@fire with fire Strange coincidence that the ME conflict and the civil unrest going on here today precedes the upcoming meeting of The Bilderberg Group.
MSM is nothing more than a CIA asset.
We just have to rely on our instincts.
Enjoy your weekend, friend!

It was always problematical, but now all news is false until proven true, which is impossible to do.

We wander around in the darkness, bumping into obstacles placed strategically around us.

My own pet paranoia is that the hidden objective is to get to a new world order with several billion fewer human beings ruled by a new central global authority. This is 180 degrees away from the conjecture about zionism and related obsessions moving toward eliminating all opposition on the planet to Big Money.

That was accomplished four decades ago.

@Blue Republic Notice how we have accepted the fact that acts of violence are false flags to begin with, then move on to figure out the goal?
I am starting to doubt that Bibi is trying to rope us into war with Iran, since we are in on the planning, funding it, and providing weapons. Battleships are headed there to protect the ports.
If the left was sincere about authoritarianism, they would have protested the Big Beautiful Bill, and the contract with Palantir.
Dear One is headed to town to see if the protest is something or nothing.
More on that later.
Have a great weekend and stay safe, friend!

false flags for No Kings Day - some thinking they'll be to discredit MAGA, others that fake 'sleeper cell' attacks will be attributed to Iran with the goal of pushing the US into war for Israel (lot of resistance to that among what used to be Trump's base).

I suppose FF's attributed to cartels or illegal immigrants - to push the Palantir surveillance dystopia, mandatory E-Verify and such - should be on the list, too.

George III must be chuckling in his tomb to see the US government calling insurrection on an anti-monarchy demonstration...

Although the caricature of a tin-pot dictator along the lines of Mussolini or Noriega seriously misses the mark if it leads people to believe that that's how modern authoritarianism works.
Rather than a Great Leader, the current approach obscures who or what is actually controlling things - not nearly as straightforward as the lord in the castle or the wealthy factory owner in the big house on the hill where the target of one's oppression is readily apparent...

Song for the Luddites
I.
As the Liberty lads o’er the sea
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
So we, boys, we
Will die fighting, or live free,
And down with all kings but King Ludd!

II.
When the web that we weave is complete,
And the shuttle exchanged for the sword,
We will fling the winding sheet
O’er the despot at our feet,
And dye it deep in the gore he has pour’d.

III.
Though black as his heart its hue,
Since his veins are corrupted to mud,
Yet this is the dew
Which the tree shall renew
Of Liberty, planted by Ludd!

GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON, 6TH BARON BYRON (1816)

@Enchantress Dems call conservatives' protests insurrection, so turn about is fair play, I suppose.
The world would be a better place if DeSantis went home and stayed there.
My town of 98% Republicans, pop. 800, was selected as a protest site. I could count on one hand the people in the entire county who are anti-ICE. Strange as can be the town was selected as a protest site.
Well, it is ok here at home. My doe is out in the pasture happily grazing, not a care in the world.
I will be getting a report on the protest soon. I hope it fizzled out.
Enjoy your weekend, chica, and stay safe!

Both small towns I'm situated between are having a No Kings March. Really surprising, especially since the county I live in is probably 90% Republican. Our esteemed Governor has given the go-ahead to run down protesters without being held liable. I feel the same way about DeSantis as I felt about Biden. Hurry up and get the hell out. His term can't end soon enough for me. And nobody is going to vote for his wife for governor. I guess he'll have to find a job with Trump.

@soryang I have missed out on making friends, haven't I? The intensity with which you monitor news from SK, no wonder you can't keep up with news from Europe and the ME! It is so positive that Lee is easing tensions between SK and NK.
I have never met anyone from either Korea. SK and Japan were on my travel bucket list, but all travel for me changed in 2020. I haven't been to an airport since.
The home improvement task on the addition, one room, got finished this week right down to installing the A/C and hanging the window blinds. It was a longer process than expected, but turned out to be absolutely gorgeous.
Enjoy your weekend!

After we came back from working at the house yesterday evening, there were a couple of S.Korean pilot instructors from the local U, walking their dogs and coming towards me. I was getting some stuff out of the car. So I said hello in Korean and told them their dogs were cute (a couple of minature poodles). So they stopped to talk, and Ms. So came back from the apartment to see what I was doing, and we all talked for awhile. Another pilot instructor joined the group, a diminutive young Korean woman. It's just amazing how South Koreans are so friendly. I will say the same about the very friendly Philippine-American manager of the apartment complex.

Yesterday, I heard some report of polling results in South Korea on receptivity to "others." The results showed that younger Koreans had far more receptivity to those from foreign countries (dare I say diverse peoples?) than the older generations. Go figure. The xenophobic elders in South Korea were Yoon and Kim Man-soo supporters.

There is a lot of concern presently over the US slowdown on the acceptance of South Korea student visas for matriculation in US colleges and universities. The pilot instructors told Ms. So, that there a lot of Indian, S.Korean, and other ethnicity students and instructors at the university and so quotas were proposed to increase the number of white instructors and limit "others." The overrepresentation of foreign/minority students from Asia was strictly the result of performance criteria. This was the nature of the discussion anyway.

We had S.Korean friends, a married couple, who moved to Australia a few years ago. He got a Ph.D. in aviation operations management at this university. He was hired to manage an airport in Australia.

Today, I saw a couple of videos on Jeon Han-kil, the right wing youtuber, often seen at the far right rallies supporting Yoon Seok-yeol. Professionally, he was an academic lecturer in exam prep for S.Korean students which is highly competitive.

His political work is patronized by the Korean CPAC, Amy Chan, former Amb. Morse Tan, and Gordon Chang. He is one of the primary advocates of the bogus "Chinese interference in S.Korean elections" conspiracy theory that purportedly justified Yoon's martial law attempt. I'm just putting this video short here so people can recognize him, if he's seen in any future street violence or US propaganda. This short below is propaganda. It claims he is supported, in effect, by Trump, and western media. And if he is investigated or prosecuted for involvement in illegal activity related to Yoon (I'm thinking interference with Yoon's initial arrest, or similar acts) there will be consequences from the US.

I had a lawyer boss in government who used to say, "make it not smell, make it go away" was an important government gestalt. This is what this video interview of former Ambassador Goldberg is about. He dresses up a pig, the Biden/ Asia department at State (Kurt Campbell) policy toward Yoon and Korea policy. He's very skilled. He doesn't even mention Japan or the Indo-Pacific policy at all. Elbridge Colby is new East Asia policy guy. He's another piece of work. I know this is less interesting than the current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East but I still like to keep track. I thank everyone here for helping me to keep up with all that. I am quite interested in it, I used to brief politics in the Med, air warfare, and do some mission planning in the area as very young person. Fortunately, it was all peacetime.

Snyder is conservative MIC hack, but he lets Goldberg talk. I think what they overlook, is that Yoon with US dismantled the 9.19 Military Agreement between North and South Korea which reduces tension along the DMZ and buffer zones it established. Yoon deliberately dismantled this and increased the risks of war breaking out. Lee is already taking steps to walk this back.

End to inter-Korea ‘loudspeaker war’?

edited to fix video short link, typos, grammar

@Socialprogressive Thanks, friend!
Enjoy your weekend!

Prediction
The orange shitgibbon will claim a larger turn out for his Everybody Look At Me parade than the turn out for the No Kings marches.

@Cassiodorus Thanks for the excerpt.
Enjoy your weekend, friend.

from the book I'm currently writing:

Communist parties are important and meaningful, as they were in Marx’s time. But they emerge neither out of class struggle, nor the forces, nor the relations, of production, but rather out of the social imaginary. The primary enemy of the owning class now appears to be the owning class itself.

Historically, the owning class has imagined, from the periods discussed in Kees van der Pijl’s The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class to the present day, that maintaining its rule over the world will be easy. They then, in their vast intellectual hubris, imagine that any resistance they meet to their designs upon the world will be overcome by the cleverness of their proxies, which in the current era means Israel and Ukraine, and which more generally means the cops, the Armed Forces, and the alphabet agencies, and is fortified by their possession of atomic weapons. We can expect that genocides will be perpetrated now and then to spice things up, Gaza being just the first.

After a few decades of this reality and after a painful, several-lifetimes-long struggle with the social imaginary, we might harbor a slim hope that humanity will recognize that a communist party (it will not have that name) will be necessary to oppose (and not merely to pretend to oppose, as the Democratic Party does) such a formation. This is the class struggle as it currently stands.

@snoopydawg The most picked on country in history is the most warmongering, murderous country in modern history, but that is now possibly considered to be antisemitic.
At the moment, Iran is bombing the shit out of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Wonder what they will look like in the morning. Gaza?
Give Sam a big hug for me, ok?

pic.twitter.com/lDr3BgySvD

— Nury Vittachi (@NuryVittachi) June 13, 2025

@Pluto's Republic I am up but not a dig deeper into the sludge at this point. Your comment will be my coffee read in the morning.
Thanks for the comment my friend!

.
The rampant mental illness that has consumed the United States is being watched and discussed the world over. The very existence of the United States has become a threat to humanity throughout the world. A global flood of opinion pieces written by experts, historians, diplomats, behavioral psychologists, heads of state, political philosophers, and journalists — are being published in an effort to diagnose the self-destructive derangement the United States. Opinions vary a great deal, although they are generally very pertinent and plausible. There is an urgency, as well, for the international community to understand how it is possible in the 21st century for a country and the majority of its people can become completely unhinged from reality. This disorder is conceived and born in abject ignorance and a complete lack of data or facts — but there appears to be something more that has tipped the collective mind of the nation into mass (majority) insanity. I will be publishing the best of these editorials, as I find them, under the heading:
_____________________________
D I A G N O S I S — U S — S O S
_____________________________

The editorial, below, appeared in China Daily newspaper this week. The editorial discusses the symptoms of US self-destruction within an historical framework. It recalls a time when the United States appeared to be rational, although after the "Little Pearl Harbor" event of 9/11 when the Neocons took power, the US became increasingly unhinged from reality and history. As the US sunk deeper and deeper into paranoid delusions its decisions became an increasingly destructive threat to the world. The US has shoved concerns about the environment into the garbage bin as greedy US leaders insist on extracting and pocketing profits from environmentally destructive fossil fuels, imposing an unnecessary risk and damage onto the entire planet and its life forms. Greed is both a capital crime and a mark of insanity.

One day, the American people will discover the terrible crime committed against them and their families by their corrupt government when it denyed them access to very affordable, highly advanced, EV vehicles from China. Some of these vehicles have batteries that can travel up to 1000 miles on a single 6 minute battery change. (Yes, there are automated battery changing stations instead of charging stations.) This year, middle class workers and commuters will be throughly asset-stripped by the costs of fossil fuels (and highly tariffed and restricted auto parts) which will send prices for all products and services soaring in the US. Millions will be pushed into poverty by the greed of their corrupt leaders. And the poor unhinged people will vote them back into office. The delusional people will believe they are punishing China by impoverishing themselves and crushing their own futures. But, with luck, the American shitshow will hopefully hit the looming economic wall before this year is over — and it will be incapable of causing anymore harm to the planet and the rest of humanity.

White House losing touch with humanity, environment

By Najib Saab | China Daily Global | Updated: 2025-06-12
The author is secretary-general of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development and editor-in-chief of Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia magazine.

A COUNTRY SHOULD NOT BE GOVERNED LIKE A GREEDY PRIVATE BUSINESS, free from all restrictions, standards and human values, aiming only to achieve quick profits. The worst is when this comes at the cost of depleting natural resources, through enticement and intimidation to exploit the economic and security vulnerabilities of other countries. In doing so, they destroy the natural balance and deprive future generations of their right to a healthy environment. Climate change policies are perhaps the most striking example of this moral decline, notably in the United States.

The current level of decay in the US' climate policy is unprecedented. Although the environment and climate were not at the forefront of George W. Bush's presidency from 2001 to 2009, the US did not obstruct global negotiations. Bush was keen to maintain the US' position as an active player in the international community, while demanding burden-sharing among countries in line with his administration's concept of justice, despite refusing to admit his country's historical responsibility for emissions — thus refusing the principle of compensation for damages.

Conversely, Bush allocated large budgets for scientific research, including those related to the environment, clean energy and climate, alongside preserving academic freedoms. His policies were, nonetheless, based on combating environmental and climate degradation through technology, not by reducing emissions or changing consumption patterns, in a society that prides itself on its consumerist values.

Today, we are witnessing an unprecedented scene in the US: the politicization of scientific research and the repression of researchers and universities. This is not limited to the imprisonment, and even deportation, of anyone the current US administration considers to be opposed to its policies, but extends to cutting off research budgets for universities that refuse to surrender to political guidelines. In the areas of renewable energy, climate change and the environment in general, the US administration has withdrawn hundreds of billions of dollars from programs designed to support research and boost the transition to clean energy.

The cuts cover many other areas, including medical research, humanities and international law. This has already accelerated a serious brain drain, with thousands of students and researchers looking for opportunities outside the US.

Among the most bizarre measures, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced it would stop tracking the costs of climate crisis-fueled disasters, including floods, heat waves and wildfires, thus halting updates to its weather database — as if burying the numbers makes the problem go away.

In April, the White House signed an executive order allowing commercial deep-sea mining, within the US and in international waters, regardless of the ensuing environmental impact on a fragile ecosystem. This unprecedented act, which has been considered a blunt violation of international laws, was preceded by eliminating restrictions on oil, gas and coal exploration in protected areas.

Under another executive order, the US administration repealed household water efficiency requirements, which restrict the amount of water allowed in shower heads, faucets, dishwashers, toilets and washing machines. Ironically, on the day this "water order" was signed, around 2 billion people in the world lacked access to clean water, and nearly 4 billion lacked minimum sanitation, according to the United Nations. In another executive order, the administration canceled $8 billion in clean energy programs.

Stopping research funding and hiding figures on climate change and environmental degradation will not alter the reality or halt deterioration. Any easing of climate action today will have to be compensated in the future with stronger, painful measures. A presidency is a passing event, while climate change is an established reality. As happened during Donald Trump's first term, the US retreat will invite other countries to fill the gap, particularly in the fields of renewable energy and efficiency. The US will discover, albeit too late, that it sacrificed its competitiveness for short-term gains.

Let's not forget that China's rapid rise in renewable energy and its global leadership in solar and wind energy are partially attributable to the former George W. Bush administration's loose climate policies. China was quick to read the writing on the wall and chose to invest in the future, and all countries should do the same. Arbitrary tariffs will not compensate for the failures caused by shortsighted policies, especially when a country loses its competitive edge.

Governments must recognize that countries and civilizations are not commodities for sale, and that bullying policies are unsustainable. Governments that care about their people's interests must develop their own capabilities and build alliances that preserve their sovereignty and rights to their natural resources.