Showing posts with label Information Clearing House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Information Clearing House. Show all posts

Monday, 16 September 2019

Israel's Future???

        Israel, a state born on the promise of an invisible man in the sky, who is said to have promised this particular tribe a large part of the Middle East. As far as I am aware, there were no witnesses to this promise, and I doubt if an invisible man in the sky would have the where-with-all to write the promise down and sign it. So some "man" had to do the writing, again, as far as I am aware, their were no witness at the invisible man's dictation. What a load of crap to use as the foundation of a state, but those who believe this nonsense are prepared to maim, kill, and steal land from others to fulfill this childish fiction story.
      That ludicrous fictional promise has spawned the largest concentration camp on the planet, the enslavement and creeping genocide of a group of people who happen to have lived on the plot of land for countless centuries, the Palestinians.
       It is hard to imagine any state built on such ludicrous foundations could possible come into existence, let alone last, but it suited the imperialist powers of the time, and today Israel survives as it is doing the job of the Western imperialists policeman in the Middle East. But for how mach longer?
An interesting article on Israel's possible future,
          September 14, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - The lesson to be drawn from the current Israeli political stalemate is that Israel is imploding, breaking into the elements it has never managed to integrate into one. The schism is no longer the more quotidian dichotomy of Ashkenazi vs. Arab Jews (aka Sephardim); this divide is ideological, religious, spiritual, political, ethnic and cultural. Nor does it break down to Left and Right, Jewish Israelis are politically with the right even when they pretend to be ‘Left.’ Although some of the most astute critical voices of Israeli politics and Jewish fundamentalism are Israelis (such as Gideon Levi, Shlomo Sand, Israel Shamir and others), there is no political Israeli Left. Israeli politics break down into a lot of extreme right voters and many ordinary hawks. The Arab Joint List Party is practically the only Left party in the Israeli Knesset. This should not be surprising any more. Jewish Left, as I have been arguing for many years, is an oxymoron; Jewishness is a form of tribal identification and Left is universal. The ‘tribal’ and the ‘universal’ are like oil and water, they do not mix very well.
       What is peculiar about the Israeli political divide is that the Israelis are more united than ever in their nationalist beliefs and in the primacy of their Jewish symptoms. Why is it, if the Israelis are so unified, that no one can form a government in their so-called ‘Jewish State’?
        Avigdor Lieberman, formerly an enthusiastic Netanyahu ally and himself a radical Jewish nationalist, delved into the Israeli political deadlock yesterday. He maintained that the elections had already been decided: “The ultra-Orthodox and Messianic bloc reaches 62-61 seats.” The leader of the rabid nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu said, “If there is no voting rate of at least 70% in Gush Dan and Sharon, the Halacha government will be established.”
        Basically, Lieberman said that unless secular Israelis in Tel Aviv go to the polls, they should expect to live in a Halacha State under an ultra right wing Netanyahu government. Lieberman appears to hold the key to Israel’s political stability. Although he and Netanyahu are ideological twins regarding Israeli security and nationalist matters, the two are bitter rivals who fight aggressively against each other. Netanyahu has known for a few years that, absent a strong ultra right wing government, he can expect to spend some time behind bars, an adventure that has become common for Israel’s prime political figures. Netanyahu’s natural partners are the ultra right parties and the orthodox parties. Ideologically, Lieberman should also feel comfortable within such a political coalition but Lieberman has made a crucial political decision, essential for his political survival. A while back he grasped that his political home base, Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, many of them barely Jewish and subjected to constant rabbinical terror, regard the Jewish Orthodox parties as their ultimate foes. Many of these Russian and Ukrainian Jews hold ultra right wing political positions but also see the Rabbis as an imminent threat to their survival.
         Theoretically, Lieberman could broker a huge unity coalition with Netanyahu at the top, joined by Blue and White (Kachol Lavan) and its three right wing field marshals, Lieberman’s own party and probably the Labour party. Such a coalition would hold around 80 Knesset seats, more than enough to sustain a strong government but this coalition would refuse to guarantee Netanyahu’s immunity.
       Netanyahu gambles instead on a weak ultra right wing religious government, a government that may not hold for very long but would buy more time for its PM to stay out of jail.
        This conflict at the heart of Israeli politics is a window into the Jewish state and its fears. Israel is rapidly becoming an Orthodox Jewish state. Israel’s Orthodox Jews are the fastest growing group in the country. They are also the country’s poorest population, 45 percent live below the poverty line in segregated communities. Ordinarily, one would expect the poor to support the left, but Israeli Torah Jews are rabid nationalists and openly lend their support to Benjamin Netanyahu and his party.
        Prof. Dan Ben-David of Tel Aviv University warned recently that Israel could cease to exist in a couple of generations. He pointed to the astonishingly high birth rate among ultra Orthodox Jews and predicted that, based on current trends, they will comprise 49% of Israel’s population by 2065. The ultra Orthodox parties are destined to dominate the Knesset within a generation or less. Ben David predicts that their dependence on Israel’s welfare system will lead to a rapid decline is Israel’s economy. This is economically damaging enough and is made worse by the refusal of most rabbinical schools to incorporate standard Western subjects such as mathematics, science and English into their core curriculum. Consequently, Israel is educating a growing percentage of its population in a fashion that fails to equip them to contribute to the needs of a hi-tech society that is immersed in a conflict for survival.
        The picture that comes across is peculiar. As Israel becomes increasingly Jewish and fundamentalist in its nationalist and religious ethos, it has also become more divided on everything else. The Russian immigrants find it impossible to live alongside the ultra Orthodox and vice versa. The secular enclave in Tel Aviv is committed to seeing their metropolis as an extension of NY. The Israeli Left has morphed into an LGBT hasbara unit. It has practically removed itself from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Jewish settlers adhere to the concept of a ‘Two Jewish States Solution.’ They want to see the West Bank become a Jewish land. Orthodox Jews are barely concerned with any of these political issues. They well know that the future of the Jewish state belongs to them. All they need to do is sustain a productive secular Jewish minority to serve as their milk cow. On top of all of that we face Bibi’s survival wars that threaten to escalate any minute into a world conflict.
         In light of all of this, the Palestinians are in relatively good shape.. They simply need to survive. Israel seems to be Israel’s fiercest enemy.
         Gilad Atzmon is a saxophonist, writer, and political activist. He was born in Israel, but now lives in London. https://gilad.online/writings/2019/9/12/the-end-of-israel
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Sunday, 15 September 2019

Trust And False Narratives.

        Where is the truth, how do we find it in the smoke and mirrors of the state propaganda mouthpiece, the mainstream media? How many of us live the false narrative of the state, seeing "our people" as special, better, different, while those "others" over there are in some way inferior, to be treated with suspicion and to be feared. The appalling treatment of migrants is one living proof of the result of this poisonous narrative. Wars are built on false narratives, otherwise would the bus driver want to go overseas to kill the shop assistant, or the gardener want to kill the plumber from over there? States can't exist without a false narrative, how else would they keep their wealth, power and privileges, while the rest of us struggle from week to week? How else would they get their citizens to send their sons and daughters across the sea to kill some other parents' sons and daughters? Our system is built on false narratives. One way to see through the false narratives is to abolish borders, see all humanity as our brothers and sisters, see our differences and admire at the variety, live with a system of mutual aid, sustainability, co-operation and seeing to all our people's needs, free from the profit motive. Put an end to wealth accumulation, privileges, and power over another. A difficult job, but do you see an alternative?

              An interesting extract from from Tony Kevin, (retired Australian diplomat.) 
Truth, Trust and False Narratives

          Let me now turn to some theory about political reality and perception, and how national communities are persuaded to accept false narratives. Let me acknowledge my debt to the fearless and brilliant Australian independent online journalist, Caitlin Johnstone.
          Behavioural scientists have worked in the field of what used to be called propaganda since WW1. England has always excelled in this field. Modern wars are won or lost not just on the battlefield, but in people’s minds. Propaganda, or as we now call it information warfare, is as much about influencing people’s beliefs within your own national communityas it is about trying to demoralise and subvert the enemy population.
       The IT revolution of the past few years has exponentially magnified the effectiveness of information warfare. Already in the 1940s, George Orwell understood how easily governments are able to control and shape public perceptions of reality and to suppress dissent. His brilliant books 1984 and Animal Farm are still instruction manuals in principles of information warfare. Their plots tell of the creation by the state of false narratives, with which to control their gullible populations.
         The disillusioned Orwell wrote from his experience of real politics. As a volunteer fighter in the Spanish Civil War, he saw how both Spanish sides used false news and propaganda narratives to demonise the enemy. He also saw how the Nazi and Stalinist systems in Germany and Russia used propaganda to support show trials and purges, the concentration camps and the Gulag, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, German master race and Stalinist class enemy ideologies; and hows dissident thought was suppressed in these controlled societies. Orwell tried to warn his readers: all this could happen here too, in our familiar old England. But because the good guys won the war against fascism, his warnings were ignored.
          We are now in Britain, U.S. and Australia actually living in an information warfare world that has disturbing echoes of the world that Orwell wrote about. The essence of information control is the effective state management of two elements, trust and fear, to generate and uphold a particular view of truth. Truth, trust and fear: these are the three key elements, now as 100 years ago in WWI Britain.
Read the full article HERE:
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American Privileges.

 
       Another fine article from Australian Caitlin Johnstone, summing up some American home truths, not a lot I could add to this piece except to say that we citizens of its puppet regimes are equally guilty as our governments bend their knee to all those American privileges. We are complicity in so much as our acceptance our governments unquestioning and safeguarding those American privileges. Our governments are very unlikely to change their stance on these privileges, but perhaps we could change our support for such a corrupt and damaging structure.

American Privilege
By Caitlin Johnstone


         September 14, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -

        American liberals and progressives talk a bit about white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege etc, but one thing I never hear them talk about is American privilege: the ability their nationality gives them to have a relationship with this world that the rest of us do not have.
         American privilege is reassuring yourself that there are problems enough at home without worrying about the trillions your government’s war machine is spending terrorizing the world and encircling the planet with military bases.
     American privilege is reluctantly allowing the potential Commanders-in-Chief have an eight-minute conversation about foreign policy in your presidential primary debates, when your country’s military policy functionally dictates the affairs of rest of the world.
        American privilege is arguing against the legality of assault weapons on the basis that they are “weapons of war”, implying that they’re fine as long as they’re used to kill some foreigner’s kids.
         American privilege is being able to masturbate your outrage addiction over a racist joke while ignoring the way your military murders black and brown people by the tens of thousands every year.
          American privilege is being able to lose your mind over someone using the wrong pronouns while paying no attention to the fact that your government pours your tax money and resources into governments and groups who hang gay people in the town square.
         American privilege is believing your propaganda is the truth, and everyone else’s understanding of the world is fake news.

There are 800 U.S. military bases in 80 countries. https://t.co/yUrf7T5U1B pic.twitter.com/AAqqJ25ZFd
— CounterPunch (@NatCounterPunch) March 5, 2016
          American privilege is assuming your prudish Puritanical brand of sexuality is healthy and normal so it’s no big deal that you insist that all English-speaking social media adheres to your creepy nipple-hating norms.
         American privilege is telling foreigners to butt out of your politics when your politics are literally killing them.
          American privilege is having a shit fit over election meddling in one social media post, while cheerleading regime change in the next.
        American privilege is starting a war on a lie without being charged with a war crime.
          American privilege is committing war crimes with impunity while jailing the whistleblowers and journalists who reveal them and still getting to call yourselves the good guys.
           American privilege is being able to spend all day arguing online about domestic policy while the rest of the world, completely incapable of influencing your government’s behavior, prays you don’t get us all killed.
         American privilege is only having a robust antiwar movement when your own citizens are at risk of being drafted, then completely forgetting about peace for decades while an increasingly robotic military force gives you even more peace of mind.
         American privilege is being able to relax about war because your soldiers are being replaced with drones and proxy militias in US-driven conflicts, even though those kill people just as dead as manually operated killing machines.
        American privilege is being hush-hush about the egregious imperialist stances of progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders because they have some decent domestic policies.
      American privilege is black bloc protests against public appearances by figures like Milo Yiannopoulos and the Proud Boys while murderous war pigs like Bill Kristol, Henry Kissinger, John Bolton, David Frum and arms industry executives go from appearance to appearance completely unbothered.
         American privilege is benefiting from cheap goods and oil and a strong dollar and never wondering how many innocent foreigners lost their lives and homes in the wars your government starts to make that so.
       American privilege is living in a nation whose government can murder an entire family one day with explosives dropped from the sky, and yet you never hearing about it because that isn’t considered a newsworthy occurrence.
        American privilege is being one of the worst-travelled populations in the world while having military bases in countries that most Americans wouldn’t recognize the name of, let alone have been to.
        American privilege is having your insane culture normalized around the world via Hollywood and other media so that nobody stops and wonders why we’re letting this bat shit crazy nation rule our planet, and so no one makes you feel bad about your American privilege.
       American privilege is living in a nation that uses its military and economic might to terrorize, murder, imprison, starve and impoverish anyone who doesn’t go along with its interests, and feeling no urgent need to bring a stop to this.
        American privilege is being fine with being the world leader, but not being too bothered about what exactly that means.
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Tuesday, 23 April 2019

The West's Fiction Narrative On Syria.

      I have stated several times before that the conflict in Syria was World War iii. A blood bath that brought all the major powers into open conflict. The only difference between this world war and the other two was the fact the the slaughter was more or less contained to one specific region. The result was much the same, the major powers readjusted their areas of influence. Of course, as usual, this was at the expense of the civilian population, who suffered unimaginable misery, death and deprivation, as well as the total destruction of a country's infrastructure.
      Most of us agree that the reporting of this slaughter of civilians was distorted, massaged and trimmed to suit the western power mongers. We know or should know, that the mainstream media is the propaganda mouth piece of the rich and powerful, to facilitate their grotesque and greed driven agenda. It is always heartening when you find a reporter that ignored the handed out script and pried for themselves to find out what was really happening in this well orchestrated slaughter for power.
      The following are two extracts from a very detailed and informative article on the Syrian conflict. If you are interested in the truth of that crime against humanity, I can't emphasise enough, this is an article you must read in full.

The Secret History Of America's Defeat In Syria.
 
After years covering the "main battlefield in World War III," Narwani says everything you think you know is wrong.
By Patrick Lawrence.

As you’ve just suggested, Syria has long seemed to be a different kind of war, a new kind — a war fought with images, information and disinformation, true and false portrayals of events, people, organizations, and so on. Based on what you’ve written over many years — and from inside Syria, on the ground — I would think you agree with this.
In some ways, Syria wasn’t that different. All modern Western wars have been fought with manipulated imagery and disinformation. We call it propaganda and accuse the Nazis and Soviets of doing it, but the U.S. does it better than anyone. It’s literally the main tool in America's military kit: Otherwise, Americans would never accept the never-ending wars. There used to be laws forbidding the U.S. government from propagandizing the American people. The Obama administration undid many of those legal barriers. If you ever have a chance to read the U.S. Special Forces’ Unconventional Warfare manual, you will see how fundamental propaganda is to U.S. efforts to maintain hegemony. Everything starts and ends with “scene-setting” and “swaying perceptions” to prepare a population to support invasion, occupation, drone wars, “humanitarian interventions,” rebellion, regime change.
It was no different in Syria. The U.S. government imposed key narratives from day one — that Assad was indiscriminately killing civilians in a popular, peaceful revolution. Was this true? Not particularly. Eighty-eight soldiers were killed across Syria in the first month of protests. You never heard that in the Western media. That information would have altered your perception of the conflict, wouldn’t it?
The Syrian opposition used to burn tires on the tops of buildings to simulate shelling for TV cameras. Did you see that footage here? The only reason Syria seems like a “different kind of war” is because we had Twitter and Facebook and alternative media punching holes in Washington’s storyline every day — and because Syrians had the audacity to resist for eight years. You can’t keep up an act for eight years. People catch on.------
      ----  


Another area of interest is the question of when and how the opposition — supposedly unarmed at the start — came to be armed. The question of proportionate responses to violence comes into this, as you’ve just suggested.  
Elements of the opposition were armed from the very start of the conflict. We have visual and anecdotal evidence of weapons caches, armed gunmen infiltrating the Lebanese border, and “foreign” gunmen appearing in Daraa, the city [in southern Syria] where protests first manifested. In the early days, it was hard to prove this because efforts were made to hide evidence that the opposition had weapons — and anyone claiming so was instantly marginalized. But then the Arab League (which had suspended Syria and was therefore viewed as an impartial body) sent in an observer team that produced a stunning report — one you did not read about in the Western press. The observer mission detailed the opposition’s bombings and terrorism and attacks on infrastructure and civilians. 
I also know the opposition was armed from the start [March 2011] because of my own investigation and discovery that 88 Syrian soldiers were ambushed and killed across Syria in the first month of the conflict…. I have their names, ages, ranks, birthplaces — everything. Then in June 2011, over 100 Syrian soldiers were murdered in Jisr Shughour, in Idlib Province, many with their heads cut off, and nobody could dispute this anymore. Yet we continued to hear “the opposition is unarmed and peaceful” in the media for a good long while.
But you asked about proportionality, and to that I would simply ask: What if there were armed men in Washington who killed a few cops in the last week of December? In January, these unknown shooters began a campaign of ambushing American servicemen coming and going from their bases in Fairfax, Newport News, Arlington, killing 88 in total. Then, in March, over 100 U.S. soldiers are killed in a single day, half with their heads cut off. What is a “proportionate” response for you…? That answer about proportionality will be different for different people, I can assure you.
The next question is obvious. Who armed the opposition? Are we able to say?
We know today the U.S., U.K., France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Turkey are the main countries that armed, trained, financed and equipped the militants, and that they found intricate ways to avoid detection, especially at the beginning. Weapons came into Syria from all five border countries at different parts of this conflict — Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Israel — but I would say the most weapons probably arrived via Turkey, arms transfers that were very much coordinated with its NATO partners.
Read the full article HERE: 
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Thursday, 18 April 2019

The Insane With Devastating Power.

        The political circus that we see day in day out is really scenes from an asylum. An asylum that houses some of the most deranged individuals on earth, as well as some of the world's worst psychopaths. Entering their world is not for the fainthearted, you will hear tales of fantasy and planned deeds of brutal slaughter of the innocent. Truth is something that has disappeared from their psyche, realism is something that belongs to the ordinary people outside the walls of the asylum. Sadly, much to our detriment, we seem to have given the residents of the asylum all the tools of power.  Do you recall the brutal and deliberate massacres during the Korean war: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-korean-war-era-massacre-was-policy/ Then remember the illegal invasion of Iraq: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq and now we have two US inmates Bolton and Pompeo planning a war against Iran: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51447.htm
         And so it goes on and on, too many massacres to list, countless illegal wars and invasions, the endless slaughter of millions of innocent people. All to fulfill the insane dreams and fantasies of the deranged psychopaths of the political asylum. It is long past the time when we should have quarantined the asylum and removed all powers of destruction from the insane inmates. To leave the political asylum as it is will mean an ever escalating world of death and destruction, an ever increasing multitude of hungry and deprived, an ever increasing level of inequality. Though it would appear that we also might be insane if we tolerate this situation much longer, as humanity demands a change and time is running out.


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Thursday, 11 April 2019

The Far Reaching Tentacles Of The Zionist Apartheid Israeli State.


 
          The tentacles of the Zionist apartheid government of Israel reach far and deep, slithering into cracks and fissures of foreign politics. However, America is probably where its tainted wealth finds its greatest success in influencing a states foreign policy. Just another example, if one was needed, of how deep pockets have the power to influence and in some cases, dictate, the affairs of governments. Just another cancerous feature of this corrupt capitalist system that dominates our lives.
         April 10, 2019 "Information Clearing House"
       How do you take a typical progressive and turn him or her into a fascist? One possible way is to send the poor bastard off on an all expenses paid trip to Israel where a meticulously crafted and sophisticated brainwashing program will make one believe almost anything regarding the noble and God-chosen Israelis versus the satanic Arab terrorists. Add into that the fact that being pro-Israel is a plus in many career fields and it is easy to understand why a monster like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets favorable press and commentary in the United States even as he is reviled in most of the rest of the world.
        The liberal to fascist metamorphosis is most evident among Democratic Party politicians, who have been successfully targeted by the Israel Lobby and its deep pocketed supporters for many years. It is all part of a massive public relations campaign, which some might instead refer to as disinformation, planned and executed by the Israeli foreign ministry and its diaspora supporters to advance Israeli interests in spite of the fact that the government of Netanyahu has implemented and executed fundamentally anti-democratic programs while at the same time committing war crimes and violating a whole series of United Nations resolutions.
       Israel works hard to influence the United States at all levels. Its tentacles dig deep, now extending to local and state government levels where candidates for office can expect to be grilled by Jewish constituents regarding their views on the Middle East. The constituents often insist that the responses be provided in writing. The candidates being grilled understand perfectly well that their answers will determine what kind of press coverage and level of donations they will receive in return.
        One of the most blatant propaganda programs is the sponsorship of free “educational” trips to Israel for all newly elected congressmen and spouses. The trips are normally led by Israel boosters in Congress like Democratic House Speaker Steny Hoyer, who recently boasted at an AIPAC gathering how he has done 15 trips to Israel and is now preparing to do another with 30 Democratic congressmen, including nearly all of those who are newly elected. The congressional trips are carefully coordinated with the Israeli government and are both organized and paid for by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). Other trips sponsored by AIEF as well as by other Jewish organizations include politicians at state and even local levels as well as journalists who write about foreign policy.
Read the full article HERE: 
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Sunday, 31 March 2019

Trying To See Through The Lies And Misinformation.

 
       Just a little more information on the web of US lead Western media lies and misinformation being woven around Venezuela.
         March 30, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - Venezuela is America's current target for mass destabilization in the hope of installing a puppet government.
        America has for years been waging an economic war against Venezuela, including debilitating sanctions which have dramatically affected the state's ability to purchase medicines, and even mundane replacement parts needed in buses, ambulances, etc. Alongside the economic war there has been a steady propaganda war, but in recent months, the propaganda has escalated dramatically, from corporate media to US political figures.
        Venezuela is described as “the country pilots are refusing to fly to,” as per a March 18, 2019, AP article on American Airlines cancelling all flights to Venezuela, containing scary phrases like “safety concerns” and “civil unrest.”
        On March 9, American cancelled my Miami-Caracas flight on the basis that there wasn't enough electricity to land at Caracas airport. Strangely enough, the Copa flight I took the following day after an overnight in Panama had no problem landing, nor did Copa flights on the day of my own cancelled flight, according to Copa staff.
        The cancellation of flights to Venezuela then lends legitimacy to the shrill tweets of Marco Rubio, Mike Pence, John Bolton, and the previously unknown non-president, Juan Guaido.
        I've been in various areas of Caracas since March 10, and I've seen none of this “civil unrest” that corporate media are talking about. I've walked around Caracas, usually on my own, and haven't experienced the worry for my safety corporate media is telling Westerners they should suddenly feel more than normal in Venezuela.
         In fact, I see little difference from the Venezuela I knew in 2010 when I spent half a year here, except the hyperinflation is absurdly worse and in my absence I missed the years of extreme right-wing opposition supporters street violence – a benign term for the guarimbas which saw opposition supporters burning people alive, among other violence against people and security.
         So it strikes me that the decision of American Airlines to stop flying to Venezuela is not about safety and security issues, but is political, in line with increasingly hollow rhetoric about a humanitarian crisis that does not exist, even according to former UN Special Rapporteur, Alfred de Zayas.
           I asked Paul Dobson, a journalist who has lived in Venezuela the last 14 years, if anything like this had happened before. Turns out it has, also at a very timely moment.
          “At the time of the National Constituent Assembly elections, July 30, 2017, the major airlines – including Air France, United, American, pretty much all of the European airlines – suspended their flights one day before the elections, citing “security reasons.” Most of the services were reopened about four days after the elections, some of them two weeks after the elections.”
       So were there 'security concerns? I asked Paul.
       “This was towards the end of street violence (guarimbas) that had been going on for six months in the country. Why didn't they suspend their activity six months before, two months before? They did it the day before the elections, clearly trying to influence votes and the way that people see their country internationally. There were no extra security concerns that day than any day over the last 6 months. So, there was really no justification for it. And it caused massive problems on the ground, around elections.”
         I spent most of afternoon in Petare, one of poorest areas of Caracas & the most sprawling series of barrios in Latin America. Ppl I met there spoke about Imperialist & economic war against them, & how they will continue defending their country. Night & day fr these howling idiots pic.twitter.com/hQxutY6vhR
— Eva Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) March 27, 2019
Continue Reading:


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Friday, 29 March 2019

Wars Make Money, But Not For The People.

      Just look around, speak your mind, then do something about it.
From Information Clearing House, The American War Machine:


Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Poisoning The Wells.

        A couple of years before the "referendum", 2014, Dmitry Orlov wrote an article called The Imperial Collapse Playbook. It gives his take on the "big picture" on the various conflicts across the globe, orchestrated by the Anglo-imperialists, UK and US. It makes for interesting reading, below is just an extract from the article. When reading the piece reflect on the dates, written in 2014, and our "referendum" 2016.
     ------What's more, it's starting to look like they are about to get kicked out of Eurasia altogether. Most of the major Eurasian players—China, Russia, India, Iran, much of Central Asia—are cementing their ties around the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to which the United States isn't even admitted as an observer. As for the European Union, the current crop of EU politicians is very much bought and will be paid for upon retirement by the Anglo-imperialists, but the only reason they are still in power is that there are lots of older voters in Western Europe, and older people tend to cling to what they know even after it stops working—for them or, especially, for their kids. If it was up to the young people, the Anglo-imperialists would face open rebellion. In fact, the trends in voting patterns show that their departure from the region is a matter of time.
        Here is a preview of possible coming attractions. On their way out, the Anglo-imperialists will of course try to set up an anti-Europe, and the obvious choice for that is Britain. Of all the European nations, it is the most heavily manipulated by their Anglo cousins from across the pond. It would take minimal effort for them to hurt Britain economically, then launch a propaganda campaign to redirect the blame for the bad economy toward the continent. They wouldn't even have to hire translators for their propaganda—a simple “spelling-chequer” (or whatever) would suffice. And so, to make sure that their efforts to provoke a large-scale, hugely destructive, festering conflict between Britain and Europe fail, Europe would do well to set up an anti-Britain within Britain.
        And the obvious choice for an anti-Britain is of course Scotland, where the recent independence referendum failed because of... the recalcitrance of older voters. A dividing line between the Anglo empire and Eurasia running through the English Channel/La Manche would be a disaster for Europe and moving it somewhere west of Bermuda would pose a formidable challenge. On the other hand, suppose that line ran along Hadrian's Wall, with the traditionally combative and ornery Scots, armed with the remnants of North Sea oil and gas, aligning themselves with the Continent, while England remains an ever-so-obedient vassal of the Anglo-imperialists? That would reduce the intercontinental conflict to what Americans like to call a “pissing contest”: not worth the high price of admission. Yes, there would be some strong words between the two sides, and some shoving and shouting outside of pubs, and even some black eyes and loose teeth should diplomacy fail, but that should be the extent of the damage. That I see as the best-case outcome.
         So that's the big picture I see heading into 2015, which I am sure will be a most tumultuous year. Not to make a prediction as to timing (don't worry, you won't ever get one out of me!) but 2015 could be the year the Anglo-imperialist franchise finally starts shutting down in obvious ways. We know it will have to shut down eventually, because failing all the time is not conducive to its survival. The bonus question is, what sort of anti-America will these parasites set up inside America before they abandon their host and scatter to their fortified compounds in undisclosed locations around the world? Or will they not even bother, and just provoke a war of all against all?-------
Read the full article HERE: 
Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Wednesday, 6 March 2019

Apartheid Israel And Genocide.

     I, like many others, understandably get "rather angry" at that grouping of pro-Israeli, Friends of Israel, who jump up and shout "anti-Semitic" at anyone who should have any inkling of a criticism of the state of Israel. They continually point the finger of contempt, and act as cheerleaders, in an attempt to vilify anyone who casts a critical eye over the affairs of that apartheid state. I for one don't think they are blind to the apartheid structure of the Israeli state, I do believe they see nothing wrong in the inhuman, brutal actions of that state. Their anti-Semitic protestations are an attempt to divert the public eye away from the reality on the the ground, perpetrated by the Zionist cabal that rule over that plot of land called Israel.  
     All the evidence is there, Israel is an apartheid state, the suffering of the non-Jews under it heel is there for all to see, but our millionaire pro-Israeli press look the other way. I would go further and state that the state of Israel is carrying out a planned, deliberate, slow, but brutal genocide on the people of Palestine. All this based on the insane belief that some 2,000 years ago, a man in the sky gave this patch of the planet to the Jews, and they will shed blood to hold onto that ridiculous belief, while the world turns a blind eye, or worse, aids and abets this inhuman, vicious insanity.
The many forms of apartheid Israel

        While there is still widespread ignorance among most people in the West, as most readers of Mondoweiss will know by now, apartheid in Israel takes many forms. One more obvious form it takes is in the overt racism enshrined in Israel’s 2018 “Nation-State law” that discontinued Arabic as an official language and that is now being challenged in Court. Another obvious form is Israel’s continued blockade and frequent bombing of the trapped residents of Gaza (since 2005). That treatment is currently the subject of a preliminary examination by the International Criminal Court and has also been investigated by the United Nations, which has called for criminal investigations into the killings of protestors at the Gaza border beginning last March.
       As explained by human rights organisations such as Al-Haq and Palestinian Center for Human Rights, further argued by international law scholars John Dugard and John Reynolds and elaborated in a UN report, apartheid also takes the form of literally hundreds of insidious Israeli military orders. This includes Order 101 that has been specifically condemned by Amnesty International as making it impossible for Palestinians to legally protest. Israeli regulations make it virtually impossible for Palestinians to build a home. This is due to the fact that Israel’s land and zoning regulations are, according to Israel’s Basic Law, oriented around “preserving” the land for Israel’s Jewish inhabitants.
         But the most insidious manifestations of Israeli apartheid are the decades-long, everyday experiences of Palestinians. Farmers have to stand in long lines to reach their sheep in the agricultural village of Qalandia (that is surrounded by a high, concrete wall). Schoolchildren in Hebron cannot walk to school without being stopped daily by soldiers at a military checkpoint to check the contents of their schoolbags. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has heard numerous cases of official abuse against Palestinian women, including a seven-month pregnant woman assaulted at a checkpoint.
         So again, why are these widely-reported examples of Israeli apartheid being ignored?
Read the full article HERE: 
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Sunday, 3 February 2019

Power Mongers Never Give Birth To Democracy.



      A little more on Venezuela, after all it is a possible flash point for more misery to be heaped on the heads of an already suffering population in the shape of foreign troops intervention, civil war, or both. One of the main problems is that all the moves in this power game are being called by a rich and wealthy elite in other countries, all with a vested interest in the resources of Venezuela, none of the external voices have the interests of the people of that country in there plans.
      Of course it is impossible to ask the powerful imperialists of this world to stay away and let the people of Venezuela decide their own future. They see wealth, and opportunities for grabbing resources, and in this economic madhouse, from wealth comes power.
      This not me waving the flag for the Maduros government, on the contrary, it is an attempt to highlight how the powerful imperialist powers demand that they are in control. The only real answer to the "Venezuela problem" is for the people of that country to decide how they want to run their lives, without external interference.  
Again from Information Clearing House:

        For some months now, Venezuela’s socialist government has lurched through a series of escalating crises — hyperinflation, mass protests, political violence — while both the government and its opposition have flirted with authoritarianism. It isn’t pretty — and to hear the right wing tell it, it’s the future the U.S. left wants for our own country. As if to prevent that, the Trump administration is now fomenting a coup in Venezuela.
     They’ve publicly recognized an unelected opposition leader as president, discussed coup plans with Venezuela’s military, and sanctioned oil revenues the country needs to resolve its economic crisis. They’re even threatening to send U.S. troops. They’ll tell you this about restoring “democracy” and “human rights” in the South American country. But one look at the administration officials driving the putsch perishes the thought.
      Take Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who recently spoke at the United Nations calling on countries to stand “with the forces of freedom” against “the mayhem” of Venezuela’s government.
      This fall, the same Pompeo shared a photo of himself beaming and shaking hands with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince — just as the prince’s order to kill and dismember a U.S. resident journalist was coming to light. The same prince is carrying on a U.S.-backed war in Yemen, where millions are starving. Does this sound like a man who gives one fig for democracy, or against mayhem?
     Or take Pompeo’s point man on Venezuela, the dreaded Elliott Abrams. Pompeo said Abrams was appointed for his “passion for the rights and liberties of all peoples.” More likely, it was Abrams’ history as Reagan’s “Secretary of Dirty Wars” (yes, that’s a real thing people called him).
      A singularly villainous figure, Abrams vouched for U.S. backing of a genocidal Guatemalan regime and Salvadoran death squads in the 1980s. And when a UN report cataloged 22,000 atrocities in El Salvador, Abrams praised his administration’s “fabulous achievement” in the country. Abrams was convicted of lying to Congress about U.S. support for Nicaragua’s brutal Contras, but that didn’t prevent him from serving in George W. Bush’s State Department — which backed not only the Iraq war but an earlier coup attempt in, you guessed it, Venezuela. “It’s very nice to be back,” Abrams told reporters. I bet!
      Finally there’s National Security Adviser John Bolton, who recently took a cute photo with the words “5,000 troops” written on a notepad. Bolton still thinks the Iraq war was a good idea, and he’d like one with Iran too. Do we think it’s bread and roses he wants for Venezuela?
       For all its faults, Venezuela achieved tremendous things before the current crisis — including drastic reductions in poverty and improvements in living standards. Mismanagement and repression may have imperiled those gains, but that’s no justification at all for the U.S. getting involved. In fact, U.S. sanctions have worsened the economic crisis, and U.S. coordination with coup plotters has poisoned the country’s political environment even further. The future of Venezuela’s revolution is for Venezuelans to decide, not us. All that can come of more intervention now is more crisis, and maybe even war.
Read the full article HERE:

Video: Former UN Special Rapporteur talks about Venezuela:



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Saturday, 30 April 2016

Stand, Hand On Heart, "Land Of The Free".


        Got the article below from comrade Loam, thanks friend. It is from Information Clearing House. However, you would be an idiot if you thought that it was only in America, "The Land Of The Free" that the prying eyes of the state followed you everywhere, listened to your ever word, and built a profile on their sneakily stolen snapshots of your life. Modern technology makes it possible and easily accessible to any state and its minders, and they use it massively.
By John W. Whitehead

       April 26, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Ron Paul Institute"- In the American police state, the price to be paid for speaking truth to power (also increasingly viewed as an act of treason) is surveillance, censorship, jail and ultimately death.
        However, where many Americans go wrong is in assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or challenging the government’s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal.
         In fact, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, all you really need to do is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.
        With the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software, government agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state.
         It’s the American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.
        What’s more, the technocrats who run the surveillance state don’t even have to break a sweat while monitoring what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, how much you spend, whom you support, and with whom you communicate. Computers now do the tedious work of trolling social media, the internet, text messages and phone calls for potentially anti-government remarks—all of which is carefully recorded, documented, and stored to be used against you someday at a time and place of the government’s choosing.
         While this may sound like a riff on a bad joke, it’s a bad joke with “we the people” as the punchline.
        The following activities are guaranteed to get you censored, surveilled, eventually placed on a government watch list, possibly detained and potentially killed.
Laugh at your own peril.
       Use harmless trigger words like cloud, pork and pirates: The Department of Homeland Security has an expansive list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats such as SWAT, lockdown, police, cloud, food poisoning, pork, flu, Subway, smart, delays, cancelled, la familia, pirates, hurricane, forest fire, storm, flood, help, ice, snow, worm, warning or social media.
Use a cellphone: 
     Simply by using a cell phone, you make yourself an easy target for government agents—working closely with corporations—who can listen in on your phone calls, read your text messages and emails, and track your movements based on the data transferred from, received by, and stored in your cell phone. Mention any of the so-called “trigger” words in a conversation or text message, and you’ll get flagged for sure.
Drive a car: 
       Unless you’ve got an old junkyard heap without any of the gadgets and gizmos that are so attractive to today’s car buyers (GPS, satellite radio, electrical everything, smart systems, etc.), driving a car today is like wearing a homing device: you’ll be tracked from the moment you open that car door thanks to black box recorders and vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems that can monitor your speed, direction, location, the number of miles traveled, and even your seatbelt use. Once you add satellites, GPS devices, license plate readers, and real-time traffic cameras to the mix, there’s nowhere you can go on our nation’s highways and byways that you can’t be followed.
Attend a political rally: 
        Enacted in the wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience were considered potential terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance state.
Express yourself on social media: 
        The FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies are investing in and relying on corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior.
Serve in the military: 
          Operation Vigilant Eagle, the brainchild of the Dept. of Homeland Security, calls for surveillance of military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, characterizing them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.”
Disagree with a law enforcement official: 
         A growing number of government programs are aimed at identifying, monitoring and locking up anyone considered potentially “dangerous” or mentally ill (according to government standards, of course). For instance, a homeless man in New York City who reportedly had a history of violence but no signs of mental illness was forcibly detained in a psych ward for a week after arguing with shelter police.
Call in sick to work: 
          In Virginia, a so-called police “welfare check” instigated by a 58-year-old man’s employer after he called in sick resulted in a two-hour, SWAT team-style raid on the man’s truck and a 72-hour mental health hold. All of this was done despite the fact that police acknowledged they had no legal basis nor probable cause for detaining the man, given that he had not threatened to harm anyone and was not mentally ill.
Limp or stutter
         As a result of a nationwide push to certify a broad spectrum of government officials in mental health first-aid training (a 12-hour course comprised of PowerPoint presentations, videos, discussions, role playing and other interactive activities), more Americans are going to run the risk of being reported for having mental health issues by non-medical personnel. For instance, one 37-year-old disabled man was arrested, diagnosed by police and an unlicensed mental health screener as having “mental health issues,” apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait.
Appear confused or nervous, fidget, whistle or smell bad: 
           According to the Transportation Security Administration’s 92-point secret behavior watch list for spotting terrorists, these are among some of the telling signs of suspicious behavior: fidgeting, whistling, bad body odor, yawning, clearing your throat, having a pale face from recently shaving your beard, covering your mouth with your hand when speaking and blinking your eyes fast.
Allow yourself to be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun, such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane, for instance: 
         No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later. John Crawford was shot by police in an Ohio Wal-Mart for holding an air rifle sold in the store that he may have intended to buy. Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez Cruz was shot 7 times in 10 seconds by a California police officer who mistook the boy’s toy gun for an assault rifle. Christopher Roupe, 17, was shot and killed after opening the door to a police officer. The officer, mistaking the Wii remote control in Roupe’s hand for a gun, shot him in the chest. Another police officer repeatedly shot 70-year-old Bobby Canipe during a traffic stop. The cop saw the man reaching for his cane and, believing the cane to be a rifle, opened fire.
Appear to be pro-gun, pro-freedom or anti-government: You might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you: express libertarian philosophies:
        Exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views; read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books; show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies); fear an economic collapse; buy gold and barter items; voice fears about Big Brother or big government; or expound about constitutional rights and civil liberties.
Attend a public school: 
         Microcosms of the police state, America’s public schools contain almost every aspect of the militarized, intolerant, senseless, overcriminalized, legalistic, surveillance-riddled, totalitarian landscape that plagues those of us on the “outside.” Additionally, as part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the FBI—the nation’s de facto secret police force—is now recruiting students and teachers to spy on each other and report anyone who appears to have the potential to be “anti-government” or “extremist” as part of its “Don’t Be a Puppet” campaign.
Speak truth to power: 
          Long before Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were being castigated for blowing the whistle on the government’s war crimes and the National Security Agency’s abuse of its surveillance powers, it was activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon who were being singled out for daring to speak truth to power. These men and others like them had their phone calls monitored and data files collected on their activities and associations. For a little while, at least, they became enemy number one in the eyes of the US government.
 There’s always a price to pay for standing up to the powers-that-be. Yet as this list shows, you don’t even have to be a dissident to get flagged by the government for surveillance, censorship and detention. All you really need to be is a citizen of the American police state.

Reprinted with permission from the Rutherford Institute.

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