because it was UNNECESSARY !!turtle , says: May 20, 2019 at 6:22 am GMT
Absolutely no military reason for it ..records in US Historian office of meetings of the Soviets, UK and US between Feb 5th to 8th show that they knew the war was over and were deciding on what 'official date" they would use to declare it.Hail , says: Website May 20, 2019 at 6:38 am GMTThey burned bodies in a great heap in the center of the city, but the most effective way, for sanitary reasons, was to take flamethrowers and burn the dead as they lay in the ruins. They would just turn the flamethrowers into the houses, burn the dead
You mean, an actual Holocaust?
Wasn't the only one, either.
Burning German civilians alive (Japanese also) was official policy of "moral" U.S. and their allies, the lovely British.
Hamburg, Berlin, Köln, in fact just about any German city of any size. Nearly all were destroyed by fire by the end of the war. Most people here probably already know this, but just for the recordDresden downplaying is one of the only forms of WWII "revisionism" promoted by the establishment. My impression is the drive towards deflating Dresden began in the mid 2000s, which is when David Irving began a years-long running section on his website about Dresden and its death toll controversy.Hail , says: Website May 20, 2019 at 6:43 am GMTIrving wrote the book that brought the incident to worldwide awareness in the 1960s and partly inspired Kurt Vonnegut to write his breakout novel ( Slaughterhouse Five , as a commenter mentions above) which had sections that were quasi-autobiographical. Vonnegut was a U.S. POW in the city on that night, held in the basement of a building whose address was Schlachtof Fuenf , "No.5 Slaughterhouse St." (The irony was not lost.)
As far as I know, Irving's current estimate is that 100,000 is either the likely figure itself (most conservative reasonable estimate), or (more likely) the lower bound for the true death toll. This is according to primary documents he has discovered. The 135,000 figure was from local official Hanns Voigt, in charge of the missing persons bureau. He was meticulous. Irving tracked him down in 1961 during research for the original Dresden book.
More recently, a police document from six weeks after the bombing that Irving acquired and published in 2009 corroborates that figure:
This afternoon [April 24, 2009], my quiet patience is rewarded. I have come across this new secret document, signed by the police chief of Dresden, and decoded by the British some weeks after the war.
At 5:55 p.m. on March 24, 1945 -- the day in fact when I turned eight, I remember it vividly -- the Dresden Polizeipräsident reported in code to SS Oberführer Dr. Dietrichs:
Re: Missing Persons Situation in Dresden Air Raid Defence region.
The Lord Mayor of Dresden City has established (a) a Central Bureau for Missing Persons and nine Missing Persons registries; (b) eighty- to one-hundred thousand missing-person notifications are estimated to have been registered so far; (c) 9,720 missing-person notifications have been confirmed as fatalities; (d) to date, information on twenty thousand missing person cases has been given out; (e) accurate statistical data possibly only later.So Voigt was telling the truth.
Even the "hundred thousand" figure for those reported missing must be an under-estimate. There were over half a million homeless refugees in the streets of Dresden, fleeing the Red Army siege of Breslau to the East. Whole refugee families must have been engulfed by the Dresden holocaust, with nobody surviving to report them as "missing".
Some of the pictures from Irving's Dresden book :RightField , says: May 20, 2019 at 6:44 am GMTSecond-t0-last pic:
DESCRIPTION: Pathetic chalked messages on the ruins of survivors seeking information on missing wives, mothers, family buried in the ruins.
Last pic:
DESCRIPTION: On the following day, March 23, 1962, Mr Irving (aged 27 still) interviewed Marshal of the RAF Sir Arthur Harris at his home in Oxfordshire, about the Dresden raids.
Dresden has a special meaning for me.JimDandy , says: May 20, 2019 at 7:23 am GMT
Ten years after this sadistic event, I became a friend of a fellow Air Force trainee at Keesler AFB. He had been brought to the US as an orphan from Germany. All of his relatives had died in the Dresden inferno. He had been sent on an errand outside of the city and was the only survivor of his whole family. ALL dead except him. No mother. No father. No bother or sister or grandparent. All dead.
He was a gentle soul, but a basket case mentally. He was a fellow Lutheran and I believe he wanted to be in heaven with his family. I tried my best to help him. He could not keep track of anything. He lost his pay records transferring. I bought him soap and other little necessities he needed to get by. But he did not last very long and was gone, unable to concentrate and cope. He certainly was a casualty, but uncounted, of this dishonorable, deplorable sadism.With a city of 1.2 million with refugees, 25,000 dead would be a mere 2% casualty rate. Look at that picture again. Where in that picture could one have survived?
I skimmed the article, but I don't think I saw any reference to the autobiographical-fiction first-hand account written by Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse-Five:mark green , says: May 20, 2019 at 7:23 am GMTIn Vonnegut's words: "There were too many corpses to bury. So instead the Germans sent in troops with flamethrowers. All these civilians' remains were burned to ashes."
Days after the incineration of Dresden, Hitler, Goebbels, and their wives decided to end their lives. Here is Hitler's final testament to the world:refl , says: May 20, 2019 at 9:13 am GMThttp://www.ihr.org/other/hitlertestament.html
(Translation by Mark Weber)
Thanks for another article to expose another tabu of WWII history.jbwilson24 , says: May 20, 2019 at 9:55 am GMTI want to introduce an important angle here that might not be common to nongerman readers:
Watching any popular history program in this country, you any time across raping and plundering Red army soldiers. It is common place.
Try to mention Dresden and anything down that line and you will be taken for a deranged Neonazi. A lot of the present vilification of Saxony in todays PC german media has to do with the fact that Saxony has its own culture of war crime remembrance.@Ilyana_Rozumova "Proof of bestiality of English."crimson2 , says: May 20, 2019 at 10:04 am GMTSorry, dum dum. The 'English' were not in charge of the UK government at the time. Churchill had a Jewish mother, half the House of Lords were officially Jews, the banking establishment was Jewish, the war profiteers were Jewish, etc.
Did you know that Churchill's Jewish handler, Frederick Lindemann, was the one who directed Churchill to attack working class neighbourhoods in raids in order to maximize civilian deaths.
A lot. Glad Germany finally learned not to start stupid wars.Parfois1 , says: May 20, 2019 at 10:05 am GMT@Wally Good work Wally. You may be impervious to some ideas but are a reliable source to debunk official lies.Buzz Mohawk , says: May 20, 2019 at 11:17 am GMTIt amazes me how the German people have been so indoctrinated to accept the occupation of their country by the mass murderers 74 years after the greatest single-incident crime in human history. Only human beings are capable of that monstrous viciousness. Or may be only some ?
It is heartening to see and read this article here. Recently I was in a brief back-and-forth with another commenter about this subject. I quoted from Private Kurt Vonnegut's letter to his parents thus:Another Anon , says: May 20, 2019 at 11:35 am GMTOn or about February 14th, the Americans came over, followed by the R.A.F. Their combined labors killed 250,000 people in 24 hours and destroyed all of Dresden -- possibly the world's most beautiful city. But not me.
After that we were put to work carrying corpses from Air-Raid shelters; women, children, old men; dead from concussion, fire or suffocation. Civilians cursed us and threw rocks as we carried bodies to huge funeral pyres in the city.
-- Kurt Vonnegut, letter to parents, May 29, 1945
The other commenter replied with the standard 25,000 number of dead. My response was that his number, the "mainstream" accepted one, seems too small, while Vonnegut's seems too large.
It is interesting to note the reasons why some people would want us to believe such a ridiculously small number as 25,000 for Dresden.
This article makes my point clear, and it even makes 250,000 sound plausible. I wish to thank the writer, John Wear, and our publisher here, Ron Unz, for providing it.
"Historians also differ on whether or not large numbers of bodies in Dresden were so incinerated in the bombing that they could no longer be recognized as bodies. Frederick Taylor mentions Walter Weidauer, the high burgomaster of Dresden in the postwar period, as statingParfois1 , says: May 20, 2019 at 11:59 am GMT[T]here is no substance to the reports that tens of thousands of victims were so thoroughly incinerated that no individual traces could be found. Not all were identified, but -- especially as most victims died of asphyxiation or physical injuries -- the overwhelming majority of individuals' bodies could at least be distinguished as such."[32]"
Hmmm, isn't the point that you DON'T recognize remains as being human? In other words you can't distinguish them as such?
If you can't determine they are human remains you won't even realize you are looking at human remains when you seen them and consequently have no reason to question whether they might be! And off course you won't report them as such.Reminds me of an incident with a friend of mine years ago. We were walking down the main shopping street. Background music was playing along the street. He was a bit of a sound perfectionist and complained that the drums in the music playing were electronic and not played by a human. He claimed he could always tell. I called bullshit. I asked him whether he had ever bothered to check if his opinion was right. Off course he never had. He genuinely believed he could tell the difference, being a sound freak, so he never bothered to check. What did happen was that he kept reinforcing his own ingrained belief, "wow, I'm good, I even can tell the difference in this song"!
Now, he probably was right most of the time. But he certainly wasn't right all of the time yet he truly believed he was. The fun of confirmation bias.So it makes complete sense that the high burgomaster would believe, incorrectly, that there were no indistinguishable corpses. If you know they are a corpse, or what's left of it, it's distinguishable. Indistinguishable means they are by definition not countable, only estimable (based on total numbers before and after).
Surprisingly the article does not mention the strafing of the survivors from the firestorm. I first knew about Dresden when I read the revelations of an eyewitness US POW then in that city. Many thousands of survivors sought refuge from the heat in the Elbe River but that became an easy target for the US Mustang fighter-bombers. An unimaginable evil and all the more shocking by the fact that their countries' (UK/US) civilian populations had been spared the horrors inflicted on Soviet people.Moi , says: May 20, 2019 at 12:03 pm GMTAnd that duo were planning to do the same thing to dozens of Soviet cities – but with atomic bombs for good measure. We have always been ruled by the most despicable monsters, the true reflection of Western "democracy". Am I unique in saying that, were I a "Bomber" Harris's pilot, I would refuse to fly the damned plane or, at least, unload the cargo in a harmless place? I can't understand it Makes one ashamed of belonging to this species.
@Xityl "Great" Britain, possibly the biggest racist empire in history.Mike P , says: May 20, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMTOn an earlier thread on which the subject came up, commenter Germanicus posted this document:Jake , says: May 20, 2019 at 12:41 pm GMTIt is a memo by the Dresden city administration, to the effect that Dresden police records as of 20.3.1945 state a number 200,000 dead recovered, mostly women and children, projecting a final death toll of 250,000 to 300,000.
This was before the new and improved number of 25,000 was rolled out. You can rely on official western historiography to never, ever tell the truth about anything.
If you say the WASPs did a bad thing, you are insane. No more gentle, kind, compassionate, empathic, anti-imperialistic people ever lived. Why, WASP war is the very antithesis of any possibility of war crime or genocidal desire.utu , says: May 20, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMT@HailJake , says: May 20, 2019 at 12:54 pm GMTDresden downplaying is one of the only forms of WWII "revisionism" promoted by the establishment. My impression is the drive towards deflating Dresden began in the mid 2000s
I wish we knew more about it beyond speculations how this process was initiated, what characters were involved on both sides to give the push for it. Then finding the willing 'historians' to do the actual work was not a problem. There are many willing 'historians' out there.
@jbwilson24 The 'English' lost major control of their government no later than the Cromwell years. WASP culture is finalized, is made complete, by the Puritan Revolution. WASP culture was born of the Judaizing heresy Anglo-Saxon Puritanism.Jake , says: May 20, 2019 at 12:56 pm GMTThe Anglo-Zionist Empire was born directly from Anglophone Reformation and the resulting politics, which from the outset acted to inflict at least cultural genocide on all local British cultures that did not assimilate to the presiding civic form of the Judaizing heresy of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism.
Anglo-Zionist Empire is WASP Empire, and it did not begin between the 2 World Wars, nor with Disraeli, nor with the founding of Freemasonry (which featured Jewish funding and socially and morally directed the British Empire from then on), nor even with the Jewish financially backed coup by William of Orange. It goes back 100% to Cromwell, whose antecedents were long and deep in the ethnically 'pure' Anglo-Saxon parts of England.
@Mike P If by 'western' you mean "WASP' or 'English' or "Anglo-Saxon' or Yank Elite,' then you barely overstate.turtle , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:09 pm GMTEndgame Napoleon , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:16 pm GMTsame thing to dozens of Soviet cities – but with atomic bombs
The atomic bombs were intended to be used on German cities.
Unfortunately for those who designed and built them, the war in Europe ended before the bombs were ready, and they had to be tested on the Japanese.I have no idea about the political tilt of this publication and do not care since they are all nakedly pushing an agenda, including this article near the end. Reminder: Although they weren't exquisite Baroque buildings, the full-to-the-brim-with-humans Twin Towers in New York, NY were fire bombed by any other name, resulting in predictable acts of retaliatory warfare, meeting horrific with horrific.Johnny Walker Read , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:31 pm GMTWhat did the perpetrators expect?
https://www.unilad.co.uk/featured/ww2-veteran-says-dresden-bombings-were-genocide/
However, this account of a 91-year-old British survivor of the Dresden bombing is searing. It sounds like he thinks the war was started by his country. Ugh, the parts about the boiling reservoir and the explosive tar "escape" routes are horrific-cubed. The photos of this battle-hardened career military man are telling, too. In addition to the first-person interview, it cites academic sources.
It's good that fire bombing has been outlawed. But it's too late for these people, mostly old people and kids holed up in the center of an intricately carved Baroque city while the men were at war, and many of the women were probably working the munitions factories in the outer suburbs. So, why bomb the city's architectural jewels, where no war-making tools were under construction?
Thanks to revisionist historians like John, the horrible truths of WWII are now becoming main stream. Did the Allies out Hitler Hitler? My answer would be a resounding yes.eah , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:35 pm GMT@renfro The bombing of Dresden was a war crime because it was UNNECESSARY !!Anon000 , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:37 pm GMTThat last thing I want to do here is defend what was done to Dresden (it was indefensible) -- but I think you would have a hard time defining what is 'necessary' during wartime vs what isn't -- especially when the war isn't over yet, and one of your goals has to be to minimize your own casualties, even if it means (perhaps unnecessarily) maximizing the enemy's -- as Patton said: 'The goal of war is not to die for your your country, but to make the other bastard die for his' -- oder etwas ähnlich.
Years ago I read the following piece and afterward had a brief email exchange with the author:
When Collateral Damage Was The Point
The issue she addresses -- the indiscriminate bombing of largely civilian targets (cities) during WWII vs today's use of 'precision' weapons (which back then did not exist) designed to minimize "collateral damage" -- is probably familiar to most.
@jbwilson24 Fair enough. But did the Englishmen who dropped the bombs and directed the war have free will?Sallysdad , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:40 pm GMT@White Monkey I recently, over the past month, read the book by David Irving on Dresden.sailor1031 , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:46 pm GMT
He recounts that after the war German authorities estimated, from records, missing persons accounts, and more, that the death toll was 125,000 on that night. I believe this was compiled into the early 50s to that result. It might have been more, but I doubt it was less.@Buzz Mohawk The figure of 250,000 is quite believable My dad was a RAF Intelligence S/Ldr at the time and he always maintained the casualty figure, based on RAF estimates at the time of the raid, was 250,000.Hans , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:48 pm GMT@jbwilson24 Thank you! I think we're making headway but it can't be stated often enough.nickels , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:56 pm GMTAnd now we understand why the holowcaust narrative had to be invented-pure projection.eah , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:58 pm GMTShould one choose to make it (not that I would ever do that), there is something of a 'Holocaust' connection to the aftermath in Dresden, where corpses were burned on makeshift pyres -- the immediate purpose was to carbonize the flesh to inhibit the spread of disease (ie not necessarily to turn a human body into ash and bones, as during cremation) -- but the truth is, hardly more is possible with such an open air pyre -- there is simply not enough heat -- the corpses are still recognizably human (there are other examples of this from around the time the war ended) -- compare to the claims made about eg Treblinka, where allegedly all traces of hundreds of thousands of murdered Jews were eliminated by doing something similar -- and this after they were dug up after months (if not longer) underground.Hans , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:58 pm GMT@crimson2 Yea, but not nearly as many as the number of Jews killed by the Romans:Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website May 20, 2019 at 2:06 pm GMTEarlier "Holocaust" franchises, because the bs undoubtedly goes back further
Talmud: Gittin 57b claims that four billion Jews were killed by the Romans in the city of Bethar.Gittin 58a claims that 16 million Jewish children were wrapped in scrolls and burned alive by he Romans.
Plus the endless Six Million Kvetching from the mid-1800s up to WWII.
Those Jews must have been starting stupid wars.
@Xityl Xityl -- This is why Britain is experiencing things like Rotherham. It's all related and karmic Britain will soon be extinguished foreverNeil , says: May 20, 2019 at 2:13 pm GMTForget karma: Sweden, neutral in World War II, is also experiencing things like Rotherham and will be extinguished even sooner than Britain.
A few days after the bombing the Gaulitier of Dresden sent a message to Berlin stating that they had recovered 240,000 bodies and asked for instructions as to what to do next. Apparently the reply was to stop counting.Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: May 20, 2019 at 2:21 pm GMTAt the end the " civilized " " great " european countries that teached , and still teach , lessons to the world were a bunch of butchers .follyofwar , says: May 20, 2019 at 2:23 pm GMT@White Monkey My first knowledge of the Dresden atrocity came when I read Vonnegut's novel "Slaughterhouse Five" when in college in the '70's. If I recall correctly, seems that he and other American POW's were spared by hiding in some kind of large refrigerator. I believe what he encountered there, which included helping to bury the dead, scarred him for life, but, ironically, made him a better novelist.
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May 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Setting the stage for a revival of the White House's warnings about Chinese electoral meddling ahead of the 2020 vote, President Trump on Monday warned via tweet that the Chinese are already pushing for Joe Biden to become the next American president.
That Beijing would prefer Biden over Trump is hardly a surprise, given Biden's pro-China rhetoric (Biden has insisted that China isn't a threat, though he is also extremely conflicted thanks to his son's business dealings).
But according to Trump, the fix is already in (for the primaries, at least), and Biden's rivals - like Bernie Sanders, who consistently polls second to Biden - are "history."
In what appears to be Trump conceding that Biden's decision not to challenge Hillary played a big part in his rise, Trump added that he's "only here because of Sleepy Joe and the man who took him off the 1% trash heap, President O!"
Looks like Bernie Sanders is history. Sleepy Joe Biden is pulling ahead and think about it, I'm only here because of Sleepy Joe and the man who took him off the 1% trash heap, President O! China wants Sleepy Joe BADLY!
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 20, 2019We imagine the White House will soon trot out Mike Pence to deliver another sweeping speech warning of Beijing's interference both electorally, and through its 'neocolonial project', the Belt & Road initiative.
Cautiously Pessimistic , 13 minutes ago link
drjd , 14 minutes ago linkTrump is a master class troller. He is going to whip the democratic candidate field into such a frenzy. He will have them gouging each others eyes out before the first stage debate.
monty42 , 7 minutes ago linkTrump knows that Biden candidacy is a sure victory for himself. Any other truly anti-establishment candidate, on the other hand...
cclark , 20 minutes ago linkHow about a real anti-establishment candidate period. Trump is not anti-establishment. How do we know? His history and his actions since taking office. The media and the US regime are hand-in-hand, owned by the same people, who Trump has been serving religiously from day one. His whole facade crumbles under even slight scrutiny and critical thought. His greatest hope is that he manages to get enough fools to rush in to the E-vote booths, to create the illusion of support, as the actual vote will have already been decided(if the zios want him a second term and there's no reason to think they wouldn't, he's been so good to them). If not, they'll have Biden "I'm proud to be a zionist" or fake *** Sanders, or another choice puppet. It's pathetic really.
Klassenfeind , 22 minutes ago linkThe good guys vs the bad guys illusion! Let me tell you something; good politicians do not exist! Both Trump and Biden are for the Rothschild and the banking cabal.
If you vote and support, you simply deserve the miserable life you are living right now.
Zerohedge has no intention of ever disclosing the truth to its dumb readers. The entire west, including the US, is a freaking monarchy ruled by the owners of wallstreet AKA the Rothschild and their zionist buddies.
Trump doesn't give a crap about you, neither Joe does. Whoever wins the next election, you, the dumb lazy average joe, are guaranteed to lose.
BitchesBetterRecognize , 28 minutes ago linkSleepy Joe? What about Doofie Donnie? So far you can count his 'swamp-draining successes' on the fingers of one hand! ZERO!
dunlin , 32 minutes ago linkSo we went from Russia meddling to China meddling? Really? Is that the new normal in Politics campaigning strategy nowadays?
what's next: Iran meddling? Turkey Meddling? Venezuelan Meddling?
Herdee , 32 minutes ago linkI'm a foreigner. How do I get Gabbard in as P and Sanders in as VP? The (rest of the) world's dream ticket!
Is Joe Biden a Coke-Head like his corrupt son?
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May 13, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Tulsi Gabbard is a 2020 Presidential Candidate of the Democratic Party and is currently serving as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district since 2013. https://www.tulsi2020.com/
Jo Po , 6 days agoTulsi is 100% the best option for the Dems.
Aslan Narasimha , 2 days agoWell spoken, knowledgeable, measured, and intelligent. She's got no chance in American politics.
doubtingmantis , 2 days agoYup 2.5 hours with joe for each candidate. Screw CNN and FOX.
RAP Perkins , 2 days agoIf everyone in the US watches this video, Tulsi will be President!
illiaise , 2 days agoFor me, Tulsi radiates peace and comfort in times of chaos and destruction. Her strength and bravery give me hope. We the People, who keep up on things, give me hope.
Ryan Harrison , 6 days agoGabbard nails it with her mention of the Congressional/Military/Industrial Complex
Daniel Trail , 2 days agoAs a conservative I would love if she won the democratic vote. I feel like she is reasonable enough that I wouldn't have to fear the consequences if she did win the presidency. We may not agree but she is rational and seems reasonable
Roger Brown , 2 days agoWhat an antidote to the present circumstances of the nation. Yet they'll be fighting tooth and nail to keep her out.
Manny G , 5 days agoiv> Is Tulsi gonna kill it on the debate stage or what? She is soooo presidential in my opinion,and yes a risk taker for the American people.
Tulsi is a vet of over 12 years deployed twice to the middle east. Quit the DNC to back Bernie in 2016 and basically put her own career on hold. The only Democrat at Standing Rock standing with the water protectors. Went to Syria to learn the truth about that country, and yes meet with Syrian Pres. She is progressive, and Mike Gravel is a progressive.
Bernie claims he's progressive, but a very calculated politician too. He should have run as an Independant after what the DNC did to him in 2016. Plus he said he would "sheepdog" his supporters if he loses to whoever. So i support Tulsi, and I think she's gonna snowball after the debates. Tulsi 2020
Tulsi2020forPeaceOnEarth , 2 days agoUgh this is so much better than anything cable news does at any point during the election cycle. It's not even close. More gets accomplished in a single Rogan podcast than in the entire two or so years the news spends "covering" candidates. No spin, no going for gotcha sound bytes, just an unedited, lengthy conversation.
n8r , 2 days agoOpen new investigations into the sinking of the USS Liberty, JFK and 911
Sup , 2 days agoWow. First candidate I have ever thought about contributing money to their campaign. Brilliant woman. She just swayed this libertarian.
I love that she has a solid position against the intervention in Venezuela.. which Bernie doesn't..
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May 11, 2019 | www.youtube.com
On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel who discusses why he is joining the race to pull the debate to the left, the nature of his contenders such as Joe Biden, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders, US regime change attempts in Venezuela and escalating tension with Iran, Julian Assange's imprisonment in the UK and the US' extradition request. Next we speak to Chris Williamson MP, in his first international interview since being suspended by the Labour Party.
He discusses NHS privatisation by stealth with the new GP contracts due to be signed next week, Israeli oppression of Palestinians, Trump's escalation against Iran and Julian Assange's on-going imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison.
Gary Salisbury , 1 week ago (edited)
B. Greene , 1 week ago (edited)Pompeo Finally Tells the Truth: 'We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal'" !! He makes me want to Puke !! His duplicity has no bounds !! A swamp dweller of NOTE !!
TrickyVickey , 1 week ago (edited)Senator Gravel needs 100k unique contributions to qualify for the DNC debates. Help him shake things up with a $1 donation at: www.mikegravel.com
harriet , 6 days ago (edited)Pompeo is a murderous "dictator pusher" for the military industrial complex.
Muzza Man , 1 week ago (edited)Love Mike gravel, honest, good, genuine person with pure heart and soul! Donate dollar to get him on the debates! Love Chris Williamson also a great men we need more people like these! This channel should have way more subs and views, great show!
invisble man , 1 week agoThe proven oil reserves in Venezuela are recognized as the largest in the world, totaling 297 billion barrels . They are going to be INVADED by the real world terrorists, the USA,BRITAIN, and their puppet allies !!!! Need I say more?
Joe Biden could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and sniff everybody and he would not lose any voters.
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May 16, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Trump promised to get the US out of "stupid wars." But now he and John Bolton are on the brink of launching us into a very stupid and costly war with Iran. Join me in sending a strong message to President Trump: The US must NOT go to war with Iran.
Pug , 4 days ago#TULSI2020 America needs you now more than ever. No more stupid wars!
Silva Surfa , 4 days ago#Tulsi2020 No more Zio-NeoCon wars targeting the innocent.
donald smeed , 4 days agoMadam President 2020 ✌ Bring On The Debates! No More Wars!
Guo Mashi , 4 days agoAnother strong and correct policy position from Tulsi!!! Can't wait until the debates!!!
Nature Boy , 4 days agoTruth and courage. Thank you! This should be everywhere all the time. US needs to hear it.
RetireforLessCR , 4 days agoThe same old death dealers are on the march again. Not for freedom, not for stability, but for profit.
elijah sessom , 4 days agoit's one of me most Powerful messages I've ever seen on air
harriet , 4 days agoWe are with you Tulsi......your truth and courage is a thing of beauty.
Adam Albrec , 4 days agoThank you for truth telling and calling it like it is! Tulsi 2020
Katherine Garrett , 4 days agoYep. Iraq almost bankrupted us, and Iran is far more able to defend itself.
Pankaj verma , 4 days agoThank you for your message of peace, Tulsi. 2020!☮️
George Washington , 4 days agoNo More Wars! Tulsi 2020
tasty rabbit , 4 days agoNO WAR WITH IRAN! BRING THE TROOPS HOME!! TULSI2020
Wolfking Of SI , 4 days agoI think she could be a perfect President at given times for usa. She would save a lot of American lives and will leave the white house a lot cleaner when she leaves.
WhiteKilt WhiteKilt , 4 days ago (edited)It's a tragedy that Tulsi Gabbert is not number one in the polls right now. She's the only one consistently right on all the issues. I can't wait for the debates.
Donny Filkin , 4 days agoNO More Wars! Give Peace a chance. Support Representative Tulsi Gabbard for President. A True American Patriot and Veteran, fighting for Peace. Tulsi2020.com
Rocky Hart , 4 days agoMike Gravel gave you big props on the tim black show last night! We love you tulsi!
slow grow , 4 days agoTulsi Gabbard should be polling at 80% !! What the HELL is wrong with America! Let's elect Tulsi!!!
All my love and respect Tulsi.
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May 20, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
apenultimate on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 11:30am
gulfgal98 on Sun, 05/19/2019 - 7:03pmTulsi's 2.5 hour interview with Joe Rogan 6 days ago resulted in a solid attention bump.
The YouTube version of the video has so far garnered more than 1.6 million views, and on average his podcast downloads are about double that number.
After that interview, Tulsi's Instagram account gained 11,000 new followers and her Twitter account gained 30,000 new followers. The more people watching her on a regular basis, the better!
Ever since the Rogan interview, the number of times her name appears in a mainstream media (MSM) headline has seen a jump. Before the interview, she was getting a maximum of 1, sometimes rarely 2 headlines per day--often zero. Since the interview she has been in the 4 or 5 per day range. Today (May 19), she is ranked number 5 for all Democratic candidate name mentions in MSM headlines.
Finally, Oliver Stone has sent out a Tweet, essentially endorsing Tulsi.
This one tweet andbobswern on Mon, 05/20/2019 - 12:51amthe embedded video are very powerful as to why Tulsi is different from every other candidate of either party.
Since I was young, I knew I wanted to use my life to serve others. It's why I chose to serve as a soldier & in politics. I've never had any ambition to "be president" -- it's always been about doing my best to be of service and how I can make a greater positive impact. pic.twitter.com/NfTSUhbFXX
-- Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) May 19, 2019
I don't know what Tulsi's campaign cash coffers are like...HenryAWallace on Mon, 05/20/2019 - 5:04am...as I post this comment, but I do know--from a professional/political media standpoint--that this commercial about the Iran situation is, by far and away, the best piece of political media I've seen since Bernie's "America" commercial in 2016 .
If she wants to punch through the crowd, right now (for the moment, because the Iran situation will change, one way or another, and maybe rapidly, going forward), she should push this spot early and often, as much as possible (as her campaign can afford it, and then maybe even a little more than it thinks it can afford, too).
I so appreciate your keeping us updated about Tulsi.irishking on Mon, 05/20/2019 - 8:58amShe has become my favorite candidate on policies, but being favored by Gravel and Stone doesn't hurt, either, to say the least. Of the passengers in the Democratic clown car, I like her and Bernie most. How I will vote may depend upon what polls in my state tell me just before primary day about her and Bernie. Or, I may go ahead and vote for Tulsi, no matter what. In that respect, I am undecided at this time.
Just checked my former message board. They are attacking her right and right (sic). (Not "left and right:" Barely a leftist still posts on that board; and those who still do must watch themselves.) So, she's a primary target of the DNC and establishment Democrats, possibly even more so than Bernie this time. Or maybe they're tied as targets?
And, why not? She called out the DNC's unfairness to Bernie well before wikileaks showed us exactly how correct she was.
ron paul is a fanwokkamile on Mon, 05/20/2019 - 9:59amhttps://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ron-paul-calls-tulsi-gabbard-ver...
Good for Joe Rogan,a worthy podcaster who often has on interesting, independent thinkers and public figures who go against the establishment grain. (see e.g. his several interviews with author Graham Hancock) Not perfect or quite as good as I'd prefer, but far better than most.
Oliver Stone and Stephen Cohen are of course two independent types who are most concerned about our deteriorated relations with Russia, based on fake news and Russophobic media hysteria. Cohen has largely been blackballed from the MSM, with the exception of Tucker Carlson's show and the semi-sane radio conservative John Batchelor.
It was because of the latest McCarthyite smear piece on Tulsi Gabbard in the Daily Beast that I again donated to her campaign. Unlike Bernie, she is longer than a long shot to get the nomination, but it's important that her voice on FP be heard. While I also favor Bernie and Andrew Yang, their comments on FP, sadly, are merely occasional carefully crafted footnotes designed not to attract much attention or controversy.
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May 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
psychohistorian , May 19, 2019 10:55:01 PM | 6
Below is my final Xinhuanet link about China/US relations
Chinese FM urges US to avoid further damage of ties in phone call with Pompeo
The take away quote
"
Wang also reiterated the principled stand against the "long-arm jurisdiction" imposed by the United States.
"
Empire is having its hand slapped back in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, ???Where are they going to get their war on?
I see empire as a war junkie and they are starting to twitch in withdrawals which is dangerous but a necessary stage. Trumps latest tweets show that level of energy.
The spinning plates of empire are not wowing the crowds like before.....what is plan Z?
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May 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Nemesiscalling , May 19, 2019 5:18:09 PM | 6
Sasha , May 19, 2019 5:26:49 PM | 7
On the alleged Arendt´s banality of evil, well, some more evil than others, if not because o of their clearly over the top ambitions:Interesting comment linking some sources and articles on US military strategy from decades ago , some of which I am not able to get to anymore, as the article at ICH numbered 3011:
"First published From Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14: US Army War College: "There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.""Excerpts From Pentagon's Plan: 'Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival':
"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.
This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.
There are three additional aspects to this objective: First, the U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.
Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role. An effective reconstitution capability is important here, since it implies that a potential rival could not hope to quickly or easily gain a predominant military position in the world."
... access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"
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May 20, 2019 | www.xinhuanet.com
Source: Xinhua | 2019-05-20 17:11:21 | Editor: Xiang Bo
BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Modern international trade relations are based on credibility and the spirit of the contract. However,in the year-long China-U.S. trade negotiations, Washington repeatedly reneged on its promises and played "face changing" tricks, leaving stark stains on its credibility.
During Chinese Vice Premier Liu He's visit to Washington last May, Beijing and Washington agreed not to engage in a trade war. Only days later, the Trump administration said it will impose a 25-percent tariff on 50 billion U.S. dollars' worth of Chinese imports which contain industrially significant technology.
Soon after the recent setbacks in China-U.S. trade consultations, the Trump administration, in the name of "national security," rolled out measures to hit Chinese tech firms. The White House's executive order will kill many business contracts between Chinese and U.S. firms.
The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world.
As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their long-existing trade agreements.
These bullying behaviors have sent a clear signal: one can arbitrarily tamper with the original contracts regardless of cooperation partners' interests and concerns, as long as it has the power to do so. That is "the logic of gangsters" and "the law of jungle." Such bullying tactic has stirred global opposition, including from Washington's allies in Europe.
When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This is protectionism, pure and simple."
Also, America's bullying actions have gone far beyond multilateral economic and trade realms.
Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Universal Postal Union.
These self-serving moves have disgraced Washington's credibility as a responsible major country, and seriously eroded the foundation for international cooperation.
In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to abuse its superpower status.
Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community. It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests.
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May 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
BitchesBetterRecognize , 28 minutes ago link
So we went from Russia meddling to China meddling? Really? Is that the new normal in Politics campaigning strategy nowadays?
what's next: Iran meddling? Turkey Meddling? Venezuelan Meddling?
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May 20, 2019 | www.unz.com
For the last two and a half years, the Democrats have led the country on a wild goose chase that has been a complete waste of time and achieved absolutely nothing. The absurd conspiracy theory that the President of the United States was an agent of the Kremlin has been thoroughly debunked by the Mueller Report which states that there was neither "coordination" nor "conspiracy with the Trump campaign and Russia." Even so, congressional Democrats– still determined to destroy Trump by whatever means possible– have switched from the "collusion" allegations to vicious attacks on Attorney General William Barr and demands for Trump's tax returns.
The ease with which the Dems have shifted from their ridiculous claims that Trump was "Putin's stooge" to this new round of vitriolic accusations and mud-slinging, shows that party leaders have not only lost touch with reality, but also, that they have no interest in governing the country. The Democratic party in its current form, is less a political organization than it is a permanent inquisition led by duplicitous vipers (Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Jerry Nadler) who feel entitled to use the Justice System to pursue their own petty political vendetta against a Beltway outsider who had the audacity to win the 2016 presidential election and whose views on foreign policy do not jibe with those of their elite paymasters.
The damage the Democrats (and their allies in the FBI and media) have done to the country is incalculable, but even worse, is the damage they've done to their own party. By focusing exclusively on Donald Trump and the fictitious Russian boogieman, the Democrats have betrayed the trust of the people who supported their respective campaigns with the implicit understanding that they would work for the progressive reforms that improve the lives of ordinary working people and not behave like hectoring, obstructionist crybabies who refuse to respect the outcome of elections if the winner is not to their liking.
These are the people who have been hurt most by the Russiagate fiasco, the people who thought their Democratic candidates actually wanted to run the country, but soon discovered that those same representatives would rather spend all of their time chasing Russian ghosts down a rabbit hole.
Here's an excerpt from an article by Andrew McCarthy that helps to explain what the Russia probe was really all about:
"Russiagate has always been a political narrative masquerading as a federal investigation. Its objective, plain and simple, has been twofold: first, to hamstring Donald Trump's capacity to press the agenda on which he ran .and ultimately, to render him unelectable come autumn 2020 .
The Russia counterintelligence probe, based on the fraudulent projection of a Trump-Putin conspiracy, was always a pretext to conduct a criminal investigation despite the absence of a predicate crime. The criminal investigation, in turn, was always a pretext for congressional impeachment chatter. And the congressional impeachment chatter is a pretext for the real agenda: Making Trump an ineffective president now, and an un-reelectable president 18 months from now.
They try to make it look like law. It has always been politics." ( "Russiagate: Law in the Service of Partisan Politics" , Andrew McCarthy, National Review)
Indeed, Russiagate "has always been politics", but the quality of our politics has deteriorated significantly in the last few years, a point that's worth mulling over for a minute or two. For nearly three years we've seen one party rip up the rulebook and engage in a full-blown, scorched earth, no-holds-barred blitzkrieg on the president of the United States. At no time has there been any effort to discuss issues, ideals, policies, or competing visions of the future. Instead, every ounce of energy has been devoted to inflicting maximum damage on the man who, many Democrats think, is deserving of whatever horrendous reprisal they direct at him.
The Democrats have made no secret of their hatred for Trump or their desire to drive him from office. They have openly supported the dirty tricks, the hyper-ventilating headlines, and the relentless smear campaigns that have been aimed at him from Day 1. Through Russiagate, the Dems have tried to frame Trump as a backstabbing traitor who sold out his country to a foreign power, but now that Mueller has proved that Trump was falsely accused, the Dems have deftly switched to another line of attack altogether. This isn't how sincere liberals fight to implement a plan for progressive change. This is how unprincipled mercenaries pursue the politics of personal destruction. There's a big difference.
This isn't about Trump. Trump could be the worst president in history, and it still wouldn't excuse the contemptible way he's been treated. Is it ever acceptable to spy on a presidential campaign, to insert confidential informants who try to entrap campaign assistants to gather information that can be used to intimidate, blackmail or impeach the president? Is it ever acceptable to leak classified information to the media as part of a malignant scheme to destroy a candidate's reputation? Is it ever acceptable to enlist senior-level officials at the FBI, CIA and NSA to prevent a candidate from being elected or to engage in a stealth campaign of slanders, smears and innuendo that cast a shadow over the legitimacy of the government?
No, it's not acceptable. Never.
What we've seen in the last few years is not only unacceptable, it's also degraded our politics and divided the country into rival camps. We've come to expect that every morning will bring some new crisis centered on Trump's latest tweet followed by hours of incendiary coverage on the cable news channels, all aimed at throwing more gas on the raging fire that's engulfed the country. And, of course, no one scandal has consumed more time or been more inflammatory than the Russia probe. Here's how The Nation's Stephen Cohen sums it up in a recent article:
"Now in its third year, Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent political scandal in modern American history. these Russiagate allegations continue to inflict grave damage on fundamental institutions of American democracy. They impugn the integrity of the presidency and now the office of the attorney general. They degrade the many Democratic members of Congress who persist in clinging to the allegations and thus the Democratic Party and Congress. And they have enticed mainstream media into one of the worst episodes of journalistic malpractice in modern times.
Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through America's politics to the most vital areas of national security policy." ( "Russiagate Zealotry Continues To Endanger Western National Security" , Stephen Cohen, The Nation)
Cohen's piece cuts to the heart of the matter. Russiagate has not only undermined our "fundamental institutions", it has also impacted our "national security." But I would argue that the damage caused by the Trump-Russia investigation is even greater than Cohen describes, mainly because Russiagate has shed light on the cozy relationship between the Democratic party, the Intelligence Agencies, the FBI and the media. These are the institutions that have waged war on Trump from the very beginning. Their relentless, but coordinated attacks on the president strongly suggest that there may be an alliance between the various groups of which the American people are completely unaware. This suspicion seems at least partially substantiated by an article that appeared in the World Socialist Web Site titled "The CIA Democrats". Here's an excerpt:
"An extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State Department are seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. The potential influx of military-intelligence personnel into the legislature has no precedent in US political history.
If the Democrats capture a majority in the House of Representatives on November 6, as widely predicted, candidates drawn from the military-intelligence apparatus will comprise as many as half of the new Democratic members of Congress. They will hold the balance of power in the lower chamber of Congress." ( "The CIA Democrats" , Patrick Martin, World Socialist Web Site)
Would anyone be surprised to find out that the CIA was taking a more activist role in domestic politics; that it's actually grooming its own candidates for elections, that it's strengthening its influence in the media and its ties with one of the main political parties, all in an effort to better control electoral outcomes and tighten its grip on power?
No, no one would be surprised at all. And although we don't yet know all the details, there are signs that the Intel agencies, the FBI, the media and high-ranking Democrats may have been working secretively for the same objectives, to either sabotage the 2016 presidential election or gather incriminating information on Trump that could be used at some later date. All of this coordinated activity hints at the emergence of a one-party political system that is guided by agents and elites who the American people don't know and never voted for.
In any event, we're going to find out alot more about these illicit connections as the Justice Department's three separate probes gain pace and reveal how "the FBI used one party's 'opposition research' as the basis to get a warrant from a secret court to spy on the other party's campaign." That is the crux of the matter. That's the question that will throw open the curtains and shed light on the suspicious ties between the DNC, the CIA, the FBI and the media, all of who may have been directly involved in the dodgy plan to depose the president of the United States.
Rational , says: May 15, 2019 at 7:15 pm GMT
THE DEMOGANGSTERS ARE THE REAL CRIMINALS; MUELLER WAS AN AGENT OF THE DEEP STATE, BUT STILL FOUND NO EVIDENCE.dearieme , says: May 15, 2019 at 7:28 pm GMTThanks, Sir. You are so right -- Russiagate is a manufactured scam to get an elected President out of office, to carry out a coup by using our criminal justice system as a criminal enterprise. And to cover up the real crimes of the real criminals, the Demogangsters like Hillary, etc.
Mueller was a member of the Deep State. If there was ANY collusion (whatever statute there is that outlaws talking to somebody in a foreign country), Mueller would have found it or invented it.
The fact that he could not shows that the the Demogangsters had no grounds whatsoever to manufacture this fake "Russiagate" scandal.
In reality, this scandal should be called Demogangstergate.
The DOJ should now investigate the real criminals, the Demogansters. Hillary and Soros are America's biggest criminals and they belongs in prison for life.
Two minutes – that would let you easily quantify how tired someone is, how badly they are suffering from the flu, whether they are showing unusual intellectual decline with age,Digital Samizdat , says: May 15, 2019 at 11:41 pm GMTIf I were an employer I might like to learn how my staff's performance declined with longer working days, with a view to telling them not to work excessive hours. Or with a view to finding how best to intersperse the working day with breaks – for food, chat, exercise, or whatever.
I've long wondered why corporations pay large sums to, for instance, management consultants or lawyers, when much of the work will be done by novices, sobbing from exhaustion at their desks.
Reg Cæsar , says: May 16, 2019 at 1:30 am GMTIs it ever acceptable to spy on a presidential campaign ? Is it ever acceptable to leak classified information to the media as part of a malignant scheme to destroy a candidate's reputation? Is it ever acceptable to enlist senior-level officials at the FBI, CIA and NSA to prevent a candidate from being elected ?
No, it's not acceptable. Never.
Sure it is! If you're Anastacio Somoza, and you're running a banana republic which is, sadly, what we now are.
anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: May 16, 2019 at 8:04 am GMTtheir ridiculous claims that Trump was "Putin's stooge"
If they want to pivot to portraying Netanyahu as his seeing-eye dog, there's already a Portuguese cartoon for that.
@dearieme I believe that you meant to post this under Mr. Thompson's article.ABC 123 , says: May 16, 2019 at 2:14 pm GMTThere's an odd relapse into statist indoctrination in this generally sound argument. The idea that a rigidly-controlled centralized state party can "enlist senior-level officials at the FBI, CIA and NSA" is bassackwards. CIA ran this whole show. Not Brennan, CIA the institution. Gina Haspel was in London marshaling the foreign intelligence cutouts, and now she's DCI. As for the litany of political interference in the paragraphs, CIA's been doing that for seven decades now. In this day and age nobody swallows the CIA propaganda "CIA works for the president." Don Gregg stuck that into the Pike Report after he threatened the committees with martial law. So let's stop pretending that CIA rule is man bites dog. Your government is CIA.fenestol , says: May 16, 2019 at 5:49 pm GMTAnd outrage over casting a shadow over the 'legitimacy' of government? Pul-leeease. Legitimacy is a squishy term. Let's stick to the term of art, sovereignty. Sovereignty is responsibility. One agency, CIA, is chartered with impunity. They do anything they they want and get away with it. CIA's freedom from responsibility means the USA is not a sovereign state but a criminal enterprise. Perhaps you want to defend the legitimacy of the criminal enterprise that's got its hooks in you. Knock yourself out.
This is not to impugn your good faith. We all have to fight our way out of decades of CIA brainwashing. It's simple. CIA has multiple redundant get-out-of-jail-free cards and secret books for untrammeled power of the purse. That's the definition of arbitrary rule. The crux of the matter is CIA runs your country.
Far from mourning its failure to depose Trump, the Deep State is celebrating its own prowess in leading him by the nose. The Deep State has learned to stop worrying and love the bombastic orange clown.Endgame Napoleon , says: May 16, 2019 at 9:58 pm GMTIf they apologize, it will remove their Russian Trolls decoy, the one placed carefully in the water to keep the corporate-owned media focused on just this one cluster of minor global shenanigans, not all of the others, like the Biden's involvement in Ukraine or most of the US Congress getting rich off of something It's not by building businesses than employ underemployed US citizens. In addition to their multi six-figure salaries, they're all getting rich off of placing bets on the rigged stock casino and the global-offshoring / outsourcing / welfare-rigged-mass-immigration economy.redmudhooch , says: May 17, 2019 at 1:51 am GMTLets not pretend Russia-phobia isn't bipartisan. Even Trump went along with it by placing sanctions on Russia for imaginary "meddling". Making RT register as foreign agent. Its all a distraction. Might have to actually do some real work if we weren't having this replay of the red scare. People might start talking about Trumps, as well as most of DC's real owners if they stop screaming about Putin.Mike from Jersey , says: May 17, 2019 at 11:30 pm GMTNot everyone went along with it, Tulsi didn't, she even introduced legislation to require paper ballots in future elections to prevent imaginary "meddling" or hacking, no one in DC is interested, which either means there is no election meddling, or they don't actually care, they just wanted to poke at Russia.
Lets not forget that Trump admin also expelled Russian diplomats and closed their consulate in Seattle over the bogus Skripal attack in Britain.
Trump expels Russians, closes consulate in response to poison attack in Great Britain
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/26/trump-expels-russians-closes-consulate-response-poison-attack/457930002/Donald Trump's team says it is ready to block Russian election meddling this year
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/02/election-security-donald-trumps-team-warns-against-midterms-meddling/889539002/The Trump administration announced sweeping new sanctions on Russians in its biggest response yet to election meddling
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-new-russia-sanctions-election-meddling-cyber-attacks-2018-3/Trump also launched missiles on Syria over the false flag chemical attack staged by the White Helmets (ISIS), that Trump admin. is still funding. Further poking at Russia.
Whitney's comment:animalogic , says: May 19, 2019 at 12:52 pm GMTBut I would argue that the damage caused by the Trump-Russia investigation is even greater than Cohen describes, mainly because Russiagate has shed light on the cozy relationship between the Democratic party, the Intelligence Agencies, the FBI and the media.
nails it. You cannot call this a democracy when a political party, the federal police, the intelligence agencies and the media all collude to invalidate an election. You can call it a lot of things, but you can't call it democracy.
tanabear , says: May 20, 2019 at 4:27 am GMT"You can call it a lot of things, but you can't call it democracy."Correct. I'll call it a snowballing blob of degeneracy -- from A to Z. We, the world, are in so much trouble.
The Trump-Russia collusion scandal was the Deep State's attempt at a coup. The Mueller investigation failed to deliver so they now move on to their next coup attempt.renfro , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:04 am GMTWe know that the Left and the Democrats are insincere when they say they are outraged by Trump colluding with Russia. They aren't. If it is treason to get "dirt" on your political opponent from Russia then why isn't the Left and Democrats outraged by the DNC, the Clinton campaign, and Fusion GPS. The Steele dossier which was used to get a FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page and the Trump campaign came in part from Russian sources. So paid for political opposition, with Russian sub-sources, was used to go after Trump and interfere in an election. Yet they aren't the slightest bit bothered by any of this. In the 2018 mid-terms some 70 percent of Democratic voters, along with a high number of Independents and even Republicans believed that Trump had colluded with Russia. Yet with so many voters basing their voting decisions on fake news and misinformation, once again, the Left doesn't seemed concerned at all.
The Trump-Russia collusion narrative was just a pretext to start an investigation to hamstring the Trump Presidency. It is the same story all over again. Why did we invade Iraq in 2003? Was it because of Weapons of Mass Destruction(WMD) and links to Al-Qaeda? No, that was just the pretext to start the war. The real reasons for the Iraq war and the Russian Collusion conspiracy can never be stated publically.
Oh barf good repubs, bad dems ! Grow up little Mikey ..they are both sheep herders and you are their sheepTG , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:23 am GMTCompletely missing the point.Anonymous [151] Disclaimer , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:25 am GMTThe "Democrats" – one half of the corrupt set of American bootlicking politicians – spent three years screaming and howling and wearing Trump down until now he is governing just like Hillary Clinton would have. Endless pointless winless wars that serve only to spread chaos and enrich defense contractors, continuing subsidies of Wall Street, tax cuts for big time-plutocrats and coming soon nice juicey regressive taxes for you and me! – and of course, more legal immigration and a government-enabled invasion of our southern border by central America because the rich like cheap labor.
The "Democrats" do not exist as a coherent ideology, they are a collection of whores who will do whatever they are paid to do. They have served their purpose in whipping up mindless hysteria – really, wanting to save trillions by not fighting pointless foreign wars and spending that on ourselves, that's racism and fascism and Literally Hitler? Really?
So I would say that, operationally, mission accomplished.
CIA ran this whole show. maybe, but I think it was all of the intelligence agencies.. British M-16, Israeli Mossad, and the Saudi Arabian groups..French, and even the Egyptian.. .. Turkey too.. they operate the functional parts of government everywhere.The Alarmist , says: May 20, 2019 at 8:38 am GMT... ... ...
That Müeller found nothing to corroborate collusion is likely the result of NSA intercepts that would disprove anything his team and the other agencies might fabricate as proof of the charge. There are a couple serious dividing lines in the national security state that have made it difficult for the coup conspirators to succeed; what will be interesting is if they do in fact get away with trying.SafeNow , says: May 20, 2019 at 9:01 am GMTThe essay's ending – we will: "find out a lot more" "reveal" "throw open the curtain" "shed light". That's it??? Maybe this a deliberately subtle way of saying: there will be no real consequences; and so all is lost; banana Republic, soft dictatorship. In fact, if it's merely an opened-up curtain, the result in the MSM will be plaudits for the actors' patriotism.Squarebeard , says: May 20, 2019 at 9:17 am GMT@TGDESERT FOX , says: May 20, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMTThe "Democrats" do not exist as a coherent ideology, they are a collection of whores who will do whatever they are paid to do. They have served their purpose in whipping up mindless hysteria – really, wanting to save trillions by not fighting pointless foreign wars and spending that on ourselves, that's racism and fascism and Literally Hitler? Really?
They think as a group and take their "lifestyle" cues from the likes of Rachel MadCow, HRC, the Obamas and "their" opinion on foreign policy comes from 3 letter agency people who "warn" them about treasonous Trump and foreign super villains. They wring their hands and clutch their pearls over the laws of the land being enforced at the southern border and the "Muslim ban" but nothing brings out the preemptive smelling salts quicker than Trump's refusal to adhere to liberal speech codes and middle class fake politeness.
When Trump and his neocon attack dogs threaten war on multiple fronts, drone Muslim wedding parties and goat herders, aid and abet the KSA and UAE war against Yemen, use sanctions as a weapon of war against countries that present no threat to America and prioritize Israel's interests over our own, the liberals breathe a secret sigh of relief and commend "literally Hitler" for finally acting presidential. All the righteous "concern" about POC, transfags and other "traditionally" oppressed groups is fake and a way for them to soothe the cognitive dissonance between their own self-image as "caring" and fair minded people and the reality that they don't care how many foreigners get killed by DC's foreign policy or how many of their own countrymen are left to suffer in despair from the fallout of their livelihoods being offshored.
What they do care about is their own material comfort and the illusion/delusion that they are good, morally upright people who deserve all the good things life has to offer because they work hard and are on the "right side of history." They have discovered that letting Democrat propagandists and liberal celebrities do their thinking for them is a good way for them to maintain their delusional world view and avoid thinking about the mind-boggling hypocrisies and double-standards they unquestioningly accept.
Don't get me wrong, there are lots of people on the political right who are just as crazy (e.g. the dedicated race warriors who take the 'war' part literally) but everyone knows this and few people take them seriously. It is old news that mainstream Republicans and Democrats are pretty much in lockstep when it comes to terrible foreign policy the ideological space between neocons like Bolton and Pompeo and neoliberal Democrats like Clinton and Biden is slim and right now there is more pushback against them coming from the conservatives side.
The disconcerting thing about deluded libtards is their unmatched ability to believe their own bullshit and the global reach this bullshit has via the mainstream media. It is ironic that the same people who made their "self-identities" as morally pure humanitarians and protectors of the weak and downtrodden a status marker have turned out to be some of the most arrogant, vapid and destructive hypocrites around, but it shouldn't be that surprising. In my experience people who go out of their way to highlight their own do-goodery and moral superiority sooner or later out themselves as virtue signalling bullshitters and hypocrites who are just following a trend. If these people had no real influence they would be a minor annoyance unfortunately they have quite a bit of influence. Not as much as they used to, hence their panic, but still enough to cause all kinds of trouble.
This Russia collusion scam proved that ... the CIA and the FBI and the Justice dept. are all corrupt as hell and all of these and more are under zionist control and there is no justice in America, justice is gone with the wind!RVBlake , says: May 20, 2019 at 12:34 pm GMT... ... ...
Regarding Cohen's assertion that the MSM was "enticed" into one of the worst journalistic malpractices of modern times, I am heartily skeptical of the portrayal of the MSM as being seduced into acting like the whores they are.C3H8NO5P , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:22 pm GMTYou have to love the imaginations of these hoax writers. The CIA doesn't have time on their various networks and news websites to post any truth. They have so many lies scripted for so many years in advance the producers would lose it if someone tried to slip in a couple of minutes of truth.DESERT FOX , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:34 pm GMT@C3H8NO5P Agree, see the book The Secret Team, the CIA and its allies in control of America and the world, by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, this is the most accurate book ever written about the chain dogs who guard the world for their zionist masters!Johnny Walker Read , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:36 pm GMTFunny how neither wing of the same bird will dare name the real controllers of America.MEFOBILLS , says: May 20, 2019 at 1:43 pm GMTBill Clinton's telecommunication act of 1996 did a lot of damage. Clinton was a CFR agent for the parasite.Patrikios Stetsonis , says: May 20, 2019 at 2:08 pm GMTThe fourth estate centralized and came under corporate control after 1996. Those who are remotely aware know that the press organs are owned by our favorite in-group which has messianic goals. This in-group, while small in number, has goals amplified by money power.
The parasite operates on multiple fronts. 1) Own the power to create bank credit as money 2) Collect interest on credit issued 3) Use debt slavery (expanding claims of debts) to make populations servile 4) Buy out and own the press (see #2) 5) Push a narrative good for your in-group. (see#4) 6) Messianic religion, where the people become their own god. An Oligarchy is then sanctioned because after all – we are our own gods.
Meanwhile, false narrative and twisted scripture has created Zionist Christians, who do the bidding of their masters.
The parasite is an evolutionary construct, with methods honed through the ages. His weakness is the falsity of his claims, which require a tower of lies to maintain. The other weakness is money power, which also relies on deception. The founders gave Congress the money power, hence it was to be under control of the law (and the people), but through deception the money power transferred to a private money trust in 1913.
A parasite needs fuel from the host, and this fuel is derived as usury from money power. Funding then allows issuance of narrative and hypnosis (including towering lies) to control the host.
The construct of secret services being part of control matrix goes back to Bank of England in 1694 becoming first debt spreading bank, which soon put its population into debts, and gained control over parliament. British East Indies company had its own mercenary soldiers and was fore-runner to MI6. In other words, MI6 was patterned on East Indies Company, and MI6 was grandfather to CIA.
It should be no surprise at all that Zionist World Government emanates from London, Wall Street, and Tel Aviv.
Returning the money power to law, is a simple law change. But, since Congress and Parliaments are owned, it is an uphill battle.
@Rational I agree 'Rational', but one question.Sunshine , says: May 20, 2019 at 2:09 pm GMTSay, the Russians and Putin DID mess with our elections. So, what is the big deal?
We get involved messing with other Nations interior affairs, since the 18th century, if not earlier. So, why these "ethical" bastards (dems and some republicans) are crying about?
Plus, WHO holds the license to determine WHO is our friend and WHO is our enemy? CNN? CNBC? ABC? FOX?
I guess, I 'll come back to the phrase: It's ALL about Benjamins, baby.
P.S.
And NO: Hillary and Soros, ARE criminals but The REAL CRIMINALS and TRAITORS of the USA, are Israel and it supporters.@Squarebeard Yeah there's totally no race war going on, at all. Only crazy people would think such a thing. It's not like the entire ruling class is in lockstep regarding laws and policies that cripple and destroy whites.TellTheTruth-2 , says: May 20, 2019 at 2:22 pm GMTThey don't allow non whites to attack whites, with little to no accountability, they don't bring them in by the millions, to swamp whites and "breed us out". They don't churn out endless anti white propaganda, showing whites as weak, submissive, old, and needing strong and vibrant non whites to "save" them from their own evil racism. They certainly don't shout it from their official positions and gloat about how whites are soon to be minorities in their own lands. They don't push endless race mixing propaganda, that somehow only shows "white + non white", and rarely ever something like "black + Asian". They don't mock and belittle whites every chance they get. They don't use "white" as a slur and a synonym for "uncool, hopeless, nerdy, weak". They don't refuse to allow whites to have racially based groups and institutions, while actively encouraging non whites to do just that. They don't give preferential treatment in every walk of life, to non whites at the expense of the better qualified and more intelligent whites.
They don't institute draconian and repressive "hate crime" laws designed to harshly punish whites for any "wrong thought" or imagined transgression against a holy and sainted oppressed non white. They certainly don't let non whites get away with racially targeted attacks (Rotherham, etc), and force the police to ignore it and prosecute the victims and their families when they seek justice.
If you don't think there's a race war happening, I can see that. Because really, only one side is fighting. The other side is too busy pretending it isn't happening, or enthusiastically groveling at the feet of the non whites, hoping to expiate their evil sin of whiteness.
Ignoring reality isn't going to spare you from the consequences of ignoring reality. All you have to do is look around whatever white country you're living in. It's not a secret.
Major Mueller Report Omissions Suggest Incompetence Or A Coverup (right click) https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-06/major-mueller-report-omissions-suggest-hes-incompetent-or-covering-major-crimesmike k , says: May 20, 2019 at 3:02 pm GMT.. and .. Robert Mueller Is in Serious Legal Trouble – Here's Why (right click) https://russia-insider.com/en/robert-mueller-serious-legal-trouble-heres-why/ri27002
.. and .. The Real Muellergate Scandal (right click) https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/05/the-real-muellergate-scandal/
.. and .. Major Report Omission Shows Mueller Was Either Incompetent Or A Political Hack .. (right click) https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/06/major-report-omission-shows-mueller-either-incompetent-political-hack/
Will Julian Assange 'Team up' With Trump to Bury Russiagate – and Just Maybe the Deep State – Once and for All? (right click) https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/04/24/will-julian-assange-team-up-with-trump-to-bury-russiagate-and-just-maybe-the-deep-state-once-and-for-all/
@ABC 123 You got that dead right ABC 123. The evil group in the shadows that really runs the government is called "the intelligence community." Some community! More like a giant Mafia.Anon [405] Disclaimer , says: May 20, 2019 at 3:08 pm GMTMike Whitney,TellTheTruth-2 , says: May 20, 2019 at 3:36 pm GMTThe CIA needs reform and oversight. It should be divided into pieces that cannot communicate with each other, but only through oversight that is legally forbidden to ever become part of or get paid by CIA. I would suggest a section for each continent, or maybe even each country. Is have these sections in different buildings in different cities in America.
They should be allowed zero media infiltration in the United States.
If that reform failed, Id build a rival CIA and slowly give it the CIAs current workload, forcing the current brass into retirement. The new intel agency could be restricted from hiring any current CIA management, only hiring active spooks.
@mike k The neoCONs won and have Trump under control and he's hiring Bush-men as fast as he can. NOTE: Both the new Attorney General and the newly announced Assistant Attorney General are both Bush-men, and even worse, they're Bush Sr. Bush-men. So it looks like Trump will run in 2020 as a WAR President, in Venezuela and/or Iran. The Bush/Trump Crime Family has been born from the ashes of the Bush/Clinton Crime Family.Robert Dolan , says: May 20, 2019 at 4:18 pm GMT@TellTheTruth-2 The President's name is Jeb Kushner.DESERT FOX , says: May 20, 2019 at 4:42 pm GMT@TellTheTruth-2 The zio/cons have always won since the zionists had JFK shot!One Tribe , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:07 pm GMTThank you for bringing these facts, and the artful assembly of them, to public scrutiny.Royce Orville , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:23 pm GMTThe damage the Democrats (and their allies in the FBI and media) have done to the country is incalculable, but even worse, is the damage they've done to their own party.
We're still discussing these things, and others, on the overall degradation of social infrastructures, almost as if they are unrelated, but, these breakdowns have startling similarities, and even superficial inspection suggests a pattern and affiliation between the key controlling interests.
Is it " The FBI ", or an elite controlling faction, having hijacked the FBI?
Is it " The Democratic Party ", or an elite controlling faction, having hijacked the Democratic Party?Regardless, it will be the reputation/credibility of the entire FBI and Democratic Party, which takes the hit, not the specific agent-provokateurs , in fact, " The Media ", will never get around to figuring it out, and airing them out, let alone, drawing similarities between these agent-provokateurs and those agent-provokateurs
Oh and BTW, just who, precisely, is " The Media "?
And while the discussion about the " The Democrats " is liberal, the discussion about " The Republicans Party ", is a bit on the conservative side.
But ultimately, what's the difference? Both these parties are dedicated to the 0.1% socio-economic elite , and their traditional hanger-ons/henchmen.
In fact, much of the artificial delineations of people, are controlled by the same people! They are effectively different " brandings " of bullshit-artistry , to baffle the minds of the 99%, and the first grift is that there is actually choice between two meaningfully different options.
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Trumps biggest achievements in the past 30 days:Simon Tugmutton , says: May 20, 2019 at 5:43 pm GMT
- Ruined farmers
- Made US tech a liability for everyone outside the US
- Failed coup in Venezuela
Moron Whitney seems to think political parties matter. Why do the lower classes think any difference exists between the scum that rules over them? Only the slow minded see a difference between the republicans and the democrats. Trump supporters openly want a police state with a giant military and more and more cops, so the Russian thing was a great diversion. Obama supporters pretended they don't want the same, but voted for it anyway also promoting fear, obedience and the Russian thing.
This is a classic case of Betteridge's Law of Headlines: "an adage that states: 'Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.'"Alden , says: May 20, 2019 at 7:22 pm GMThttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
@Peter Akuleyev It's obvious you haven't read the report Peter. Exactly what crimes did Trump commit.? And don't repeat what every ignorant liberal moron has been chanting for the last 3 years, "obstruction of justice"mcohen , says: May 20, 2019 at 9:12 pm GMTPlease note, a crime must be committed before any suspect, victim, witness anyone obstructs justice also known as obstruction of the investigation of the alleged crime that may or may not have been committed. The FBI investigated and investigated and investigated Trump and found nothing to investigate.
Since he was plotting away in New York and the District of Columbia, you might want to read the pertinent laws regarding obstruction of justice. No crime, no obstruction.
The demo's need to chill like you know man.not going to make 2020 because the carpet is ready for a woman.madam president erect ek se.soft power.in like a banana out like a pineapple.Anon [332] Disclaimer , says: May 20, 2019 at 10:29 pm GMTThey don't need to apologize.Curmudgeon , says: May 20, 2019 at 10:40 pm GMTThey need to go to prison for attempting to undemocratically overturn an election using an invented narrative.
The press as well as the individuals associated with the special interest groups and government who were involved in this effort must face severe consequences. We'll be waiting until that happens, and we will not forget.
That's what they've created with this. A simmering nation awaiting justice.
@renfro So what's your point? The prosecutor "ultimately concludes one isn't guilty of crime X" actually proves Alden's point: a prosecutor would have to identify "crime X". Since "crime X" was fabricated, there was nothing to be guilty of, and since Trump knew that, there could be no obstruction.tanabear , says: May 20, 2019 at 10:48 pm GMTAs for Mueller's report, it was a political document. All of the hearsay about what Trump was thinking about means jackshit. Thinking about doing something isn't a crime – yet. All of the bogus "conspiracy to commit " trials, when no illegal action was taken, are Stalinist show trials – just like the Democrats and never Trumpers were hoping Mueller could produce for them.
@renfroCarolyn Yeager , says: Website May 20, 2019 at 11:31 pm GMTYou can obstruct justice even if a prosecutor ultimately finds you were not guilty of committing the crime that was the focus of the underlying investigation
Yes, but you still must commit a crime of obstruction. A crime of obstruction would be something like the destruction subpoenaed evidence; such as taking Bleachbit to your e-mails, or smashing your smartphones with hammers. However, the firing James Comey is completely legal and allowed by the Executive. A prosecutor cannot event a crime of obstruction when the action was perfectly legal. This is in effect what the Democrats and the Left are arguing for, the invention of new crimes to impeach Trump.
Excellent article. I'm glad I read it. Secret intelligence gathering agencies with huge budgets "to keep us safe" are a problem. Always have been, always will be. Trump should be given credit for causing all this to be brought to light.anon [273] Disclaimer , says: May 21, 2019 at 2:34 am GMTrenfro , says: May 21, 2019 at 2:51 am GMTThe Democrats Just Led the Country on a Three Year-Long Wild Goose Chase. Will They Apologize?
Of course not. They just go from one lie they're more than happy to believe to another – this time its "obstruction" and the media will push that lie too
@tanabearHowever, the firing James Comey is completely legal and allowed by the Executive. A prosecutor cannot event a crime of obstruction when the action was perfectly legal
Wrong again ..its obvious none of you know how to find the legal cites on the elements of obstruction. Whether Trump can 'legally' fire someone or not is immaterial .the court (and the law) looks at the INTENT behind the act. Period.
You can legally hire or fire your maid but if your motivation -- intention in either of those acts is to bribe her or threaten her because she knows something about you that could get you in legal trouble. Then it is obstruction.
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May 20, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!"" – Bill Hicks
Anyone who frequents Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, economic blogs, or fake-news mainstream media channels knows our world is driven by the "Us versus Them" narrative. It's almost as if "they" are forcing us to choose sides and believe the other side is evil. Bill Hicks died in 1994, but his above quote is truer today then it was then. As the American Empire continues its long-term decline, the proles are manipulated through Bernaysian propaganda techniques, honed over the course of decades by the ruling oligarchs, to root for their assigned puppets.
Most people can't discern they are being manipulated and duped by the Deep State controllers. The most terrifying outcome for these Deep State controllers would be for the masses to realize it is us versus them. But they don't believe there is a chance in hell of this happening. Their arrogance is palatable.
Their hubris has reached astronomical levels as they blew up the world economy in 2008 and successfully managed to have the innocent victims bail them out to the tune of $700 billion, pillaged the wealth of the nation through their capture of the Federal Reserve (QE, ZIRP), rigged the financial markets in their favor through collusion, used the hundreds of billions in corporate tax cuts to buy back their stock and further pump the stock market, all while their corporate media mouthpieces mislead and misinform the proles.
There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase.
Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus.
When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed.
I've never been big on joining a group. I tend to believe Groucho Marx and his cynical line, "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member". The "Us vs. Them" narrative doesn't connect with my view of the world. As a realistic libertarian I know libertarian ideals will never proliferate in a society of government dependency, willful ignorance of the masses, thousands of laws, and a weak-kneed populace afraid of freedom and liberty. The only true libertarian politician, Ron Paul, was only able to connect with about 5% of the voting public. There is no chance a candidate with a libertarian platform will ever win a national election. This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Bill Hicks somewhat foreshadowed the last election by referencing another famous cynic.
"I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking and screaming into the White House." ― Bill Hicks
Hillary Clinton wanted to be president so badly, she colluded with Barack Obama, Jim Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch and numerous other Deep State sycophants to ensure her victory, by attempting to entrap Donald Trump in a concocted Russian collusion plot and subsequent post-election coup to cover for their traitorous plot. I wouldn't say Donald Trump was dragged kicking and screaming into the White House, but when he ascended on the escalator at Trump Tower in June of 2015, I'm not convinced he believed he could win the presidency.
As the greatest self-promoter of our time, I think he believed a presidential run would be good for his brand, more revenue for his properties and more interest in his reality TV ventures. He was despised by the establishment within the Republican and Democrat parties. The vested interests controlling the media and levers of power in society scorned and ridiculed this brash uncouth outsider. In an upset for the ages, Trump tapped into a vein of rage and disgruntlement in flyover country and pockets within swing states, to win the presidency over Crooked Hillary and her Deep State backers.
I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. I hadn't voted for a Republican since 2000, casting protest votes for Libertarian and Constitutional Party candidates along the way. I despise the establishment, so their hatred of Trump made me vote for him. His campaign stances against foreign wars and Federal Reserve reckless bubble blowing appealed to me. I don't worship at the altar of the cult of personality. I judge men by their actions and not their words.
Trump's first two years have been endlessly entertaining as he waged war against fake news CNN, establishment Republicans, the Deep State coup attempt, and Obama loving globalists. The Twitter in Chief has bypassed the fake news media and tweets relentlessly to his followers. He provokes outrage in his enemies and enthralls his worshipers. With millions in each camp it is difficult to find an unbiased assessment of narrative versus real accomplishments.
I'm happy he has been able to stop the relentless leftward progression of our Federal judiciary. Cutting regulations and rolling back environmental mandates has been a positive. Exiting the Paris Climate Agreement and TPP, forcing NATO members to pay their fair share, and renegotiating NAFTA were all needed. Ending the war on coal and approving pipelines will keep energy costs lower. His attempts to vet Muslims entering the country have been the right thing to do. Building a wall on our southern border is the right thing to do, but he should have gotten it done when he controlled both houses.
The use of tariffs to force China to renegotiate one sided trade deals as a negotiating tactic is a high-risk, high reward gamble. If his game of chicken is successful and he gets better terms from the Chicoms, while reversing the tariffs, it would be a huge win. If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. Who has the upper hand? Xi is essentially a dictator for life and doesn't have to worry about elections or popularity polls. Dissent is crushed. A global recession and stock market crash would make Trump's re-election in 2020 problematic.
I'm a big supporter of lower taxes. The Trump tax cuts were sold as beneficial to the middle class. That is a false narrative. The vast majority of the tax cut benefits went to mega-corporations and rich people. Middle class home owning families with children received little or no tax relief, as exemptions were eliminated and tax deductions capped. In many cases, taxes rose for working class Americans.
With corporate profits at all time highs, massive tax cuts put billions more into their coffers. They didn't repatriate their overseas profits to a great extent. They didn't go on a massive hiring spree. They didn't invest in new facilities. They did buy back their own stock to help drive the stock market to stratospheric heights. So corporate executives gave themselves billions in bonuses, which were taxed at a much lower rate. This is considered winning in present day America.
The "Us vs. Them" issue rears its ugly head whenever Trump is held accountable for promises unkept, blatant failures, and his own version of fake news. Holding Trump to the same standards as Obama is considered traitorous by those who only root for their home team. Their standard response is that you are a Hillary sycophant or a turncoat to the home team. If you agree with a particular viewpoint or position of a liberal then you are a bad person and accused of being a lefty by Trump fanboys. Facts don't matter to cheerleaders. Competing narratives rule the day. Truthfulness not required.
The refusal to distinguish between positive actions and negative actions when assessing the performance of what passes for our political leadership by the masses is why cynicism has become my standard response to everything I see, hear or he read. The incessant level of lies permeating our society and its acceptance as the norm has led to moral decay and rampant criminality from the White House, to the halls of Congress, to corporate boardrooms, to corporate newsrooms, to government run classrooms, to the Vatican, and to households across the land. It's interesting that one of our founding fathers reflected upon this detestable human trait over two hundred years ago.
"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime." – Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine's description of how moral mischief can ruin a society was written when less than 3 million people inhabited America. Consider his accurate assessment of humanity when over 300 million occupy these lands. The staggering number of corrupt prostituted sociopaths occupying positions of power within the government, corporations, media, military, churches, and academia has created a morally bankrupt empire of debt.
These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president.
The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them. The answer to that question will strongly impact the direction and intensity of the climactic years of this Fourth Turning. What I've noticed is the shunning of those who don't take an all or nothing position regarding Trump. If you disagree with a decision, policy, or hiring decision by the man, you are accused by the pro-Trump team of being one of them (aka liberals, lefties, Hillary lovers).
If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers. I don't want to be Us or Them. I just want to be me. I will judge everyone by their actions and their results. I can agree with Trump on many issues, while also agreeing with Tulsi Gabbard, Rand Paul, Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi on other issues. I don't prescribe to the cult of personality school of thought. I didn't believe the false narratives during the Bush or Obama years, and I won't worship at the altar of the Trump narrative now.
In Part II of this article I'll assess Trump's progress thus far and try to determine whether he can defeat the Deep State.
TerryThomas , 32 minutes ago link
"The scientific and industrial revolution of modern times represents the next giant step in the mastery over nature; and here, too, an enormous increase in man's power over nature is followed by an apocalyptic drive to subjugate man and reduce human nature to the status of nature. Even where enslavement is employed in a mighty effort to tame nature, one has the feeling that the effort is but a tactic to legitimize total subjugation. Thus, despite its spectacular achievements in science and technology, the twentieth century will probably be seen in retrospect as a century mainly preoccupied with the mastery and manipulation of men. Nationalism, socialism, communism, fascism, and militarism, cartelization and unionization, propaganda and advertising are all aspects of a general relentless drive to manipulate men and neutralize the unpredictability of human nature. Here, too, the atmosphere is heavy-laden with coercion and magic." --Eric Hoffer
666D Chess , 11 minutes ago link
Kafir Goyim , 32 minutes ago linkDivide and conquer, not a very novel idea... but very effective.
Rich Monk , 33 minutes ago linkIf you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers
That's not true. When Trump kisses Israeli ***, most "Trumpeteers" are outraged. That does not mean they're going to vote for Joe "I'm a Zionist" Biden, or Honest Hillary because of it, but they're still pissed.
yellowsub , 42 minutes ago linkThese predators (((them))) need to fear the Victims, us! That is what the 2ND Amendment is for. It's coming, slowly for now, but eventually it speeds up.
legalize , 46 minutes ago linkYa'll a dumb fool if you think gov't as your best interests first.
bshirley1968 , 51 minutes ago linkCitation needed.
Any piece like this better be littered with footnotes and cited sources before I'm swallowing it.
I'll say it again: this is the internet, people. There's no "shortage of column space" to include links back to primary sources for your assertions. Otherwise, how am I supposed to distinguish you from another "psy op" or "paid opposition hit piece"?
Fish Gone Bad , 37 minutes ago link"The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them."
If you still ponder this question, then you are pretty frickin' thick. It is obvious at this point, that he betrayed everything he campaigned on. You don't do that and call yourself one of "us".......damn sure aren't one of "me".
If I couldn't keep my word and wouldn't do what it takes to do what is right.....then I would resign. But I would not go on playing politics in a world that needs some real leadership and not another political hack.
The real battle is between Truth and Lie. No matter the name of your "team" or the "side" you support. Truth is truth and lies are lies. We don't stand for political parties, we stand for truth. We don't stand for national pride, we take pride in a nation that is truthful and trustworthy. The minute a "side" or "team" starts lying.....and justifying it.....that is the minute they become them and not one of us.
Any thinking person in this country today knows we are being lied to by the entire complex. Until someone starts telling the truth.....we are on our own. But I be damned before I am going to support any of these lying sons of bitches......and that includes Trump.
bshirley1968 , 31 minutes ago linkDark comedy. All the elections have been **** choices until the last one. Take a look at Arkancide.com and start counting the bodies.
Anyone remember the news telling us how North Korea promised to turn the US into a sea of fire?? Trump absolutely went to bat for every single American to de-escalate that situation.
Kafir Goyim , 28 minutes ago linkDon't tell me about Arkancide or the Clintons. I grew up in Arkansas with that sack of **** as my governor for 12 years.
NK was never a real threat to anyone. Trump didn't do ****. NK is back to building and shooting off missiles and will be teaming up with the Russians and Chinese. You are a duped bafoon.
Giant Meteor , 9 minutes ago linkI don't think anybody thought NK was an existential threat to the US. It has still been nice making progress on bringing them back into the world and making them less of a threat to Japan and S. Korea. Trump did that.
666D Chess , 15 minutes ago linkDennis Rodman did that, or that is to say, Trump an extension thereof ..
Great theater..
Look, i thought it was great that Trump went Kim Unning. I mean after all, i had talked with a few elderly folks that get their news directly from the mainstream of mainstream, vanilla news reportage. Propaganda central casting. I remember them being extremely concerned, outright petrified about that evil menace, kim gonna launch nukes any minute now. If the news would have been announced a major troop mobilization, bombing campaigns, to begin immediately they would have been completely onboard, waving the flag.
Frankly, it is only a matter of time, and folks can speculate on the country of interest, but it is coming soon to a theater near you. So many being in the crosshairs. Iran i suspect .. that's the big prize, that makes these sociopaths cream in their panties.
Probably. In the second term .. and so far, if ones honestly evaluates the "brain trust" / current crop of dimwit opposition, and in light of their past 2 plus years of moronic posturing with their hair on fire, trump will get his second term ..
HoodRatKing , 55 minutes ago linkUntil the last one? You are retarded, the last election was a masterpiece of Rothschilds Productions. The Illuminati was watching you at their private cinema when you were voting for Trump and they were laughing their asses off.
bshirley1968 , 39 minutes ago linkThe author does not realize that everyone in America, except Native American Indians, were immigrants drawn towards the false promise of hope that is the American Dream, turned nightmare..
Owning your own home, car, & raising a family in this country is so damn expensive & risky, that you'd have be on drugs or an idiot to even fall for the lies.
I don't see an us vs them, I see the #FakeMoney printers monetized every facet of life, own everything, & it truly is RENT-A-LIFE USSA, complete with bills galore, taxes galore, laws galore, jails & prisons galore, & the worst fkn country anyone would want to live in poverty & homelessness in.
At least in many 3rd world nations there is land to live off of & joblessness does not = a financial death sentence.
911bodysnatchers322 , 56 minutes ago linkSure. Lets all go back to living in huts.....off the land....no cars.....no electricity.....no running water......no roads....
There is a price to pay for things and it is not always in the form of money. We have given up some of our freedom for the ease and conveniences we want.
The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke.
There is a balance. Don't take the other extreme or we never find balance.
Giant Meteor , 25 minutes ago linkThis article is moronic. One can easily prove that Trump is not like all the others in the poster. Has this author been living under a rock for the last 2.5 yrs? The past 5 presidents represent a group that has been literally trying to assassinate Trump, ruin his family, his reputation, his buisness and his future, for the audacity to be an ousider to the power network and steal (win) the presidency from under their noses. He's kept us OUT of war. He's dissolved the treachery that was keeping us in the middle east through gaslighitng and a proxy fake war that is ISIS, the globalists' / nato / fiveys / uk's fake mercenary army
ExPat2018 , 1 hour ago linkAnd yet, I'll never forget all the smiling faces at the gala wedding affair.
Happier times ..
And yes, thanks in advance for noting the link is from New York slime, but i believe the picture in this case anyway, was not photo shopped.
She is, (hillary) after all, good people, a real fighter ..
**** .. mission accomplished ..
JuliaS , 1 hour ago linkThe greatest threat to the USA is its own dumbed down drugged up citizens who cannot compete with anyone. America is a big military powerhouse but that doens't make successful countries
You must have intelligent people
America doesn't have that anymore.
911bodysnatchers322 , 54 minutes ago linkNotice how modern narrative is getting manipulated. What is being reported and referenced is completely different from how things are. And knowing that we can assume that the entire history is a fabricated lie, written by the ruling class to support its status in the minds of obedient citizens.
istt , 1 hour ago linkThis article is garbage propaganda that proves that they think we aren't keeping score or paying attention. The gaslighting won't work when it relies on so much counterthink, willful ignorance, counterfacts and weaponized omissions
fersur , 1 hour ago linkThe reality is the de-escalation of wars, the stability of our currency and our economy, and the moral re-grounding of our culture does not occur until we do what over 100 countries have done over the centuries, beginning in Carthage in 250AD.
SHsparx , 1 hour ago linkThere's an old saying; "Congress does 2 things well Nothing and Protest" said by Pence Live-Streamed 4 hours ago at USMCA America First speech !
Good, Bad and Ugly
The Good is President Trump works extreme daily hours trying his best !
The Bad is Haters miss every bit of whatever their President Trump does that is good !
The Ugly is Hater Reporters ignoring World events, scared of possibly shining President Trump fairly !
911bodysnatchers322 , 52 minutes ago linkYou really are making it a bit too obvious, bro.
SHsparx , 1 hour ago linkThe congress are statusquotarians. If they solved the problems they say they would,they'd be out of a job. and that job is sitting there acting like a naddler or toxic post turtle leprechaun with a charisma and skill level of zero. Their staff do all the work, half of them barely read, though they probably can
Zeusky Babarusky , 1 hour ago linkI still think 1st and 2nd ammedment is predicated on which party rules the house. If a Dem gets into the WH, we're fucked. Kiss those Iast two dying amendments goodbye for good.
Zoomorph , 1 hour ago linkIf we rely on any party to preserve the 1st or 2nd Amendments, we are already fucked. What should preserve the 1st and 2nd Amendments is the absolute fear of anyone in government even mentioning suppressing or removing them. When the very thought of doing anything to lessen the rights advocated in these two amendments, causes a politician to piss in their pants, liberty will be preserved. As it is now citizens fear the government, and as a result tyranny continues to grow and fester as a cancer.
Zeusky Babarusky , 1 hour ago linkIn other words, those amendments are already lost... we're just waiting for the final dictate to come down.
SHsparx , 49 minutes ago linkYou may very well be right. I still hold out hope, but upon seeing what our society is quickly morphing into, that hope seems to fade more each and every day.
bshirley1968 , 1 hour ago link@ Zeusky Babarusky
I couldn't agree with you more.
Unfortunately, it is what it is, which is why I used the word "dying."
Those two amendments are on their deathbed, and if a Dem gets in the house, that'll be the nail in the coffin.
Nephilim , 1 hour ago linkIf you think the 1st and 2nd amendments are reliant on who is in office, then you are already done. Why don't you try growing a pair and being an American for once in your life.
I will always have a 1st and 2nd "amendment" for as long as I live. Life is meaningless without them.....as far as I am concerned. Good thing the founders didn't wait for king George to give them what they "felt" was theirs.....by the laws of Nature and Nature's God.
I hope the democrats get the power......and I hope they come for the guns......maybe then pussies like you will finally have to **** or get off the pot......for once in your life. There are worse things than dying.
Zoomorph , 1 hour ago linkTHEHAZELFLOCKOFCRANES
BRINDLED FOOT,
AUSTRALIAN.
caveofgoldcaveofold
delta0ne , 1 hour ago link"Why do we have wars?"
"Because life is war: fighting for survival, resources, and what is best in the world."
"Why do people say war is bad?"
"Because they are useful idiots who have been tricked by religion and/or weak degenerates who are too weary to participate."
blind_understanding , 1 hour ago linkThis country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Unless we get rid of *** influencing from abroad and domestically. Getting rid of English King few hundred years ago was a joke! this would be a challenge because dual-citizens masquerading as locals.
djrichard , 1 hour ago linkLast revolution (1776) we targeted the WRONG ENEMY.
We targeted King George III instead of the private bankers who owned of the Bank of England and the issued of the British-pound currency.
George III was himself up to his ears in debt to them by 1776, when the bankers installed George Washington to replace George III as their middleman in the American colonies, by way of the phony revolution.
Phony because ownership of the central bank and currency (Federal-Reserve Banks, Federal-Reserve notes) we use, remains in the same banking families' hands to this day. The same parasite remains within our government.
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/05/16/the-gervais-principle-vi-children-of-an-absent-god/
It is this strangely incomplete calculus that creates the shifting Loser world of rifts and alliances. By operating with a more complete calculus, Sociopaths are able to manipulate this world through the divide-and-conquer mechanisms. The result is that the Losers end up blaming each other for their losses, seek collective emotional resolution, and fail to adequately address the balance sheet of material rewards and losses.
To succeed, this strategy requires that Losers not look too closely at the non-emotional books. This is why, as we saw last time, divide-and-conquer is the most effective means for dealing with them, since it naturally creates emotional drama that keeps them busy while they are being manipulated.
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May 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
vk , May 20, 2019 8:29:43 AM |