The Evening Blues - 6-7-24
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago bluesman Muddy Waters. Enjoy!
Muddy Waters – Blow Wind Blow
"The biggest losers are those who care only about winning."
-- Lance Armstrong
News and Opinion
The Perils and Promise of the Emerging Multipolar World
The World Bank’s release on May 30 of its latest estimates of national output (up to the year 2022) offers an occasion to reflect on the new geopolitics. The new data underscore the shift from a U.S.-led world economy to a multipolar world economy, a reality that U.S. strategists have so far failed to recognize, accept, or admit.
The World Bank figures make clear that the economic dominance of the West is over. In 1994, the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, U.K., U.S.) constituted 45.3% of world output, compared with 18.9% of world output in the BRICS countries (Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Russia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates). The tables have turned. The BRICS now produce 35.2% of world output, while the G7 countries produce 29.3%.
As of 2022, the largest five economies in descending order are China, the U.S., India, Russia, and Japan. China’s GDP is around 25% larger than the U.S.’ (roughly 30% of the U.S. GDP per person but with 4.2 times the population). Three of the top five countries are in the BRICS, while two are in the G7. In 1994, the largest five were the U.S., Japan, China, Germany, and India, with three in the G7 and two in the BRICS.
As the shares of world output change, so too does global power. The core U.S.-led alliance, which includes the U.S., Canada, U.K., European Union, Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, was 56% of world output in 1994, but now is only 39.5%. As a result, the U.S. global influence is waning. As a recent vivid example, when the U.S.-led group introduced economic sanctions on Russia in 2022, very few countries outside the core alliance joined. As a result, Russia had little trouble shifting its trade to countries outside the U.S.-led alliance.
The world economy is experiencing a deep process of economic convergence, according to which regions that once lagged the West in industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries are now making up for lost time. Economic convergence actually began in the 1950s as European imperial rule in Africa and Asia came to an end. It has proceeded in waves, starting first in East Asia, then roughly 20 years later India, and for the coming 20-40 years in Africa.
These and some other regions are growing much faster than the Western economies since they have more “headroom” to boost GDP by rapidly raising education levels, boosting workers’ skills, and installing modern infrastructure, including universal access to electrification and digital platforms. The emerging economies are often able to leapfrog the richer countries with state-of-the-art infrastructure (e.g., fast intercity rail, 5G, modern airports and seaports) while the richer countries remain stuck with aging infrastructure and expensive retrofits. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook projects that the emerging and developing economies will average growth of around 4% per year in the coming five years, while the high-income countries will average less than 2% per year.
It’s not only in skills and infrastructure that convergence is occurring. Many of the emerging economies, including China, Russia, Iran, and others, are advancing rapidly in technological innovations as well, in both civilian and military technologies.
China clearly has a large lead in the manufacturing of cutting-edge technologies needed for the global energy transition, including batteries, electric vehicles, 5G, photovoltaics, wind turbines, fourth generation nuclear power, and others. China’s rapid advances in space technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and other technologies is similarly impressive. In response, the U.S. has made the absurd claim that China has an “overcapacity” in these cutting-edge technologies, while the obvious truth is that the U.S. has a significant under-capacity in many sectors. China’s capacity for innovation and low-cost production is underpinned by enormous R&D spending and its vast and growing labor force of scientists and engineers.
Despite the new global economic realities, the U.S. security state still pursues a grand strategy of “primacy,” that is, the aspiration of the U.S. to be the dominant economic, financial, technological, and military power in every region of the world. The U.S. is still trying to maintain primacy in Europe by surrounding Russia in the Black Sea region with NATO forces, yet Russia has resisted this militarily in both Georgia and Ukraine. The U.S. is still trying to maintain primacy in Asia by surrounding China in the South China Sea, a folly that can lead the U.S. into a disastrous war over Taiwan. The U.S. is also losing its standing in the Middle East by resisting the united call of the Arab world for recognition of Palestine as the 194th United Nations member state.
Yet primacy is certainly not possible today, and was hubristic even 30 years ago when U.S. relative power was much greater. Today, the U.S. share of world output stands at 14.8%, compared with 18.5% for China, and the U.S. share of world population is a mere 4.1%, compared with 17.8% for China.
The trend toward broad global economic convergence means that U.S. hegemony will not be replaced by Chinese hegemony. Indeed, China’s share of world output is likely to peak at around 20% during the coming decade and thereafter to decline as China’s population declines. Other parts of the world, notably including India and Africa, are likely to show a large rise in their respective shares of global output, and with that, in their geopolitical weight as well.
We are therefore entering a post-hegemonic, multipolar world. It too is fraught with challenges. It could usher in a new “tragedy of great power politics,” in which several nuclear powers compete—in vain—for hegemony. It could lead to a breakdown of fragile global rules, such as open trade under the World Trade Organization. Or, it could lead to a world in which the great powers exercise mutual tolerance, restraint, and even cooperation, in accord with the U.N. Charter, because they recognize that only such statecraft will keep the world safe in the nuclear age.
End of the Liberal Order & Return of War - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
Netanyahu says Israel is prepared for “intense operation” against Lebanon
While Israel is expanding its ground assault against Palestinians in Rafah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the Israeli military is “prepared for a very intense operation” along the border with Lebanon. Israeli attacks on Lebanon have intensified over the past two weeks, including strikes targeting medical workers. On May 27, a motorcycle was targeted in the southern town of Bint Jbeil that was hit next to a hospital entrance, killing both the motorcyclist and a hospital security guard, wounding several civilians nearby and causing significant damage to the hospital.
Israel claimed the motorcyclist was a member of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia, that has recently said it launched a drone missile attack against Israel’s air defense system called the “Iron Dome.” In all, Israeli strikes have killed more than 400 people in Lebanon, including 70 civilians and noncombatants.
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch said that Israeli forces have used white phosphorus munitions, which “inflict death or cruel injuries that result in lifelong suffering,” in 17 areas of southern Lebanon since October 2023. This includes “5 municipalities where airburst munitions were unlawfully used [above] populated residential areas.” The use of white phosphorus against “concentrations of civilians” is illegal and violates the UN’s Protocol III of the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Expanding its criminal war operations into Lebanon has been on the agenda for Israel since its campaign of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza began on October 7. The latest statements from Netanyahu that a major offensive is being planned and that “One way or another, we will restore security to the north,” indicate that an Israeli offensive against Lebanon is imminent.
On Monday, the Israeli military announced that its reservists had in recent weeks “conducted a division-level and brigade-level exercise that simulated ground operations in Lebanon.” Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said a decision point is being approached, “We are prepared after a very good process of training—up to the level of a military exercise—to move to an attack in the north.”
Pulitzer Winner Nathan Thrall on Israel’s ceasefire ruse
Spain Applies to Join ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel
Spain's foreign minister announced Thursday that the country had applied to join the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, just over a week after formally recognizing a Palestinian state alongside other European countries.
South Africa brought the case and has led it through its early stages, which culminated on May 24 with the ICJ, the United Nations' highest court, ordering Israel to halt its military offensive on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip—an order that Israel ignored. Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Libya, and the Palestinians have already applied to join the case, while Chile and Ireland have also announced plans to intervene in support of the case.
"We do it out of commitment to the United Nations and to international law," José Manuel Albares, Spain's foreign minister, said Thursday in a social media post that included a video of his announcement speech. "To support the work of the court. To avoid more civilian deaths. For the peace."
"We take the decision because of the ongoing military operation in Gaza," Albares said, according toThe Associated Press. "We want peace to return to Gaza and the Middle East, and for that to happen we must all support the court."
Albares is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), a center-left party that leads a coalition government. Sumar, a new left-wing party that is the junior partner in the coalition, has been strongly pro-Palestine; the party's ministers have called Israel's war in Gaza a genocide. Podemos, a left-wing party that was part of previous coalitions but now holds only five seats in parliament and has been largely replaced by Sumar, has taken a similarly strong position; its leader had previously called for Spain to back the ICJ genocide case. ...
Spain is one of several European countries that have recognized a Palestinian state in recent weeks; indeed, Madrid has been central to organizing the European effort. Israel responded by threatening "severe consequences" to nations that recognize Palestine, and it held out a special level of ire for Spanish leaders.
"Hamas thanks you for your service," Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote in a message to Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on social media, along with a video that, in Al Jazeera's description, "flipped between images of flamenco dancers and apparent scenes of the Palestinian group's incursion into southern Israel on October 7."
The move for recognition has widespread support among the Spanish public—78%, based on a Madrid think tank's survey, according to Al Jazeera.
Sumar has also pushed for Spain to support the arrest warrant applications for the leaders of Israel and Hamas submitted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which like the ICJ is based in The Hague, Netherlands. U.S. President Joe Biden has been criticized by humanitarian groups for condemning the ICC's proposed warrants rather than supporting them. Neither the U.S. nor Israel recognizes the ICC's jurisdiction.
Israel's Widespread Use of White Phosphorus in Lebanon, Gaza Violates Int'l Law: Human Rights Watch
Dozens killed in Israeli strike on UN school, witnesses say
Israel bombed a UN school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians in central Gaza in the early hours of Thursday morning, killing at least 33 people including 12 women and children, according to hospital records and an eyewitness.
The Israeli military said it targeted “20 or 30” Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who had taken part in the 7 October attack and were now using the school as an operations centre. The military spokesperson Lt Col Peter Lerner said he was not aware of any civilian casualties.
Missiles hit the second and third floors of the al-Sardi school in Deir al-Balah, where the UN said about 6,000 people were living. Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, called for an investigation into the attack, with scores of people also reported injured.
Ayman Rashed, a shelter resident displaced from Gaza City, said there had been families in the classrooms that were hit, and he helped carry five bodies, including an old man and two children, out from the wreckage.
A US-made missile, the GBU 39, was used in the airstrikes on the school, fragments captured in videos and photos from the site show. It is the same weapon used to bomb near Unrwa sites in southern Gaza last week, an attack that caused fires in crowded tent areas that killed at least 45 people.
NAACP calls on Biden-Harris to halt weapons to Israel and push for ceasefire
In a rare move Thursday, the NAACP issued a call to the Biden-Harris administration to halt weapons shipments to Israel and to push for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. The 115-year-old civil rights organization also called for Hamas to return Israeli hostages and to “stop all terrorist activity”. The statement comes as the Biden campaign struggles to stir enthusiasm among Black voters.
One recent poll showed that only 33% of Black voters aged 18 to 40 said they would vote for Biden if the election were held today. Only 15% of Black voters thought Biden could handle Israel’s war in Gaza. The lack of enthusiasm about Biden does not suggest an apolitical view, however, as more than 90% of Black voters indicated they had participated in political activities, including protesting, attending speeches or dinners and donating.
“The NAACP calls on President Biden to draw the red line and indefinitely end the shipment of weapons and artillery to the state of Israel and other states that supply weapons to Hamas and other terrorist organizations,” the statement reads. “It is imperative that the violence that has claimed so many civilian lives, immediately stop.” ...
Though the NAACP issued statements in support of students’ right to protest and condemned Hamas following the 7 October attack, it previously had not made any statements regarding a ceasefire. That changed Thursday afternoon. “As the nation’s leading civil rights organization, it is our responsibility to speak out in the face of injustice and work to hold our elected officials accountable for the promises they’ve made,” the statement from the NAACP president and CEO, Derrick Johnson, reads. “Over the past months, we have been forced to bear witness to unspeakable violence, affecting innocent civilians, which is unacceptable.”
Why are Democrats blindly embracing Netanyahu?
When Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, feels squeezed at home – and trapped by a Democratic White House – he turns to his most trusted consigliere, Ron Dermer, to fix things. Dermer, an American-born Israeli who functions like a Republican party operative, is the Bibi whisperer on Capitol Hill. His official title in the Netanyahu government is minister of strategic affairs. In practice, he is a Republican fixer.
During a previous US administration, Dermer was the one who worked with the then Republican House speaker, John Boehner, to have his boss address a joint session of Congress, infuriating Barack Obama and his then vice-president, Joe Biden, by going behind their backs. That time it was to try to derail the Obama-initiated Iran nuclear agreement.
This time, Dermer has schemed with the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, to invite Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress before the end of this summer session. Once Johnson accepted this idea, both Chuck Schumer, Senate majority leader, and Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader, felt obliged to fall in line, even after Schumer gave a well-publicized speech on the Senate floor calling for new elections in Israel. Their agreeing to the Republican ploy was a mistake, but it can be rectified.
The Republicans are convinced that Israel is a wedge issue, and that Jewish voters who traditionally vote Democratic will turn on the Biden-Harris ticket if the president – the most supportive president that Israel has had perhaps since Harry Truman – appear to be “anti-Israel”. So, they keep trying to weaponize Israel. But today, especially in the current Israeli political climate, there is a profound difference between being pro-Netanyahu and pro-Israel. That same difference is matched among American voters, both Jewish and non-Jewish.
Amir Tibon wrote about Congress’s invitation recently in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, where he is a diplomatic correspondent. If the invite goes through, Tibon wrote: “It will be made possible thanks to the weakness and shallowness of certain Democratic politicians who have no real understanding of Israeli politics and society, and mistakenly think it is ‘pro-Israel’ to cooperate with Netanyahu – a man despised by at least half of his country.” ... Support for Israel is not synonymous with support for Netanyahu; to the contrary, the majority of Jewish Americans don’t vote on blind support for Israel.
‘We will not go away’: Israeli demolitions leave Bedouins homeless
Under the unrelenting heat of the Negev desert, for the fifth time in the last two weeks, Tayaeer Abu Asda has set up an improvised tent, which will serve as a temporary home for his wife and five children for at least the next three days. Abu Asda, 38, a Palestinian Bedouin and truck driver, is one of a group of Bedouins now numbering 500 who have been living for decades in Wadi al-Khalil, a village east of Be’er Sheva, about 12 miles (20km) from Gaza.
In early May, Israeli authorities demolished 350 structures in the community, 47 of them homes, leaving hundreds of children homeless. In the shadow of the conflict in Gaza, the government described this action as “an important move of sovereignty and governance”. The Bedouins erect makeshift tents to provide shelter for their families. However, every three days Israeli forces arrive with a sizeable police presence, dismantling the temporary homes, uprooting trees that had offered shade and issuing threats of arrest.
“In Wadi al-Khalil, Israelis are doing what they have done for decades in the West Bank,” says Jabr Abu Aasa, 55, a father of nine and grandfather of 15. “They are doing it without offering us any alternative. We are desperate. We struggle to access water. Our children suffer from the heat during the day and the cold at night. We don’t deserve this. We have been seeking a solution for years, hoping for a fair resolution, yet the state has obstructed all our options.”
Israel considers the homes constructed in Wadi al-Khalil to be illegal, and human rights activists say in the past it has used the “unrecognised” status of Bedouins to deprive these villages of basic rights and services and to justify confiscations. The villages lack most basic services, such as rubbish collection and access to water. ... The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has openly endorsed and pushed for the demolition of Palestinian homes, both within Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territory. More than a year ago he shared a video on social media celebrating the demolition of Palestinian Bedouin homes in the Negev.
Last month he said the Wadi al-Khalil homes were “illegal constructions” and issued a warning to anyone who “violates the law in the Negev”. He said the destruction was “an important step” indicating that the government’s authority would not be challenged.
Revealed: repairing Israel’s destruction of Gaza will come at huge climate cost
The carbon cost of rebuilding Gaza will be greater than the annual greenhouse gas emissions generated individually by 135 countries, exacerbating the global climate emergency on top of the unprecedented death toll, new research reveals.
Reconstructing the estimated 200,000 apartment buildings, schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, bakeries, water and sewage plants damaged and destroyed by Israel in the first four months of the war on Gaza will generate as much as 60m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e), according to new analysis by researchers in the UK and US. This is on a par with the total 2022 emissions generated by countries such as Portugal and Sweden – and more than twice the annual emissions of Afghanistan.
Long-term reconstruction will generate the largest carbon cost from the war on Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 36,500 Palestinians – mostly women and children – and thousands more remain buried under the rubble and presumed dead. Around 26m tons of debris and rubble have been left in the wake of Israel’s bombardment, which could take years to clean up. ...
“While the world’s attention is rightly focused on the humanitarian catastrophe, the climate consequences of this conflict are also catastrophic,” said Ben Neimark, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and co-author of the research. “Yet our study is only a snapshot accounting for the major reported greenhouse gas emissions from the war machine in the first 120 days.” ...
“Quite apart from the unspeakable destruction in Gaza and across Palestine, this report lays bare the hypocrisy of western nations who moralize about the perils of climate breakdown and the responsibility of every nation to protect the planet – all the while funding, aiding and enabling the Israeli regime’s catastrophic war and its implications for those affected by ongoing and future climate change,” said Zena Agha, policy analyst at Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, who writes about the climate crisis and the Israeli occupation.
The propaganda catapult has been busy this week:
Biden and Macron use D-day event to emphasise support for Ukraine
Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron have marked the 80th anniversary of D-day with a rallying cry for support for Ukraine as Volodymyr Zelenskiy was embraced by western leaders in Normandy.
The US president used his address at the American commemorative event to send a message to Moscow that the US and its allies “will not bow down” and will “stand for freedom”.
“To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators, is simply unthinkable,” Biden said in a speech at the American cemetery in Normandy. “If we were to do that, it means we’d be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”
“We will not walk away because if we do Ukraine will be subjugated and it will not end there,” Biden said. “Ukraine’s neighbours will be threatened, all of Europe will be threatened,” he added, describing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as a “tyrant bent on domination”.
“There are things that are worth fighting and dying for”, Biden said. “Freedom is worth it. Democracy is worth it.”
Prof. Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: Are Russian Threats Serious?
Russia nuclear-powered submarine to visit Cuba amid rising tensions with US
A Russian nuclear-powered submarine – which will not be carrying nuclear weapons – will visit Havana next week, Cuba’s communist authorities have announced, amid rising tensions with the US over the war in Ukraine.
The nuclear submarine Kazan and three other Russian naval vessels, including the missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov, an oil tanker and a salvage tug, will dock in the Cuban capital from 12-17 June, Cuba’s ministry of the revolutionary armed forces said in a statement.
“None of the vessels is carrying nuclear weapons, so their stopover in our country does not represent a threat to the region,” the ministry said.
The announcement came a day after US officials said that Washington had been tracking Russian warships and aircraft that were expected to arrive in the Caribbean for a military exercise. They said the exercise would be part of a broader Russian response to US support for Ukraine.
The US officials said that the Russian military presence was notable but not concerning. However, it comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested that Moscow could take “asymmetrical steps” elsewhere in the world in response to President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use US-provided weapons to strike inside Russia to protect Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Jill Stein: Biden Has Early-Alzheimer's, "Lost His Marbles" Supporting Israeli Genocide
Brutal heatwave cooks US south-west, an early sign of sizzling summer ahead
With the official start of summer still weeks away, a record-setting heatwave is cooking the south-western US, causing dangerous conditions far earlier than normal.
More than 34 million people were under heat alerts on Thursday afternoon, as warnings were issued from the southern tip of Texas across Arizona and Nevada, and up through the center of California to the northern part of the state.
The brutal conditions are expected to linger through Friday, according to the National Weather Service, as communities across the region brace for days of potentially life-threatening temperatures. Parts of California, the Great Basin and the south-west are forecast to break daily-high temperature records on Thursday and Friday, as Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona, hit 110F for the first time this year.
Experts have warned this could be just the start of another record-smashing season with the potential to usurp 2023 as the world’s hottest year. A three-month outlook on seasonal temperatures published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in mid-May forecasts above-average temperatures for most of the country through the summer.
Secretive court system has awarded over $100bn public money to corporations, finds new analysis
More than $100bn of public money has been awarded to private investors in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) courts, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet. The controversial arbitration system which allows corporations to sue governments for compensation over decisions they argue affect their profits is largely carried out behind closed doors, with some judgments kept secret. But, according to a global ISDS tracker which launches today, $114bn has so far been paid out of the public purse to investors – about as much as rich nations provided in climate aid in 2022.
Fossil fuel companies have been by far the biggest beneficiaries of the corporate panels, raking in $80.21bn since 1998, according to the site. If current trends continue, at least another $48bn will be disbursed to settle cases currently under litigation, the research finds.
Lucía Bárcena of the Transnational Institute, one of the three groups that created the tracker, said: “Much like the British government paid slaveholders around £7tn in today’s money for ending slavery, the ISDS mechanism continues a system where corporate perpetrators get paid for finally doing the right thing, or at least for stopping with doing the wrong thing. This money should be spent on reparations for the innocent victims of global heating not handed out to the corporations responsible for causing it.” Tom Wills, the director of the Trade Justice Movement, which co-created the tracker, said: “The data backs up what we’ve been saying for years: ISDS is the secret weapon for fossil fuel companies against climate laws. Corporate courts are also used to threaten governments not to give in to popular local or national demands for climate action. This needs to be put to an end. The data shows reform is urgently needed.”
The ISDS system is reeling after EU countries last week withdrew en masse from the energy charter treaty, one of the most significant sources of investor-state claims. But the mechanism remains a feature of most modern international investment agreements. It gives foreign investors the right to sue states for billions of dollars when their anticipated profits are affected by public measures such as green regulations.
‘Slap in the face’: outrage after New York governor halts congestion pricing
An 11th-hour decision to halt a plan to charge a fee for cars entering the heart of New York City has provoked outrage from environmental advocates and Democratic lawmakers, potentially scuppering hopes of congestion pricing taking hold in any US city in the near future.
New York City was, on 30 June, primed to be the first American city to toll drivers in its traffic-clogged centre, with cars entering Manhattan south of 60th Street set to be charged $15 a day in a plan heralded as a landmark moment in tackling air pollution, helping curb carbon emissions and providing a funding boost for New York’s sprawling yet beleaguered public transit system.
Yet on Wednesday, New York’s governor Kathy Hochul said she had come to the “difficult decision that implementing the planned congestion pricing system risks too many unintended consequences”, adding that she had ordered her administration to “indefinitely pause” the system.
Hochul cited concerns over the plan’s cost to low-income people who drive into Manhattan at a time of relatively high inflation, although a political calculation has also shaped the governor’s thinking, with suburban districts near to New York City rife with car-owning voters expected to be closely contested in November elections.
But supporters of the plan say that New York has missed a crucial opportunity to follow cities around the world, such as London and Stockholm, that have managed to enact congestion pricing in a successful way, with lawsuits now expected to try to force through the scheme.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
The Washington Post Is Pure AIDS, And Other Notes
Israeli Military Alarmed by Standoff Over West Bank Funds, Report Says
The Real Test Of The Gaza War Will Be The Israeli Invasion Of Southern Lebanon
Droning Russia’s nuke radars is the dumbest thing Ukraine can do
Q&A w/ Chris Hedges — What I’m Doing After Real News
Failing Washington Post attempts to get Grayzone editor jailed with error-filled smear piece
Columbia SETTLES! Elite School Caves To Student Who SUED Over Safety Amid Gaza Protests
A Little Night Music
Muddy Waters - Gone To Main Street
Muddy Waters - Deep Down In Florida
Muddy Waters ~ Mother's Bad Luck Child
Muddy Waters – Rollin And Tumblin
Muddy Waters - My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble
Muddy Waters – The Same Thing
Muddy Waters ~ Garbage Man
Muddy Waters w/Little Walter - Just To Be With You
Muddy Waters - I Just Want To Make Love To You
Muddy Waters – I'm A King Bee
Muddy Waters – I'm Ready
Muddy Waters - Tiger In Your Tank
Comments
OMG…Smirkula tells the truth
Yep….
Russia defeated Nazi Germans, but Nazism has lived on.
I always thought the same thing. I played sports to have fun and do my best. If I or my team lost it was no big deal. Never could stand sore losers.
Thanks for the news and hope a great weekend! We too are hitting 100…..
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
I've always feared the Nazis
...far more than the Russians, and I've always felt their presence in the Federal government and in any group of psychopathic enforcers.
Now they are everywhere I look, but especially in NATO. I think most of the Global South feels the same way. Brazil and Argentina still have a Nazi problem. But they are now getting very easy to spot, even though they are disguised as humans..
Populations don’t like wars. They have to be lied into it.
That means we can be “truthed” into peace. — Julian Assange
I agree
The Nazis are known for their cruelty and our government seems to enjoy the cruelty it hands down to us and especially through the cops. Close to 2,000 peaceful protesters have been arrested and I wonder how many have been injured and put in hospitals?
Plus there’s the economic cruelty government likes to dish out.
Joe, that was a good article on Ukraine’s hitting Russia radar stations. Oh I should say America’s hit. Boneheaded idiots!
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Pssst…l
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
evening snoopy...
that's quite an accidental truth that smirkula coughed up. i'm sure that biden and blinken agree with him wholeheartedly.
yep, after the russians defeated the nazis, the american government decided that they liked the nazis better than some of their allies.
you have a great weekend, too! i hope that you and sam are able to keep cool.
Israel also embeds its troops among civilians
I’ve seen pictures of troops on beach patrol with lots of civilians around them. Turn about…fair play.
A rah, rah republican was making fun of Biden at Normandy and said that after the war the world enjoyed peace for the longest time ever. I reminded him of all the coups and wars since 1945 and especially after 9/11. I haven’t heard back from him yet.
I’ve been wondering if dawgs can swim in cold water? Thought of taking Sam swimming, but then wondered about hypothermia? My dawgs played in the Pacific Ocean and it Twas none too warm and they did okay. What do you think?
Sam has the creek to splash in and there is plenty of shade on out walk. Of course she comes over to me before she shakes off. Of course she does!
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
heh...
israeli troops are also stationed on kibbutzes, which i guess makes them fair targets for hamas, right?
my dogs always did fine in fairly cold water, when we'd go up to maine in late spring the water temp was often pretty low and they didn't hesitate to go in, in fact you couldn't keep them out. perhaps not all breeds of dog are good in cold water, i dunno. i would guess that a lab retriever would probably be fine.
Thanks
I’d think that dawgs would know if it’s too cold, but then Sam played in the creek during winter and was fine. I’d hate to become a helicopter mom and not let her just be herself.
I tried rescuing a duck in a pond one winter and cramped up taking 10 steps. It hadn’t been that cold cuz it was California.
Sam can’t say that she is a retriever tho…just looks at me and says nice throw.
Yeah I forgot about the troops in the kibbutzes. Well when everyone in Israel has/is serving in the military I bet you can’t swing a cat without hitting one.
Oh my….
Judge Suggests Juror May Have Had Predetermined Guilty Verdict
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
heh...
i guess if they run it down and find out that there really is a juror who told his cousin ...
well i guess we'll be hearing a lot about it.
Hell, we are only reaching the high 90s
chica!
My family fought alongside Russians against Nazis. My Dad is buried about a mile from me. I feel the urge to go visit him, spread some flower petals, assure him I am not stupid, and let him know his assessment of my brain power and sensibilities was always spot on. He loved flowers.
Not kidding. I haven't visited his grave. I drive by it twice a day, look over and salute. It's time I do more.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
The firing of Briahna Joy Gray was not a one off situation just
another indication of subservience to Israel.
evening humphrey...
it's not a big surprise. in some ways i'm surprised that she lasted this long, given her commitment to speaking truth about israel's genocide.
She is getting lots of support
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
I wondered who the owners of the show are
The irony of their mission statement ...
Biden resurrects bs domino theory
I've been going through old interviews with, and discussions about Hannah Arendt since I had read some articles, not recent, that criticized her either as antisemitic or as a CIA tool. The first I think based upon her work on the Eichmann trial, Eichmann in Jerusalem. The second on her essentially putting Nazism and Stalinism in the same basket in her Origins of Totalitarianism. Her analysis of the concept of nation-state, derived from an ethnic identification of citizenry, as inherently defective is something that led to her critical analysis that such a concept resulted in the destruction of the civic personhood (the worst crime) and human rights of those whose ethnic identity doesn't conform. This is one pathway to crimes against humanity. Such is the essential destruction of human rights inherent in imperialism, one of the volumes in the Origins trilogy.
The "peaceful rules based order since WWII." Really?
Arendt's "last interview" (1973) found on youtube, preserves her commentary on so called "national security" as raison d'etat, a European product, as cover for the criminalization of the US government. She discussed this particularly in the context of Nixon, Watergate, the Pentagon papers, etc. I've cued this to start at around 9:30 where the discussion concerns national security and criminality. At 14:30, the domino theory as a faulty framework, known to be false, the primacy of "image making" over the reality principle (21:19) and the end of seeking "lessons learned" from failed policy; "they never went back." I think the high point, is when she challenges the interviewer's point about arrogance, and says the driving force of US policy is simply "the will to dominate." (at 20:14).
I liked this recent interview with Lyle Goldstein discussing the reasons there is a real risk of nuclear war over Taiwan. He believes the US is considering a preemptive first use of nuclear weapons. I liked the latter part of the podcast as well, where a countervailing view was expressed, "the avoidable war."
Will the United States and China go to war over an island of 24 million people nearly 6,500 miles from California?
This is the link to an Atlantic Council article- referred to in the interview:
Deliberate Nuclear Use in a War over Taiwan
Great news round up Joe! Muddy Waters is great too. He was a favorite on the Blues channel on XM radio.
語必忠信 行必正直
Russia will not start throwing nukes at everyone
Doctrow says that they will flatten Kiev after warning civilians to leave.
Another article I read said they would hit Poland next and if needed they would hit European countries and then possibly America with non nuclear missiles. But it should never get that far. Biden needs to stop pushing to destroy Russia and find peace.
That the hegemon is planning for war with China 5 years out is stupid beyond belief. America can’t even defeat the poorest country, Yemen and the Taliban ran our butts out of Afghanistan, but it thinks it can take on Russia and China?
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
evening soryang...
i guess biden is aiming primarily at a domestic audience with his insults and bizarre accusations of putin. it's hard to believe that anybody whose paycheck doesn't depend on it would belive biden's b.s., but americans have been known to swallow idiocies like he's peddling for decades at a time.
thanks for the interview footage and the links!
have a great weekend!
Thanks for bringing the Hannah Arendt
...commentary. I had read it long ago, but never in context of what we are living through. Her truth seeking analysis and philosophy, especially on these same unresolved issues, remains cogent. Actions and decisions made without consensus create a very ugly future.
This has been the turd in the punchbowl since World War II:
.
We flush and flush, but it just won't go down.
Now we are condemned to watching Israel commit suicide on the world stage. We must not interrupt; but let the self-destruction play all the way out to the tragic end. It will all turn to dust and blow away.
Populations don’t like wars. They have to be lied into it.
That means we can be “truthed” into peace. — Julian Assange
This has rubbed me the wrong way
In the video a vet hugs Zelensky. For crying out loud that vet fought the fcking Nazis and here he is hugging the guy in charge of the new Nazi regime!
That’s what made this shitshow so obscene this year. And Biden tells the vets that the world owes them a debt of gratitude while he’s supporting the same gd Nazis the world fought against!
How do people not know that? The media covered it after 2014 before they revoked their coverage.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
The Atlantic Council article
you linked to is well worth knowing about. I'm posting some excerpts, but the RECOMMENDATIONS, which I didn't copy, are frightening. I chose the parts I've posted here because they have meaning for our policy with respect to Russia, and where there is bold text, except for the subject headings, I have added it. Thank you for linking us to this document.
Well that frightening as HELL
So America is planning a war with China on national security grounds that we pulled out of thin air maybe during this war that we instigated we might just throw some nukes at China if it looks like we’re losing.
The war is planned for 5 years from now so maybe there will be a world organization that has some teeth and they will stop it from happening.
And what will America do if Russia or Iran or North Korea decides to fight on China’s side?
We have enough nukes to go toe to toe with Russia, but not Russia and China.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
I think Lyle was on to something
...in pointing this crazy thinking about nuclear war with China. I think it's important to notice, as well as the crazy "proxy war" against Russia which also presents nuclear risks, that during the cold war, the US made every effort to avoid. The restraint the US demonstrated historically during the cold war to avoid nuclear war has steadily eroded to now where it seems we have a bunch of idiots encouraging it. The Atlantic Council, Georgetown, Stanford, the Scowcoft Center, etc., are part of the "national security" echo chamber that promote crazy ideas to start wars, invent wars where there weren't any before, and create that false imagery the "national security" sector is promoting all the time.
I think it's safe to say Kroenig doesn't really know much about China. The notion that China would strike the US "homeland" with conventional or nuclear weapons without US provocation is absurd. I wasn't aware that Taiwan is an "ally." It's not even recognized internationally as a country. I was surprised that wikipedia included this criticism of Kroenig:
Kroenig has drawn criticism over his argument for war with Iran to prevent it from pursuing nuclear weapons.[16][17][18] Bill Keller wrote that "Kroenig ... apparently aspires to the Strangelovian superhawk role occupied in previous decades by the likes of John Bolton and Richard Perle. His former colleagues at Defense were pretty appalled by his [Foreign Affairs] article, which combines the alarmist worst case of the Iranian nuclear threat with the rosiest best case of America’s ability to make things better".[7]
Since I listened to Lyle's podcast and read much of Kroenig's article, the youtube coughed up a couple of South Korean videos I had missed earlier. The first one, I found quite alarming because it was South Korea's top nuclear engineer recommending that South Korea develop nuclear weapons. He was trained at MIT. The next one I saw is below, from about a week ago, it's an interview with Elbridge Colby who is also prepping for war with China. He's another Indo-Pacific bs artist. He's dares to impute Japanese Imperial objectives from the 20th Century to China today. I think this demonstrates how superficial his analysis is. He turns the historical context of the region on its head. At the same time, he is promoting nuclear weapons for South Korea although he claims it's "up to South Korea." I think it's laughable that Colby takes exactly the wrong lesson from Vietnam- "the good guy's didn't win." lol.
If anyone with any expertise on far east history and geopolitics looked at arming South Korea with nuclear weapons, they might first think, er, wouldn't this be a non-proliferation treaty violation? Wouldn't this provoke the war with North Korea that one seeks to avoid? As a practical matter wouldn't Japan respond by ramping up nuclear weapons production much faster than South Korea? Given the ill feelings remaining from Japanese actions in the late 19th and 20th Centuries in this region, and Japanese psychosis over the "unfair" characterization of its wars on everyone in the 20th Century, is more nuclear proliferation in the area a good idea? Isn't there an arms buildup going on the area which is already destabilizing? Colby is just opening another pandora's box.
I saw a number of other South Korean videos floating about youtube on similar topics such as US says South Korea and Taiwan aren't ready for war, and that their army reserve forces need upgraded training and more military exercises (under US guidance naturally). Colby said "Japan should be involved in the defense of Taiwan." Nothing is more surely calculated to provoke the Chinese to war.
I view the whole thrust of these approaches amount to making our "far east allies" potentially new Ukraine like proxies in a war with China.
(edit typo)
語必忠信 行必正直
I'm reassured
by your finding in wikipedia that Kroenig’s former colleagues at Defense were appalled by some of his writings. But I especially appreciate what you say about this guy:
I have to say, though, that I don’t find our government’s switching sides, or as Condoleeza Rice called it, “Redirection” when we decided to support Al Qaeda/ISIS in Iraq, superficial. We’re clearly arming Nazis in Ukraine and supporting Imperial Japan in this madness over Taiwan. You are so right that these neo-con fascists are turning history on its head. But I don’t think it’s because they aren’t thinking clearly. I think it’s because they support fascism, because it is opposed to Russia and China, and that they are expressing support for the German and Japanese sides in WWII. They are asserting that we, the American people, should support these forces now.
I haven’t watched your video links yet, but I will try to soon. Thank you, again, for posting this information.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection
The New Yorker article brought back
...old memories.
As to Colby and Kroenig. A look at Kroenig's wikipedia write up speaks for itself. As for Colby, it's obvious he's in the running for a job with a coming Trump administration. He says, he hasn't spoken with Trump.
Worldviews or perhaps I should say images of worldviews for political actors are tailored to enhance careers. Therefore they are fickle. Arendt called this political characteristic venality. I don't need to address whether their currently expressed policy view is something that one or another politician really believes. Arendt's analysis of venality reveals it to be the motivating factor in a movement (such as the neocon movement?) that ultimately believes in nothing more than their own advancement and dominance. When the "cadre" switch their view on a dime, and adopts a contrary view, or holds two contradictory views at the same time, typically nothing is said in the media, it doesn't matter. One year one is an "expert" on the middle east and the so called war on terror; the next an authority on China, or Russia or both, and weakening major "peer rivals."
In the international sphere, it is readily apparent that the US in the aftermath of WWII, attempted to replace and consolidate as much as reasonably possible of the old British Empire, and the Japanese Empire. There are many devices, perspectives and techniques inherited from the UK. One could probably write a book or thesis on this. One of the key techniques is divide and conquer. There is a propaganda channel on youtube, that is an Epoch Times operation still promoting the notion that China will "break up" into pieces from its own internal weakness and instability. Gordon Chang who gets entirely too much promotion in US media, has been predicting this unlikely "collapse" for two decades. How wrong can one be?
Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, are all allegedly manifestations of this perspective. This is an old British take that the US adopted. After the US sponsored terrorist uprising in Xinjiang sputtered out, the US moved on to the former British colonial possession Hong Kong; after the US sponsored uprising there was effectively suppressed, it has returned to a military focus on Taiwan. Advocating an independent Tibet was in vogue for a while. The Shia-Sunni divide is another. The US can turn on a dime to suit its own cynical objectives du jour (the Redirection). The US clearly exploited the ethnic divide inside Ukraine.
The weakness of the US today is largely due to a series of strategic blunders like the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the so called war on terror. The real objective was to line the pockets of those directing the effort, and reestablish a US dominated neocolonial order in the region. The strategy was sometimes publicly advertised as the old Harold Mackinder strategy from the UK. To control the heartland one must control the "rimland." Did these wars consolidate the US hold on a world wide imperial empire or did they weaken the US as it had weakened the UK? The operational expenses of a series of wars have weakened the US at its core. Is it really in a position to challenge Russian and Chinese militaries on their borders? I'll never forget Arendt's characterization of T.S. Lawrence as the original "superman" model.
(Source- JTBC News 8.6.2019) Class A war criminal awarded by South Korean government. In 1970, Kisi was awarded the top national award in diplomacy by South Korean dictator Park Chung Hee, the Distinguished Order of Diplomatic Service. Park was a former graduate of Japanese military schools and a former military officer and agent of the Japanese Imperial Army in Manchukuo.
Linda Wood, your point about the adoption of Nazi or fascist personnel and views is well taken. Exploitation of Ukraine against Russia is an old Rheinhard Gehlen ploy. Gehlen who served as Hitler's chief of military intelligence on the Eastern front worked for the CIA from 1946. His organization consisting in large part of former Nazis served US interests.
The cadre of the South Korean military officers in the Korean conflict were the product of Japanese imperial training academies. They received training in how to speak English in a military academy established in South Korea during the US occupation after Japan's defeat. The ruling oligarchy in South Korea to this day is composed in large part of the descendants of the collaborators of the Japanese Empire. The division of Vietnam, like that of Korea, was an effort to maintain the old imperialist French order which had been supplanted by the WWII Japanese Empire. The LDP, the ruling party in Japan, was founded and maintained, in concert with the CIA, by former Class A war criminals released from Sugamo prison without trial. The leader of the LDP was Kishi Nobusuke, the "Monster of Showa." Abe, assassinated not too long ago, was his grandson. Kishida's former Defense Minister Kishi was Abe's brother, and advocated a Taiwan commitment. Taiwan was the former colony of Japan for a half a century, taken by Japan after the first Sino Japanese war. Now it's "essential" to US national security?
The US is simply no longer in a position of dominance that it once was to maintain a world wide empire. At a minimum it needs to stop the bleeding by reaching accommodation with Russia and China, regrouping militarily, retrenching social and economically, to work in concert with the other major states to integrate with a new world system. I remember the so called peace dividend after the collapse of the USSR. There was a series of base closures in the US that were going to pare down unnecessary defense costs. As it turned out it was little more than preparation for building out and modernizing a more extensive system of overseas bases and carrying out a series of elective wars.
Appreciate your thoughtful comments and the link to the Seymour Hersh article on the Redirection Linda Wood.
(edited typos)
語必忠信 行必正直
Your knowledge and insights
are such a treasure for readers here. Your statement,
opens my eyes and makes me laugh a little because I believe the cabal that runs our fascist foreign policy, especially so blatantly and continuously from Gehlen to the neo-Nazis in Ukraine, are what I call Bushworld, which includes actual descendants of the builders, enablers and bankrollers of Nazi Germany.
So glad I caught this entire thread between Soryang
.
.... and you — .
So much vitally important knowledge being expressed.
It's a privilege to see it posted here. It should be preserved.
Populations don’t like wars. They have to be lied into it.
That means we can be “truthed” into peace. — Julian Assange
There you have it fact checkers came to rescue Dementia Joe. LOL
Goof evening Joe, thanks for the EBs. The WaPo
knowingly spreading malicious lies with intent to harm is perfectly ok and legal because they are a feeb/cia tool and hence allowed to do any such thing they feel like. Right?
Have a great weekend, 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...
i guess it's perfectly ok and legal because wapo has endless resources to defend against libel suits.
have a great weekend!
Hi bluesters
Hi all, Hey Joe,
Great sounds man! Love Muddy Waters! Those are definitive versions of 'Just Wanna make love' and King Bee to me. That Bo Collins last night was an outstanding player too! Awesome sauce man!
Thanks for the great sounds! Have a great weekend!
P.S. that Chambers Bros. album last Saturday was great. The Spirit was fairly poppy compared to earlier stuff. Downright weird Natures Way. LA was huge fans and this one did not go over well there. I saw the original lineup after that and they had gone back to the harder roots about 1980.
thanks for the soundscapes!
Happy trails all!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
evening dystopian...
heh, i could listen to muddy for days. bo collins was quite an accomplished player as well as a songwriter - the blues standard "if trouble was money" is his composition.
i'll have some more chambers brothers up sometime soon, probably next week and some more spirit eventually.
have a great weekend!
The answer is that while we will bitch and moan about
.
made up accusations of Russia interfering in our elections we will look the other way when Israel does like we always have.
Even shitlibs are wondering why we allow Israel to buy our government.
4 years ago Israel flooded the campaign of the person running against Nina Turner and there was nothing but silence about it. Now though Israel is targeting democrats and they are finally paying attention.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
heh...
it's really hard to imagine israel or its institutions getting so much as a slap on the wrist for this.
A fcking Men
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt