The Evening Blues - 11-2-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues and gospel singer and guitarist Mississippi Fred McDowell. Enjoy!
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Goin Down to the River
"We propose to ban the exercise of conscience, condemnations of the out-of-control violence of an openly racist nation. No, you cannot think that. No, you cannot say that. You must think and say this. We tell ourselves stories about what good, well-intended fellows are those who support atrocities. U.S. foreign policy has not for many decades had much to do with the ideals of Western civilization as we were taught to think of them. Now we whose taxes pay for policy are urged to come right out with it: Yes, we approve of war crimes, violence against noncombatants, ethnic cleansing. What is Israel costing us? Ourselves and our self-respect, our psychological coherence, our regard of history, our culture, our humanity."
-- Patrick Lawrence
News and Opinion
Israel’s bombing of the Jabaliya refugee camp: Another atrocity in the genocide in Gaza
Yesterday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) committed a horrific atrocity, killing and wounding hundreds of men, women and children in a wanton bombing of the Jabaliya refugee camp. Photos revealed that a large area of the camp that once contained many tall buildings had completely collapsed into rubble. ... Israeli officials brazenly defended the bombing, boasting that this act of mass murder targeting a defenseless civilian camp had exterminated many “terrorists.” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said the bombing had “managed to eliminate the terrorist murderer Ibrahim Biari,” who Hagari claimed was “the main leader of combat” against IDF forces in Gaza. During Biari’s “elimination, many terrorists were killed,” Hagari said.
The bombing of the Jabaliya refugee camp is the response of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and of his NATO imperialist backers to the mass protests by millions of workers and youth around the world, denouncing the IDF’s genocidal onslaught against Gaza. Their message is: We will ignore your protests and proceed with waging war by the methods of crimes against humanity and genocide. The green light for this atrocity was given the day before by Washington, with the active complicity of its European NATO allies. As the confirmed death toll in Gaza passed 8,000, including over 3,000 children, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby rejected the overwhelming 120-14 vote in the UN General Assembly in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza.
War and mass killings of civilians, Kirby insisted, had to continue. He said, “We do not believe that a ceasefire is the right answer right now … We believe that a ceasefire right now benefits Hamas, and Hamas is the only one that would gain from that right now.” Yesterday, Kirby defended the bombing of the Jabaliya camp, refusing to comment specifically on it. “We’re not going to react to every event in real time,” he said. However, he added that US officials engage in “daily conversations we are having with our counterparts” in Israel that keeps civilian casualties at a level Washington views as acceptable. “It’s obvious to us that they are trying to minimize” civilian losses, Kirby lied.
Kirby’s statement is an endorsement by the US government and the NATO military alliance of Israel’s genocidal methods in Gaza. While it aims to defend Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians, there are targets of imperialism across the Middle East and around the world. The imperialist powers are putting the world’s population, and above all the international working class, on notice. They view genocide, mass murder and ethnic cleansing as legitimate tools to crush resistance to their hegemony.
Biden White House Israel-Hamas war, diplomacy failure
Israeli MP Says It Clearly for World to Hear: 'Erase All of Gaza From the Face of the Earth'
An Israeli lawmaker from the ruling right-wing Likud Party on Wednesday offered fresh evidence that the Israeli government's aim in its bombardment of Gaza is a genocidal effort to kill or forcibly remove the more than 2 million Palestinians living there, declaring, "Gaza should be erased."
With the support of the United States and other Western countries, Israel has claimed since October 7—when Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, killing as many as 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostage—that its bombardment of Gaza is necessary to destroy the armed group, even though the IDF has repeatedly struck civilian targets and killed nearly 9,000 Palestinians so far, including over 3,500 children.
After screening a 45-minute montage of footage taken by Hamas fighters' body cameras during the October 7 attack, Knesset member and former Public Diplomacy Minister Galit Distal Atbaryan posted on Facebook that Israeli officials must invest all their energy "in one thing: erasing all of Gaza from the face of the Earth."
"That the brave monsters will fly to the southern fence and enter Egyptian territory," Atbaryan continued, an apparent reference to Israel's reported plan to permanently expel Palestinians who survive the assault to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, imposing a "second Nakba" on the population. "Or let them die... Gaza needs to be wiped out."
"Revengeful and vicious IDF is required here," she continued. "Anything less than that is immoral."
Atbaryan's post signified "genocidal intent, clearly expressed," said author and former Irish Times environmental editor Frank McDonald.
Writer and organizer Fiona Edwards noted that despite public comments like Atbaryan's, the U.S. and other Western governments continue to insist that "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East."
Western leaders:
"Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East."Galit Distel Atbaryan - a Likud MP and until recently Israel's Public Diplomacy Minister - outlines Israel's task as:
“Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth.”https://t.co/oLLlS1ZLCm— Fiona Edwards (@Fio_edwards) November 1, 2023
Atbaryan is only the latest Israeli official to proudly announce to the world the violence the government plans to perpetrate in Gaza, both following the October 7 attack and long before the latest escalation in fighting in the region.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called residents of Gaza, about half of whom are children, "human animals" as he ordered a "complete siege" on the enclave including a total blockade of food, fuel, and electricity.
Former military officer Eliyahu Yossian said the IDF must enter Gaza "with the aim of revenge, zero morality, maximum corpses," and toldChannel 14 in Israel on Monday that "there is no population in Gaza, there are 2.5 million terrorists."
Earlier this year, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said at an event in Paris, "There's no such thing as Palestinians because there's no such thing as a Palestinian people." He also said the West Bank town of Huwara should be "wiped out" by "the state of Israel," while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a map of what he called "The New Middle East"—without the illegally occupied West Bank, Gaza, or East Jerusalem—at the United Nations General Assembly just weeks before the onslaught in Gaza began.
"Still questioning a genocidal intent?" said Muhammad Shehada, chief of communications for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor following Atbaryan's comments on Wednesday. "Atbaryan is from Netanyahu's Likud party. She speaks for him!"
So? Whatcha gonna do about it? More toothless muttering?
UN Says Israeli Strikes on Jabalia Refugee Camp Could ‘Amount to War Crimes’
The UN’s Human Rights Office said Wednesday that Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp could be a war crime due to the high number of civilian casualties.
“Given the high number of civilian casualties & the scale of destruction following Israeli airstrikes on Jabalia refugee camp, we have serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes,” the office wrote on X.
Israel struck Jabalia for the second time within two days on Wednesday. The Israeli military said the strikes that hit the densely populated camp killed Muhammad A’sar, the head of Hamas’ anti-tank missile unit, but the Israeli claim is not confirmed. ...
Another phone and internet outage in Gaza on Wednesday made it difficult for media outlets to get a gauge of the death toll in the second Israeli attack on Jabalia.
Secret US, Israeli Plan Has US TROOPS Occupying Gaza
Cratered ground and destroyed lives: piecing together the Jabalia camp airstrike
On Tuesday afternoon, rescuers combed with their hands through surface layers of a tangled mass of concrete and steel, which hours earlier had been homes in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. They were searching for survivors, or the bodies of victims, which the immense force of an Israeli airstrike had left near the surface. Those trapped deeper may be entombed for months.
After more than three weeks of intense bombardment of Gaza, heavy machinery can no longer reach bomb sites down damaged roads, and people on the ground say fuel to operate machines is running out. Even so, body bags piled up with horrific speed at the morgue of the nearby Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, and then outside the building. The wounded filled its beds or were raced to Dar al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where medics from the Médicins Sans Frontiers aid group struggled to find space even for badly injured children.
“Young children arrived at the hospital with deep wounds and severe burns. They came without their families,” said Mohammed Hawajreh, an MSF nurse who was quoted by the organisation in a statement condemning the attack. “Many were screaming and asking for their parents. I stayed with them until we could find a place, as the hospital was full with patients.”
On Wednesday night, a Hamas-run government media office said at least 195 Palestinians had been killed in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Earlier, the surgical director of the Indonesian hospital, Mohamed el-Ron, told the BBC it received 400 casualties, including 120 dead, and the majority were women and children. Several of the most severely wounded were transferred to the Al-Shifa hospital “under fire”, he added.
Yemen’s Houthis Declare WAR On Israel!
Fifteen Israeli soldiers killed as fighting intensifies in Gaza
Fifteen Israeli soldiers were killed amid fierce fighting in Gaza in a series of incidents that have underlined the mounting challenges facing the Israel Defence Forces in their attempts to push further into built-up areas of Gaza.
The heaviest loss of life occurred when a “Namer” armoured personnel carrier was hit at about noon on Tuesday by an anti-tank guided missile, killing 11 soldiers and wounding several more.
In a separate incident, a number soldiers were killed when their vehicle struck a mine. In another reported incident, two soldiers died when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the building they were in. ...
The latest fatalities bring to 320 the number of IDF soldiers who have been killed since Hamas launched its surprise assault on Israel on 7 October, with most being killed in fighting with Hamas on 7 October and the immediate days following.
The mounting losses for Tuesday emerged piecemeal as it was disclosed that several more soldiers who had been badly injured had died from their wounds.
Biden PANICS As West Bank On Verge Of REVOLT
Jordan recalls ambassador to Israel to protest Gaza ‘catastrophe’
Jordan has announced it is “immediately” recalling its ambassador to Israel in response to the war in Gaza, accusing Israel of creating an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”.
“Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi decided to immediately recall Jordan’s ambassador to Israel,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, to reflect Amman’s condemnation of the “Israeli war that is killing innocent people in Gaza”.
The ministry said its envoy would only return if Israel ceased its war on the besieged territory. It also told Israel to recall its ambassador to the kingdom amid the crisis.
Biden SHOUTED DOWN By Rabbi Over Israel-Hamas Ceasefire, POTUS Says 'I Think We Need A Pause'
‘Tiredness on all sides’ over war in Ukraine, Italian PM tells prank caller
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, told a prank caller posing as an African leader there was “a lot of tiredness” over the war in Ukraine and that she had some ideas up her sleeve on how to “find a way out”. Meloni’s office confirmed that she had been “misled” into the phone call – reportedly by two Russian comedians – that took place on 18 September “by an impostor who passed himself off as the president of the African Union Commission”. ...
“There is a lot of tiredness on all sides,” Meloni is heard saying regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine. “The moment is approaching when everyone will understand that we need a way out.
“Ukraine’s counteroffensive is not going as expected … It has not changed the fate of the conflict, and everyone understands that [the conflict] could last many years if we don’t find a solution. The Ukrainians are doing what they have to do and we are trying to help them.” The problem, Meloni said, was “finding a way out that is acceptable for both sides without destroying international law”. She added: “I have some ideas on how to manage this situation, but I’m waiting for the right moment to put them on the table.”
Publicly, Meloni has always been staunch in her support of Ukraine, a position that was reiterated by sources cited in the Italian press on Wednesday.
Lying 'DICTATOR' Zelensky Called Out By Former Aide
China, Japan Coast Guard Vessels Face-Off Near Disputed Senkaku Islands
Chinese and Japanese coast guard vessels faced off near the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Monday, The South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday.
The Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, are uninhabited and controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan. The islands are a long-standing point of friction between Beijing and Tokyo, and confrontations in the area are common.
According to the Japanese Coast Guard, its patrol boats repeatedly urged three Chinese vessels to leave the area on Monday. The Chinese side said that three Japanese ships and several patrol ships entered the territorial waters of the islands “illegally.”
Tucker Carlson VISITS Wikileaks' Julian Assange In UK Jail
Fed leaves US rates unchanged but ‘long way to go’ in inflation battle
The US Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at a 22-year high on Wednesday as inflation continues to fade from its highest level in a generation. Jerome Powell, its chairman, cautioned that the Fed’s campaign to bring down price growth has “a long way to go” as it left the door open to further rate hikes.
Policymakers are closely monitoring the strength of the world’s largest economy, which has remained unexpectedly resilient in the face of the fastest string of rate increases in four decades.
The Fed opted to maintain its benchmark federal funds rate at a range of between 5.25% and 5.5% following a two-day policy meeting.
Powell stressed that it remained “strongly committed” to reducing inflation. “Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a strong pace – well above earlier expectations,” he told a news conference.
Virginia admits thousands of voters wrongly purged days before election
Virginia election officials wrongly removed almost 3,400 eligible voters from the state’s voter rolls, a significant error that has caused alarm among voting rights groups just days before critical state elections that will determine which party controls the state legislature.
Officials announced the number of voters affected by the purge on Friday – more than 10 times the number of people they had initially said were affected. Macaulay Porter, a spokesperson for the governor, Glenn Youngkin, had told the Washington Post on 6 October that at least 270 people had been wrongly removed and that officials didn’t expect that number to rise much. Officials declined to provide updates on the number affected until Friday, when they announced that the actual number was “nearly 3,400” (they did not provide an exact figure). VPM, Virginia’s NPR affiliate, first reported on the issue in September.
All of the people who were removed had a prior felony conviction but had had their rights restored by the governor. Virginia has long stripped anyone convicted of a felony of their voting rights and is one of three states that gives the governor the sole authority to restore them. Nearly 102,000 people can’t vote in Virginia because of a felony conviction, according to an estimate by the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice non-profit. Nearly two-thirds of those are on probation.
Earlier this year, Virginia announced it had identified 10,558 people who had had their rights restored but had subsequently committed a new felony. That data wasn’t accurate. The Virginia state police, which had been supplying the data to the state, had been wrongly flagging people as having committed a new felony if they had received a technical violation of their probation – something like failing to show up for a meeting or failing a urine test. ...
Democratic members from Virginia’s congressional delegation called on the justice department to investigate the matter. A justice department spokesperson declined to comment on the request. Porter, the governor’s spokesperson, referred questions to the Virginia department of elections, which did not respond to a request for comment. Youngkin has asked Virginia’s inspector general to investigate the issue.
RFK Jr Polls Whopping 22% In 3-Way Race With Trump, Biden, Per Quinnipiac
How generous subsidies helped Australia to become leader in solar power
For a brief period over several weekends this spring, the state of South Australia, which has a population of 1.8 million, did something no other place of a similar size can claim: generate enough energy from solar panels on the roofs of houses to meet virtually all its electricity needs. This is a new phenomenon, but it has been coming for a while – since solar photovoltaic cells started to be installed at a rapid pace across Australia in the early 2010s. Roughly one in three Australian households, more than 3.6m homes, now generate electricity domestically. In South Australia, the most advanced state for rooftop solar, the proportion is nearly 50%. ...
Dr Gabrielle Kuiper, an independent energy and climate change strategist, noted Australia was not the first country out of the gate on rooftop solar – that was Germany, which introduced the first subsidy scheme, and “none of us would be here without them” – but said it was one of the first to capitalise on the German model. It began with a natural advantage: more sun than nearly any other wealthy country. Even the southern island state of Tasmania is at a latitude that would place it level with Spain and California if it were in the northern hemisphere. Kuiper said Australia had succeeded at solar for reasons beyond geography. Incentives were a big part of it, but the technology’s rise was accelerated by ordinary people embracing it to have some control over their power bills and, in some cases, play a small part in tackling the climate crisis by reducing the country’s reliance on coal.
The subsidies initially included a national rebate of A$8,000 for a small 1kW array – more than the sticker price in parts of the country. It was complemented by state government feed-in tariff schemes that paid households for the energy they fed back into the power grid and, in some cases, for all the electricity they generated.
There was little planning in how the various incentives fit together and critics attacked it as an expensive and inefficient way to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But it kickstarted an industry of installers, sales people, trainers and inspectors, and quickly made solar a viable option for people beyond the country’s wealthiest suburbs. Today, the feed-in-tariffs have been cut, but the national rebate scheme survives, with bipartisan support despite deep divisions over other responses to the climate crisis. Analysts and industry players have praised its elegant design. The rebate is processed by and paid to the installer. The buyer may not even know it exists. It is reduced by about 8% each year, a rate that roughly keeps pace with the continuing fall in the cost of having panels installed.
Republicans welcome local benefits of climate law despite voting against it
At least a dozen Republican members of Congress have welcomed clean energy investment flowing to their electorates following Joe Biden’s landmark climate bill, even as they launch fresh attempts to dismantle the legislation. The group of conservative lawmakers, including the House of Representatives members Nancy Mace, Clay Higgins and Marjorie Taylor Greene, have all recently praised the arrival of new renewable energy, battery or electric vehicle jobs in their districts even after voting against last year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was loaded with incentives for clean energy projects.
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) environmental group is tracking what it calls the “hypocrisy” of the Republican members who have repeatedly sought to bask in the climate investment unleashed by the IRA despite having voted unanimously against it.
“We are clearly seeing this disconnect House Republicans are feeling between their voters and their fossil fuel donors,” said David Shadburn, senior government affairs advocate at LCV. “Voters want clean energy jobs but the donors in big oil and gas want the repeal of this stuff. These members are stuck between these two things.”
The passage of the IRA, which includes vast tax credits and other support to bolster clean energy such as solar and wind as well as the manufacturing of components such as electric car batteries, was widely castigated by Republicans. Mace, a South Carolina lawmaker, called the bill “absurd” and a “fiasco” but more recently has issued glowing statements about the carmaker Volvo boosting its electric vehicle production and a scheme to further electrified public transit.
Higgins, meanwhile, denounced the IRA as a “monstrosity” but has welcomed the arrival of a $1bn solar manufacturing plant that broke ground in his state of Louisiana in September. Taylor Greene, the far-right extremist from Georgia, has called the climate bill “extremely dangerous” but then lauded the “fantastic” decision of QCells, a solar company, to expand its manufacturing base in her district.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
AS`AD AbuKHALIL: Do You Condemn Israel?
Economist Fakes Political History Of Gaza
Patrick Lawrence: Deeper Into Depravity
UN official who denounced Gaza ‘genocide’ had been under review after Israel lobby complaint
Israel-Palestine war: US lawmakers slam AIPAC for 'inflammatory ads'
'Miracles or performances?': Israel tries and fails to tar staff at overwhelmed Gaza hospital
US Neocons Accidentally Act as Great Uniter in Caucasus
Even Rich Nations Now Worried About ISDS
‘Darwin’s oak’ to be felled to make way for Shrewsbury bypass
Blobs near Earth’s core are remnants of collision with another planet, study says
Pup art: the 2023 Dog Photography awards – in pictures
Gaza Debacle: Biden Hints Ceasefire, States Sever Relations Israel; Ukr: Zaluzhny Admits Failure
"This Is Your Money": Palestinian Father Pleads with Americans to Stop Funding Israeli Assault
AOC TARGETS Pro-Israel AIPAC As A 'Racist, Bigoted EXTREMIST ORGANIZATION'
US Congressman: NO INNOCENT PALESTINIANS
A Little Night Music
Mississippi Fred McDowell – Diving Duck Blues
Mississippi Fred McDowell - You gotta move
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Baby Please Don't Go
Mississippi Fred McDowell – Mojo Hand
Mississippi Fred McDowell - John Henry
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Shake 'Em on Down
Mississippi Fred McDowell - 61 Highway
Mississippi Fred McDowell - White Lightnin'
Mississippi Fred McDowell – I Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down
Comments
hey joe et.all
enjoying the missi Fred as a bromide to digest the news
Did you know those Zion psychos bombed the
Jabaliya refugee camp again today?
Well at least the UN may "suspect" that perhaps, maybe
this is a potential war crime. And the hospitals, white
phosphorus bombs, killing civilians, etc. may, perhaps
somehow be construed as illegal under international
agreements. Cutting off water, electricity, escape
corridors, internet and relief aid "may, perhaps" be
construed as bad actions sometime in the future.
Meanwhile the Benji butchers just keep on bombing.
Sheesh, wouldn't take much spine to stand up to that.
in other news
Joe Biden's son Hunter wrote an op-ed to try burying his involvement with
crack under a weird obfuscation of protecting the "20 million" substance
abusers in the US. Taken in context, his father is instrumental in the
unbalanced aggression of the state's prosecution effort to incarcerate
crack users (except Hunter). The PTB may have caught a whiff of potential
smoke altering their chosen puppet's image in his re-election bid.
So this is their psy-op response. Here Hunter, pretend to write this piece.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231102/hunter-biden-in-op-ed-slams-republican...
evening qms...
yep, there's a lotta shady, suspicious stuff goin' on in the world today - and the un is right on top of it suspectin' away with their speculator on full speed ahead. too bad that the institution is pretty much worthless when it comes to doing more than speculating.
hunter biden appears to be like the proverbial child axe murderer who offed his parents and asked the judge for mercy because he's an orphan.
I expect that he's just
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...
heh, a self-medicating excitable boy at that!
thanks for the tune and have a great evening!
there is more to go
on the incredibly stupid speed 'o' meter
of the UN's ability to govern world wide psychosis
0 to 93 in nothing flat
Without comment
Danke for the EB's Joe!
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...
well, we can see who the brains of the blair family is.
thanks for posting that, it's well stated.
have a great evening!
SBF was found guilty
on all charges.
oopsies, Democrats!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
pardon my ignorance
but who is SBF?
Guilty of charges rendered.
heh...
it's not a story that i've been following closely since it seems like what you expect from the financial world, always looking for an innovative new way to defraud the public. here's a story that has some background:
Bankman-Fried convicted on all charges after weeks-long criminal trial
Sam Bankman Fried
and I doubt I spelled his last name right. He was a crypto dollar guy, big D donor, money launderer for Democrats kind of Democrat.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
OK, thanks
what with my overactive imagination I was coming up with all sorts of things
for SBF --
sigmund bullshit froid - guilty
sorta beyond fucked - guilty
spectacular biblical frenzy - guilty
you get the picture
Well, yeah...
I can see how your mind went on an adventure. Lol!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
heh, i am shocked, shocked to see that there is fraud in the financial world again after all of those incredible new controls that congress imposed on the markets after the crash in '08.
good to see another bankster found guilty, only a couple of million to go.
have a good one!
I will gladly accept this
first baby step!
Things are going pretty darn great here.
Lots of good stuff in your OT. After we finish up the after dinner episode of Gunsmoke, I want to see some videos. It does seem as though we might have to ditch our official position as all Zionism, all the time.
We have time to change gears, but not much.
Take care, joe!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
sorry folks, but I'm on a musical journey
maybe someone here understands the pattern?
Hey, thanks. Reminds me that I haven't dived into that
Album in a while and it is past time to do so. Maybe while I work in the yard today.
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 --
do not believe it for even a nano second
"President Joe Biden’s administration will develop a strategy to combat Islamophobia in the US, the White House said on Thursday, after reports of widespread discontent among American Muslims over Washington’s support for Israel."
Will that be like the famous war on drugs, or the less famous war on poverty?
Trying to get votes in the face of failure.
heh...
i guess we'll see if biden can find and combat his own islamophobia and that of his neocon buddies. i rather suspect, though, that he will give a performance not unlike shrubya bush looking around for those pesky, misplaced weapons of mass destruction.
I don't need to ask
just trying to make a point
"Asia Czar"
Strange choice of words from WP. Kurt Campbell has been running this Asian Pivot thing from the outset. Love the picture here with Kim Tae-hyo, the person responsible for the "new right" agenda of the Yoon administration in South Korea. KTH is the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to Yoon. This basically means he's been running their policies. Kurt Campbell is one of the co-founders of CNAS so you can gather where he's coming from. I think his education credentials give him away. A degree in international relations from Oxford? God help us. I heard him say in a March CNAS presentation, that the UK wasn't inclined to take a confrontational approach to China. Maybe they'd rather the US do it for them, this is more their style. Similarly he said, that Kishida's Japan was a peace loving country that was reluctant to arm up to confront the modern challenges in Asia. Japanese citizens may be reluctant, but not Kishida's right wing LDP. The way the Japanese government works I don't think it matters much what the Japanese people think. Yoon's PPP party is far right also, at least the Yoon faction is, the so called "new right."
Campbell makes some tenuous linkage between Ukraine and the perception of a Chinese threat by South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Australia, etc. I see this talking point in the Korean mainstream media often. It would be better if they would focus on how their business investments in China are being interfered with by the US and how almost continuous large joint military exercises may provoke the next war. So Ukraine rather than limiting potential US expenditure of military resources in the Far East,...er...I mean the Indo-Pacific is a reason to further increase them. As the "Asian Czar" Campbell argues, this is why this part of the Global Empire deserves more more military resources and attention. Asian Czar is an odd term. First of all, it suggests the Russian empire linkage. Maybe this is just a coincidence. ㅋㅋㅋ Secondly, and this is the part, that Washington DC and the WP don't get, the US isn't the "czar" of anything in the far east, no matter what you want to call it. He's a very cunning and deceptive "diplomat." He's got all the lingo down pat. I see him as a slick and more intelligent John Bolton. Don't think he's slick enough to fool well informed people in Asia.
Fireside Chat with Kurt Campbell
It's from March 30 at CNAS. He tries to explain the US two faced imperial policies. I've heard South Korean analysts in critical media explain that the only connection to Ukraine, is if they keep on the US dictated path without regard to their own national interests, they will end up as the front line in a terrible war and be destroyed like Ukraine. What I hear is "we have to be more responsible for our own defense policies. That is our responsibility."
I found this twitter link to a Guardian Article on the DMZ near the East Sea interesting.
First it's a kind of soft sell on the current South Korean administration's very hostile, if not belligerent, outlook on separation from North Korea, which is awfully odd coming as it does from the South Korean Defense Ministry which evidently is running this program for South Korean tourists who visit this region. Mt Seorak is a little to the southeast of Goseong county on the Taebak range a bit inland from the East Sea coast. I vacationed once in Sokcho not too far south (10 mi) from Goseong. I never went all the way to the DMZ on the coast. Ms. So doesn't like being near the DMZ at all. But from certain vantage points on the road to the coast, we could see the DMZ on the way there, and also caught a glimpse of Geumgangsan on the northern horizon from the highway. We could see the Yankee go home signs and hear propaganda loudspeakers. I don't know if they are back in operation yet.
But the soft sell from the Guardian on this "walk the DMZ trails" program does reflect popular views on the North in South Korea to a very real extent. Yoon's more provocative real world policies of constant large and threatening military exercises and belligerent language toward North Korea aren't consistent with the imagery in the Guardian article. If you look at a map of the region, ask yourself what 300 firing artillery pieces in Cheorwon near the DMZ do for the nostalgia and hopeful sentiments expressed in the Guardian article. It's a soft sell to make the Yoon administration look more palatable at a time when his popular support is in the basement because of his consistently expressed radical right wing views on just about everything. He's been unequivocally confrontational in every aspect of governance. He's been back pedaling for a couple of weeks now while his party is desperate for some means to recover political traction.
Couldn't agree more with Patrick Lawrence. This is extremely disturbing. I'm glad he said it and not me. When I look back on our history, institutions and character as a nation...I see a pattern that induces nausea. Not the mythology, but the real events and hypocritical propaganda.
Thanks for the EBs Joe. Now back to our regularly scheduled entertainment. Season 2, My Dearest, civilization vs the barbarians.
This is a cover of one of the drama OST themes. Sometimes I turn the dramas on just to hear the sound track.
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
thanks for the update.
i think that goes for a lot of western nations including the u.s. - public opinion on major policy features widely diverges from what the governing uniparty enacts, the uniparty having hijacked the electoral system to reelect itself in perpetuity.
have a great evening!
wow, the new, improved right
now on sale at national media sights
available at a Walmart near you!
come in and buy to get free credits
toward a war in your future!
your encapsulated vision of the broken
Korean Peninsula is priceless
many thanks