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"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards."

-- Aldous Huxley

News and Opinion

In This Dystopia, Opposing A Genocide Is Considered Worse Than Committing One

All the frenzied shrieking about pro-Palestine protests at universities these last few days makes it clear that our civilization is so twisted and insane that it sees protesting a genocide as far worse than committing one. Which is about as backwards as any society could possibly be.

Seriously, try to imagine a crazier, more upside-down civilization than one which gets more angry at people protesting genocidal atrocities than it does at people committing them. A civilization where people wear their pants on their head and walk backwards all day? That would be less crazy. A civilization where the dogs own the people and the children go to work while the parents go to school? That would be less crazy.

It’s as wrong as you can possibly get anything in this world. It’s actually hard to imagine how anyone could get anything more wrong. If you’ve accepted daily massacres of innocent civilians as the baseline normal and appropriate thing, and regard any opposition to this as a freakish and evil abomination, then you’re as screwed up and confused about reality as any other stark raving lunatic in town. Maybe worse.

To view nonstop mass military slaughter as moral and opposition thereto as immoral is to live in a mental moral universe that has been flipped on its head. It’s to inhabit a reality tunnel that has become completely divorced from reality. But that’s the kind of mainstream worldview that the political-media class in this society are working to indoctrinate us into day in and day out throughout our entire lives.

I just saw a tweet from the commentator Briahna Joy Gray saying that in order to find any mention in The New York Times of the hundreds of Palestinians in mass graves that are being discovered in Gaza, she had to scroll past no fewer than four stories about pro-Palestine protests on college campuses — including two op-eds which criticized the protesters.

What kind of warped, fucked up dystopia is this where that’s the kind of mainstream news outlet people are getting their information and ideas from? Our entire civilization is saturated with reality-distorting propaganda like this, and it’s making people insane. It’s got our moral compasses flipped 180 degrees from our true north, and our inner sensemaker tuning in to frequencies of nothing but garbled static.

That’s how crazy they need us to be to keep us supporting a globe-spanning empire that literally cannot exist without nonstop violence and tyranny. They need us thinking up is down and black is white. They need us not just unable to tell the difference between right and wrong, but actually believing that wrong is right and right is wrong. So they pound our collective consciousness day in and day out with extremely aggressive psyops in the form of mass media propaganda to ensure that our insides are scrambled around enough to consent to the amount of depravity necessary for our rulers to continue dominating this planet.

This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal, as Aaron Bushnell said moments before lighting himself on fire in protest of the genocide in Gaza. A society where mass graves get less media attention than university protesters. A society where more political firepower is going into stopping pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses than ending Israel’s murderous assault on an enclosed enclave packed full of children. A society where trying to stop a genocide is considered evil, and committing one is considered good.

Israel thought to be preparing to send troops into Rafah

Israel appears to be readying to send troops into Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, the only corner of the strip that has not seen fierce ground fighting and where more than half of the Palestinian territory’s population of 2.3 million has sought shelter.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that two reservist brigades had been mobilised for missions in Gaza, while video that circulated online appeared to show rows of square white tents going up in Khan Younis, 3 miles (5km) north of Rafah, which was decimated in a months-long Israeli air and ground campaign. A spokesperson for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said Israel was “moving ahead” with a ground operation, but gave no timeline. ...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said last week it was acquiring 40,000 tents to prepare for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians, and there were unconfirmed reports that extra artillery and armoured personnel carriers had been deployed to the Gaza Strip periphery. Netanyahu, and his war cabinet were expected to meet in the next two weeks to authorise civilian evacuations, which are expected to take about a month, as the first stage of the Rafah offensive, Israeli media outlets said on Wednesday.

Ceasefire talks mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar have all but collapsed as Israel and Hamas have been unable to agree on the conditions and length of a truce and the identities and numbers of Israeli hostages to be released in exchange for freeing Palestinians held in Israel jails. A ceasefire held at the end of November collapsed after a week.

Bodies Recovered at Mass Graves in Nasser Hospital Bear Signs of Torture, Mutilation & Execution

Global Breakdown of International Law Amid Flagrant War Crimes in Gaza & Beyond, Says Amnesty Chief

US Dodges Growing Calls for Probe of Mass Graves at Gaza Hospitals

While continuing to give Israel billions of dollars in support to wage war on the Gaza Strip, the Biden administration this week has declined to join the growing global demands for an international probe into mass graves discovered at hospitals in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Two journalists on Tuesday questioned Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, about the administration's response to the hundreds of bodies found at Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as well as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk's call for an independent investigation.

"Would you support such an independent investigation?" Said Arikat asked during a press briefing. Patel responded, "Right now, Said, we are asking for more information... That is squarely where we are leaving the conversation."

Patel added that "I don't have any details to match, confirm, or offer as it relates to that. We're aware of those reports, and we have asked the government of Israel for additional clarity and information. And that's where I'm at."

Wow, StateSpox won’t say if the US would support an independent investigation for another mass grave found in Gaza.@SMArikat: More than 300 bodies have been found, UN is calling for an independent investigation, would you support that?

Patel: We are asking Israel for more info pic.twitter.com/sBwGlDh79s

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) April 23, 2024

When Said asked a follow-up about potential U.S. support for a probe, Patel reiterated that the administration is awaiting information from the Israeli government.

Later, Niall Stanage asked Patel to explain U.S. "resistance" to supporting a probe, the spokesperson insisted that "it's not about resistance to this particular situation, it is me not wanting to speak in detail about something which Said posed as a hypothetical question when, from the United States' perspective, I don't have any additional information on this aside from the public reporting."

After Patel again stressed that the administration has asked Israel for more information, Stanage inquired, "And do you believe the government of Israel is a credible source in enlightening you?"

The spokesperson interrupted Stanage to say, "We do."

Insufferable liars. https://t.co/5vmvVfmrsh

— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) April 23, 2024

While supporting the six-month Israeli assault on Gaza that the International Court of Justice has found to be plausibly genocidal, the Biden administration is also arming Ukrainians' resistance to a Russian invasion. Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the Crisis Group's U.S. program and a former legal adviser at the State Department, pointed to the latter.

"Somehow I don't think the U.S. State Department would defer to Russia as a credible source to investigate itself if a mass grave were discovered in Ukrainian territory it had occupied," Finucane said on social media in response to Stanage's questioning.

Meanwhile, European Union spokesperson Peter Stano made clear Tuesday that the E.U. supports an independent probe.

"This is something that forces us to call for an independent investigation of all the suspicions and all the circumstances, because indeed it creates the impression that there might have been violations of international human rights committed," Stano said. "That's why it's important to have independent investigation and to ensure accountability."

Human rights groups around the world joined the call for an independent investigation on Wednesday, as the official death toll in Gaza hit 34,262 with 77,229 people injured and thousands more missing and presumed dead beneath the rubble.

In an Arabic statement translated by Al Jazeera, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that the number of bodies found in the mass graves is "alarming, and requires urgent international action, including the formation of an independent international investigation committee."

The group added that some of those killed were subjected to "premeditated murder as well as arbitrary and extrajudicial executions while they were detained and handcuffed."

Amnesty International senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns Erika Guevara Rosas said in a statement that "the harrowing discovery of these mass graves underscores the urgency of ensuring immediate access for human rights investigators, including forensic experts, to the occupied Gaza Strip to ensure that evidence is preserved and to carry out independent and transparent investigations with the aim of guaranteeing accountability for any violations of international law."

"Lack of access for human rights investigators to Gaza has hampered effective investigations into the full scale of the human rights violations and crimes under international law committed over the past six months, allowing for the documentation of just a tiny fraction of these abuses," she noted. "Without proper investigations to determine how these deaths took place or what violations may have been committed, we may never find out the truth of the horrors behind these mass graves."

Guevara Rosas continued:

Mass grave sites are potential crime scenes offering vital and time-sensitive forensic evidence; they must be protected until professional forensic experts with the necessary skills and resources can safely carry out adequate exhumations and accurate identification of remains.

The absence of forensic experts and the decimation of Gaza's medical sector as a result of the war and Israel's cruel blockade, along with the lack of availability of the necessary resources for the identification of bodies such as DNA testing, are huge obstacles to the identifications of remains. This denies those killed the opportunity to have a dignified burial and deprives families with relatives missing or forcibly disappeared the right to know and to justice—leaving them in a limbo of uncertainty and anguish.

Noting that the International Court of Justice directed Israel to preserve evidence in its initial genocide case order, Guevara Rosas said that "amid a total vacuum of accountability and mounting evidence of war crimes in Gaza, Israeli authorities must ensure they comply with the ICJ ruling by granting immediate access to independent human rights investigators and ensuring that all evidence of violations is preserved."

"Third states must pressure Israel to comply with the ICJ orders by allowing the immediate entry into the Gaza Strip of independent human rights investigators and forensic experts, including the U.N.-appointed Commission of Inquiry and investigators of the International Criminal Court," she added. "There can be no truth and justice without proper, transparent independent investigations into these deaths."

Bibi: College Protests Are '1930's Germany'

Netanyahu Calls for Crackdown on Pro-Palestine Protesters in the US

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called for a crackdown on Americans protesting against Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza at college campuses across the United States.

“What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” Netanyahu said. His comments echoed President Biden, who labeled the demonstrations “antisemitic protests.”

At some American universities, police have arrested and dispersed protesters, but Netanyahu said more should be done. “Now, fortunately, state, local, federal officials, many of them have responded differently but there has to be more. More has to be done,” Netanyahu said.

Max Blumenthal: Israel Directly Interferes in US Politics.

Tensions flare over US campus protests as House speaker condemns ‘mob rule’

Tensions over the protests sweeping US college campuses mounted on Wednesday as the House speaker, Mike Johnson, jumped into the fray with a visit to New York’s Columbia University, where he faced jeers from pro-Palestinian protesters and called for the resignation of the university’s president.

Flanked by a number of Republican members of Congress, Johnson denounced the demonstrations as “mob rule” and condemned what he called a “virus of antisemitism” at colleges nationwide.

“And it’s detestable, as Columbia has allowed these lawless agitators and radicals to take over,” he said. “If this is not contained quickly and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the national guard.”

Johnson’s speech drew boos from the crowd, as he also called for the resignation of Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s president, who he accused of failing to protect Jewish students and allowing protests that led to the arrest of dozens of people there last week.

His appearance came amid rising tensions over a wave of protests at campuses across the US. The demonstrations began last week after students at Columbia set up encampments calling for the university to divest from weapons manufacturers with ties to Israel. The protests have led to mass suspensions and arrests of hundreds students in New York and other cities.

Hundreds Arrested: Students Across U.S. Protest for Palestine as Campus Crackdown Intensifies

Photojournalist among 20 people arrested at UT Austin campus protest

At least 20 people were arrested, including a photojournalist, as police and demonstrators violently clashed at the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday. Hundreds of students walked out of class to protest against the conflict in Gaza and demand the university divest from companies that manufacture machinery used in Israel’s war efforts, carrying signs and chanting.

Dozens of local and state police – including some on horseback and holding batons – formed a line to stop protesters from marching through campus. Officers pushed them off the campus lawn and at one point sent people tumbling into the street. According to local reporter Ryan Chandler, police ordered demonstrators to disperse via an audio announcement that could be heard across campus: “I command you in the name of the people of the state of Texas to disperse.”

A photographer covering the demonstration for Fox 7 Austin was arrested after being caught in a scuffle between law enforcement and students, the station said. Footage posted on social media showed the journalist being knocked down by officers. The network confirmed in its own reporting that their photographer was taken to jail.

At least 20 demonstrators were taken into custody at the request of university officials and Texas governor Greg Abbott, according to the state department of public safety. Abbott said protesters “belonged in jail”. “Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled,” the governor said in a statement on X.

George makes a mistake. Nixon, not LBJ was president during the Kent State massacre.

Hey Joe, where you going with that ban in your hand?

US Secretly Armed Ukraine With Long-Range ATACMS Last Month

The US confirmed on Wednesday that it had secretly sent Ukraine long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) last month as part of a $300 million arms package.

The long-range ATACMS can be fired from the HIMARS rocket systems and can hit targets up to 190 miles away, a range that marks a significant escalation in US support for Ukraine. Last year, the US secretly shipped an older cluster bomb variant of the ATACMS that has a range of about 100 miles.

A Biden administration official said Ukraine has already used the longer-range ATACMS twice, including in an attack on a Russian base in Crimea. US-supported attacks on Crimea or the Russian mainland always risk a major escalation from Moscow.

Ukraine fallback to Dnieper, West/East Germany scheme

Biden: Ukraine, Israel FOREVER WARS Will Bring PEACE

Ukraine foreign minister says west must boost defence as ‘era of peace is over’

Ukraine’s foreign minister has enthusiastically praised US politicians for approving a long-delayed $61bn military aid package for Ukraine, but said western allies needed to recognise that “the era of peace in Europe is over” and that Kyiv would inevitably need more help to fight off Russia. ...

Speaking to the Guardian ahead of the White House announcing a first tranche of aid including air defences, artillery rounds and armoured vehicles, Kuleba said it was “just a matter of logistics” to get the supplies to the frontline. Pentagon officials have indicated that some munitions have already been stockpiled in Europe, with Joe Biden saying on Wednesday they would arrive in hours.

Kuleba also said Ukraine had identified seven Patriot air defence systems it could use to protect civilians in major cities outside Kyiv. One had been obtained from Germany, four more had been located and negotiations were taking place, Kuleba said, and two more were in his sights. ...

He said the restoration of US military aid, held up for months by Donald Trump-aligned Republicans, would not be sufficient to defeat Russia. “No single package can stop the Russians. What will stop the Russians is a united front of all of Ukraine and all of its partners.” Kuleba said the west needed to increase arms production, as Ukraine had, because it had been outpaced by Russia. Russia is out-shelling Ukraine by a ratio of about 10 to one, while Ukraine is running short of air defences.

“When I see what Russia achieved in building up its defence industrial base in two years of the war and what the west has achieved, I think something is wrong on the part of the west,” Kuleba said. “The west has to realise the era of peace in Europe is over.”

Pro. John Mearsheimer: Who/What Caused the War in Ukraine?

Ecuador's presidential runner-up exposes US meddling, election assassinations

McKinsey reportedly under US criminal investigation over opioid industry work

McKinsey is under criminal investigation in the United States over allegations that the consulting firm played a key role in fueling the opioid epidemic, with federal prosecutors homing in on its work advising OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and other drugmakers, three people familiar with the matter said. The consulting firm and the US justice department declined to comment.

The inquiry is focused on whether McKinsey engaged in a criminal conspiracy when advising Purdue and other pharmaceutical manufacturers on marketing strategies to boost sales of prescription painkillers that led to widespread addiction and fatal overdoses, two of the people said.

The justice department is also investigating whether McKinsey conspired to commit healthcare fraud when its consulting work for companies selling opioids allegedly resulted in fraudulent claims being made to government programs such as Medicare, they said.

Prosecutors are also looking at whether McKinsey obstructed justice, an inquiry related to McKinsey’s disclosure that it had fired two partners who communicated about deleting documents related to their opioids work, the people said.

The inquiry, opened several years ago before the pandemic, involves justice department officials spanning offices in Washington, Massachusetts and Virginia, they said. Both sides are in discussions to resolve the investigation, one of the people said.

US archdiocese must submit clergy-abuse documents to police

The criminal investigation into child sexual abuse in New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese has entered a major new phase, after a judge ordered the church to turn over records to Louisiana state police showing how it responded to abuse allegations over the last several decades.

The order signed on Monday seeks files that would identify every priest and deacon accused of abusing children while working in the US’s second-oldest archdiocese; when those complaints were first made; and whether the church turned those cases over to police, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Significantly, police are also demanding copies of all communications among New Orleans’ current archbishop, Gregory Aymond, his aides and their superiors at the Vatican, those sources said. ...

It appears to be the first time that authorities investigating the New Orleans archdiocese’s role in the decades-old, worldwide Catholic clerical child abuse scandal have sought the full set of abuse-related documents in the local church’s possession. In the rare cases where New Orleans-area clergymen have been convicted of – or even prosecuted for – child rape or molestation, investigators have generally focused on documents related to the individual defendants and their direct superiors.

Now, by essentially seeking the entire paper trail generated by the scandal, investigators could also learn what top church officials in Rome knew of the breadth of abuse at the local level in New Orleans.

US supreme court appears divided after hearing arguments on emergency abortion care

For the second time in a month, the US supreme court on Wednesday heard arguments in a major abortion-rights case, the second to reach the justices since they overturned Roe v Wade two years ago.

Wednesday’s case involves a 1986 federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or Emtala, which requires hospitals that receive federal dollars to stabilize the health of patients who show up at their emergency rooms with medical emergencies. The Biden administration has sued the state of Idaho, arguing that its ban clashes with Emtala because Idaho only permits abortions in medical emergencies if a woman’s life is at risk – a higher threshold than Emtala.

Tensions flared at multiple moments during the two-hour hearing. The court’s three liberal justices – all of whom are women – spent several minutes emphasizing the medical and legal dilemmas unleashed by bans like Idaho’s, while conservative justice Samuel Alito raised an anti-abortion theory that would ultimately lead to the end of abortion writ large. By the end of the hearing, conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett appeared to be the most skeptical of Idaho’s arguments, but the court seemed largely divided along ideological lines.

Elizabeth Prelogar, the US solicitor general, emphasized the danger now facing women who show up in crisis at Idaho emergency rooms.

“If a woman comes to an emergency room facing a grave threat to her health, but she isn’t yet facing death, doctors either have to delay treatment and allow her condition to materially deteriorate, or they’re airlifting her out of the state so she can get the emergency care that she needs,” Prelogar said. “One hospital system in Idaho says that, right now, it’s having to transfer pregnant woman in medical crisis out of the state about once every other week. That’s untenable and Emtala does not countenance it.”

US seeing rise in climate-related power outages

Power outages in the US are rising, as climate-related extreme weather strain an already burdened energy grid. Over the last decade, severe storm outages increased by 74% compared with the previous 10 years. High winds, rains, winter storms and tropical cyclones including hurricanes, accounted for 80% of all power interruptions over the last 20 years, a new report from non-profit research group Climate Central shows.

“We’re seeing that the warming is having a direct impact on severe weather,” said Jen Brady, author of the report and senior data analyst at Climate Central. “The conditions that our infrastructure was built to handle are much different [now] than what they were.”

Texas had most weather-related outages, followed by Michigan, California and North Carolina. When winter storm Uri struck Texas in 2021, it left millions of people without power and left a death toll of at least 246 people. Texas, which has also experienced record-breaking heatwaves in recent years, operates its own power grid, meaning it can’t source from other states when its infrastructure fails. Last summer, the state’s grid operator asked residents to voluntarily reduce their energy use during peak demand.

“When the power goes out during heat waves, there’s some serious health risks,” Brady said. Elderly persons, people with disabilities and individuals with health conditions who depend on electrical medical machines are particularly vulnerable during power outages.

More than one-third of people in the US exposed to harmful air pollution

Nearly four in 10 people in the US are exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution, a new report has found. Four of the five most polluted cities are in California, where wildfires, drought and extreme heat are driving the rise in hazardous air quality.

More than 131 million people are exposed to harmful ozone and particle (PM 2.5) pollution, according to the American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report. That figure, which incorporates new, more stringent federal standards for particle pollution, represents an 11.7 million increase from the previous year.

Exposure to these pollutants can raise the risk of lung and heart disease, asthma attacks, as well as reproductive ailments.

“Climate change is not remote, it’s not an abstraction. It is a reality impacting the health of millions of people from coast to coast every year,” said Paul Billings, senior vice-president for advocacy at ALA.

Since the passing of the Clean Air Act in 1970, the combined emissions of six widespread air pollutants including PM 2.5 dropped by 78%, according to the EPA. But in recent years, pollution from wildfire smoke has reversed the improvements to air quality stemming from federal protections.

Estuaries, the ‘nurseries of the sea’, are disappearing fast

Estuaries – the place where a river meets the ocean – are often called the “nurseries of the sea”. They are home to many of the fish we eat and support vast numbers of birds, while the surrounding salt marsh helps to stabilise shorelines and absorb floods.

However, a new study shows that nearly half of the world’s estuaries have been altered by humans, and 20% of this estuary loss has occurred in the past 35 years.

Using satellite data, researchers measured the changes that had occurred at 2,396 estuaries between 1984 and 2019. The results, published in the journal Earth’s Future, found that over the past 35 years more than 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of estuary have been converted into urban or agricultural land, with the majority of the loss (90%) having occurred in rapidly developing Asian countries.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Israel violating international and humanitarian law with US weapons, task force says

Elites Afraid to Talk About Palestine

The Democrats Who Opposed More Military Aid to Israel—Until They Voted to Approve It

Billionaire Jeff Yass linked to $16m in donations to anti-Muslim and pro-Israel groups

US effectively dooms Ukraine by its new decisions, Russian envoy says

French Troops Have Been Forced To Withdraw From Three African Sahel Countries In the Last Two Years

Watching US Fascism in Action from China

Jewish Student DEBUNKS Mainstream Media Reports Of Violence In Columbia Protest

'Stabbed In The Eye' Israel Hoax DEBUNKED

Is Fetterman Democrats' Liz Cheney?! Far-Left Senator MOVES RIGHT, Sides W/ GOP On Israel

LEAKED: Proof Mehdi Hasan FIRED Over G@za Reporting!

A Little Night Music

Isley Brothers - Twist and Shout

The Isley Brothers - Respectable

The Isley Brothers - The Drag

Isley Brothers - Open Up Your Heart

Isley Brothers - St. Louis Blues

Isley Brothers - Shine On Harvest Moon

Isley Brothers - The Snake

The Isley Brothers w/Jimi Hendrix - Testify

Jimi Hendrix with Isley Brothers - Have you ever been disappointed (1965)

Isley Brothers - Wild Little Tiger

Isley Brothers - Get Into Something

Isley Brothers - I Know Who You Been Socking It To

Isley Brothers - The Blacker the Berrie

Isley Brothers - Pop That Thang

Isley Brothers - It's Your Thing