On January 24th, Burkina Faso bore witness to its third destabilizing coup in less than a decade. It also marked the eighth successful putsch American soldiers launched in multiple West African countries since 2008. The Intercept reports that Ouagadougou’s new leader, Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, took part in many United States led AFRICOM (Africa Command) exercises and an American sponsored military intelligence course. This disturbing pattern raises serious questions about what the U.S. army is teaching its African allies.
The U.S. developed an alarming habit for training individuals likely to commit horrendous …
“I friggin’ hate war,” stammered Nicole, clenching her fists.
“Doesn’t everyone hate war?” asked Hiro.
He meant it as a rhetorical question. But Nicole retorted, “No. Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon and other weapon manufacturers like, er … looove war. Wall Street loves war. Blackwater, or whatever they are called now, love war. And so do the mercenaries.”
Hiro hadn’t meant “everyone” to literally mean “everyone.” But he knew his wording was imprecise.
“But one thing should come out of the Russia-Ukraine war… er” Nicole caught herself and reformulated her statement: “At least, one really good thing that is.”
A cartoon of why the world is enmeshed in armed conflict. Noam Chomsky’s book — Who Rules the World — provides the evidence behind the fact that the majority of humans on earth view the United States as the greatest threat to peace in the world today.
First, they made you fear the air itself. Then they told you only the experts know the way out of this mess. You chose to trust them and rely on them. And when someone showed you verifiable evidence that our “leaders” are psychopaths, you rejected it. You couldn’t handle the truth. Life is just so much easier when you blindly trust experts and doctors and political officials. Right?
What if I told you that everything you know is wrong?
Considering the Chernobyl-like crisis bubbling over Ukraine in recent days, some questions arise like mushroom clouds of steam from tempests in teapots, namely: Is Vladimir Putin acting like an “Ape, man?”; has this WEF-grad truly gone “rogue”?; and even the “content moderation” set thought that Putin has been –“Horrors!” — ex-communicated from the holier-than-thou Davos Community? What in the Ukraine is really going on?
Does China See it as Blessing for Military Action Against Taiwan?
by John Stanton / March 1st, 2022
The United States is now in a state of war with Russia.
Every country in the NATO military alliance is providing billions in anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to the Ukrainians (of course, every country in the NATO alliance is owned by the United States which has recently coughed up $850 million for the cause). Along with those weapons the alliance has nodded its approval to the world’s mercenaries to descend on Ukraine getting free passage into Western Ukraine and transit through countries who directly border Ukraine. Privatemilitary.org lists all the private military contractors who are likely exploring their options in Ukraine.
Potential hotspots between Russia and Ukraine, 2021. Panther Media GmbH / Alamy Stock Vector
Wars are never a solution to resolve a conflict. They only escalate misery and the killing of innocent people. But the west should not hypocritically forget when it now condemns Russia, that it accepted, even supported, or at best, remained silent, when the US directly or via proxy, invaded and devastated – unprovoked – Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Somalia, Vietnam and many more…
One might argue that Russia is fighting for self-preservation after …
In this presentation delivered to the Day 6 proceedings of the Coronavirus Grand Jury hearing organized by Dr. Reiner Fullmich and his team of international lawyers, Canadian Patriot Review Editor-in-Chief Matthew Ehret was asked to deliver remarks elucidating the origins of the quasi-science of eugenics, and its role in mis-shaping the 20th century.
This exercise required a brief overview of 1) how the Malthusian science of population control as it arose in response to the spread of republican concepts of humanity and freedom in the late 18th century, 2) how Charles Darwin himself (under the control of Thomas Huxley) took …
In a country expert in killing off mammal species at a rate exceeding that of others (to be fair, there are so many more to destroy, with more to come), Australians now face the prospect that the koala, one of its most singularly recognisable animals, has its days numbered.
Divergent attitudes to such animal species, notably indigenous ones, has been a point of some despair for conservationists. In 1995, Ron Green, the zoological director of Canberra’s Australian National Wildlife Sanctuary, put his finger on the matter by suggesting that Australians were “unique” in their “blasé” disposition. “They’ll look at the …
Not wanting to sound hyperbolic, but I am starting to conclude that the nuclear madmen running the U.S./NATO New Cold War they started decades ago are itching to start a nuclear war with Russia. Their hypocrisy and nihilistic thirst for death and destruction are so extreme that it boggles my mind. They accuse Russia of starting a New Cold War when they did so decades ago and have been pushing the envelope ever since. Now they act shocked that Russia, after many years of patience, has struck back in Ukraine.
In 2017, Oliver Stone released his four part interviews with …
In 2019, the RAND Corporation tentacle of the U.S. Military Industrial Congressional “Intelligence” Media Academic “Think” Tank Complex published a report claiming to have “conducted a qualitative assessment of ‘cost-imposing options’ that could unbalance and overextend Russia.”
Here was one of the “cost-imposing options,” one that U.S. President Barack Obama had been refusing, but in 2019, RAND was preparing for a regime change at home: “Providing lethal aid to Ukraine.”
Doing that, RAND said, “would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. …
I have people worried that as white writers they will be hit with “cultural appropriation” if they write a novel with characters who are not of their own race. You know the deal — writing about barrios, or ghettos or even a mix of people in a big city, people outside the lily white background of the author.
We know that is balderdash, to put it lightly. The cultural appropriation fear came up in a memoir writing class I teach. Memoirs, which are about people remembering a time …
The Russian Federation has launched a full-scale attack upon Ukraine.
The World Socialist Movement is not concerned with the supposed rights and wrongs of this war, whether the niceties of international law were breached or if the sovereignty of Ukraine was disregarded. As workers, we are painfully aware that it will be fellow workers who will pay the blood price of the geo-political games played out by the Great Powers.
Ukraine isn’t the “democracy” that Western politicians and media like to give the impression it is. In fact, the political and economic superstructure of Ukraine is not very much different from that of Russia. So the argument that it is “democratic” while Russia …
O would some Power the gift to give us To see ourselves as others see us!
— Robert Burns, To a Louse, 1786
This famous quote by the great Scottish poet Robert Burns stands as one of the clearest reminders of a precondition for any matured identity.
Burns understood that without having learned to use our God-given ability to place ourselves in the shoes of another, then those powers needed to self-examine our false prejudices, exercise humility (upon which creative insight is premised) and correct our false motives, actions and beliefs would be completely lost.
Article 33: Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage and reprisals. “No protected person may be punished for any offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
— Fourth Geneva Convention
Rick Westhead of the Canadian sports network, TSN.ca, has presented the opinion of Bruce Kidd, a former Canadian Olympian, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto and the school’s ombudsperson, advocating that the government of Canada suspend future travel visas to Russian athletes because of Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine.
In the Trekverse of the 24th century, there exists an assimilated and transformed species called the Borg. Their duty was to add other species deemed worthy to the Borg Collective. Those who resisted were told that resistance was futile and that they must comply. A similar scenario plays out on present day Earth where people are told they must comply with orders to be jabbed with a vaccine that carries great risk. Those not complying can be punished with loss of employment and forbidden access to many venues.
Following here is an assignment: Find some object you hold near and dear. Something that can leap you into a backward narrative. Something to hold you as a memoir writer, going back, reflecting back. That thing, you can hold or touch. You find meaning in it. And, that object holds stories. Try and do this under ten pages.
I plugged the community/continuing education class I designed for the local community college, Oregon Coast, CC, here, at the local twice-a-week rag: “The art of remaking-retelling a story” (Newport News Times)
Factory farms are the Grim Reapers of civilization, inhumanely penning up and slaughtering cows, pigs, and chickens by the tens of millions, as well as unintentionally, but effectively, poisoning, maiming and/or killing birds, insects, amphibians, mammals, and crucial life-supporting ecosystems that are key to human life. And, it’s legal.
Factory farms have suddenly arisen out of nowhere; e.g., in Iowa “the state’s number of concentrated animal feed operations, known as CAFOs, grew from 722 in 2001 to more than 10,000 in 2017, according to a study on the industry by two retired University of Iowa professors.” ((“Environmentalists Make Long-Shot Attempt to …
Comments of Principal Man Ian Zabarte of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, January 27, 2022
by Ian Zabarte / February 25th, 2022
The comments of principal man Ian Zabarte of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, characterize the ongoing abuse suffered by the Western Shoshone people as a result of US military and commercial nuclear development. There has been no explicit act of Congress to diminish or extinguish Indian title to 30 million acres of land owned by the Western Shoshone Nation defined by Article 5 of the Treaty of Ruby Valley. We seek creation of a reservation by the President …
Potential hotspots between Russia and Ukraine, 2021. Panther Media GmbH / Alamy Stock Vector There is an adage that the first casualty in a war is the truth. The US and NATO allege that Putin’s Russia is a malevolent aggressor against neighboring Ukraine. They assert that the US and NATO are simply defending the rights of an oppressed nation. Meanwhile, what the sycophantic legacy news media convey to the public is a gross distortion of the reality in this current Ukraine crisis. Some relevant facts which Western government spokespersons and …
This episode looks at the historic rapprochement between China and the United States when president Richard Nixon met Chairman Mao Zedong, the growing need for lithium, technological cooperation and competition between rural and urban China, the high cost of raising a child in China, and its declining birth rate.
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / February 24th, 2022
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare,
— James Madison, Political Observations, 20 April 1795
War is the enemy of freedom.
As long as America’s politicians continue to involve us in wars that bankrupt the nation, jeopardize our servicemen and women, increase the chances of terrorism and blowback domestically, …
Events are unfolding at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we are looking to our most respected and renowned thought leaders for an honest assessment of both U.S. foreign and military policy to offer their most current thoughts and insights. We know they have some ideas for improving the prospects for peace.
Scott Ritter served as a former U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence officer (1984-1991), in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Norman Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq (1991-1998). He is …
A frozen continent. Another potential frontier for conflict and competition. Antarctica is a part of the world were realpolitician meets scientist; the desire for finding exploitable resources meets environmental expectations and fears. Countries have vied for their little slice of ice, sometimes citing reasons of scientific collaboration, and often national self-interest. Much of this culminated in the establishment of the Antarctic Treaty System, comprising four major international agreements beginning with the 1959 Antarctic Treaty and ending with the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.
During the Cold War, it became an area of exceptional interest. The United …
When Nelson Mandela was freed from his Robben Island prison on February 11, 1991, my family, friends and neighbors followed the event with keen interest as they gathered in the living room of my old home in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip.
This emotional event took place years before Mandela uttered his famous quote “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”. For us Palestinians Mandela did not need to reaffirm the South African people’s solidarity with Palestine by using these words or any other combination of words. We already knew. Emotions ran high on that …
Exploited and abused for generations by white colonial powers and manipulative economic structures, there is a growing feeling of solidarity within parts of the African continent, as exemplified by the #NoMore movement. Covid vaccine inequality and environmental injustice, together with recent events in Ethiopia, have galvanized people.
Ideas of African unity and rage against former imperial forces are nothing new; the chain of suppression and exploitation of African nations is long, running from slavery and colonialism (including colonial extraction) to wealth and climate inequality, racial capitalism and now Covid vaccine apartheid.
Despite the fact that many would say Africa was united …
One major nuclear war catastrophically interrupts the progress of human civilization and ushers in God only knows how many decades of dystopian madness. Pray that NATO’s march on Moscow doesn’t make Napoleon look like a genius and Hitler a brilliant military strategist. Bonaparte’s retreat during the winter of 1812? A walk in the park compared to a nuclear winter. The Battle of Stalingrad? A minor skirmish compared to the destruction attendant upon a major nuclear conflagration.
At a moment when wise leaders would spare no effort to move heaven …
Russia has sent troops into Ukraine and attacked Ukrainian military forces .
In a one hour address, President Putin said the goal was the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine.
It is now clear the Russian statements and proposed peace treaty in December 2021 were deadly serious. At that time the Russians said the US and NATO were crossing red lines, they felt threatened and would not abide this endlessly. Now they have taken action.
In his address yesterday, Russian President Putin gave a frank explanation which comes after years of complaints. The Russians have complained bitterly about the US-promoted 2014 coup in …
Ahmed Rabbani (Pakistan), Untitled (Grape Arbor), 2016. Rabbani endured 545 days of torture at the hands of the CIA before he was transferred to Guantánamo in 2004. He has been in the prison without charge since then.
Twenty years ago, on 11 January 2002, the United States government brought …
