Author: paulm100m

The Death of Democracy

On the 7th  October 2018, Jair Bolsonaro, former paratrooper  captain  in the Brazilian  Army and publicly  evowed supporter of  military  dictatorship,  torture and murder,  was elected President of Brazil.

Bolsonaro,  a supposed Christian, and  hater of gays,  communists, leftists,  minorities (who  form  a majority of Brazil’s population) ,  environmentalists, and any one else who  disagrees with his puerile view of the world, vows to  create a Brazil  where ‘Brazil (is) Above Everything, God Above Everyone’. 

As Pepe Escobar notes; The record reveals Bolsonaro as a racist, misogynist, homophobic, weaponizing thug, favoring a white, patriarchal, hierarchical, hetero-normative and “homogenous” Brazil; an absurdity in a deeply unequal society still ravaged by the effects of slavery and where the majority of the population is mixed race.

Bolsonaro  demonstrably has very  limited intelligence and  psychopathic instincts, and yet  a majority of voters enthusiastically supported his election as president. How could that be? Fearful of  urban violence ,  political  and systemic corruption and economic failure,  they voted for a man  who, despite all  the evidence to  the contrary in his  career history,  promised economic stability and growth ,  safety and an  end to  corruption. Blaming the lack of those things on  the reds and all  who  opposed  him, seemed to  make perfect  sense to  a population  flooded with media messaging that  seemed to  confirm  those views.

America’s “New Scientist’  has recently  stated the sad truth  that  “Antagonism isn’t absolutely good or bad. Daniel Nettle speculated that all personality traits evolved to have trade-offs, and that’s why variation exists in personality. From an evolutionary perspective, agreeableness has both benefits (attention to mental states of others; harmonious interpersonal relationships, valued coalitional partnerships) as well as costs (subject to social cheating and exploitation; failure to maximize selfish advantage). Nevertheless, because of the existence of such wide variation in this trait, highly antagonistic leaders can arouse and influence wide swaths of people who score high in this trait through their rhetoric and messaging”.

The irony seems lost on his supporters that  Bolsonaro  as a true fascist  ( a supporter of extremist violence and corporate profit above all  things ),  is so  deeply imbedded in  military  corruption and has such an  extraordinarily  narrow fundamentalist view of the world that  Brazil could well  be headed for a nightmare world…

And yet,  as FAIR notes, the Western  financial  and conservative media  is  waxing enthusiastically about his election as a a great step  forward for the free market; and as Pepe Escobar notes,  a nail  in  the coffin of the independent BRICS global financial  market structure.

Bolsonaro’s supreme lack  of intellectual  capacity will  give him  the capacity  to  destroy – once and for all – the lifeblood of this planet ;  the Amazonian rainforests that  are truly the lungs of this earth,  and whose  indigenous guardians he has pledged to  destroy .

As the Guarani said recently: “If indigenous peoples become extinct and dead, the lives of all are threatened, for we are the guardians of nature. Without forest, without water, without rivers, there is no life, there is no way for any Brazilian to survive. We resisted 518 years ago, we fight in victory and defeat, our land is our mother. As long as the sun still shines, and while there is still fresh air under the shade of a tree, while there is still a river to bathe in, we will fight.”

Links

Financial Press Cheers Election of Fascist in Brazil

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/10/29/welcome-to-the-jungle/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/25/brazil-could-be-dragged-back-into-dictatorship-cultural-figures-warn

https://www.telesurenglish.net/multimedia/Brazils-Social-Movements-Rally-Against-Bolsonaro-20181031-0016.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/31/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-indigenous-tribes-mining-logging

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/10/jair-bolsonaro-quotes-brazil-election

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/brazil-president-bolsonaro-destroy-the-amazon-2018-10?r=US&IR=T

12 Years to Go….

Homo  sapiens are a strange species. They self-proclaim their superiority over other species  because of their  supposed ‘intelligence”, while they  are self-evidently systematically  destroying all aspects of life on  the planet  they rely on  for their survival. We are, branch  by branch,  cutting off all  the limbs of the tree of life that  enables our survival.

One might be forgiven   for thinking that  those actions of destroying life in  exchange for  the creation of inanimate objects might be considered the ultimate in  folly and stupidity;  but apparently this is not the case.

Academics, politicians and researchers continue to promote an undeniably ridiculous self-delusional  note that  more  human ‘progress’  can somehow,   in its ongoing destruction of the natural living world ,  create a new and better world  for humans-  ( a dead world)  Perhaps these Nobel  prize winners will  continue to get  their  university research stipends  from big business  until  their lives become unlive-able in  their hothouse  university offices; part of  that newly ‘progressive’ dead world…where slight-of-hand carbon  trading,  or the wonders of “renewable energy”,  allow us to pretend –  right up  to  the last  moment-  that we are creating a new reality..

A quote from The Guardian about these illustrious Nobel Prize winners…

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the two men had won the prize – which is not one of those originally instigated by Alfred Nobel – because they had “designed methods for addressing some of our time’s most basic and pressing questions about how we create long-term sustained and sustainable economic growth”.

The two men, it continued, had “significantly broadened the scope of economic analysis by constructing models that explain how the market economy interacts with nature and knowledge”.

One of the most recent media  releases from  the Intergovernmental  Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that  global  warming will  certainly   increase  to 1.5C  above previous ‘normal” global  temperature levels in  the next 12 years,  and that  that increase will  dramatically impact  on  human being’s survival  and many other species . Should global  temperature increases reach  2C;  as they  will  without dramatic  intervention,  then the impacts on  all  species will  be catastrophic..

A previous study  by  the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) noted that  species loss is as great  a threat to  humanity (and the rest of the living fabric of the Earth,  as climate change.   It does not appear to  occur to those scientists  that   climate change and species loss are part of the exact same issue:  the commodification of the living world.

I am always reminded when  I go  to  our local  supermarket of this bizarre absurdity- of man making living things into  commodities for human beings ,  when  I see the little plastic  labels on  the fruit and vegetables  being sold there. Human beings have somehow created a collective psychosis  over many millenia that  sees this world we live in as something for use- something outside of us –  rather than  the reality of being intimately and totally connected to  us and essential  for our mutual  survival.

Few,  except  some of the South American  indigenous communities have retained this essential understanding of how our world actually lives and breathes. Human  beings will  only survive on  this planet  if we recognise our intimate and sacred connection to  the rest of our living world.

Is it too  late to start  to  re-learn  this lesson   and begin the  re-greening  of  our world?

Links

http://www.ipcc.ch/news_and_events/pr_181008_P48_spm.shtml

http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/world-leaders-have-moral-obligation-to-act-after-un-climate-report

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/08/two-us-economists-win-nobel-prize-for-work-on-climate-and-growth-william-nordhaus-paul-romer

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/oct/09/shell-ben-van-beurden-mass-reforestation-un-climate-change-target

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/fate-of-human-race-depends-on-massive-greening-effort/

http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/10/going-full-circle-growth-planet/

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/UN-Report-Confronts-Nations-with-Tough-Choices-on-Climate-20180930-0010.html

https://www.fws.gov/nativeamerican/pdf/tek-salmon-2000.pdf

The Strange Case of Sr. Bolsonaro

Jair Bolsonaro- (or “The Legend’, as his supporters like to call  him)  -an ex  Brazilian Army Captain, is flying high in  the polls for the Brazilian Presidential  elections in  October.

He appears to be extending his lead over his major left-wing rival , who  replaced the  imprisoned ex President Lula on  the ballot list. Senator Bolsonaro  stands, he says,  for  economic stability and an end to  the corruption that  characterised the left wing governments of Lula and Rousseff, and their right wing successors  led by  President Temer.

The Brazilian  and international  media tend  to  describe Bolsonaro as a ‘firebrand’,  ‘misogynist’  or a  ‘far-right’  politician-  adjectives which do  nothing to  describe the brutal  reality of this pathetic little man.  Bolsonaro  has consistently informed the media and his supporters  that   he  is in  favour of mass-murder ( 30,000  deaths will  not be enough he says) ,  torture and  terrorising those political  opponents.-  a return to  the ‘good old days’  of the U.S.  supported Brazilian  military  dictatorships (1964-1985)  which  tortured and murdered  the left,  the poor ,  and the indigenous populations of Brazil, and enabled vast  tracts of Brazil  rainforests to be forever destroyed – all in  the name of  ‘economic stability’; ( which in reality means big business  giving  little ‘favours’  to  the military in  exchange for their  brutal  support).

Bolsonaro’s stream  of vicious and violent narratives are even, in the Latin American  press described as simply ‘outrageous”, rather than the obscene ravings of an  extremely damaged human  being. Bolsonaro in reality  exhibits all  the incoherent rage and ignorance of one who has been  systematically brutalised himself.

His tirades of threats and abuse  against  the left,   Brazilian LGBTIQ communities,  the poor,  the native American  populations,  Chinese business and  environmental  agencies,  are classical  examples of one who  has spent his entire life in  fear of that  which he cannot understand. His short  incoherent streams of angry  invective   characterise one who  has been brain  damaged;  whose only known response to  these perceived threats is to  lash  out with  brutality and anger.

In  a world where the remnants of the Brazilian rainforests-  the ‘lungs’  of our world;  may be the one thing which  sustains life on  this planet  for a little while longer, we now have the very  real potential  for this  supremely damaged man  to lead our world faster and deeper into  disaster.

In  a world where the wisdom  of the indigenous populations of South  America  may be the one thing that can lead us back  from  the brink of   global environmental  catastrophe;  we find Bolsonaro- the ultimate  symbol of the folly of mankind.

Postscript

Read the fascinating account of Bolsonaro’s triumphant first  round lead in the Brazilian presidential  elections here and the role of the ultra-rightests in  world politics.

A very  detailed account of the rise of Jair Bolsonaro, and the fate of the major Brazilian political  parties over the past few decades here

Links

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/brazilian-shares-surge-as-far-right-presidential-candidate-erases-deficit-in-second-round-poll.html

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

https://www.dw.com/en/brazils-jair-bolsonaro-says-hell-accept-election-result-provided-he-wins/a-45684836

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/30/huge-protests-in-brazil-as-far-right-presidential-hopeful-jair-bolsonaro-returns-home

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/19/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-presidential-candidate-trump-parallels

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/wtf/is-this-the-worlds-most-repulsive-politician/news-story/926a4a59cf6132f770dfdbd46f610e97

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/pages/Especiales/Brazil_Decides_2018/index.html

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Chomsky-Other-Intellectuals-Issue-Manifesto-Warning-Against-Brazils-Fascist-Candidate-20181003-0005.html?

Future of Western Democracy Being Played Out in Brazil

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n03/perry-anderson/bolsonaros-brazil?

Brazilian Indigenous Guardian of the Amazon Murdered: & Facebook..

In the last few weeks Facebook  has become assiduous in   removing “fake news’  newsposts  from  its servers.  Telesurtv is one such example-  now  reinstated

One might be forgiven for thinking that Facebook  serves interests other than  truth and honesty in  its promotion of the ‘fake news’  meme,  when one looks at just one such  media article listed on  the Telesur website  Telesur is one of the few English language media outlets in  South America that promotes indigenous rights against  the rapaciousness of corporate entities ( predominantly   US-based).

The history of  the U.S. ongoing  intervention in South  America to promote its own  interests ( ie US corporate profits) has resulted in many many thousands  if not  millions of of deaths,  the decades long support of South American tyrannical  regimes ,  death  squads,  torture and the oppression of South America’s working classes, peasants and indigenous population-  as well  as the rape of its incredible environmental heritage for logging and  meat production companies, and the facilitation of the drug trade .

The recent U.S. sanctions against Venezuela are just one more example of the techniques used by  the United States to  destabilize various Latin  American  governments that  do not suit U.S.  corporate interests.

How much longer does South  America have to endure  the tortures of this ignorant  bully from  the North  I wonder? How much longer will  supposedly ‘honest’  American media portray  U.S.  interventions as being upholding ‘freedom  and democracy’?

Sadly this distortion and manipulation  of ‘truth’ by  powerful  American  companies  for the benefit of corrupt  U.S. businessmen has been  an ongoing reality for the past century.

Craig Murray   beautifully outlines  the Facebook  censorship  issues from  another perspective here,  and the  extraordinarily ignorant and inept role of the Atlantic Council. 

Links

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazilian-Indigenous-Leader-Guardian-of-the-Amazon-Murdered-20180816-0009.html?

http://www.yachana.org/teaching/resources/interventions.html

https://www.telesurtv.net/english

Facebook Censorship, Mad Ben Nimmo and the Atlantic Council

A Fiery Dead-end?- or “Feel the Heat…”

Its as though  we are all  watching  in   slow-motion;  a dream  in  which we slide inexorably  towards that massive motorway  firey pileup  – helpless to  change anything and knowing the inevitability of our fate.

The latest July 2018 temperature records: 

UAE: 51.4°C, Africa + Algeria: 51.3°C, Tunisia: 49.2°C, LA: 48.9°C, Baku: 42.7°C, Yerevan : 42.4°C, Japan: 41.1°C, Kabul: 40.5°C, Tbilisi: 40.5°C, Montreal: 36.6°C, Lapland: 33.4°C, Swedish polar circle: 32.5°C, Baltic Sea: 25°C’

And yet, if it were not for almost every  government across the world being in bed with  international  and national  corporations who  drive “progress’  ( ie the destruction of the natural world to create the inanimate world humans enjoy)-   this whole firey end  might have been  (and maybe still  can be )  averted.

Global  warming  needs to be seen as simply one of the symptoms of the catastrophic global  non-human species loss caused by human beings’ insatiable lust  for ‘things” over the past 1000  years-  a tiny timeframe in  geological  terms.

However ,  as a recent study  by  the Stockholm Resilience Centre notes;

“Human emissions of greenhouse gas are not the sole determinant of temperature on Earth. Our study suggests that human-induced global warming of 2°C ( The Paris Accord limit), may trigger other Earth system processes, often called “feedbacks”, that can drive further warming – even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases,” says lead author Will Steffen from the Australian National University and Stockholm Resilience Centre.

According to  the Stockholm Resilience Centre, we have but 3 years to  attempt to  stabilise global  emissions and avert major devastating climate change. We know that renewable energy  has some capacity to  limit global  warming ;  but we also  now that production of renewabl energy  components come at  a massive cost  to  the environment.  We also  know that  man is  ‘requiring’  more and energy  to  fuel his ‘progress’  addiction. Humans have to  dramitacally reduce our energy  consumption if we are all  to  survive.

And how is it that,  in  the face of all  the evidence and the very  visible destruction of our planet’s living fabric, we continue to  press on  to  final  global  destruction?  Simply man’s greed  for transient baubles of ‘wealth’  and power. Humankind prides itself on being a  supremely intelligent  species.

The evidence is out-  to  the contrary- we are the most ignorant of all  species.

What  do  we need? We need a global  body  that  transcends artificial  national  state borders  and that   forces each  nation-state to  rebuild its natural living fabric: beginning with massive tree-planting of native local  species, a forced requirement that  no  non-essential  products  for humans  can be bought and sold ;  an end to  the  so-called global  ‘consumer society” and  a requirement that all  non human  species be prioritised  for their  survival  over any human  “progress”.

Is that  going to happen?……..

Do  we have an alternative?

___________________________________________________________________________

Links

http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/875-world-on-fire-climate-breakdown.html

Heatwave in northern Europe, summer 2018

https://www.thoughtco.com/global-warming-inevitable-this-century-3322005

http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2018-08-06-planet-at-risk-of-heading-towards-hothouse-earth-state.html

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

https://www.nature.com/news/three-years-to-safeguard-our-climate-1.22201

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115

America Unhinged

Perhaps it  should not be a surprise that  the United States political  scene is becoming increasingly deranged  with its talk  of ‘treasonous Trump” , and  it’s ( and the U.K.’s) media screaming headlines  about the  purported but totally unsubstantiated ‘hacking’  of the U.S.  presidential  elections by  Russia, and where any foreign media or politician  that  does  not support the “Democratic” Party’s view of American politics, is subverting democracy  .

After all ,  we have seen more than a hundred years of American  politicians  trumpeting the United States as  the international  beacon of freedom  and hope for the oppressed,  while at the same time committing endless wars against  vulnerable countries ( almost exclusively populated by  darker skinned  peoples) who  dare to oppose its economic demands . And indeed has conduced a  long-standing violent war  against  its own  vulnerable populations.

Perhaps now we simply   see  American society, previously  unable to  differentiate between  the constant lies  it has told the world over the past century and more, and the reality  of its sordid and brutal  foreign  policies, now turning in  on itself- cannibalizing what  remains of its   democratic processes , innovative thinking and compassion for the underdog..

Sadly , with  such  immense natural  resources, the United States has squandered its opportunities  to build a truly democratic  open  society  that provides free education, healthcare  and job opportunities  for   all;   and protects the environment in real  ways while building a prosperous and sustainable  future for its human  citizens ..It has  instead become an oligarchy  where greed  and  brutality rule ..

A nation  is in  deep  trouble when it begins to  believe the lies it tells itself – here’s just one bizarre example of American  groupthink..

As Bill  Van Auken at  the World Socialist  Web,  (and bear in  mind that  Putin is no  socialist!) quotes: “1964 is a year of crisis and decision. Will America continue to aid the communist enemy, to disarm in the face of danger, to bow before communist dictators in every corner of the earth? The decision is yours.”

Postscript:

Perhaps a quick  read of Code Pink’s Assessment of American Foreign  Policy might also  be instructive?

 

Links

https://eand.co/how-russia-conquered-america-without-firing-a-bullet-36d9f0132b8c

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/detente-bad-cold-war-good/

https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/war-criminals-theirs-and-ours

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/433793-putin-helsinki-interrogations-russiagate/

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/19/pers-j19.html

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/20/pers-j20.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5971475/Flake-suggests-TREASON-Senate-floor-saying-Trump-gave-aid-comfort-enemy.html

https://blackagendareport.com/russiagate-ruling-class-diversion

https://www.al-akhbar.com/Opinion/254619/

Trump’s Treasonous Traitor Summit or: How Liberals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New McCarthyism

The Utility of the RussiaGate Conspiracy

CODEPINK  War Profiteers: The U.S. War Machine and the Arming of Repressive Regimes*

Western Hypocrisy & Genocide in Yemen

The  staggering level  of silence in  the Western media about the  genocide being committed by  Saudi Arabia and United Arab  Emirates in Yemen,  with  the full and active  military  support and coordination of the U.S.  and U.K.  militaries and arms manufacturers,  continues.

When  the situation is  briefly described in the mainstream  media,  we are told-  as though it is a plausible  reason for genocide –  that the Houthis are “Iran-backed”. How exactly Iranian  weapons are being supplied across the Straits of Hormuz through  heavily blockaded Yemen ports  and ships being searched by  armed NATO vessels in  the Gulf;  is not quite explained. Nor is it clarified that in  fact  the Houthi  rebel  faction is in  fact a Sunni  sect ,  not the Iranian Shi-ite sect of Mohammedism. (Note other internet information describes the Houthi sect as a  Zaidi Shi-ite ‘non-twelver’ sect,  and thus also  dissimilar to  Iranian Shi-ite beliefs). However a  key distinguishing feature of  Houthi beliefs, is their rejection of the  extremist Wahhabist Sunni  doctrines espoused by the Saudi  Arabia dictatorship.

So,  while the US  and UK air commands coordinate and provide in flight fueling for  the Saudi  bombing runs  against largely civilian targets,  which has  resulted in likely up  to 10,000  deaths. As Mahamad Bazzi  noted in  the Guardian on 11th  June 2018,  The war has killed at least 10,000 Yemenis ( U.N. estimate from January 2017) and left more than 22 million people –three-quarters of Yemen’s population – in need of humanitarian aid. 

What is demonstrated in  bloody clarity,  is the U.S.  and U.K ; supposed paragons of democracy  and freedom, behaving without morals , ethics, human decency or basic human compassion for Yemenese lives,  solely in the interests of money. Cash for armaments,  cash for supporting the corrupt  dictatorship  in  Saudi  Arabia and access to  Saudi  oil ; and cash  from  Israeli sympathisers  to  ensure their brutal  occupation  and theft  of Palestinian land  is able to continue indefinitely.  Any action  that  apparently reduces the  power and influence  of Israel’s great  nemesis, Iran,  is something to  be supported!

Links

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/06/29/over-18-million-die-starvation-yemen-2018/

https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/under-secretary-general-humanitarian-affairs-and-emergency-relief-coordinator-mark-6

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/saudi-coalition-to-blame-for-most-child-casualties-in-yemen-un-report/

https://www.juancole.com/2018/06/aggression-slaughter-conflict.html

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news-comment/3069-the-uk-are-not-bystanders-in-the-war-on-yemen-they-are-active-participants

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/11/14/the_u_s_has_helped_saudi_arabia_bomb_yemen_for_almost_three_years_congress.html

Houthi Drone Targets Saudi Coalition Military HQ

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-map-of-israeli-settlements-that-shocked-barack-obama

The Houthis and War in Yemen

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-map-of-israeli-settlements-that-shocked-barack-obama

 

How to Kill Off a Vibrant Green World in 6 Easy Lessons

From: THE MODERN WORLD BOOK OF WONDERS BY PAUL TOWNEND (1950)
  1. Allow One species to  completely dominate all  other species on  the planet in  numbers .
  2. Give that  species the capacity to  modify  the living  environment to  suit its own  purposes.
  3. Give that  species an understanding that it has a right to  eliminate all  species that  are not immediately useful  to  it.
  4. Give that species an  understanding that it is superior to  all  other species  using criteria based on  its own  species’  traits.
  5. Give that  species an understanding that  dead inanimate things that amuse it are more important than other living things.
  6. Give it limited powers of empathy and understanding towards other species that  are not its own.

A tragic and heart-bleeding video below  of a Borneo  orangutan  futilely trying to  fight off a mechanical digger which has destroyed its beautiful   home  and its  sustenance and countless more other living  things that will  be  forever no  more ( note the  condescending language used of “seemingly defending its home “. ) for a  few dollars in  pay  for the loggers and a few thousands of dollars to  the logging company.  This is why  we are destroying the only home we will  ever have –  our beautiful  earth.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/orangutan-defends-jungle-home-video-digger-ape-borneo-indonesia-deforestation-a8387836.html

Not just in Borneo,  but all  over the world for the last three  thousand years , we have destroyed the trees and living world that made this world our home – for no purpose whatsoever…..

Links

https://www.ipbes.net/news/media-release-updated-biodiversity-nature%E2%80%99s-contributions-continue-dangerous-decline-scientists

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study

http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2018/05/15/1711842115.full.pdf

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/12/exti-j12.html

https://phys.org/news/2018-02-biodiversity-loss-extinction-cascades.html

https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-03-26-animals-extinction-water-loss-climate-change-study

http://davidattenborough.wikia.com/wiki/The_First_Eden

 

The Barbarism that is Israel

 

We have witnessed the incredible barbarity shown by  Israeli soldiers towards Palestinian  protesters  in  the last  few weeks of the “Day of Rage”  and the marking of 70  years of  theft and violence by  the Israeli population  against  Palestinians since the Nabka:   70  years of murder,  terror,  torture  and imprisonment,  for the crime of not giving away  the lands of their  ancestors to  the settler invaders.

Penned  in Palestinians who  are , as one journalist  put it, “like sheep  for the slaughter”.

Despite the dictatorial  behaviours of the Turkish  President,  and his many other shortcomings ,  President Erdogan is quite specifically accurate in  calling  Israel  an ‘apartheid state”. Israel has, over the past 70  years,  progressively ‘acquired’  former Palestinian land and walled in  those remaining who  dared to  stand up to  the U.S.  funded  military might of Israel.   Arabs  in Israel, (who have the exactly the same genes as the original  Jewish inhabitants of Israel); are discriminated against  in  a very systematic and ‘legal’  way by  the Israeli  state.  Settler extremism,  violence   and bigotry  reinforce those laws.  We only need to  look  at  the extreme racist  rants of Israelis in  leadership  positions in  Israel,  to  convince ourselves of the obscenity of their stance. Or perhaps you might like to  endure this list of disgusting anti-Palestininan   behaviours and statements   from  a series of Israeli  ‘leaders”  by  the Angry Arab

Thus the latest  targeted killings of largely defenceless  ( apart from  stones and a few molotov cocktails) Palestinians protesting their illegal  walling in  by  Israel, are just  one more example of the barbarism that is the state of Israel.  A systematic, crude and vicious attempt to  destroy the Palestinian people in order  to acquire their lands. The extraordinary bravery and tenaciousness of  generations of Palestinians since the Nabka ,  should never be  forgotten.

As Jonathan  Cook  notes: the Wests’ direct  and implicit endorsement of Israeli   very literal  terrorism  towards Palestinians over the past 70  years , will  result in  further atrocities by  Israeli  troops and settlers.

From http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/mapstellstory.html

And as the former UN Rapporteur for Palestine puts it ‘The feeble Israeli claims of its right of self-defense or attributing Palestinian martyrdom to Hamas are so shallow and lacking in credibility as to discredit further rather than provide justifications for this exhibition of homicidal violence on a massive scale not as isolated incident but as a series of arrogant reenactments.”

 

Links

https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/gaza-grief-horror-outrage-remembering/

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1227956–  65 laws that discriminate against  non-Jews in Israel

The Stomach-Churning Victim Blaming by “Labour Friends of Israel”

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

West’s Failure to Act Will Be Cause of the Next Gaza Massacre

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-primer-on-israeli-politics.html

The Sick Men of Washington

President Trump,  has now  officially pulled the United States out of the Iran  nuclear deal , officially known  as the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ( JCPOA) 

Negotiated via U.N.  auspices, the Iran deal limited Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium and thus limit any potential  for Iran to develop  nuclear weapons;  something it has always said is has not intended  nor planned to  do. UN inspections prove that  Iran has indeed complied with  the JCPOA in  full  since its inception in 2015. The deal  in no way  prohibits Iran’s develop  of missile technology,  which would be seen by  any state as a   sovereign  right to protect  itself from  aggressors.

And Iran has many threatening states  to protect  itself from. These include Israel, who  sees Iran  as its major  spoiler to the  ongoing expansion of Israeli  territory  in  the Middle East;  particularly  because of Iranian support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, who  roundly  defeated  Israel in its last  attempt to  occupy Lebanon in   2006 . Then  there is Saudi Arabia,  the despotic regime which  pretends to be a ‘monarchy” who  actively supports protects and funds the Salafist terrorists  across the Middle East  and beyond.  Salafists believe that  all  other Islamic and other religious  beliefs   other than  their own  are ‘heretical”, and therefore those people who  hold such beliefs need to be either forcibly converted or disposed of. Hence the  millions of Shiite peoples of Iran   and its Shi-ite theocracy are anathema to  the Saudi  ‘princes’. Iran is a  large country of over 80  million people,  and while its economy has been made vulnerable by  years of U.S. and other Western countries sanctions, it has managed to develop a wide range of responses to those sanctions,  and particularly  a  home grown defence industry.

Iran is therefore not  significantly vulnerable to  attack  by  Saudi Arabia ,  despite S.A.s huge defence spending ($76 billion in 2017 – third  highest in  the world after the U.S.  and China) ,  as opposed to Iran’s approximately $14 billion), largely because of its very  effective home grown  ballistic missile systems. (it is always amusing to note that U.S. military ‘specialists  always attribute this or that countries’  home grown  military capabilities to some other country – implying in some way  that the specific  country does not have the  technology ,  research  capability and technical know-how that  only  the great and exceptional  U.S.  has!)

And finally,   Iran’s perhaps most significant threat  comes from  the United States,  who has desperately tried to destabilize Iran’s theocracy  in  every  way  possible way since its inception in  1979, after overthrowing the U.S.  and and U.K. installed  despot, the ‘Shah’  of Iran .

The U.K.  has also  played a supporting role to the U.S.  since 1953 in supporting the salafist regimes in the Persian Gulf  and encouraging the export of  Saudi  and Qatari  jihadist  terrorists to  Middle East  states  which  are not active supporters of Western colonialism or Israeli  expansionism.

Thus the latest  move by  the Trump administration to  undermine the U.N.  JCPOA agreement  and threaten sanctions against  countries  and companies that do  not comply with its renewed sanctions against  Iran, is simply part of the ongoing war  by the United States against  Iran that had its inception in  the overthrow of its  brutal dictator ,  the Shah.

The drivers for this  ongoing  war against  Iran are  largely economic:  primarily  re-acquisition of the huge Iranian  oil  market  by  American oil  companies  will  buffer the U.S.  against  the imminent collapse of the local  shale oil  market, whilst  ensuring that Iranian owned oil  and gas is not pipe-lined through to  Europe and Turkey.

However the other major U.S.   impetus for Iranian destabilisation and overthrow of its  independent theocracy is the role of Israel  and its Zionist  lobbyists in  Washington.  Now that Saudi Arabia has been bought into  the Zionist  fold and accepts  the Israeli   theft of Palestinian  lands since 1948 as legitimate, there is only Iran  as a significant power player in  the Middle East  who is  able to  confront Israeli  expansionism.  A tame Iranian regime that supported both  Israel  and  U.S.  colonial policy in  the Middle East  would mean Chinese and Russian commercial and strategic   ambitions  there could be thwarted, and  U.S.  and U.K.  (and to  a smaller degree, French) companies could make billions exploiting the region. With  the truly psychopathic John Bolton now  as Trumps defence advisor, drooling for war  with Iran, and Israel’s Netanyahu frothing at  the mouth for the U.S.  to bomb Iran, all  options are truly on  the table.

While Iran does not have an  effective airforce, due to the  long-standing sanctions against it; it’s ballistic missile  capacity is  indeed formidable,  although largely deprecated by  U.S.  defence analysts . Should the U.S. launch  an attack on  Iran’s infrastructure, as it has continually threatened to do  over the years, the U.S.  would undoubtedly be able to , over time,  obliterate much of Tehran  and  its  key urban  centres as it has done in North Korea,  Vietnam Libya and Iraq in  the past, along  with the consequent  huge suffering and civilian casualties  that  entails. However in  the first  days and weeks of such  a war, Iran’s  widely  dispersed military units, and particularly its missile and anti-ship  units, will  be able to  inflict  massive damage on  U.S.  military bases and aircraft  carriers in  the Gulf because of their close proximity to Iran. An ongoing guerilla war against  U.S.   economic and military  interests in  the Middle East   could well  last  for years. In  comparison  to  the U.S.  war against  Iraq,  Iran’s military capabilities cannot be under-rated as American  defence  analysts  are wont to do  in  their arrogance. This would not be the  “cake-walk” that  the neocons pretended the Iraqi  invasion would be!

Should Israel  also enter the war,  as it has often promised to,  then Tel Aviv is now  well  within  missile striking distance by  Iran’s  Lebanese allies.  Hezbollah.

One would hope that  the crazies like Netanyahu  and John Bolton will  finally be locked away  somewhere safe for the rest of humanity’s sake ,  and the fools like Donald Trump  fade into  quiet  oblivion,  but sadly it seems , that may not be the case…

Links

The Deep State First – Madness On Both Ends of the Acela Corridor

How Hezbollah Defeated Israel

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/05/countdown-to-war-on-iran.html