The Evening Blues - 4-8-22
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features British blues band Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. Enjoy!
Fleetwood Mac - Oh Well
"Violating human rights is integral to the project of neoliberalism and global hegemony."
-- Arundhati Roy
News and Opinion
The Real One-World Government Conspiracy Is US Unipolar Hegemony
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has announced that he expects NATO will be deepening its relationship with its “partners” in the Asia-Pacific because China has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We see that China has been unwilling to condemn Russia’s aggression, and has joined Moscow in questioning the right of nations to choose their own path,” Stoltenberg said at a press conference on Tuesday. “At a time when authoritarian powers are pushing back on the rules-based international order, it is even more important for democracies to stand together, and protect our values. So I expect we will agree to deepen NATO’s cooperation with our Asia-Pacific partners, including in areas such as arms control, cyber, hybrid, and technology.”
Some “Asia-Pacific partners” named by Stoltenberg in his speech include “Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea.” He also named “Georgia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina” as additional non-NATO “partners” of the military alliance.
As the late scholar on US-Russia relations Stephen Cohen explained years before the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014, Moscow sees NATO as an “American sphere of influence,” and the expansion of NATO and NATO influence as expansion of that sphere. As the “North Atlantic” Treaty Organization continues to expand its influence and intimacy with “partners” surrounding China, we can probably expect Beijing to take a similar view.
Gen. Milley Says Risk of Conflict ‘Between Great Powers’ Is Increasing
The Pentagon has plans to buildup forces near both China and Russia
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Milley #China #Russia #Ukraine #WWIII https://t.co/q29AIM43DQ pic.twitter.com/4IMsVw88v8— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) April 5, 2022
Also on Tuesday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told the House Armed Services Committee that the US needs to prepare for significant conflict with both Russia and China, echoing Stoltenberg’s comments about the “rules-based international order”.
“We are now facing two global powers: China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities both who intend to fundamentally change the rules based current global order,” Milley said. “We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable and the potential for significant international conflict is increasing, not decreasing.”
As we’ve discussed previously, these newspeak terms “rules-based international order” and “rules-based global order” really mean nothing other than “Washington-based global order”. It is wordplay designed to sidestep less convenient terms like “international law”, which is very clearly defined and not nearly as subject to US control as these other terms which mean nothing other than whatever the US empire wants them to mean.
People lost their minds when President Biden uttered the phrase “new world order” last month and were quickly informed by mainstream “fact checkers” that this does not validate longstanding conspiracy theories about an elite agenda to create a one-world government. In reality, though, the real agenda to create a one-world government is not some hidden conspiracy involving secret societies and shadowy figures with Jewish surnames. The US empire is openly working to unite the planet under a single power structure which effectively functions as one government in many ways.
Back when the United Nations was being formed in 1945, Albert Einstein wrote hopefully about the possibility of a future one-world government and believed the primary obstacle to its emergence was the fact that the Soviet Union would resist joining it. Einstein therefore concluded that the best thing would be for other nations to band together under a “partial world Government… comprising at least two-thirds of the major industrial and economic areas of the world.”
And what’s interesting is that this is pretty much what ended up happening. The United States, along with the oligarchs and government agencies who run it, has become the hub of a vast undeclared empire unified not under an official imperial flag but under a network of alliances, treaties, “partnerships”, predatory loans and secret deals which other governments are encouraged to sign on to by varying degrees of coercion, with the understanding that if they don’t join up they will find themselves facing the wrath of the empire. Nations like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Bolivia, Syria and Venezuela have wholly resisted being brought underneath this power umbrella, while the remainder of the world has fallen into varying degrees of membership within the undeclared empire.
The empire’s member states have their own official governments with their own official laws and their own official elections (where applicable), but on international matters they move more or less as a cohesive unit against the nations who have resisted absorption into the imperial blob. This is what unipolar hegemony looks like, and the US has had a standing policy to preserve that unipolar hegemony since the fall of the Soviet Union.
This is the real one-world government conspiracy. The one with the most tangible reality behind it which most directly affects our lives. You don’t need to plunge down a bunch of paranoid rabbit holes to see it, you just have to watch the news with an understanding of which governments are part of this giant power structure and which ones have refused to be absorbed into it. It explains pretty much everything you see on the world stage.
Virtually every major international news story, underneath all the imperial narrative spin, is nothing other than the story of a giant US-centralized power structure working to incorporate more and more nations under its umbrella and smash any nation which refuses by any means necessary. Once you really see this you can never unsee it, because it tracks so consistently all across the spectrum. And once it’s seen, the major international conflicts being focused on by the imperial media will never again be confusing to you.
This is why they are ramping up aggressions against China as they prepare a campaign to stop its rise before its power makes a US-dominated world order a permanent impossibility. This is why they persisted in provocations that experts had long warned would lead to a Russian attack on Ukraine and are now leveraging the invasion to push for regime change in Moscow. This is why nations like Pakistan who get too close to defying the empire are threatened with regime change. This is why the imperial news cycle churns out narratives telling us Saddam needs to go, Gaddafi needs to go, Assad needs to go, Maduro needs to go, Kim Jong-Un needs to go, etc.
The US-centralized empire is continually working to unify the world under one power structure, and if it someday succeeds the result will not functionally be different from a one-world government. The problem, of course, is that some nations are resisting this agenda, and the ones who have been most successful in that resistance are armed with nuclear weapons. The agenda to secure total global domination at all cost is literally risking the life of every organism on this planet, and tensions along this front are only continuing to escalate.
The entire argument for a “rules-based international order” led by the United States is that it makes the world a more peaceful and harmonious place, but this argument is nullified by the omnicidal nature of the very measures which must be taken to secure that world order. US unipolar hegemony doesn’t make the world more peaceful, it makes it more dangerous. It cannot be maintained without nonstop violence and steadily escalating nuclear brinkmanship. “Pax Americana” is a lie.
The competition-based models that have been normalized for humanity are going to wipe us all out if we don’t change them very soon. Nations cannot keep waving armageddon weapons at each other because a few manipulators in the US Beltway convinced decision makers that they should rule the world. We cannot keep feeding our ecosystem into the gears of an insatiable capitalism machine that will collapse if it doesn’t continually expand.
We are going to have to find a way to move into collaboration-based systems with each other, with other nations, and with our environment. This way of living on this planet is utterly unsustainable.
Neocons/EU push to prolong conflict to achieve Putin regime change goal
Interesting and worth a full read:
Israel, Russia Clash Over Ukraine
From the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Israel has refused to join the West’s economic war against Moscow, maintaining a neutral stance that as positioned it as a possible broker to end the conflict. But all that appears to have changed with remarks by Israel’s foreign minister in a Twitter post on Sunday, the day the massacre at Bucha was revealed and before any investigation could be conducted.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid wrote: “It is impossible to remain indifferent in the face of the horrific images from the city of Bucha near Kyiv, from after the Russian army left. Intentionally harming a civilian population is a war crime and I strongly condemn it.” Israel’s ambassador to Ukraine also implied that Russia had committed a war crime. “Deeply shocked by the photos from #Bucha. Killing of civilians is a war crime and cannot be justified,” Ambassador Michael Brodsky tweeted on Sunday. ...
The Israeli foreign ministry tried to distance itself from the ambassador’s remarks. Haaretz reported: “Asked if the Foreign Ministry’s official position was that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine, a spokesman replied: ‘No. It’s a tweet by the ambassador regarding the photos. He didn’t blame Russia.'” ...
And now Russia has struck back. Sergey Ivanov, head of the department of diplomacy and consular service at the Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy, wrote a scathing critique of Israel on Wednesday, posted on the ministry’s Telegram page. It holds nothing back, openly condemning Israel for a variety of sins, including its treatment of the Palestinians. Ivanov wrote that many Western journalists and political analysts have opportunistically become overnight “Ukraine experts” just as Western politicians, such as Lapid, are making rash statements to boost their popularity.
“Serious politicians, especially at such a high level as Minister Lapid, have no right to talk idly,” Ivanov warned. “They should be aware of the possible consequences of what they say, including with regard to relations with Russia.”
End the Double Standard: U.S. Accuses Russia of War Crimes While Continuing to Oppose the ICC
Ukraine tells Nato: Donbas battle will be like second world war
Kyiv has called for more heavy weaponry from its western allies and “ruinous” sanctions against Moscow, saying the scale of any impending Russian assault on eastern Ukraine would remind Nato members of the second world war. “Either you help us now – and I’m speaking about days, not weeks – or your help will come too late, and many people will die,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told a meeting of his counterparts in the alliance in Brussels on Thursday.
Kuleba said he expected Nato members to send Kyiv the weapons it needed, including air defence systems, artillery, armoured vehicles and jets, but insisted they must act fast while Moscow refocuses its offensive on the Donbas region. “I have no doubts that Ukraine will have weapons necessary to fight,” he said. “The question is the timeline. The battle for Donbas will remind you of the second world war with large operations, thousands of tanks, armoured vehicles, planes, artillery.”
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, told reporters the alliance had agreed to strengthen support to Ukraine, was providing “a wide range” of weapon systems, and would also provide cybersecurity assistance and equipment to protect against chemical and biological threats. He said there was no sign the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, intended to pull back. “We have no indications he has changed his overall goal, and that is to control Ukraine and to achieve significant military victories on the battleground,” he said
“What we see is Russian regrouping and repositioning. We expect a big battle in Donbas. We are prepared for the long haul. This war may last for weeks, but also months, and possibly also for years. And therefore we need to prepare for a lot more.”
Pentagon: Russian forces outside Kyiv, Chernihiv have ‘completely withdrawn’
The U.S. has seen Russian forces completely withdraw from areas around Kyiv and Chernihiv to regroup in Belarus and Russia, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday.
“We are not showing Russian forces in or around Kyiv or to the north of Kyiv, and we’re not showing Russian forces in or around Chernihiv,” the official told reporters.
“We have now seen that the Russians have moved from the north into Belarus and to Russia for refit and resupply. We have seen indications that that refit and resupply is occurring,” the official added.
Trita Parsi: War Could Be on Horizon If Iran Nuclear Deal Is Not Restored Soon
Pakistan court orders Imran Khan confidence vote to go ahead
Pakistan’s supreme court has dealt a devastating blow to the prime minister, Imran Khan, by ruling that he acted unconstitutionally in dissolving parliament prior to a confidence vote he was expected to lose, and ordering the vote to go ahead this weekend.
In the conclusion to a hearing that has gripped Pakistan for the past four days, the chief justice of Pakistan, Umar Ata Bandial, said Khan had violated the law in his attempt to stop the vote, which was widely expected to oust him.
The verdict said Khan was wrong to instruct the deputy speaker of the house, a close ally, to suspend the vote and wrong to ask the president to dissolve parliament on Sunday morning.
The bench of five judges ordered that a session of the national assembly be held on Saturday to allow for the confidence vote to go ahead. No member of the parliament will be restricted from voting.
SCAM: Corporate Profits SKYROCKET, Outpace Inflation by 18%
A Pension Official Blows The Whistle
A new era in the decade-long battle by retirees and whistleblowers to halt massive transfers of wealth out of retirement funds and into Wall Street firms could be at hand, thanks to the case of Katie Muth. Muth, a Democratic Pennsylvania state senator, is one of 15 trustees who oversees Pennsylvania’s largest public pension fund, the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System. Not long after her February 2021 appointment to the board, Muth began questioning the fund’s investments in areas like private equity, hedge funds, and real estate.
Over the past 30 years, public pension funds have moved $1.4 trillion of retiree savings into such high-risk, high-fee “alternative investments,” enriching finance industry moguls like Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group and Robert Mercer of Renaissance Technologies while often shortchanging retired public employees and teachers.
But Muth says that when she asked the fund’s investment staff for more information about its high-risk investments, she was rebuffed — so in June 2021, she sued the fund for basic information about its investments. “[I asked them to] give me a comprehensive list of all alternatives and traditionals, and find if we have private equity in ambulances and hospitals,” Muth told The Lever. “Their response was, ‘We have over 495 portfolios it would be impossible to track what’s in it.’ That’s BS… That’s why I’m suing: I don’t know what the money is spent on. I have an obligation as a fiduciary to make informed decisions.”
The emergence of internal board member complaints like Muth’s could signal a sea change in the fight to stop Wall Street from preying on public pensions, said Ted Siedle, a former attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and pension whistleblower. “It’s long been known these board members lack investment expertise, but increasingly they are going the whistleblower route,” said Siedle. “This is a new development. Every public pension I’ve investigated lies about their fees and lies about their performance. But now, the board members are coming forward and are being stonewalled and threatened.”
'The Union Once Again Cleans Starbucks' Clock': Worker Wins Against Coffee Giant Continue
The wave of Starbucks worker organization continued to sweep the U.S. this week as employees of the global coffee chain voted to unionize in three New York stores and took steps to form unions in numerous other states.
On Thursday, three upstate New York Starbucks—two in Rochester and one in Buffalo—voted to unionize. In Rochester, workers at a new Starbucks in the Whole Foods Plaza on Monroe Avenue voted 10-3 for a union, while the tally was 13-11 at the company's Mount Hope location, according to WXXI. ...
Meanwhile in Buffalo, the vote was 18-1 in favor of forming a union at a downtown Starbucks on the corner of Delaware Avenue and Chippewa Street, making that location the sixth local branch of the coffee chain to unionize, Spectrum News 1 reports. ...
From Illinois to Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and other states, Starbucks workers this week also moved to form unions. ...
Workers United says 14 Starbucks have voted on unionization—with just one location failing to form a union—while 180 other stores in 29 states have filed paperwork to organize.
This week's union victories follow workers at a flagship Starbucks in New York City voting 46-36 to unionize.
Memelord-in-chief: Why Elon Musk could usher in major changes for Twitter
California cities spent huge share of federal Covid relief funds on police
Big cities in California spent large portions of their federal Covid relief money on police departments, a review of public records has revealed, with several cities prioritizing police funding by a wide margin.
As part of the American Rescue Plan Act (Arpa), the Biden administration’s signature stimulus package, the US government sent funds to cities to help them fight coronavirus and support local recovery efforts. The money, officials said, could be used to fund a range of services, including public health and housing initiatives, healthcare workers’ salaries, infrastructure investments and aid for small businesses.
But most large California cities spent millions of Arpa dollars on law enforcement. Some also gave police money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (Cares) Act, adopted in 2020 under Donald Trump.
The records show:
San Francisco received $312m in Arpa funds for fiscal year 2020 and allocated 49% ($153m) to police, 13% ($41m) to the sheriff’s department, and the remainder to the fire department, according to the city controller. San Francisco also gave roughly 22% ($38.5m) of its Cares funds to law enforcement.
Los Angeles spent roughly 50% of its first round of Arpa relief funds on the LAPD, according to a public records request by the controller candidate Kenneth Mejia, and first reported in local news site LA Taco.
Fresno spent $36.6m of its Cares funds on the police, making up 67% of Cares spending on city salaries, and roughly 40% of all of Fresno’s Cares funds.
San Jose allocated roughly $27.8m of its Cares and Arpa funds to police salaries and the police dispatch department, representing about 12% of its relief money.
Long Beach allocated the majority of its $135.8 million Arpa funds to police, though a spokesperson said a detailed breakdown of funds was not available.
Oakland allocated $5m (13.5%) of its Cares funds to police salaries; Sacramento allocated $2.2m (2.5%) of Cares funds to police; and San Diego spent roughly $60.1m (64%) of its Cares funds on police in fiscal year 2020, and $52.6m (33%) in fiscal year 2021.
NY Dems Pay Their OWN Employees POVERTY Wages While Preaching Pay Equity
Is the world’s most important climate legislation about to die in US Congress?
Tucked beneath the headlines on Covid and Ukraine, the most important climate legislation in US history – and thus, arguably, in world history – is still stuck in Congressional purgatory. You’d be forgiven if you weren’t fully aware. It is not trending on Twitter. President Biden has mostly stopped talking about it. The enormous moral stakes have been brutally ablated by a broken, farcical, and, above all, extremely boring legislative kludge known as budget reconciliation. The months-long saga has turned Biden’s original “Build Back Better” plan into the juridical equivalent of a Warhol soup can – a ubiquitous token evacuated of any original meaning.
That the public has largely failed to track the world-historical implications of this process is an indictment of the way climate information gets filtered down to ordinary people: in dollar figures no one understands, in line graphs published by obscure wonks on Twitter, in front page headlines that exhaust the emotive potential of journalistic prose. ... And yet, the stakes remain what they are. Passage of the bill’s half-trillion dollars-worth of clean energy investments would likely spell the difference between the world’s largest economy meeting its climate goals and blowing right past them. It is not an exaggeration to say that in that balance—between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius of warming, between a government responsive to and avoidant of the greatest crisis of the 21st century – hang millions of human lives. The potential impact rivals that of nuclear war, except in this case the default is catastrophe. The fossil fuel industry has already fired its ICBM at the heart of our coastal cities. It’s up to the Democrats now to turn it around.
And turn it around they still might. Joe Manchin, of his own volition, has returned to the bargaining table with a proposal that could retain most of the original climate investments from Build Back Better and potentially leave room for some investment in low-emission home and health care work. Biden and Schumer must stop at nothing to hold him to his word and land the deal.
Protest, April 23, 2022. Lafayette Park (across from White House) Washington DC
Mass Action Planned at Heart of Joe Manchin's Coal Empire
Hundreds of people in West Virginia on Saturday plan to blockade a coal waste power plant that directly benefits right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin while contributing to the planetary emergency, with dozens of activists planning to risk arrest.
The blockade will target Grant Town Power Plant, which receives coal waste from Enersystems, a company run by Manchin's son. The West Virginia Democrat earned $500,000 from Enersystems last year.
"Participants will put their bodies on the line to highlight the harm from the Manchin family business, protest against the burning of coal waste, and call for a different future for West Virginia," said West Virginia Rising, which is organizing the direct action.
The blockade follows the senator's decision in the last several months to reject numerous climate action provisions in the Build Back Better Act, President Joe Biden's signature domestic economic package, and comes days after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report on the planetary crisis.
The IPCC report reiterated that "immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors" are needed to limit global heating to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures and avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis, including rising sea levels and increasingly extreme weather events.
"We chose this plant specifically because we need the world to know how corrupt Joe Manchin is," West Virginia Rising said. "He is not some thoughtful, grandfatherly moderate. He is raking in $500,000 per year from his coal company while single-handedly gutting climate legislation."
The group also asserted that when Manchin was governor of the state, he oversaw the raising of electricity rates for working West Virginians "in order to keep his coal business afloat."
West Virginia Rising will be joined by groups including CodePink and the Poor People's Campaign, which this week began a 23-mile march through the state to protest Manchin's refusal to back the extension of the enhanced Child Tax Credit (CTC), paid family leave, the Clean Electricity Performance Program, and other provisions in the original Build Back Better Act. ...
"Joe Manchin has spent his career making a very lucrative living off the backs of West Virginians while talking about how resilient we are," said Maria Gunnoe, director of Mother Jones Community Foundation and an organizer of the blockade. "West Virginians are tired of struggling only to see others prosper. We deserve opportunities to build a future that our kids can be proud of."
"Joe Manchin clearly has no plan other than more of the same for the future of West Virginia," Gunnoe added. "More of the same maltreatment and exploitation of the poorest people in this country."
How BlackRock Has RIGGED the Climate Crisis
Brazil military ‘posed as NGOs on social media’ to play down deforestation
Facebook owner Meta Platforms has removed a network of social media accounts with ties to the Brazilian military that posed as fake non-profits to play down the dangers of deforestation.
The comments by Meta, published in a quarterly report, pose a reputational risk to Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro. The far-right former army captain is a longtime sceptic of environmentalism.
Although the individuals involved in the network were active military personnel, Meta’s investigation did not find enough evidence to establish if they were following orders or acting independently, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The takedown operation, Meta’s first to hit a network focused primarily on environmental issues, may also add fire to Bolsonaro’s attacks on large tech firms, which he accuses of stifling conservative voices on their platforms.
Critics say Bolsonaro and his supporters use the platforms to spread dangerous disinformation undermining Brazil’s democratic institutions.
‘Learning to live with it’? From Covid to climate breakdown, it’s the new way of failing
We have a new term for doing nothing: “learning to live with”. Learning to live with Covid means abandoning testing, isolation and wearing masks in public places. Living with it, dying from it, what’s the difference? The same applies to climate breakdown. It’s not just that countries like the UK have failed to play their part in preventing this catastrophe. They have also failed to prepare for it.
While our primary effort should still be to decarbonise our economies, to prevent even worse impacts, we also need to brace ourselves for the heating that’s now unavoidable. But, as the government’s climate change committee points out, adaptation in the UK is “under-resourced, underfunded and often ignored”. The head of the committee has spoken of a “wilful reluctance” to include adaptation in policymaking.
In the five years since the committee last reported on this issue, for example, 570,000 new homes have been built without heat adaptation: in other words, as temperatures rise they’re likely to overheat in the summer. Doubtless, many of them have also been built on flood plains. As always, it’s much cheaper and easier to prepare for such disasters than to seek to live with them. But government policy is to wish away these problems.
This government is incompetent by design. Doing nothing is what Tory donors pay for. Doing nothing is what the billionaire press demands. Doubtless we’ll soon be told we need to take “personal responsibility” for ensuring our homes are not flooded and our power lines are not destroyed by storms. ...
There is no learning involved in “learning to live with”. It tends to mean an inability to adapt to new realities, and in some cases looks like a total retreat into abstraction. In 2020, the US conservative commentator Ben Shapiro claimed that 10 feet of sea level rise wouldn’t be a problem, because people could just “sell their homes and move”. Sell them to mermaids, presumably. A few days ago, a senior executive at the Institute of Economic Affairs suggested that instead of preventing climate breakdown, we could simply “build sea walls”. It is not just denial we’re up against. It’s a belief in magic.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
US Officials Admit They’re Literally Just Lying To The Public About Russia
U.S. 'Intelligence' Says Its 'Intelligence' Is Bullshit
Israel reacts to the Ukrainian crisis: Tel Aviv’s political manoeuvres
Estonian PM Warns Against ‘Peace at Any Price’ With Putin
Blinken ‘Not Optimistic’ at Finalizing Iran Nuclear Deal
Michael Hudson: The Dollar Devours the Euro
The US. Europe, China And the New Poorer Western World
NOAA Says Atmospheric Methane Levels Set New Record in 2021
‘It’s happening now’: how rising sea levels are causing a US migration crisis
Scientists find fossil of dinosaur ‘killed on day of asteroid strike’
Amazon's RIGGED THE MARKET, Looking To CRUSH Antitrust Legislation: David Sirota
A Little Night Music
Fleetwood Mac - My Heart Beat Like A Hammer, Shake Your Moneymaker
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - Have You Ever Loved A Woman
Fleetwood Mac - Please Find My Baby, Dust My Broom
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - Need your love so bad
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - World Keeps Turning
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - Worried Dream
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac w/Paul Butterfield - I Loved Another Woman, The Sun Is Shining
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - Like it This Way
Fleetwood Mac - Albatross
Peter Green´s Fleetwood Mac - Doctor Brown
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - Live
Comments
Fixed it for Jens
Bolded was added by mwah!
“We see that China has been
unwilling to condemn Russia’s aggressionwilling to codemn NATO expansion, and has joined Moscow in questioning the right of nations to be used used in proxy warsto choose their own path,” Stoltenberg said at a press conference on Tuesday. “At a time when authoritarian powers are pushing back on the (we make) the rules-based international order, it is even more important fordemocraciestotalitarian regimes to stand together, and protect our lack of values. So I expect we will agree to deepen NATO’s cooperation with our Asia-Pacific partners, including in areas such as war producing arms control, cyber, hybrid, and technology.”Stay safe and have a great weekend everyone, and Joe thanks for the EB's
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
good one...
What a clown world.
Alex usually finishes his summary with a clown world episode...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3E6_XCfxVg]
I usually like his take.
Gonzalo was interesting today too.
Russia AND the US Miscalculated In This War
Joe S., thanks for all the fish!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
A new normal is dropping on our heads
our generation knew only the good times, now we are entering the dark ages
that our "leaders" our imposing thru austerity and sanctions.
Clowns and Bullies they are
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
evening lookout...
thanks for the video. i enjoyed hearing about nuland's faux pas in cyprus. she's a real monster.
have a great weekend!
evening ggersh...
heh, and if china doesn't like the rules that nato has made up for russia, they probably aren't going to much care for the rules nato is making up for china.
The 24/7 propaganda blitz rolls on!
Her reaction is so convincing
The latest bit of unverified headlines.
It really doesn't matter that facts might get in the way of agenda.
Oh my….
Gah the amount of propaganda is off the charts and yet so many people cannot see it. Zelensky has spoken to so many country’s leadership which has happened how many times before? Meanwhile America’s wars are never discussed nor Biden’s horrors in Afghanistan where millions are starving. I wish I knew what it will take to get Americans to pull their heads out of their buttocks and see what they are actually supporting. How can they have forgotten that the media’s job is to manufacture consent for war? On that note, Rachel is returning to the airwaves soon. Shitlibs are besides themselves with glee.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
plus those speeches are scripted...
by Hollywood/CIA/MI6...usually preceded by a visit from the wicked witch of the west, Nulan (who remember is married to Kagan) ... she also begs (threatens) for more weapons and sanctions across NATO.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/26/robert-parry-the-mess-that-nuland-...
Gonzola had a good expose' on her...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzR---YDDIQ&t=79s]
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
You have to go to Madame Tussaud's
Wax Museum to see who our leaders are. Forget the bought corporate MSM
for ant truth at all. EOS
Here is MOA debunking the latest "genocide" "atrocity" massacre" in the string
of none committed by Russia but committed by Ukraine, under amerikkka's thumb
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/04/a-ukrainian-tochka-u-missile-kille...
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
Will people ever accept the truth about the Nazis
killing civilians and with the blessings of American spooks? Everything that is happening in Ukraine by them has been authorized by the neocons in Washington and people used to know that. False flags happen all the time and too many fall for it. When Trump finally bombed Syria the shitlibs were upset that he only hit empty buildings and said he did it that way because Putin told him to. They were upset more people didn’t die! Again we can thank Obama for killing the anti war movement.
If you missed this from lotlizard yesterday:
https://www.unz.com/trall/the-left-must-continue-to-avoid-the-ukraine-trap/
Amen and I’m thoroughly disgusted with the people in this country!
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening humphrey...
it seems that our media never tire of catapulting the ukronazi propaganda stream. i have started to tune it out since it is just bad journalism.
i'm glad to see that scott ritter and moa are still on top of things and calling out bullshit.
Really good read from Hudson
He’s saying that WWW 3 could go on for 10-20 years.
Just where will Americans get their crap from when it hits the fan with China? We don’t make much of anything here anymore except for weapons of war and debt.
I just can’t believe anyone would have the Gaul to say that after what NATO has done to so many countries.
I wonder who is running Zelensky's mouth and making the demands that NATO gets its butt into Ukraine and directly fight against Russia? It seems like the pentagon doesn’t want to do that whilst those running Biden’s mouth does. State department against the pentagon? Not that it wants peace, but just maybe no nuclear war before they have a go at China?
"Intentionally harming a civilian population is a war crime and I strongly condemn it.”
This reminds me of when Obama said that no country should have to tolerate another country bombing them. Yes he said that with a straight face.
The world has gone completely insane.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening snoopy...
heh:
for the moment, it seems like there is a faction of the policy-making community and probably the covert community that think that it would be a great idea to take on russia in a bare-knuckles, no-holds-barred struggle - and a bunch of people in the pentagon that don't think that's such a great idea.
i guess we'll see who wins.
I wonder who is making the decision to kill civilians
Someone is telling Ukraine that we won’t object if that happens, but how can you see the results and not have a twinge of empathy? I’ve said it before but I will never be able to understand that way of thinking.
So we’re laundering weapons for the defense companies. Slovakia is giving Ukraine some very old Russian missile defense and we’re putting a battery of patriot ones in their country. It’s going to be interesting to see what Russia does with that. But hey did you hear that the navy is scuttling lots of newer ships so they can buy new ones? Meanwhile in this 3rd world country…
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening snoopy...
well, that's the thing about war. to decide to have a war is to decide to kill civilians - that's just inescapable in modern warfare. the people who make these decisions will hem and haw and say that they don't intend to kill any civilians, but if pressed they have to admit that such untimely deaths are inevitable.
the sort of people who are elected/selected/appointed to lead nations tend not to think of individuals (besides themselves and their families/close associates) - rather they think of people in aggregate groups in kind of impersonal terms.
every now and then, they have to show the common folk that they really do think about them, so they invite the wounded war hero or the dead war hero's wife and children to the state of the union address for a moment of shit when they call them out for the applause and sympathy of the nation. but that's the extent of their thinking about individuals outside of their immediate circle, they only think of them as people when it's time to show that they "care" about their constituencies.
I wouldn't even call that 'thinking' of the people
"... but that's the extent of their thinking about individuals outside of their immediate circle, they only think of them as people when it's time to show that they "care" about their constituencies."
I would call that 'taking advantage', as you implied.
evening janis...
friendly amendment accepted.
have a great weekend!
I think it's simply impossible
to put any part of ourselves into their way of acting. They are heartless.
[video:https://youtu.be/u_6S1N5RZrk]
Thank dawg ehh?
I just wish I could turn off my empathy now and then because it just hurts too much to see and hear about cruelty. Hell I usually let bugs and spiders go free by putting them outside. Had to give up fishing long ago because I would think how sad the families would be if mom or dad didn’t come home.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
I know what you mean snoopy
I brush away the webs and avoid the spiders (daddy long-legs) of which there are an abundance. I do though smash mosquitos with no regret. Catching fish is another level of consideration.
All the best snoopy
Who is running Zelensky?
The guy that made him a popular TV comedian and then President of Ukraine. The guy funding the Azov battalions and probably a few others. Banned from Russia and the US, but not discussed in the US. That guy may have more objectives than those he shares with the US/UK.
My wild ass conjecture is that it's getting awfully crowded in Israel and they could use a second state. A land with few people for people without enough land.
Yes I know about the guy whose name starts with a B
I’m curious about which faction here is telling Zelensky what to say. The B guy is also the big money supporter of some of the Nazis battalions. I believe that he is also Jewish. Israel’s support of the Nazis is what gets me, but some people in Israel are speaking out about it. It’s in the other items posted. I quoted from the consortium essay and boy the guy who spoke out on human rights…just speechless.
Also the picture of the train station posted on MoA looks staged to me. If those people were killed by cluster type bombs their luggage should be shredded. Or at least have some damage to them.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Also here in this video
The area around the bodies looks too clean and boy the people there sure seem to be pretty calm. People may be deceased, but I doubt it was because of a bomb. Spidey senses going off.
The theater bombing has been debunked, the Bucha massacre doesn’t add up to the time line so I’m not buying into this one.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Who is this guy
Oleh Novikov?
Too stupid to wait a few minutes for the evidence that clearly shows that there was no Iskander missile.
Have to agree that
the photo from the train station looks staged. But I'm not going to run with that because pictures can be deceiving and I tend to loathe those that claim real events are fake - ie Boston Marathon bombing and Sandy Hook School massacre.
What we do know is that 1) the missile shown in the photos is not in the RU arsenal, 2) RU hasn't attacked civilian infrastructure, and 3) RU missile attacks have been at night. Thus, I conclude that this is either a fake or UKR false flag. By false flag I mean UKR attacked and killed its own citizens to claim that Russia done did it. That brings up another point -- a missile attack that only killed and didn't wound/injure others would be very odd. No photos of emergency medical vehicles and workers is similarly odd. OK, that does tip the balance in favor of it being fake.
"The guy" I was referring to is Ihor Kolomoyskyi . The most visible of the Private Group principles. Kolomoyskyi reportedly or allied with Yuschenko (the Orange Revolution guy) who in his reelection bid was held to single digits. Recall that Yushchenko's party "gift" to the country was elevating Bandera to hero status; so the restoration of the UKieNazis preceded the 2014 coup by several years,.
Oh yeah him
Got the name wrong. Thanks for the correction.
In one of the pictures showing cars were bombed there is a street light right above them that is fully intact. The luggage and that just doesn’t add up. And you’re right about Russia doing things at night now. Then there’s this.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Capitalism be like if there is money to be made lets do it.
heh...
i guess the u.s. is showing europe the power of its convictions and the depth of its concern.
Good evening Joe, thanks for the evening blues.
Thanks for the early FM, great stuff.
be well and have a good one
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 --
It could be easily proven whose missile it was but they won't.
There is also this thought.
More
Hi bluesters
Hi all, Hey Joe, Hope it's all good out there!
I agree with that segment of London '67 sentiment, and sometimes graffiti, "Greenie is God". Pro tip: There is an hour loop of Albatross on utube.
His playing and compositions were astounding, his life a tragedy in many ways. The long (album) Oh Well is amazing.
Apologies if I am being redundant... as I understand it, that Peter Green 'magic tone' no one could duplicate, even with other Les Paul sunbursts of the era, was due to it being wired incorrectly once when it was in the shop. The pickups were out of phase. No one knew until I think when Gary Moore got the guitar and took it in for a checkup.
Gary Moore's album 'Blues for Greenie' is played on that very sunburst and very well done in Peter Green's style, it is outstanding stuff.
Thanks for the awesome soundscape Joe!
be well all!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
evening dystopian...
heh, i read somewhere that the odd out of phase sound was caused by a repairman putting the neck pickup in backwards by mistake. but as with most guitarists, i suspect that a lot of his unique tone was in his fingers. anyway, i think that green was absolutely the best blues player ever born in britain, certainly the best of his generation.
have a great weekend!
this is an interesting and informative read with regards....
to part of the Ukrainian propaganda machine.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/280167-2/280167/
A few hints.