The Weekly Watch

We Have Met the Terrorists
and They are U.S.

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Throughout the twenty year war on terror, we have failed again and again to look in the mirror. Self reflection is not an American strong point. Clearly the US provokes more global violence, destruction, and death than any other nation...by far (and has done so since at least WWII). However, 9/11 provided the impetuous to do far more...added gas to the fire, creating selective wars, coups, and conflicts without congressional approval (and in many cases public awareness).

It is appropriate and necessary that we also reflect on the illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the unspeakable deaths and destruction caused by the Global War on Terror that followed the attacks: more than one million Iraqis; 164,000 people in Afghanistan; 80,000 Pakistanis; and countless more in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Niger, and more we don’t even know about.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/global-war-terror-comes-home/33901

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...the United States has approximately 800 formal military bases in 80 countries, a number that could exceed 1,000 if you count troops stationed at embassies and missions and so-called “lily-pond” bases, with some 138,000 soldiers stationed around the globe. David Vine, author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Overseas Harm America and the World, reported that only 11 other countries have bases in foreign countries, some 70 altogether. Russia has an estimated 26 to 40 in nine countries, mostly former Soviet Republics, as well as in Syria and Vietnam; the UK, France, and Turkey have four to 10 bases each; and an estimated one to three foreign bases are occupied by India, China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-us-has-military-bases-in-1...

The US has 95% of the world’s foreign military bases, with personnel in more than 160 countries. But the Pentagon is leaving hundreds of outposts out of its official reports.

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/01/15/us-military-160-countries-pentagon-hi...

Countries have a variety of reasons for allowing these bases, from financial to fear of reprisal. https://www.ranker.com/list/how-america-has-military-bases-all-around-th...

...But why all these bases? In a nutshell it is about profit and economic dominance, maintaining the USD as the world's standard currency and US hegemonic power.

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The US unquenchable thirst for war is wrapped in dollar bills. Michael Hudson explains... (12 min)

Part 2 here 12 min
Max and Stacy do a good job describing the "Terror Industrial Complex" (12 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y2y-aAjI2M

The dollar has corrupted the US both systematically and personally. Consider these Generals.

(5 min)

All driven as war, death and destruction is cheered on by the MSM.

There’s a very blurry line between Politico’s financial relationship with the largest weapons firm in the United States, Lockheed Martin, and its editorial output. And that line may have just become even more opaque.

Last week, Responsible Statecraft’s Ethan Paul reported that Politico was scrubbing its archives of any reference to Lockheed Martin’s longtime sponsorship of the publication’s popular newsletter, Morning Defense. While evidence of Lockheed’s financial relationship with Politico was erased, the popular beltway outlet just published a remarkable puff piece about the company, with no acknowledgement of the longstanding financial relationship with Politico.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/09/07/politico-runs-lockheed-mart...

The first US war OF terror was directed at Afghanistan (although most 9/11 attackers were Saudi). Possibly in the next few months the FBI documents on 9/11 will be released.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/03/joe-biden-fbi-release-fi...

Operation Encore and the Saudi Connection: A Secret History of the 9/11 Investigation
Behind the scenes, a small team of FBI agents spent years trying to solve a stubborn mystery — whether officials from Saudi Arabia, one of Washington’s closest allies, were involved in the worst terror attack in U.S. history.

It is ironic that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Yet, Saudi Arabia was given special privilege after the attacks. Sen Bob Graham explains why he persists in making the case that facts directly connect the Saudi government with 9/11 conspirators.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-AK4FBmZZU (16 min)

Senator Graham co-chaired the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11 that investigated intelligence failures leading up to 9/11. The inquiry’s final report included a 28-page chapter describing the Saudi connection to 9/11, but it was completely redacted by U.S. intelligence agencies.

“I was stunned that the intelligence community would feel that it was a threat to national security for the American people to know who had made 9/11 financially possible,” said Senator Graham. “And I am sad to report that today, some 12 years after we submitted our report, that those 28 pages continue to be withheld from the public.”

Video or transcript...
Twenty years later, Thomas Drake still says the NSA knew about the 9/11 plotters prior to the attack, and likely reported the intel through a back channel to VP Cheney. Nothing was done to prevent the attack, says Drake a former senior executive at the NSA. Why? To prepare public opinion in favor of invading Iraq.

The entire show is good but I cut to the foreign war focus...

On the show Chris Hedges discusses the work of political philosopher Sheldon Wolin with Professor Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley, a student of Wolin’s.
Sheldon Wolin, who died in 2015, is our most important contemporary political theorist, one who laid out in grim detail the unraveling of American democracy. In his books “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism” and “Politics and Vision,” a massive survey of Western political thought that his former student Cornel West calls “magisterial,” Wolin lays bare the causes behind the decline of American empire and the rise of a new and terrifying configuration of corporate power he calls “inverted totalitarianism.” Wolin throughout his scholarship charted the steady devolution of American democracy and in his last book, “Democracy Incorporated,” wrote: “One cannot point to any national institution[s] that can accurately be described as democratic, surely not in the highly managed, money-saturated elections, the lobby-infested Congress, the imperial presidency, the class-biased judicial and penal system, or, least of all, the media.” He argued that America’s system of inverted totalitarianism is different from classical forms of totalitarianism. It finds its expression in the faceless anonymity of the corporate state. Our inverted totalitarianism pays outward fealty to the facade of electoral politics, the Constitution, civil liberties, freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, and the iconography, traditions and language of American patriotism, but it has effectively seized all of the mechanisms of power to render the citizen impotent.

This is a long form in depth conversation...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oca3UvG2HPA (2 hours)

Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton discuss the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks with Professor Asad Abukhalil, and the millions of victims of the "War on Terror."
We spoke about US imperialism's constant meddling in the Middle East, how the CIA helped create and empower al-Qaeda and other extremist Salafi-jihadist groups, and Washington's hybrid wars on Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and more.
We also addressed how Bush-era neocons have been rehabilitated by and even merged with the Democratic Party and liberal "humanitarian interventionists."

Journalist and filmmaker John Pilger discusses the takeover of the Taliban in Afghanistan. He calls the US military a killing machine and discusses why the Afghanistan War must be viewed through the lens of Western imperialism, the scale of civilian casualties and destruction of Afghanistan by NATO countries, how the US created today’s situation by supporting Afghan jihadist forces against the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, the social progress and progressive reform lost to history with the fall of the Soviet-backed PDPA government in Afghanistan and much more! John Pilger also discusses the anniversary of the Pinochet coup in Chile and the trial of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

(27 min)

The US uses sanctions as a means of siege warfare
(which isn't legal, but the US is above any law).

The US is using its financial power as leverage over the Taliban. Despite warnings of an impending humanitarian crisis due to a lack of food and medical infrastructure, the US has seized about $7 billion in Afghan reserves that are held by the US Federal Reserve. The Biden administration has also pressured the IMF into denying Afghanistan access to certain funds.

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/09/08/blinken-says-us-afghan-relations-wil...

“At the conclusion of twenty years of occupation and at a cost of one to two trillion dollars,” write Ben Phillips and Jonathan Glennie at Inter Press Service, “Afghanistan has been left the poorest country per capita in Asia; the number of Afghans in poverty has doubled; half of the population is dependent on humanitarian assistance; half lack access to drinkable water; poppy cultivation has trebled and opium production is at its height.”

And as Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies point out, “Even as UN agencies warn of an impending humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the U.S. Treasury has frozen nearly all of the Afghan Central Bank’s $9.4 billion in foreign currency reserves, depriving the new government of funds that it will desperately need in the coming months to feed its people and provide basic services.

Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.) writes:

The uncomfortable and oft-unspoken truth is that even if every trooper marches out of Afghanistan, America’s military still bombs 5-10 countries, fights in 10-12, "advises and assists" combatant forces in about 20, and has bases in some 80 nations. And those are low estimates. Moreover, the military-industrial complex is still wildly powerful, raking in record yields bought with American blood. After all, the Afghanistan Study Group, charged by Congress to advise on war strategy, was plain packed with past and present employees of war-profiteering outfits. Not surprisingly, they recommended Washington continue the war.

To his credit, President Biden seems to have avoided their trap, at least in Afghanistan – and, perhaps predictably, has consequently been lambasted by the political and punditry establishment. Still, even after the last (uniformed) U.S. service member stepped onto a cargo plane at Kabul’s Airport, the system that schemes, sells, and profits from these wars, and then appoints their arsonist architects to advise commanders-in-chief, well – that remains firmly in place. It’s an entrenched power structure designed for war, that breeds inertia, and will make it difficult to end our other muddled military missions.

The U.S. does not want peace in Afghanistan. There are two reasons for that.
The first is vengefulness.
The second reason why the U.S. does not want peace in Afghanistan is geopolitical.
As the former Indian ambassador M.K.Bhadrakumar analyses:
US intelligence has made deep ingresses into the Taliban and has gained the capability to splinter it, weaken it and subdue it, when the crunch time comes. Suffice to say, Taliban will not have an easy time ahead. Washington’s interest lies in creating a “stateless” situation in the country without a functioning central government so that it can intervene at will and pursue its geopolitical objectives aimed at the regional countries.
The unspoken agenda here is to start a hybrid war where the ISIS fighters airlifted by the US from Syria and transferred to Afghanistan, with battle-hardened veterans from Central Asia, Xinjiang, North Caucasus, etc. operating in the regions surrounding Afghanistan.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/09/why-us-plans-for-revenge-in-afghan...

In reality, 80 to 90% of US war spending in Afghanistan returned to the US economy through private for-profit US contractors. And the top five weapons-manufacturing military contractors received more than $2 trillion in US government funding during the war.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/08/24/propaganda-today-ben-norton-afghanist...

Could another reason to resist Afghan withdrawal be a dark money drug pipeline?

https://thesaker.is/9-11-a-u-s-deep-state-insider-speaks/
Part 4 On heroin: “The Afghanistan heroin war was justified by 9-11. No one in Afghanistan was involved in 9/11. No member of Islam was involved. We invaded Afghanistan for only one purpose, which was to restart heroin production shut down by a righteous act of Mullah Omar.”

Part 5 On CIA and heroin: “CIA heroin plantations in Afghanistan funded external, clandestine operations and lined some important people’s pockets. That was common practice when the CIA ran the heroin operation in the Golden Triangle.”

Part 6 On MOTIVE: “It was never in the U.S. strategic interest to lay a curse on Islam in the West.” “9-11 was a kind of Gulf of Tonkin false flag operation justifying a war on Islam and the invasion of Iraq, followed by other invasions of Islamic nations.”

MSM is now endlessly covering the new Afghan Government and the lack of women and appointment of 'hard liners'. Let's see how many women serve in Saudi Arabia's cabinet? Oh yeah, they don't have a cabinet, they are a tribal theocracy that doesn't recognize women nor their rights.

Biden’s popular and long overdue withdrawal from Afghanistan triggered a big media meltdown that exposed its de facto merger with the military.

The media offensive against Biden’s Afghan withdrawal advanced arguments that the military could not make on its own – at least, not in public. It also provided the military with important cover at the moment when it was at its most vulnerable for its disastrous handling of the entire war.

Among the most disingenuous attempts at salvaging the military’s reputation was a Washington Post article blaming the Afghan catastrophe on an over-emphasis on “democratic values” while ignoring the the tight alliance between the U.S. military and despotic warlords which drove local support for the Taliban.

More Middle East War...

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In Germany, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the US is getting “closer” to giving up on the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/09/08/blinken-says-us-getting-closer-to-gi...

Biden entered office with a prime opportunity to revive the Iran nuclear deal, but has instead caved to the demands of Tel Aviv. Now the deal is nearly dead and Israel is plotting more actions against Iran with US support. Returning to the deal could help Washington disengage from the Middle East, but Biden is sticking with an ‘Israel First’ policy.
In the occupied territories, the Palestinians continue to suffer under a brutal military regime. In recent weeks, Palestinians – including children – were gunned down and others had their homes destroyed by the Israeli forces. The behavior of the occupying forces is unsurprising as Human Rights Watch recently reported Israel likely committed war crimes by bombing apartment buildings in Gaza.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHMXt0oqrjY (1.5 hours)

Since the US first backed Saudi Arabia in Yemen in March 2015, the coalition has dropped bombs on schools, farms, water treatment facilities, marketplaces, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure. On top of the vicious air campaign, the coalition has enforced a blockade on Yemen and is still blocking fuel shipments from entering the country. At the end of 2020, the UN estimated 233,000 people have died in Yemen due to the war.

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/09/08/un-18000-yemeni-civilians-killed-or-...

Africa

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George Galloway on Libya (2.5 min)
"NATO backed Al Qaeda against Gaddafi in Libya - now Libyans are paying the price…

Nine years ago, the US Ambassador to Libya was killed in a terrorist attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi. RT America’s Brigida Santos has more on this tragic anniversary. Then, professor of History at the University of Houston Gerald Horne shares his perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZhtrP-cAXM (7.5 min)

With great insanity the US is challenging other nuclear armed nations...
China

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Russia

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...to even comment on the stupidity of being adversarial rather than cooperative with these super powers would require volumes and is beyond the scope of this reflective rant.
At least there was a phone call this week.
Biden and Xi speak on phone for first time in seven months

Since the Monroe Doctrine the US has viewed Latin America as its own colony...
Latin America

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Let us not forget the 9/11 anniversary of the US Chilean Coup...

Nixon placing economic sanctions against Chile also did nothing to topple Allende, but targeted the Chilean workers. In 1972 and again in 1973, the CIA took more potent shots at Chile’s economy. Widespread work stoppages conducted by shopkeepers, truck and other freight owners compensated by the CIA funds created the shortages and inflation that gripped Chile. Consumer goods were becoming scarce and the black market was thriving. Interestingly enough this was even confirmed the the CNN’s very pro-imperialist documentary series The Cold War in the 18th episode “The Backyard” dealing with Latin America. On 27 April, workers took to the streets of Santiago and marched to Parliament demanding an end to the work stoppage. They called for full expropriation of the bourgeoisie, and for the workers to take part in economic planning. From the Christian Democrats’ building several PyL fascists fired into the crowd killing 22 year old worker José Ricardo Ahumada and wounding six others. A few days later he was mourned by 300,000 workers who gathered in Santiago to continue the protest. This period saw some of the most intense street fights between workers and the bourgeois forces backed by the PyL fascists whom were dubbed “mummies” by the workers. In the face of right-wing reaction, support for Allende and his programs skyrocketed among Chilean workers. It was the same in Venezuela when they faced sanctions from the iconic presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The Augusto Pinochet Coup- How The USA Brought Neoliberal Fascism To Chile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NP0mmEbQk0 (15 min)

Chilean journalist and the former director of TeleSUR English for the 48th Anniversary of the US-backed, CIA-facilitated coup in Chile which saw the death of democratically-elected socialist President Salvador Allende and the beginning of an era of neoliberal fascism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bg8Yv_2ecc (14 min)

Roger Waters discusses the significance of the 9/11 attacks and his initial hope that Americans would wake up to US imperialism, how the global war on terror almost destroyed the world, Chile’s 9/11: the CIA-backed coup which brought Augusto Pinochet to power in 1973, entrenched neoliberalism in Chile and protests against President Sebastian Pinera.

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More recently the US participated (created) coups in Bolivia, Brazil (to install Bolsanaro), Nicaragua, Venezuela, and the decades long effort to topple Cuba's government... just to mention a few.

Welcome the empire home!
Because the empire has indeed come home to roost...

In the 1960s, the anti-war movement called for bringing the war home. Now, in some perverse way, we have brought the Global War on Terror home.

The policies and practices of counterterrorism were and are bipartisan, supported and expanded by presidents and members of both political parties. In 1996, even before the 9/11 attacks, President Bill Clinton – with bipartisan support by Congress (91 to 8 in the Senate) – passed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, described as a law “to deter terrorism.”

It remains today – with higher penalties – one of the main legal structures to prosecute and imprison Muslims, Palestinians opposing occupation and others resisting US-supported oppressive governments.
...
The designated terror groups have consisted almost entirely of those that oppose US occupation or policies, or oppose authoritarian allies of the US. Meanwhile, groups that were clearly involved in terrorism, like the Israeli military and settler groups, or the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, have never been listed or were removed under lobbying pressure.

Within two months of 9/11, the more than 300-page USA Patriot Act (it begs the question of whether it was drafted before the attacks) was passed. This legalized broad, unconstitutional powers of surveillance that, up until then, had been done secretly in a program called Stellar Wind that was not even known to many members of the National Security Agency.

The Patriot Act created powers to secretly spy on US citizens and collect billions of metadata phone records – the numbers, dates and other identifying information of the senders and receivers of every phone call made in the US, including phone calls made to persons abroad. Shockingly, former National Security Agency director Michael Hayden said “we kill people based on metadata.”

The Patriot Act also authorized National Security Letters, which empower federal agents to obtain private telecommunications and customer records held by banks and other financial institutions without court approval. The provision meanwhile gags victims of such searches, prohibiting them from speaking publicly about it.

On his third day in office, Obama initiated drone attacks in Pakistan that killed at least nine civilians. Throughout his tenure, Obama regularly approved, or had his subordinates approve murderous drone attacks, reportedly working from a secret White House “kill list.”

He opted for a supposedly cleaner way to kill suspected terrorists by air. During his presidency he was responsible for more than 500 drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan alone, not counting drone and airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. Since it was all done in secrecy, we will never know the real totals.

Drones attacked mosques, funerals and weddings, signature strikes that did not aim at a specific target but focused on general targets. Murder without due process, even targeting US citizens. The use of drones was the centerpiece of Obama’s counterterrorism strategy and Michael D’Andrea, the head of the drone strikes program, was the former director of the CIA counterterrorism center.

On 31 December 2011, Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, which specifically allowed the apprehension and indefinite military detention without trial of anyone, including US citizens, suspected of threatening the security of the homeland.

Does the evacuation of Iraq and now Afghanistan bring an end to the Global War on Terror?

Until we eliminate the US interests in policing the world with drones and other forms of airpower, and until the US ends its lust to control the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, the Global War on Terror abroad and its concomitant war at home will continue with all the violence and rights violations that entails.
This essay is adapted from a presentation made by the author at a gathering of peace groups in Chicago on 25 August 2021.

Caity's notes from the matrix are fun this week. Here's a few excerpts...

Imagine if the world’s deadliest terrorist group got their hands on drones and cruise missiles and nuclear warheads and aircraft carriers and circled the planet with hundreds of military bases and began waging wars and destroying any country which disobeyed their dictates.

No, Texas conservatives aren’t like the Taliban. No, US government authoritarianism isn’t like China or North Korea. You know what it’s like? It’s like America. It says so much that the most corrupt and destructive nation on earth keeps comparing its homegrown depravity to foreign nations.

“If it wasn’t us waging all these wars and killing all those people it’d be someone else” sounds very much like the sort of thing an abusive tyrant would say.

There’s no good reason to respect the analysis of anyone who thinks China’s behavior on the world stage is worse than or equally as bad as America’s.

At a time when our species is hurtling toward its own demise we ought to be coming together and working in unison to avert disaster, and it says so much about the power of propaganda that we are instead doing the exact opposite.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/09/10/twenty-years-of-phony-tears-abou...
And it’s all just so very, very stupid. This nation which has spent twenty years weeping about its victimization with Bambi-eyed innocence reacted to 9/11 with wars which killed millions and displaced tens of millions and ushered in an unprecedented new era of military expansionism which has funneled trillions of dollars to some of the worst people in the world.

Compared to the horrors the United States unleashed upon the world under the justification of 9/11, 9/11 itself was a family trip to Disneyland. The death and destruction visited upon Iraq alone dwarfs the 2,977 people killed on 9/11 by orders of magnitude; hell, this was true of the death and destruction the US had been inflicting on Iraq even before 9/11.

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Onward into the brave new world of 1984.

This thread is open to all thoughts, ideas, notions, and stories. I look forward to your comments below.

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Dawn's Meta's picture

of a complex and long running story together. You have done that in spades here.

I know most of this, but in bits and pieces. Collectively, yes it's overwhelming, but extremely necessary in a time when change and disruption come at an increasing pace. It's hard to keep track or keep one's eye on the ball.

Tremendous help, well compiled. So much work, deserves our attention and thanks.

Will return for a longer read. My god...

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

Lookout's picture

@Dawn's Meta

The US addiction to war...here it is delineated in a comic book.
https://www.addictedtowar.com/about-atw
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_E0Ji8tkvw]
4 min

Thanks for coming by and reading.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

lotlizard's picture

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Lookout's picture

@lotlizard

...but it was getting pretty long as is. So sad, the perverse understanding of most citizens...blind to the evils of their own country. So effectively propagandized.

Hope you have a great Sunday!

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16 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
I see the whole thing as a gang war between the Bush and bin Laden crime families. And Osama was not IMHO a renegade bin Laden. I think he exactly represented his murderous Saudi family.
I refuse to accept blame for what the Bushies and CIA have done. I never supported them in any way and zero control over their actions. It's like blaming ordinary German workers for the Holocaust or ordinary Japanese workers for Nanjing.

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10 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Lookout's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

Which is beyond national...it is a global cabal. We play a blame game in the US which distracts from actually solving problems by endlessly arguing about whose fault it is.

We created a "not me" monster" in our household to avoid such senseless arguments...just blame it on the monster. I guess that's what I'm doing in the essay looking at the monster of capital greed which has manufactured a system creating weapons in every state in order to own the government driving war for their own benefit complete with its own CIA/mafia engineers. That is how I see the U.S. YMMV?

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
But I don't blame America or the concept of America or even capitalism in general.
As a former control engineer I know every control system needs negative feedback or it becomes a wild oscillator.

Unrestrained capitalism is as bad (or possibly worse) than unrestrained Communism. With a dictatorship, there is no control valve. FDR (as urged by Frances Perkins) installed control valves. Truman, Eisenhower, kennedy and Johnson modified the controls. Reagan started taking them off and then both major parties galloped down that path with Democrat Bill Clinton (or was it HRC's influence?) gaining the lead. Democrat Obama did his dirty deeds too.

IIRC Aristotle or Plato said all political systems degenerate. hence we see the rise and fall of Empires. over and dreary over. The czar replaced by Stalin. What was the difference. oh, yeah. Stalin was even crueler and inhuman.

As for those who think CHINA is more humane than the USA! No. But China does have literally millenia more Imperial experience, starting with the builder of the long wall.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Lookout's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

Good and bad in everything. It is the yin and yang.

It isn't a question of who is worse...at least to my mind. But in the near term, the US does far more evil than China...at least from my view. They don't have ships in our gulf nor rockets in Cuba as we do around them. But we are good, they are bad, as well as the reverse is a false concept. Evil is as evil does and here's plenty of both to go around.

Hope your fruit trees did well this year. Mine made good growth but little production. They are young. All the best!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
Turns out pears can tolerate even colder tempreaures. Had two pears on a five year old Butirra Precoce Morettini
This is a fantastic tasting pear! Smooth and flavorful. Catalog says August but I picked mine in July. Everything is about two or three weeks early this year. Cold cold winter followed by summer hotter than Alabama.
ref my other comments about how it's not the absolute temperature that's the problem with Global warming, it's the crazy swings!
Cannot praise that pear enough. Nursery prices are ridiculous though. I'd be glad to send you some scion wood in Spring.
My flat of Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes weren't. they appear to be Black krim. okay flavor (they are fresh ripe tomatoes! not gassed green tomatoes) but they crack easily. Picked 112 pears from four ten foot trees.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

CB's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness
where the average worker could get an education, buy a home and raise a family in a safe environment.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnFWhCwx5dw]

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@CB

However, they may be able to learn these things. Expat writer, Larry Romanoff, wrote a particularly telling essay on "Understanding China" to describe why it is so difficult for the Western mind to perceive China. It begins:

My Chinese friends tell me I have a deep understanding of China, of its people and culture and, while the praise is flattering, it is also largely undeserved. Indeed, after fifteen years in the country, there are days when I am blindsided by something so basic that I am convinced I understand nothing, and I would have to say that if China cannot be understood by Westerners from the inside, it most assuredly cannot be understood by Westerners from the outside who have no useful contact with anything Chinese.

Westerners live in an illusionary black and white world framed for them by the programming from their Zionist media and are mostly incapable of escaping their ideological indoctrination. There is an adage that you cannot understand a painting when you are inside the painting, that you must step out of that painting and look back on it, to see it as it really is. Few Westerners are capable of this because of the propagandised indoctrination taking place from birth. This social indoctrination is true of course for all societies, but the Zionist West, unlike the vast majority of the world’s population, views virtually everything about other nations and peoples through a series of political-religious ideological lenses that cast a rather severe chromatic aberration on anything seen through those lenses.

These ideologies are of capitalism, democracy, colonialism, militarism, White supremacy, Darwinism, Christianity and Zionism, these forces conspiring to twist the truths of China so as to almost eliminate any possibility of real understanding while simultaneously disdaining any real need to do so. The White man, the Zionist West, here including Japan, sees the world as Metropole and periphery, the non-white world populated by inferior beings meant to be exploited by coercion or military force, their resources used to enthrone the West while enslaving the world, all according to God’s plan. To see the truth of this, we need only examine their deeds, history providing ample testimony to this assertion.

The Western media are notorious for their incessant and shrill China-bashing, but it seems true that virtually everyone outside China is reading from the same script. We must have hundreds of publications and websites named China Labor Bulletin, China Economic Review, China Auto News, China anything and everything . . . , that are not in any sense Chinese, but are media sources established by Westerners who are primarily but not exclusively Zionists and who, mostly deliberately, misinterpret and misrepresent the facts and fundamentals of China. We have Western-produced statistics on everything related to China, from GINI coefficients to bank debt, from GDP to National Income and standard of living, from education to health care to longevity and infant mortality, all of which, even when based on numbers initially obtained from official Chinese government sources, are then massaged and misrepresented to prove the opposite of reality. We have hundreds, and perhaps even thousands, of books about China, mostly written by these same people viewing the country through those same ideological lenses and thus mostly being works of historical fiction, many reprehensibly so.

The ingrained notion of superiority, white supremacy in fact, is a major obstacle to understanding even for the well-intentioned. When the Chinese travel to a foreign land and witness a foreign culture, they think “I’m different”. When Americans (and Canadians, Brits, Aussies) encounter a foreign culture, they think “I’m better”. It is also true that the Americans particularly, but the entire white and English-speaking world in total, have no respect for, and see no value in, any other culture, secretly believing that all the world wants to be like them and that claims to cultural protection are merely an excuse to avoid the inevitable, which is to become American clones. It is in this combined and complicated context that sincere individual Westerners attempt to understand China, an exceedingly difficult task in the circumstances.
The Chinese are not handicapped by the horrors of Christianity or party politics, and they mostly do not view outside events through a distorting lens. Westerners are fond of portraying the Chinese as being brainwashed, but in my long experience the Chinese are the least brainwashed of all peoples while Americans are the poster [children] in this regard.

Due to all of the above, when Westerners look at any aspect of China, they may see it clearly, but most often do not understand what they see. Because they view the world through their ideological lenses, they interpret their misunderstanding in terms of what that event would mean if occurring in their country and in their culture. And from this misinterpretation of a misunderstanding, they then make judgments and form conclusions which are invariably wrong and often foolish.

.

It is so worth a full read of "Understanding China". The essay offers Westerners a starting point to begin understanding, for example, why the Chinese culture has endured for 10,000 years. Later, when you discover the truth about how China chooses its leaders, you will be simply amazed. Everyone, no matter how humble, who is born in China is tested and advanced, and everyone has an opportunity to be that leader.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Lookout's picture

@Pluto's Republic

Americans are so arrogant in their own image of greatness, they fail to see others as equals or even their betters...beyond their comprehension. One reason I enjoy travel is to occasionally get out of the US bubble of superiority.

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8 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

CB's picture

@Pluto's Republic @Pluto's Republic
article from BLUE MOON OF SHANGHAI. It is one of my bookmarks. I've been fascinated by China's rise and development for decades.

Larry Romanoff has also posted extensively on COVID-19 from a Chinese viewpoint.

EDIT: I changed the link from the tag to the basic list so the dates are now sequential. It looks like he was doing some housekeeping.

Unfortunately the articles are no longer in the proper sequence by date and some of the dates have changed. You will have to click on the paging links at the bottom of the page to view the selection. But be forewarned, you can spend a lot of time there reading his fascinating articles.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@CB

Larry Romanoff is migrating his work from one to the other.

His writing is a Living Treasure of understanding for today's ripped-apart world.

I've been wondering for a long time how to properly introduce him here.

Perhaps this is a start.

This is probably the best place to start:

BLUE MOON OF SHANGHI

Enjoy your journey.

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6 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Lily O Lady's picture

@CB

Good luck. Some Chinese invest evert penny in apartments that turn out to be “ghost castles”—buildings that are never completed because the developers go broke. Corruption is an equal opportunity disease, infecting all economic systems.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/3016103/

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6 users have voted.

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

CB's picture

@Lily O Lady

List of countries by home ownership rate
China 89.68%
United States 65.3%

Beware of Japanese, Australian or American media when it comes to China. They will invariably publish articles that show China in a bad light.

Corruption is an equal opportunity disease, infecting all economic systems.

China will strive to clean up irregularities in property market in 3 years
July 23, 2021

BEIJING, July 23 (Reuters) - China will strive to clean up irregularities in the property market in three years, the housing ministry said on Friday, as Beijing keeps up pressure on the red-hot market by tackling unbridled borrowing.

The regulators will launch a probe into new construction by property developers, the use of illegal funds for mortgages and the deduction of rental deposits, said a notice jointly issued by eight government agencies, including China’s state planner and the market regulator.

Vice Premier Han Zheng on Thursday reiterated the Chinese government’s current stance that “housing is for living in, not for speculation”.
...

The Chinese government has a PROVEN history of getting rid of corruption when it finds it. Not even multi-billion dollar corporations can buck the government if they are found to be not working in the Chinese people's best interest.

China's crackdown on its biggest companies
July 29, 2021

With market-trembling new rules and investigations, Beijing's crackdown on its most prominent companies has seeped into nearly every aspect of modern life, wiping billions of dollars from Chinese and Hong Kong-listed stocks and bamboozling investment sages.

From after-school tutoring to music streaming apps, and shopping to bike-sharing, stellar firms have been hit as Beijing tightens the leash on corporations, citing national security and antitrust concerns.

Whether motivated by the control reflexes of the Communist Party or to avoid market contortions hurting the pockets and safety of the Chinese public, few expect this to be the end of the crackdown.
...

China has been successfully doing poverty alleviation that has lifted 600 million people out of abject poverty. They give their poor subsidized housing, health care, pensions, education and job training all supplied by the government.

The US could consider doing something similar for the millions of poor and homeless in almost every American city and town. America could certainly do with some "Communism with Chinese characteristics."

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC_lKzAghoQ]

What happened with China's "ghost cities" which were built during times of global economic downturns as a method to keep the Chinese employed and productive? (Instead of firing or laying people off during times of economic downturn.)

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MARuTRNLxU]

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Lookout's picture

@CB

...has been very effective. Same as the red bating of " Russian commies" in my youth.

The US promotes war as an economy...China focuses on trade - cooperatively working WITH other countries.

As I said way down thread, I think the natural systems will play a bigger role than our small egocentric minds yet understand.

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10 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@CB
Her family invited her to join them in real estate speculation.
In contrast, when she was a girl her family owned a good amount of farmland but it was collectivized. They nearly were "liquidated", as I suspect happened to my mother's grandparents in Hungary. I may have mentioned that after visiting Chicago they decided to stay here but went back to sell some farmland. Unfortunately their ship left New York a few days before Pearl Harbor so that when they reached Europe they were enemy aliens (my grandmother was naturalized with my grandfather in Cook county Circuit Court. I've seen the court record, all neat and Teutonic.)

China has strange contrasts. a nuclear power with shanghai a modern city, my friend's brother had to carry their 90 year old crippled mother around because they couldn't buy a wheelchair! They solved that problem by hiring a 40 something sturdy farm widow with no sons (a calamity in farm country) as a caretaker. The widow was ecstatic to live in the big city (is Shanghai the Big Eggroll?) and have a (very) small salary plus room and board. Apparently most people in the back country can't get an internal passport. Strange mix of 21'st century and 15th century.

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4 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

CB's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness
to the home where they were born.

Apparently most people in the back country can't get an internal passport.

The hukou system wasn't a passport as it didn't prevent people from travelling and getting a job anywhere they wanted. In fact they were encouraged to look for jobs in other provinces. But, unfortunately, it made getting government services like pensions and medical problematic unless they were in the home area where they were registered. There have been continuing reforms to reflect this movement of people within China.

Hukou door opens wider to boost urbanization
2021-04-16

The National Development and Reform Commission issued a notice on Tuesday, demanding that cities with a permanent urban population of less than 3 million fully cancel restrictions on household registration and give equal treatment to home renters and buyers while implementing the hukou policy.
...
The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) clearly stipulates that China will advance a people-centered, new type of urbanization strategy that the authorities have repeatedly stressed is the key to marching toward higher-quality urbanization. In the first year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, the new household registration policy is testimony to the decision-maker's people-centric approach.

In the past few years many migrant workers and non-urban residents have been floating between the urban and rural areas of China without a hukou. From the replacement of temporary residence permits with residence permits, to the continuous easing of the hukou threshold in most cities, from the point-based hukou acquisition in megacities to the latest easing of hukou restrictions, it is not difficult to see that the country has, in recent years, been reforming the household registration system in a steady manner.

According to the notice, the new policy should be applied equally to home renters and buyers, a substantial step toward implementing the undifferentiated "people-oriented" concept. This is clearly a milestone in the history of China's hukou reform, which means that in the vast majority of Chinese cities, hukou will no longer restrict free movement of people.
...

Keep in mind that we have a sort of hukou when it comes to medical and unemployment insurance. We have to also register with the relevant authorities when we move.

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@CB
I've only registered to vote and that was voluntary. Oh, you might mean driver's licenses too, but that is optional, one can always ride in a pool or take public transportation (in urban areas).

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1 user has voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

CB's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness
Of course you can just work under the table for cash just like the Chinese do. But you will also have to 'register' with your passport social insurance card in order to get the government benefits.

There were numerous social security benefits that came with a government-issued Hukou, which include the following:

  • health insurance;
  • retirement allowances;
  • unemployment insurance;
  • maternity benefits;
  • work insurance;
  • housing fund, as provided by the employer.

The problem with the hokou system is it was tied to your PERMANENT residence - traditionally your place of birth - and not easy to change unless you owned your own home. This was especially mandated in Tier 1 or 2 cities (which were getting too big). Moving to smaller cities was less problematic and even encouraged. Historically the mobility of the masses of people were relatively constrained unlike in the US.

Anyway the system in China is being reformed -

- while the US is becoming more like China - especially if we get mandated vaccine passes. You eventually may not only be prevented from gaining certain services but also prevented from moving to different cities/towns/states. These policies have a tendency to creep.

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mimi's picture

reading the material collected in it. Many, many thanks.

As I need to read it on paper it will take some month or years til I really read it the old fashioned way, if I am still mentally and physically able to do it.

I have just these question?

When will the US and Germany be at war against each other again ? When will the NATO be disssolved? When will those fears end ?

I have lost trust and hope in the goodness of people.

_

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Lookout's picture

@mimi

hasn't been lost, it is just that the evil of corporate run governments overshadow the goodness of individuals.

Let's hope Germany and the US remain allies. My fear is they will unite with NATO to oppose China and Russia. Hope I'm wrong.

Follow the money to understand the motives. It is easy to get caught up in the weeds, but understanding the broad strokes is my primary objective.

Hope you have a good day. All the best!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

mimi's picture

@Lookout

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@mimi

When will the US and Germany be at war against each other again ?

Just like the big England-France fights are over, so are the England-Germany fights. Brexit was it's last gasp.

The Imperial world stage has moved from Eurocentrism. The next big fights are East-West as China rises again. Of interest is that these east-west contests historically have ended in epidemics that destroy civilization in both.

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2 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

the excellent Hedges interview of Prof. Wendy Brown. The phrase "induced lethargy" of the American citizenry seems accurate to me. I can't figure out how people can be so quiescent at this particular time. It seemed to me that OWS and the first Bernie Sanders campaign was an indication of an awakening, but then....nada. Things are going so badly that I just can't imagine how we can continue down this road.

A. Bacevitch has a partial solution, although I don't think it would do nearly enough. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/09/11/a-modest-proposal-fire-the-...

Thanks L.O. for this great WW. I've missed your last several weeks of posts due to a family member's illness but I know where to find that content when I have time.

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Lookout's picture

@randtntx

Sorry about the family illness, and I hope they've improved. I continue to be astounded by the lack of evidence based health and nutrition information in circulation. No wonder we're in such bad health as a nation.

I also thought that Chris' interview was excellent. So was his article this week which I neglected to include here but saw somewhere on c99.
https://scheerpost.com/2021/09/10/hedges-the-evil-we-do-is-the-evil-we-get/

I think we've past the tipping point on so many levels...from climate and environment, to the global corporate economy... to endless war for both profit and distraction. We must appreciate our time and enjoy what we have while we have it.

Find joy in the little things. Today I'm going to play music with a buddy. Used to do things like that several times a week, but now it is rare...and much appreciated. We're beginning to get a little color already. We've had some AMs in the 50's already! Fall is officially around the corner, but weather wise it has arrived already. Not that there won't be more hot weather remaining.

well have a good one and a lovely week too!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

ggersh's picture

and as you sadly say, "there is so much more" that was left.

My only wish is that the Court of the Hague could be proactive in it's prosecution
of the ameriKKKan war criminals. They'd have enough work to last a lifetime. From Truman presidency onward's every president has committed war crimes and should be in jail,
yet it's only the lowlife's that get caught with Marijuana for the most part that are
the one's behind bars.

how fucked is that for a so called "demockracy"

On a bit of a different note, how much of a narcissist can one be? rhetorical.

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13 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Lookout's picture

@ggersh

My only wish is that the Court of the Hague could be proactive in it's prosecution
of the ameriKKKan war criminals.

America...a law unto itself.

Thanks for the visit!

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13 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Lookout's picture

I'm Gonna Be an Engineer cover by Reina del Cid
with lyrics...

Peggy Seeger is a badass.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7_jhpvsFrM]

Great playing and lyrics. Enjoy.

And I'm off to enjoy a session with my buddy, but I'll be back in a bit.

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8 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

At least since I've been on board.

Exhaustive, comprehensive look at who we are, where we are and how we got to be here. Carefully, is the answer. With malice aforethought. One human right, and one country quashed at a time. All overlaid by giant lies and fake tears.

It's very useful to review this information all at once so clearly delineated. (irrelevant query-- The voice on the cartoon sounded like Peter Coyote to me.)

Opium was certainly a contributing factor in the 20 year fiasco. So were the vast open spaces of Afghanistan, where illegal arms deals and arms testing could be done with very little observation. Oil gas and control of the shipping lanes were the obvious prizes.

This is clearly a turning point. How long will the US Gov't be able to continue supporting and paying the troops who serve overseas? Inability to do so brought many a long gone empire to its knees.

If we print money that only goes to the military, what happens to the rest of the country. I think we know.

If Russia China Iran corral most of the oil and natural gas and deprive the USA of basic things they produce and we do not----what happens then.

If the West Coast has too little water, will we build the facilities to provide it ? Doubtful. What happens next.

It seems we cannot stop Covid. We can punish our people though. What comes next.

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NYCVG

Lookout's picture

@NYCVG

sounded like Peter Coyote

The older version of the comic used to be available...
Found it!!!
http://arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/addicted.pdf

Great for younger folks or people who don't understand the war machine.

All the best!

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8 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout the info, not so soothing.

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NYCVG

ggersh's picture

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/09/the-federal-investigation-of-9-11...

The Federal Investigation of 9/11 Ignored Recorded, Eyewitness Accounts of Firefighters Who Heard Explosions Just Before the Towers Collapsed

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14 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

@ggersh

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7 users have voted.

NYCVG

ggersh's picture

@NYCVG maybe just maybe our children will find out the truth.

up
7 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

lotlizard's picture

@ggersh  
on airline stocks just before 9/11, WSOP being a finance oriented blog with “Wall Street” in its name.

But I agree, ignoring the firefighters’ firsthand testimony is certainly a huge red flag. Would Columbo have been satisfied with the official explanations? Would Sherlock Holmes? Miss Marple?

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ggersh's picture

@lotlizard It's such a tell as the same thing happened in the crash of 08. Someone on WS bought the Bear Stearns puts in size, so if find this answer you'll find out who not only caused the 08 crash but who profited from it.

up
11 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Lookout's picture

@ggersh

Or MSM...or CDC/Falsie...or etc etc

Part of the mess we live in is the select YOUR truth du jour environment.

Fact checkers are a joke. Where can the average joe/jane go to learn about the mess? TPTB want people confused and that works for them. Sadly.

On we go through the fog. Sometimes running high beams isn't a good idea.

All the best!

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9 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout @Lookout https://www.air.tv/watch?v=cwTgKegSSUuuXvB0Lpi5pg

we have no reason to trust or believe what we are told

posted earlier but it works even better in this spot

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5 users have voted.

NYCVG

enhydra lutris's picture

which, like last week's, I've clipped for continued perusal and future reading.

Thanks for the clip about Sheldon Wolin, he was one of my 3 favorite profs at Cal, one of those whose classes you would do anything to not miss.

Thanks for the Reina del Cid clip - really good performance of really good material

be well and have a good one

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8 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Lookout's picture

@enhydra lutris

Look forward to her Sunday livestream.

So many good musicians ... ain't we lucky in that respect?

Have a good one!

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6 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Pluto's Republic's picture

Ran across an astute comment over at Reddit, that got me thinking about the sweep of history we've seen....

applejuice72

The US is certainly in decline in almost every conceivable way. Economically, Culturally, Intellectually, and Politically. My concern is how does capitalism and the national bourgeoisie plan to change this to adapt?

Every time period this happens in, the character of the country is defined by a sort of political revolution. When the socialists and communists were most popular (in the 1930s) Franklin Roosevelt made major sweeping changes to domestic financial policy, worker’s rights, and forward planning while using WW2 as a means of advancing manufacturing. In the 1960s the racial turmoil, Cold War, and imperialist invasion of Vietnam was arguably another crisis point where sweeping changes were granted through the Civil Rights movement, tackling poverty to name a couple. Then in the 1970s-1980s the Neoliberal “Revolution” is what brought forth the current framework of the economic system and political decay we are seeing 40-50 years later. Which simply provided the means to become wealthy (for the few). Also to exploit others to a much easier capacity by setting up trends of deregulation and “small government.” Further creating the conditions so the national bourgeoisie selling of American manufacturing to other countries for future generations much easier and undermining their own working class’ standard of living in almost every way. Every 30-50 years it appears capitalism is at a crisis point where there is tremendous instability in some form, but somehow finds a way to adapt.

Many of these crisis periods had leaders who were assassinated and murdered by the state. Are these periods’ legacies the haunting of failed social revolutions that would bring about the prolonged change for America? I tend to think that way as the situation is currently unraveling since the failure of the Obama administration, the reaction of this failure into the emergence of Trump, and the reaction to Trump for previous nostalgia of stability through the establishment’s preferred candidate in Joe Biden.

With Joe Biden’s election comes tremendous distrust in the state as Americans are keenly aware of the decay around them. They simply have no historical or materialist analysis of the situation to better understand their circumstances. The way I see it, crisis is on the horizon based on perceived “tyranny” towards Covid regulations, economic instability, the acknowledgment of a failed War on Terror, and increasingly dumbed down culture or intellectual capability of the nation itself.

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12 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Lookout's picture

@Pluto's Republic

My concern is how does capitalism and the national bourgeoisie plan to change this to adapt?

From the pan to the fire. I reckon it is our fate.

The mandates WILL NOT help on any level. The Dimwits do it wrong yet again.

With Joe Biden’s election comes tremendous distrust in the state as Americans are keenly aware of the decay around them. They simply have no historical or materialist analysis of the situation to better understand their circumstances. The way I see it, crisis is on the horizon based on perceived “tyranny” towards Covid regulations, economic instability, the acknowledgment of a failed War on Terror, and increasingly dumbed down culture or intellectual capability of the nation itself.

Thanks for the link and info!

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11 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

https://www.air.tv/watch?v=cwTgKegSSUuuXvB0Lpi5pg

Gobbledy gook.
blah blah blah.
Newspeech.

Will anybody come right out and say "We are scared shitless and our theories are fabricated by Pharma."

because that's what the official message I am receiving is.

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11 users have voted.

NYCVG

Lookout's picture

after a nice session with my old music buddy. Sure is nice to play a harmony fill or back up another player's lead. I needed to stretch my voice too...have not been singing enough.
So a fun afternoon.

Thanks for all the comments and insights while I've been gone!

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8 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Do you hate Amurica?!?

Sorry, felt like somebody had to say it.

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5 users have voted.

Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

Lookout's picture

@Tall Bald and Ugly

My friends in Central America resent the use of the term America to refer to what a Canadian friend refers to as the United SNAKES of America.

It is the US corporate capitalist system which I so dislike.

Yes, I recognized the snark. Thanks for the interjection!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

CB's picture

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7 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@CB

...but catching the rats might be a better thing to wrap in the flag?

Take care and have a good evening!

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7 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

CB's picture

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8 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@CB

How the Myth Was Sold

I've been misled too so I have sympathy.

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7 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

lotlizard's picture

@CB  
Only later did I start to wonder — hey, I distinctly remember the news reporting details — like molten metal, intense heat, below-ground-level fires still smoldering three weeks later, a worker clearing the rubble surprised at not finding any non-structural debris larger than the palm of his hand (nothing recognizable as part of a desk, chair, filing cabinet, etc.), or all the firemen talking about explosions — and now everybody in authority is acting like those things never happened. Even though anyone can see clips of live broadcasts from that day, posted on YouTube and so on, that prove they did.

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9 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@lotlizard

something like half of the country suspects 9/11 was a false flag event. To bad there's not been an honest investigation into the events. Like the JFK assassination, the skeptics will be labeled conspiracy theorists and ignored, but there's plenty of suspicious circumstances.

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7 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

lotlizard's picture

Hawai‘i’s ancient fishponds

‘āina = the land
kālo = taro
kūpuna = elders, ancestors

I probably won’t live to see it, but someday Hawaiians will once again be the (sovereign) masters in their own hāle (house).

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8 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@lotlizard

...with the fall of empire? One can hope.

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5 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Pluto's Republic's picture

@lotlizard

...will reclaim their nation.

It is, however, very difficult for a tiny nation to maintain its sovereignty without the protection of a large state — in this world of scarcity and want, and might-makes-right. But on the off-chance that humans survive the 21st century, it will be because they learn to live as a 'larger area' communal species — the same way they survived the first million years of hominoid evolution.

The US sees Hawaii the same way China views Hong Kong and Taiwan. If either drift out from under their national security umbrella, they will be snatched by an enemy and used to sabotage or hamper the larger state. It's a geopolitical issue in today's world.

The 'warring tribes' model is a White World mind-virus that must be neutralized. It is designed to enslave, exploit, and kill the brown world — and it knows no other way.

The US is the locus of the deadly disease. The American people are the machine that powers it, but they are blinded to what it does. They live inside a political fantasy and know nothing of the larger world.

But I am sure you must know all of this.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Lookout's picture

@Pluto's Republic

...of this essay.

The 'warring tribes' model is a White World mind-virus that must be neutralized. It is designed to enslave, exploit, and kill the brown world — and it knows no other way.

The US is the locus of the deadly disease. The American people are the machine that powers it, but they are blinded to what it does. They live inside a political fantasy and know nothing of the larger world.

I continue to think the degrading natural world will force cooperation...or extinction.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

lotlizard's picture

@Pluto's Republic  
of some kind, including a future Tahiti freed from the colonial footstool-of-France model.

https://www.dw.com/en/new-zealand-maori-party-launches-petition-for-coun...

Co-operation, but without any member having to surrender their hard-won independence.

And: international-treaty guaranteed neutrality, so as not to get sucked into any more Great-Power competitions whereby the island of O‘ahu is forced into the role of strategic H-bomb target because of one empire or another’s military outposts.

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Lookout's picture

@lotlizard

to escape the insanity. One can hope!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Pluto's Republic's picture

@lotlizard

Is there a movement? A leader?
Wish I were part of it.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
lotlizard's picture

@Pluto's Republic  
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2020/11/02/the-judgment-of-tahitis-oscar-te...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tahiti+oscar+temaru

European media hardly ever report on this, presumably for fear of ticking off the French and highlighting the continuing existence of a racist mindset that desperately clings to the remnants of empire (e.g. the European space program depends on launches from what amounts to a left-over colony in South America, French Guiana).

The last time I recall seeing something about politics and status of Tahiti in a German newspaper was in the early 1990s when protesters against France’s resumption of nuclear tests burned down Pape‘ete airport.

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