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"Israeli insiders keep very straightforwardly acknowledging that an arms embargo would bring an end to their genocidal atrocities. Biden and Harris oppose an arms embargo because they want those genocidal atrocities to continue."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

You Don’t Get To Vote On Any Of Your Government’s Most Consequential Actions

You’ll often hear Democrats calling people “privileged” if they talk about voting third party, or if they say it doesn’t matter whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins the election in November. The idea is that if you’re not doing everything you can to make sure the Democrat wins, it must be because you are white and wealthy and coddled enough to be unconcerned about Donald Trump getting in and implementing racist and discriminatory policies.

This narrative is false. Nonvoters in the United States are statistically much more likely to be poor and nonwhite, because those groups tend to see both mainstream political factions as more or less equally worthless at helping to improve the condition of their lives. Turns out you need to have a degree of stability and comfort in your life to see any significant difference between these candidates, and many lack that stability and comfort — both in the US and around the world. They aren’t privileged enough to care one way or the other.

People who aren’t privileged enough to care who wins the US election in November include:

• Palestinians, who will continue to be killed and oppressed by the state of Israel regardless of whether Trump or Harris wins.
• Ukrainians, who will continue to die in Washington’s proxy war with Russia regardless of whether Trump or Harris wins.
• Victims of US warmongering around the world, who will suffer and die from acts of mass military violence inflicted upon them regardless of whether Trump or Harris wins.
• Victims of US economic sanctions, who will continue to suffer and struggle because their government had the audacity to disobey Washington’s dictates regardless of whether Trump or Harris wins.
• Victims of US imperialist extraction, who will continue to have their labor and resources siphoned away by wildly unjust and exploitative systems regardless of whether Trump or Harris wins.
• Homeless people in the United States, who will remain homeless regardless of whether Trump or Harris wins.
• America’s working poor, who will continue to struggle to make ends meet in a constant state of toil regardless of whether Trump or Harris wins.
• Victims of the US policing and prison systems, who will remain abused and mistreated by those systems regardless of whether Trump or Harris wins.

The truth of the matter is that you simply don’t get to vote on any of the most consequential things your government does.

You don’t get to vote on whether wars, militarism and imperialism should continue.

You don’t get to vote on whether your government should engage in nuclear brinkmanship with Russia and China.

You don’t get to vote on whether your government should keep systems in place which ensure the destruction of our biosphere.

You don’t get to vote on whether your government should be continuously working to subvert and destroy any nation anywhere on earth who dares to disobey its commands.

You don’t get to vote on whether your government should continue imposing sanctions on one-third of the world, disproportionately targeting the economies of low-income countries.

You don’t get to vote on whether your government should keep systems in place which allow the wealthy to exert control over labor to extract surplus value from workers at home and abroad.

You don’t get to vote on whether your government should keep systems in place which allow people to go homeless or die of treatable illnesses because they don’t have enough money.

You don’t get to vote on whether billionaires should remain billionaires while so many ordinary people struggle to survive.

You don’t get to vote on whether you and your compatriots should be subjected every single day to mass media propaganda which serves the information interests of your government and the status quo politics it relies on.

You don’t get to vote on whether your government should keep pushing more and more authoritarian measures like Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, online censorship, surveillance, government secrecy, and the war on journalism to ensure the suppression of dissent.

You don’t get to vote on whether or not any of this murder, tyranny, oppression and exploitation should take place. All you get to vote on is what face should represent these things for the next four years, and whether that symbolic face will have a (D) or an (R) next to their name.

The functioning of a globe-spanning empire is seen as too important to be left in the hands of the voting public — so it isn’t. Nothing that is critical to the empire’s operation is ever on the ballot. They only let voters control a few superficial details about their society which make no difference to the powerful, while placing tremendous significance on elections and their outcomes so that voters really feel like they are making a difference.

Noam Chomsky was correct when he said “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” Until you really understand that quote and how far it goes, you can’t understand anything about mainstream western politics and political discourse.

Report from Gaza: Israel Kills Dozens More, Increases Forced Evacuations, Attacks Aid Truck

UN food agency suspends operations in Gaza after car hit by gunfire at Israeli checkpoint

The UN’s food agency has said it is pausing movement of its staff in Gaza “until further notice” after one of its vehicles was struck by gunfire at an Israeli military checkpoint. Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Programme (WFP), said of Tuesday’s incident: “This is totally unacceptable and the latest in a series of unnecessary security incidents that have endangered the lives of WFP’s team in Gaza. “As last night’s events show, the current deconfliction system is failing and this cannot go on any longer.”

The vehicle was hit at least 10 times as it approached the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) checkpoint at the Wadi Gaza Bridge after completing a mission in southern Gaza, the WFP said in a statement. No one was injured.

“Though this is not the first security incident to occur during the war it is the first time that a WFP vehicle has been directly shot at near a checkpoint, despite securing the necessary clearances,” the WFP said.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident.

The agency shared an image of a white, UN-branded truck with its windows apparently damaged by several bullets and said it was a “few metres” from the Israeli checkpoint when it was hit.

Max Blumenthal: Gaza, Democracy, and the DNC

Israeli forces kill at least 10 Palestinians in West Bank raids and strikes

Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinians in the West Bank in overnight raids and airstrikes they said were intended to contain attacks on Israelis using Iranian-supplied arms.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the West Bank operations, some of the most extensive in recent years, were likely to go on for some days, in what it described as a preventive campaign to forestall attacks on Israelis.

Palestinian health authorities said 10 people were killed in the Jenin and Tubas areas of the West Bank, and gun battles were reported to be continuing on Wednesday morning. Hamas said 10 of its fighters had been killed in the West Bank.

The chief spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said the escalation of Israeli military operations on the West Bank, at the same time as the war in Gaza, would “lead to dire and dangerous results”.

“The world must take immediate and urgent action to curb this extremist government that poses a threat to the stability of the region and the world as a whole,” Abu Rudeineh said, according to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

Houthis to allow access to stricken Red Sea tanker amid fears of huge oil spill

Yemen’s Houthi group has agreed to allow tugboats and rescue ships to access a damaged crude oil tanker in the Red Sea, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said, after the Iranian-aligned militants attacked the Greek-flagged vessel last week.

The Sounion tanker is carrying 150,000 tonnes, or 1m barrels, of crude oil and poses an environmental hazard, shipping officials said. Any spill has the potential to be among the largest from a ship in recorded history.

“Several countries have reached out to … request a temporary truce for the entry of tugboats and rescue ships into the incident area,” Iran’s UN mission in New York said, adding that the Houthis had consented to the request, in consideration of “humanitarian and environmental concerns”.

Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam denied on Wednesday there would be a temporary truce, telling Reuters that the group only agreed to allow the towing of oil tanker Sounion after several international parties contacted the group.

The Project Has FAILED – w/ Chris Hedges

US largely silent on Israel's West Bank assault

The US said it was seeking clarity on Israel’s objectives after its ally launched an offensive in the occupied West Bank which Palestinian and Israeli media said was the largest such attack since the Second Intifada. “We are in touch with Israeli officials to learn more about the operation,” a national security council spokesperson told Middle East Eye. “The United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself against threats to its security. At the same time, they must do so in a way that limits civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure”.

Israeli troops landed in parts of the northern West Bank in military helicopters and large convoys of armoured vehicles, attacking three cities - Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas. Despite the breadth and magnitude of the offensive mirroring Israeli military operations during the Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, the Biden administration has so far held off on publicly addressing the matter, outside of responding to journalists.

"The number of military vehicles storming Jenin is very large," Shatha Sabagh, a Jenin camp resident, told MEE. "The three main hospitals are besieged and all the streets leading to the city are closed with dirt barriers. We have not witnessed an incursion this extensive for a long time, and it seems that it will continue for several days.”

"They Want Palestine Empty": Artist in Jenin Blasts U.S. Support for Israel Amid West Bank Assault

Biden Was Told Gaza Pier Would Undermine Efforts To Get Israel To Allow More Aid Into Gaza

President Biden ordered the construction of a temporary pier off Gaza despite concerns from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) that the project would undermine efforts to pressure Israel to allow more aid into the Strip via land crossings, USAID’s Inspector General said in a report on Tuesday.

The report said multiple USAID officials had “expressed concerns” that the focus on the pier “would detract from the Agency’s advocacy for opening land crossings, which were seen as more efficient and proven methods of transporting aid into Gaza.”

When President Biden first ordered the construction of the pier during his March State of the Union address, aid groups called the move a public relations stunt. They pointed out that it’s far more efficient to deliver aid through land crossings, the majority of which Israel has kept closed to aid.

Columbia Student Protester On Campus Free Speech And Fall Protests

Dennis Kucinich: Where Is the Peace Party?

Russia's Lavrov Warns US That World War III Wouldn't Be Confined to Europe

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday warned the United States that if the war in Ukraine escalates into a wider military conflict, a potential World War III would not be limited to battlefields in Europe.

While taking questions from journalists two-and-a-half years after Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion, Lavrov was asked to address recent reporting in The Guardian about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wanting to use long-range Storm Shadow missiles that "threaten Moscow and St. Petersburg" to force Russia to the negotiating table.

As the British newspaper explained: "Storm Shadow missiles were developed primarily by an Anglo-French collaboration and are made by European joint venture MBDA, which also has an Italian partner. But because some of its components are supplied by the U.S., the White House also has to agree to its use inside Russia. It has so far refused to do so, fearing an escalation of the conflict."

Lavrov declared that "this is blackmail, an attempt to pretend that the West seeks to avoid any excessive escalation. In reality, they are full of mischief. Avoiding escalation is not what the West is after. To put it into plain language, they are simply picking a fight."

The longtime Russian minister also pointed to various remarks from John Kirby, the White House national security communications adviser, along the lines of what he said Friday: "We've been watching escalation risks since the beginning of this conflict, and that ain't gonna change. We're always going to be concerned about the potential for the aggression in Ukraine to lead to escalation on the European continent."

Lavrov said that "for Americans, any talk about the Third World War comes down to something that would affect Europe alone, and God forbid if it ever happened. This is quite telling, since this idea reflects the mindset of the American planners and geostrategy experts who believe that they can simply sit the whole thing out. I think that it is important to understand in this situation that we have our own doctrine, including the one governing the use of nuclear weapons. An effort to update it is underway."

"Moreover, these Americans are well aware of the provisions it sets forth. This fact transpires from the Freudian slips they make when they say that having a Third World War would be a bad thing because they do not want Europe to suffer," he continued. "This is what this American mindset comes down to. They have a mindset of a master sitting somewhere out there overseas and believing to be totally safe and secure, thinking that not only Ukrainians, but also, as it turns out, Europeans would be willing to do the dirty work and die for them."

"We have long been hearing speculation about authorizing Ukraine to use not only the Storm Shadow missiles, but also U.S.-made long-range missiles," the minister noted. "Now, all we can do is confirm once again that playing with fire is a dangerous thing for the men and women in charge of nuclear weapons across the Western world, but they are playing with matches as if they never grew up."

While there are nine nuclear-armed nations, the United States and Russia collectively have roughly 90% of the global arsenal. Since the Kremlin launched its invasion in February 2022, as the U.S. and Europe have armed Ukraine's soldiers, Putin and other Russian officials—along with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg—have stoked fears of nuclear weapons use.

Mikhail Sheremet, who represents Crimea—which Russia invaded and annexed from Ukraine a decade ago—in Russia's State Duma, toldTASS on Tuesday that the U.S. should consider the consequences of giving Ukrainian troops long-range cruise missiles.

"The ball is now in the U.S.' court but it's clearly finding it difficult to play the game because it will have to take reality into consideration and carefully weigh everything before passing the ball to Ukraine, which aims to drag the U.S. and Europe into a potential World War III," Sheremet told the Russian news agency.

"Undoubtedly, the U.S. will try to implement its far-reaching aggressive plans to provide cruise missiles to the Kyiv regime. They will probably try to do that through Europe, which they have under their thumb," he added. "But in any case, the price of this decision will be too high for them to pay, leading to the loss of their own statehood."

Earlier this month, Ukraine attacked Russia's Kursk region and "has carved out a slice of territory in the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War III," Reuters reported Tuesday. As the outlet detailed:

Russia has said that Western weaponry, including British tanks and U.S. rocket systems, have been used by Ukraine in Kursk. Kyiv has confirmed using U.S. HIMARS missiles to take out bridges in Kursk.

Washington says it was not informed about Ukraine's plans ahead of the surprise incursion into Kursk. The United States has also said it did not take any part in the operation.

Multiple Russian government officials have made clear that they don't believe those U.S. claims.

Rus Advance Causes Pokrovsk Collapse; Syrsky Admits Kursk Failure, Wants Pullout, Zelensky Says No

Ukraine prepares for winter power cuts after Russian attacks on energy sector

Ukrainian authorities are scrambling to assess the damage caused by one of the biggest Russian airstrikes of the war earlier this week, which targeted energy infrastructure across the country, further crippling a sector targeted by Moscow multiple times in the spring.

While much of Ukraine is still experiencing the tail end of a very hot summer, this week’s strikes have brought into focus concerns about the hard colder months that lie ahead. “This winter is going to be tough, that’s for sure,” said Nataliia Shapoval, head of the Kyiv School of Economics Institute.

Monday’s attack, which came during morning rush hour, involved more than 100 missiles and more than 100 drones targeting energy infrastructure all across the country, from the east close to the frontlines all the way to the far west near the border with EU countries.

While the strikes in spring targeted generating capacity, Monday’s attacks were largely focused on distribution infrastructure, such as electricity substations. They led to emergency blackouts across the country, which have tapered into scheduled power cuts affecting Kyiv and many other cities.

Many estimates suggest that even before this week’s strikes, Russia had destroyed around half of Ukraine’s energy capacity. Repair work has been ongoing over the summer, but as Kyiv continues to call for increased air defence support from western allies, the fear is that further strikes could turn a difficult situation into a catastrophic one.

Telegram CEO charged in France for ‘allowing criminal activity’ on messaging app

The head of Telegram, Pavel Durov, has been charged by the French judiciary for allegedly allowing criminal activity on the messaging app but avoided jail with a €5m bail.

The Russian-born multi-billionaire, who has French citizenship, was granted release on condition that he report to a police station twice a week and remain in France, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.

The charges against Durov include complicity in the spread of sexual images of children and a litany of other alleged violations on the messaging app. ...

Specialist French cybercrime and fraud detectives announced earlier this week that Durov’s arrest was part of a wide-ranging investigation into a failure to moderate alleged criminal activity on the messaging app.

Progressive International Slams Macron for 'Authoritarian Efforts to Repress the Will of the French People'

Progressive International on Wednesday issued a scathing critique of French President Emmanuel Macron and backed calls for protests next month over his rejection of a leftist alliance's candidate for prime minister following recent snap elections.

Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), a coalition of left-of-center parties formed to counter the far-right in this summer's elections, won the most seats, beating out Macron's centrist alliance and Marine Le Pen's right-wing Rassemblement National (RN), but lacks an absolute majority.

Macron has since refused to appoint NFP's chosen candidate, Lucie Castets, as prime minister, which the Progressive International Observatory blasted as "blatant disregard of the election results and the precedent established throughout the French Fifth Republic."

Progressive International launched in May 2020 to unite, organize, and mobilize progressive groups and individuals around the world, and since then it has built a global Observatory "with the legal expertise, data science, and parliamentary power to track the attacks on our democratic institutions and provide a real-time defense against them." ...

Macron—defending his refusal to appoint Castets—has argued that because centrist and right-wing parties would block any actions by NFP, "the institutional stability of our country therefore requires us not to choose this option." His critics in France are now planning "a large demonstration against Macron's coup on September 7."

Echoing the French critics, the Observatory declared Wednesday that "Macron's move is a direct challenge to the democratic will of the people and an affront to the foundational tenets of political pluralism."

"This action is not merely a political maneuver to hold onto power, but a direct attack on French progressive forces," the Observatory said, pointing to pledges by RN and centrist leaders to move a no-confidence motion against any prime minister nominated from the NFP.

The Observatory also highlighted Macron's "sinister divide-and-rule move" to isolate the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI), led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, by appealing to other NFP parties "to break the political paralysis."

The other parties that make up NFP have rebuffed the French president and, according toFrance 24, "Mélenchon even threatened to start impeachment proceedings against Macron."

Progressive International's Observatory emphasized that "democracy thrives on the diversity of ideas and the peaceful transition of power. The attempt to stifle political competition and subvert the democratic process is a direct assault on these core values."

The Observatory concluded with a "call to democratic forces worldwide to oppose Emmanuel Macron's authoritarian efforts to repress the will of the French people—and join the call for the September 7 mobilization to defend it."

More detail at the link:

US police use force on 300,000 people a year, with numbers rising since George Floyd: ‘relentless violence’

Police in the US use force on at least 300,000 people each year, injuring an estimated 100,000 of them, according to a groundbreaking data analysis on law enforcement encounters.

Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group that tracks killings by US police, launched a new database, policedata.org, on Wednesday cataloging non-fatal incidents of police use of force, including stun guns, chemical sprays, K9 dog attacks, neck restraints, beanbags and baton strikes.

The database features incidents from 2017 through 2022, compiled from public records requests in every state. The findings, the group says, suggest that despite widespread protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, overall use of force has remained steady since then – and in many jurisdictions, has increased.

The data builds on past reports that found US police kill roughly 1,200 people each year, or three people a day, a death toll that has crept up every year and dramatically exceeds rates in comparable nations. The nonfatal force statistics and accompanying report illustrate how the killings are just a small fraction of broader police violence and injuries caused by law enforcement.

In the absence of a national tracking system for use of force, Mapping Police Violence said it obtained data on use-of-force incidents from more than 2,800 agencies, covering nearly 60% of the population, and got six full years of data from 634 of those departments. The organization calculated average rates of force by population to get its national estimates. The data is considered an undercount as it only covers incidents disclosed by officers and agencies, and many states have laws restricting access to police files.

Tulsi Backs Trump: Is Bernie to Trump Pipeline REAL?

200 Of The Worst Republicans Endorse Kamala Harris! w/ Chris Hedges

US airlines lobbied EU over its plan to monitor plane emissions

US airlines lobbied against plans to monitor the damage wrought by planet-heating pollutants pumped out of planes in a previously undisclosed meeting with the European Commission, the Guardian can reveal. Lobbyists from Airlines for America and some of its member companies met representatives of the European Commission’s climate team in May in a meeting that is not logged on the participants’ pages in the EU transparency register. The commission said the meeting took place at a technical level and that it is under no obligation to publish details of meetings at lower levels of its hierarchy.

Minutes of the meeting obtained via freedom of information requests show that Airlines for America argued against including flights to and from destinations outside Europe in draft rules to report aircraft pollution beyond carbon dioxide. The group argued there was uncertainty in the science around contrails – the heat-trapping white lines that can stain the sky behind aircraft – and expressed concerns that the rules could influence pricing.

The group’s lobbying has been “flying under the radar,” said Lucca Ewbank from nonprofit InfluenceMap, which shared the documents with the Guardian. “Non-CO2 emissions may account for up to two-thirds of the climate impacts of flying, and yet US airlines are trying to dodge accountability for the extra climate warming long-haul flights may cause.”

Aircraft engines spew a host of gases that warp the climate at high altitudes, including nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and water vapour. Scientists know less about their effects on global temperatures than those of CO2 but agree they will lead to a hotter planet.

The European Commission plans to address the knowledge gap by forcing airlines to monitor, report and verify these effects as part of new rules under its emissions trading system. But in July, a handful of climate scientists warned that the science was too “immature” to capture the climate effects of non-CO2 gases from aviation, and called instead to focus on better reporting of such emissions.

Corn sweat: crop moisture amplifies humidity and heat in US midwest

You won’t believe your ears, but corn is making the extreme heat the US midwest is battling feel more intense, according to experts. The moisture – or “sweat” – that corn and other crops release in high temperatures is contributing to the humidity in the air in the midwest US, where 55 million people have been under alerts for extreme heat in recent days. The increase in moisture pushes up dew points, making it harder for water vapor to condense – and for it to feel cooler.

Exacerbating the situation is the fact that the US is the “largest producer, consumer, and exporter of corn in the world”, as well as ethanol, which the country primarily makes from corn kernel starch, according to the US Department of Agriculture. And two states in the grips of the heatwave – Iowa and Illinois – are responsible for a third of US-produced corn. That has left residents of those states, along with other prolific corn-producing neighbors, feeling even warmer as they grapple with scorching temperatures forecasted to reach 105F (41C) to 115F (46C).

“It is the plants reacting to that warmer weather. They also then need more moisture, so they’re uptaking more from stored-underground water and bringing that up to the atmosphere that we’re in,” Chris Clark, an agronomist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison told a local CBS news outlet. One acre of corn, which is a little smaller than the size of an American football field, can can create 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of corn sweat, Clark said.

Also of Interest

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

Washington’s Israel Policy Is Just Feigning Ignorance Of Israeli Depravity

Acclaimed Journalist Charged With ‘Anti-Semitism’

Israel Starts Ethnic Cleansing In West Bank

Palestinian film-makers sign letter protesting at Hollywood’s ‘inhumanity and racism’

‘Enough is enough’: the Muslim American officials who resigned over US’s Israel-Gaza policy

Ukraine SitRep: The Collapse Of The Donbas Front

What if We Threw a Civil War and Nobody Came?

Global Poverty Grows as Super-Rich Get Richer Faster

Young wildlife photographer of the year 2024 – preview

‘When Incomes Don't Rise’ Housing Problem CAN NOT Be Solved

VAST MAJORITY Say American Dream Is OVER

Freed Hostage Says Israel Harmed Her Not Hamas w/ Chris Hedges

Universities Silence Israel Critics! w/ Chris Hedges

A Little Night Music

Sidney Bechet - Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me

Sidney Bechet - Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho

Sidney Bechet - Egyptian Fantasy

Sidney Bechet - At The Jazz Band Ball

Sidney Bechet - Si Tu Vois Ma Mere

Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong - Perdido Street Blues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du7Gr6QlCEY

Sidney Bechet - Bechet Creole Blues

Sidney Bechet - Blue Horizon

Sidney Bechet - Ballin' The Jack