The Evening Blues - 11-8-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Texas r&b singer and guitarist Barbara Lynn. Enjoy!
Barbara Lynn - What'd I Say
"It’s a crazy coincidence how Israel bombing Hamas in ambulances, hospitals, mosques, schools, refugee camps, water towers and buildings full of children looks exactly the same as what it would look like if Israel was just massacring civilians with bombs."
-- Caitlin Johnstone
News and Opinion
Amid Israeli genocide in Gaza, Washington threatens Iran with nuclear war
US threats to Iran emerged clearly this week, with the unusual public announcement of the sending of a US nuclear missile submarine to the Central Command, which oversees the Middle East. Such a ship can carry either 154 nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles or 20 nuclear ballistic missiles. This gives it a total destructive power of either 23 or 28 million tons of TNT—about 1,900 or 2,300 times the power of the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. The US news channel CNN commented, “The announcement is a clear message of deterrence directed at Iran and its proxies in the region.”
Let us speak plainly: Washington is threatening Iran and its allies with nuclear war. The support of Washington and its European imperialist allies for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza not only implicates them in Israeli crimes against humanity. It is also a warning: The imperialist powers will not hesitate to take similar action against Iran or any other power in the region. US officials see this war as a part of a world conflict for global hegemony and will stop at nothing to dominate the Middle East.
An example of the criminal war hysteria infecting imperialist ruling circles is an article, “The China-Russia-Iran Axis Is a Clear Threat to America,” by Ariel Cohen of the influential Atlantic Council. Denouncing Russian and Chinese ties to Iran, Cohen treats Israel’s war on Gaza as a golden opportunity to destroy Iran in order to intimidate Russia and China: “The current crisis provides a unique opportunity for Washington to send an unequivocal message to Moscow and Beijing: Back off—or lose Iran.”
Action by Iran, Cohen insists, should lead to the annihilation of its armed forces, major industries and government. “If Iran does not heed warnings from Washington and (causes) unacceptable damage to Israeli civilians, it needs to be severely punished, and its nuclear program, military posture, and possibly oil terminals destroyed. The kleptocratic Shia jihadi dictatorship is unlikely to survive this. That will be the message Moscow and Beijing will not be able to ignore.”
While this policy is insane and criminal, it nonetheless describes the course Washington and its European imperialist allies are taking, as well as their fascination with nuclear weapons.
Biden Presses Israel Gaza Pause, Arab Criticism
Israeli forces 'targeted humanitarian convoy carrying medical supplies' in Gaza City, says Palestine Red Crescent Society
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has accused Israeli forces of targeting a humanitarian convoy in Gaza City on Tuesday.
Today IOF targeted the ICRC humanitarian convoy in #Gaza city.
The convoy of five trucks was carrying lifesaving medical supplies to health facilities, including to #AlQuds Hospital of PRCS when it was hit by fire. Two trucks were damaged, and a driver was lightly wounded.… pic.twitter.com/3lSB6QJhBU
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 7, 2023
Amid Rising Internal Dissent, US State Dept. Claims Israel Not Guilty of Genocide
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said Monday that the Biden administration does not believe the Israeli military's assault on Gaza and displacement of more than 70% of the enclave's population amounts to genocide, rejecting the conclusions of outside experts who argue the ongoing attack is a clear case of the most severe international crime.
Vedant Patel, the State Department's principal deputy spokesperson, said during a press briefing that the U.S. government has "a rigorous process for evaluating whether something constitutes genocide, and we have not made that assessment in this case."
Patel's remarks came amid rising dissent inside the State Department over the Biden administration's unwavering support for the Israeli government, which has killed more than 10,000 people in the Gaza Strip in a month of large-scale, indiscriminate bombing.
Shortly before Monday's press briefing, Politico obtained an internal memo in which unnamed State Department staffers criticize the Biden administration's "tolerance" for the high and rising death toll in Gaza and refusal to support a cease-fire.
The memo was reportedly organized by Sylvia Yacoub, a foreign affairs officer in the State Department's Bureau of Middle East affairs who has publicly accused President Joe Biden of being "complicit in genocide," pointing to his decision to continue arming Israel as it carries out mass atrocities in Gaza.
"We must publicly criticize Israel's violations of international norms such as failure to limit offensive operations to legitimate military targets," the memo states. "When Israel supports settler violence and illegal land seizures or employs excessive use of force against Palestinians, we must communicate publicly that this goes against our American values so that Israel does not act with impunity."
The memo comes a week after human rights attorney Craig Mokhiber resigned from his United Nations position and warned that "once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it."
"The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler-colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate" over whether Israel is committing genocide, Mokhiber wrote in his resignation letter.
During Monday's State Department briefing, journalist Sam Husseini invoked Mokhiber's letter when pressing Patel on possible U.S. complicity in genocide.
Patel responded that the U.S. will continue to urge Israel to "make a distinction between Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilians," a plea that has not stopped the Israeli military from bombing refugee camps, homes, bakeries, schools, and healthcare facilities.
Legal experts and scholars of genocide, including prominent Israeli historians, have argued that Israel's relentless bombing and siege of Gaza—combined with dehumanizing rhetoric used by top Israeli officials and leaked ethnic cleansing proposals—represent stark examples of potentially genocidal acts. Israel has quietly been pressuring Egypt to accept hundreds of thousands of Gazan civilians for the duration of the war, a proposal that has thus far been rejected due to fears of permanent displacement.
Raz Segal, an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, has called Israel's military campaign in Gaza a "textbook case of genocide."
In an appearance on MSNBC over the weekend, Omer Bartov, an Israeli-American professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, said that "the possibility of genocide is staring us in the face."
"One thing we know about genocide is that it often begins with ethnic cleansing," said Bartov. "In fact, that's what happened in the Holocaust."
Brad Parker, an attorney and senior policy adviser at Defense for Children International—Palestine, wrote in an op-ed for Middle East Eye last week that "the United States, as a signatory to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, has a duty to both prevent and punish the crime of genocide."
"The U.S. is not simply standing by, failing to prevent or punish genocide against Palestinians—it is actively enabling and supporting the gravest crime under international law, making the U.S. complicit," Parker added. "Israeli warplanes are entirely U.S.-sourced and the munitions killing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are overwhelmingly American-made weapons."
'Catastrophic': In Gaza, a child killed 'every 10 minutes', totalling 4000+ children dead in a month
‘We saw death’: families flee past tanks as Israel begins to storm Gaza City
Waving white flags and holding their hands above their heads, Palestinian families fled past tanks waiting to storm Gaza City in the next stage of the war that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said will give Israel “indefinite” control over the besieged territory
Israel’s military gave civilians inside the encircled city a four-hour window to leave on Tuesday, as its forces prepared to retake the biggest city in the strip. ... In an Arabic-language message, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they would allow people to leave from 10am until 2pm local time, and published a video of dozens of people along a main road.
Posting online, one resident, Adam Fayez Zeyara, said the walk on Tuesday was the most dangerous of his life. “We saw the tanks from point blank. We saw decomposed body parts. We saw death.” ...
Hundreds of thousands of people are feared to still be trapped in the city. Hamas, which has long used the tactic of hiding among civilians, has been accused of blocking people from leaving their homes. Israel has repeatedly told civilians to move south for their own safety but continued to bomb the entire strip, striking the southern city of Khan Younis on Tuesday, killing 23 people according to Palestinian health officials.
Biden's FEEBLE Pleas For Humanitarian Pause In Gaza Go UNHEARD, Bibi's SIEGE Continues
White House Says Israel Has Killed ‘Many, Many Thousands of Innocents’
The White House acknowledged on Monday that the US-backed Israeli onslaught on Gaza has killed “many, many thousands of innocent people” as the Biden administration continues unconditional support for Israel’s war.
The comments were made by White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who previously told reporters to expect that Israel would continue to kill innocent civilians.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday that at least 10,328 Palestinians have been killed, including 4,237 children. Thousands more are missing and presumed to be under the rubble.
Iran’s Proposed Embargo Could Cause Chaos in Oil Markets
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, last week called on the Islamic members of OPEC to halt oil exports to Israel immediately. Given that Israel buys virtually none of its oil from Islamic members of OPEC – purchasing mainly from Azerbaijan, the U.S., Brazil, Nigeria, and Angola instead – this would seem in and of itself a somewhat peculiar threat to make. But that is not the actual threat being made by Iran’s spiritual leader, with the full backing of the practical guardians of the 1979 Islamic Revolution – the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The real threat is that Iran is angling for a full oil embargo from all Islamic OPEC member states on countries that support Israel in its war against Islamic militant group Hamas. Saudi Arabia did exactly the same thing in 1973 for exactly the same reason – a war between Israel and Islam, as it also sought to portray it – with devastating results for oil prices, Western economies, and global geopolitical alliances for decades to come, as analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order.
Back in 1973, Egyptian military forces moved into the Sinai Peninsula, while Syrian forces moved into the Golan Heights – two territories that had been captured by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. ... Around the same time as this, though, OPEC members – plus Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia – began an embargo on oil exports to the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Canada, and the Netherlands in response to their collective supplying of arms, intelligence resources, and logistical support to Israel during the War. ... Some later branded the embargo a failure, as it did not result in Israel giving back all the territory that it had gained in the Yom Kippur War. However, in a broader sense, as also analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order, the wider war had been won by Saudi Arabia, OPEC and other Arab states in shifting the balance of power in the global oil market from the big consumers of oil (mainly in the West at that time) to the big producers of oil (mainly in the Middle East at that point). This shift was accurately summed up by the then-Saudi Minister of Oil and Mineral Reserves, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, who was widely credited with formulating the embargo strategy. He highlighted that the effects on the global economy of the oil embargo marked a fundamental shift in the world balance of power between the developing nations that produced oil and the developed industrial nations that consumed it. ...
So, what would a broader oil embargo look like? According to the latest assessment by the World Bank, a loss in global crude oil supply of 6-8 million bpd – which it refers to as a “large disruption” scenario comparable to the 1973 Oil Crisis – would result in a 56-75 percent increase in prices to between $140 and $157 a barrel. However, a broadening out of the embargo on Israel by the Islamic members of OPEC, as called for by Iran, would likely lead to a much bigger loss of global oil supplies than the World Bank has calculated. The Islamic members of OPEC are Algeria, with an average crude oil production rate of around 1 million barrels (bpd), Iran (3.4 million bpd), Iraq (4.1 million bpd), Kuwait (2.5 million bpd), Libya (1.2 million bpd), Saudi Arabia (9 million bp), and the UAE (2.9 million bpd). This totals just over 24 million bpd – or about 30 percent – of the current average total global production of about 80 million bpd.
Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwald TORCH War-Loving Elites Who Are DESTROYING Civil Liberties
Israel to ‘Vet’ US Corporate Media Embedded in Gaza
U.S. corporate media outlets have granted Israeli military commanders pre-publication review rights for “all materials and footage” recorded by their correspondents embedded with the Israel Defense Forces during the invasion of Gaza, a precondition condemned by press freedom advocates.
“Journalists embedded with the IDF in Gaza operate under the observation of Israeli commanders in the field, and are not permitted to move unaccompanied within the Gaza Strip,” Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” explained in a segment on Sunday.
CNN's @FareedZakaria on journalists who have embedded with the IDF in Gaza:
"As a condition to enter Gaza under IDF air support, outlets have to submit all materials and footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication. CNN has agreed to these terms...." pic.twitter.com/r4GGPiCtmJ
— Arif Rafiq (@ArifCRafiq) November 5, 2023
“As a condition to enter Gaza under IDF escort, outlets have to submit all materials and footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication,” he added. “CNN has agreed to these terms in order to provide a limited window into Israel’s operations in Gaza.”
In a clip featuring correspondent Raf Sanchez — who is embedded with an IDF unit tasked with finding and destroying Hamas tunnels in Gaza — NBC News also acknowledged that it has “agreed to share raw footage” as “an operational security requirement.”
Responding to Zakaria’s admission, U.S. journalist Dan Cohen asserted that “CNN is explicitly acting as a propaganda mouthpiece for the genocidal Zionist regime.”
U.S. photojournalist Zach D. Roberts said on social media that “what CNN is doing here is creating a b-roll for the IDF. It’s nothing resembling news and the CNN employees that participated in it aren’t anything resembling journalists.”
Omar Suleiman, founder and president of the Texas-based Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, said Sunday on social media that “Israel is killing the journalists that expose their crimes, then bribing the journalists that cover for them.”
West will choke on Putin's terms for Ukraine
EU expected to start process of Ukraine and Moldova becoming member states
The EU is expected to fire the starting gun on the process of Ukraine and Moldova becoming member states, with a report expected to recommend formal negotiations on accession.
Moldova’s deputy prime minister, Nicolae Popescu, said such a move would be a big milestone for his country. “It will be a truly historical achievement and a truly historical chance to make sure that Moldova consolidates its place in the EU,” he said.
Late on Tuesday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said that his country was “preparing our next steps” to join the bloc, including by strengthening its institutions, although he acknowledged that this would require work by Kyiv to “adapt to EU standards”. ...
A 1,200-page report will be published after midday on Wednesday and its recommendations will go to a summit in December for final signoff.
The report will be the first official stocktake of Ukraine and Moldova’s progress in aligning themselves with the EU on judicial governance, corruption, the economy, independence of media and rights for minority communities.
Chile’s right wing presents draft conservative constitution
Chile’s radical right wing have presented their conservative vision for the future in a draft constitution that some observers consider a step backwards for the country.
The new draft, which could replace the current Pinochet-era charter, was drawn up by a council led by the far-right Republican party and could threaten access to abortion, curb the right to collective strike action, and would reduce the number of deputies elected to Chile’s congress.
The leftwing president, Gabriel Boric, was handed the new draft on Tuesday at a ceremony in Santiago, where he formally called a plebiscite for 17 December in which all Chileans must voteon the proposal.
The moment marked the latest twist in four years of political drama: in 2019 entrenched inequality and political dissatisfaction triggered months of political unrest. In an effort to quell the protests, political leaders agreed to start the process of replacing the country’s 1980 constitution, which remained unpopular despite dozens of reforms.
A first draft, which was described as the world’s most progressive constitution, was overwhelmingly rejected in a September 2022 plebiscite. Now Chileans will vote on an alternative at the opposite end of the political spectrum.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib Calls for Gaza Ceasefire as House Votes to Censure Her
Rashida Tlaib hits back at congressional censure motion
The progressive Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who is the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, on Tuesday defended her criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and urged US lawmakers to join in calling for a ceasefire.
Her comments on the House floor came minutes after Democrats paved the way for an effort to censure her for her remarks, which her detractors say disparaged Israel, and included an emotional and impassioned plea for free speech and equal treatment for Palestinians. The actual vote on whether or not to censure Tlaib is expected on Wednesday. ...
Tlaib has accused Joe Biden of supporting genocide and threatened that he will lose Arab American and Muslim support in the 2024 election – triggering widespread condemnation by Republicans and many Democrats. But Tlaib was unrepentant in her speech. “I will not be silenced and I will not let you distort my words,” Tlaib said. “No government is beyond criticism. The idea that criticizing the government of Israel is antisemitic sets a very dangerous precedent, and it’s been used to silence diverse voices speaking up for human rights across our nation.”
“I can’t believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable.” She added: “The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me. What I don’t understand is why the cries of Palestinians sound different to you all. We cannot lose our shared humanity, Mr Chair. I hear the voices of advocates in Israel and Palestine across America and around the world for peace."
Abortion Rights Supporters Win Big in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia
Report Exposes US Media for Framing Social Justice Protests as 'Terrorism'
A paper published Tuesday by a media studies scholar explores what she calls "one of the enduring costs of the 'War on Terror,'" mainstream outlets parroting police talking points on terrorism and "legitimating state violence while stifling democratic protest."
Rutgers University professor Deepa Kumar's paper—released by the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs—focuses on how major U.S. media outlets have covered protesters of "Cop City," Atlanta's proposed Public Safety Training Center just outside of city limits in Georgia.
"Even though the 'War on Terror' is supposedly over now that the U.S. has withdrawn from Afghanistan, U.S. federal and state governments continue to use and even expand punitive measures targeting those they label as 'terrorists,'" Kumar said in statement. "The U.S. mainstream media sometimes supports this expansion, and in doing so imperils U.S. democracy. All of this is part of the legacy of the post-9/11 wars."
As Kumar's paper notes, "previous research has shown that the mainstream media's framing of terrorism influences public opinion and shapes support or opposition to policies such as Georgia's 2017 terrorism law," which expanded the definition of terrorism to include certain property crimes committed with the intent to use intimidation or coercion to change policy.
The expert analyzed how a local newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and six national outlets—USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the New York Post, and the Los Angeles Times—reported on the "domestic terrorism" arrests of 42 anti-Cop City activists from December 2022 to March 2023.
The paper details her findings:
At first, the national news media did not cover the terrorism arrests in Atlanta. The local The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution effectively served as the Atlanta Police Foundations' propaganda outlet. In January, 2022 several national media outlets picked up the story when violence and property destruction occurred, following the "if it bleeds, it leads" framework. However, some newspapers adopted a more critical stance. The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the LA Times humanized the protestors, depicting them as concerned activists opposing police militarization and environmental destruction. The New York Post and TheWall Street Journal, however, portrayed protestors as violent Antifa activists and justified their arrest on the grounds of terrorism. USA Today adopted a sensational tone, in effect also justifying the arrests.As the protest movement gained national and international support, national media paid more attention. All seven outlets covered the story in March 2023. Also significant is that The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shifted to a more balanced tone and included the voices of Atlanta residents opposing Cop City. Rather than labeling protesters solely as "outsider agitators" and "far-left" activists who exist on the fringes of society, the newspaper quoted local activists, civil rights groups, and clergy. This happened at the highpoint of government arrests, when 23 more people were indicted on terrorism charges.
However, the analysis also reveals that apart from a handful of notable articles in The Washington Post and the LA Times that tacitly criticize the wider application of terrorism charges evidenced in Georgia, the majority of the seven media outlets have deferred unquestioningly to government authorities in the use of this label.
"Government and police officials have portrayed the protestors as violent terrorists," Kumar stressed. "For instance, in January 2023, when Georgia State Patrol Troopers shot and fatally injured activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, also known as Tortuguita, they claimed that Terán had initiated gunfire. Shockingly, Tortuguita was shot a staggering 57 times."
The DeKalb County medical examiner autopsy report "indicated an absence of gunshot residue on Tortuguita's hands" and that the activist "was seated with their hands raised," the professor pointed out. However, Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney George R. Christian concluded last month that the use of deadly force "was objectively reasonable under the circumstances of this case," so police will face no charges for killing Tortuguita.
Kumar wrote that "in theory, the media are entrusted with the responsibility of posing critical questions and disseminating accurate information to the public so that troubling practices like the use of state violence and extrajudicial killings are not normalized. In reality, U.S. media institutions have often continued to defer to government sources, reproducing and thus reinforcing the expansion of terrorism discourses to criminalize protestors—with sometimes deadly consequences."
RFK Jr CLIMBS POLLS In COMEBACK; Swing State TAKEOVER With 25% In Michigan, 24% In Arizona
US chemical industry likely spent $110m trying to thwart PFAS legislation
The US chemical industry likely spent over $110m during the last two election cycles deploying lobbyists to kill dozens of pieces of PFAS legislation and slow administrative regulation around “forever chemicals”, a new analysis of federal lobbying documents has found.
The industry’s onslaught was effective: only eight pieces of legislation that targeted PFAS made it through Congress, the paper prepared by the Food and Water Watch (FWW) nonprofit found.
“There’s an extreme amount of money that’s going into fighting [PFAS legislation],” said Amanda Starbuck, FWW’s research director and the lead author on the report. “It’s hard to win these fights when there’s so much funding being put in from the opposing side.”
As the dangers from PFAS have come into sharper focus over the last decade, lawmakers, the Environmental Protection Agency and other administrative agencies have come under an ever-increasing amount of pressure to rein in the chemicals use and clean up pollution. Chemical manufacturers’ spending has jumped in response, the report noted
“The chemical and associated industries are powerful and have used their army of lobbyists and campaign finance war chests to thwart meaningful action,” the paper states.
China releases methane plan as hopes rise for new climate agreement with US
China has published a long-awaited methane reduction plan, in a sign that the country is moving closer towards a new climate agreement with the US.
Beijing first committed to reducing its methane output at Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021, as part of a joint agreement with the US. But for two years the reduction plan failed to materialise. Its publication on Tuesday, as the US and Chinese climate envoys wrapped up four days of talks in Sunnylands, California, signalled that the two countries may soon break ground on a new climate agreement ahead of a presidential meeting next week and the UN’s climate conference, COP28, at the end of this month. ...
The Xi-Obama meeting led to a historic US-China climate agreement in 2014, in which China pledged to peak CO2 emissions by 2030 (a target that it is expected to meet ahead of time). That in turn established the foundation for the Paris Agreement the following year, in which 196 countries agreed to limit the increase in the global average temperature to below 2C, compared with pre-industrial levels.
Now insiders are cautiously optimistic that a new US-China climate agreement could be on the horizon. It is a “golden opportunity”, said Li Shuo, the incoming director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Policy Institute, adding that elections in the US and in Taiwan could distract both sides from climate discussions in 2024.
Both the US and China want to show that there are “some guardrails in the US-China relationship, with climate being one of the bright spots,” said Byford Tsang, senior policy adviser at E3G, a climate change thinktank.
Canada’s emissions cut plan insufficient to meet targets, official report finds
Canada’s emissions reduction plan is insufficient to meet its target to cut emissions by 40% to 45% below the 2005 level by 2030, according to a new a report released by the country’s auditor general.
The audit found the government’s plan insufficient because key measures needed to meet the 2030 target were delayed or not prioritized, according to a statement from the office of the auditor general on Tuesday.
Falling short of the minimum 40% target for 2030 would mean Canada missing its commitment under the United Nations’ Paris agreement on climate change. ...
Canada has missed every emissions reduction target it has ever set but the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has repeatedly said fighting climate change is one of his government’s top priorities.
Virginia governor declares state of emergency as crews battle wildfires
The Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, declared a state of emergency on Tuesday as firefighters responded to two wildfires amid dry conditions and high winds. ...
The Quaker Run fire in Madison county and the Tuggles Gap fire in Patrick county broke containment lines over the weekend, and officials said additional resources are required to contain these fires and respond to any additional fires. ...
A state of emergency was also declared in a western North Carolina community where a wildfire burned hundreds of acres and threatened homes. Crews are fighting several separate blazes in forested areas of Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky as wide swaths of those states face moderate to severe drought conditions and warmer than normal temperatures.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Gaza-Israel Catastrophe — Settlers & Wider War
We Keep Our Gaze Fixed On Gaza
Dennis Kucinich: The Nothingness of a War Consciousness
Is it too much to ask people to view Palestinians as humans? Apparently so
The US and Israel Agree: It's OK to Kill Thousands of Children
Tlaib Rips Colleagues Who Are 'More Focused on Silencing Me Than They Are on Saving Lives'
Getting Called A Nazi For Opposing A Genocide
Leak shows ex-Trump ambassador to Israel threatening NYU over Palestine protests
Conflating Jewish and Pro-Israel Is Wrong and Misleading
Ukraine SitRep: Assassinations, Election Talk, Language War
87-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Condemns Israeli Assault & Calls for Peace
Inside Gaza: Thousands flee their homes as the IDF pushes in
Are Jews the Most Endangered Minority in the US? Does Free Speech Include Calls for Violence?
Hillary Clinton Compares TRUMP To HITLER, Warns Nazi Leader Was ‘Duly Elected’
Abortion, Weed DOMINATE In Red Ohio Election
A Little Night Music
Barbara Lynn - You'll Lose A Good Thing
Barbara Lynn - This Is The Thanks I Get
Barbara Lynn - Sure Is Worth It
Barbara Lynn - You're Gonna Need Me
Barbara Lynn - I Don't Want A Playboy
Barbara Lynn - It's Better To Have It
Barbara Lynn - You're Losing Me
Barbara Lynn - I'd Rather Go Blind
Barbara Lynn - What I Need Is Love
Barbara Lynn - Lonely Heartaches
Barbara Lynn - I'm a Good Woman
Barbara Lynn - Oh! Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin')
Comments
Chris Hedge's "Letter to the Children of Gaza"
As powerful an essay that might ever have been written
from where I sit.....YMMV
https://open.substack.com/pub/chrishedges/p/letter-to-the-children-of-ga...
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
I agree
It’s one of the most passionate essays I’ve read and his heartfelt words brought tears to my eyes and anguish to my heart.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Thank you very much for Chris Hedges letter to
the Palestinian children. It's not only very touching, but also something that most humans regardless of position can feel for and hopefully relate to.
evening ggersh...
i wish that i could make genocide joe and bomber blinki read it. but, then again, i suppose that i couldn't make them feel it because they are soulless creatures.
Norman Finkelstein responds to Bernie and he’s very angry
.
Bernie says that he is against a ceasefire because it would help Hamas. Apparently Bernie thinks that Hamas is the only one who should be held accountable and that the war started on October 7. Norman educates him on the long history.
https://normanfinkelstein.substack.com/p/a-response-to-senator-bernie-sa...
ETA
I’m happy to see how many people in the state department are hitting back at the neocons who are supporting genocide. More people are turning away from Israel because of what Bibi has done for most of his long career. Sadly lots of Israelis have been cheering the slaughter in Gaza. Saw a tweet last night where a group of people were in the streets making up songs about the slaughter. I will never understand people like that.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Thank you snoopy
for more fiery Finkelstein. I think he must be one of the most persevering individuals around.
evening snoopy...
i am happy to see the pushback at state, too. it's not much, but it's a start. perhaps after the war crimes tribunals are done there will be a few diplomats left to start over with.
These examples show how complicit the US in the
Palestinian genocide.
One reply
Obama can also join the discussion since after all he got the Nobel peace prize.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
More "western values"
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2023/11/debt-rattle-november-8-2023/
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Gawd that’s just sickening
I just don’t understand why other countries are not doing anything about this. I’m not sure what they can do, but there should be something to stop this slaughter. Oil embargo and a cut off of all supplies to Israel should have already happened.
This is just as hard hitting as Hedges article. Posted in the links.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/07/palestinians-human...
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
The "oil embargo on Israel"proposal is pointless
An oil embargo on the US might be effective though.
“The Democrats and Republicans want you to believe they are mortal enemies engaged in a desperate struggle when all the time, they are partners with a power-sharing agreement.” - Richard Moser
evening cass...
i think that if they were to embargo oil and gas to the western nations that support the genocide they could have an effect, especially as we enter the winter season in the global north.
Egypt could close the Suez canal again
That might get the West’s attention. Of course they’d have to make it look like an accident. Maybe a rerun of that incident a year or two ago when that big container ship got stuck.
My disgust at what the EU and the German political caste have become, has never been greater.
evening humphrey...
i see that they have pretty much given up defending the indefensible and have resorted to non sequiturs.
"Let us speak plainly..."
I think the CNN article on this submarine deployment to CENTCOM is somewhat better but still not plain enough because they are using the word deterrence in the headline as well as in the article itself. I've not seen any authoritative source that the four Ohio class SSGNs have cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. it's possible. Has anyone seen an authoritative source, that says these cruise missiles onboard the SSGNs are nuclear?
In rare announcement, US says guided missile sub has arrived in Middle East, a message of deterrence to adversaries
The problem with this sort of ambiguity is that it's potentially destabilizing in terms of provoking an unintended nuclear war. This is the very significant problem with "nuclear armed cruise missiles" as a "deterrent." The fact that a mixed complement of warheads might be carried on this SSGN may cause an adversary to assume they are nuclear armed and respond in kind. Therefore, a conventional cruise missile attack could provoke a nuclear war in certain circumstances because a state might respond in kind without waiting for confirmation by nuclear rather than conventional detonations. In other words launch on warning. The US should make it unequivocally clear whether tomahawks on board this sub are nuclear armed or not, to avoid such unwarranted responses that may end unnecessarily in nuclear war. Or if they are not willing to do that, they should make it perfectly clear that there is no intention to threaten "Iran or any other country in the area of responsibility" with a nuclear strike. If national military leadership isn't going to clarify the nature of the "deterrent," whether nuclear or conventional, then they shouldn't have publicized the dispatch of this warship, nor allowed to be seen in the region.
Israel has its own nuclear weapons, any grandstand nuclear backstopping of Israel is completely unnecessary. The idea that a visible nuclear deterrent is necessary to restrain attacks on US forces in Syria, Iraq, or elsewhere is simply not plausible. If US leadership thought that it was, they are incompetent. So I don't really accept the premise that the US is threatening Iran and its allies with a nuclear deterrent, until proven otherwise. I feel as if the articles implying or asserting that this is what is happening are hysterical or a deliberate psy op. If it is the later, again it is incompetent, and dangerous.
Thanks Joe for the news roundup as depressing as it is. Enjoyed Barbara Lynn's sound. Thanks!
語必忠信 行必正直
Great assessment
soryang. Thanks for the comment, backed by your military experience in such things. We need such info to figure out what in hell is going on!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Thanks OTC
It's just my opinion, but I've been watching these sorts of military deployments off and on for years, and more closely lately. The submarine and strategic bomber movements in Northeast Asia have more substance in terms of show of force of the nuclear deterrent and also carry great risks. I guess Blinken and company think this sort of visible deployment as a show of force had some value in the Korean theater so they'd give it a try in the mid east. There are key differences in the respective theaters. The threat is clearly understood for what it is in North Korea. The deployment of this SSGN is borderline or in the gray area. I'd avoid ambiguity like this. I have to credit to Dan Ellsberg's analysis of this sort of thing. Living with uncertainty is one thing, but with respect to nuclear weapons uncertainty is the last thing one wants to see.
I felt compelled to say something, and frankly wouldn't feel comfortable saying it anywhere else.
語必忠信 行必正直
"Israel has its own nuclear weapons,"
Yep and they just admitted that they do for the first time. This brings in the Leahy rule where any country that has nukes and hasn’t signed the non proliferation treaty isn’t entitled to receive support from America.
Of course we’ve known that Israel has had nukes since the 60's and it might have been one of the reasons Kennedy was murdered. He was going to take them back.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
The Leahy law
Thanks Snoopy, I wasn't aware of this law. I'll have to read up on it.
語必忠信 行必正直
while you are looking into law...
you might check out this article which has a wealth of info, including about the leahy law.
Thanks
I see that it’s more involved than what I said. I was referring to something Cook had written in one of his articles about the law.
INCYM this essay by him about Starmer it’s an interesting read.
Starmer’s Gaza stance has unmasked British democracy as a sham
Starmer seems to be another worm that should be fitted to a hook and fed to the fishes. Good grief where do these people come from?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
thanks for the link...
there seems to be an endless supply of worms like starmer. they populate governments all over the world.
Israel/JFK
Thought I had heard about all the theories on the JFK assassination, but had missed the one attributing it to Israel - as retaliation for his determined opposition to Israel developing nukes.
This article by Laurent Guyenot (whom I first encountered here, Simplicius has also cited him) also cites Jewish claims that Lyndon Johnson was Jewish - by ancestry on his mother's side, and consistently pro-Israel.
Needless to say, there was no further American pushback against Israel's nuclear program and Johnson obligingly covered up the actual intentional nature of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty during the 1967 war.
Possible connection by Israel to the JFK killing prompted me to wonder about the RFK assassination (RFK, Jr. has identified who he is sure was the actual shooter - not Sirhan). Of all the possible patsies in the world to assign blame to, they just HAPPEN to come up with a Palestinian??
https://www.unz.com/article/kennedy-an-israeli-perspective/
Yup
I read a different unz article on the JFK assassination and it implied that Israel was also involved in the RFK assassination too because he was going to investigate Israel’s involvement in his brother’s assassination. The more I read about this the more I’m astounded that a foreign country can kill a president of the United States and people here in the know had no problem with it. Astounded sounds too weak of a word. Bush 1 looks to have been involved in it too and he walked away Scott free. His father should have been charged with aiding and abetting the Germans and for his intervention to coup Roosevelt. Since I’ve been doing a lot of reading about this time period I now wonder if Roosevelt was also murdered. He ordered the BIS, an international banking conglomerate to be disbanded. I don’t remember the details, but he died before they could be and now they are more powerful than ever. Cui Bono all those deaths?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
And then there's
the possibility that Roosevelt - or his associated cabal - were involved it the assassination of Huey Long, who was considering running against FDR in 1936. Anyway, a lot of progressive things people associate with FDR would likely never have been initiated if it hadn't been seen as necessary to counter Long's Share Our Wealth proposals.
I’m reading articles that pop up lately about FDR
and it seems he wasn’t the saint that people made him out to be. He was also involved in setting up Israel and his long term goals were that there wouldn’t be any Palestinians in Palestine when all the goals were met. I’m glad for what he accomplished here for the elderly, ect, but let’s remember how he pushed Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor and then let it happen so we could enter the war.
I wonder if Long would have been better or worse than Roosevelt?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Thank you soryang for your impressions and insights
They add some welcome confidence in retaining a more hopeful, or at least less confronting a disaster.
evening soryang...
i don't think that it matters whether the subs deployed to the region have nukes or conventional weapons in terms of the decisions that are made. the bottom line is that if the u.s. decides it is going to nuke iran, it will and it has plenty of means to do so. the only real difference is how many minutes after the idiot in charge makes the decision to do so the nuke arrives in iran. iran is always aware that the u.s. (and israel for that matter) is hostile to it and has nukes at the ready. i'm sure that it is cooked into their decision making.
i suspect that the u.s. is being incautious as you note with its threat behaviors (announcing a nuke-capable sub is deployed) because it wants a larger conflagration in the area and the opportunity to reconfigure the middle east without all of those pesky middle easterners.
not sure what the upside is
...to the long term national security interests of the US in making nuclear threats to Iran. I just don't get it. So the idiot(s) in charge is the right characterization.
語必忠信 行必正直
heh...
well, there is no upside for people like you and me. on the other hand, people like lindsay graham and his ilk seem to think that there is profit in it for them.
Evening joe and bluesters
Thank you for the funky, soulful, talented Barbara Lynn.
I hope that Chileans reject the new proposition soundly.
evening janis...
glad that you enjoyed the tunes.
i hope that chile will reject the right-wing constitution as well. i don't have a feel for how the electorate breaks down in terms of it's right-middle-left leanings but 62% voted down the progressive constitution, so it could be close if the right-leaners are more numerous than one would hope.
Yemen shot down a reaper drone
.
While we are threatening Iran and others to not get involved in the war we are attacking Iranian targets in Syria. Austin says that it’s being done in self defense of course, but maybe if our troops weren’t there they wouldn’t be being attacked in the first place. Good grief this isn’t rocket science.
Lots of updates.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/netanyahu-rejects-biden-request-3...
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
curious indeed...
did congress authorize an invasion of yemen?
Would it matter?
We’d do it anyway and then ask permission later. Isn’t that a new rule that Obama used after he sent troops yither and yon and then informed congress that he did it? Remember he said that we were the exceptional country.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
well no...
probably not. genocide joe can just claim authority under the war powers act and the supine legislature will mumble along with their war hymnals open to "onward christian soldiers."
State Dept nonsense...
Vedant Patel, the State Department's principal deputy spokesperson, said during a press briefing that the U.S. government has "a rigorous process for evaluating whether something constitutes genocide, and we have not made that assessment.
Here also is the State Department, Pompeo:
These crimes are ongoing and include: the arbitrary imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty of more than one million civilians, forced sterilization, torture of a large number of those arbitrarily detained, forced labor, and the imposition of draconian restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, and freedom of movement. The Nuremberg Tribunals at the end of World War II prosecuted perpetrators for crimes against humanity, the same crimes being perpetrated in Xinjiang.
Sure sounds like West Bank and Gaza BEFORE the actual bombing killing thousands and displacing a million.
I think Pluto posted a picture of the 2 genocides in
Xinjiang and Gaza where the buildings in Xinjiang were still standing and looked very nice whilst Gaza of course has been reduced to rubble.
Ugh Pompeo better buy himself a mirror.
How many times has America gone against the Nuremberg Code and invaded countries that hadn’t threatened it? And he’s not dumb enough to not know that many of the people involved in crimes against humanity were not charged and many of them were brought to America before the trial even began. And then they were installed in many of our organizations….I could go on.
"We lie, we cheat, we steal" - Pompous Pompeo should shut the fck up. Maybe one day a lot of Americans will find themselves in the dock.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
evening mickt...
that's why the u.s. has switched to the "rules based order" where the u.s. makes the rules and exempts themselves from following them, because it is by turns "exceptional" and "indispensable."
Spy v Spy in South Korea
Normally when one thinks of spy in the South Korean context North Korea comes to mind. This is the big security risk the defense and intel establishment is focused on. Yet, according to Kim Byung-ju South Korean National Assembly member espionage on the states most vital national interests can also be by allies. I'd been interpreting Kim's interview on this on his regular OhMyNews program for the last two days. Fortunately, there is a Hankyoreh article that in part, addresses this issue during the audit of the Presidential Office by the legislature.
Tim picked up on it as well, I'll use his X post for the photo of two of the relevant officials in the Presidential Office.
Kim Byung-ju also noted that the Chief of Staff Kim Dae-ki had failed to disclose approximately 2 million dollars in assets on his financial disclosure form. In his video program Kim described the attitude of the two officials as taking the matter too lightly, "it's like talking to a stone wall," and "the presidential office is failing to take measures to prevent vital national security secrets from leaking again." Kim also noted that the Deputy National Security Advisor Kim Tae-hyo also at the hearing seated behind NSA Cho, had been convicted of disclosing military secrets in the past. He had been pardoned by the president, but was not eligible for an SI clearance.
I mentioned here last April when this "wiretapping issue" came up, that a wiretap was superfluous, there was probably someone in the presidential office who would gave such information to the US willingly if they just asked.
Blinken's been over there in Seoul now seeing how much damage he can do. There's that dilapidated US embassy behind the demonstrators in Gwanghwamun plaza.
語必忠信 行必正直
Good evening Joe, thanks for the EBs.
Perhaps Biden's "pleas" for a humanitarian pause are going unheard because everybody knows that they aren't even vaguely sincere.
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...
yep, it is painfully obvious that some lawyer probably told genocide joe and blinkiman that they had to do something to cover their asses so that they wouldn't get prosecuted for their war crimes.
About Russia's negotiating positions
...The Boys from Duran are wrapping their minds around what Russia expects to get. I happen to have what those positions are thought to be written out, based on speeches Putin has given himself on this topic. I'll be glad to post the Russian conditions here again in the next few days. If you listen for a minute or two starting at 08:45 — and look at the maps below, you'll understand where the Russians are coming from — and why their demands must be met. **
.
.
The maps, below, illustrate a 'context' note that I embedded in an essay here a few days ago. — A Peoples' lament marking the dying days of the Last Empire:
.
__________________________
** Crimea, for example, has never been part of Ukraine and Ukraine's culture has never influenced Crimea in any way. The Ukrainian language has never been spoken there. The Population of Crimea is over 95 percent ethnic Russian.
The NATO neo-nazis would turn Crimea into another Gaza Strip. The Russian occupants would be designated 'terrorists', and they would be cleansed from the land before it was turned it into a NATO base and Industrial Park of missile silos aimed at Russia and Iran.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Russia has said that Americans are agreement incapable
and I can’t believe that they would sign a Minsk 3 after Merkle admitted that she only signed Minsk to give Ukraine more time to arm itself. Besides from what I’ve read the Russian people won’t accept anything less than what Russia sent to us before the war. That means that all NATO countries are moved back to the 1991 agreement and all weapons removed. Guess we will see what Russia does agreement wise. Putin is going to run for reelection again. America should hope that he wins because someone more aggressive might take his place and then look out.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
I have my doubts that RFK jr will score a lot of points with
this except for maybe AIPAC.
The full quote
Kennedy has joined Bernie in my book. I don’t give a damn about their domestic policies if it comes at the expense of innocent people elsewhere. I called attention to Bernie’s foreign policies during his first run and I was told to be quiet because of his domestic policies. Remember in 2014 Bernie voted to give Israel more bombs during their operation to mow the fcking lawn and had already murdered 2,200 people. And Palestine was already known as an open air concentration camp then. It was like executing fish in a bucket. They had nowhere to go, but for America it was okay for Israel to destroy their homes. But Hamas are the only ones in the wrong.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Actually, Bernie's statement
about the situation (which I don't have right to hand) acknowledged the injustices and suffering of the Palestinians and emphasized the need for a just two-state solution. Too tired to look it up right now, but I agreed with all of it.
(Edit to add - Bernie's refusal to back a ceasefire seems at odds with his written statement - maybe he got a memo from somewhere not to stray too far off-narrative)
As for Kennedy, his big suck up to Israel is a major turn off. But try to find a candidate that doesn't. Am supportive of a whole lot of what Vivek Ramaswamy has been promoting (some immigration stuff excepted) - but then he goes unhinged Zionist - argh. At least Vivek is somewhat cognizant of the threat of WWIII and wants to limit US involvement.
Anyway, as you say, it is very much about the energy. I doubt you would be all that surprised to find out that the Rothschilds Murdoch and a whole range of neocon heavy hitters are tied into exploitation of oil and gas in the Eastern Mediterranean 'Energy Triangle' - which Gaza looks to be situated a particularly rich corner of.
Deep dive into that & how it ties into the Ukraine war, Nordstream & such from Substack's Moneycircus (Sept. 2022)
https://moneycircus.substack.com/p/insight-europe-gas-and-the-endgame
I either read that article or another one that covered it
There are lots of oil and gas just off the Gaza coast that Israel has its eyes on, but so far they are keeping that hidden from the masses.
I posted a Finkelstein rebuttal to Bernie’s not wanting a ceasefire. I think it’s in yesterday’s blues. It’s worth a read.
I definitely agree with you on Schulz… She wasn’t too embarrassed after getting kicked out of the DNC leadership after she helped rig the primary against Bernie. And let’s not forget her involvement with the Anwars (?) who helped themselves to most of congress’s computers and she made sure that they weren’t charged. Pulling memories from 8 years ago, but we covered them here quite well.
I’m going to repost your tweet so more people can see it.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
That computer scandal
was the Awan brothers - Pakistanis who got some fat contract to provide network services and hardware for the House Dems, which gave them access to to a whole lot of what was supposed to be secured data.
Should have been at least a semi-huge deal - George Webb covered it extensively - but WS intimidated Capitol Police, DOJ was complacent or complicit, MSM silent and she made the whole thing pretty much sink without a trace. Some minor fed charges were filed IIRC, I think against someone who had already left the country...
I think this is what Jimmy Dore
was basing his video on a day or so ago. Jimmy didn't make shit up, he wasn't spreading lies about RFK, Jr. At all.
The environmental lawyer wants to enrich US weapons makers by giving Israel $ so Israel can be our intelligence source about 90% of the world's oil production so we can keep it under control.
A good environmentalist/peace nick thinks that way. /s
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Color me surprised
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Wasserman-Schultz
is a waste of otherwise perfectly good empty space.
I can't think of a single individual that more perfectly embodies what's wrong with the Democrats and Congress generally. Yuck.
And some MAGA type outlets have been calling Thomas Massie some sort of RINO traitor for voting against censure. More like an MIT hillbilly Ron Paul - which we could use more of.
Ron Paul 1.0
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.
TPTB don't want you to see things like this as it might cramp
their agenda.
Howdy all...
Hope you are well, considering...
Been mostly over on Twitter and Substack for a while. Lots of good material/info/people - and bad.
Like the proverbial drinking out of a fire hose. It's been educational.
There are certainly times and situations that rate an Alex Jones-level rant - I'd say the present one pretty well qualifies:
wouldn't want to see this chap
get really angry at his government
or maybe I would, but it won't be pretty