The Evening Blues - 1-27-23



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Eddie Kirkland

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Detroit blues guitarist and singer Eddie Kirkland. Enjoy!

Eddie Kirkland & Wentus Blues Band - Rainbow

“It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.”

-- Alfred Adler


News and Opinion

The West Is Incentivizing Russia To Hit Back

Well the omnicidal war sluts won the debate over sending tanks to Ukraine, so now it’s time to start arguing for sending F-16s.

In an article titled “Ukraine sets sights on fighter jets after securing tank supplies,” Reuters reports the following:

“Ukraine will now push for Western fourth generation fighter jets such as the U.S. F-16 after securing supplies of main battle tanks, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister said on Wednesday.

Ukraine won a huge boost for its troops as Germany announced plans to provide heavy tanks for Kyiv on Wednesday, ending weeks of diplomatic deadlock on the issue. The United States is poised to make a similar announcement.

Just in time for the good news, Lockheed Martin has announced that the arms manufacturing giant happens to be all set to ramp up production of F-16s should they be needed for shipment to Ukraine.

“Lockheed Martin has said that it’s ready to meet demands for F-16 fighter jets if the US and its allies choose to ship them to Ukraine,” Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports. “So far, the US and its allies have been hesitant to send fighter jets to Ukraine due to concerns that they could be used to target Russian territory. But the Western powers seem less and less concerned about escalation as the US and Germany have now pledged to send their main battle tanks.”

The New York Times has a new article out titled “How Biden Reluctantly Agreed to Send Tanks to Ukraine,” subtitled “The decision unlocked a flow of heavy arms from Europe and inched the United States and its NATO allies closer to direct conflict with Russia.” It’s authors David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper write:

President Biden’s announcement Wednesday that he would send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine came after weeks of tense back-channel negotiations with the chancellor of Germany and other European leaders, who insisted that the only way to unlock a flow of heavy European arms was for the United States to send tanks of its own.

His decision, however reluctant, now paves the way for German-made Leopard 2 tanks to be delivered to Ukraine in two or three months, provided by several European nations. While it is unclear whether it will make a decisive difference in the spring offensive that President Volodymyr Zelensky is now planning to take back territory seized by Russia, it is the latest in a series of gradual escalations that has inched the United States and its NATO allies closer to direct conflict with Russia.

When even the myopic empire simps at The New York Times are acknowledging that western powers are escalating aggressions in a very dangerous direction, you should probably sit up and pay attention.

In a recent article for Responsible Statecraft titled “Mission Creep? How the US role in Ukraine has slowly escalated,” Branko Marcetic outlines the ways the US empire has “serially blown past their own self-imposed lines over arms transfers,” over and over again relenting to war hawks and requests from Ukrainian officials to supply weapons which it had previously refrained from supplying for fear that they would be too escalatory and lead to hot warfare between nuclear superpowers. Marcetic notes the way previously unthinkable aggressions like NATO spy agencies conducting sabotage operations on Russian infrastructure are now accepted, with more escalations being called for as soon as the previous one was made.

Toward the end of his article, Marcetic drives home a very important point which needs more attention: that the western alliance has established a policy of continually escalating every time Russia doesn’t react forcefully to a previous western escalation, which necessarily means Russia is being actively incentivized to react forcefully to those escalations.

“By escalating their support for Ukraine’s military, the U.S. and NATO have created an incentive structure for Moscow to take a drastic, aggressive step to show the seriousness of its own red lines,” Marcetic writes. “This would be dangerous at the best of times, but particularly so when Russian officials are making clear they increasingly view the war as one against NATO as a whole, not merely Ukraine, while threatening nuclear response to the alliance’s escalation in weapons deliveries.”

“Moscow keeps saying escalatory arms transfers are unacceptable and could mean wider war; US officials say since Moscow hasn’t acted on those threats, they can freely escalate. Russia is effectively told it has to escalate to show it’s serious about lines,” Marcetic added on Twitter.

A good recent example of this dynamic is the recent New York Times report that the Biden administration is considering backing a Ukrainian offensive on Crimea, which many experts agree is one of the most likely ways this conflict could lead to nuclear warfare. The article reports that the Biden administration has assessed that Russia is unlikely to reciprocate an escalatory aggression, but the basis for that assessment apparently comes from nothing other than the fact that Russia hasn’t done so yet.

“Crimea has already been hit many times without a massive escalation from the Kremlin,” the Times quotes a RAND Corporation think tanker as saying in explanation for the Biden administration’s belief that it can get away with backing a Crimea offensive. But as Dave DeCamp explained at the time, that’s not even true; Russia did significantly escalate its aggressions in response to strikes on Crimea, beginning to target critical Ukrainian infrastructure in ways it previously had not.

So Russia has in fact been escalating its aggressions in response to attacks on Crimea; it just hasn’t been escalating them against NATO powers. As long as Russia is only escalating in ways that hurt Ukrainians, the US-centralized power structure does not regard them as real escalations. The take-home message to Moscow being that they’re going to get squeezed harder and harder until they attack NATO itself.

And of course that won’t de-escalate things either; it will be seized on and spun as evidence that Putin is a reckless madman who is attacking the free world completely unprovoked and must be stopped at all cost, even if it means risking nuclear armageddon. Russia would of course be aware of this obvious reality, so the only way it takes the bait is if the pain of not reacting gets to a point where it is perceived as outweighing the pain of reacting. But judging by its actions the empire seems determined to push them to that point.

It really is spooky how much de-escalation and detente have been disappeared from public discourse about Russia. People genuinely don’t seem to know it’s an option. They really do think the only option is continually escalating nuclear brinkmanship, and that anything else is obsequious appeasement. They think that because that’s the message they are being fed by the imperial propaganda machine, and they’re being fed that message because that is the empire’s actual position.

I’ve been warning about the increasing risk of nuclear armageddon for as long as I’ve been publicly engaged in political commentary, and people have been calling me a hysterical idiot and a Putin puppet the entire time even as we’ve moved closer and closer to the exact point I’ve been screaming about at the top of my lungs all these years. Now there’s not a whole lot closer it can get without being directly upon us. I deeply, deeply hope we turn this thing around before it’s too late.

NATO tanks in Ukraine: Prelude to a US-Russia shooting war

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced that the United States would send 31 Abrams heavy tanks to Ukraine, after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany would send 14 Leopard 2 tanks as part of the shipment of over 100 main battle tanks from NATO countries. The decision to send main battle tanks into the conflict is intended to set in motion a chain of events that will justify an ever greater involvement of NATO troops and aircraft, up to and including a shooting war with Russia.

The significance of Biden’s announcement lies less in the battlefield impact of the tanks than in the consequences of deploying them. The turbine-driven Abrams tanks will require a massive logistical network inside Ukraine, involving large numbers of specialist American contractors. Attacks on these supply networks and American personnel servicing the tanks will then be used to press for implementation of a “no-fly zone” and the deployment of US and NATO troops to Ukraine.

Immediately following Biden’s announcement, retired four-star General Barry McCaffrey, appearing on MSNBC, made an offhand comment that revealed the essential content of the announcement. Countering the argument made earlier by military officials that the Abrams was too complex to send to Ukraine, McCaffrey declared, “Of course the Ukrainians, with civilian contractor support, can maintain these Abrams.” Who are these “civilian contractors” if they are not “Ukrainians?” McCaffrey was never asked.

America’s vast fleet of M1 Abrams tanks is serviced by civilian contractors at Army bases throughout the world, and these civilian contractors are generally Americans with specialized knowledge and skills, including direct employees of General Dynamics and other major arms manufacturers. The Abrams, the Army’s most complex vehicle, requires about eight man-hours of maintenance for every hour it serves in operation.

In explaining why the US military was reluctant to send the Abrams tank last year, the Washington Post noted, “A senior US defense official… said that… It is hard for the United States to maintain the Abrams tanks and their sophisticated turbine engine... For the Ukrainians, the official said, it would be impossible.” Of course, it would be impossible, unless, as McCaffrey indicates, a large number of American civilian contractors already trained on the Abrams were sent alongside the tanks. ... These supply lines and American personnel will likely become targets of Russian attacks on the weapons systems flowing into Ukraine. The demand, first raised early in the war, to “close the skies” and initiate a no-fly zone will quickly be raised by the entire US media, in order to “save the lives” of Americans deployed in Ukraine.

Like clockwork, Wednesday’s announcement was accompanied by demands in the press for sending F-16 and other fourth-generation NATO fighter aircraft.

Did you order the Code Red? You're damn right I did!

Ukraine Expects to Get All the Western Weapons It Wants

Shortly after President Biden announced Ukraine would be getting the Western-made tanks it sought, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was demanding fighter jets and longer-range missiles.

Ukrainian officials have been lobbying for months to receive F-15 or F-16 fighter jets from the US and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACAMS), munitions with a range of up to 190 miles. ...

Yury Sak, an advisor to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, told Reuters that he’s confident Ukraine will get everything it wants. “They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us HIMARS systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get,” he said.

“Many More Body Bags” Needed To Bring Down Putin – Says Psychopath Fmr U.S. Official

White House Refuses to Say If Ukraine Will Get Toxic Depleted Uranium Ammo

The White House refused to say if it will provide Ukraine with Bradley Fighting Vehicles equipped with radioactive depleted uranium rounds, ammunition that is linked to cancer and birth defects.

Depleted uranium is typically created as a byproduct of producing enriched uranium and is extremely dense, making it an effective material to pierce the armor of tanks. Bradleys can be equipped with depleted uranium ammunition, which is why they are known as “tank killers.”

When asked on Wednesday if the Bradleys the US is sending to Ukraine will be equipped with depleted uranium, a senior Biden administration official said, “I’m not going to get into the technical specifics.” The official also declined to answer if the M1 Abrams tanks the US is providing Kyiv will be equipped with a depleted uranium cage.

Konstantin Gavrilov, the head of Russia’s delegation in Vienna on arms control, has warned Moscow would view the use of depleted uranium weapons in Ukraine as the use of a “dirty bomb.”

Ukrainian security service ‘needs cleanout’ after arrest of accused spy

The Ukrainian security service (SBU) reported on Thursday that they arrested a lieutenant colonel in their ranks on suspicion of “high treason” and published a photograph of bundles of cash found in his home. The unnamed man is said to have used his mobile phone to photograph documents detailing the location of military checkpoints in Zaporizhzhia, a frontline region in the south-east of the country, and sending the information via an email account registered on a Russian domain. ...

“Evidence of permanent connections with representatives of law enforcement and state bodies of the Russian Federation was also established,” the statement said. “In particular, close relatives of the traitor are among them.”

Maj Gen Viktor Yahun, who was deputy head of the SBU until, 2015, said there needed to a thorough cleanout of the service, which he said had long had an overly close relationship with its Russian counterpart, the FSB.

Following Russia’s invasion on 24 February last year, more than 60 members of the SBU and the prosecutor general’s office had remained in occupied territory and collaborated with the Russian forces, highlighting the scale of the infiltration of Ukrainian law enforcement by the Kremlin.

The Danish government has caught the fever. It says, screw the workers and screw that religion crap, we need money to kill people, dammit!"

Danes ‘furious’ over plan to abolish public holiday to fund defence budget

The Danish government’s plan to abolish a public holiday to help fund the defence budget amid the war in Ukraine is putting Denmark’s cherished welfare model at risk, the country’s biggest trade union confederation has warned. “It’s a big threat to the Danish model,” said Lizette Risgaard, the head of the FH confederation, which has 1.3 million members in a country of 5.9 million inhabitants. “Politicians should stay out of labour market issues. If they go through with this they will be imposing their will and violate our agreements,” she told AFP on Wednesday.

The left-right government coalition, in power since December and led by the Social Democratic prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, plans to scrap the religious holiday known as Great Prayer Day, observed since the 17th century. Initially introduced as a day of prayer, fasting and penitence, it falls on the fourth Friday after Easter and is a common date for confirmations.

But the government wants to get rid of the public holiday and use the money to raise the defence budget to Nato’s target of 2% of GDP by 2030, instead of 2033 as previously planned. The government says the accelerated calendar is necessary due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The move is expected to provide an extra 3bn kroner (£355m) to state coffers.

The cancelled holiday would entail an additional 7.4 hours of labour per worker, according to the government. “I don’t think it’s a problem to have to work an extra day,” Frederiksen said. ...

A recent poll by the market researchers Epinion indicated an overwhelming number of Danes opposed the move, which was not mentioned during last autumn’s election campaign. Only 17% supported the plan, while 75% were against it.

Japan remilitarizes as US pushes conflict with China

Israeli forces kill nine Palestinians during West Bank raid

Israeli forces have killed nine Palestinians during a raid in the north of the occupied West Bank in the deadliest single day in the territory in years, prompting Palestinian leaders to cut security ties with Israel and leaving international mediators scrambling to prevent the violence from escalating.

A 61-year-old woman and a male civilian were among the dead, the Palestinian health ministry said, and about 20 more people were seriously injured in the violence on Thursday morning. Two of the casualties were claimed by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another four by Hamas, and one by the armed wing of the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction.

The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank and works alongside Israel to contain militant activity, announced on Thursday night it was suspending security cooperation with the Israeli government – a step it has taken on a temporary basis in the past.

Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers arrived at daybreak at several entrances of the Jenin refugee camp, a militant stronghold in the north of the Palestinian territory, said Sakir Khader, a Palestinian-Dutch film-maker at the scene. Armed Palestinians shot at an Israeli armoured vehicle disguised as a commercial van, at which point the IDF returned fire and a fierce four-hour gun battle ensued, causing widespread damage, he said.

“I was stuck in the middle of the firefight for hours,” Khader said. “It was crazy. There were snipers and drones and they used a bulldozer to block off a street. It destroyed lots of cars and a public meeting spot. “At the hospital there are mothers looking for their sons … Everything is still very tense. I have been coming to Palestine all my life and I have never seen something like this.”

“The situation in Jenin camp is very critical,” the Palestinian health minister, Mai al-Kaila, said in a statement. Israeli forces had prevented ambulances from reaching the injured, she added. The raid’s death toll is the highest in a single operation ever recorded by the United Nations since the international body’s records began in 2005.

US economy grows strongly but interest rate rises starting to slow momentum

The US economy maintained a strong pace of growth in the fourth quarter as consumers boosted spending on goods, but momentum appears to have slowed considerably towards the end of the year, with higher interest rates eroding demand.

Gross domestic product – the broadest measure of economic health – increased at a 2.9% annualized rate last quarter, the commerce department said in its advance fourth-quarter GDP growth estimate on Thursday. The economy grew at a 3.2% pace in the third quarter. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast GDP rising at a 2.6% rate.

That could be the last quarter of solid growth before the lagged effects of the Federal Reserve’s fastest monetary policy tightening cycle since the 1980s kick in. Most economists expect a recession by the second half of the year, though mild compared with previous downturns.

Retail sales have weakened sharply over the last two months and manufacturing looks to have joined the housing market in recession. While the labor market remains strong, business sentiment continues to sour, which could eventually hurt hiring.

Robust second-half growth erased the 1.1% contraction in the first six months of the year. For all for 2022, the economy expanded 2.1%, down from the 5.9% logged in 2021. The Fed last year raised its policy rate by 425 basis points from near zero to a 4.25%-4.50% range, the highest since late 2007.

Memphis BLM Activist: Tyre Nichols's Killing Is Part of Police Brutality Crisis for Black Residents

Tyre Nichols: five ex-police officers face murder charges over motorist’s death

Five former police officers are in custody facing murder charges in connection with the death of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist in Memphis, Tennessee, who died three days after a 7 January traffic stop spiraled into a fatal physical attack, local jail records indicated.

Shelby county sheriff’s office online records showed that Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were in custody. All five were charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

“While each of the five individuals played a different role in the incident in question, the actions of all of them resulted in the death of Tyre Nichols and they are all responsible,” Steve Mulroy, the Shelby county district attorney, said during a press conference on Thursday. Nichols, 29, endured a three-minute attack, Mulroy said. An attorney representing his family reportedly said an independent autopsy indicated that he “suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating”.

“He was a human piñata for those police officers,” the family attorney, Antonio Romanucci, told reporters. “Not only was it violent, it was savage.”

The five former officers accused of involvement in the deadly encounter, who are all Black, were fired last week. Memphis police officials said the officers flouted “multiple department policies, including excessive use of force, duty to intervene, and duty to render aid”.

Georgia's GOP Gov. Signs Order to Prep National Guard for Police Brutality Protests

Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency through at least February 9 that will enable him to deploy up to 1,000 National Guard troops "as necessary."

The order follows protests in Atlanta after 26-year-old forest defender Manuel "Tortuguita" Teran was shot dead last week during a multi-agency raid on an encampment to oppose construction of Cop City, a nearby law enforcement training center. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), which is investigating the case, has said Teran was killed after he shot and wounded a state trooper.

While the order begins by stating that "protests turned violent in downtown Atlanta" last Saturday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreported that Kemp's aides signaled that the move was not about the Cop City demonstrations but rather in anticipation of any potential response to video footage from Memphis, Tennessee showing the arrest of Black motorist Tyre Nichols.

As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, five fired Memphis cops were charged with second-degree murder and other crimes related to Nichols' death. Footage of the 29-year-old's arrest is expected to be released sometime after 6:00 pm local time on Friday.



the horse race



Shifty wants to move up ...

Adam Schiff, lead prosecutor of Trump’s first impeachment, declares Senate run

Adam Schiff, the California congressman who became a household name as the lead prosecutor in Donald Trump’s first impeachment, said he will seek the California Senate seat currently held by Dianne Feinstein.

“I wish I could say the threat of Maga extremists is over,” said Schiff, 62, in a video announcing his campaign. “We’re in the fight of our lives – a fight I’m ready to lead as California’s next US senator”.

Schiff is joining fellow southern California Democrat Katie Porter in declaring his candidacy for the Senate seat before Feinstein has even announced her retirement. At 89, Feinstein is the oldest member of the Senate, and has told reporters this week that she will make a decision about 2024 in the “next couple of months” amid circling questions about her cognitive health.

Schiff, who is close with Feinstein, said he had spoken to her a day earlier to inform her of his intention to run. “I want to make sure that everything I did was respectful of her and that I did so with her knowledge and her blessing,” Schiff told the Associated Press.

Many will be clambering for her seat. Bay Area representative Barbara Lee has reportedly told colleagues and donors that she plans to run, and political analysts expect Silicon Valley representative Ro Khanna could also mount a competitive campaign.



the evening greens


Human activity and drought ‘degrading more than a third of Amazon rainforest’

Human activity and drought may have degraded more than a third of the Amazon rainforest, double the previous estimate, according to a study that heightens concerns that the globally important ecosystem is slipping towards a point of no return. Fires, land conversion, logging and water shortages, have weakened the resilience of up to 2.5m sq km of the forest, an area 10 times the size of the UK. This area is now drier, more flammable and more vulnerable than before, prompting the authors to warn of “megafires” in the future.

Between 5.5% and 38% of what is left of the world’s biggest tropical forest is also less able to regulate the climate, generate rainfall, store carbon, provide a habitat to other species, offer a livelihood to local people, and sustain itself as a viable ecosystem, the paper observes. This degradation is on top of the 17% of the original forest that has been completely cleared over the past half century with Brazil having pushed back its agricultural and mining frontiers to satisfy the demands of an increasingly wealthy, more populous and high-consuming world. ...

The findings, published in Science on Thursday, are based on a review of existing studies, recent satellite data, and a new assessment of drought impacts by an international team of 35 scientists and researchers, from institutions including Brazil’s University of Campinas (Unicamp), the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and the UK’s Lancaster University.

Water deprivation accounts for most of the increase in Amazon degradation compared with the previous estimate of 17%. Drought is an area of increasing concern because it raises the forest’s vulnerability to fire and diminishes by up to 34% its ability to regenerate itself through evapotranspiration – the generation of rainclouds by trillions of plants. This has knock-on effects across a wider region, including in food producing areas that depend on the Amazon’s “flying rivers” to water crops. Most worryingly it raises the spectre of a destructive feedback loop in which drought makes the forest less able to pump water which leads to more drought.

To prevent these risks from spiralling out of control, the authors urge policymakers to reduce the drivers of degradation and treat it as much of a priority as the better-known problem of deforestation. The two vary greatly in terms of visibility. Deforestation is the total clearance of forest and conversion of the land to other uses, which can be easily identified by satellites. Degradation, on the other hand, is the partial loss of vegetation due to human behaviour, which is often hidden because it takes place under the canopy of bigger trees.

Food, feed and fuel: global seaweed industry could reduce land needed for farming by 110m hectares, study finds

An area of ocean almost the size of Australia could support commercial seaweed farming around the world, providing food for humans, feed supplements for cattle, and alternative fuels, according to new research. Seaweed farming is a nascent industry globally but the research says if it could grow to constitute 10% of human diets by 2050 it could reduce the amount of land needed for food by 110m hectares (272m acres) – an area twice the size of France.

But the authors of the research said there are a range of potential negative impacts on marine life that will need to be balanced with the benefits of a global seaweed farming industry. The study looked at 34 seaweed species and where they could feasibly grow and then narrowed this down to places with calm enough waters and close enough to populations where farms could be established.

About 650m hectares (1,606m acres) was identified as plausible for seaweed farming, with the largest areas in Indonesia and Australia which both have large ocean regions under their economic control. “Cultivating seaweeds for food, feed and fuel within even a fraction of the 650m hectares of suitable ocean could have profound benefits to land use, emissions reduction, water and fertiliser use,” the authors wrote.

Scott Spillias, a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia who led the study published in Nature Sustainability, said: “People around the world are looking at the ocean as this big ‘untapped’ resource and asking if we should be using more of it.”

One of the biggest benefits, the study said, would be the cultivation and use of red Asparagopsis as a cattle feed supplement that has been shown to result in drastically lower methane emissions from cows. One supplement based on the seaweed reportedly went on commercial sale to farmers in Australia last year.


Also of Interest

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

US Can Turn Back Doomsday Clock

IAEA Chief Falsely Claims Iran Could Fuel ‘Several Nuclear Weapons’

Spain Debunks Russiagate like New York Times Letter Bomb Story

Biden’s Documents Dilemma

EPA Allowing Vast Oil Refinery Waste to Pollute US Waterways


A Little Night Music

Eddie Kirkland - Must Have Done Somebody Wrong

Eddie Kirkland - Down On My Knees

Eddie Kirkland - Pick Up The Pieces & Working Man

Eddie Kirkland - I Got My Eyes On You

Eddie Kirkland - I've Got To Leave Your Town

Eddie Kirkland - I Need You, Baby

Eddie Kirkland - Train Done Gone

Eddie Kirkland - Write My Baby A Letter

Eddie Kirkland with the Falcons - So Pretty Baby

Eddie Kirkland - Man of Stone


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Comments

https://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-blasts-neo-nazis-in-ukraine-on-holoc...

The Russian Army Liberated Auschwitz. This will be a big surprise to most Americans who believe that America won WWII.

"The Auschwitz museum did not invite Russian representatives to the ceremony marking the day the Soviet Red Army liberated the Nazi camp because of the offensive in Ukraine."

“Russia will need an extremely long time and very deep self-examination after this conflict in order to return to gatherings of the civilized world,” Piotr Sawicki, a spokesman for the museum at the site of the former camp, told AFP."

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday repeated a claim that neo-Nazis were committing crimes in Ukraine — an allegation Moscow has used to justify its military intervention — as the world marked Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“Forgetting the lessons of history leads to the repetition of terrible tragedies,” Putin said.

“This is evidenced by the crimes against civilians, ethnic cleansing and punitive actions organized by neo-Nazis in Ukraine. It is against that evil that our soldiers are bravely fighting,” he said in a statement.

As I have written before, the Russian successes in WWII are being erased from American history.

Not just Auschwitz, but the D Day celebrations at Normandy as well. Russia conspicuously not invited.

Russia does not give a f--- what the West has to say and why should he?
Russia has the resources, weapons, land and population it needs to survive and prosper.

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10 users have voted.

NYCVG

joe shikspack's picture

@NYCVG

i have to completely agree with russia's chief rabbi on this one:

Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar told AFP that “for us, this is clearly a humiliation because we perfectly know and remember the role of the Red Army in the liberation of Auschwitz and in the victory over Nazism.”

“These political games have no place on Holocaust day,” Lazar added.

it's generally accepted that the victors write the history, but this is far more orwellian with one superpower and its minions trying to rewrite history.

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enhydra lutris's picture

Darwin Day? Just curious.

be well and have a good one

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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 --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

heh, interesting coincidence there. Smile

have a great weekend!

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3 users have voted.

Tracey has a yeoman's job of exposing the pro-war democrats and republicans and media over the Ukraine war. Here he is develing back to Vietnam showing by historical analog how US military was fighting the North Vietnamese while US military claiming they were not. I full expect that US/NATO troops will be driving those Abrams and flying those F16s.

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11 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@MrWebster

tracey is again making trenchant observations. it's pretty much what he does best. i sure hope that it truly annoys the propagandist stenographer set.

have a great weekend!

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snoopydawg's picture

Israel killed people in the West Bank and someone from Hamas killed 8 Israelis coming out of prayer. Only one has been reported as a terrorist attack.

Eight killed in Jerusalem terrorist attack

At least eight people have been killed and ten more wounded in a shooting at a Jerusalem synagogue on Friday evening, Israeli media reported. The attacker was killed by security forces while attempting to escape.

The armed assault took place in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood of Jerusalem, in the territory claimed by the Palestinian Authority. At least five people were confirmed dead at the scene. Five of the wounded were taken to area hospitals in critical condition.
….
The attack followed the funerals of nine Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli troops in the refugee camp in Jenin, in what AP described as “the deadliest West Bank raid in years.”

Following Thursday’s firefight, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired rockets into Israel, while the Israeli military launched air strikes against the enclave.

Glad you posted Caitlin’s essay. I think this is one of her best.

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11 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

the israeli right-wing is trying very hard to provoke an armed retaliation so that they can then commit a more quick and efficient genocide against palestinians than they have managed in the 70+ years and thousands of palestinian deaths of their theocratic regime.

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snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

but it’s silent when the Zionist Nazis kill Palestinian civilians just because they covet their land. I hope that I never get over my disgust for the hypocritical governments of the world. And disgust is not a strong enough word for how I feel. Over 100 thousand people in Yemen have been killed, but they aren’t white so it doesn’t seem to matter. How many non whites has America killed just since 1945? The lowest number is 20 million and we add to that daily. Including non whites here at home through various ways. This puts to rest the argument that racism died here after Obama was elected.

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7 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

dystopian's picture

Hi all, Hey Joe!

Eddie Kirkland is a great player. Awesome. Love his style. Great sheet mon!

So, yeah, the US could turn back the doomsday clock. It seems they like it in the last two minutes most. For some reason.

Anyone that thinks you can screw up a third of the Amazon and still have an Amazon is nuts. It is like removing a third of any of your most vital organs. In this case earth's lungs, and a major weather driver. Oh sure, we don't need that...

Can't wait to try seaweed wrapped crickets! Wink

Thanks for the great soundscape Joe! Have a great weekend!

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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

@dystopian I got to visit the Amazon and Rain forest twice. I knew it was being trashed and disappeared. I at least wanted to leave this world having borne witness.

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6 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

joe shikspack's picture

@dystopian

kirkland had a long career but was not as heavily recorded as his buddy john lee hooker. his early recordings are pretty hard to find, but a lot of them have turned up on youtube, which is cool.

yeah, i think the neocons like to keep the doomsday clock as close to midnight as possible, thinking that they can pressure russia into capitulating if they just ratchet the escalation up a little bit further ...

yep, desertification is probably the next major step for the amazon. it should be named the great desert of capitalism.

actually, seaweed can be surprisingly tasty. i have no interest in persecuting crickets, though. Smile

have a great weekend!

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enhydra lutris's picture

@dystopian

seaweed for years. Carrageenans are in tons of foods and they're extracted from seaweed. There are a handful of other things extracted from kelp. Various seaweeds pop up as seasoning in asian cuisine, etc. I used to buy jars of dried nori to snack on.

be well and have a good one

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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 --

dystopian's picture

@enhydra lutris yeah, I have had a couple that were fine... most not so much... but surely there are great ones... Is it nori that they wrap the "California Rolls" in?

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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

snoopydawg's picture

@dystopian

but England is letting food companies use bug flour in their pizza and I’m seeing lots of other companies advertising for food made with bugs in their products. I’m happy that they are openly telling us about it because I fear that soon they will just use it and not let us know. Hopefully enough people will be allergic to bugs and the lawsuits make them go out of business! We get to eat bugs and walk everywhere whilst the PTB fly around the world in their private jets and dine on filet mignon? Fck that idea!

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joe shikspack's picture

well, it turns out that i am headed out to a movie, some irish flick about banshees that ms shikspack is hot to see. so, i'll check back in later.

have a great weekend!

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snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

Seriously? I hope you let us know how it was.

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shaharazade's picture

@joe shikspack sounds appalling.Self mutilation? Title sounded interesting but reading further it's not my cup of tea. Not a fan of self mutilation or any other nasty shit we're confronted with in the name of entertainment.

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joe shikspack's picture

@shaharazade

yeah, turns out it wasn't my cup of tea, either. i knew nothing about the movie going into it and everything i guessed about it from the title was wrong.

the self-mutilation was a plot device and not focused on for its own sake, but still a pretty bizarre plot device that i could have done without.

apparently it's the sort of movie that critics and english majors seem to like. meh.

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snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

Guess the question is did the Mrs. S enjoy the film?

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i think that she enjoyed it more than i did. while i didn't care for it, i can see things about it that some people might enjoy. the cinematography was excellent, the scripting was complex and well done, the acting was pretty good with a couple of standout performances.

that said, the story as a whole didn't do much for me, no matter how well written it was.

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snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

I found it just after I read your comment.

Ten years ago, I read an interesting book about how the visual media industry (and Big Tech) came together to be the behemoth they are now. One of the most interesting points I learned from the book is that there is very little incentive to produce creative and innovative best-sellers in Hollywood. Due to how much money it costs to produce a movie, a relatively safe formula has been settled upon that guarantees that investors will get their money back on a film they finance. Since that revenue stream is almost always guaranteed by fitting within the industry’s box (a lot of money is made from selling things besides the film itself such as merchandise and subsequent video replays) there is no incentive to produce a groundbreaking movie because going outside the standard movie formula entails too much risk. Somewhat analogously, when I wrote this article, I went to check how many Fast & Furious sequels have been made, and apparently, they are now working on the eleventh.

Same thing with the marvel movies. Lots of cgi and people beating and killing people and the never ending epic fight to wipe out evil that just never gets accomplished and it comes back bigger and more evil next movie.

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enhydra lutris's picture

Mucho busy here lately, stuff seems to come at one in waves.

Asshole schiff is running for DiFi's seat against 2 far, far better candidates, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, but neither one can match his credentials as an outright tool. Watch the party find a way to either rig the primary and subsequent general or else see to it that the race is absolutely flooded with Schiff money.

Keep wondering why I haven't heard anything about the US violating the laws of neutrality, in Ukraine and elsewhere. It looks like said Old, musty "law" is all but dead. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10735/3#:~:text=The%2....

Have a great weekend.
Be well and have a good one

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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 --

snoopydawg's picture

Zero hedges has it in article style for easier reading

Hamilton 68 was and is a computerized “dashboard” designed to be used by reporters and academics to measure “Russian disinformation”. It was the brainchild of former FBI agent (and current MSNBC “disinformation expert”) Clint Watts, and backed by the German Marshall Fund and the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan think-tank. The latter’s advisory panel includes former acting CIA chief Michael Morell, former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, former Hillary for America chair John Podesta, and onetime Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol

And now, Taibbi has torn Hamilton 68's 'black box' asunder after reviewing the latest batch of "Twitter Files."

Now if we can find a way for shitlibs to read it and see how they were lied to we might get them to wake up on Ukraine. I know, but I can dream. Anything to get them to get over Russia Russia….

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Israel or Ukraine, although their coloring may be a bit off.

Thanks for the EB's Joe!

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snoopydawg's picture

Exactly.

Hamilton 68 interfered with the election by telling people that Russia was interfering with the election. And not only this site, but many others used Russia gate as an excuse for censorship which many of us wrote about at the time and how it was used as the new McCarthyism. Boy we were smart weren’t we? We called out so many scams from the beginning that others were falling for. Kudos folks!

Timely article.

Actions Of FBI, CIA Leave Us In Our Own Truman Show

Given the fire-hose disgorgement of revelations about the behavior of the FBI, the CIA and their infiltration of the mainstream media, there is ample justification for believing that we are living in some dystopian, distinctly unfunny version of The Truman Show.

In the movie, the gormless Truman Burbank grows up thinking he is living a normal, happy life in a normal, happy town. Only gradually does he realize that something is amiss. Slowly, piece by piece, the awful truth dawns on him: his entire social world is a fabrication, a gigantic product-placement concession with him as the unwitting MacGuffin.

In our Truman Show, various police and intelligence entities, including the FBI and the CIA, are in cahoots with Twitter, Facebook and other social media companies. We wouldn’t have known much about this except for the courageous action of Elon Musk, who everyone thought overpaid to acquire Twitter — $44 billion of the crispest — but who has been demonstrating almost daily that the deal was cheap at the price.

Would the Ukraine war have happened if Hillary hadn’t made up Russia gate and the false accusations against Trump that he was a Russian asset? Would Biden been elected if the Hunter Biden laptop information and the Biden family influence peddling had come out? It’s too bad that not one person is going to be held accountable for what they did. The republicans are going to investigate the FBI and their many actions, but unless it’s dismantled they will be free to do it again.

Glenn Greenwald provided a meticulously researched summary of that assault on his internet video show “System Update.” The episode in question exposes the FBI’s “propaganda partnership with Twitter.” Senior Twitter officials, Greenwald shows, met regularly with what amounted to FBI handlers. In the end, they “degraded Twitter into little more than a full-on Democratic Party activist machine, all while lying to the public about its function. This was a massive public fraud and 2020 election interference.”

This was worse than anything Nixon was accused of doing and especially since we found out that 3/4 burglars of watergate were CIA agents and that Bob Woodward was most probably a CIA asset long before he became a reporter. We know that people in Obama’s administration were hip deep in the fake Russia gate crap. As was the left corporate media that ran bogus stories for democrats. I remember my aunt glued to the TV during the watergate hearings. Sad that we will never see anything like that again.

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soryang's picture

Enjoyed the conversation with Joseph Essertier. Looks like he needed sleep. As usual Max did his homework. The publication Essertier referred to was Asian Pacific Journal/ Japan Focus.

The Abe Legacy: A Compendium

https://apjjf.org/2022/16/McNeil.html

Another great recent article over there:
Kase Hideaki’s Revisionist Vision for Twenty-First-Century Japan: A Final Interview and Obituary

Rotem Kowner

https://apjjf.org/2023/1/Kowner.html

There is just a wealth of information about Asian politics in this journal, that is principally focused on Japan. I've been reading it for a couple of years.

I missed the scholar Essertier cites for the WWIII has already begun observation.

I'm fond of this Asahi Shimbun special presentation Nomonham, The beginning and end of WWII, which is connected with the beginning of WWII in Europe.

In the fields of eastern Mongolia, eastern Asia, the Japanese army clashed with Soviet mechanized units and suffered devastating casualties. The conflict is called ‘Nomonhan Incident’.
Some historians say this border conflict unintentionally links the eastern and western battle fronts of Eurasia and leads to the outbreak of the World War II, on Sept. 1, 1939.

Interesting interactive presentation with text, google earth mapping and diagrams. Looks like the main Japanese attack started on July 3, 1939 in response to earlier exchanges with the Russians. Chapter 2 lays out the order of battle and deficiencies in Japanese logistics, outfitting, and doctrine. Chapter 3 is The battlefield which links Nomonhan Incident and the end of the WWII.

On 9th August 1945, the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria with 1.74 million soldiers in total. The largest was the Zabaikal divison coming from eastern Mongolia.

https://www.asahi.com/special/nomonhan/en/

Nomanhan is the battle portrayed in the South Korean movie My Way, in which a Japanese army officer and Korean prisoner serving in the Japanese forces are captured by the Russians, impressed into the Red Army, later captured by German forces in Russia, impressed into the German Army, and ultimately end up in France experiencing the Normandy invasion. The story as portrayed in the movie is disputed, but the battle of Nomonhan along the Mongolian border is depicted along with other major WWII battles. The plot of the movie even if fiction, presents the horrors of war during the period across Eurasia.

Below is the OST theme from the movie.

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語必忠信 行必正直