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"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive."

-- Thomas Jefferson

News and Opinion

Empire Managers Explain Why This New Protest Movement Scares Them

The US secretary of state and a Bilderberg surveillance tech oligarch have both made some very interesting admissions about the burgeoning protest movement against the US-backed slaughter in Gaza and the problems it poses for the empire they help run.

During a vitriolic rant about university demonstrators at the Ash Carter Exchange on Innovation and National Security on Tuesday, Palantir CEO Alex Karp came right out and said that if those on the side of the protesters win the debate on this issue, the west will lose the ability to wage wars.

For those who don’t know, Palantir is a CIA-backed surveillance and data mining tech company with intimate ties to both the US intelligence cartel and to Israel, playing a crucial role in both the US empire’s sprawling surveillance network and Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. Karp is a billionaire who sits on the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group and regularly features at the World Economic Forum and other platforms of plutocratic empire management.

“We think these things that are happening across college campuses are a sideshow. No, they are the show.”

“If we lose the intellectual debate, you will not be able to deploy any army in the West, ever.”#Palantir CEO Alex Karp at #SCSPAIExpo2024 pic.twitter.com/MwQoDlSMFw

— Palantir (@PalantirTech) May 8, 2024

“We kind of just think these things that are happening, across college campuses especially, are like a sideshow — no, they are the show,” Karp said during his rant. “Because if we lose the intellectual debate, you will not be able to deploy any army in the west, ever.”

Everyone should listen very carefully to Karp’s words here, because he’s giving the whole game away. He’s making it very clear how crucial it is for the empire to stomp out this protest movement and the zeitgeist upon which it rides, because the very existence of the imperial war machine depends on it. At a time when most imperial spinmeisters are trying to dismiss the importance of this movement and what young people are doing on college campuses around the world, this is a really extraordinary admission from someone who lives deep in the guts of the imperial hydra.

Such conferences are great for obtaining useful information from swamp monsters that you don’t normally hear, because when they’re surrounded by like-minded empire goons they tend to get a lot more loose-tongued than they are when they’re more aware that they have an audience of normal people.

We saw this illustrated again in a conversation between Senator Mitt Romney and Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the McCain Institute last week, during which both acknowledged some facts that generally go unstated by such creatures.

After bemoaning Israel’s lack of success at “PR” regarding its Gaza assault, Romney just came right out and said that this was “why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature” —  with “us” meaning himself and his fellow lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“How this narrative has evolved, yeah, it’s a great question,” Blinken responded, saying that at the beginning of his career in Washington everyone was getting their information from television and physical newspapers like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

“Now, of course, we are on an intravenous feed of information with new impulses, inputs every millisecond,” Blinken continued. “And of course, the way this has played out on social media has dominated the narrative. And you have a social media ecosystem environment in which context, history, facts get lost, and the emotion, the impact of images dominates. And we can’t — we can’t discount that, but I think it also has a very, very, very challenging effect on the narrative.”

Notice how he said the word “narrative” three times? That’s how empire managers talk to each other, because that’s how they think about everything.

This is because empire managers are always acutely aware of something that normal human beings are not: that real power comes from manipulating the stories — narratives — that people tell themselves about their reality.

They understand that humans are storytelling animals whose inner lives are typically dominated by mental narratives about what’s happening, so if you can control those narratives, you can control the humans.

They understand that power is controlling what happens, but true power is controlling what people think about what happens.

They understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world.

That’s what’s going on with all the mass media propaganda, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, plutocrat-funded think tanks, and mainstream culture manufacturing in New York and Hollywood. A few clever manipulators understand that you can control a society by controlling its dominant narratives.

Our rulers don’t think about things like normal people think about them. They don’t think in terms of doing the right thing or acting in a way that benefits everyone. They don’t think in terms of truth and honesty or the lack thereof. They only think in terms of what stories people are telling each other, and how those stories can be changed in a way that advances the interests of the empire they manage.

Empire managers — and highly manipulative people in general — do not use language in the way that normal people use it. Normal human beings use language to connect and communicate, whereas manipulators use it only to extract things they want from people and exert control over them. They do this by working to control the narratives that people have about their material reality.

That’s why when Romney and Blinken are talking to each other about why people are so upset at Israel, it never even occurs to them to discuss how Israel’s public image is being hurt by its own actions, or to suggest that it could improve that image by simply ceasing to behave in a monstrous way. All they talk about is “the narrative” of what Israel is doing, and how people having the ability to share ideas and information with each other online makes that narrative harder to control.

So while normal people are looking at the bloodshed and horror in Gaza and screaming it needs to stop at the top of our lungs, our rulers are hearing us and thinking, “Oh no, we need to find a way to get them to stop believing that narrative and get them to believe another one.”

That’s what we’re seeing with all the attempts to stomp out free speech both at demonstrations and online. They understand that if they lose control of the narrative, they won’t be able to deploy their armies anymore.

So please don’t make the mistake of thinking your attempts to disrupt their narrative control aren’t working. Don’t let anyone tell you your protests don’t make a difference or your dissident speech poses no threat to the powerful. If what you’re doing wasn’t working, empire managers wouldn’t be losing their minds right now.

Egypt, a beggar state

US will stop supplying some weapons to Israel if it invades Rafah, Biden warns

Joe Biden has issued a blunt warning to Israel that his administration will stop supplying bombs and artillery shells if its military pushes ahead with an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, in what could mark the start of a turning point in relations between the two countries.

The US president delivered the warning in a television interview in which he brushed aside Israeli and Republican complaints and made clear his administration would not provide the weapons for an offensive on Rafah, which the US, the UN and other aid agencies warn would trigger a humanitarian disaster.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” Biden told CNN.

The president was speaking after it was announced his administration had paused the delivery of 3,500 munitions, more than half them 2,000lb bombs, which can cause devastating damage and severe civilian casualties when dropped on densely populated areas. “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden said.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on a Rafah offensive to destroy what Israel says is the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza, despite repeated US warnings about the humanitarian impact on more than 1 million Gazans sheltering in the city, has brought a simmering US-Israel rift to the surface. Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, said he did not believe the US would stop supplying arms to Israel, but called Washington’s decision to hold up some weapons shipments “very disappointing”, even frustrating.

Aid Worker in Gaza: "Patently False" to Say There’s Not an Incursion in Rafah Right Now

Define "launch," "major," and "invasion."

Biden says he will stop sending bombs and artillery shells to Israel if they launch major invasion of Rafah
https://t.co/gyjdm8RUPj

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) May 8, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: UN Genocide Official Responds To Biden Smear

Biden 'Moving the Goal Post' With Threat to Withhold Bombs From Israel

While some Palestine defenders on Wednesday welcomed U.S. President Joe Biden's threat to withhold bombs and artillery shells from Israel if it launches a major invasion of Rafah, critics noted that an invasion is already underway and accused the American leader of walking back a previous "red line" warning against an Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city.

Biden said for the first time that he'll stop sending bombs, artillery shells, and other arms to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled Gaza Strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents.

Referring to Israel's use of U.S.-supplied 2,000-pound bombs—which can destroy an entire city block and have been used in some of the war's worst atrocities—Biden toldCNN's Erin Burnett that "civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers."

Even the U.S. military—which has killed more foreign civilians than any other armed force on the planet since the end of World War II—won't use 2,000-pound bombs in urban areas. But Israel does, including when it launched a strike to assassinate a single Hamas commander by dropping the munitions on the Jabalia refugee camp last October, killing more than 120 civilians.

"If they go into Rafah, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities," Biden said Wednesday.

Israeli forces have already gone into Rafah, and it was reported Tuesday that Biden was taking the unusual step of delaying shipments of two types of Boeing-made bombs to Israel to send a message to the country's far-right government. It was, however, a mixed message, as the president also earlier in the day reaffirmed his support for Israel's war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice said is "plausibly" genocidal in a preliminary ruling in January.

The ​​Israeli military isn’t waiting to invade Rafah—they're already there. With 14k+ children dead, man-made famine, and an ongoing genocide since October, where exactly is @POTUS's red line? President Biden could end the bloodshed today. Why won't he?

— IMEU (@theIMEU) May 8, 2024

Critics noted the shifting and subjective language used by Biden—who previously said that any Israeli invasion of Rafah would constitute a "red line" resulting in unspecified consequences.

"He said invading Rafah was a red line. Israel invaded Rafah anyway, bombing buildings, burning and crushing children to death," political analyst Omar Baddar said on social media. "Biden is now moving the goal post by adding a completely subjective descriptor: 'Major.' Now Israel has a green light to destroy Rafah in slow motion."

During the course of the seven-month Israeli assault on Gaza—which has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 124,000 Palestinians—Biden has said Israel has killed "too many civilians" with its "indiscriminate bombing," even as he's pushed for more and more military aid for the key ally.

Wednesday's interview came on the heels of Biden's approval of a $14.3 billion emergency military aid package to Israel, multiple moves to sidestep Congress to fast-track armed assistance, nearly $4 billion in previously authorized annual military aid, and diplomatic cover in the form of several United Nations Security Council vetoes.

Reporting that the Biden administration will delay a highly anticipated report on whether Israel is using U.S. military aid in compliance with international law also drew backlash Tuesday from human rights advocates.

Referring to Israel's U.S.-funded anti-missile system, Biden continued his supportive rhetoric during Wednesday's CNN interview, telling Burnett that "we're going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks."

But the president added that Israel's use of devastating weaponry against civilians is "just wrong," and that "we're not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells."

Some peace groups welcomed Biden's threat to withhold bombs and artillery shells from Israel, even while urging him to do more to stop his ally's genocidal onslaught.

"Biden's statement is as necessary as it is over overdue," Jewish Voice for Peace executive director Stefanie Fox said in a statement. "The U.S. already bears responsibility for months of catastrophic devastation: The nearly 40,000 Palestinians that the Israeli military has killed, the two million Palestinians being intentionally brought to the brink of famine, the decimation of all universities and almost every hospital in Gaza."

"Today's statement shows that Biden can no longer ignore the will of the majority of Americans who want a permanent cease-fire, release of all hostages, and an end to U.S. complicity in Israeli war crimes," Fox added.

Rafah hospitals in danger of being overwhelmed, say Gaza doctors

Hospitals in Rafah risk being overwhelmed by a wave of sick and injured people if the fighting there intensifies and routes into Gaza remain impassible, doctors and medical officials in the city say.

Medics and patients hastily evacuated the Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital, one of the few remaining functioning hospitals in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, on Tuesday after the Israeli army seized the nearby border crossing with Egypt in a dawn raid. “It was a bitter experience, and the situation now is catastrophic,” said Marwan al-Hams, the general director of the Najjar hospital.

The Rafah crossing, a vital supply route into Gaza in recent months, remained closed on Wednesday, cutting off much-needed supplies, including fuel. The Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel, Gaza’s main cargo terminal a mile east of Rafah, reopened after a 48-hour closure on Wednesday, but all traffic was stopped by continuing shelling by Israeli forces in the vicinity and further rocket barrages launched by Hamas.

Continuing airstrikes have already strained medical facilities in Rafah, sending a new wave of casualties to be treated. There were sporadic explosions and gunfire in the area of the Rafah crossing overnight, including two large blasts early on Wednesday. At Kuwait hospital, the wounded arrived on hand-pulled carts. The Israeli military said it had hit dozens of “terrorist targets” overnight.

With the seizure of Rafah, Israel now controls all of Gaza’s crossings for the first time since it withdrew troops and settlers from the territory nearly two decades ago, though for most of that time it has maintained a blockade with Egypt’s cooperation. The Rafah crossing is the only place where people can enter and exit. Gaza’s health ministry said dozens of patients and wounded people who had been scheduled to leave on Tuesday for medical treatment had been left stranded.

After Raids, NYPD Denied Student Protesters Water and Food in Jail

Students arrested during the police crackdown on protests at universities in New York City last week were denied water and food for 16 hours, according to two faculty members at Columbia University’s Barnard College who collected reports from students who were inside.

Other students reported that they were beaten by New York City Police Department officers after their arrests and taken to the hospital for injuries before being returned to central booking. Photos of the injuries were provided to The Intercept.

Police arrested 282 protesters at Columbia University and the City College of New York. According to the professors, they ended up at one of two jails downtown: NYPD headquarters or the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse.

Students arrested during the crackdown said at least two of them were put in solitary confinement for three hours and others reported much longer stays, according to Barnard College professor Shayoni Mitra and a tenured faculty member who asked for anonymity to protect their livelihood. The faculty members were working to support jailed students. (The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Other students reported that they were held in mouse-infested cells, along with the general population of the jail. The students told the professors that they weren’t given water or food for 16 hours and that at least one student was left without shoes for the same period of time. “The conditions we’re hearing about are inhumane,” Mitra told The Intercept. “They take away the dignity of every person in there.”

This Gaza doctor refused to abandon his patients. Israel tortured him to death

Rozan al-Bursh was in shock when she heard the news about her uncle Dr Adnan al-Bursh’s death in Israeli custody.

The prominent Palestinian surgeon had been forcibly disappeared by Israeli forces and not been seen since December.

And last week, the Palestinian Prisoners' Society said he was killed by torture while in Israeli detention. ...

In addition to being the head of orthopaedic medicine at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Adnan al-Bursh, 50, was a professor of orthopaedic medicine.

He also had interests outside of medicine, including receiving a master’s degree in political science and an aspiration to build a large hospital in Gaza encompassing all specialities.

Col. Douglas Macgregor : Do Israel + Ukraine = WWIII?

EU reaches deal on using profits from Russia’s frozen assets for Ukraine

The EU has reached a deal to seize profits from Russia’s frozen assets to fund weapons and aid for Ukraine within months. EU senior diplomats meeting on Wednesday agreed a compromise on using the estimated €4.4bn windfall profits to aid Ukraine, smoothing over a dispute about taxation and management costs in Belgium, the country where most of the frozen assets are held.

Euroclear, a clearing house in Brussels, holds €191bn of the €260bn of Russian Central Bank assets that were immobilised by western governments in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In February the clearing house reported €4.4bn interest on the Russian funds and forecast that the Belgian government would reap €1.085bn in taxes.

The EU – wary of the legal ramifications of seizing the entire cache of Russian assets – decided it could give the profits to Ukraine, after concluding Moscow had no legal right to these funds. But finding a deal has been complicated by divisions about how to spend the money, Euroclear’s management fees and Belgium’s 25% tax on corporate profits. ...

The Belgian state is already contributing aid to buy weapons for Ukraine, but other EU countries argued the Russian windfall should be additional to – not instead of – Belgium’s regular Ukraine aid. One EU diplomat had described the profits as “a windfall tax for Belgium” and said: “It is a little unfair because nobody else has Russian money to pay for their aid for Ukraine.” ...

EU member states decided that 90% of the windfall profits would go on weapons for Ukraine and remaining 10% on non-lethal aid, a split designed to assuage countries including Ireland, Austria and Hungary that cannot or do not wish to fund arms.

Rus Missiles Destroy Ukr Power Stations, Power Cuts; NATO Draft Statement: No NATO Troops Ukr

Police shoot and kill Black US airman in Florida home

Deputies responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot a Black US air force airman who was home alone when they saw he was armed with a gun, an attorney for the man’s family said Wednesday. Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, who was based at the special operations wing at Hurlburt Field, was in his off-base apartment in Fort Walton Beach when the shooting happened on Friday.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement that Fortson was on a Facetime call with a woman at the time of the encounter. According to Crump, the woman, whom Crump did not identify, said Fortson was alone in his apartment when he heard a knock at the door. He asked who was there but did not get a response. A few minutes later, Fortson heard a louder knock but did not see anyone when he looked through the peephole, Crump said, citing the woman’s account.

The woman said Fortson was concerned and went to retrieve his gun, which Crump said was legally owned. As Fortson walked back through his living room, deputies burst through the door, saw that Fortson was armed and shot him six times, according to Crump’s statement. The woman said Fortson was on the ground, saying, “I can’t breathe,” after he was shot, Crump said.

Fortson died at a hospital, officials said. The deputy involved in the shooting was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

The woman said Fortson was not causing a disturbance during their Facetime call and believes that the deputies must have had the wrong apartment, Crump’s statement said. “The circumstances surrounding Roger’s death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially considering the alarming witness statement that the police entered the wrong apartment,” Crump said in the statement.

House quashes Marjorie Taylor Greene motion to oust speaker Mike Johnson

The House easily quashed Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resolution to oust the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, on Wednesday, as members of both parties came together in a rare moment of bipartisanship to keep the chamber open for business.

The vote on the motion to table Greene’s resolution was 359 to 43, as 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats supported killing the proposal.

Greene took to the House floor on Wednesday evening to announce her plans, prompting boos from fellow Republicans present in the chamber. Her request triggered a countdown clock, as House rules stipulated that members had to vote on the matter within two legislative days. House Republicans chose to take up the matter immediately, as the resolution was widely expected to fail.

House Democratic leaders previously indicated that they would vote to kill Greene’s resolution, and the vast majority of their caucus took the same position on Wednesday. However, 32 Democrats and 11 Republicans opposed the motion to table the resolution, and seven members voted “present”.

World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target

Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above preindustrial levels this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.

Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met.

Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.

Numerous experts said they had been left feeling hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided. ...

The climate crisis is already causing profound damage to lives and livelihoods across the world, with only 1.2C (2.16F) of global heating on average over the past four years. Jesse Keenan, at Tulane University in the US, said: “This is just the beginning: buckle up.”

Venezuela loses its last glacier as it shrinks down to an ice field

Venezuela has lost its last remaining glacier after it shrunk so much that scientists reclassified it as an ice field. It is thought Venezuela is the first country to have lost all its glaciers in modern times. The country had been home to six glaciers in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida mountain range, which lies at about 5,000m above sea level. Five of the glaciers had disappeared by 2011, leaving just the Humboldt glacier, also known as La Corona, close to the country’s second highest mountain, Pico Humboldt.

The Humboldt glacier was projected to last at least another decade, but scientists had been unable to monitor the site for a few years due to political turmoil in the country. Now assessments have found the glacier melted much faster than expected, and had shrunk to an area of less than 2 hectares. As a result, its classification was downgraded from glacier to ice field.

“Other countries lost their glaciers several decades ago after the end of the little ice age but Venezuela is arguably the first one to lose them in modern times,” said Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian who maintains a chronicle of extreme temperature records online. According to Herrera, Indonesia, Mexico and Slovenia are next in line to become glacier-free, with Indonesia’s Papua island and Mexico having experienced record-high warmth in recent months, which is expected to accelerate the glaciers’ retreat.

Also of Interest

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

Chris Hedges: The Nation’s Conscience

Eric Adams and the NYPD Repress Dissent

Opposing The War Machine Is Cool Again, And The Empire’s Getting Nervous

Israel’s Brutality Draws on British Rule

Israel’s War on Gaza Could Spark Protests that Shape Entire Region

Netanyahu’s political survival in hands of far-right ministers

TikTok Law Is an Attempt to Censor, Not a Warning to Big Tech

Disease and hunger soar in Latin America after floods and drought, study finds

A Little Night Music

Cripple Clarence Lofton - Strut That Thing

Cripple Clarence Lofton - The Fives

Cripple Clarence Lofton - Policy Blues

Cripple Clarence Lofton - I Don't Know

Cripple Clarence Lofton - Streamline Train

Cripple Clarence Lofton - Pine Top's Boogie Woogie

Cripple Clarence Lofton - Pitchin' Boogie

Cripple Clarence Lofton - When The Soldiers Get Their Bonus

Cripple Clarence Lofton - You've Done Tore Your Playhouse Down