The Evening Blues - 10-3-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues and gospel singer and guitarist Roebuck "Pops" Staples. Enjoy!
Pop Staples - Nobody's Fault But Mine
"No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution... revolution is but thought carried into action."
-- Emma Goldman
News and Opinion
Worth a full read.
Chris Hedges: Why Our Popular Mass Movements Fail
There was a decade of popular uprisings from 2010 until the global pandemic in 2020. These uprisings shook the foundations of the global order. They denounced corporate domination, austerity cuts and demanded economic justice and civil rights. There were nationwide protests in the United States centered around the 59-day Occupy encampments. There were popular eruptions in Greece, Spain, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Turkey, Brazil, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Chile and during South Korea’s Candlelight Light Revolution. Discredited politicians were driven from office in Greece, Spain, Ukraine, South Korea, Egypt, Chile and Tunisia. Reform, or at least the promise of it, dominated public discourse. It seemed to herald a new era.
Then the backlash. The aspirations of the popular movements were crushed. State control and social inequality expanded. There was no significant change. In most cases, things got worse. The far-right emerged triumphant.
What happened? How did a decade of mass protests that seemed to herald democratic openness, an end to state repression, a weakening of the domination of global corporations and financial institutions and an era of freedom sputter to an ignominious failure? What went wrong? How did the hated bankers and politicians maintain or regain control? What are the effective tools to rid ourselves of corporate domination?
Vincent Bevins in his new book“If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution” chronicles how we failed on several fronts. The “techno-optimists” who preached that new digital media was a revolutionary and democratizing force did not foresee that authoritarian governments, corporations and internal security services could harness these digital platforms and turn them into engines of wholesale surveillance, censorship and vehicles for propaganda and disinformation. The social media platforms that made popular protests possible were turned against us.
Many mass movements, because they failed to implement hierarchical, disciplined, and coherent organizational structures, were unable to defend themselves. In the few cases when organized movements achieved power, as in Greece and Honduras, the international financiers and corporations conspired to ruthlessly wrest power back. In most cases, the ruling class swiftly filled the power vacuums created by these protests. They offered new brands to repackage the old system. This is the reason the 2008 Obama campaign was named Advertising Age’s Marketer of the Year. It won the vote of hundreds of marketers, agency heads and marketing-services vendors gathered at the Association of National Advertisers’ annual conference. It beat out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. The professionals knew. Brand Obama was a marketer’s dream.
Too often the protests resembled flash mobs, with people pouring into public spaces and creating a media spectacle, rather than engaging in a sustained, organized and prolonged disruption of power. Guy Debord captures the futility of these spectacles/protests in his book “Society of the Spectacle,” noting that the age of the spectacle means those entranced by its images are “molded to its laws.” Anarchists and antifascists, such as those in the black bloc, often smashed windows, threw rocks at police and overturned or burned cars. Random acts of violence, looting and vandalism were justified in the jargon of the movement, as components of “feral” or “spontaneous insurrection.” This “riot porn” delighted the media, many of those who engaged in it and, not coincidentally, the ruling class which used it to justify further repression and demonize protest movements. An absence of political theory led activists to use popular culture, such as the film “V for Vendetta,” as reference points. The far more effective and crippling tools of grassroots educational campaigns, strikes and boycotts were often ignored or sidelined.
Ukr Offensive Has Failed, Rus Army Grows 335K, Rus Attacking; Yellen: Oil Price Cap Not Working
The MIC is hungry:
Biden urges Republicans to approve Ukraine aid, saying support cannot waver
Joe Biden has pressed congressional Republicans to back a deal to provide more aid to Ukraine, after provisions for Kyiv were left out of a bill to avoid a US government shutdown.
The US president said on Sunday he was “sick and tired” of the political brinkmanship, and that US support for Ukraine could not be interrupted “under any circumstances”. Republicans had pledged to provide Ukraine aid through a separate vote, he said.
Without referring directly to the US bill, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that nothing would weaken his country’s fight against Russia, and that no one could “shut down” Ukraine’s stability, endurance, strength and courage, echoing a Ukrainian verb often used to refer to power outages caused by Russian attacks. The Ukrainian president’s comments were made in a recorded speech released on the Defenders Day holiday. ...
Ukraine defence minister Rustem Umerov said he had received reassurances about further military assistance in a telephone call with US defence secretary Lloyd Austin. “Secretary Austin assured me,” Umerov wrote in a post on X, using flags in place of country names, that US support to Ukraine “will continue” and that Ukrainian “warriors will continue to have a strong back-up on the battlefield”.
Fico wins Slovakia elections. EU is preparing its attack
British PM Clarifies Defense Secretary’s Comments About Sending Troops to Ukraine for Training
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday said that comments made by his defense secretary about sending troops into Ukraine for training are part of long-term planning, not something the UK would do in the “here and now.”
British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps told the Sunday Telegraph that he was discussing the idea of moving London’s training programs for Ukrainian troops from the UK into Ukraine. “I was talking today about eventually getting the training brought closer and actually into Ukraine as well,” Shapps said.
According to the Discord leaks and several media reports, the UK has had special operations forces inside Ukraine. The Times of London reported all the way back in April 2022 that British Special Air Service troops were training Ukrainians on anti-tank weapons outside of Kyiv. But the presence was never officially acknowledged by London, and an open British military deployment to Ukraine would mark a significant escalation of NATO involvement in the war.
THOUSANDS Of Ukrainian Troops Surrender To Russia!
Armenia’s Bleak Future Thanks to US Neocons
US neocon efforts to stir up trouble in the Caucasus via Armenia will likely only force other countries in the region closer together and isolate Armenia. Neocon think tanks in Washington like the RAND Corporation and Middle East Media Research Institute have long advocated for stirring up trouble in the South Caucasus as another way to weaken Russia and Iran and potentially cause a rift between the two. Instead the opposite is likely to happen. This is an absolute worst case scenario for Armenia as it has allowed itself to become a proxy battleground between world and regional powers and will almost certainly end disastrously for the country. ...
Azerbaijan taking the region by force comes after months of miscalculations or purposeful maneuvering by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Under Pashinyan’s direction Armenia recently hosted military exercises with the US, invited the EU and Washington into the peace process with Azerbaijan (traditionally handled by Russia), the prime minister’s wife visited Kiev to deliver humanitarian aid, and on Thursday the Armenian parliament moved closer to adopting the Rome Statute, which Moscow calls a “hostile move.” Was Pashinyan making loud overtures to the West in an ill-fated attempt to coax more support from Russia in the long conflict with Azerbaijan or was he simply maneuvering to blame Russia for the loss of Nagorno Karabakh and move Armenia closer to NATO, the EU, and Washington? Either way, he got in over his head. He has now given away Nagorno Karabakh with nothing to show for it.
It’s possible that Pashinyan was caught up in magical thinking that he had more support from Washington despite the fact the US has no real way to project power into the Caucasus. After all, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was demanding in July that Azerbaijan immediately reopen the Lachin Corridor, which is the sole road that connects Armenia to Nagorno Karabakh. Nancy Pelosi went to Armenia last September and pledged “the strong and ongoing support of the United States.” Members of Congress had also been making noise about more support for Yerevan and stronger opposition to Azerbaijan. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov recently said, “We have information that they [the West] are signaling to the Armenians, ‘Come to us, kick the Russians out of your territory, remove the [Russian] military base and border guards too, the Americans will help to ensure your security.’”
Well, Armenia is still waiting for the US support, and for now Pashinyan is left holding the bag and flailing about. While he blames Russia, he’s also tried to downplay claims of mass casualties and backed the ceasefire brokered by Moscow. Pashinyan will now meet with his Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev October 5, potentially for a wider peace deal. The blaming of Russia for the loss of Nagorno has unleashed widespread anger in Armenia. ...
In such an environment, a new Western-backed color revolution to install someone that could take advantage of the current popular anger to push even more anti-Russian policies is not out of the question.
Armenia grapples with multiple challenges after the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh
Tens of thousands of now-homeless people have streamed into Armenia from the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, controlled by its emboldened adversary, Azerbaijan. Swarms of protesters are filling the streets of the Armenian capital of Yerevan, demanding the prime minister’s ouster. Relations with Russia, an old ally and protector, have frayed amid mutual accusations. Armenia now finds itself facing multiple challenges after being suddenly thrust into one of the worst political crises in its decades of independence following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Starved of supplies by an Azerbaijani blockade and outnumbered by a military bolstered by Turkey, the separatist forces capitulated in 24 hours and their political leaders said they would dissolve their government by the end of the year. That triggered a massive exodus by the ethnic Armenians who feared living under Azerbaijani rule. Over 80% of the region’s 120,000 residents hastily packed their belongings and trudged in a grueling and slow journey over the single mountain road into impoverished Armenia, which is struggling to accommodate them.
Enraged and exasperated over the loss of their homeland, they will likely support almost daily protests against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who has been blamed by the opposition for failing to defend Nagorno-Karabakh. Pashinyan’s economically challenged government has to provide them quickly with housing, medical care and jobs. While the global Armenian diaspora has pledged to help, it poses major financial and logistical problems for the landlocked country.
SECRET DEAL To Fund Ukraine?! Biden, Press Sec DODGE QUESTIONS After Alleged Mystery Agreement
Congress to replace 2001 AUMF with … 2001 AUMF
This year, there seemed to be reason for optimism among advocates of war powers reform. When the Senate voted in March to repeal the 2002 authorization for war with Iraq, many assumed the House would quickly pass the measure, which had garnered broad bipartisan support in previous years.
But that optimism may be misplaced, as a hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee demonstrated Thursday. Far from showing a desire to wrestle back their war-making authorities, most lawmakers appear determined to maintain the status quo that has seen U.S. troops carry out operations in more than 20 countries around the world.
The hearing revolved around the holy grail of war powers: the 2001 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and any groups that harbored them. Despite concerns that the law has been stretched well past its original intent, Congress has struggled to build consensus on a replacement.
Yet Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the HFAC chair, has made clear that he will only consider repealing the 2002 AUMF alongside a repeal-and-replace of the 2001 version. This may have been a clever attempt to prevent a straight repeal of the 2002 law, but, after a month of negotiations, McCaul now says he hopes to mark up a compromise bill by the end of October.
McCaul opened discussion on Thursday by arguing that America still faces “terrorists committed to our destruction” around the world. (It should be noted that the Department of Defense says the threat to the homeland from Al Qaida, ISIS, and Al Shabaab is “low” and possibly non-existent.)
McCaul said he would not consider putting geographic restrictions on a replacement, going against a key proposal among war powers reformers, who warn that unrestricted AUMFs are ripe for exploitation by the executive branch. Most of his colleagues — including a number of Democrats — agreed with McCaul’s approach.
Politico DEFENDS NAZIS? Op-Ed Backs Trudeau, Canada; Suggests Not All SS Fighters Were Bad?
"Crime Against Humanity": Exiled from Diego Garcia for U.S. Military Base, Residents Demand Return
Saudis Determined to Get Defense Pact With US for Israel Normalization
Saudi Arabia is determined to secure a defense pact with the US in exchange for normalizing with Israel regardless of whether or not concessions are made to the Palestinians, Reuters reported Friday, citing regional sources.
Riyadh is looking for a commitment from the US that it would defend Saudi Arabia if it comes under attack, similar to NATO’s Article 5, which outlines that an attack on one alliance member is treated as an attack on all. The US is not looking to go as far as an Article 5-style guarantee, but the Reuters report said Saudi Arabia “would not settle for less than binding assurances of US protection if it faced attack.”
A formal US mutual defense guarantee for Saudi Arabia would risk reigniting the war in Yemen, where a ceasefire between the Saudis and the Houthis has held relatively well since April 2022. Such a commitment from the US also risks sparking another war as it would embolden Riyadh in the region.
US Signs Deal That Will Allow Military Deployments to Ecuador
The Biden administration has quietly struck a deal with Ecuador to deploy troops to the country and patrol the waters off its coast to combat drug cartels, the Washington Examiner reported on Friday. ...
The maritime deal will allow the US Coast Guard to patrol waters off Ecuador’s coast, an area where Colombian cartels transport cocaine.
The second agreement outlines the terms by which the US troops could be deployed to Ecuador, known as a status of forces agreement. The details of the agreement are not known, and it’s also unclear if it means a US troop deployment is imminent.
McCarthy OUSTING?! Dems Voting With MATT GAETZ To Vacate Speakership TODAY
Matt Gaetz introduces motion to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker
Congressman Matt Gaetz, a hard-right Republican of Florida, introduced a motion to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker on Monday, expressing outrage over the Republican leader’s successful efforts to avoid a government shutdown this weekend.
“I have enough Republicans where at this point next week, one of two things will happen: Kevin McCarthy won’t be the speaker of the House, or he’ll be the speaker of the House working at the pleasure of the Democrats,” Gaetz told reporters after he filed the motion. “I’m at peace with either result because the American people deserve to know who governs them.” ...
Gaetz had warned that he would move to oust McCarthy if the speaker collaborated with Democrats to keep the government open and he followed through with that threat on Monday evening. Now that Gaetz has introduced a motion to vacate the chair, House leadership will have to schedule a vote on the matter within two legislative days.
McCarthy’s allies are expected to deploy some procedural tactics to derail Gaetz’s motion, but if those efforts fail, it will take only a simple majority of voting members present to remove the speaker. ... Because of House Republicans’ narrow majority, McCarthy can only afford to lose five votes within his conference and still hold the speakership, assuming every House member participates in the vote. Despite that tricky math, McCarthy has struck a defiant tone in recent days, insisting he has the votes to keep his gavel.
Rightwing activist helps fund ‘predatory payday lenders’ in supreme court case
The rightwing activist Leonard Leo has helped fund a network of groups involved in a crucial US supreme court case that could fundamentally weaken the federal government’s ability to hold corporations to account, a leading watchdog said as the conservative-dominated court prepared for its new term.
“Leonard Leo spent years stacking the court with ideological kindred spirits,” said Caroline Ciccone, president of Accountable.US. “Now he’s funding a dark web of special interest groups to push an extreme agenda.”
The case in question, in the term that starts on Tuesday, is Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v Community Financial Services Association of America, or CFPB v CFSAA. The CFPB was set up under the Obama administration after the global recession of 2008 to 2009, to better protect ordinary Americans from predatory business interests. The CFSAA is an umbrella for a group of payday lenders.
Last week, writing for Scotusblog, Amy Howe, a law professor and counsel in supreme court cases, said: “The stakes in the case are high. The Biden administration … warns that a ruling for the challengers could call into question not only the payday-lending rule at the center of this case but also a wide swath of other regulations that protect consumers.
“And more broadly, the case is the first of several on the court’s docket this term in which the justices will weigh in on the division of authority between the three branches of government, as well as the power of administrative agencies.”
Clarence Thomas Refuses to Recuse in Case That Could Benefit Billionaire Benefactor
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday recused himself from a decision—but the rare move from the embattled right-winger came as he weighed in on another case involving his billionaire benefactor, which outraged one watchdog group.
The high court declined to hear Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP) v. City of New York, New York, a landlord-backed constitutional challenge to the massive city's longtime rent stabilization policies for about a million apartments.
"It is a travesty that Clarence Thomas failed to recuse himself in yet another case from which his right-wing donors could directly benefit," said Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser in a statement. "Justice Thomas' billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow has a vested interest in weakening rent control laws across the country to buttress his real estate empire's profits."
The Supreme Court in recent months has faced calls for new ethics rules, a U.S. Department of Justice probe, and Thomas' resignation in response to revelations about his relationship with Crow and other rich GOP donors. In addition to treating Thomas to luxury vacations, Crow bought his mother's house and contributed to the private school tuition for a great-nephew he raised.
"Crow's industry lobbyist of choice, the National Multifamily Housing Council, filed an amicus brief urging the 2nd Circuit to take up the challenge to New York City's rent control law in 2021," Hauser noted. "While the NMHC did not file a brief for the case before the Supreme Court, there should be little doubt that Thomas and his clerks are aware of NMHC's, and therefore Crow's, interest in the case."
As The New York Times reported Monday, "Other petitions asking the Supreme Court to rule on aspects of the regulations are pending, and the justices may yet agree to consider one or more of those cases."
Given that, "the threat from the Thomas-Crow relationship remains imminent," Hauser stressed. "We call on Thomas to immediately recuse himself from two additional challenges to New York City's rent control law relisted for the October 6th conference by the court: 74 Pinehurst LLC v. New York (22-1130) and 335-7 LLC v. City of New York. Crow's interest in these cases is unambiguous, as is the depth of Thomas' relationship with his patron Crow."
Police chief who led raid of small Kansas newspaper put on suspension
The police chief who led a highly criticized raid of a small Kansas newspaper has been suspended, the mayor confirmed to the Associated Press this weekend.
The Marion mayor, Dave Mayfield, in a text said he suspended chief Gideon Cody on Thursday. He declined to discuss his decision further and did not say whether Cody was still being paid.
The 11 August searches of the Marion County Record’s office and the homes of its publisher and a city council member have been sharply criticized, putting Marion at the center of a debate over the press protections offered by the free press rights enshrined in the US constitution’s first amendment.
Cody’s suspension is a reversal for the mayor, who previously said he would wait for results from a state police investigation before taking action.
The vice-mayor, Ruth Herbel, whose home was also raided on 11 August, praised Cody’s suspension as “the best thing that can happen to Marion right now” while the central Kansas town of about 1,900 people struggles to move forward under the national spotlight.
Police Killings of Black & Brown People May Be Double Previous Estimates: La Raza Database Project
Texas man sent to death row over junk science denied US supreme court appeal
A Texas prisoner who is facing execution having been sent to death row on the basis of “shaken baby syndrome”, a child abuse theory that has been widely debunked as junk science, has had his petition to the US supreme court denied. The country’s highest court issued its denial on Monday morning giving no explanation. Robert Roberson, 56, who was sent to death row in 2003 for shaking his two-year-old daughter Nikki to death, had appealed to the justices to take another look at his case focusing on the largely discredited forensic science on which his conviction was secured.
The court’s decision leaves Roberson’s life in jeopardy. Having come within four days of execution in 2016, he has already exhausted appeals through Texas state courts and must now rely on the mercy of the Republican governor Greg Abbott who rarely grants clemency. ...
In the intervening years, however, new evidence has been uncovered that suggests that not only is Roberson potentially innocent but that the crime for which he was convicted of never took place. Leading scientists have questioned the reliability of shaken baby syndrome, both as a medical diagnosis and as a forensic tool in criminal prosecutions, pointing to more than 80 alternative causes that can explain the symptoms without violence having occurred. ...
In Nikki’s case, several of the alternative causes that scientists have identified for the symptoms linked to shaken baby syndrome have been found to apply to the toddler. The girl had been ill with a fever of 104.5F (40.3C) shortly before she collapsed, had undiagnosed pneumonia, and had been given medical pills that are no longer considered safe for children as they can be life-threatening.
At his 2003 trial, Roberson was portrayed by prosecutors as a cold and calculating father who displayed no emotion. After his conviction, though, the inmate was diagnosed with autism which put those qualities in a completely different light.
Yanis Varoufakis on the death of capitalism, Starmer and the tyranny of big tech
Trump attacks New York court for fraud trial that threatens his business career
Donald Trump attacked the judge and New York prosecutors who have charged him with orchestrating a years-long fraud on Monday as state prosecutors accused the former president of using the scam to inflate his wealth by as much as $2.2bn. ...
“This is a continuation of the single greatest witch-hunt of all time,” Trump said as he headed into court. He said his financial statements were “phenomenal”, called James, who is Black, a “racist” and a “horror show” and said the case was being overseen by a “rogue judge”. ...
The judge delivered a dramatic punishment to Trump, along with his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, who will see their business certificates canceled. This will make it nearly impossible for them to continue doing business in New York.
What could make things even worse is a hefty fine. The attorney general’s office will have to prove that there should be a disgorgement of profits from the Trump family, meaning they should have to give up the profits they made off their fudged financial statements. James’s office is arguing that Trump received loans using those fraudulent statements to purchase properties like the Trump golf club in Miami, Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago and the Old Post Office building in Washington DC. Any profits from those, the attorney general is arguing, were made off lies. ...
The trial is scheduled to run until 22 December , though it will likely not last that long as the judge’s pre-trial ruling settled a major question: whether Trump indeed committed fraud. Now the case is focused on how much he will have to pay for it.
Type of storm that drenched New York is up to 20% wetter due to climate crisis
The unmistakable influence of the climate crisis helped cause New York City to be inundated by a month’s worth of rain within just a few hours on Friday, scientists have warned, amid concerns over how well the city is prepared for severe climate shocks.
A new rapid attribution study, released by scientists in Europe, has found that the type of storm seen on Friday is now 10-20% wetter than it would have been in the previous century, because of climate change.
Flash flooding soaked large parts of the US’s largest city, turning roads into rivers, following intense rainfall that broke records. John F Kennedy international airport measured 8in of rainfall in one day, the most since records began, while Brooklyn received a month’s worth of rain in just a few hours. People had to be rescued from swamped basement apartments, subway and bus services were canceled and sewage backed up in overwhelmed pipes.
Climate scientists have stressed that such pounding rainfall is a symptom of a warming planet, with a hotter atmosphere able to hold more moisture that is then unleashed in torrential downpours. ...
Following scenes where parts of New York again resembled a giant, fetid swimming pool, and less than four months after the city’s skies turned a toxic orange from wildfire smoke, questions have been raised about the preparedness of the metropolis, along with many other major cities, to escalating climate impacts.
Brazil expels illegal settlers from Indigenous lands in Amazon
Brazil’s government has begun removing thousands of non-Indigenous people from two native territories in a move that will affect thousands who live in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. The Brazilian intelligence agency ABIN said in a statement that the goal was to return the Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacaja lands in Para state to the original peoples. It did not say whether or not the expulsion of non-Indigenous people had been entirely peaceful.
The territories are located around the municipalities of Sao Felix do Xingu, Altamira, Anapu and Senador Jose Porfirio in Para state. Brazil’s government said the supreme court and other judges had ordered the operation.
Indigenous groups estimate more than 10,000 non-Indigenous people are living inside the two territories. ABIN said as many as 2,500 Indigenous people live in 51 villages within.
“The presence of strangers on Indigenous land threatens the integrity of the Indigenous [people] and causes other damages, such as the destruction of forests,” the agency said in its statement. It added that about 1,600 families lived illegally in that region with some involved in illegal activities such as cattle raising and gold mining. “They also destroy native vegetation.”
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Watch Matt Orfalea Bitch Slap Those Who Said The Ukraine Invasion Was “Not About NATO”
Patrick Lawrence: Tampering with History
The Average Age Of Ukraine's Army
The Absolute Disaster Of Losing Dollar Privilege
Discovery of ‘Jumbos’ may herald new astronomical category
Gunman Wearing MAGA Hat Shoots Indigenous Activist at New Mexico Protest over Conquistador Statue
Dems FLIP-FLOP On Immigration As Crossings SURGE, Biden Politically TRAPPED: Lee Fang
Barbara Lee SHADES Feinstein After Laphonza Butler Picked To Fill Senate Seat
Canada's ORWELLIAN CRACKDOWN On Podcasting
A Little Night Music
Pops Staples - Why Am I Treated So Bad?
Pops Staples - World In Motion
Staples Singers - Wade In The Water
The Staple Singers - Respect Yourself
Pops Staples - No News Is Good News
Pops Staples - Grandma's Hands
Staple Singers - Slippery People
Pops Staples - Down In Mississippi
The Band feat. the Staples Singers - The Weight
Comments
Today is Germany’s national holiday commemorating reunification
Perfunctory official speeches and much somber reflection, very unlike how the U.S. celebrates July 4th, or the French, Bastille Day.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-celebrates-unity-amid-feelings-of-division...
In Hamburg, left-wingers / Greens / Antifa organized a counter-demonstration, marching behind a banner that read, “Germany, you lousy piece of shit.”
https://taz.de/Gegendemo-zum-Einheitsfest-in-Hamburg/%215964378/
evening lotlizard...
i guess, to be fair, the celebrations might be different due to the difference of the circumstances, or put another way - "what have we won?"
in the case of the u.s. the rich people had convinced the rabble to fight and win a continent with boundless resources and all they had to do was to steal them from the local inhabitants.
in france a tyrant was toppled allowing the people to take back the resources of the state if they could hold them from the gathering wealthy vulture class.
in germany, it appears to me that the circumstances and opportunities were quite different.
ymmv.
On a brighter note...
Politico.eu
"You cannot comply your way out of tyranny."
- Christine Anderson AfD MEP
No idea what will happen next but McCarthy is toasted!
Seems that the democrats are responsible for ending his tenur
All democrats and only 6 republicans voted against McCarthy and it seems like it was payback for the things he did early on.
And oh no…he demonized democrats. It’s not like democrats have never demonized republicans and McCarthy didn’t refuse to participate in the 1/6 investigations. Pelosi refused to accept the people he wanted to join the party in demonizing American citizens. I want to know how much of this is theater.
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, i would guess pretty much all of it.
Theater?
Hi, Snoop.
Anyone who would downrate the depth of antipathy toward McCarthy and the RINO/Uniparty establishment might find this Twitter/X thread to be...let's say instructive.
Original tweet is by my 'representative' Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR CD-5) who seems to have devoted most of her first term in office to positioning herself as a McCarthy acolyte. And is quite miffed at his being ousted.
Disclosure - I voted for her in the primary and general and even made one of my rare and modest contributions to her campaign. OK, fool me once...
First responses to her tweet happen to be by yours truly - and it doesn't get any warmer and fuzzier from there as others jump in. Rough estimate, 95% of responses are from pissed-off Republicans and the few Dems responding unsupportive either. I didn't notice a single positive response amongst hundreds of replies - maybe you can find one...
Yep she got taken to the woodshed
I didn't notice a single positive response amongst hundreds of replies - maybe you can find one...
Nope not one. But I did find one that said it was Russia propaganda. Sheesh.
Johnson held his hearing well over 2 years ago and nothing has been done.
Paul wants Fauci charged with perjury and nothing has been done.
Biden is still censoring Americans after the twitter files hearings.
And some the 1/6 are still in solitary confinement and they still haven’t had a trial and others have gotten ridiculously long sentences that don’t fit their activities and still 41,000 videos are still behind lock and key. So yeah McCarthy seems to have been a door block the last 3 years.
But didn’t the rest of the republicans vote to keep him as speaker and less than 10 voted him out? Guess they aren’t interested in those issues. They don’t seem to be concerned about serving the American people much, but neither have the people who voted against him. That’s why I’m questioning whether it’s theater. Time will tell when they pick the next speaker I guess.
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
Update…
A court just reversed its decision to allow Biden room to censor the internet and has now blocked CISA from having anything to do with censoring it. Now Biden is taking the case to the Supreme Court and they best not rule in his favor.
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
Viewing replies disallowed unlesss member n/t
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Sorry about that
wasn't aware of that limitation. You could, I suppose, create an account there and only use it to be able to read threads you might want to check out.
Might be some other work around I'm unaware of (server farms could be filled with what I don't know...)
It's a brand-new change
They're clamping down on non-member access so they can force more people to become members.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
evening humphrey...
heh:
popcorn futures are going crazy.
Aloha kickass needed
I'm plenty glad McCarthy is gone. Unfortunately, my efforts to build
support for Tulsi Gabbard as Speaker haven't gained discernible traction
so far.
Well, she would be a good VP pick for Trump or RFK, Jr.
Popcorn, indeed. With reality like this, fiction is just too tame.
Thanks the EB's Joe!
Without a revolution we are doomed
https://open.substack.com/pub/cynthiachung/p/the-enemy-within-a-story-of...
The Enemy Within: A Story of the Purge of American Intelligence
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 ggersh...
thanks for the article which i just skimmed, looks interesting, i'll read it more closely later.
you might want to watch the yanis varoufakis interview that i posted above which has some interesting correspondences with your article, though the focus is on economies and tech behemoths rather than intel agencies, they are all joined at the hip.
That video is an excellent watch for sure
The guy running the interview is such a tool for who really is too
blame, oligarchs and the spineless politicians who are controlled by the
WEF
Yanis is one smart dude!!
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
The Candlelight "movement"
...really has little to do with the other instances cited in Chris Hedges article. The tactics described against Jeremy Corbyn sound quite similar. It is not similar to the uprisings in Hong Kong. There are superficial similarities, like the real estate and housing crisis caused by elite and professional class real estate speculation, but that's about it. The Hong Kong demos were instigated and supported by the US and UK in a futile effort to get Hong Kong back. The Candlelight movement is anathema to the US and Japan. It has zero US support. Comparing uprisings in destitute North African states to South Korea, a highly advanced industrial and technological society is another misclassification.
Union and "candlelight" activism is alive and well in South Korea. It's not going away. It may take years. They are quite well organized. They are remarkably peaceful. On the other hand, Yoon's dictatorship of prosecutors and their pro-Japanese elites backing them are desperate at this stage. Their administration is growing weaker by the day, despite their threats, encroachment on the press, labor, the political opposition etc., and their increased resort to militarism, and erasing history. (Erasing history is well known attribute of the current Japanese LDP government as well). Today, I learned the Judge who denied the prosecution's request for a pretrial jailing of Lee Jae-myung a second time, is now under investigation, and the prosecutors' office wants to prosecute the judge! The absurdity of this is apparent for all to see.
The minority of subak (DINOs) in the democratic party in South Korea who betrayed the aspirations of the candlelight revolution are the minority in that party. Structural measures are being taken against them for their betrayal of Lee Jae-myung. Party campaign reforms will hopefully block them from running for office again as democratic candidates. Democrats in the Assembly accomplished very little during the Moon administration despite their majority. It is sometimes questioned whether Moon is in fact one of them especially in regard to his promotion of Yoon Seok-yeol's career, and then soft handling of Yoon's misconduct, politicization of his office as prosecutor general and betrayal of the Moon administration.
Yoon is a cynical person grasping at total power, because he knows quite well, if Lee Jae-myung and the candlelight movement succeed, he, his wife, and his political cronies in the Public Prosecutors Offices are all going to prison. There is a motion pending currently to impeach five of these prosecutors on the floor of the National Assembly.
With respect to Ukraine, I was reading a study done by Daniel Ellsberg in the sixties the Quagmire Myth and the Stalemate Machine, which lays out his decision theory analysis of the Vietnam War and its relationship to domestic US politics. The people in this community know quite a lot about the nature of the Ukraine conflict. You can find familiar many of the dynamics described in the study. It's long probably about 40 pages. If you start on page 257, you can get the gist of the study. Someone typed this on an old typewriter. It has a lot of typos, which I could sort out pretty well.
THE QUAGMIRE MYTH AND THE
STALEMATE MACHINE
DANIEL ELLSBERG
https://archive.org/stream/TheQuagmireMythAndTheStalemateMachine/ELS033-...
I was trying to distill the thesis to a short description. I probably don't do it jsutice.
On the one hand the president can't lose a war during his administration. On the other, can't commit US troops, except as a last ditch measure, the "ally" has to fight it himself. So this is not the quagmire syndrome, but the stalemate model. Holding actions and more desperate proposals when they fail. The desperate proposals have no chance of long term success but are to stave off disaster temporarily (until the election). Another rule is that the ally's government can't be "reformed" to be more appealing politically, either at home or to the international community, because that might destabilize it. In Ukraine, obviously a puppet regime with no rights accorded to an opposition, no free press, massive corruption and oppression, the US/NATO officials and media act as propagandist lying to claim it's a democracy. Reforming Ukraine might hasten its downfall. This is what I infer from this old study. There is another aspect of the dynamic that because of domestic politics, the US as the sponsor of the state at war, South Vietnam, really had little leverage over it. There are other interesting wrinkles that seem similar to our current situation in Ukraine.
Great EBs Joe. Look forward to listening to your selections.
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
thanks for the info on the candlelight movement. i posted hedges' article though i have some serious quibbles with his thinking in it. he makes some great points about the need for organization (which anything more that vanilla-flavored gummint approved organizing is becoming both difficult and dangerous due to exploitation of social media) and ideology, but as usual he poops on anarchists and other activists.
a revolution, like a society, has a lot of moving parts. to say that a revolution should eschew activists that engage the powers that be is foolish. some of these people may be unsavory, lack the sort of education and understanding that hedges has, but you can't have a successful revolution without people willing to put their bodies on the line. revolutions don't happen in the library.
I had seen this sort of thing before
Where US propagandists tried to link the candlelight movement to the umbrella movement or whatever it was in Hong Kong. There is simply no comparison. The latter was a violent blackblok type NED trained organization. I heard their extremist leader, Joshua Wong's claim, that he identified with the candlelight movement. That's complete bs. An attempt to gain legitimacy he doesn't deserve.
The candlelight movement is a historically deeply rooted trend in Korea, it considers itself the heir to the Korean independence movement which is over a century old. The people involved are well behaved, but i wouldn't push them, their patience isn't infinite. The police know there is a fine line they shouldn't cross. Some of them almost reached it in front of the National Assembly building a couple of weeks ago.
Some parents bring their kids to the demos. Except for the right wing Christian fundies, probably getting CIA money, much of the religious community in South Korea supports what they are doing. They sing, listen to speeches, chant, watch bands perform, march etc. They raise money, make signs, hire buses, trucks and sound platforms, they have leadership, they know what they are doing. They do all this themselves. They don't need foreign NGOs to sponsor them. Can't say this about Wong. Can't say this about the far right taegukki types who are basically paramilitary thugs. There was generally no demonstrations action this past weekend because of the long holiday.
Chris Hedges is a smart guy. I have a lot of respect for someone with the classical type education he has and his experience. I liked his book, Death of the Liberal Class. I've been listening to his Sheldon Wolin long interview. I've watched his interviews for years. He knowledgeable about a lot of things. His middle east and Yugoslavia analysis always seemed pretty good to me. Ironically, I think his wife is Chinese American. I saw her once on one of his videos.
Hedges just made candlelight part of a blanket generalization that I don't think is fact based. From South Korea's perspective, it was occupied, then divided and occupied again and then ruled by dictators for decades. They are surrounded by more powerful states. They have a very powerful and conservative, if not reactionary elite class. Under the circumstances, it's remarkable how resilient and politically active their people still are.
I'm glad you posted it.
語必忠信 行必正直
Love the Staples
Respect yo'sef!
For the Weight
thanks joe
always good
always pertinent
question everything
evening qms...
yep, i really dig the staples mixture of gospel and blues, too.
have a great evening!
John Helmer has a great story on Nazi-gate
.
Here’s a taste.
Seems very unlikely that Rota wasn’t aware of who Hunka was and that he served with the SS in Ukraine during the Great War. Hunka spent 2 years in a British POW camp and they got a few of the prisoners to spy on Russia for them and then asked Canada to allow them to migrate.
Helmer also details how the people invited to fel*te Zelensky would have been vetted by the security services before allowing them into the chamber.
I guess there are consequences for not holding war criminals accountable for their crimes and letting some of the worst of them spread across the world including America where they weren’t just forgiven for their crimes, but put in powerful positions in government agencies. Seems now that it wasn’t such a good idea.
ETA the world just.
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
trying to wrap my brain around this concept
Nazis are now the 'good guys' in spite of all the contrary evidence?
I can understand why the MIC supports war, they make money on it.
The ideological shift in supporting a supremacist regime is a bit of a
stretch. Does Canada also make money on war? Or is this some kind
of fatherland furor?
question everything
I know the answer to your question
but I can’t find it in my brain just now. I’ll get back to you if I find it. It might be in the article on how Israel has whitewashed the Nazi story that I posted a few months ago.
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
excellent article by helmer...
thanks!
i suspect that this will all get buried by the media as soon as they can have some other outrage dominate the headlines. the
showwar must go on.It seems that lots of people are trying to bury the story
but others aren’t going to let them get away with this rewriting of history. If I may be presumptuous I think you should highlight Lawrence's article tomorrow because it’s too good and powerful for it to be in the spot it is.
Heh…I wonder if the corporate media has shown this photo?
Let’s look closer at it…
Love this!
He then moves on to Blinken’s clusterfck about Babyn Yar.
And going back to the discussion of how powerful propaganda is in the CR essay I see that the Ukraine supporters believe that Russia saying that they are fighting Nazis in Ukraine is propaganda and that the real Nazis are in Russia’s military and government. Their hatred of Russia lets them whitewash history and of how much of a price Russia paid for defeating Germany just like what Lawrence writes about at the beginning of his article.
Jezus what an icky and idiotic timeline!
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
Also
Has there been any word from Israel on this yet? Cuz they aren’t down to the last person to prosecute. There is at least one in Canada and I bet if they look hard they can find more.
I’m still amazed by Poland supporting Ukraine after what happened to them. I just can’t wrap my brain around this.
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
heh...
i'll look at it again, but my impression was that there was too much detail to distill into just a few paragraphs.
Tucker Carlson implies the Deep State will do whatever it takes
… to stop Trump from regaining the presidency — the proof being that the players involved are already pulling out all the stops, taking totally unprecedented steps on a totally unprecedented scale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iT0zloj9aY
Yes, in the extreme case that probably means what you think it means.
Oh, the Powers That Be may prefer to achieve the elimination of Trump less crudely than the means used in the 1960s and 70s and so on. But they are determined not to be caught napping as they were on election night 2016, so one way or another, achieve it they will.
Carlson’s prediction? Only that election 2024 will NOT be Biden vs. Trump.
Other than that, anything could happen. All bets are off.
Hunker down. Reckon with a series of further unexpected, stunning and possibly life-upending developments.
Appearances of institutional stability and continuity can easily prove deceptive.
Future availability of any rights, freedoms, and privileges we still enjoy at the moment cannot be taken for granted.
I watched most of this and I wish people on the right
would quit saying that democrats are socialists and the far left. As Pelosi admitted, they are CAPITALISTS baby and quit bitching about it!
Biden may be handled by Obama or more likely the neocons who have been running this shitshow since papa Bush, but even if Biden was mentally competent I doubt anything would change because we know from his history he’s always been like this. And the thing that has been disclosed is that presidents aren’t in charge of running foreign policy and probably not domestic policy either.
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
yep...
it appears that there is a confluence of interests between the deep state and other social/political actors and they are intent on getting the job done. it's a pretty formidable force that trump is facing, i would not bet on his chances.
Not likely to happen but it sure would be entertaining.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4237172-texas-republican-will-nominat...
wow!
that would be truly amusing if they could make it happen.
I'm not sure I see the barriers that block Trump from running.
In the US Constitution there very few qualifications that a Presidential candidate must meet, and no quality or achievement standards at all..
There's an assumption that a prior impeachment may disqualify a candidate, but I don't think that is part of the law. And I can't recall ever reading that a felon cannot run for office. I believe he may even do so from prison.
Trump's advantage is that populism is still trending and the voting public is in the mood to defy authority.
Even if voters wise up and realize that, at the Federal level, they have no voice in government or influence over legislators, I think most will continue to vote. Even when they notice that the choices they are given by the government do not match any of the services that they need — they will vote just to be part of the process.
It's not a Democracy, but it's all they have.
Since the government is now completely out of touch with the planet and the people, the considerable powers they possess no longer work the way they're supposed to. These days everything the US does, seems to backfire, with unintended consequences.
On that note, there's some buzz that Kamala is being seriously prepped for a Presidential run. Why? Because running Biden for a second term may be too risky and controversial. The voters know he's a proxy President, and he is mentally unfit for the job. His handlers, who do the talking while moving Joe's lips, are making a lot of bad decisions, decisions that degraded the People's economic security. Biden's Presidential performance has also acquired several negatives that, statistically, guarantee a loss on Election Day. These negatives have to do with losing wars, starting new wars, pushing people into poverty, and family scandals.
Why is Kamala the likely Democratic Candidate? Dems say she has a winning advantage: The Vice President is the natural and traditional successor to the throne. This is what voters expect, and they don't want to think too much about their choices. Furthermore, by running the Vice President, they can easily side-step the chaos of a Democratic Primary, if they wish. This lets the Democrats present a dignified and united front with better control over the campaign message.
So they say.
I needed to see this on a map...
.
My gawd. Has Armenia been auditioning to become the latest US proxy crisis on Russia's southern flank?
evening pluto...
it sure looks that way, doesn't it?
pashinyan (and his allies in the national assembly) doesn't seem to have a particularly good grip on practical matters - like, how the u.s. is going to project its power into an armenia land-locked by other countries that are unlikely to allow the u.s. military access to its territory.
i feel sorry for the armenians, they have suffered a great deal over the years and now they have been betrayed by their leadership whose dreams of american sugar plums dancing in their heads are destined to be unfulfilled on waking.
"The Weight"
brings back some very special memories from my life.
Thanks for the OT.
Depressing as hell a man will die a very short distance away on a gurney on Death Row, over junk ass science. And a Governor's pardon is out of the question, I guess.
We need to end the death penalty in this country.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
…..
The baby had a very high fever and that can cause seizures that can be severe enough to cause retinal hemorrhages. That alone should get the guy a new trial. Fck this country and especially the states that say they protect life and yet kill people just because they are vindictive.
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
"an eye for an eye"
is Biblical, and we are a nation under God.
Amen, and turn on the IV poison.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
i guess we'll soon find out how abbott feels about executing people who are in all likelihood innocent of their charges. too bad our system is so bloodthirsty.
I have had 4 clients
who worked as security guards on Death Row.
One became an alcoholic, wound up homeless. Another suffered from depression, lost custody of his child. Another quit before she went nuts, and the young man who is trying to make it to the one year employment mark in a few months is already having panic attacks and sleep difficulties.
There are no winners here in this race for justice.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Ouch
.
It’s too bad that democrats won’t be embarrassed by this plan.
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
heh...
yeah, but imagine what biden would do if the parliamentarian was holding up aid to ukraine.
Chuckling….
Good point!
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
Or if the parliamentarian was curious re Hunter’s business deals
… or the six-figure dollar amounts Hunter gets for one of his “artworks” … or the stuff found on his laptop …