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Orientation

Foundational polarities between paganism and monotheism

What is the difference between a universe and a cosmos? Is the world eternal where something cannot come out of nothing or does the world have a beginning? What is primary, stasis or change? What might the difference between verbs and nouns have to do high paganism and monotheism? How might the difference between a proverb, a riddle and a paradox be connected to high paganism and monotheism. Is conflict a constitutional part of the world or is it a sign of deficiency? Does the complexity …

Headline news, no: “AOC Casts House Democrats’ Sole Vote Against Omnibus Spending Bill: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez cited ‘the dramatic increase in DHS and ICE spending’ as the reason behind her vote.”

Oh, wouldn’t it be a fine thing in the neighborhood if this AOC went rogue, Independent Party, on her hands and knees, and apologizing:

I should have never supported any 350 (dot) org or Al Gore or Hollywood’s “new green deal” …

When Elon Musk met Donald Trump (Image credit: Mashable) This fall when Elon Musk took over Twitter he promised that he will adhere to free speech principles – allowing for the free flow of ideas and expression. However, only a few months into his control of the company he has kept one policy consistent – the silencing of Palestinian voices, including journalists. The attack on Palestinian journalists and voices has escalated over the past few weeks, culminating with the suspension of renowned journalist Said Arikat.

Arikat, a fixture at …

 
Preface: Paul, a subscriber/regular commenter, recently mentioned Gen. Smedley Butler the other day and it inspired me to share an edited excerpt from my first book. 

During the early 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated that he was “deeply impressed” with Benito Mussolini and referred to the Italian dictator as an “admirable Italian gentleman.”

Despite Roosevelt’s positive assessment of the strongman of Italian fascism, there is evidence that some home-grown U.S. fascists may …

Imagine being confined to a space the size of a car’s interior in the pitch blackness of outer space for three days. Your spacecraft is the Apollo 14 Command Module “Kitty Hawk,” returning from the moon. In order to maintain thermal balance, the module will rotate 360° every two minutes, as the sun, the moon and stars, 10xs brighter and 10xs more prevalent, come into view repeatedly every 120 seconds. For Edgar Mitchell, NASA Lunar Module Pilot of the Apollo 14 moon mission in 1971 it was mesmerizing, inspiring universal connectiveness, a transcendental shift.

Other astronauts have experienced the Overview Effect, …

Am I just outright stupid, or is something seriously wrong with the majority of people? Bill Gates had his summit on overpopulation and how this is a serious crisis. Yet then he claims he can reduce disease and save the population with vaccines. Gates especially seems to want to save humanity which he on the other hand says is the problem. Something is just not right.

— “The Hypocrisy behind the Vaccines.”

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder & political prisoner, epitomizes what the rules-based order means in the lexicon of US empire.

In fits of, what might well be termed, masochism, some of us now-and-then tune in to the legacy media. When doing so, one is likely to hear western-aligned politicians rhetorize ad nauseam about the linguistically vogue rules-based order. Now and then, the word “international” is also inserted: the rules-based international order.

But what exactly is this rules-based order?

The way that the wording rules-based order is bandied about makes it sound like it …

Reference photograph: Sandinistas at the Walls of the National Guard Headquarters: ‘Molotov Man’, Estelí, Nicaragua, July 16th, 1979, by Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

The International Labour Organisation’s Global Wage Report 2022–23 tracks the horrendous collapse of real wages for billions of people around the planet. The gaping distance between the incomes and wealth of 99% of the world’s population from the incomes …

During this year, the U.S. Government has allocated $112 billion to Ukraine, in order to defeat Russia in the battlefields of Ukraine. Russia allocates normally $60 billion per year for its entire military, but this year has increased that 40% to $84 billion, because of its invasion of Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine because, on 17 December 2021, Russia had demanded that the U.S. Government and its NATO anti-Russian military alliance stop trying to place its missiles on and near Russia’s borders (especially in Ukraine, which is the nearest …

 
“Pinocchio eats sugar, but refuses to take medicine. When the undertakers come for him, he drinks the medicine and feels better. Afterwards he tells a lie and, in punishment, his nose grows longer and longer.”

— C. Collodi (pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini), The Adventures of Pinocchio.

Brazil’s President-elect Lula with indigenous activists at COP27 — Photo: COP27 Press Pool

With wars raging in Ukraine, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere, Roe v. Wade overturned and our resources being wasted on militarism instead of addressing the climate crisis, it can be hard to remember the hard-won progress being made. As we end a difficult year, let’s pause to remind ourselves of some of the positive changes that happened in 2022 that should inspire us to do more in the year to come. While some are only partial gains, they are …

The contradiction behind the messages is clear. This was a “sophisticated” operation involving surveillance. It was planned. Those unfortunate police officers were lured to an isolated Queensland property where they were “executed”. The details were initially sketchy, but that did not prevent the general sentiment from simmering away: this was, in the words of a statement by the Queensland Police Union, a “senseless murder of colleagues”. That account has been trotted out with unanimity. …

December 24 is I.F. Stone’s birthday (he would have been 115).  His journalistic example is about as good a reason as any to celebrate.

Born Isador Feinstein, the incomparable I.F. “Izzy” Stone served as an editor at The Nation and worked for several other papers before founding his own journal in 1953 — with $3,000 borrowed from a friend and a 5,300-name subscription list inherited from a handful of defunct publications.

I.F. Stone’s Weekly reached a circulation of 70,000 by the 1960s and Stone was widely praised …

Nearly 200 years in, the Monroe Doctrine has had a devastating track record in the Western hemisphere. This bloody history of gringo imperialism has produced strains of left-wing populism, which have become strong political forces in the region. Unfortunately for anarchists and other revolutionaries, these leftist political regimes have tended towards either resisting the US through authoritarian statecraft, or else have simply revealed themselves to be shills for neoliberalism.

In Peru, plagued by an entrenched political opposition, allegations of corruption and a low approval rating, former president Pedro Castillo attempted to dissolve congress, which has led to his impeachment and subsequent …

War was inevitable outcome of 2014 U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview with Die Zeit, published on December 7, that “the 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It…used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not the modern Ukraine.”
These comments echoed those of Petro Poroshenko, the former president of Ukraine, who came to power in snap elections after the 2014 coup d’état. Regarding his signing of the Minsk Accord, Poroshenko repeated in a Deutsche Welle interview last June his previous admission: …