Rebirth

Happy Easter, Passover, and Ramadan! My world is spring green with the season's new leaf crop. Daffodils are largely gone, but the dogwoods are holding their bloom as are the buckeye. I think we are witnessing a major shift in the balance of geopolitical power. I'm hopeful the fall of one empire doesn't lead to another empire, and that perhaps we will mature to a international community of cooperation. I dislike being in a nation which tries to obstruct such a realignment in a last ditch effort to hold sway over the rest of the world, but it is what it is in a country where war is the business model.

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The best conversation I heard this week was Robert Barnes on The Duran. It is long at 2.25 hours, but it is really three different topics which allows for breaks or selecting the part in which you are most interested. The first third is the Trumped up case against Trump, the next third is RFK, Jr's entry into the presidential race, and the final portion examines the US dollar and global economics. Excellent show, highly recommended.

Gonzalo is back making videos. His analysis of global economics was quite interesting.

How De-Dollarization Will Affect Capital Markets (16 min)

Former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki who in a speech to young scholars said Killing US Dollar Only Way to Survive Western Sanctions. (4 min)

The comments below the clip get resounding approval from around the world, particularly the global south.

Another blow to the dollar is the oil production cut by OPEC. (7 min)

In a move that is sure to incense the Biden administration, Saudi Arabia — along with a host of other oil-producing nations — has decided to cut oil production, which should in turn raise the price of a barrel of oil. The move also assists Russia, which needs oil revenues to counter the economic impact of western sanctions. Jimmy and Kurt talk to economics professor Richard Wolff about the move and how it will likely affect the global economy.

They cover several topics
Japan Bypasses U.S. Sanctions To Buy Russian Oil (6 min)

This trio also discuss the distraction of the Trump prosecution. (5 min)
Trump Prosecution Is A Distraction From Looming Economic Crisis – Prof Richard Wolff
Much as the liberal chattering classes and their supporters online are cheering the news, the arrest of former President Donald Trump looks much more like a political hit job than the triumph of lady Justice. In fact, says economics professor Richard Wolff, the Trump prosecution is likely intended to distract the populace.

Here's another good conversation from these three.

America’s Economic Empire Is Done (7 min)

And a final clip from Rick Wolff and Jimmy.
THIS Is Why Banks Are Failing Now (21 min)
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has left many Americans skittish about the banking system, and with good reason. As economics professor Richard Wolff explains, the private US banking system that maximizes the pursuit of profits at all costs is highly susceptible to runs, which explains why the nation’s history is littered with so-called “panics” that collapsed the economy. Jimmy and Kurt talk to Professor Wolff about North Dakota, the one state with primarily publicly-run banks, and why that gives the state’s depositors more confidence in the stability of their banking system.

Where are the US politicians like Clare Daly and Mick Wallace? There aren't any.

Mick Wallace: US is driving a wedge between EU & China for its own interests, not Europe's

Meanwhile Macron and Ursula travel the China and threaten them about allying with Russia.
The Duran explains. Macron & Ursula, disaster trip to Beijing

I hope the fall of the USD doesn't create more homelessness. This clip humanizes the homeless communities.

It's tough to put a number on how many Americans are homeless. About one and a half million people sleep in homeless shelters every year, but that doesn't count the many, many more living without a permanent home. For the past 5 years, we've been talking to people living on the street - whether in vehicles or informal encampments - who have told us their stories of how they got there and how they survive.

Our friend and blogger Johnny Sanphillippo walked us through the history and current situation in his hometown of San Francisco where the homeless situation has risen with property values (among other issues). Sanphillippo shares his own experiences without homelessness.

“My mother, she never wanted to say that we were homeless because that isn't how she felt about it, but we were living in a car, we were bathing in gas stations. And I think that other people who have never had those experiences don't understand that there's a broad spectrum of homelessness that sometimes you're homeless for all sorts of reasons and it's very often a temporary situation that you limp through until you get to something better.”

Our title is a direct quote from Dave, an RV dweller in Bolinas, who told us, “I've been out here for 2 or 3 years. For a while, I was stuck in this spot. My truck broke down, I had no money, and I could not get out of town. There's no work here. It was f***ed. But I was trapped in paradise.”

For Part two, we will visit places working to get people healthy and back on track.

Talk about people in pain and misery, how about the Palestinians?
Israel crosses another red line - The Grayzone Friday Live (1.6 hours)
The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate discuss the latest escalation of violence on Israel's occupied frontiers as troops storm the Al Aqsa mosque to make way for fundamentalist settlers. They will also cover the smear campaign against Matt Taibbi for his work on the Twitter Files, the latest intel leaks out of Ukraine, and more.

The US government is going after its own people too.
The Restrict Act Takes Away ALL OF YOUR RIGHTS – No Kidding! (27 min)

The “Restrict Act” being pushed through Congress with bipartisan support, ostensibly just to keep the Chinese government from spying on us, will allow the U.S. government to restrict the websites Americans can visit. In fact, by using a VPN to circumvent restrictions Americans could possibly put themselves at risk of being sentenced to 20 years in prison.
This is all about control.
Rand Paul did a great job pushing back on this bill. (7 min)

The Restrict Act currently making its way through Congress has bipartisan support in the Senate, mostly among the highly pro-establishment members of both parties. Rand Paul recently took to the well of the Senate to light into his Republican colleagues for criticizing obstructions to free speech online while simultaneously supporting this effort to censor American’s online activities.

The shit-libs are really pissed at Matt Taibbi for exposing their collusion with the government to censor certain people and messages. The Hunter Biden story still has not been well exposed, instead they arrest Trump on the weakest of excuses. The latest dust up happen between Mehdi and Matt.
Matt Taibbi Confronts MSNBC Over Russiagate & Hunter Biden Laptop ON AIR
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan invited Matt Taibbi on to his show to grill the Twitter Files journalist about inaccuracies in his reporting, but Taibbi turned the tables on Hasan, pointing out that MSNBC had served as a clearinghouse for six years of misinformation about Trump and Russia, not to mention dutifully passing on FBI lies about the Hunter Biden laptop
Mehdi Hasan’s BOGUS “Fact Check” Of Matt Taibbi’s Twitter Files Debunked!
Unfortunately, Hasan took the opportunity to nitpick minor inaccuracies and repeatedly interrupt rather than discuss the substance of what the Twitter Files exposed.

China is doing it again...creating peace in Yemen now. Alex explains.
Peace in Yemen. Bakhmut final stage. Blinken, spring offensive goals, splitting Russian forces.

China's culture and history is long and deep. This week they opened up the irrigation project which is thousands of years old.

Diplomatic envoys from 17 countries have attended a water-releasing ceremony at China's Dujiangyan, the world's oldest functioning irrigation project.
Mount Qingcheng and the Dujiangyan Irrigation System
Construction of the Dujiangyan irrigation system began in the 3rd century B.C. This system still controls the waters of the Minjiang River and distributes it to the fertile farmland of the Chengdu plains.

Dujiangyan is the brainchild of Li Bing, a local official of Sichuan Province over two millennia ago. It arose to confront the frequent flooding of the Minjiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze River. Li Bing and his son discovered the river was overflowing due to spring melt-water coming from the mountains which burst the banks of the slow-moving waters below. A dam was out of the question as Li Bing had been told to keep the waterway open for military vessels. Thus, Li Bing’s solution was to create an artificial levee which could move some of the water to another area and then make a channel in Mount Yulei to send the excess water to the dry Chengdu Plain.

Makes western arrogance seem even more childish...

I hope you have a great day regardless of the holiday you choose to celebrate (or not). After a couple of days of rain we're due some sunshine today. The garden is growing. Harvesting lettuce now, and snow peas are next. Some tomatoes are planted, but we say there's not a really good tomato till July. The garden is a good way to experience the changing seasons.

To my mind, momentous geopolitical change is in the air. I'm hopeful the future is international cooperation, and the destructive and harmful war based relationships become a thing of the past. Sure, I know rainbows and unicorns, but it is possible if the western countries were willing to promote cooperation instead of conflict.

I look forward to your thoughts and comments below.