The Evening Blues - 9-11-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features New Orleans keyboard player, singer and songwriter Art Neville. Enjoy!
Art Neville - Cha Dooky-Doo
"Today's dissenters mainly focus their attention and expend their energies on the most inconsequential of trivia. ...Allegedly serious intellectuals quibble endlessly over such ridiculous trivialities...In the meantime, the public is lulled into a perilous somnolence, spoon-fed pap, and palpable untruths, many of which are turned out by special-interest and pressure groups and well organized propaganda machines."
-- J. Paul Getty
News and Opinion
NATO Chief Openly Admits Russia Invaded Ukraine Because Of NATO Expansion
During a speech at the EU Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg clearly and repeatedly acknowledged that Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine because of fears of NATO expansionism.
His comments, initially flagged by journalist Thomas Fazi, read as follows:
The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.
The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.
Stoltenberg made these remarks as part of a general gloat about the fact that Putin invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO expansion and yet the invasion has resulted in Sweden and Finland applying to join the alliance, saying it “demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he’s getting the exact opposite.”
Stoltenberg’s remarks would probably have been classified as Russian propaganda by plutocrat-funded “disinformation experts” and imperial “fact checkers” if it had been said online by someone like you or me, but because it came from the head of NATO as part of a screed against the Russian president it’s been allowed to pass through without objection.
In reality Stoltenberg is just stating a well-established fact: contrary to the official western narrative, Putin invaded Ukraine not because he is evil and hates freedom but because no great power ever allows foreign military threats to amass on its borders — including the United States. That’s why so many western analysts and officials spent years warning that NATO’s actions were going to provoke a war, and yet when war broke out we were slammed with a tsunami of mass media propaganda repeating over and over and over again that this was an “unprovoked invasion”.
It would have been so very, very easy to prevent this horrific war. Off-ramp after off-ramp after off-ramp was passed to get us to where we’re at now. Chance after chance after chance to avoid all this pointless death and misery was passed up, both before 2014 and every year since. The US-centralized power structure knowingly chose this war, and it did so to advance its own interests. If people really, deeply understood this, the entire western empire would collapse.
It’s the damnedest thing how you’ll get called a Kremlin agent for saying that this war was provoked by NATO expansionism and that it serves US interests, even when NATO openly says this war was provoked by NATO expansionism and US officials keep openly saying that this war serves US interests.
The latest entry in the latter category came in the form of a Thursday tweet by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, which reads, “Standing with our allies against Russian aggression isn’t charity. In fact — it’s a direct investment in replenishing America’s arsenal with American weapons built by American workers. Expanding our defense industrial base puts America in a stronger position to out-compete China.”
When official authorized narrative-makers acknowledge these things it’s okay, but when normal human beings do it it’s Kremlin disinformation. This is because when the authorized narrative-makers do it they’re doing it to advance the information interests of the US empire — to explain to war-weary Americans how this war benefits their country, or to mock Putin’s failure to stop the enlargement of NATO — whereas when normal people do it it’s to establish what’s true and factual.
This all happens as a study sponsored by the EU with a group funded by US oligarch Pierre Omidyar is being circulated by mass media outlets like The Washington Post finding that Twitter under Elon Musk has not been doing enough to censor “Russian propaganda” on the platform. This would put Musk in violation of the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to restrict such materials.
As Glenn Greenwald has noted, the Digital Services Act defines “Russian propaganda” so extremely broadly that it includes “ideological alignment with the Russian state” in the category of materials that must be censored, which includes people who “parrot the Kremlin’s narratives through originally produced content or by spreading Kremlin aligned narratives to different target audiences and languages.”
Anyone who speaks out against US foreign policy relating to Russia online is always immediately accused of “parroting Kremlin narratives” by empire apologists mindlessly regurgitating what they’ve been told to believe by outlets like The Washington Post, whether they have anything to do with the Russian government or not. I myself have no affiliation or interaction with the Russian state whatsoever, yet I receive many of these accusations every single day online just for criticizing US foreign policy.
If I were the NATO Secretary General publicly gloating about how Putin’s efforts to stop the expansion of NATO have failed, it would be fine for me to acknowledge that NATO expansion provoked this war after our refusal to prevent a needless conflict. But because I am harming the information interests of the western empire instead of helping them, that makes me a Russian propagandist.
This isn’t because the definition of “Russian propaganda” is flawed, but because it is working exactly as intended. The push to marginalize and eliminate “Russian propaganda” has never had anything to do with fighting the actual materials put out by the Russian state (which have essentially zero meaningful existence in the western world); the push has always been about stomping out opposition to US foreign policy.
Like so much else in this world when examining the behavior of power, it’s ultimately all about narrative control. The powerful understand that whoever controls the dominant narrative about world events actually controls the world, because real power isn’t just controlling what happens but controlling what people think about what happens. That’s the real glue holding the US-centralized empire together, and the world will never have a chance at knowing peace until people start bringing consciousness to it.
Ukr Offensive Ending Massive Losses; Zelensky-Blinken Public Row: Zelensky Rejects Negotiations
UK set to station US nuclear bombs on British soil, 15 years after their removal
The UK is again on the verge of stationing US nuclear weapons on its soil, at the strategic east coast air force base, RAF (Royal Air Force) Lakenheath. ... RAF Lakenheath is in all essentials a US military base and has been for decades. Although owned by Britain’s Ministry of Defence, it is run by the US Air Force, with million of pounds provided for its operation each year by the UK government.
Its facilities were first made available for American aircraft and weapons in 1948, and it became one of three locations in the UK at which US nuclear bombs were stored. Up until 2008 at least 110 US nuclear bombs were located at Lakenheath, and their removal—explained on the basis that the threat of nuclear war had subsided—meant that Britain was not officially storing US nuclear weapons on its soil for the first time since 1954. ,,,
Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), who was the first to disclose information showing that the US was withdrawing its nuclear weapons from Lakenheath, wrote in a comment last November, “The US Air Force used to store nuclear gravity bombs at Lakenheath, which in the 1990s was equipped with 33 underground storage vaults. By the early 2000s, there were a total of 110 B61 gravity bombs in the vaults for delivery by F-15E aircraft of the 48th Fighter Wing.” He added, “After nuclear weapons were withdrawn nearly two decades ago, the empty [33] storage vaults were kept in caretaker status. The F-15Es fighter-bombers retained their nuclear capability but at a lower operational level. In recent years there have been rumors about nuclear exercises at the base.”
RAF Lakenheath, wrote Kristensen, is preparing to become the first US Air Force base in Europe equipped with nuclear-capable F-35A Lightning combat aircraft. “The first of the fifth-generation fighter-bombers arrived in December 2021. A total of 24 F-35As will form the 495th Fighter Squadron of the 48th Fighter Wing at the base.” ...
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova responded to the plans for US nuclear arms to be stationed at Lakenheath by calling them an “escalation”. She added, “In the context of the transition of the United States and Nato to an openly confrontational course of inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia, this practice and its development force us to take compensating countermeasures designed to reliably protect the security interests of our country and its allies.”
G20 REJECTS US View Of Ukraine
Lula says Putin can attend next year’s G20 in Rio without fear of arrest
Vladimir Putin can attend next year’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro without fear of arrest, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said as he took leadership of the forum. ...
The international criminal court (ICC) issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest for alleged war crimes in March 2023, just over a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a signatory of the Rome statute, Brazil is required to cooperate with ICC investigations and activities, which legal experts say includes arresting the court’s targets. Putin skipped last month’s Brics summit in South Africa, a decision widely attributed to the fact that it has signed up to the same charter.
Lula, however, indicated Putin would be welcome at the Rio summit, where he said visitors would find “an atmosphere of peace”. Challenged over the fact that Brazil was a signatory to the ICC charter, Lula replied: “He won’t be arrested.”
Lula’s policy of not taking a clear side in the Ukraine war, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, has irked many western leaders. ...
“It’s true that Russia invaded Ukraine without asking anyone. And that the US invaded Iraq without asking anyone,” Lula told Firstpost, claiming Brazil was “100% opposed” to the invasion of any country.
US/EU pressure UAE in effort to pick apart BRICS
Pentagon Developing AI Drone Swarms to ‘Deter’ China
The US military is devising a new system designed to field thousands of drones controlled by artificial intelligence, deputy Pentagon chief Kathleen Hicks said on Wednesday, voicing hopes the tech would help to overcome Beijing’s “advantage in mass.”
Speaking at the yearly Defense News conference in Arlington, Virginia, Hicks outlined the Pentagon’s new “Replicator Initiative,” which aims to develop a fleet of low-cost, AI-powered drones that will operate in ‘swarms’ in the air, land and sea. ...
Hicks first unveiled the Replicator program at another military conference in Washington, DC last month, where she told attendees the Pentagon would “counter the PLA mass with mass of our own.” At the same event, US Indo-Pacific Command head Admiral John Aquilino said the military is seeking the capability to identify and strike 1,000 targets in 24 hours, adding that the drone system would create a “hellscape” for Chinese troops in the event of a conflict.
Biden Gets CUT OFF MID-SENTENCE By Handlers; White House To Rising: You Weren’t There!
Joe Biden calls for stable US-China relationship during south-east Asia tour
Joe Biden’s national security tour of south-east Asia reached Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday, where the president called for stability in the US-China relationship against an increasingly complex diplomatic picture in the region for his country. “I don’t want to contain China,” Biden said. “I just want to make sure that we have a relationship with China that is on the up and up, squared away, everybody knows what it’s all about.”
Biden also said that China’s recent economic downturn may limit any inclination to invade Taiwan. “I don’t think it’s going to cause China to invade Taiwan – matter of fact the opposite, probably doesn’t have the same capacity as it had before,” he said on Sunday during a press conference in Hanoi. He added that the country’s economic woes had left President Xi Jinping with “his hands full right now”.
The president’s remarks came after a meeting with Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of Vietnam’s ruling Communist party, in the nation’s capital designed to secure global supply chains of semiconductors and critical minerals, which would offer a strategic alternative to China. “I think we have an enormous opportunity,” Biden said of the visit. “Vietnam and the United States are critical partners at what I would argue is a very critical time.”
"The Other 9/11": Ariel Dorfman on 50th Anniversary of U.S.-Backed Coup in Chile That Ousted Allende
Kevin McCarthy faces battle with hard-right Republicans as shutdown looms
Kevin McCarthy will return from his August recess on Tuesday facing the latest in a long series of conundrums for the Republican House leader: should he force a government shutdown, leaving hundreds of thousands of government workers without a paycheck, or burn more bridges with the hard-right flank of his conference, risking his speakership in the process?
With just 12 legislative days left before the end of the fiscal year, the Republican-controlled House must quickly pass some kind of spending package to keep the federal government open after 30 September. If the chamber does not approve a spending bill, the government will shut down for the first time in nearly five years, furloughing federal employees and stalling many crucial programs.
McCarthy has indicated his preference to pass a continuing resolution, which would keep the government funded at its current levels for a short period of time as lawmakers continue to negotiate over a longer-term deal. But members of the hard-right House freedom caucus, who are still furious over the deal that McCarthy and President Joe Biden struck to suspend the debt ceiling earlier this year, insist they will not back a continuing resolution unless the speaker agrees to several significant policy concessions, such as increased border security and an impeachment inquiry into Biden.
Given House Republicans’ narrow majority and a new rule allowing any single member of the chamber to force a vote on removing the speaker, McCarthy’s handling of this fraught situation could determine whether he loses his gavel after just eight months in power.
Pelosi Announces RE-ELECT At AGE 83
RFK JR Campaign Wants DNC To PROMISE Party ELITES Won’t Rig Process, Could LEAVE Party
Tribe Calls for Public Support to Shut Down Dakota Access Pipeline
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairwoman Janet Alkire is leading a fresh demand that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers throw out an ongoing environmental review process of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline and start again from scratch alongside a superseding call for the pipeline to be shuttered completely.
Following Friday's release of a revised Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), ordered by a federal court, the tribe said the document reveals the entire process has been a failure and that the pipeline—currently operating across their land without consent in what they consider an "illegal" manner by the Energy Transfer company—should be shut down once and for all.
"We're furious that the Army Corps has addressed none of our major concerns during the review process," Chairwoman Alkire said in a statement.
"The pipeline is an imminent threat to the Missouri River, sensitive habitat, and sacred burial sites along the riverbank," she continued. "The oil company's emergency response plans are inadequate, its safety track record is horrendous, and there's been a stunning lack of transparency with Standing Rock throughout the environmental review process, including inaccurate characterizations of tribal consultation."
The Army Corps did not make any recommendations or indicate preferences among the alternatives presented in the new EIS report, which included keeping it in operation, possible rerouting, removing the pipeline by excavation, or abandoning it in place. The Corps said its final recommendations will accompany a final report once the review process is complete, but the Standing Rock Sioux said the process has been seriously flawed.
The tribe said the draft EIS fails to "account for the existence of criminal charges and a host of fines and serious citations" from regulators faced by Energy Transfer. Alkire accused the Corps of "doing all it can to ignore the company’s poor safety record and the high risk" of the pipeline. According to the statement by the tribe:
the entirety of the environmental review process hasn't been taken seriously and is compromised because the Corps selected a company with a clear conflict of interest to prepare the just-released draft EIS. Environmental Resources Management — which also produced a sparkling environmental review for the Keystone XL pipeline, later shelved due to environmental concerns — is a member of the American Petroleum Institute. That organization previously filed a legal brief in support of DAPL in Standing Rock’s suit against the Army Corps. Moreover, Environmental Resources Management has contracted with at least five separate companies with an ownership interest in DAPL.
The release of the EIS triggers a 45-day public comment period and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is now requesting public support in opposition of the project.
Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline: https://t.co/WUwJeuOezD
In 2016, Standing Rock faced the DAPL, embodying an ancient prophecy. Thousands united, stopping it under Obama. Trump pushed it through. The biased draft EIS is here. Your voice is crucial! STOP DAPL! #NoDAPL
— Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (@StandingRockST) September 9, 2023
"The Corps' covering for the pipeline company's outrageous safety record and the reviewer's serious conflict of interest have now resulted in a failed effort," said Alkire of the current process. "They need to start over with adult supervision."
Amy Mall, senior advocate at NRDC, said her group stands "in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in opposing this dirty and dangerous pipeline that harms the climate and threatens the primary water source for the Tribe."
"The Army Corps must consider all of the risks of this pipeline, make all significant environmental information available without redactions, and honor the Tribe’s treaty rights," Mall added. "We call on the Corps to shut it down."
‘A critical moment’: UN warns world will miss climate targets unless fossil fuels phased out
Governments are failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to meet the goals of the Paris agreement and to stave off climate disaster, a major report by the UN has found.
Meeting the goals will require “phasing out all unabated fossil fuels”, the report says, in an acknowledgment that some oil-producing countries may find hard to take.
The need to phase out fossil fuels has not been explicitly adopted by the UN before, under successive rounds of climate talks, and language over “phasing out” or “phasing down” fossil fuels has caused controversy at the annual UN climate talks.
There is a “rapidly narrowing window” for governments to move faster, according to the report, as global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025 at the latest, and be rapidly reduced from there, to limit temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Emissions are still rising, however, and there is a gap of 20 to 23 gigatonnes of CO2 between the cuts needed by 2030 to limit global temperatures to 1.5C and the world’s current emissions trajectory.
Deadly humid heatwaves to spread rapidly as climate warms
Life-threatening periods of high heat and humidity will spread rapidly across the world with only a small increase in global temperatures, a study has found, which could cause a sharp acceleration in the number of deaths resulting from the climate crisis. The extremes, which can be fatal to healthy people within six hours, could affect hundreds of millions of people unused to such conditions. As a result, heat deaths could rise quickly unless serious efforts to prepare populations were undertaken urgently, the researcher said.
Normally, the human body cools itself by producing sweat, which evaporates and takes heat away. But when humidity is high, evaporation is reduced. The study used a limit based on experiments on people showing that when combined heat and humidity, as measured by so-called wet bulb temperature, passes 31.5C, the body is no longer able to cool itself. The researchers called this threshold “non-compensable heat stress”, as sweating cannot compensate for the extreme conditions. Without cooling aids, such as cold water, fans or air conditioning, death is likely within hours.
The research analysed data from thousands of weather stations across the world to show that 4% had already experienced at least one six-hour period of this extreme heat stress since 1970, with the frequency of such events doubling by 2020. However, these have been confined to date to hot places, including the Gulf in the Middle East, the Red Sea and the North Indian Plain, where people expect extreme heat. The analysis, which also used climate models, shows that extreme heat stress will spread rapidly to other regions with global heating of only 2C. The climate crisis has already raised global temperatures by about 1.2C. At 2C, more than 25% of the weather stations would suffer the extreme heat stress once a decade on average.
The east coast and midwest regions of the US and central Europe, including Germany, are among places that would experience the arrival of unprecedented heat stress conditions. In places that are already hot, like Arizona, Texas and parts of California, periods of extreme heat stress would become annual events at 2C.
Phoenix sets record in hellishly hot summer – but relief is in sight
Residents in Phoenix, Arizona, are set to experience some relief from the blistering heatwave following the city’s record of the most days at or above 110F (43.3C) this year despite reaching 112F (44.4C) on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
On Sunday, the NWS announced that temperatures in Arizona’s largest city will finally begin to retreat “closer to the seasonal normal” with highs expected to range between 102F (38.9C) and 104F (40C) between Monday and Friday. Sunday’s temperature broke the daily high record of 111F (43.9C) set in 1990.
On Saturday, Phoenix’s Sky Harbor international airport reached 110F, making it the 54th day this year to hit that temperature.
Saturday’s temperature breaks the previous record of 53 days, which was set in 2020. From 1991 to 2020, the average number of days at 110F or above was 21, the NWS said.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
WaPo Reported That Ukrainians Are Distrustful of the West & Flirting With a Ceasefire
Ukraine SitRep: Western Military Commentators Finally Accept The Obvious
Pay Attention To The Everyday Horrors
John Kiriakou: US Justice Dept’s Next Victim
Niger gives US ambassador 48 hours to leave country - AFP
UK Backed Pinochet’s Bloody Coup
Israel: New movement sees young people refusing military service over judicial reforms
Small island nations take high-emitting countries to court to protect the ocean
Morocco: Earthquake Death Toll at 2,500; Criticism Grows over King's Response to Humanitarian Crisis
Secret Service Agent BREAKS SILENCE On JFK Assassination
Locals Are Helping In Maui – NOT The Government!
Internet SCORCHES Oprah & The Rock Over Maui Charity Appeal
Trump Wanted U.S. Out Of NATO!
A Little Night Music
Art Neville – Let's Rock
Art Neville – Arabian Love Call
Art Neville - Little Liza Jane
Art Neville – The Dummy
Art Neville – Too Late
Art Neville – What's Going On
Art Neville - Lover Of Love
Art Neville – Back Home To Me
Art Neville - That Old Time Rock'n'Roll
Comments
Thanks for the Eb's Joe
Here's one of the good guys!!
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2023/09/debt-rattle-september-11-2023/
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
He is a natural
stumbling over all the aggressive campaigns of the US
is funny and not pointless
tanks
question everything
evening ggersh...
harrelson's response was dead on target. i hope it makes the warmongers hot under the collar. i liked his snl bit about covid, too. i saw a longer clip of it on my phone the day after it aired and i remember that particular bit getting nervous laughter at best from the crowd. i guess the snl audience is well propagandized.
It only goes to show how much peer pressure
plays on the minds of us sheeple.....sigh
They even have us believe he's the guy in charge
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
Has any WH had to deny what a president said
like this one has had to do with Biden? How many times have they said "that’s not what he meant!" And have had to retract lots of the things he has said or had to give out clue cards for where and when he sits or who he should call on. I’m up to 10 times someone has had to cover his buttocks. But I have never seen one cut the president off mid sentence like that kupee doll did there.
Yeah this sums up our befuddled duo.
The other day Biden walked into the room carrying his mask and told people that he was supposed to be wearing it, but shhh don’t tell his minders that he wasn’t. Then he pinned a medal on someone and then walked away and out of the room. Apparently he was supposed to stick around for awhile, but he forgot. The audience was stunned.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
As to this
.
Here’s what Simplicious says about journalists.
The Kevin doesn’t have to worry about the short timetable..
Why you ask? Because the lobbyists have already written the bill in advance and just needs the house to vote on it. That lobbyists were writing the bills for the house came out during the time Ryan was speaker and he was passing the massive tax cuts bill and he had to keep running to the back room to see what the lobbyists wanted included in it. Then it was confirmed during Pelosi’s tenure when most of congress was sitting at home and just zoomed in to vote on what they wrote. Easy peasy work for our government to pass when it’s not on vacation.
Hey remember when democrats were bitching about the tax bill and they let us know that they had nothing to do with it? Well a lot of things were either left out or weren’t worded right so republicans had to have democrats help them fix it. No one had to have their arm twisted.
Deadly humid heatwaves to spread rapidly as climate warms
I wonder how much of this is related to the Hunga Tonga volcano that when it blew it threw thousands or millions of gallons of water into the atmosphere? Is that why the WHO dude is saying that the climate is boiling? Could be….the ice in the Antarctic is melting from underneath it because the water temperature is being affected by volcanic activity there and elsewhere.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
evening snoopy...
heh, simplicius is certainly correct that the vast majority of "journalists" are not exactly doing themselves proud these days. it makes them even madder when people point at them and laugh.
it will be funny if the freedom caucus is able to shove a wrench in the gears of congress and perhaps throw kevin the grownup out of office. it will be delightful to watch official washington sputter and point fingers at each other.
Well when you put it that way
.
These are some good questions . It really sums up the shitshow democrats ran on the country for the last 5 years. I’m betting if republicans looked into what democrats had been doing in Ukraine since 2014 they would find lots of fire under the smoke. But since some republicans were involved in it too I doubt they would look very hard.
And just think if we had an independent media that would do actual investigations then maybe they would uncover the corruption that both parties are involved in. Didn’t we once have that?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
evening snoopy...
yep, we used to have investigative reporters before we started punishing them. apparently journalism is not a function desired by the state or the oligarchs.
lying dog faced pony soldier
...that's so funny coming from him. Also completely tactless. He's not helping the US image any. If the Vietnamese weren't so desperate for foreign investment and didn't have an axe to grind in the South China Sea, I doubt they would tolerate these incredibly inept US politicians. I doubt if the US will deliver on foreign investment promises. My understanding is that past promises have resulted in very little investment. When Trump was in office, the US had some oil and gas leases from Vietnam in the South China Sea. With the dispute over the area, between China and Vietnam that proved problematic.
Going to McCain's memorial site, is another high point of irony. The whole reason the US is in Vietnam is to damage or offset China interests. When your body and brain cease to function effectively isn't it time to retire? Talk about ugly American.
Did Biden stumble while laying the wreath?
Meanwhile-
https://m-en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230910002651325
This is a great essay by Kevin Gray on South Korean politics.
https://theconversation.com/south-korean-presidents-anti-communist-taunt...
It's rare to see this kind of analysis in the English language. Recommend the whole article, it's not that long. More:
On a historical and national basis, the Yoon "new right" administration doesn't have any legitimacy. They have zero to offer the public while erecting a new kind of dictatorship in their own favor. Wonder what those cynical anti-communist hypocrites think about Biden's visit to Vietnam?
Thanks for the EBs Joe!
語必忠信 行必正直
This is interesting
I followed the tweet under the one you posted:
Gives it a different perspective doesn’t it? Didn’t anyone explain the statue to Joe and Kamala who made a fool of herself when she visited it.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
The have to worship the war doyen
They think it gives them creds. It's almost like he's a saint.
The memorial citation was edited at one point, in 2015, at the request of the US ambassador. McCain's name was misspelled and preceded by a pejorative. The latter was removed and the name corrected in preparation for a McCain visit.
The Clean And Improved Monument Of John McCain In Hanoi
https://tedosius.com/the-clean-and-improved-monument-of-john-mccain-in-h...
Thanks snoopy!
語必忠信 行必正直
Thank you for posting the tweet
I wouldn’t have known the truth about the memorial if you hadn’t. Love the way McStain is on his knees surrendering and his plane on fire. It’s interesting watching people’s history of being warmongers get rewritten as time goes by. Left out of a lot of his history is how he graduated at the bottom of his class and that he crashed 5 planes during his career in the navy. Plus how he shut down the investigation into POW's after he got into congress. Just a rotten POS that became an American hero. Blehh!
Now what’s the truth about him selling out other POW's and America. Is there anything to that? Bueller…..?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
I'm not sure about that
Frankly, I tend to avoid the personal histories from the Hanoi Hilton vets. They can be very acrimonious. I've also tended to avoid the military focused accounts of war rather than the more historically oriented accounts taking a broader perspective. @cassiodorus recently referred to A Bright Shining lie about John Paul Vann. I think that's a great book, too.
Because of my training, and my exposure to aviation (only as an observer) over a five year period, I tend to take criticisms of McCain with a grain of salt. I witnessed military aviation accidents from time to time. They were more frequent than most people know. Once I knew enough about some of the issues to address them but now frankly I can't even remember the details. The one thing to keep in mind, is that as someone held as a prisoner of war in that conflict, he was subjected to a lot of duress and torture, so I find it difficult to judge a man in that position. I think McCain was singled out because his father was a high profile commander. Part of this is the lawyer in me. Keep in mind, I never supported the war, in fact had demonstrated against it, but I still feel this way.
This fact check link appears to have accounts of his four aircraft losses.
https://www.factcheck.org/2008/09/mccains-plane-crashes/
I see he admitted being something of a hotdog pilot.
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
you've got to wonder whether places like vietnam are amused or insulted when we send them bumbling mediocrities like biden to participate in diplomacy with them.
heh, the guardian and their spook masters are pretty sure that kju is on his armored train headed for vladivostock.
thanks for the gray article. the way that the ruling class is dividing and conquering in sk is reminiscent of the u.s. during the mccarthy era, it will be interesting to see if it plays out the same way with the revulsion of the people washing away the red-baiting scourge.
I thought I saw
...some poorly concealed WTF facial expressions on more than one Vietnamese diplomat at the table with Biden and company. You have to humor these people, they're Americans.
語必忠信 行必正直
Good evening Joe, thanks for the EBs.
So the magic bullet wasn't and neither was the single bullet, which we all already knew. Lone gunman? Also nearly certain to be bullshit. So what's left? It's a little late for them to try to do an actual investigation. Do you think that questioning the lone gunman theory will still be deemed one of the classic examples of a conspiracy theory? Bwahahaha.
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 --
evening el...
i suppose that the only thing left as regards the kennedy assassination is for the cia to finally fess up. that may have to wait a while, i guess because people still find it relevant history.
have a great evening!
the skies are weeping
the mist is creeping thru the woods
an occasional bolt of lightening to
make the night a good back drop for
a scary nightmare which is my life
the only thing missing is the violent
sound track of thunder
question everything
evening qms...
interesting tune, thanks!
have a good one.
Intrigue…
.
Who is killing Ukraine soldiers that are out on leave
I've come across a Twitter posting talking about Ukrainian soldiers being killed while on leave. I'm wondering about the veracity of this; does anyone have any extra detail. Is Ukraine currently struggling under a civil war/counter insurgency?
https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1700666941558383022
Thread
I read about a UK mercenary a few days ago whose body was found in a lake with his hands tied behind his back and now see this thread. There have been a lot of soldiers killed under mysterious circumstances. There has been talk about how Nazis kill anyone who even dares think of not fighting or surrendering to Russian soldiers and now this. Too bad that the people who are supporting Ukraine aren’t getting the whole picture.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Yeah, that was an odd story
some brit found tied up in a swamp dead
I guess it is a risk of the job, killing for money
knowing the nazi code of conduct, it is not out of
bounds to have a bounty on babies and goats too?
question everything
Nuland is F-ing insane?
..
Here she is talking about Ukraine having her permission to attack Crimea in order to make them behave. Look at how excited she is while she is talking about this.
https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1700955293922869341?s=46&t=w_XvZyVBUp...
Great job Joe giving the worst of the neocons a chance to continue being the worst of the neocons who have been running this shitshow in the background since Bush 1. Won’t someone rig me of this tiresome b*tch?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt