The Evening Blues - 6-2-25
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features soul singer Ruby Johnson. Enjoy!
Ruby Johnson - I' d Rather Fight Than Switch
“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth — often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.”
-- Hypathia of Alexandria
News and Opinion
Gaza’s Hospitals ARE The Target
It’s a relatively well-known fact that Israeli forces have attacked the overwhelming majority of hospitals in Gaza and have launched hundreds upon hundreds of strikes on medical services in the enclave.
Whenever anyone mentions this fact publicly they’ll get Israel apologists babbling about “human shields” and absurdly trying to claim that there are Hamas bases in all the hospitals. But these talking points are invalidated by the fact that we’ve seen multiple reports from doctors documenting Israeli forces actually entering hospitals they’ve attacked and destroying all the individual pieces of medical equipment in those facilities, one by one.
The latest of such reports appears in the Greek outlet Efimerida ton Syntakton from a specialist surgeon named Christos Georgalas, who was at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza from April to May of this year.
Very disturbing thread all around, somehow particularly struck by this part about the IDF bringing an engineer to a hospital they were attacking and bombing specifically so he could dismantle the hospital’s MRI machine to prevent it from being repaired for further use https://t.co/2uhlkprlK6
— 12 Ball (@BoltzmannBooty) May 29, 2025
According to machine translation, Georgalas calls Israel’s onslaught “a war mainly against children,” and describes horrific injuries that Israeli munitions have been inflicting upon young Palestinians.
Georgalas also describes repeated Israeli attacks on the hospital where he was working, which include the following:
“A Spanish colleague told me that when the Israelis came to the hospital where the MRI machine was, they tried to destroy everything. But the MRI machine is a huge machine. It’s like a car. Even if you shoot it, it can be repaired. So they brought in a specialist engineer to permanently destroy it. Because even if a bomb went off next to it, it could still be repaired. They had to bring in a specialist who knew the heart of the machine to make it non-functional. And that’s exactly what he did last February.
“In our hospital, the Israelis went through the wards that were the incubators and systematically broke them one by one. The incubators with the crowbar! This has been recorded by my colleagues. The hospital where I worked was occupied by the Israelis for two months, in February and March 2024. The doctors who had remained in the hospital were tortured. They were lined up one by one and beaten. A total of around 80 of them were kidnapped. Of these, we do not know where 40 are or if they are alive. They killed many on the spot.”
Doctors Without Borders just had access to the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza after the ceasefire, and this is the testimony of the emergency coordinator about Israel’s techniques of genocide: deliberate destruction of life saving machines to completely depopulate the area. pic.twitter.com/6tcxO6k3b2
— Nicola Perugini (@PeruginiNic) February 12, 2025
Because Israel has been blocking journalists from entering the Gaza Strip, doctors have largely become the de facto reporters on the ground there.
We saw another report documenting Israel’s pattern of systematically destroying individual pieces of medical equipment back in February of this year, this time at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza. Doctors Without Borders emergency coordinator Caroline Seguin reported the following:
“There is no health system anymore in the northern part of Gaza. Kamal Adwan hospital has been razed, while Al Shifa, Al Awda and Indonesian hospitals are seriously damaged and only partially functioning. We were utterly shocked to observe that in Indonesian hospital every medical machine seemed to have been deliberately destroyed; they were smashed to pieces, one by one, to make sure no medical care could be provided anymore. You have to ask: What is the motivation of such action? These machines are made to save people’s lives, mothers, fathers, children. It’s devastating to see the state of these hospitals.”
In April of this year Seguin’s report on the Indonesian Hospital was corroborated by an emergency physician named Clayton Dalton, who wrote the following for The New Yorker:
“Sultan led me upstairs, to the I.C.U., where wind blew through broken windows. He wanted to show me something that he had discovered after Israeli forces left the hospital. He pointed to a cardiac monitor near a wall. It appeared to have a bullet hole in its screen. Next to it was an EKG machine whose screen had been smashed.
“We entered a large storage room in the corner of the I.C.U. which was crammed with medical devices: ultrasound machines, I.V. pumps, dialysis machines, blood-pressure monitors. Each had apparently been destroyed by a bullet — not in a pattern one would expect from random shooting but, rather, methodically. I was stunned. I couldn’t think of any possible military justification for destroying lifesaving equipment.”
Indeed, there is no possible military justification for destroying lifesaving medical equipment. They were destroyed so that they could not be used to save lives. Israel has been systematically destroying Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure with the goal of making it uninhabitable, so that the territory can be seized by Israel.
That’s three separate accounts describing Israeli forces systematically destroying medical equipment in Gaza, from doctors who’d stand nothing to gain from lying about such a thing. The evidence is too overwhelming to deny.
There were no Hamas fighters hiding in the MRI machine. There were no tunnels in the incubators. No arms stockpiles in the EKG machine. Israel has been lying about Hamas hiding in hospitals this entire time. Hamas was never the target. Hospitals are the target. Healthcare is the target. That’s established far beyond any reasonable doubt by now.
Ex-Israeli Negotiator Daniel Levy: Netanyahu Wants "Permanent War" in Gaza, Not a New Ceasefire
Witkoff Massacre: Debunking Israel's Lies Over Aid Killings
Palestinians gunned down while trying to reach food aid site in Gaza, hospital says
More than 30 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire on Sunday as they went to receive food at an aid distribution point set up by an Israeli-backed foundation in Gaza, according to witnesses, and a hospital run by the Red Cross confirming it was treating many wounded. Witnesses said Israeli forces had opened fire as Palestinians headed toward the aid distribution site in Rafah run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
“My brother went to receive aid from the American distribution points in Rafah when the bullets started raining down on them,” Yarin Abu al-Naja, 44, said. “The Israeli soldiers had started shooting at the people there. My brother went with two of his friends. One of them was critically injured in the head, the other was killed, and my brother was shot in the back.”
“He was transported to the hospital by a donkey cart – no ambulances can reach the area, and there were dozens of injured and dead,” Naja added. “We saw him placed on the ground. There were no available beds due to the large number of casualties and dead arriving from the same location. The scenes were horrific – people missing limbs, hands or legs, others decapitated, or with open abdomens.”
Media reports said dozens of people were being treated at the hospital after the latest incident at the controversial site in Rafah. Officials at the field hospital did not say who opened fire but added that another 175 people were wounded.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said (ICRC) its field hospital in Rafah received a “mass casualty influx” of 179 people, 21 of whom were declared dead upon arrival. “All patients said they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site,” the ICRC added, describing it as “the highest number of weapon-wounded in a single incident since the establishment of the field hospital over a year ago”.
The Israeli forces denied “firing at civilians”. However, an Israel Defense Forces official admitted that Israeli soldiers fired “warning shots toward several suspects who advanced toward the troops on Saturday”, near the aid distribution site, without specifying who the suspects were. The Israeli-backed aid foundation claimed that it delivered aid “without incident” early on Sunday and has denied previous accounts of gunfire around its sites, which are in Israeli military zones where independent access is limited.
British Surgeon in Gaza Reports on Rafah Massacre as Dozens of Palestinians Killed Waiting for Aid
United Nations warns Gaza is the “hungriest place on earth,” as Israel orders new mass expulsions
Mass hunger continues to stalk Gaza as the United Nations warned on Friday that the besieged enclave is the “hungriest place on earth.” Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian office, told reporters in a briefing that “One hundred percent of the population is at risk of famine.” Gaza was already facing widespread hunger when Israel imposed a total blockade on food, water and electricity on March 2. Over the past week, Israel has allowed a trickle of food into the area, mostly distributed through the US/Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution centers. The project’s aim is to concentrate the population in southern Gaza in preparation for their forcible displacement to other countries.
The so-called “humanitarian zones” have turned into killing fields, as Israeli troops repeatedly attacked aid seekers this week. On Friday, Israeli troops opened fire on aid seekers at a GHF distribution center, injuring 20. Across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday a total of 10 people were killed while attempting to access food at GHF distribution centers after Israeli troops repeatedly opened fire on aid seekers. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported, “People are telling us that the sites managed and operated by the GHF are meters away from where the Israeli military is stationed. They can see the tanks, they can see the armored vehicles.”
Mahmoud added that families are reporting that their members sent to collect food at the “humanitarian” centers have disappeared. “There are also reports of enforced disappearances. Many families reported that their children, or other family members, who went to the sites ... have gone missing as they were trying to get food,” he said. In order to collect food parcels, aid seekers at the “humanitarian” facilities are placed in metal pens resembling cages and are forced to submit to biometric scans. ...
Israel announced new forced displacement orders on Friday in much of northern Gaza, bringing the number of people displaced over the past two weeks to nearly 200,000. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the GHF is part of a plan to create “a sterile zone in the South of Gaza, where the entire population can move for its own protection.”
On Sunday, the Israeli military announced a plan to occupy three-quarters of the Gaza Strip. The entire remaining Palestinian population, estimated at around 2 million people, would be forced into an area of just 35 square miles.
Aaron Maté : Behind the Gaza Strategic Starvation
Gaza doctor who lost nine children in Israeli airstrike dies from wounds in same attack
A Palestinian father who had lost nine of his 10 children in an Israeli airstrike has died from wounds sustained in the same attack, local health officials have said.
Hamdi al-Najjar, 40, a doctor at Nasser hospital, was critically injured when Israeli forces bombed the family house in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on 23 May, killing nine of his children. He had just returned home after accompanying his wife Alaa, a paediatrician at the Nasser medical complex, to work when the building was struck. He had initially survived alongside his son Adam, 11, who is still in hospital.
Even by the terrible standards of the Gaza conflict, their deaths had shocked the international community.
Following an appeal issued by Adam’s uncle, Ali al-Najjar, 50, and reported by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said the country was ready to receive Adam for medical care and was working to arrange his evacuation on 11 June.
Italy had expressed a willingness to evacuate both the father and mother as well, but due to Najjar’s critical condition, transferring him out of Gaza was deemed too dangerous. His wife had agreed for their son, Adam, to be taken to Italy with an aunt and three cousins, but said she would remain by her husband’s side. After Najjar’s death, sources within the Italian foreign ministry have indicated that his wife may also be evacuated to Italy.
Drone attacks and Russia red lines
Ukraine launches major drone attack on Russian bombers, security official says
Ukraine has launched a “large-scale” drone attack against Russian military bombers in Siberia, striking more than 40 warplanes thousands of miles from its own territory, a security official has said, after it smuggled the drones to the perimeter of the airfields hidden in the roofs of wooden sheds.
On the eve of peace talks, the drone attack on four separate airfields was part of a sharp ramping up of the three-year war, with Russia launching waves of drones at Ukraine, while Moscow said sabotage was to blame for two train derailments that left seven people dead.
Video from several military airfields across Russia showed destroyed aircraft and planes engulfed in flames, though the full extent of the damage remained unclear. ...
If the extent of the damage is confirmed, the attack would mark Ukraine’s most damaging drone strike of the war to date, amid an escalation in cross-border incursions before a new round of direct negotiations in Istanbul on Monday. ...
Media reports said Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had personally overseen the sophisticated operation.
Alastair Crooke : A Storm is Brewing in the West
Russia says blasts led to deadly train crashes in regions bordering Ukraine
Russian investigators said they believed “explosions” had caused two bridges in the border regions of Kursk and Bryansk to collapse overnight, derailing trains, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens.
In Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, a road bridge collapsed on to a railway line late on Saturday, derailing a passenger train heading to Moscow and killing at least seven people. A rail bridge in neighbouring Kursk also collapsed overnight, derailing a freight train and injuring the driver, officials said. Kursk also borders Ukraine.
Separately, railway track on the Unecha-Zhecha section in Russia’s Bryansk region was damaged without casualties, the national operator, Russian Railways, said.
The twin bridge disasters came on the eve of possible peace talks in Turkey demanded by the US and aimed at ending the three-year-old war in Ukraine.
Videos posted on social media from Bryansk showed rescuers climbing over the mangled chassis of a Russian Railways train, while screams could be heard in another video.
Polish presidential runoff neck and neck with late poll swing to rightwinger
Poland’s crucial presidential runoff was too close to call on Sunday night, with an early exit poll giving a slight lead to the liberal contender, Rafał Trzaskowski, while a later poll that mixed exit polls with the first official results suggested a narrow lead for his challenger, the rightwing Karol Nawrocki. The difference between the two candidates in both of the polls was within the margin of error.
The first exit poll by Ipsos Poland, released at 9pm local time (8pm BST) on Sunday as polls closed, put Trzaskowski, backed by the current government led by Donald Tusk, on 50.3%, with Nawrocki on 49.7%. The poll’s margin of error was 2%.
Trzaskowski immediately appeared on stage in Warsaw to claim victory. “We’ve won!” he announced to cheers from the crowd, before giving a victory speech thanking his family and supporters. “This is truly a special moment in Poland’s history. I am convinced that it will allow us to move forward and focus on the future,” he said.
In a speech at his own campaign headquarters, Nawrocki did not concede, saying he remained confident he would win when all the votes were counted.
In a subsequent “late poll” released two hours after the end of voting, there was indeed a dramatic swing in the projections, with Nawrocki now leading on 50.7% and Trzaskowski on 49.3%. However, analysts cautioned that these figures could change again as more votes are counted. More reliable results are expected to come in as the night goes on.
ENEMY WITHIN: Jamie Dimon's GRAVE Warning On Dollar Decline
'What a Shitty Person': Joni Ernst Turns 'We're All Going to Die' Non-Apology Into a Twofer
Just a day after Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa generated nationwide disgust by suggesting in a town hall event that deadly GOP cuts to Medicaid are not that bad because people "are all going to die" anyway, her trolling non-apology posted online over the weekend only made things worse for many critics as she joked about the Tooth Fairy and hinted that people concerned about ripping healthcare away from tens of millions of people—including children, the poor, and the elderly—are somehow not that bright.
The optics of Ernst's sarcastic video, which appeared to be filmed in a cemetery with grave markers in the background, did not go over well.
Against all odds, Joni Ernst has made it worse pic.twitter.com/aElIudNmZG
— Keith Edwards (@keithedwards) May 31, 2025
While Ernst—who is up for reelection in 2026—says at the outset that she is "sincerely" sorry for her remarks on Friday, it becomes clear the apology is nothing but a troll of her critics when she adds that she "assumed that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth."
"So I apologize," said Ernst. "And I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the Tooth Fairy as well."
The legislation Republicans are now pushing through Congress, if signed into law, would result in devastating cuts to Medicaid that experts estimate would result in increased preventable deaths—all to pay for billions of dollars in additional tax giveaways for the nation's richest people and corporations.
New analysis released by the Center for American Progress in May show an estimated "6.9 million people losing coverage by 2034 as a result of congressional Republicans' proposed paperwork requirements would lead to more than 21,600 avoidable deaths nationally each year. This translates to lives lost in every congressional district with Medicaid expansion enrollees."
As columnist Mike Lofgren, a former Republican staffer in Congress, wrote for Common Dreams last month, it is not a stretch to say that the contemporary GOP shows by its policy agenda that it "wants you to die."
To make his argument, Logfren writes, "If someone commits a reckless act whose adverse consequences are clearly foreseeable, then for all practical purposes, that person willed the consequences. This principle—who wills the means wills the ends—is applicable in law, but should also be valid in everyday life. It should particularly apply to the behavior of public officials who wield power over the rest of us."
It was the point the audience member at the town hall Friday was clearly trying to make when she yelled, "People are going to die." What's striking is how explicit Ernst's disregard for that warning was in that moment and—perhaps more startling and concerning—in the days since. ...
Ernst's comment made headlines nationwide, including in the Des Moines Register, the largest paper in her home state of Iowa.
This is the cover of The Des Moines Register, Iowa’s largest newspaper, after Republican Senator Joni Ernst said “Well, we are all going to die!” in response to concerns over Medicaid cuts. This is devastating for the Republican Party. pic.twitter.com/3fO5veNDZ9
— Harry Sisson (@harryjsisson) May 31, 2025
US veterans agency orders scientists not to publish in journals without clearance
Senior officials at the US Department of Veterans Affairs have ordered that VA physicians and scientists not publish in medical journals or speak with the public without first seeking clearance from political appointees of Donald Trump, the Guardian has learned. The edict, laid down in emails on Friday by Curt Cashour, the VA’s assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs, and John Bartrum, a senior adviser to VA secretary Doug Collins, came hours after the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a perspective co-authored by two pulmonologists who work for the VA in Texas. ...
The article warned that cancelled contracts, layoffs and a planned staff reduction of 80,000 employees in the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system jeopardizes the health of a million veterans seeking help for conditions linked to toxic exposure – ranging from Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who developed cancer after being exposed to smoke from piles of flaming toxic waste.
“As pulmonologists in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), we have been seeing increasing numbers of veterans with chronic bronchitis, pulmonary fibrosis, asthma, and other respiratory conditions,” doctors Pavan Ganapathiraju and Rebecca Traylor wrote. The authors, who practice at the VA in Austin, Texas, noted that in 2022 Congress dramatically expanded the number of medical conditions presumed to be linked to military service. “But legislation doesn’t care for patients, people do,” they wrote.
The article sparked an immediate rebuke from Trump’s political appointees, according to internal emails obtained by the Guardian. “We have noticed a number of academic articles and press articles recently,” Bartrum wrote, attaching a copy of the journal article. “Please remind the field and academic community that they need to follow the VA policy.”
Democrat Official RECORDED Saying Nancy Pelosi Is TOTALLY CORRUPT!
Worth a peek:
Meanwhile, 100s of Millions of People Die of Hunger
I have written this article before. In fact, I could write it every year when a new Global Report on Food Crises is published. The report rests on four points:
The number of people who are hungry is greater now than last year. The amount of food produced this year is greater than that produced last year. There is enough food to feed the total world population, and more. How do we explain why people are hungry? Let’s add in the data.
Point No. 1: 733 million people faced chronic hunger in 2023, according to studies from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), World Food Programme, World Health Organisation, International Fund for Agricultural Development, and United Nations Children’s Fund.
Point No. 2: The world’s farmers and agribusinesses produced 11 billion metric tonnes of food (including meat, fish, and 9.6 billion metric tonnes of primary crops — such as maize, rice, and wheat) in 2022, as the FAO reports.
Point No. 3 is made clear by a simple calculation with one premise.
Premise: A person eats one tonne or 1,000 kilograms of food per year (the FAO standard for global average food consumption is 2,800 kilocalories per person per day).
Calculation: If one tonne of food is needed for one person, and there are 11 billion tonnes of food produced, then there is enough food for 11 billion people.
Conclusion: There are currently 8 billion people on the planet. Therefore, there is enough food for all the people on the planet, with enough surplus to feed an additional 3 billion.
Point No. 4: How do we explain why people are hungry?
How the little-known ‘dark roof’ lobby may be making US cities hotter
It began with a lobbyist’s pitch. The Tennessee representative Rusty Grills says the lobbyist proposed a simple idea: repeal the state’s requirement for reflective roofs on many commercial buildings. In late March, Grills and his fellow lawmakers voted to eliminate the rule, scrapping a measure meant to save energy, lower temperatures and protect Tennesseans from extreme heat. Grills, a Republican, told Floodlight that he introduced the bill to give consumers more choice.
It was another win for a well-organized lobbying campaign led by manufacturers of dark roofing materials. Industry representatives called the rollback in Tennessee a needed correction as more of the state moved into a hotter climate zone, expanding the reach of the state’s cool-roof rule. Critics called it dangerous and “deceptive”.
“The new law will lead to higher energy costs and greater heat-related illnesses and deaths,” state representative Harold Love and the Rev Jon Robinson said in a statement. It will, critics warned, make Nashville, Memphis and other cities hotter – particularly in underserved Black and Latino communities, where many struggle to pay their utility bills. Similar lobbying has played out in Denver and Baltimore and at the national level.
Industry groups have questioned the decades-old science behind cool roofs, downplayed the benefits and warned of reduced choice and unintended consequences. “A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t consider climate variation across different regions,” wrote Ellen Thorp, the executive director of the EPDM Roofing Association, a DC-based national group that represents an industry built primarily on dark materials.
But the weight of the scientific evidence is clear: on hot days, light-colored roofs can stay more than 50 degrees cooler than dark ones, helping cut energy use, curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce heat-related illnesses and deaths. One recent study found that reflective roofs could have saved the lives of more than 240 people who died in London’s 2018 heatwave.
Bee-ware: truck carrying 14m honeybees overturns by US-Canada border
Officials near the US border were abuzz after being relentlessly attacked on Friday morning by a swarm of fugitives: honeybees had escaped after a truck carrying hives overturned near the Canadian border. About 14m honeybees flew free of the truck around 4am a few miles south of Canada.
The truck that was transporting around 70,000lbs of hives and honeybees rolled over on a road in north-western Washington state. Local sheriff deputies and bee experts swarmed to the scene, where they removed the box hives to help recover and rescue as many bees as possible. The driver of the truck was not injured.
Hours later, officials could not bee-lieve that the bees began to swarm and sting the deputies. Some sheriff deputies took refuge in their patrol cars to avoid the stinging swarm.
According to a sheriff’s spokesperson, the driver was neither drunk nor buzzed; rather, the driver likely did not navigate a sharp turn well enough, causing the trailer to roll. ...
Several beekeeping experts are developing plans to “save as many bees as possible”, the spokesperson told the Seattle Times. The current plan includes closing the road for a couple of days while the bees calm down, bee-have and re-enter their hives, which will then be gathered and secured.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Jonathan Cook: How to Starve a Population to Death
Netanyahu: Gaza Aid Scheme Offers Israel Symbolic Cover to Finish the Genocide
Craig Murray: UK Hypocrisy on Its Arrests of Journalists
Trump Accuses China Of Violating Agreement He Did Not Adhere To
‘Like touching climate change’: glaciers reveal records of the way the world was
Salman Rushdie says AI won’t threaten authors until it can make people laugh
Gaza Aid Worker: Israel’s New Shadowy Humanitarian Aid Scheme Is “Tool to Increase Suffering”
Harvard Commencement Speakers: Despite Crackdown, "Students Will Keep Speaking Up" for Palestine
A Little Night Music
Ruby Johnson - Don't Start Nothing
Ruby Johnson - Let Me Apologize
Ruby Johnson - What Goes Up Must Come Down
Ruby Johnson - I'll Run Your Heart Away
Ruby Johnson - What More Can A Woman Do (Take 3)
Ruby Johnson - I'm Hooked
Ruby johnson - Keep on Keeping On
Ruby Johnson - Pleadin' Heart
Ruby Johnson - Reach Out And Touch Me
Ruby Johnson - Jerk Shout
Comments
I forgot to thank you for the Gabor Mate video
.
last week. Hedges posted the whole video with him speaking together and taking questions from the audience.
Here is the one that Aaron mentioned to the judge. I’ve watched it twice because he has so much information in it.
The message echoes from Gaza back to the US. “Starving people is fine.”
evening snoopy...
yep, i found the snippet that i posted and then found the whole thing the next day, which i also put up. it's a great presentation, i have enormous respect for both mates and hedges.
thanks for the video!
For those interested in Russia's treaty proposal:
.... that is being discussed:
.
The presence of the actual proposal making this public internet forum among the most informed on the topics of 1) a Ukrainian cease fire, and 2) Ukrainian peace talks.
“Governance begins by enriching the people;
....and it ends by impoverishing them.”
— Chinese aphorism
evening pluto...
thanks for digging this up and posting it, i hadn't seen it yet.
there ought to be a verbal provision at the end of the presentation of the proposal that ukraine has 5 days to consider and ratify it by whatever processes it has, or, at the next meeting russia will be prepared to accept ukraine's complete unconditional surrender.
I should have mentioned that
...I got this from a knowledgeable academic friend. It is not a secret, but I have not seen it posted in Western Media. Thus, handicapping Western Readers is obviously the entire point.
“Governance begins by enriching the people;
....and it ends by impoverishing them.”
— Chinese aphorism
ZH and MoA have posted it
but I haven’t seen anything from the mainstream media.
Has Trump said anything about the Ukraine attacks?
The silence from Trump is deafening isn’t it? Here he is trying to end the war when his CIA is helping Ukraine attack Russia and derail the talks. He never scolded Zelensky after he was told that Ukraine sent drones to bring down Putin’s helicopter. He repeated his threats to Putin.
If he doesn’t say something soon then it tells me that he isn’t interested in ending the war.
The message echoes from Gaza back to the US. “Starving people is fine.”
He isn’t.
He does not want to jeopardize our last remaining export product, which is of course “wholesale death”.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Something I had to tell the Zelensky fanboys today:
on Facebook:
lol first off there was an attack, and it did destroy some things, but it didn't destroy what your favorite propaganda says it did.
Secondly, Trump is in fact Putin's most powerful enemy, despite all of Trump's patently false pretenses to be a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. There is simply no way the Kiev regime would have been able to pull off such an attack without the help of US intelligence and US hardware.
Thirdly, Russia is winning, and the recent attack on its resources will not change this reality. Which brings me to my fourth point.
Fourth, I see no point in cheerleading Trump or Zelensky, who are in fact allies (if reluctant ones) despite their best pretenses otherwise. Movement is slow, but they are eventually going to lose, and Zelensky will move into one the many houses he owns around the world.
And, last not but not least, how do you feel about World War Three. Do you have favorite cities you would like to see nuked?
https://www.youtube.com/live/whSuPnGWOSg?si=uspOh10eOe_HvQDp
"It's time for a revolution, but probably not in the terms that people imagine it" -- Frank Zappa
Silly me….
I keep thinking that the snark would be obvious.
Orange State is having orgasms over the Ukraine attacks. They really think they put a huge hurt on Pootie and that soon Ukraine will take back all the territory Russia is sitting on.
If you’ve been tempted to go back and take a look now is the time. They only use sources from Ukraine and other pro Ukraine sites.
The message echoes from Gaza back to the US. “Starving people is fine.”
Too heavily censored.
But thank you for the update! I prefer to visit "pro-Ukraine" places where my posts stand a chance of staying up for an hour or two before they are taken down.
"It's time for a revolution, but probably not in the terms that people imagine it" -- Frank Zappa
They've been plagued by the same hallucination
.... for a least two years. This is pathological.
“Governance begins by enriching the people;
....and it ends by impoverishing them.”
— Chinese aphorism
Nope!
Zelenski is worm food at best. He will not survive for long.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Excellent.
Thanks so much for this information. Now, we can see the actual inputs that have been fed to the spin cycle, and to the mighty Wurlitzer and its tenders. It’ll be very interesting indeed to see the impact of *this* game of telephone upon the contents of the proposal, and by superposition, the future of the world, won’t it?
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Thank you for recognizing its usefulness.
“Governance begins by enriching the people;
....and it ends by impoverishing them.”
— Chinese aphorism
Good job,
PR. Thanks!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Thanks, Joe, for a very engaging EB, as always.
.
Regarding the article in Evening Greens begging that old familiar question, "Why are hundreds of millions of people starving to death when the world has plenty of food?"
I am reminded that for my entire life, including now, the question has been brushed off with the same excuse: "We can get the food to the docks/border, but there is no delivery service to take it where it needs to go." End of conversation.
The first time I have ever seen a nation do something to permanently solve the global tragedy of food scarcity was when Chinese President XI Jinping launched the Global Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI is a global trade infrastructure for the People of the world. It can connect inaccessible farmers with inaccessible populations, by using expanded maritime ports that are connected to new rail shipping lines (There are even small delivery systems (EV bikes and carts) for local start-ups). The BRI has profoundly increased the GDP of every country it has touched, so far. The program has transformed isolated farms into small businesses that feed families thousands of miles away. And no poor nation has been harmed by a Chinese infrastructure loan. China makes certain of that.)
Ultimately, it is lies and propaganda about the BRI infrastructure that will be used to poison the uninformed minds of the West. Ignorant Western populations will be told that BRI is an attempt to force them to accept 'Communism.'** This will lead up to a US military attack on China and the systematic bombing of the BRI infrastructure throughout the world — in order to save humanity from the Red Menace. Even as this is happening, there will be few reports about the destruction in the Western news, since much of the BRI trade infrastructure is located in the middle of nowhere.
So this old, familiar question will continue to be heard: "Why are hundreds of millions of people starving to death when the world has plenty of food?" The answer is to keep global mineral deposits and other natural resources isolated — and to keep local extraction labor cheap, as well — for Western exploitation. This is why China and its Belt and Road Initiative is the enemy of the Economic Imperialists of the West.
In my opinion, People should hear about the rational reasons why things are the way they are. Heh, I also know efforts to surmount national-level gaslighting are futile. In one ear, out the other. Information that causes cognitive dissonance will not be processed in Western brains. Forget about 'collective awareness' — instinctive and timely knowledge-sharing that even mushrooms enjoy, is stunted in Homo sapiens.
Thus, I am keeping my day job.
________________
** Recently, when a Chinese Official was asked if China was a Communist country, he answered: *China aspires to Communism some day, but we have a long way to go. There are many systems to improve for the well being and happiness of the people before we can call ourselves Communists."
“Governance begins by enriching the people;
....and it ends by impoverishing them.”
— Chinese aphorism
heh...
the problem of why there is plenty of food and starving people has bugged me most of my life. i got an answer to the question from one of my economics profs (a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist) - i asked him, since he feels that capitalism is the most efficient way to distribute resources among those that need them how he accounts for an overabundance of food, often leading to spoilage and waste and starving people. he replied that there is not enough money in feeding starving people to encourage capitalists to create a market for them.
Pure and simple, joe.
Very info-packed ebs! Good music, too, friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I have heard this so many times:
.
.
I could never figure it out.
Is that about 'Capitalism' as opposed to Communism? Well, that makes no sense., either People are free to start their own distribution businesses in communist countries, and they do. Ralroads and shipping ports are regulated and sometimes operated by the government in all countries. China, a communist country, owns the largest food distribution network in the world, Costco. The US receives most of its food via Costco shipping, as does Europe. In fact, the US gets most of the essentials it need from Communists, including oil and enriched uranium from Russia (which is not communist, unless we say it is).
"Capitalism is the most efficient way to distribute resources." is a slogan.
In my opinion, when people use slogans to explain the world, it can be a sign of a mental disorder. American politicians are a good example of this. I've long recommended a brain scan as a qualification for elected office. One of these days, that suggestion is going to get some traction. Meanwhile, Western democracies really need some safety rails to protect the People.
“Governance begins by enriching the people;
....and it ends by impoverishing them.”
— Chinese aphorism
Gawd, I’m so glad
that a brain scan might be required to be a politician. That leaves me completely out, in the unlikely circumstance that I might eventually become deranged enough to run… (;-)
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
heh...
our local brand of capitalism has had some extensive rejiggering over the years to approximate "safety rails," but almost as soon as they are created the exploiter class starts working around them and in time destroys them in effect. perhaps it's time to rid ourselves of the exploiter class.
Hi bluesters
Hi all, Hey Joe,
Hope its all good out there!
What is it with bee trucks crashing?
I never heard of this the first half of my life. Now it seems there is one every year. With millions of bees each time. There are thousands of fuel trucks running around all over America every day and if they had the incidence of wrecks bee trucks do we would be in deep Bandini. Is it drivers on the cheap, unmaintained equipment, as Floyd said... Wots the deal?' These wrecks seem like punctuation between reports of bees being in trouble.
Thanks for the news, bids, and blues Joe!
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...
i had pretty much the same thought, but shrugged it off as perhaps being the result of anecdata, i.e., a lack of a good overview of bee transport incidents over time.
one thought did strike me, though, last year when i was reading about a similar incident, which is that perhaps this is an artifact of the creation of big agriculture. that is, as farms have been corporatized, things like beekeeping that might have been done locally have had to scale up to meet the pollination needs of enormous farm operations, with the colony collapse syndrome exacerbating the problem and creating the need for distance transit of colonies.
no proof, just a thought in the margins.
I think that this
is spot on: the factory farmers poison them, along with everything else, as fast as they can be delivered. It only matters that they pollinate a few plants before they drop.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
I have had 2 large bumblebees invade my house
and I am highly allergic to bees, but I have braved capturing them and putting them outside. Just hearing them buzz raises my heart rate, but I know that the bee population has been decimated. The last one was as big as my thumbnail….or bigger. And I have a big thumbnail.
There were quite a few bees buzzing around the trees at the cemetery this spring. Especially around the pussy willow trees.
The message echoes from Gaza back to the US. “Starving people is fine.”
heh...
i've always thought of bumble bees as being pretty gentle. when i'm out in ms shikspack's garden wearing a bright shirt, they often briefly land on me and then move on when there's nothing to eat. lately, the bees that concern me are these huge european hornets that have popped up around here which can be aggressive and kinda nasty. i had to chase one out of my truck a few days ago, fortunately it wanted to be outside as much as i wanted it to be out there.
I couldn't agree more with your thought in the margins, joe
It's the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff as always, and especially sad that the ambulance is compromised.
evening janis...
heh, well, i have no proof, but that's never stopped me from having thoughts.
Me either ; )
More FA…
.
Ukraine has hit many energy platforms in the Russian territories and knocked out a lot of power.
https://www.rt.com/russia/618569-ukraine-attacks-power-outage/
He also poo-pooed the Russian temporary ceasefire so that both countries can pick up their dead and hold funerals. He called them stupid for stopping the war for the dead and not the living.
I think the last big Ukraine offensive that failed was Ukraine’s Gettysburg and they should have sued for peace since they lost the war then. It’s a good thing that Ukraine hides its war dead because I think the roving press gangs would be meeting lots of pissed off people.
The message echoes from Gaza back to the US. “Starving people is fine.”