Bulletin N° 811




“1421: Chinese discover America before Europeans”

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%2b1421+gavin+Menzies&view=detail&mid=214B654FBBCA15289D64214B654FBBCA15289D64&FORM=VRRTAP&PC=U316

(1hr 53min)

 

A documentary film on British lieutenant-commander Gavin Menzies’ story of a pre-capitalist « imperial adventure » spreading the “glory of the Chinese Empire” around the world, without military assistance.



Subject : Military Extravagance & Police Brutality in the Political Economy of things that go bump in the night.

 

 

 

20 July 2018

Grenoble, France

 

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

 

The nightmare of the capitalist debacle is upon us, and there is no shortage of mercenaries ready to volunteer for over-time work with the wrecking crew to assure that nihilism will prevail until a new social order of oriental despotism is secured and the international class of oligarchs will prevail over a severely reduced and dumbed-down population of marginal beings who are expected to live like Palestinians are expected to live, in submission to internationally funded police forces and imprisoned in their own homeland.

 

 

Image result for when reason sleeps

 

 

The 26 + items below provide CEIMSA readers with an up-date on the degerate political economy brought on by neoliberal globalization in a last desperate effort on the part of capitalists to rescue their war economy of cruel exploitation and cunning machinations in the name of the sanctified Private Profit Motive through which reason is governed by fear.

 

 

 

Sincerely,

Francis Feeley

Professor emeritus of American Studies

University Grenoble-Alpes

Director of Research

University of Paris-Nanterre

Center for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements

The University of California-San Diego

http://www.ceimsa.org/  

 

 

a.

What’s left of the Left?

 

 

Why did The Intercept trash Julian Assange? (Follow the money . . . .)

Highlighting The Intercept's Owner Pierre Omidyar's Verifiable Connections to the Deep State - Booz, Allen, Hamilton

https://steemit.com/news/@clarityofsignal/highlighting-the-intercept-s-owner-pierre-omidyar-verifiable-connections-to-the-deep-state-booze-allen-hamilton

 

In light of the recent Intercept attack piece on Wikileaks's Julian Assange, it is important to highlight the following connections between Pierre Omidyar and the US Deep State firm Booz, Allen, Hamilton.

Link to Intercept article attacking the character of Julian Assange:

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks-Screen Shot 2018-02-15 at 9.21.38 AM.pngelection-clinton-trump/

Screen Shot 2018-02-15 at 8.51.19 AM.png

Link to Wikipedia page on Intercept owner Pierre Omidyar:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Omidyar

 

+

 

West Scrambling to Find Options to Pull White Helmets Out of Syria – Reports

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201807151066373916-west-to-rescue-white-helmets/

 

he NGO, which claims to be acting as a volunteer rescue group, has been repeatedly accused of working with jihadists, such as al-Nusra Front* and staging fake videos that they later use to accuse Damascus of being responsible for attacks against civilians.

Several NATO countries have discussed the possibility of evacuating the White Helmets from Syria, specifically from Daraa province, with US President Donald Trump, CBS News reported, citing an anonymous US official. According to the media outlet, western countries are afraid that Damascus could "assassinate" the NGO's members as it advances through Daraa province.

 

===========

 

b.

The US Navy just quietly sent an F-35 aircraft carrier to the Pacific — and it signals a big change

f 35b

http://www.businessinsider.fr/us/us-navy-quietly-sends-f-35-aircraft-carrier-to-pacific-china-south-sea-2018-7

by Alex Lockie

 

The US Navy broke with its tradition of hyping up F-35 deployments when it sent the USS Essex jump-jet carrier into the Western Pacific with a deck full of the revolutionary fighter jets this week — and it could signal a big change in how the US deals with its toughest adversaries. When the USS Wasp became the first small-deck aircraft carrier to deploy with US Marine Corps F-35Bs earlier this year, the media was in on it. But the Essex's departure marks a change, as the Navy announced the deployment only after the ship departed, USNI News noted. The Navy regularly deploys capital ships like small- and large-deck carriers for patrols around the world but has only twice deployed ones like these. The F-35 has become the most expensive weapons system in history and earned its share of criticism along the way as costs ballooned and deadlines fell through. The Marine Corps' F-35B is designed to land vertically and take off from short runways, like an amphibious assault ship, and will replace the AV-8B Harrier in ground and air attack missions; the Navy's F-35C has a tailhook to snag an arresting cable and land on an aircraft carrier. Naturally, the US military would be keen to show off the jets, which it bills as a revolution in aerial combat because of their stealth design and advanced sensors and controls. But it seems it has opted to skip the public-relations coup for something a bit more operational. The Navy wants to change the media's expectations regarding ship deployments to the Pacific, sources told USNI News.

The US military usually prides itself on publicizing its ship deployments and often says its carrier deployments are drawn up apolitically and months ahead of time, but insisting on some level of secrecy betrays that.

 

+

 

Nation Horrified To Learn Child-Killing Death Merchants Have Racist Employee

https://steemit.com/politics/@caitlinjohnstone/nation-horrified-to-learn-child-killing-death-merchants-have-racist-employee

 

===========

 

c.

Lessons That Should Have Been Learned

From NATO’s Destruction of Libya

https://uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/dropzone/2018/07/Palmaria_bengasi_1903_0612_b1.jpg

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/13/lessons-that-should-have-been-learned-from-natos-destruction-of-l/

by Brian Cloughley

 

The summit meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military alliance that is expanding its deployments of troops, combat and surveillance aircraft and missile ships around Russia’s borders, took place on July 11-12 and was a farce, with Trump behaving in his usual way, insulting individuals and nations with characteristic vulgarity. Before the jamboree, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg (one of those selected for a Trumpian harangue), recounted in a speech on 21 June that “NATO has totally transformed our presence in Afghanistan from a big combat operation with more than 100,000 to now 16,000 troops conducting training, assisting and advising.”  But then he had a bit of a rethink when he was asked a question about whether NATO had learnt any lessons that might make it think about “intervening in the future.” To give him his due, Stoltenberg replied that he thought “one of the lessons we have learned from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from Libya, is that military intervention is not always solving all problems.” He is absolutely right about that, because the US-NATO military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have been catastrophic. It is intriguing that NATO’s secretary general can at last admit that military muscle doesn’t solve every problem, but he did not expand on the subject of Libya, which unhappy country was destroyed by US-NATO military intervention in 2011, and it is interesting to reflect on that particular NATO debacle, because it led directly to expansion of the Islamic State terrorist group, a prolonged civil war, a vast number of deaths, and hideous suffering by desperate refugees trying to flee from Libya across the Mediterranean.

 

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d.

Can Trump, Israel, and Gulf Allies Get Putin

to Turn On Iran?

https://therealnews.com/stories/can-trump-israel-and-gulf-allies-get-putin-to-turn-on-iran

 

Days after Netanyahu’s visit to Moscow, Trump will meet with Putin in Helsinki. But despite talk of a “grand bargain” that enlists Russia in helping the US-Israel-Saudi-UAE front against Iran, don’t expect it to happen, says professor and syndicated columnist Rami Khouri

 

+

 

Russophobia Is A 24/7 Industry

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49875.htm

by Pepe Escobar

 

 “The Cold War is a thing of the past.” By the time President Putin said as much during preliminary remarks at his joint press conference with President Trump in Helsinki, it was clear this would not stand. Not after so much investment by American conservatives in Cold War 2.0.

 

Russophobia is a 24/7 industry, and all concerned, including its media vassals, remain absolutely livid with the “disgraceful” Trump-Putin presser. Trump has “colluded with Russia.” How could the President of the United States promote “moral equivalence” with a “world-class thug”?

Multiple opportunities for apoplectic outrage were in order.

 

Trump: “Our relationship has never been worse than it is now. However, that changed. As of about four hours ago.”

 

Putin: “The United States could be more decisive in nudging Ukrainian leadership.”

 

Trump: “There was no collusion… I beat Hillary Clinton easily.”

 

Putin: “We should be guided by facts. Can you name a single fact that would definitively prove collusion? This is nonsense.”

 

Then, the clincher: the Russian president calls [Special Counsel] Robert Mueller’s ‘bluff’, offering to interrogate the Russians indicted for alleged election meddling in the US if Mueller makes an official request to Moscow. But in exchange, Russia would expect the US to question Americans on whether Moscow should face charges for illegal actions.

 

Trump hits it out of the park when asked whether he believes US intelligence, which concluded that Russia did meddle in the election, or Putin, who strongly denies it :  “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

 

===========

 

 

e.

Israel’s Attack on the USS Liberty: A Half Century Later,

Still No Justice

https://uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/dropzone/2017/05/USS_Liberty-510x394.jpg

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/08/israels-attack-on-the-uss-liberty-a-half-century-later-still-no-justice/

by Jeffrey St. Clair

 

In early June of 1967, at the onset of the Six Day War, the Pentagon sent the USS Liberty from Spain into international waters off the coast of Gaza to monitor the progress of Israel’s attack on the Arab states. The Liberty was a lightly armed surveillance ship. Only hours after the Liberty arrived it was spotted by the Israeli military. The IDF sent out reconnaissance planes to identify the ship. They made eight trips over a period of three hours. The Liberty was flying a large US flag and was easily recognizable as an American vessel. Soon more planes came. These were Israeli Mirage III fighters, armed with rockets and machine guns. As off-duty officers sunbathed on the deck, the fighters opened fire on the defenseless ship with rockets and machine guns.

 

+

Jewish Voices against racism

 

 

-------- Message transféré --------

Sujet : mercredi 18 mai, flottille

Date : Wed, 18 Jul 2018

De :     Pierre STAMBUL

 

LA FLOTTILLE CONTRE LE BLOCUS DE GAZA PART DEMAIN DE PALERME

 

 

Dernier jour de préparation à Palerme avant un départ des trois bateaux prévu pour demain jeudi 19.

Les communications vont alors devenir plus difficiles.

Deux Français à Bord : Sarah de l'UJFP et Pascal.

 

L'accueil de Palerme aura été très chaleureux, autorités municipales en tête. Il faut dire qu'en cette période de chasse aux exilé-e-s, Palerme a toujours réaffirmé sa solidarité. C'est valable pour la Palestine.

 

Vous pourrez trouver une interview de Sarah réalisée pal le journal "L'Humanité" sur humanite.fr, sur la chaîne youtube et plus simplement sur le site de l'UJFP.

 

Dans la préparation, il y a eu le témoignage de plusieurs membresdes flottilles précédentes racontant comment se passe l'arraisonnement et l'emprisonnement en Israël avant expulsion.

En particulier le témoignage de Joe; survivant du Liberty, attaqué par les Israéliens pendant la guerre de 1967.

 

Une des Suédoises a reçu un message du ministère suédois des affaires étrangères qui dit en substance de la part de la première ministre :

Elle répond à la demande de Jeanette (parti de gauche suédois). Le gouvernement suédois travaille activement pour que le blocus cesse Il a demandé que la frontièresoit ouverte pour des raisons humanitaires, immédiatement et sans conditions. Et qu'elle reste ouverte.

La Suède protège le droit de navigation et laliberté sur la mer. Le gouvernement suédois s'est déjà adressé à son homologue israélien sur cette question.

Cela tranche avec l'attitude de Macron et  Hidalgo.

 

Amitiés

Pierre

 

_____________________________

 

Sujet : mercredi 18 juillet, flottille

 

Bonjour,

 

POUR SUIVRE LA PROGRESSION DES BATEAUX SUR CARTE :

-         https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/follow-the-mission

 

SITES A CONSULTER :

-         Freedom flotilla (in english) : https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/

-         UJFP : http://www.ujfp.org/

 

et

 

UJFP (l'Union Juive Française pour la Paix et les causes de la guerre menée contre les Palestiniens) podcasts on YouTube :

-         https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCojmN0_VgImHjZ7326rReDQ/videos

-         AFPS : http://www.france-palestine.org/

-         Agence media Palestine : http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr/

 

Facebook :

-         https://www.facebook.com/pg/FlottilleGazaFrance/posts/

 

 

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f.

The Lydda Death March and the Israeli State of Denial

https://uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/dropzone/2018/07/RefugeesEscortedFromRamlaOperationDanny.jpg

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/16/the-lydda-death-march-and-the-israeli-state-of-denial/

by Brett Wilkins

 

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the single largest mass expulsion of Arabs from Palestine during the Jewish ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948-49, the infamous Lydda Death March, in which attacking Israeli troops murdered and pillaged the people and property of Lydda, Ramle and surrounding villages while forcing some 80,000 men, women and children into the scorching wilderness, never to return.

“No Room for Both People”

In late 1947 Britain, worn down by a ferocious Jewish terror campaign led by men who included future Israeli prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, announced it would end its 30-year occupation of Palestine. The Palestine problem would now be for the fledgling United Nations to solve and, to that end, the world body devised a plan to partition the territory between Jews and Arabs. The latter were not consulted. Under the UN plan Jews, who comprised just over a third of Palestine’s population at the time, were given 55 percent of its land. This understandably enraged Arabs but even this heavily favorable distribution wasn’t enough for the Zionists. They wanted all of Palestine for themselves, despite the fact that it had been thousands of years since Jews constituted anything remotely approaching a majority there. As Joseph Weitz, director of the Jewish National Land Fund, had so unambiguously stated:

Among ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both people in this country… and there is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to neighboring countries… We must not leave a single village, a single tribe.

 

+

 

Can We Learn from Heinrich Himmler’s Daughter? Should We?

by Kary Love

 

===========

 

 

g.

Senate Committee Approves AIPAC Bill to Give Israel $38 Billion Over 10 Years, With Additional Perks

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/aipac-foreign-agent.JPG

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49836.htm

by Michael Wilner

 

A Senate panel approved a bill on Tuesday endorsing a decade-long aid package to Israel brokered by the Obamaadministration.

The US-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018 authorizes a memorandum of understanding negotiated in 2016 between the two governments which will provide Israel with $38 billion in military aid between 2019 and 2028. A bipartisan majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the legislation, allowing it to proceed to the full Senate floor. The bill also authorized the president to establish a US-Israeli counter-drone program, expand collaboration on the peaceful exploration of space, and produce an assessment on Israel’s precision-guided defense needs with respect to threats from Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which pioneered the legislation, applauded its progress in a

statement.

The bill “ensures that Israel has the means to defend itself, by itself, against growing and emerging threats – including Iran’s presence close to Israel’s northern border,” AIPAC said. “This bipartisan legislation authorizes agreed-upon increases in Israel’s security assistance and encourages expanding weapons stockpiles.” The Israel advocacy group also pointedly celebrated the committee’s rejection of an amendment, proposed by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, which called for phasing out aid to the Jewish state.

 

 

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h.

“Not Enough!”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/16/not-enough/

by Uri Avnery

 

The State of Israel has no oil wells. It has no gold mines. What has it got? It has the ownership of the remembrance of the Holocaust.

That is worth a lot. Everyone who wants to clean himself from the stain needs a certificate from the State of Israel. Such a document is worth very much. And the larger the guilt of the applicant, the higher the price of the dispensation.

 

What does that remind us of?

For many centuries the Catholic Church sold “dispensations”. These were documents issued by the pope and the cardinals, which allowed the recipient to dispense with religious duties or to do things forbidden by the church. The most notorious case is that of Henry VIII, king of England. The pope gave him a dispensation that allowed him to marry a Spanish princess, even though she had a remote family connection with him, contrary to church law. But when he wanted to divorce her in order to marry the daughter of an English nobleman, the Pope denied him the necessary dispensation. The result was the split between the Catholic Church and the independent Church of England, in which the King (or Queen) acts as a kind of pope. The trouble was that, in time, the issuing of dispensations became a high-class business, from which the pope and lesser priests became rich. This situation caused the rebellion of Martin Luther and the other reformers, who created independent new churches.

 

The leaders of Israel, headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, now act like the pope in former times: they sell Holocaust dispensations.

 

+

The Electronic Intifada

&

Great March of Return: Teenage Palestinian killed in clashes on Israeli border

(3 min)

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

 

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i.

Palestine Lost
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49855.htm
By Sheldon Richman


To appreciate the enormity of the crimes against the Palestinian people, one must understand that while persons are certainly individuals, they are something more as well. That's what we mean when we use words like society, culture, and people. What has happened to the Palestinians is not simply that some individuals were killed and others were driven from land their families had lived on and worked for 1,500 years. Those horrible things amount to only part of the atrocity that befell them.

The other part is the cultural genocide that has been perpetrated. Palestine was a vibrant cultural and economic center, with thriving cities and lush farms. It wasn't a "land without a people" or a savage-filled desert waiting for European Jews to make it bloom. We cannot understand current events in the Middle East without understanding that the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which began before 1948, meant so much more than just driving people from their homes. It meant eradicating the record and memory of a beautiful place (where, incidentally, Jews also could and did live in peace). This documentary shows what has been lost.

 

See: “Lost cities of Palestine: Haifa, Nazareth, and Jaffa” . . . .

 

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j.

US House Approved Latest Version of the Israel

Anti-Boycott Act

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/boycott-israel-2.JPG

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49854.htm

by Amjad Iraqi

 

Late last month, the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee approved the latest version of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which is now one step closer to becoming law. The bill was introduced to Congress in March 2017, with the aim of prohibiting American companies from assisting international governmental organisations with boycotts against Israel. These organisations include the UN, whose high commissioner for human rights was tasked two years ago with drawing up a database of companies doing business in the illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and the EU, whose trade regulations discourage business with settlements but fall short of prohibiting it. Even an individual in the US who supplies information about infringing companies to these bodies could be liable to a civil fine of up to $250,000, or a criminal penalty of up to $1 million. The original version of the bill, which was amended after considerable pressure from civil society groups, would also have imposed prison sentences of up to twenty years.

 

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which enjoys the support of more than half the members of both chambers of Congress, is part of a wave of US legislation aiming to counter the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). Twenty-five state legislatures have enacted some form of anti-BDS law, with more bills being considered in all fifty states and at the federal level. State governors are currently considering whether or not to issue executive orders that prohibit state agencies from entering into contracts with companies and institutions – including universities, which led the way during the anti-apartheid boycott in the 1980s – that are involved in boycotts of Israel. Maryland, Louisiana, Wisconsin and New York have already issued such orders. After signing his, in June 2016, Andrew Cuomo declared in the Washington Post: ‘If you boycott Israel, New York will boycott you.’ It isn’t just that those who participate in or help enable boycotts are boycotted themselves, or criminalised; people with no connection to activism are also caught up in ludicrously punitive interpretations of the law. After Hurricane Harvey hit Texas last year, residents in the city of Dickinson had to declare – as a condition for receiving relief grants – that they did not or would not boycott Israel.

 

+

 

From: AURDIP <contact@aurdip.fr>

Subject: Newsletter de l'AURDIP du 18 juillet 2018

Date: 18July2018 at 15:31:38 BST

To: moshe.machover@kcl.ac.uk

 

Newsletter de l’AURDIP du 18 juillet 2018

http://www.aurdip.org/newsletter-de-l-aurdip-du-18-105.html?lang=fr

 

 

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k.

The War on Assange Is a War on Press Freedom

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/julian-a-truth-free.jpg

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49846.htm

by Chris Hedges

 

The failure on the part of establishment media to defend Julian Assange, who has been trapped in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012, has been denied communication with the outside world since March and appears to be facing imminent expulsion and arrest, is astonishing. The ex tradition of the publisher—the maniacal goal of the U.S. government—would set a legal precedent that would criminalize any journalistic oversight or investigation of the corporate state. It would turn leaks and whistleblowing into treason. It would shroud in total secrecy the actions of the ruling global elites. If Assange is extradited to the United States and sentenced, The New York Times, The Washington Post and every other media organization, no matter how tepid their coverage of the corporate state, would be subject to the same draconian censorship. Under the precedent set, Donald Trump’s Supreme Court would enthusiastically uphold the arrest and imprisonment of any publisher, editor or reporter in the name of national security.

 

There are growing signs that the Ecuadorean government of Lenín Moreno is preparing to evict Assange and turn him over to British police. Moreno and his foreign minister, José Valencia, have confirmed they are in negotiations with the British government to “resolve” the fate of Assange. Moreno, who will visit Britain in a few weeks, calls Assange an “inherited problem” and “a stone in the shoe” and has referred to him as a “hacker.” It appears that under a Moreno government Assange is no longer welcome in Ecuador. His only hope now is safe passage to his native Australia or another country willing to give him asylum.

 

“Ecuador has been looking for a solution to this problem,” Valencia commented on television. “The refuge is not forever, you cannot expect it to last for years without us reviewing this situation, including because this violates the rights of the refugee.”

 

Assange, who reportedly is in ill health, took asylum in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to answer questions about sexual offense charges. He feared that once in Swedish custody for these charges, which he said were false, he would be extradited to the United States. The Swedish prosecutors’ office ended its “investigation” and extradition request to Britain in May 2017 and did not file sexual offense charges against Assange. But the British government said Assange would nevertheless be arrested and jailed for breaching his bail conditions.

 

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l.

The Invisible Class: Workers in America

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/13/the-invisible-class-workers-in-america/

by Joseph Grosso

 

How much more lucid would American politics be if the term ‘working class’ entered and remained in the everyday lexicon? After all, could there be a more fitting concept in an economy where the five largest private employers are currently Wal-Mart, Amazon, Kroger, Yum! Brands (the corporation that operates Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut), and Home Depot? The National Employment Law Project estimated that at the end of 2014 42 percent of U.S. workers made less than $15 per hour. Certainly the word has been thrown around lightly in recent times. The awful irony is that it took the ignorable ravings of Donald Trump to make even that happen. Every national newspaper has featured its share of banal dispatches from ‘Trump Country’. No doubt more books are being written. Still it is hard to see that the existence of a working class has truly penetrated.

How else to explain the lack of coverage that not only have working class wages been stagnant for decades, the average real weekly earnings of all production and nonsupervisory workers remained $312.18 in early 2018 compared to $315.44 in 1972, but have in fact been falling over the past year. Far from a tax cut juiced economy in the midst of a long recovery finally boosting wages, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the real wages (a metric that takes inflation into account) for workers in production and nonsupervisory positions fell from $22.62 in May 2017 to $22.59 in May 2018. According to the Federal Reserve’s Survey on the Economic Well-Beingof U.S. Households in 201740 percent of adults said they would be unable to handle an unexpected $400 expense without borrowing the money or selling something. When was the last headline screaming that the workforce participation rate still hasn’t recovered from the 2008 crash- it currently stands at 62.7 percent (and a lot lower in many localities), down almost 3.5 percent from 66.2 in January 2008 (it has barely budged since the end of 2013). Surely the much touted unemployment rate would look different taking this into account. Where are the big city protests in the aftermath of the Supreme Court taking a hammer to public sector unions with Janus v AFSCME? Or its recent ruling upholding the use of mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts that require class action lawsuit waivers? The use of arbitration clauses has skyrocketed the past two decades.  And while we’re on the subject one would think that life expectancy falling for the third straight year would generate more chatter than it has thus far.

 

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m.

Barber Sermon on Militarism Reveals Philosophical & Political Limitations of the Poor Peoples Campaign

Barber Sermon on Militarism Reveals Philosophical & Political Limitations of the Poor Peoples Campaign

 https://blackagendareport.com/barber-sermon-militarism-reveals-philosophical-political-limitations-poor-peoples-campaign

by Bruce A. Dixon

 

+

 

Obama and Democrats Share the Blame For Trump's Supreme Court

https://blackagendareport.com/obama-and-democrats-share-blame-trumps-supreme-court

 

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n.

Economic Update: Labor VS Capitalism

https://therealnews.com/stories/economic-update-labor-vs-capitalism

 

This week with Rick Wolff: Updates on Left victory in Mexico’s election; SCOTUS’s Janus decision; Trump’s Foxconn fakery in Wisconsin; the GOP’s forced labor for Medicaid beneficiaries; and the scapegoating of immigrants exposed; Dr. Harriet Fraad on the personal, psychological effects of a dying US empire

 

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o.

Hiding the Real Number of Unemployed

https://uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/dropzone/2018/06/4295393921_0edd6444a1_z.jpg

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/08/hiding-the-real-number-of-unemployed/

by Pete Dolack

 

Your government believes that exhausting your unemployment benefits is a cause for celebration — because you are no longer unemployed!

Huh? Well, there is a slight of hand here. Only working people who are receiving unemployment benefits are counted as “unemployed” in official statistics issued by countries around the world. Thus the actual unemployment rates are much higher than the “official” rates, generally about twice as high. Most governments make it difficult to find the actual rate, and the corporate media does its part by reporting the official rate as if that includes everybody.

Then there is the matter of how much of a given national population is actually engaged in paid employment, another useful number difficult to discover. Finally, we can consider wages, both how fast they might be rising as compared to inflation and whether they are increasing in concert with increases in productivity. To cut to the chase, things ain’t so hot. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Let’s start our global survey with the United States, where, contrary to expectations, the real unemployment figure is easier to discover that most other places. Perhaps the Trump régime hasn’t gotten around to suppressing it, busy as it is hiding scientific evidence about global warming, pollution and other inconvenient facts. The official U.S. unemployment rate for May was reported as 3.8 percent, the lowest it has been in several years, and less than half of what it was during the post-2008 economic collapse. Predictably, the Trump administration was quick to take credit, although the trend of falling employment has carried on for eight years now.

 

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p.

National (In) Security - In the United States of Inequality

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/us-poverty.JPG

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49858.htm

by Rajan Menon

 

So effectively has the Beltway establishment captured the concept of national security that, for most of us, it automatically conjures up images of terrorist groups, cyber warriors, or “rogue states.”  To ward off such foes, the United States maintains a historically unprecedented constellation of military bases abroad and, since 9/11, has waged wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere that have gobbled up nearly $4.8 trillion.  The 2018 Pentagon budget already totals $647 billion -- four times what China, second in global military spending, shells out and more than the next 12 countries combined, seven of them American allies.   For good measure, Donald Trump has added an additional $200 billion to projected defense expenditures through 2019.

Yet to hear the hawks tell it, the United States has never been less secure.  So much for bang for the buck.

 

For millions of Americans, however, the greatest threat to their day-to-day security isn’t terrorism or North Korea, Iran, Russia, or China.  It’s internal -- and economic.  That’s particularly true for the 12.7% of Americans (43.1 million of them) classified as poor by the government’s criteria: an income below $12,140 for a one-person household, $16,460 for a family of two, and so on... until you get to the princely sum of $42,380 for a family of eight.

Savings aren’t much help either: a third of Americans have no savings at all and another third have less than $1,000 in the bank.  Little wonder that families struggling to cover the cost of food alone increased from 11% (36 million) in 2007 to 14% (48 million) in 2014.

 

===========

 

q.

Boots Riley’s Dystopian Satire “Sorry to Bother You”

Is an Anti-Capitalist Rallying Cry for Workers

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/17/sorry_to_bother_you_boots_rileys

 

An evil telemarketing company, a corporation making millions off of slave labor, and one Oakland man at the center of it all who discovers a secret that threatens all of humankind. Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You” is the dystopian social satire being hailed as one of the best movies of the summer. The film’s stars include Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Armie Hammer, Terry Crews and Danny Glover. We speak with Boots Riley, writer and director of the critically acclaimed film. He is a poet, rapper, songwriter, producer, screenwriter, humorist, political organizer, community activist, lecturer and public speaker—best known as the lead vocalist of The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club.

 

===========

 

r.

California Leads the Way in Resistance to the Rule of Bankers

California Leads the Way in Resistance to the Rule of Bankers

https://blackagendareport.com/california-leads-way-resistance-rule-bankers

 

by Glen Ford

 

California Leads the Way in Resistance to the Rule of Bankers

“There can be no reversal of the corporate “race to the bottom” unless the Lords of Capital are dethroned.”

 

 

When former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher set her nation on the path of wholesale privatization and austerity in the 1980s, she declared that “resistance is futile.” “There is no alternative,” she decreed, to the rule of “markets,” not just in Great Britain, but for all of humanity and for all time. Thatcher found a soul mate in President Ronald Reagan, whose assault on the public sector in the U.S. -- packaged for a racist American electorate as a campaign to purge “welfare queens,” and accompanied by a fierce anti-drugs and crime crusade -- was soon joined by the most shamelessly corporatist wing of the Democratic Party. President Bill Clinton completed Reagan’s welfare and crime agenda and, as a final gift to Wall Street, deregulated the banks.

Thatcherism was firmly at the helm on both sides of the U.S. corporate duopoly. Democrat-based “resistance” was effectively confined to the “social issues” of abortion, gay rights and a vague quest for “diversity” -- questions whose resolution, either way, do not threaten the iron rule of capital. Barack Obama’s answer to the 2008 financial meltdown was to pump at least $4.5 trillion into private finance capitalist coffers and declare, through his attorney general, that the surviving banks were “too big to fail.” Although the system had come close to global collapse, an alternative remained unthinkable. Even the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011-12 dared not propose the nationalization of the banking sector. As I wrote in these pages last month, the Occupiers “walked right up to the edge of the pool, but they did not dive in.”

“Barack Obama’s answer to the 2008 financial meltdown was to pump at least $4.5 trillion into private finance capitalist coffers and declare that the surviving banks were ‘too big to fail.’”

With the rule of the rich unchallenged, is it any wonder that an arch-racist Republican oligarch sits in the White House, while the richest oligarch of all, Jeff Bezos, muses over which American metropolis he will grant the privilege of becoming his next company town? Or that Trump’s Democratic opponent was Bill Clinton’s partner in corporate crime, who used her husband’s “foundation” to shake down the global oligarch class for tens of millions of dollars, and herself pocketed millions in speaking fees from bankers -- and who now contemplates a political comeback as the farcical queen of “resistance”?

 

===========

 

s.

Coming Coup Against Trump

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/trump-target.JPG

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49867.htm

by Finian Cunningham

 

The American backlash against President Trump over his summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been as ferocious as it was predictable.

Every possible vilification has been thrown at him. But it is the slur of Trump as "traitor" that puts this president in grave danger.

Democrats, Republicans, state intelligence pundits, hawkish media, liberal media — all have launched a torrent of attacks on Donald Trump for daring to meet with Putin in Helsinki this week.

The Washington Post accused Trump of "openly colluding with the criminal leader of a hostile power". Let those extreme words sink in for a moment. The implication is as serious as it can get.

As with other politicians and media outlets, the Post said the president had "betrayed" American intelligence services by siding with President Putin in denying that Russia had interfered in US elections.

Former CIA chief John Brennan denounced Trump as a "traitor" who had "committed high crimes" in holding a friendly summit with Putin.

It can't get more seditious than that. Trump is being denigrated by almost the entire political and media establishment in the US as a "treasonous" enemy of the state.

 

+

 

Bill Black: Trump Sees Europe as a “Foe” Because of Key Misinformed Advisor

(July 17, 2018)

https://therealnews.com/stories/bill-black-trump-sees-europe-as-a-foe-because-of-key-misinformed-advisor

 

President Trump’s belief that the European Union’s trade policies are more unfair towards the United States than just about any other trading partner is woefully misinformed and the result of his reliance “nutcase” trade advisor Peter Navarro, says economist Bill Black

 

===========

 

t.

Trump-Putin Summit and Mounting Hysteria

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/TRUMP-PUTIN-HELSINKY.JPG

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49860.htm

by Off-Guardian

 

Yesterday, Trump and Putin met for a summit in Helsinki. The resulting hysteria, all throughout the mainstream media and in the minds of neocon and (self-described) “liberals” alike.

Just to be clear – it is not unusual for heads of state to meet. It is not unusual for leaders with different values or interests to discuss international politics. It’s the entire point of diplomacy.

The media at large appear to have forgotten this – giving thousands of column inches to insane ramblings employing words such as “traitor”, “treason”, “puppet” and “surrender”. Words which are rapidly losing their meaning.

Politico Magazine described the alleged Russian hacking as “our Pearl Harbor”, and demanded America “respond accordingly”. The author – a retired General in the US Army – is delightfully vague about what exactly that would entail.

The Guardian has over 13 stories – including half a dozen opinion pieces. Each more absurd than the last. Richard Wolffe does nothing but abuse both men between baseless accusation and the repitition of long-debunked nonsense. Whilst Peter Daou – a former employee of Hillary Clinton’s campaign – writes that Republican who still support Trump are “following him off a cliff to treachery”.

The Independent ran with “Vladimir Putin just humiliated Donald Trump. And Trump humiliated America”, a headline which belies the content of article somewhat, by far one of the most reasonable takes on either side of the Atlantic.

 

+

 

Two analyses by Paul Craig Roberts

https://thesaker.is/two-analyses-by-paul-craig-roberts/

 

===========

 

u.

Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants

Peace With Russia?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/peace-good-for-us-russia.JPG

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49865.htm

“The Democrats say he is”

by Paul Craig Roberts

 

The US Democratic Party is determined to take the world to thermo-nuclear war rather than to admit that Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election fair and square. The Democratic Party was totally corrupted by the Clinton Regime, and now it is totally insane. Leaders of the Democratic Party, such as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, my former co-author in the New York Times, have responded in a non-Democratic way to the first step President Trump has taken to reduce the extremely dangerous tensions with Russia that the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes created between the two superpowers.

Yes, Russia is a superpower. Russian weapons are so superior to the junk produced by the waste-filled US military/security complex that lives high off the hog on the insouciant American taxpayer that it is questionable if the US is even a second class military power. If the insane neoconservatives, such as Max Boot, William Kristol, and the rest of the neocon scum get their way, the US, the UK, and Europe will be a radioactive ruin for thousands of years.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (CA), Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives, declared that out of fear of some undefined retribution from Putin, a dossier on Trump perhaps, the President of the United States sold out the American people to Russia because he wants to make peace: “It begs the question, what does Vladimir Putin, what do the Russians have on Donald Trump—personally, politically and financially that he should behave in such a manner?” The “such a manner” Pelosi is speaking about is making peace instead of war.

To be clear, the Democratic Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives has accused Donald Trump of high treason against the United States. There is no outcry against this blatantly false accusation, totally devoid of evidence. The presstitute media instead of protesting this attempt at a coup against the President of the United States, trumpet the accusation as self-evident truth. Trump is a traitor because he wants peace with Russia.

Here is Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer (NY) repeating Pelosi’s false accusation: “Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous behavior is the possibility that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump.” If you don’t believe that this is orchestrated between Pelosi and Schumer, you are stupid beyond belief.

Here is disgraced Obama CIA director John Brennan, a leader of the fake Russiagate campaign against President Trump in order to prevent Trump from making peace with Russia and, thus, by making the world safer, threatening the massive, unjustified budget of the military/security complex: “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to and exceeds the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors. It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???”

Here are many more: https://www.infowars.com/meltdown-left-seething-over-trump-putin-summit/

And here is more from the CIA bought-and-paid-for BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812

NOTICE THAT NOT ONE WESTERN MEDIA SOURCE IS CELEBRATING AND THANKING TRUMP AND PUTIN FOR EASING THE ARTIFICAILLY CREATED TENSIONS THAT WERE LEADING TO NUCLEAR WAR. HOW CAN THIS BE? HOW CAN IT BE THAT THE WESTERN MEDIA IS SO OPPOSED TO PEACE? WHAT IS THE EXPLANATION?

The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North Koreans, as well as the rest of the world, desperately need to notice the extremely hostile reaction to peace on the part of the US Democratic Party, many members of the Republican Party, including the despicable US Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and the Western Presstitute Media, a collection of people on the CIA payroll according to the German newspaper editor, Udo Ulfkotte, and the CIA itself.

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the rest of the corrupt filth that rules over us are all in the pay of the military/security complex. Just go and investigate the donations to their re-election campaigns. The 1,000 billion dollar budget of the military/security complex, amplified by the CIA’s front corporations and narcotics business, provides enormous sums with which to purchase the senators and representatives that the insouciant American voters think that they elect.

 

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v.

Chomsky on the Trump NATO Ruse

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/17/chomsky-on-the-trump-nato-ruse/

by Daniel Falcone

 

Recently NPR featured retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges who was the commanding general of NATO’s Allied Land Command in 2014. He remarked how he “was disappointed to see President Trump bring a wrecking ball to Brussels” after “publicly [humiliating] our most important allies.”  He went on to explain, and I believe correctly that Trump “either doesn’t understand the concept of an alliance and allies or he doesn’t care” with the latter being the most accurate.

I set out to understand the reasons for Trump’s insistence that NATO is just another extension of corruption and an institutional burden for the United States, while in the background continuing with the same old same old United States foreign policy. Professor Noam Chomsky pointed me in the direction of some recent NYT reporting by Steven Erlanger, Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Katie Rogers that summarized Trump and his NATO antics rather well. They write:

“The drama in Brussels on Thursday was all about Mr. Trump’s desire to make noise for his political base, Ms. Sloat said. “Some say there was some victory for Trump, that he achieved what he wanted, but it’s not true,” she said.  “In the end I think the meeting was less divisive than feared,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former NATO deputy secretary general. “I think it’s the reality show that the president loves. There wasn’t enough drama, so Trump has a tantrum, knocks over the table, and allies are used as props in his reality show.”

In observing Trump overseas I also thought of how to appropriately forecast the European reaction to Trump’s running commentary of NATO and how it impacts key portions of US foreign affairs.

Chomsky offered that “[Europe and allies will mostly] try to ignore him as much as possible, and move on exactly as before” although interestingly enough, alliances are beginning to forge together in an effort to isolate the pariah United States.In some ways it must be a test of resolve for other heads of state and the Europeans — still trying at the elite level to pretend that Trump isn’t a buffoon, knowing he is, and as they proceed on course, bracing and waiting for the creature to “go off to the next tantrum” as mentioned by Chomsky.

It is true that in the past the US has led and authorized disastrous NATO bombings. These are criticized rather easily and justifiably from the left, but potentially there is a danger of the Trump mentality to foster a disregard for global order from the reactionary right wing. Resistance to Trump cynicism puts NATO skeptics on the left in a difficult position. Or does it?

Chomsky maintains that there shouldn’t be any difficulty.  “Support what’s right” says Chomsky while it’s “impossible to ignore the antics of a nasty little creature enjoying every moment of his tantrums, [it’s also] important to carry out what’s important and saner people will probably act as I expect the Europeans will.”

Trump was elected partly because of what amounts to his “Me First” Doctrine as well as his “Make America Great Again” slogan. Both “liberals” and “conservatives” should notice Trump’s intentions however, to utilize NATO in the background while appeasing his rabid anti-institution base. But this is a ruse when you analyze his cabinet and actual policy formation, mostly set at the outset, and without any “deep state” influence.

Recall that Trump selected Mike Pence as his Vice Presidential candidate and once elected sent him about to reassure the US’s “unwavering” relationship with NATO. Trump also appointed Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador, again without so called, “deep state pressure.” She is a committed NATO supporter and “slams Russia,” to highlight her own commitments to the foreign policy orthodoxy.  Another of Trump’s prized selections is Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a hawk and open critic of Russia; so much so that it’s news when he doesn’t mention Russia in his briefings and policy statements. Finally, Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the only cabinet member with any redeeming promise of détente with Russia and a NATO skeptic or at least selective proponent.

The Trump Doctrine and ideology is quite simple: Me! And according to Chomsky “that requires putting on a show for his worshipful base while he quietly shafts them in every possible way.” (In terms of both domestic and foreign policy) It is doubtful that Trump has a plan other than this and after each Trump bombastic effort “Mattis will continue to strengthen NATO and intensify the dangerous posturing at the Russian border” remarked Chomsky.

It might be true that Trump likes to portray himself as a populist alternative to the Bushes and Clintons and their reckless foreign policies of neo-conservatism and liberal interventionism while questioning our “exceptionalism” but in reality we have broadened and expanded our presence around the world under Trump.

Trump’s helping to lead a dangerous mentality for nihilists that if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, who cares? While offering nothing coherent, and to the extent that there is a policy, Chomsky points out how it was proudly described by one Trump official: “We’re America, bitch!” with Chomsky adding more accurately, ‘We’re the 1% of America, bitch,’ those who count.”

 

+

 

The White House Tried To Cover Up A Massive Toxic Water Problem

https://hillreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DOD-Water-Toxicity-Report.jpg

https://hillreporter.com/white-house-tried-cover-up-massive-toxic-water-problem-3572

 

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w.

Image result for comedy and tragedy

Comedy

 

America is Pretty Much a Dictatorship Now

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/TRUMP-WRECKING-BALL.JPG

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49862.htm
The View from Wheeling: A Twleve-Toed Analysis
by Fred Reed

 

I’m trying to figure out politics. It’s slow going. I’m just a holler hopper out of West Virginia, and I guess I puzzle easy. Maybe you can help me.

I reckon America is pretty much a dictatorship now. It’s because one man, just one, does anything he wants to other countries and to us and everything else. I mean, he starts trade wars, to make everything cost more, which I don’t remember anybody voting for.  Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention, though. He sends troops to Africa without telling anybody if he feels like it, which he mostly does. I guess somebody somewhere must want our troops in Africa, but I don’t know anybody who does.

Then he  puts sanctions on all the countries he’s heard of, which probably isn’t many, but maybe has a map to find new ones. You know, like Nambia. He obeys Israel like it was his mother, and wants a war with Eye-ran so he’ll get campaign money in New York, and wants a fight with places like China, and Russia too.

Now that’s smart. I bet you wake up at night and think, Dear God, please let us have a war with China, so we can all melt into chicken fat or at least Walmart won’t have anything to sell. Think how much money people would save.

Me, I reckon he’s crazier than a bag of monkeys and, like they say in Alabama, ain’t got the sense God give a crabapple. Maybe that’s just me, though. The big question is do we get turned into pork rinds in a nuclear fry-up,  or just starve in a trade war? We don’t know . I don’t guess it’s our business.

On one of those nature shows on TV I saw something about about the  endangered Giant Yellow Crested Cockatoon and how it makes nests in cities. I don’t know why I thought of that.

It’s a funny dictatorship, though if you think about dictatorships. It’s a crafty one, not too ugly from inside, until the fry-up anyway, sort of like a movie about that guy Orwell if Disney did it. It seems like we’ve got freedom but no power. That’s really slick. Any mosquito will tell you it’s better to suck blood from something that doesn’t notice you’re doing it.

At the baptist church down the road, the preacher, he’s the Reverend McBilly Osfeiser, he says the End Times are about here. What he said was, “Verily I say unto ye, brethren and sistern, the Last Tribulation is upon us. for in Revelation chapter 8, verses 3-5, saith the Lord, “From the deeps of Sheol a creature shall arise, with the head of a carrot and the body of a man, and he shall smite the nations of the earth, even unto the Stromatolites and Erythrocytes, and none shall remain unsmited, and they shall smite him back, and the world shall end.”

Well, I think that’s what he said. Anyway, he might of said it.

But we were talking about our dictatorship.  I was going to say, then there’s Congress, that’s neutered like somebody’s pet dog and only cares about itself. That’s just how Congress is. It’s hard to tell what it’s for anymore.

A lot of people in it don’t seem right in the head.  There this woman named Elizabeth Warren who thinks she an Indian. Well, I think I’m a French Poodle. There’s as much evidence. I don’t know whether she wears feathers or anything, maybe a belt with scalps on it. Then there’s Nancy Pelosi, who can’t make her eyes point in the same direction at once. And there’s Maxine Waters, who sticks her tongue out at people like she want to catch flies. I figure with people like that, there ought to be room for a French Poodle. I could have a dog bowl for bribes and bark every little bit for authenticity.

Part of our newfangled  dictatorship is the telescreen, television I meant to say, and the newspapers, that never talk about anything they don’t want you to think about.  Well, what they do is every few weeks, probably on Saturday night when everybody is out drinking beer and not watching, they put in about a sentence and a half about one of Washington’s wars, with no pictures of dead kids spread around like marmalade on buttered toast. That way they can say they’re covering the wars. They know people don’t remember anything they hear just once if there’s no pictures. But if you tell them twelve thousand times that Russia is poisoning orphans in Utah, they’ll believe it, even if Utah doesn’t have any orphans, and they have to truck a few in so they can look poisoned. Then everybody’ll want a war with Russia. Then you can get more money from them to build aircraft carriers. Some German guy figured it out.

 

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x.

Image result for comedy and tragedy

Tragedy

 

Commandos Sans Frontières
The Global Growth of U.S. Special Operations Forces

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/US-TROOPS-INT.JPG

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49866.htm

by Nick Turse

 

Early last month, at a tiny military post near the tumbledown town of Jamaame in Somalia, small arms fire began to ring out as mortar shells crashed down. When the attack was over, one Somali soldier had been wounded -- and had that been the extent of the casualties, you undoubtedly would never have heard about it. As it happened, however, American commandos were also operating from that outpost and four of them were wounded, three badly enough to be evacuated for further medical care. Another special operator, Staff Sergeant Alexander Conrad, a member of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces (also known as the Green Berets), was killed. If the story sounds vaguely familiar -- combat by U.S. commandos in African wars that America is technically not fighting -- it should. Last December, Green Berets operating alongside local forces in Niger killed 11 Islamic State militants in a firefight. Two months earlier, in October, an ambush by an Islamic State terror group in that same country, where few Americans (including members of Congress) even knew U.S. special operators were stationed, left four U.S. soldiers dead -- Green Berets among them. (The military first described that mission as providing “advice and assistance” to local forces, then as a “reconnaissance patrol” as part of a broader “train, advise, and assist” mission, before it was finally exposed as a kill or capture operation.) Last May, a Navy SEAL was killed and two other U.S. personnel were wounded in a raid in Somalia that the Pentagon described as an “advise, assist, and accompany” mission. And a month earlier, a U.S. commando reportedly killed a member of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a brutal militia that has terrorized parts of Central Africa for decades.

 

And there had been, as the New York Times noted in March, at least 10 other previously unreported attacks on American troops in West Africa between 2015 and 2017. Little wonder since, for at least five years, as Politico recently reported, Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and other commandos, operating under a little-understood legal authority known as Section 127e, have been involved in reconnaissance and “direct action” combat raids with African special operators in Somalia, Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Tunisia.

 

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y.

'We will cut your throats':

The anatomy of Greece's lynch mobs

https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2018/2/27/f2c8ea5ac05b4285b7146b82f336f8b6_18.jpg

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/cut-throats-anatomy-greece-lynch-mobs-180226135614426.html

With anti-migrant violence hitting a fever pitch, victims ask why Greek authorities have carried out so few arrests.

by Patrick Strickland

 

more on The Far Right

Meet the football ultras 'all of Russia hates'6 days ago

Far-right calls to register Roma 'echoes' Europe's dark historylast week

Tehreek-e-Labbaik: New far right campaigns against 'blasphemy'last week

Arab American comedian wins lawsuit against American neo-Nazilast week

 

Goritsa, Greece - Scrawled in spray paint on a deserted building at the entrance to Goritsa, a Greek farming village on the outskirts of Aspropyrgos, is a large black X crossing out "Anti-Fascist Zone".

Inside the village, the walls of abandoned factories are blanketed in graffiti bearing crosshairs, a symbol of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party. "Aspropyrgos - Golden Dawn," one of the tags proclaims.

In a sprawling field on the periphery of Goritsa, Ashfak Mahmoud, a short, slender man in a billowing, navy blue raincoat and a black beanie, slides gloves onto his work-worn hands. He pulls a dull kitchen knife from his pocket and slices at the bulbous lettuce heads below.

Mahmoud is one of seven victims of anti-migrant violence and threats who spoke to Al Jazeera. Citing the low number of arrests stemming from the violence, they all accused the police of either acting too slowly or treating their cases with neglect.

 

===========

 

z.

From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Saturday, 14 July, 2018

http://markcrispinmiller.com

 


How "our free press" is really state-controlled (as is the so-called "left"): MCM on the plight of Julian Assange

 

 

 

I did this half-hour interview with Cass Fairbanks on Saturday, July 7, 2018:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j09Vk8qth1Y

 

And here are links to all last weekend's interviews with Julian's defenders:

 

PART ONE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHdOmRVwnAM

 

INTERVIEW #1         6:12 - 50:25        Ross Cameron (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #2    1:03:05 - 1:51:00     Graham Elwood (Host: Cassandra Fairbanks)

INTERVIEW #3    1:53:50 - 2:58:37     Kim Dotcom (Host: Cassandra Fairbanks)

INTERVIEW #4    3:19:46 - 3:49:44     Mark Crispin Miller (Host: Cassandra Fairbanks)

INTERVIEW #5    3:57:35 - 4:55:26     Daniel Ellsberg (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #6    5:00:55 - 5:52:09     Tim Black (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #7    5:56:08 - 6:49:24     Mark Sleboda (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #8    7:05:30 - 7:52:20     Peter Van Buren (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #9    7:56:15 - 8:49:30     Niko House (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #10  8:55:46 - 9:54:00     Scott Horton (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #11  9:58:00 - 10:53:25   David Swanson (Host: Suzie Dawson)

 

PART TWO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQkYoyP6fwE

 

INTERVIEW #12       4:06 - 56:10       Ray McGovern (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #13  1:06:35 - 1:59:25    Dmitry Babich (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #14  2:06:26 - 2:54:15    Lee Stranahan (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #15  3:01:26 - 3:57:14    H.A. Goodman (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #16  3:57:23 - 4:50:32    Caitlin Johnstone (Host: Suzie Dawson)

 

PART THREE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHvNmrcowHU

 

INTERVIEW #17      40:55 - 1:30:35         Felicity Ruby (Host: Tim Foley)

INTERVIEW #18   1:34:04 - 2:32:46         Dame Cathy Vogan (Host: Tim Foley)

INTERVIEW #19   2:36:45 - 3:41:45         Slavoj Zizek (Host: Tim Foley)

INTERVIEW #20   3:44:45 - 4:20:56         Craig Murray (Host: Tim Foley)

INTERVIEW #21   4:38:44 - 5:34:32         Simon Floth (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #22   5:37:30 - 6:26:30         Bill Binney (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #23   6:35:22 - 7:30:20         Ciaron O’Reilly (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

 

PART FOUR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWtGnaRHBa0

 

INTERVIEW #24      17:30 - 1:11:33         Ron Placone (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #25   1:16:08 - 2:08:45         Kevin Zeese (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #26   2:13:30 - 3:09:50         Cynthia McKinney (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #27   3:14:46 - 4:09:35         George Galloway (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #28   4:23:05 - 5:11:33         Jamarl Thomas (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #29   5:17:15 - 5:47:07         Cassandra Fairbanks (Host: Elizabeth Lea Vos)

INTERVIEW #30   5:55:38 - 6:18:13         Alistair Thompson (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #31   6:40:04 - 7:11:53         Cian Westmoreland (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #32:  7:20:55 - 8:17:05         Chris Hedges (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #33   8:26:44 - 9:12:47         Mehdi Taileb (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #34   9:20:00 - 10:22:54       Vivian Kubrick (Host: Suzie Dawson)

INTERVIEW #35 10:22:55 - 11:13:23       Father Dave (Host: Suzie Dawson)