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Thursday, February 29, 2024
Inside the White House Program to Share America’s Secrets | TIME
Inside the White House Program to Share America’s Secrets | TIME: Mass surveillance and social media are changing the spy game.
[Salon] The Decline of Newspapers: A Threat to Democracy -
The Decline of Newspapers: A Threat To Democracy
By
Allan C. Brownfeld
———————————————————————————————————————-
The importance of a free press to a democratic society was recognized by America’s Founding Fathers. In 1787, Thomas Jefferson declared, “The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Newspapers are in a serious state of decline. This decline accelerated so rapidly in 2023 that analysts now believe the U.S. will have one third of the newspapers it had as of 2005 by the end of 2024.
Most communities that lose a local paper usually do not get a replacement, even on line. There are roughly 6,000 newspapers left in America, down from 8,891 in 2005. According to a report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Of the papers that still survive, a majority (4,790) publish weekly, not daily. In the U.S., 204 counties, or 64%, have no local news outlet at all.
“Simply put,” wrote Buffalo News owner Warren Buffet, “If cable and satellite broadcasting, as well as the internet had come along first, newspapers as we know them probably would never have existed.”
From 2005 to 2021, about 2,200 American local print newspapers have closed. From 2008 to 2020, the number of American newspaper journalists fell by more than half. The annual report from Northwestern University’s School of Journalism indicates that since 2005, nearly 2,900 newspapers have closed, eliminating the jobs of two-thirds—-43,000—-of newspaper journalists. In 2023, an average of five papers disappeared every two weeks.
Jon K. Lauck, a historian at the University of SouthDakota, writes in Middle West Review, which he edits, that the State Journal-Register in Springfield, Illinois had 70 people in its newsroom in 2000 and now has fewer than ten. Since 2015, the newsroom at the Omaha World Herald has contracted from more than 200 to 62. Sunday circulation, 302,000 in 1980 is now about 40,000.
When I worked in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a regular part of our schedule was meeting with reporters from hometown newspapers who checked on a regular basis on what the local member of Congress or the Senate was doing. I remember meeting on a regular basis with reporters checking on what was going on. Today, in 21 states, no newspapers have a correspondent in Washington.
Between 2009 and 2014, the number of Washington, D.C.-based reporters for local newspapers accredited to Congress declined by 90. Arizona and Indiana, for example, have 9-member congressional delegations—-but not a single accredited reporter. Members of Congress act differently when they know that no one is carefully observing—-and reporting about—-what they are doing.
There was a time when Americans based their opinions on a common and shared set of facts. Most people learned what they knew of the world from the nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC. When they went to the office, the gym or the classroom they discussed public affairs with the same set of facts at their disposal. Now, with cable television, the internet and social media, everyone has different—-often contradictory and often inaccurate information at their disposal. Those who watch CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News all have different and contradictory information in their heads. Even election results are different. Those who assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 may genuinely have believed Donald Trump won the election because their sources of information told them that he did.
We now live in a society in which newspapers with real investigative reporters are in decline and opinion reigns supreme—-on websites, podcasts and partisan t.v.networks. Truth, as a result, is in decline and opinions held by many are based on totally false information.
When I was growing up in New York City, we had four morning newspapers—-the Daily News, the Mirror, the Times and the Herald Tribune. In Brooklyn, there was also the daily Brooklyn Eagle. We then had a group of evening papers, the Journal American, the World Telegram and Sun and the Post. They represented a variety of perspectives and points of view. Our local newsstand also had a multitude of foreign language newspapers——in Italian, German, Yiddish, Greek, Norwegian, Spanish, Chinese and even in Gaelic, spoken by many Irish immigrants. While we confront an immigration problem at the present time, many forget that our country’s whole history is a story of immigration.
It is sad to remember the large variety of newspapers we once had and the way they have largely disappeared. I remember the many papers I once read in different places, and those which printed my column——-the Houston Press, Phoenix Gazette, Richmond News Leader, the Washington Evening Star and Daily News, the Philadelphia Bulletin——all gone.
Now that we have a government——but fewer and fewer newspapers keeping a close eye on what it is doing—-Thomas Jefferson would probably recall his earlier statement about government and newspapers as being somewhat prophetic.
##
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Does High-Profile Climate Science Tell the Full Story?
Does High-Profile Climate Science Tell the Full Story?: Social feedbacks and career incentives cause scientists to leave out a lot.
America's green conservatives and the quest for 'green liberty' - R Street Institute
America's green conservatives and the quest for 'green liberty' - R Street Institute: Political movements are ironic, indeterminate, inspiring and infuriating. Conservatism and environmentalism exemplify how movements’ identities and relationship to each other evolve, often dramatically. A century ago, the two intersected regularly. Over the past decade, both movements have strayed from their roots and each other. Yet the underlying political and economic conditions in the United States...
Time could soon be ripe for China to lead negotiations to end Ukraine-Russia war | South China Morning Post
Time could soon be ripe for China to lead negotiations to end Ukraine-Russia war | South China Morning Post: After two years of war, China hasn’t been able to help broker peace in Ukraine. But that could be about to change.
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
The October 7th America Has Forgotten - TomDispatch.com
The October 7th America Has Forgotten - TomDispatch.com
Andrea Mazzarino, War's Cost Is Unfathomable
February 27, 2024
Consider it strange that the cost in lives, in wounds, in illness -- the actual numbers or at least estimates when it comes to Israel's nightmarish campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's horrifying October 7th assault -- are so much a part of the news these days. I mention this only because while you can now sit at home and read or hear about the estimated 29,000-plus dead Gazans, including more than 12,000 dead children, and the more than half a million Gazans facing "catastrophic hunger," when it came to our own country's devastating wars in response to al-Qaeda's nightmarish 9/11 attacks, you could read no such thing in our mainstream media. The numbers from what came to be known as the war on terror were largely unavailable, which meant that there was no way to truly take in the horror of what our country was doing in distant lands like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.
Or at least that was true until, in 2010, today's author, Andrea Mazzarino, co-founded the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute. Since then, that remarkable project has put some numbers on this country's war on terror campaigns, ranging from their cost to us (at least $8 trillion) to the deaths they've caused (almost a million direct deaths, including more than 430,000 civilians, and as many as 3.8 million indirect ones), and the number of refugees they've created (at least 38 million).
Still, I'm struck that, while we already have that estimated (and, all too sadly, ever-increasing) number of children slaughtered in Gaza, there's no known equivalent number for the American wars of this century. Were such figures available, they would undoubtedly be shocking. In that context, let TomDispatch regular Mazzarino compare American reactions to the present nightmare in Israel and Gaza to those about our own never-ending global wars. Tom
Israel uses starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza – Middle East Monitor
Israel uses starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza – Middle East Monitor: 9 out of 10 people in Gaza today cannot eat every day and have to skip meals for extended periods of time, according to the UN.
Monday, February 26, 2024
Somali Institute of Chinese Studies on X: "RIP Aaron He died crying "Free Palestine" #AaronBushnell — a true hero, a brave young man who gave up his life so citizens in the West can feel what's like to die as a Palestinian in Gaza. This is how babies in Gaza die everyday, innocent mothers, fathers, sisters & brothers. https://t.co/x1m35Sjux5" / X
NATO: Sweden Clears Final Hurdle With Hungary Vote - Bloomberg
NATO: Sweden Clears Final Hurdle With Hungary Vote - Bloomberg: Sweden Clears Final Hurdle to Join NATO With Hungary Vote
Hungary’s parliament ratified Sweden’s accession on Monday
Swedish membership is likely to be finalized within days
These Drug Companies Are Going Nuclear to Fight Cancer - WSJ
These Drug Companies Are Going Nuclear to Fight Cancer - WSJ: Big pharma’s investments in nuclear medicine highlight how cancer treatment is shifting to targeted approaches.
(341) Steve Bannon describes what a second Donald Trump Presidency would look like | LBC - YouTube
(341) Steve Bannon describes what a second Donald Trump Presidency would look like | LBC - YouTube
Todd Piere writes:
I’m resigned to living out my life with Orwell’s 1984 dystopia having finally come to full fruition in the U.S., under either the Democrats,or worse, the Republicans, as we’ve seen since 9/11, and even worse, the worst of the worst, “Trump’s” and Heritage’s Kevin Robert’s “Third-Way!” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ua2OE42ffw). Where 2+2=5, with no one batting an eye when that is asserted, as Trumpites/DeSantisites do here routinely, as the equivalent of 2 +2=5, of how “Trump was “Fighting the Blob," and was “Ending the Endless Wars.” Even while he was escalating the Low-Intensity Conflicts against all of Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela. With a prominent "Non-Interventionist Conservative” and a libertarian cheering Trump on in the latter’s case in calling for killer sanctions on Venezuela. While concealing what he was doing to the other three. One has to be deliberately obtuse, or deceptive, to assert that Trump would do anything to disrupt the ideological and financial rewards his Oligarchical backers from 2016: Adelson, Koch, Mercer(s), and Thiel, gain from not “Ending the Endless Wars. So that was never Trump’s intent, and still isn’t. Regardless of what The “New,” post-2015, American Conservative magazine and the “Conservative-wing” of the Quincy Institute tell us, as they both did here, as 2+2=5:
https://quincyinst.org/events/the-new-right-ukraine-marks-major-foreign-policy-shift-among-conservatives/
But here is Bannon, the “Rock-Star” of the New Right, and go-to guy for all the Trumpites; Sharma, Hazony, Ben Shapiro, TAC’s Curt Mills, et al., providing “nuance” to what Trumpism really stood for:
See 3:22 and 6:42
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_4jPrJFpsE (see Kevin Roberts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ua2OE42ffw)
> "Steve Bannon describes what a second Donald Trump Presidency would look like | LBC"
[Salon] Aaron Bushnell Burned Himself Alive To Make You Turn Your Eyes To Gaza -
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/aaron-bushnell-burned-himself-alive?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=142062953&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=210kv&open=false&utm_medium=email
"Whether you watch it or not, it happened, just like the incineration of Gaza is happening right now. We each own our personal response to that reality. This is who we are."
Aaron Bushnell Burned Himself Alive To Make You Turn Your Eyes To Gaza
Sulaiman Ahmed on X: "VIDEO OF LATE AARON BUSHNELL WHO PASSED AWAY Aaron Bushnell, 25, has passed away. Graphic footage shows the U.S Army soldier set himself on fire as a show of Solidarity with the Palestinian cause in front of the Israeli Embassy. He shouted: "I will no longer be complicit in… https://t.co/KP8UJBOb8w" / X
From CIA To 'Trust & Safety': The Silicon Valley-US Intel Revolving Door Is Bigger Than You Thought | ZeroHedge
From CIA To 'Trust & Safety': The Silicon Valley-US Intel Revolving Door Is Bigger Than You Thought | ZeroHedge: ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
Sunday, February 25, 2024
War Is Bad for You - And the Economy - TomDispatch.com
War Is Bad for You - And the Economy - TomDispatch.com
Tom writes:
William Hartung, False Job Claims Fuel Massive Pentagon Budgets
February 25, 2024
Imagine for a moment that I told you Congress was suddenly teetering at the edge of passing a $95-billion bill to give many more Americans reasonable health care. No, it really doesn't sound likely, does it? Okay, then, how about Congress teetering at the edge of passing just such a bill to further arm Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan with American weaponry of all sorts? Oh wait, it may be to arm those countries further, but it's also to fund the giant all-American arms-makers, those key components of the military-industrial-congressional complex, since money for weaponry meant for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan will actually go directly to them, as TomDispatch regular and Pentagon expert William Hartung explains today.
Oh, and just imagine for a moment that, should those arms companies get such near-record funding anytime soon, some of that money -- count on it -- will be poured into endless cost overruns and distinctly dysfunctional weapons systems. You want an example? Take Boeing, which should be considered the poster child for such a reality right now. If you've been watching the nightly news, I'm sure you've noticed those Boeing 737 Max 9 commercial jets that were discovered to be missing door bolts after a door plug from one of them fell 16,000 feet into an Oregon backyard.
What's been far less noticed is that Boeing has an unnervingly similar record when it comes to building military aircraft. Take, for instance, the new Boeing aerial refueling tanker, meant to replace the Air Force's aging fleet of such planes. It simply doesn't work. At the cost of a genuine fortune, it's years behind schedule, plagued by major deficiencies, way over cost, and still not fully ready for use. Similarly, in early December, after a crash near Japan killed eight airmen, the Pentagon grounded its full fleet of Boeing CV-22 Ospreys (which have experienced 10 fatal crashes that have killed 57 people over the last 23 years). And that's just to list the problems of two Boeing aircraft.
With that in mind, let Hartung explore an all-American world in which taxpayer dollars continue to pour into the military-industrial complex and how efficiently that "arsenal of democracy" responds by delivering ever less to Americans. He offers, in fact, a shocking vision of where our tax dollars are really going and why that's bad for us. Tom
[Salon] The war in Ukraine and our obligation to seek peace
https://www.meer.com/en/72408-the-war-in-ukraine-and-our-obligation-to-seek-peace
The war in Ukraine and our obligation to seek peace
A call to find peaceful solutions
20 February 2023,
Michael von der Schulenburg
The war in Ukraine is now entering its second year without any attempt being made to find a peaceful solution. Instead of initiating peace talks, the warring parties have become further entangled in a dangerous spiral of military escalation by deploying of ever more powerful weapon systems. As if still stuck in the belligerent thinking of the first half of the 20th century, they hope that large-scale military offensives and a military victory could bring them the sought for peace. In the process, this will only further destroy Ukraine. But an even more dangerous consequence is that the prestige of the world's two largest nuclear powers hangs on the outcome of such military offensives. This increases the risk of a direct confrontation between the nuclear powers USA and Russia – hence two countries that possess about 90% of all nuclear weapons in the world.
After WWI and WWII, this would be the third time that a war that started on European soil could turn into a world war - only this time with potentially more devastating consequences. Already now, people around the world who have nothing to do with this war, suffer its economic consequences; a nuclear war could wipe out all people, regardless of whether they belong to a warring party or not. Thus, a situation has arisen that our forefathers had wanted to prevent through the UN Charter.
The Preamble of the UN Charter states that "We the peoples of the United Nations (are) determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind…” Unfortunately, this appeal of the UN Charter seems forgotten today. Especially, the original founding members, and hence supposed protectors, of the UN Charter, the US, UK, France and now also Russia, have repeatedly eroded its principles for their own political aims or, indeed, ignored it altogether. As permanent members of the UN Security Council with a veto power they were in a position to do this. In the Ukraine war, these four veto powers have now become direct adversaries, making a mockery of the UN Charter meant to prevent such wars. They thus bear primary responsibility for this war and its consequences vis-à-vis humanity.
The UN Charter’s primary call is to seek peaceful solutions
A constantly repeated argument in the West is that Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is illegal under international law and that Ukraine thus has not only the right to defend itself, but also the right to ask other states for help in defending itself. This is indisputable, as this conclusion is based on the principles of the UN Charter. But does the UN Charter thereby also give the West the right to continue this war at will, to seek a military victory over Russia and to refuse all peace efforts on these grounds? Certainly not!
The reason is that the UN Charter is an agreement among all member states to resolve their conflicts peacefully; the ban on the use of military force for political ends is based on this - and not vice versa. The UN Charter is hence not a global ceasefire agreement, but the obligation for all member states to guarantee global peace by peaceful means. It is this aspect in which the UN-Charter breaks with a military logic of the past that has led to so many wars, especially in Europe. If today it is again argued that peace can only be achieved by force of arms - hence by war - this is a throwback to the militaristic thinking from before the UN Charter.
The UN Charter states as its main task "To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace…”. And then more explicitly: "All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a way that international peace, security and justice are not endangered".
The Charter obligation to resolve conflicts peacefully exists not only to prevent wars, but also to find ways out of wars. For example, the UN General Assembly resolution of 2 March 2022, which strongly condemned Russia's military intervention, calls not only on Russia and Ukraine but on all states involved to find a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian war: "the General Assembly urges the immediate peaceful settlement of the conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine through political dialogue, negotiation, mediation and other peaceful means."
In many ways, the UN Charter is superior to today's dominant black-and-white view of a world between good and evil, or even between supposedly democratic and authoritarian states. The UN Charter does not use terms such as war of aggression, preventive war, anti-terrorist war or even humanitarian war. It does not distinguish between the respective political systems of the member states, nor does it distinguish between justified and unjustified points of contention between the parties to a conflict. The UN Charter assumes that there are always two sides to every conflict, but that they must be reconciled by peaceful means. Applied to the Ukraine war, any conflict between Russia's security interests and those of Ukraine should have been resolved through negotiations. The West’s refusal to accept Russia’s security concerns as legitimate and now its refusal to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict has made it complicit in the war in Ukraine.
The West's complicity in the Ukraine war
The seriousness of the escalating conflict over the expansion of NATO to Russia's borders, which has now led to war, has been evident to all parties since at least 1994. Russia has warned time and again that admitting Ukraine and Georgia to NATO would violate its elementary security interests and cross a red line. This would be a classic conflict that should - and probably could - have been resolved diplomatically in accordance with the UN Charter. But this did not happen, neither to prevent a war nor to achieve a peaceful outcome to the war once it had begun. This, too, is a breach of the UN Charter.
Ignoring Russia’s concerns, Ukraine's accession to NATO was systematically pursued. This went not on withot repeated provocations. The West did not even shy away from supporting the violent overthrow of a legitimately elected (OSCE) Ukrainian president in 2014 in order to install a government favorable to NATO accession. According to Victoria Nuland, now US Deputy Secretary of State, the US had funded this overthrow to the tune of $5 billion; in reality, this may have been a much higher amount. Also this is a gross violation of the sovereignty of a UN member and thus a breach of the UN Charter.
After the recent statements by Angela Merkel and Francois Holland about the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements, the question arises whether these were negotiated in 'good faith' or served the only purpose of gaining the time necessary for the military build-up of Ukraine. Since these agreements became legally binding through the decision of the UN Security Council, this would be a shocking travesty of any international law.
When in 2021 Russia responded to NATO's decision to move ahead with Ukraine's NATO accession by massing troops on its border with Ukraine, it made a new attempt to reach a peaceful resolution. This led to a series of diplomatic activities, but the West categorically rejected any talks about Ukraine joining NATO. The Ukrainian government even responded in February 2022 with what were the most massive bombardments of the pro-Russian rebel-held Donbas and its civilian population.
Even after the war broke out, NATO, especially the USA and UK, torpedoed all peace efforts. Already in the first week of March 2022, the then Prime Minister of Israel, Naftali Bennet, tried to mediate a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. According to his recent interview, Russia and Ukraine showed great interest in ending the war quickly and a ceasefire was in Bennet’s words "within reach". But it did not come to it, because, as Bennet explained, "they (the US and UK) blocked a ceasefire, and I thought they were wrong".
The more important peace efforts were the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations. In the third week of March 2022, just one month after the outbreak of the war, both sides had managed to settle on an outline for a comprehensive peace agreement: the Ukraine would agree not to join NATO and not to allow any military bases of foreign powers on its territory, while Russia would in return agree to recognize Ukraine's territorial integrity and to withdraw all Russian occupation troops. Special arrangements were foreseen for the Donbas and Crimea. A peace conference planned for 29 March 2022 in Istanbul, was intended to negotiate the remaining questions (such as security guarantees) in the hope of arriving at draft peace treaty. But then Ukraine withdrew from the peace negotiations under pressure from the USA and the UK. Turkish Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu would later say about the failed Istanbul peace conference: "some NATO countries wanted the war in Ukraine to continue in order to weaken Russia".
How many lives, how much sufferings and how much destruction could have been avoided if NATO had thrown its weight behind the Ukrainian-Russian peace efforts in March? It was, after all, what Ukraine had then wanted. Instead, NATO torpedoed these peace efforts and hence bears a heavy share of the blame for the many victims and destruction caused by the war ever since.
We have to grant the Ukraine that it sought - initially, at least – for peaceful solutions. President Zelensky had immediately after the outbreak of war asked Israeli Prime Minister Bennet to mediate with Russia. It was also he who had encouraged the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations that begun at about the same time. As late as 27 March 2022, Zelensky had shown the courage to defend the preliminary results of the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations in public in front of Russian journalists - despite the fact that NATO had by then already decided at its special summit on 24 March 2022 not to oppose these peace negotiations. In the end, Zelensky gave in to NATO pressures and opted for a continuation of the war. Given the Ukraine’s heavy dependence on Western financial and military support, he probably had other options.
The decision to continue the war has now led to a widespread destruction of Ukraine, immeasurable suffering of the people there and the loss of large parts of Ukrainian territory. Today, Ukraine's negotiating position would be much worse than it was in March 2022. This may explain Zelensky's current stance of betting everything on a total victory over Russia. But even if this would be at all possible, such a victory would come at enormous human costs and could entail the complete destruction of Ukraine. President Zelensky and most of his comrades-in-arms must have realized by now that they should not have listened to their new friends from the West in March/April. By rejecting a negotiated solution back in March, Ukrainians are now paying with their blood for a war that pursues strategic interest of NATO. It may not be the last time that Ukrainians could feel betrayed.
The Ukraine war is proof that the UN Charter is indispensable
Since the end of the Cold War, the West, especially the US, has repeatedly questioned the validity of the UN Charter. The UN Charter and its principle of "sovereign equality" are not compatible with the US' claim to sole global leadership. In its perceived role as the global rule maker, the USA had, according to the US Congressional Research Service, carried out 251 military interventions in other countries since the end of the Cold War – not counting secret CIA operations or support to proxy wars. It can be assumed that many - if not most of these interventions were violations of the UN Charter. In almost all cases, they were unsuccessful and have left only human suffering, destruction, chaos and dysfunctional governments behind; democracies have never emerged from them. Is Ukraine now destined to suffer a similar fate?
The war in Ukraine has brought the world closer to a nuclear catastrophe than any other conflict since the end of the Cold War - perhaps even since the end of WWII. This should have made us all painfully aware of how important, indeed irreplaceable, the UN Charter still is today for regulating peaceful relations among its member states. To maintain world peace, the only way left to humankind is through a voluntary agreement between states to resolve their conflicts peacefully.
The UN Charter was once a huge gift to humanity by the victorious powers of the Second World War, the US, the then Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France. Today, precisely these states (or their successor states) have discredited themselves do the degree that they can no longer be expected to renew and protect the UN Charter. The torch for a peaceful world order based on cooperation must now be carried by other countries, by countries like Brazil, Argentina and Mexico in Latin America; by India, China and Indonesia in Asia; by South Africa, Nigeria and Ethiopia in Africa or Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. If these countries assume a greater responsibility for maintaining a global peace, they would also take an important step towards a more multipolar and just world. What could be better to do this than by returning to a global peace order based on the UN Charter and its principle of "the sovereign equality of all its members"?
(340) When Your Faith Is Put to the Test - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon - YouTube
(340) When Your Faith Is Put to the Test - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon - YouTube: Friends, we come now to the Second Sunday of Lent, and we’re on both dangerous and very holy ground with the first reading from the twenty-second chapter of ...
(339) Does the Bible Agree with Science? w/ Fr. Robert Spitzer - The Bible Timeline Show w/ Jeff Cavins - YouTube
(339) Does the Bible Agree with Science? w/ Fr. Robert Spitzer - The Bible Timeline Show w/ Jeff Cavins - YouTube: Can faith and science find common ground? For many departing from Christianity, science stands as a primary reason for their disbelief. They argue that Chris...
US, China Exploring New Debt Relief Options to Avoid Emerging-Market Defaults - Bloomberg
US, China Exploring New Debt Relief Options to Avoid Emerging-Market Defaults - Bloomberg: The US and China are discussing new measures to prevent a wave of emerging market sovereign defaults, according to people familiar with the situation, one of the most significant attempts in years at economic cooperation between the rival superpowers.
Chinese scientists invent method to transform salty soil into fertile farmland as Beijing pushes food security | South China Morning Post
Chinese scientists invent method to transform salty soil into fertile farmland as Beijing pushes food security | South China Morning Post: Researchers treat saline-alkaline wasteland with crop stalks and plastic covering to retain moisture and prevent salt from rising to the surface, increasing crop yields by 30.5 per cent.
Lavrov urges creation of new Global Economic Governance entities - Modern Diplomacy
Lavrov urges creation of new Global Economic Governance entities - Modern Diplomacy: Global financial institutions of the Bretton Woods System are becoming a relic of the past, new entities should be created which would rely on mutual gain and interests
Saturday, February 24, 2024
Chinese Control Over U.S. Oil And Gas At Heart Of Biden Family Influence Peddling, New Whistleblower Reveals
Chinese Control Over U.S. Oil And Gas At Heart Of Biden Family Influence Peddling, New Whistleblower Reveals: New testimony by a former business partner to Hunter Biden confirms that investors in China, Mexico, And Kazakhstan were buying political influence with President Joe Biden
Palestine is a Nuclear Issue - Why is Hiroshima Silent? - CounterPunch.org
Palestine is a Nuclear Issue - Why is Hiroshima Silent? - CounterPunch.org: On October 13, 2023, CounterPunch published my article “This is Genocide: All Out to End the War on Gaza”, in which I sounded the alarm about the
(336) Saudi Arabia Vs Israel Historic Moment at ICJ: Team MBS Lambasts Israel's Aggression in Rafah, Gaza - YouTube
(336) Saudi Arabia Vs Israel Historic Moment at ICJ: Team MBS Lambasts Israel's Aggression in Rafah, Gaza - YouTube: Saudi Arabia's ambassador to The Netherlands, Ziad Al-Atiyah, condemned Israel's actions at the ICJ, calling them a flagrant violation of international law. ...
US intelligence casts doubt on Israeli claims of UNRWA-Hamas links, report says | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
US intelligence casts doubt on Israeli claims of UNRWA-Hamas links, report says | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian: Intel report says some accusations that aid workers participated in Hamas attacks credible but could not be independently verified
Wall Street Greed Is Giving the CCP Free Rein to Subvert America: Casey Fleming | EpochTV
Wall Street Greed Is Giving the CCP Free Rein to Subvert America: Casey Fleming | EpochTV: The Chinese Communist Party has been banging the drums of war at the same time they’ve been trying to insulate their economy and build up their military.
Ending the Ukraine War through Democratic Voting
FM: John Whitbeck
On the second anniversary of the launching of Russia's "special military operation", I am recirculating below the message which I transmitted on February 24, 2022.
Few people without personal financial and/or professional reasons for wishing the war to be perpetuated would today dispute that the Ukrainian people have been sacrificed, like the peoples of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, on "the great game-board of full-spectrum global dominance."
For whatever it may be worth, I am also retransmitting immediately below the link to my proposal for ending the war in Ukraine through democratic voting rather than through continued competitive killing:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/17/a-democratic-end-to-ukraines-war
My proposal would, in accordance with the precedent set by NATO's war to separate Kosovo from Serbia, prioritize the self-determination of peoples over the territorial integrity of states, the subject of my article (below) which was published on February 24, 2022.
Awkwardly for American decision-makers, a decision to advocate a democratic solution in Ukraine's case, while serving the essential objective of saving face, would entail a high probability of producing what the U.S. government would deem the "wrong" result, as did the most recent Palestinian elections, which were democratically and decisively won by Hamas in 2006.
However, since, as I have noted on numerous occasions, American foreign/war policies in recent decades have not been results-oriented (at least in terms of their publicly proclaimed objectives), one may still hope that relevant decision-makers might, if only for self-centered and self-serving reasons, decide to prioritize saving face over probable results and, thereby, finally serve the genuine interests of the Ukrainian people, who do not need yet more Ukrainian deaths and destruction for no conceivable Ukrainian benefit or gain.
The slaughter of combatants in Ukraine, like the genocidal assault against the people of Gaza, needs to end, not to be perpetuated by Western politicians "for as long as it takes" or, so as to delay the eventually inevitable and politically embarrassing admission of failure, until after the American presidential election in November.
Statistics on Deaths and Destruction in Gaza and Ukraine - M: John Whitbeck
Transmitted below is a link to a useful chart prepared by the EURO-MED HUMAN RIGHTS MONITOR on the deaths (38,000+), wounded (71,000+) and destruction inflicted upon the people of the Gaza Strip during the past 4-1/2 months as a result of Israel's continuing effort to make the Gaza Strip unlivable, leaving its people with an existential choice between death and departure.
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6176/Statistics-on-the-Israeli-attack-on-the-Gaza-Strip-(07-October---23-February-2024)
By contrast, according to a UN report issued this week (https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/two-year-update-protection-civilians-impact-hostilities-civilians-24.pdf), in the two years of the war in Ukraine, roughly 10,000 civilians have been killed and nearly 20,000 injured -- awful but not in the same league with the experience in a much shorter period of Gaza's much smaller population.
The dramatically different responses of the governments and media of the United States and the Global West to the events in Gaza and Ukraine constitute yet another vivid manifestation of Rule No. 1 of the U.S.-dictated "rules-based order" (https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/28/what-is-the-rules-based-order).
The Oasis Plan — LaRouche's Solution for the Middle East | The LaRouche Organization
The Oasis Plan — LaRouche's Solution for the Middle East | The LaRouche Organization
This plan was advanced years ago and largely dismissed due to its source. Present circumstances should make it clear that that was a mistake -- an early example of the "cancel culture" that considers the source of information and reporting more important than its substance..
Friday, February 23, 2024
The US is Not Just Complicit, But an ENABLER of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza (Prof. Avi Shlaim)
The US is Not Just Complicit, But an ENABLER of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza (Prof. Avi Shlaim): FOLLOW ALL OF OUR PLATFORMS: https://linktr.ee/goingundergroundtv On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Israeli- British Historian Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations
Do We All Agree that the COVID-19 mRNA Injections are Bioweapons Now?
Do We All Agree that the COVID-19 mRNA Injections are Bioweapons Now?: When is the right time to inform the American people that they have been subjected to psychological and biological warfare by their own government under the guise of public health and safety?
Prototype fusion reactor planned for TVA site : New Nuclear - World Nuclear News
Prototype fusion reactor planned for TVA site : New Nuclear - World Nuclear News: US fusion energy developer Type One Energy Group has announced plans to build Infinity One - its stellarator fusion prototype machine - at Tennessee Valley Authority's Bull Run Fossil Plant in Clinton, Tennessee.
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Megatron on X: "BREAKING: ⚡ 🇮🇱 Israeli Knesset member Hanoch Milbitsky: "You will die, your children will die, your grandchildren will die, there won't be a Palestinian state, there will never be," He shouted at Arab member Ayman Odeh following the voting regarding the possible recognition… https://t.co/gNAHJ2FwEH" / X
I’m Heartbroken by the War in Israel - TomDispatch.com
I’m Heartbroken by the War in Israel - TomDispatch.com
Tom writes:
Robert Lipsyte, What Kind of Jew Am I?
Posted on February 22, 2024
I grew up in the least-Jewish Jewish family around in the 1950s. We celebrated Christmas every year in a big-time fashion: tree, decorations, and all. And despite the desires of my dear grandmother, there would be no temple, no Sunday Hebrew school, no religion of any sort. I actually went to a Quaker school and I suspect that the first temple I ever entered was at 13 for a friend’s bar mitzvah. I did have one Israeli buddy for a few years, a neighbor who got a black-and-white TV before we did and so I spent as much time as I could in his apartment until his family went back to the Middle East. Yes, sometime in those early years, I was on the street with my own father when a passing stranger made an antisemitic slur and, being a tough, no-nonsense guy (“Major” Engelhardt as he liked his friends to call him from his years in World War II), my dad went right after him. And yes, one of my first roommates at Yale (which had only removed its Jewish quotas a year or two before I arrived in 1962), someone I grew to like, later told me that his dad, undoubtedly a Yale alumni, had specifically warned him to watch out for any Jew at Yale whose father was in the insurance business. (Consider that a knife through the heart!)
And none of that has ever changed. I married an ex-Catholic, brought my kids up without religion, and though there’s a temple catty-corner to the apartment building I’ve lived in for almost the last half-century, I’ve only been inside it once (for a Pete Seeger concert). And yet, explain it as you will, I take what Benjamin Netanyahu and crew, the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, are doing in Gaza in a strangely personal fashion. Yes, I was horrified when Hamas committed its grim crimes on October 7th, but somehow, somewhere deep in my heart, I never thought that the Israelis would respond not just in kind but in a fashion even more horrifying and without end.
I mean, honestly, given the historic suffering of Jews, who the hell kills untold thousands of children in a 25-mile-strip of land; attacks every hospital in sight; instantly cuts off food, fuel, and water to more than two million people; causes massive deaths (a daily toll higher than any other significant twenty-first-century conflict); destroys more than half of that area’s housing; and leaves untold thousands of Gazan civilians starving to death and with untreated illnesses of all sorts — and, after all of that, still isn’t faintly done? Somehow — yes, call it the hidden Jew in me — I take offense at that. And in that context, let me turn to TomDispatch regular Robert Lipsyte who offers his own very personal look at what being Jewish has meant to him and means to him now in this all-too-hellish world of ours. Tom
Erst Xinjiang, dann China - GERMAN-FOREIGN-POLICY.com
Erst Xinjiang, dann China - GERMAN-FOREIGN-POLICY.com
https://www.german-foreign-policy.com/news/detail/9492
First Xinjiang, then China . . .
German corporations are withdrawing from Xinjiang due to US pressure. Sinologists warn that the accusations of forced labor are "not conclusively proven". Activist brings into play demand for the withdrawal of Western companies from all over China.
22
FEB
2024
Fact check
Among other things, the accusation that Uyghurs are subjected to forced labor in Xinjiang was investigated, among others, by the sinologist Björn Alpermann from the University of Würzburg. Alpermann, who cannot be considered a political partisan of the Chinese government, concludes in an extremely detailed analysis that "direct coercion or even 'slave work'" could be proven "not conclusively". 1] Although there are also "programs [...] for poverty eradication" in Xinjiang, within the framework of which Uyghurs have to work in industry or in the service sector; there one can "at least assume strong mobilization pressure". However, the long-term unemployed may also be obliged to work in Germany; the fact that non-profit activities are remunerated lower in such cases than activities on the "regular labor market" is "also common in democratic social states," says Alpermann. He explicitly warns against "taking the companies socially associated with Xinjiang into liability" or even "putting the whole region under an embargo": In my opinion, this "goes too far and harms the people living there rather than that it helps them." 2]
Burden of proof reversed
However, this is exactly the case in the United States. The Biden administration has on the 1st June 2022, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) came into force, which in principle prohibits the import into the USA of products that were completely or only partially manufactured in Xinjiang. Exceptions are at best possible if it can be proven "clearly and convincingly" that not at any point in the supply chain was forced labored to produce the products. 3] This is hardly possible in everyday life, especially under the given political conditions. By mid-April last year alone, US customs had seized goods worth 961 million US dollars because they actually or allegedly contained components from Xinjiang. This only affected in the least part direct imports from the People's Republic; while goods imported from there were fixed worth 80 million US dollars, these were also goods worth 370 million US dollars from Vietnam and goods worth 461 million US dollars from Malaysia. 4] In fact, the UFLPA aims to force all companies worldwide that export their products to the USA to dispense with goods including raw materials from Xinjiang and thus economically isolate the area.
An informal embargo
The UFLPA now also meets the Volkswagen Group. Currently, thousands of vehicles of the Audi, Porsche and Bentley brands have been fixed in US ports. The reason is that the US authorities claim that a single component contained in them was manufactured in Xinjiang. 5] According to Volkswagen, this is a small part of the control unit. The group now wants to replace it, but can only deliver its vehicles with a severe delay. In fact, Washington can force the German group not to use any components from Xinjiang in the production of its export models and to require its suppliers to no longer process raw materials from the region.
role model USA
In addition to the problems with export to the United States, the EU is now planning a law on the model of the UFLPA. The EU Commission has already on the 14th September 2022 proposed a corresponding regulation, which without exception affects all imports into the Member States. The European Parliament further tightened the regulation in October 2023 and thus entered into the final discussions with the Commission and the European Council. 6] Accordingly, a list is to be drawn up on which entire sectors of regions suspected of actual or allegedly forced labor are listed. 7] For all products imported from there, the burden of proof should be reversed - according to the US model. Companies would then have to prove beyond doubt that the production of the goods was one hundred percent without the use of forced labor. As in the case of the UFLPA, this is hardly possible in practice.
The retreat begins
Meanwhile, the withdrawal of German corporations from Xinjiang seems to have begun. On the 9th In February, BASF announced that the exit from two joint ventures based in Xinjiang had already been initiated in the fourth quarter of 2023. 8] The group stated that it is thus drawing the consequences of the fact that there is global overcapacity. However, observers doubt the motive. With a total of around 120 employees, however, the size and importance of the factories were limited. The Volkswagen Group is now also examining whether it will maintain its Urumqi location in Xinjiang. However, according to its own information, this now only has almost 200 employees, so it would probably be replaceable without unjustifiable effort.[ 9]
Decoupling
Of course, it has long been clear that forces close to the US government want to transfer the campaign to break off economic relations with Xinjiang into a campaign to break all economic relations with China. This is evidenced by statements by Adrian Zenz, an activist of the anti-communist Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), who began his career at the Evangelical Academy for World Mission in Korntal near Stuttgart and is now promoted in Washington as an alleged China expert. 10] Zenz recently said that the supply chains in China are "so non-transparent" that they are hard to see through. However, if you can no longer distinguish whether a concrete product comes from Xinjiang or from another Chinese region, "then you may have to repel the entire country." 11] This would be the decoupling that the former and possibly future US President Donald Trump is striving for.
[1], [2] Björn Alpermann: Xinjiang. China and the Uighurs. Würzburg 2021.
[3] USA - Fight against forced labor. ihk.de 04.05.2023.
[4] Andrea Day, Chris DiLella: Since June, Feds have seized nearly $1 billion in goods tied to forced labor. cnbc.com 17.04.2023.
[5] Christina Kunkel, Florian Müller: Traffic jam in the harbor. Süddeutsche Zeitung 16.02.2024.
[6] Proposal for a ban on goods made using forced labour. europarl.europa.eu 24.11.2023.
[7] Import ban on goods from forced labor. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 16.10.2023.
[8] BASF will sell shares in its two joint ventures in Korla, China. basf.com 09.02.2024.
[9] VW examines the future of the plant in Xinjiang. tagesschau.de 14.02.2024.
[10] Christian Geinitz: China enlightener led by God. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 17.02.2024.
[11] Nikolaus J. Kurmayer: Solar PV industry caught up in China forced-labour controversy. euractiv.com 16.02.2024.
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