son and grandchild to visit the Brazilian side. The family is not poor. There was mountain acreage they visited, with cell service only on a walk, and armed guards. Presumably looking for invaders. Shudder for me.

Why burn instead of clearcut? Or is burn to eliminate evidence of rapine? That sat photo was very sad. Unstable government makes more sense if we view this all as a Grand Takeover, in-your-face, lowly ones!

edits for post-concussion symptoms, sorry.

for this report, cogent and detailed and VERY important!

Among the geopolitical crowd, it was clear the moment it happened that there would be hell to pay. The Neoliberals got to work in Brazil.

For poor Brazil, the nightmare is just getting started. I described the situation — and how it was triggered — about a month ago:

If you will recall, the week prior to the Snowden incident, Brazil's economy was steady and Dilma Rousseff was preparing for an historic State Visit at the invitation of President Obama. Among the first Snowden documents that Greenwald released was an example of NSA/USA spying on their closest friends, allies, and trading partners. The example surveillance documents released were those of Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff.

That triggered a period of tense telephone calls between Obama and Rousseff that culminated in Rousseff abruptly canceling the elaborately prepared State Visit. This was an embarrassment to the White House that kicked off a string of continuing distrust and resentment between the US and the rest of the world.

Within six weeks, Putin was embroiled in the same drama. He had also embarrassed the White House by refusing to discuss Ed Snowden's extradition from Russia to the US. The fact that Russia rarely extradicts and does not have an extradition treaty with the US mattered not. Looking back to compare Russia/US relations prior to Snowden, we can see that everything changed abruptly and Russia was doomed. Little did Russia know then about sanctions and NATO border threats that were to come.

A handful of countries — including Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela — accused the US of illegal surveillance of their citizens or suggested they would offer Snowden asylum. Some months later the US yanked Bolivian President Evo Morales out of the sky over Europe as he was en route to Bolivia. His plane was denied airspace by France, Spain and Italy and he was forced to land in Austria, where he was reportedly searched. Morales later said that the grounding of his plane was a violation of international law. US relations with Latin America have since chilled. The nations that also spoke out against the US are waiting warily for the revenge hammer to drop on them.

Empire demands that the US strike hard at any nation that defies or embarrasses the US.

Certainly, no nation wants to suffer the hideous "adversities" that have flattened Malaysia, as a result of their imperious behavior against the US Empire:

Do you remember this? It you were outside the US, you would have read it in the paper or seen it on the news. If you were inside the US, not so much:

Kuala Lumpur — It’s official; George W Bush is a war criminal.

May 12, 2012

In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were yesterday (Fri) found guilty of war crimes.

Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.

The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[In 2014, Malaysia Airlines lost two aircraft—Flight 370 and Flight 17—less than five months apart, exacerbating the airline's financial troubles and leading to the renationalisation of the airline. Prior to 2014, MAS had one of the world's best safety records—just two fatal accidents in 68 years of operation, including the hijacking in 1977 of Flight 653 that resulted in 100 deaths.

MAS is now a regional airline and plans to rebrand itself.]

::

But by far, the most hideous US payback as a result of Snowden's actions, is the continuing destruction of Ukraine by the Neonazi coup government installed by the US. Right on Russia's border, the Neonazis are engaged in the successful slaughter of the ethnic Russian population that has been living there for centuries. All this to provoke Putin for not extraditing Ed Snowden back to the US.

What is going to happen next in Brazil will not be reported in the US. At the hands of the Neoliberals, Brazil will follow the fate of its fellow US target, the Ukraine.

The main feature of contemporary Ukraine is that all political and economic power in the country belongs to those who organized Euromaidan, its coup d'etat and its violent seizure of power. These are the men who financed and carried out the propaganda of Euromaidan to a dazed, zombified population.

This zombification is the result of constant humiliation and the never ending sense of real powerlessness while the Orwellian machine repeats how modernity has “empowered” them. It is cognitive conflict, conceptual confusion, self-doubt and depression that leads to abulia and then, total liquidation. Ukraine is probably father alone than most nations in the world.

The events in Ukraine over the last 18 months have left far more questions than answers. The American press has proved itself so incompetent in this area that reading any treatment in the mainline sources is a waste of time. The reader will know less when finished then when he started. When a political situation is obscure, journalistic hacks can more or less say whatever they want. There will be only a few who can respond, and their response will be in a language that the average reader finds mysterious.

Ukraine is a graphic and depressing example of what the west does to its smaller, weaker allies. The USSR was not a just government, but it did provide a modicum of protection against the worst elements of liberal violence and aggression. Today, Eurasia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are all that exists to take its place.

The NSA is always listening. Don't stand out.

The safe vote is the Neocon vote in 2016.

Any other vote is regarded as "deplorable" and unAmerican. One could end up on the wrong list. Little wonder that people are reluctant to vote in the US.

I noticed the burning fires back in the 70s. You leave Miami early and the sun rises when you are over Brazil on the way to Rio or São Paulo. I always counted the fires 10? 20? But now it's out of control.

Beef and sugar cane for "gasohol" are the driving forces.
The
Then again the environmental movement is getting stronger in Brazil (and South America) and it gives me hope.

Over a caipirinha at a bar I'll tell you my relationship with the Amazon.

I'm with Bernie who called it a coup too.

and other nations such as the United Kingdom for a long, long, time.

With regard to Russia, there is little chance of success, and everybody knows it. All of this is posturing designed to keep Europe tied into NATO.

No one, but no one, is going to take down Russia. The United States may be technologically sophisticated, but they are not the new incarnation of the Mongols. Never will be.

That being said, it is people whose creed is amassing wealth and building systems of secrecy to hide their influence that are ruining the planet for the rest of us.

The bigger problem is, such people will never, ever go away. They will be replaced by others with the mind and the means to reestablish their niche.

I am not saying that this is a lost cause. What I am saying is that the typical thinking about these problems doesn't work.

Brazil has a real conservative streak, as many have pointed out, as do many Latin American countries, as do the United States and Canada.

Every apex species on this stupid rock is vicious. It is the nature of the fight against entropy, it is written in the order of the physical world. I doubt it could be otherwise on any other planet. Cooperation is something that requires what no one will ever have: the ability to predict the future completely and total agreement on a system of prediction and its results.

Never, ever going to happen in any material-based lifeform with free will.

Nevertheless, I wish that

Peace and love be with you, reader.