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"The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor."

-- Albert Camus

News and Opinion

Vote However You Feel; This Whole Show Is About Feelings Anyway

My one and only position on how Americans should vote is that they should do whatever makes them feel nice, since that’s all US presidential elections are: an emotional pacifier to let the masses feel like they have some meaningful control over their country. It’s about feelings and nothing else.

If voting for Kamala Harris makes you feel nice because it lets you pretend you’re stopping fascism or protecting women and minorities or helping to secure a ceasefire in Gaza or whatever, then go right ahead. That’s what your vote is there for.

If voting for Donald Trump makes you feel nice because it lets you pretend you’re sticking it to the establishment or punishing the Democrats for their misdeeds or ending the wars or whatever, then by all means do so. This whole spectacle is exclusively about feelings.

If voting for a third party makes you feel nice because it lets you pretend there might be some answer in electoral politics or that the empire will ever allow anyone who truly opposes the abuses of capitalism, militarism and imperialism anywhere near power, then get in there and cast that vote. Whatever makes your feely bits feel nice.

Just don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re doing anything other than sucking on an emotional pacifier, because you’re not.

No matter how you vote, Democrats will continue to win approximately half the time, and Republicans will win the other half.

No matter how you vote, the ever-expanding abuses of capitalism and plutocracy will continue making life worse for ordinary Americans.

No matter how you vote, the US war machine will continue inflicting nightmarish mass military violence on people in other countries in order to maintain its globe-spanning empire.

No matter how you vote, the profit-driven systems which rule our world will continue exterminating our biosphere at an alarmingly rapid rate.

No matter how you vote, the empire’s looming confrontations with Russia and China guarantee more world-threatening nuclear brinkmanship in the near future.

No matter how you vote, people in the global south will continue to be robbed and exploited to give the western citizenry of the imperial core enough cheap stuff to keep them pacified and compliant.

No matter how you vote, the US will continue using starvation sanctions, blockades and economic warfare to bully weaker nations into obedience.

Your rulers will never give you the tools to end any of these abuses, because too much power rides on their continuation. They will only give you the tools to mollify your own frustrations and placate your discontentment by giving you a phony ritual to participate in every four years that lets you feel some degree of control.

You’re never voting your way out of this. The oligarchs and empire managers who rule you are never going to let you overthrow them by ticking a box. These sociopaths are never going to give their power to you voluntarily out of the kindness of their hearts.

Their rule will end when the project of the US empire ends — either because of outside forces beyond their control, because of inside forces beyond their control, or some combination of these two factors. It will not come about because of how anyone voted in any November. It will only happen because it was forced to happen.

You can help force this to happen by working to foment a revolutionary zeitgeist within your country. You can do this by helping to wake up as many of your countrymen as possible to the fact that their government and media are lying to them constantly, that everything they’ve been taught about their nation and their world is false, and that a better world is possible.

Lies and propaganda play an enormous role in holding the imperial power structure together, so the most effective way to help bring it down is by spreading truth and awareness. Show people how they’re being lied to, abused and stolen from. Teach them the truth about the wars, about their government, about their media, about their nation, about the people their government has designated as enemies, and about the abusive systems they all live under.

That’s real action. That kind of work matters. Your vote doesn’t matter beyond its ability to help you feel a certain way. So do whatever you need to do to feel how you want to feel on election day, and then go do some real work.

Alastair Crooke : Netanyahu’s Imaginary Victories

Netanyahu in fresh storm over Gaza hostages after arrests linked to alleged leak

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is at the centre of a new political storm related to a hostage deal in the Gaza war after the arrest of several people in connection with an alleged leak of classified documents from his office. ... One of those arrested is believed to be spokesperson for the prime minister. ...

The suspects are alleged to have selectively leaked Hamas strategy documents found by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza, and manipulated or edited the material to make it seem as though the Palestinian militant group sought to smuggle hostages to Egypt, and then to Iran or Yemen. In September, Netanyahu made this claim in interviews and news conferences in support of a fresh demand he had made in ceasefire and hostage release deal talks: the need for Israeli troops to remain on the Gaza-Egypt border. The demand was rejected by Hamas on the grounds it was not part of the terms both sides had already conditionally accepted, and was a major reason that months of negotiations failed. ...

The prime minister’s office on Friday said no one who worked for Netanyahu has been questioned or detained, but on Saturday did not deny that the leak may have originated from his office. Dozens of other leaks related to ceasefire and hostage release negotiations have appeared in media reports, it pointed out, without triggering investigations. The charges are understood to be related to the leaking of classified documents, negligence in handling the material, and using it to influence public opinion, as well as the improper hiring of an adviser without adequate security clearance.

News of the arrests has been met with fury by the prime minister’s detractors in the bitterly politically divided country. On Saturday night, thousands of people across Israel joined what are now weekly demonstrations in favour of a deal.

Save the Children in Gaza: Israel Bombs Polio Vax Site, Bans UNRWA in Attacks on Humanitarian Aid

Vaccination centre and aid official’s car bombarded in Gaza, says UN

A polio vaccination centre and the car of a UN aid official involved in this weekend’s vaccination campaign came under fire despite a promised “humanitarian pause” in Israeli bombardment, the UN has said.

Catherine Russell, the executive director of the UN child support and protection agency, Unicef, said: “At least three children were reportedly injured by another attack in the proximity of a vaccination clinic in Sheikh Radwan while a polio vaccination campaign was under way.”

She added that the personal car of a Unicef employee working on the polio vaccine campaign “came under fire by what we believe to be a quadcopter.

“The car was damaged. Fortunately, the staff member was not injured. But she has been left deeply shaken,” Russell wrote. She added that in the previous 48-hour period, more than 50 children had reportedly been killed in the Jabaliya refugee camp, a focus of Israeli military operations over the past month.

“The attacks on Jabaliya, the vaccination clinic and the Unicef staff member are yet further examples of the grave consequences of the indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza Strip,” Russell said. “Taken alongside the horrific level of child deaths in north Gaza from other attacks, these most recent events combine to write yet another dark chapter in one of the darkest periods of this terrible war.”

‘Death is everywhere’: fears grow that Israel plans to seize land in Gaza

Israel has tightened its siege of northern Gaza in the face of warnings from the UN and other aid agencies that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian lives at are risk, raising questions over whether the Netanyahu government’s ultimate war aims include territorial expansion. The IDF says it is hunting Hamas militants but suspicions are growing that Israel is putting into practice a blueprint it had officially distanced itself from, known as the “generals’ plan”.

The plan, named after the retired senior officers promoting it, was intended to depopulate northern Gaza by giving the Palestinians trapped there an opportunity to evacuate and then treating those that stayed as combatants, laying total siege. The government insisted the plan had not been adopted, but some IDF soldiers in Gaza, as well as Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, say it is being implemented on a daily basis, but with a major difference: the Palestinians in northern Gaza were not given a realistic chance to evacuate. They are trapped.

“It is impossible for me to leave my house because I do not want to die out there. There are many people who lost their lives away from their homes, even in the south. Death is everywhere,” said Ramadan, a 19-year-old in Beit Lahiya whose family has been displaced seven times over the course of the 13-month war. “There is a lot of shooting and all kinds of bombing. Gatherings are being bombed, shelters are being bombed, and schools are being bombed. The area is overcrowded, so that even a small bomb kills and injures a lot of people.”

“Even if there are people who want to go south, they can’t because there is no safe road,” Ramadan said. Israeli ground troops have laid siege to three areas – Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and the Jabalia refugee camp – in the northern Gaza governorate, where there are estimated to be about 75,000 people. But the reality for almost all the 400,000 trapped across the northern half of Gaza is that there is no escape. ...

Idan Landau, a Tel Aviv University linguistics professor and political commentator, wrote on his blog, Don’t Die Stupid, that “the ultimate goal of the plan is not military but political – resettling Gaza”.

“All the signs indicate that Israel is not planning to let the displaced return,’ Landau wrote on his blog, translated and republished by the +972 magazine. “In this sense, the destruction in northern Gaza is unlike anything we have seen before.”

Jabalia |

“Making sure they have nowhere to return to.”

Israeli soldier Nadav Cohen from the Tzama “D9” Steel Cat Company, currently operating in Jabalia with the Gaza Division, just shared a post showing himself leveling a residential building in the camp. pic.twitter.com/j5YWcd2wrX

— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) October 31, 2024

Israeli Troops Prevent North Gaza Residents From Returning to Their Homes as Part of Ethnic Cleansing Plan

The Israeli military is preventing residents of Jabalia in northern Gaza from returning to their homes as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign, Haaretz reported on Wednesday.

The report said the military is blocking the return of approximately 50,000 residents of Jabalia due to pressure from Israeli political leadership. It said the Israeli army acknowledged it’s carrying out a partial implementation of the “general’s plan,” which calls for a complete ethnic cleansing of all areas of Gaza north of the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land controlled by the Israeli military.

As part of the ethnic cleansing campaign, Israel has cut off virtually all aid deliveries into northern Gaza since the beginning of October, and no aid has reached Jabalia or the areas around it. The Haaretz report said senior Israeli military and Shin Bet officials acknowledged the general’s plan violates international law but are claiming the partial implementation does not, even though it has involved a starvation blockade and large-scale attacks on civilians.

Iran Vows ‘Crushing Response’ to Israeli Attack + U.S. Deploys B-52 Bombers, Warships to Middle East

The ultranationalist TV channel fast becoming Israel’s most-watched news source

An ultranationalist Israeli television channel backed by the government is fast emerging as one of the country’s most-watched news sources, despite allegations from liberal groups that it is inciting war crimes, and claims from the army that it is riling up hatred of its generals for not being far enough to the right. Last month Channel 14, also known as Now 14, beat Israel’s principal mainstream news outlet, Channel 12, in viewer ratings when 343,000 Israelis watched Channel 14’s “Patriots” talkshow, known for its virulent rhetoric on Gaza.

Media analysts say Channel 14’s rise is both a sign and a driver of the shift of Israeli public opinion to the extreme right that has rapidly accelerated since the start of the Gaza war a year ago. ...

In their complaint on 23 September, the organisations – Zulat – Equality and Human Rights; the Democratic Bloc; and the Association for Fair Regulation – supplied a list of 265 quotes from talkshow hosts and guests on Channel 14. The remarks included guests or presenters using phrases such as “total annihilation” and “exterminate” in reference to people in Gaza. The legal complaint alleged at least 50 of the quotes on the list “call for or support the commission of genocide”. ...

The complaint argues that the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, is legally obliged to launch an investigation on the grounds that Israel is a signatory to the genocide convention, and because the international court of justice (ICJ) issued an interim order in January instructing the Israeli government to prevent and punish incitement to genocide. “The explicit calls for committing horrifying crimes against millions of civilians find a home and are legitimised within the Israeli public, partly due to the statements made on the channel,” the groups alleged in their legal complaint.

Channel 14 responded to say the complainants filed an identical or substantially similar “complaint against Channel 14 in the Israeli high court of justice” which was dismissed. “Because the previous complaint was deemed entirely baseless, the high court recommended that plaintiffs withdraw the pleading so that it could be deleted,” the channel’s lawyers said. Zehava Galon, the president of Zulat and the former leader of the Meretz party, said the high court case was on a different subject, “primarily concerning fake news and a smear campaign against the judicial system”.

'This Is What We're Funding': At Least 50 Children Killed in Israeli Strikes on Jabalia

The United Nations children's agency on Saturday condemned the Israel Defense Forces' "indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza Strip" after at least 50 children were reportedly among those killed in attacks on Jabalia refugee camp in the northern part of the enclave.

Northern Gaza has been under siege since early October, when Israel resumed its attacks there, claiming it was targeting Hamas militants.

The current situation in northern Gaza has been called "apocalyptic" by leading humanitarian groups in recent days, with women and children making up the majority of the hundreds of people killed, and Israel imposing a near-total blockade on humanitarian aid.

Now, said Catherine Russell, executive director of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), "the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza, especially children, is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and the ongoing bombardments."

“Entire northern Gaza population ‘at imminent risk’ of death, UNICEF head says“

This is what we’re funding.https://t.co/4BzlWZLO74

— Gyasi Ross (@BigIndianGyasi) November 3, 2024

In addition to the attacks on residential buildings this weekend in Jabalia, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that an attack on a healthcare center in Gaza City injured at least six people, including four children. The facility was participating in a polio vaccination drive, the second round of inoculations for children across Gaza.

Trump told Netanyahu he wants Gaza war over by time he enters office

Former US president Donald Trump has told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he wants Israel to wrap up the war in Gaza by the time he returns to office if he wins the election, two sources familiar with the matter revealed to The Times of Israel this week.

The message was first conveyed when the Republican presidential nominee hosted the Israeli premier at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort in July, according to a former Trump administration official and an Israeli official.

While Trump has publicly confirmed having told Netanyahu that he wants Israel to win the war quickly, the sources speaking to The Times of Israel are the first to reveal that a timeline was attached to that request.

The former US official stressed that Trump wasn’t specific in his appeal to Netanyahu and could well back “residual” IDF activity in Gaza, so long as Jerusalem has officially ended the war. ...

But the prime minister indicated on Monday that Israel is not yet at the conflict wrap-up stage, telling Likud MKs in a quickly leaked recording from a faction meeting that he cannot agree to Hamas’s demand to end the war in exchange for the 101 hostages it still holds.

Stalemate over, Russia advances, EU war economy

Zelensky Lashes Out at His Western Backers Over North Korean Troops

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday lashed out at his Western backers on Thursday over what he said was inaction over the reports of North Korean troops being sent to Russia.

“Putin is checking the reaction of the West … And I believe that after all these reactions, Putin will decide and increase the contingent … The reaction that is there today is nothing, it is zero,” Zelensky said in an interview with South Korean media. ...

On Wednesday, Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s envoy to the UN, said North Korea had the right to help Russia in its war since the West is supporting Ukraine. “Even if everything that’s being said about the cooperation between Russia and North Korea by our Western colleagues is true, why is it that the United States and allies are trying to impose on everyone the flawed logic that they have the right to help the Zelensky regime … and Russian allies have no right to do a similar thing,” he said.

KFC, Pizza Hut's Middle East franchisee Americana reports sharp profit decline amid Gaza boycotts

Americana Restaurants, the Middle East's largest fast food operator, reported on Thursday a 48.2 percent decline in profits to $117.4 million in a nine-month period amid global boycotts of American and Israeli-linked brands.

The Kuwaiti firm is the region's franchisee for major US food outlets including KFC, Pizza Hut, Baskin Robbins, Costa Coffee and Krispy Kreme.

"Topline growth continued to be impacted by lower like-for-like sales due to the evolving regional geopolitical situation and slowness in consumer demand observed in some markets, despite support from new store openings," the company said in a statement.

Alongside geopolitical factors affecting the region, the firm also cited incremental deprecation charges from new openings and the United Arab Emirates' introduction of corporation tax as reasons for the fall in profits.

In its report, Americana Foods said revenues had experienced a 15.3 percent drop to $1.61 billion.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud on Refusing Meeting with Trump, Not Endorsing Harris

Ray McGovern : Is Russia Trying to Influence the Trump/Harris Race?

Florida may enshrine hunting and fishing by ‘traditional methods’ – but what are they?

On election day, Florida voters will decide whether to enshrine a constitutional right to hunt and fish in their state. Amendment 2, proposed by Republican state lawmaker Lauren Melo, seeks to “preserve traditional methods, as a public right and preferred means of responsibly managing and controlling fish and wildlife”.

Much is at stake. If the amendment succeeds, hunting and fishing would be considered the primary – and legally protected – conservation methods in Florida. Both activities are a huge part of the state’s multibillion-dollar recreational tourism economy. As of 30 October, backers of amendment 2 had raised nearly $1.3m for the measure, far out-fundraising the amendment’s opponents.

Lawyers, scientists and conservationists worry amendment 2’s vague language, particularly the passage about “traditional methods”, could supersede science-based wildlife management in unprecedented ways. “That language is open to applying chicanery,” said David Guest, a retired Earthjustice lawyer based in Florida. “Does that mean that you can use explosives [in the destructive practice called “blast fishing”]? I mean, what in the world is this?”

Pushed by conservative-leaning organizations such as the National Rifle Association and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF), these “sportsmen’s bills of rights” view hunting as a cultural tradition and are meant to counter proposals to limit hunting and fishing.

PFAS mixtures more toxic than single compounds, suggesting higher danger

Mixtures of different types of PFAS compounds are often more toxic than single chemicals, first-of-its-kind research finds, suggesting humans’ exposure to the chemicals is more dangerous than previously thought. Humans are almost always exposed to more than one PFAS compound at a time, but regulatory agencies largely look at the chemicals in isolation from one another, meaning regulators are probably underestimating the health threat.

“Our point is that PFAS needs to be regulated as mixtures,” said Diana Aga, a study co-author with the University of Buffalo, which partnered with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany.

The study, which relied on modeling with in vitro cells, not human or animal studies, checked the neurotoxicity and cytotoxicity for combinations of up to 12 PFAS compounds that the federal government has regularly found in water. It also looked at a combination of four PFAS that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has often found in blood serum.

Cytotoxicity refers to toxicity to cells, and the researchers measured oxidative stress, which is a marker of potential health impacts. The research did not find a synergistic effect in which a combination of PFAS enhanced the chemicals’ toxicity – instead, it showed that the toxicity is additive. Aga likened it to finding that “one plus one equals two”, rather than “one plus one equals 10”, as some had feared might be the case with PFAS compounds.

Still, it is a problem in the real world because some compounds are more toxic than others. PFOA and PFOS are two of the most common and dangerous PFAS chemicals, research over recent decades has found, and one of those compounds is very frequently found in contaminated human blood or drinking water. The sum of those chemicals can present a danger, even if they are below the Environmental Protection Agency’s drinking-water limits of 4ppt (parts per trillion) for each. Hypothetically, if PFOA and PFOS levels were present at 3ppt each, then the water would be considered safe by EPA standards. But the sum of each chemical’s toxicity would probably make the water dangerously toxic.

Cop16 ends in disarray and indecision

A global summit on halting the destruction of nature ended in disarray on Saturday, with some breakthroughs but key issues left unresolved. Governments have been meeting in Cali, Colombia, for the first time since a 2022 deal to stop the human-caused destruction of life on Earth. Countries hoped to make progress during the two-week summit on crucial targets such as protecting 30% of the Earth for nature and reforming parts of the global financial system that damage the environment.

Negotiations were due to finish on Friday evening but ended in confusion on Saturday morning after almost 12 hours of talks. Governments failed to reach a consensus on key issues such as nature funding and how this decade’s targets would be monitored. Many were forced to leave the talks early to catch flights, and negotiations were suspended at 8.30am when fewer than half of the countries were present, and the meeting lost quorum. Countries will need to continue the talks next year at an interim meeting in Bangkok.

A number of countries expressed fury at the way the talks had been dragged out and the order of discussions, which left crucial issues undecided at the final hour. ...

Governments were able to make some significant breakthroughs: they agreed on a global levy on products made using genetic data from nature, potentially creating one of the world’s largest biodiversity conservation funds; and formally incorporated Indigenous communities in the official decision-making of the UN biodiversity process, in what negotiators described as a “watershed moment” for indigenous representation.

Observers said that despite the agreements, Cop16 fell short of what was needed to halt the crisis in the natural world, warning that many governments and UN officials were not acting with the required urgency. ... During the summit, it became clear that many countries were making weak or no progress on crucial aims such as reforming environmentally harmful subsidies, protected areas and even submitting national plans for meeting the targets.

Also of Interest

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

Despite History of Fabrication, Press Uncritically Covers IDF-Provided Documents on Hamas

A No-Win Dilemma for US Peace Voters

The Mainstream Western Worldview Pretends The Global South Does Not Exist

Israel’s war budget points to a deepening economic, social and military crisis

Israeli Scholar: It’s Worse Than ‘Generals’ Plan’ in Gaza

Bill Clinton criticised for saying Israel ‘forced’ to kill Gaza civilians

The Wondersome Effects Of Weapon Sales And Sanctions

NY Times Announces Ukraine Narrative Change

King and Prince William’s estates ‘making millions from charities and public services’

Kamala Harris On SNL IS ‘ELECTION INTERFERENCE’ And May Violate FCC Law: Michael Shellenberger

A Little Night Music

Sir Mack Rice - Nobody Wins Till The Game Is Over

Sir Mack Rice - Love Sickness

Sir Mack Rice -Mustang Sally 1st Recording

Sir Mack Rice -Bump Meat

Sir Mack Rice - Coal Man

Mack Rice - Baby I'm Coming Home

Sir Mack Rice - You Shouldn’t Throw Stones

Sir Mack Rice - Minnie Skirt Minnie

Sir Mack Rice - Gloria