As someone who worked in suicide prevention for many years, I know the vital role that local social service providers, accountable to their own communities, play in supporting, protecting and lifting up those most vulnerable in our communities.
A just and stable society is one which respects and protects everyone , but most particularly, those who are most vulnerable. This government’s strategic policy of bashing the most vulnerable and enriching the rich reflects their simplistic understanding of what makes a good society -it is most certainly not wealth alone.
We need to ensure that not only do we individually all do our best to respect and protect those around us who need that support, but that we also have a range of accountable community and state agencies who have the resources to support the many and varied needs of our communities.
It is almost 100% certain that Israel assassinated the head of Hamas’ political bureau and chief Hamas negotiator with Israel in Qatar, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, on July 31 2024.
Many hypotheses have been put out there-particularly from US ‘Intelligence’ linked Western media like the New York Times to try and obvuscate who, how and why Haniyeh was murdered: a bomb planted in his Tehran apartment months ago, an Israeli F35 ‘stealth’ bomber (which would have needed US refuelling to get home again!) or perhaps an Israeli missile attack.
However the Iranians (who should know!) are saying that the attack was carried out using a short range missile. Meaning that the attack was launched from Iranian soil with weapons and targetting mechanisms brought in from a foreign country.
Iran, understandable so, not only accuses Israel, but also the US, of involvement in the attack. Both the US and UK attempts to portray this attack as an attack of self’defence’ by Israel, (a ridculous and patently untrue international law perspective) indicates the depth of their complicity in Israel’s brutal genocide in Palestine and its provocatons in the rest of the Middle East.
When looking at motive and opportunity, one should always look first at the historical actions of the key players . It is important to recall that the UK was instrumental in the founding of Israel and its decision to permit Zionists to expel and murder thousands upon thousands of Palestininans since 1918 and especially during and after the Nakba of 1948.
Since 1948 the US has played a key role in arming Israel to ensure it could attack and expand its borders into neighbouring countries and intensify its barbarity to Palestinians still living in what is now Israel and its concentration camps in the West Bank and Gaza. Without those US weapons, the savagery of the Zionist regime could not have continued. Perhaps Israel could have become a multi-ethnic peaceful country respected by its neigbours and the Arab world- but that is certainly not what the US and its Western allies have wanted.
Israel has been an effective bulwark against the expansion of anti-colonialism and an effective destabliser in the region to ensure middle eastern states do not become more independent and powerful in their own right. The major exception to that situation, is of course,Iran who was able to throw off the US installed ‘Shah’ and his brutal CIA trained Savak secret police in the revolution of 1979.
Since the brutal October 7 2023 attacks by Hamas from Gaza into Israel, the US and UK have unconditionally supported the mass-murder of many thousands of Gazans by Israeli “Defence’ forces. That support has consisted not only of the bombs and missiles needed to flatten the Gaza Strip and its health and education facilities, but also the targeting of civilians using the Five Eyes global surveillance system. Britan and the UK are unequivocally a party to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine.
Should Israel be forced to sue for peace in a war against Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, as well as Hamas and the Iraqi Shiite groups; the UN’s International Court of Justice could then come calling on those who facilitated that genocide, once Israeli politicians and Israeli Defence Force military personnel have been indicted. It is vital then for Britain and the US to not only ensure their Israeli proxy remains intact, but also remains undefeated. Part of the process to ensure Israel is not weakened or defeated is to assist Israel in its wars against its neighbours; including its multiple assassinations.
The US is desperately trying to pretend that it is trying to negotiate a peace settlement between Hamas and Israel, but its support in the UN and elsewhere for the killing of the Hamas negotiator is a strong clue that they have absolutely no intent of ther ebeing any real negotiations that might result in a just peace and freedom for Palestinians in Gaza; just as the US has pretended for more than 50 years to be the ‘honest broker’ in negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, whilst all along fervently supporting Israel’s murderous intent and continued expansion of its territories.
In addition, the current US administration headed by Joe Biden with Parkinsonian dementia who confesses to be a Zionist (particularly given that over $4 million has been donated to him in the last 30 years by the Zionist US AIPAC organisation to ensure his devotion to the Zionist cause) has been unconditional in its support for Israel’s barbarity, while making little public statements of its disapproval .. However his Secretary of State Anthony Blinken as an arch-zionist and neocon himself, has apparently no moral scruples about supporting mass-murder and has led the ongoing charge to ensure that Congress and the US administration continues to pour weapons into Israel.
It is more than likely that Vice President Kamala Harris will SAY things to try and appease those Democrats opposed to the Israeli genocide, but in reality keep up the funding and weapons supply to Israel, as has been the case for more than 50 years.
As noted previously- look at the history to understand the current intent of the West in the Middle East and the possible future.. So while alternative Western media are talking about Israel’s Netanyahu trying to draw the US into a war with Iran, the historical pattern indicates that the US has been involved in all these Israeli provocations from the start, while hiding behind the smokescreen of Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s foolish pomposity, psychopathy and bravado.
The 2009 US strategic document “Which Path to Persia” from the US Brookings Institute so-called ‘think-tank’, is the blueprint for the US’ attempt to once again take control of Iran and its oil.
Others have suggested the US plan is to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities so that it cannot make a nuclear bomb. Both Israel and the US, and most recently Anthony Blinken, have been predicting that Iran will have a nuclear bomb any minute now for the past two decades.
Netanyahu in 2012 to the UN
Iran clearly has the expertise, the scientists (despite repeated assassinations by Israelis over the past decade) and the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon, but has publicly chosen not to. Iran’s religious council and the Ayatollah has made it very clear that it views the possession of nuclear weapons as anathema to the Iranian muslim state, and a public fatwa has been issued. A fatwa by the Ayatollah is not something that can be disregarded by any Iranian. So the ‘de-nuclearise’ Iran meme is undoubtedly one more of the red herrings thrown out by the West for Iran’s power in the Middle East to be neutralised and its oil once again appropriated by the West.
Will President Sisi in Egypt and the King of Jordan once again support the Israelis and the US by helping to shoot down Iranian missiles targetting Israel? One suspects that the Jordanian population ( a majority of whom are of Palestinian origin) will not treat their sycophantic king so kindly this time, and many in Egypt will question Sisi’s loyalty to the Arab cause of freedom for Palestinians.
As of 5th July, the world waits upon Iran’s response to the killing in Tehran. What unfolds from here is completely unpredictable.
It might be hoped that a response from Iran might be convincing enough for the Israelis to abandon both their genocidal war in Gaza and their ongoing attacks on their neighbours.
But while the West continues to enthusiastically support their barbaric and criminal actions, that appears a folorn hope-for now.
The Venezuelan presidential elections of July 2024 have, not unexpectedly, created more controversy, violence, recriminations and threats.
The US attempt to destablise the Venezulan government through undermining the economy have persisted and intensifed progressively since 2014 . As noted by Alex in the youtube video below- sanctions almost completely destroyed the oil industry that Venezuela relied on for over 80% of its income. The pretence that ‘socialism’ and President Chavez and then President Maduro’s corruption destroyed Venezula rather than the sanctions is a constant repeated trope in Western mainstream media . As noted below Venezuela prior to Chavez was already a failed violent state.
While it is possible that the Maduro government did fix the election, we need more information before we can make that accusation.
The West well knows that extreme external pressure on a nation-such as the Western sanctions and multiple US supported attempted coups that Venezuelans have endured for the past 10 years, can provoke a country to respond with ever tighter internal repression and brutality to control externally controlled dissident forces, and Venezula appears to be no exception to that rule; although the extent of that repression in Venezuela is of course amplified and exagerated by Western media. Current Western media reports of huge demonstrations against Madura in Vernezual’s capital Caracas and beyond appear to be vastly exaggerated.
The US, its Western allies, and those South American states in the Organisation of American States (OAS), despite their chorus of accusations, obviously have no way to know what really happened in the polls, without that information. As Mexico President AMLO states: “Before any results were known, the Organization of American States director had already recognized one of the candidates, with no evidence of ANYTHING… ENOUGH interventionism… they keep meddling from abroad!”
And given Western mainstream media’s historic and ongoing complicity in supporting US sponsored coups in Venezuela, one should take their accusations with a large grain of salt.
Perhaps the most ridiculous of those attempted coups and Western media support for it, was the attempt by an almost completely unknown Venezuelan member of Congress Juan Guido, with US backing, to pretend that he was in fact the rightful President of Venezuela. The fact that Western governments enthusiastically supported Guido’s outrageous claims despite any evidence, is proof positive of the anti-democratic attempts to once again control Venezuelan’s oil resources at any cost.
The announcement on 2nd August by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ González beat Nicolás Maduro in the presidential election, without there actually being any ‘overwhelming evidence’ one way or the other at all at that stage, once again demonstrates how the US will go to any lengths to get ‘their’ person ‘elected’. (which obviously tells you a lot about the US’s own electoral process)
A Revised Letter to the Editor to a local New Zealand newspaper:
The current New Zealand government has, in a few short months, proposed a Fast Track Bill to permit friendly quick-rich developers to effortlessly destroy our natural environment which we all rely upon, not just for our wellbeing, but for our survival.
Similarly the proposed revisions to the Resource Management Act not only assist in this quick-rich process by stopping Councils from designating for at least 3 years Significant Natural Areas, but also permit farmers to resume ‘mud-farming’ and other farm process that not only destroy water quality but significantly impact on the wellbeing of farm animals.
But perhaps the pinnacle of achievement of this government to date in putting cash before humanity, is its proposal to resume Livestock Exportby Sea. Thousands of cattle spend weeks at sea in pens wading in their own faeces horrific and terrifying conditions – but it makes lots of money!
The mark of a good human being is one who treats all other living beings with kindness, compassion and respect.I find it extraordinary that supposedly educated government ministers put money that they and their mates dont really need more of, before our long term survival and our humanity.
I would therefore respectfully suggest that Prime Minister Luxon and his Cabinet Ministers, spend a month at sea in a livestock transport ship wallowing in their faeces as a learning experience.
The famous Chinese ‘Book of Changes’, the I Ching; which provides guidance on becoming a wise person, notes in Hexagram 56 “The Wanderer” that “We are all wanderers in the Unknown. Those who travel beside the Sage are unharmed’.
Increasingly for people in the West particularly, there is a strong sense of the uncertainties that lie ahead of us. What was solid before: our economies, our climate, our status in the world, our future in general -are no longer certainties. And increasingly it is made apparent that we are being led by the blind- our ‘leaders’ who choose not to see, to look beyond their own immediate needs and greed and who ignore all the impending warning signs of a very different world ahead, and who choose not to implement plans for that new world ahead.
Israel’s genocidal attack on the people of Gaza has been enthusiastically supported by parties on the ‘left’ and right in the Western world, and Western mainstream media has carefully followed that line while pretending to be impartial.
We now have the spectre of elections in both the U.K and US where the choices in each case are between political leaders who demonstrate no morality and even less intelligence and who display minimal differences in their unconditional support of the already rich and powerful and mesmerisingly stupid foreign policy decisions. And with the further spectre of the Ukraine war being inexorably won by Russia with the soft backing of China and the global south, these Western ‘leaders’ see their power and illgotten wealth slipping away: there is panic.
Once again (for the hundredth time over the past two centuries) the ridiculous argument that “The Russians are coming!” is being promoted in MSM media to scare the bejeesus out of naive Western populations. Not only do the politicians agree on their brain-dead racist assumptions about Russia and China and the Global South, but their advisors are also in lock-step! The quality of decision-making in the West has (hopefully) reached rock-bottom!
Much of Africa has taken the opportunity of the West’s dissaray to rid themselves of the incredible exploitation by the last of the African colonisers- the French. Now, once again the indigenous Kanaks of New Caledonia are rising up against their colonialist French masters- but President Macron is holding firm- there is too much money to be gained from the nickel mine in New Caledonia.
A recent Canadian piece of analysis characterised one of the major risks to its population is ‘disinformation’ (otherwise known as perspectives on the world that are not aligned to the official perspective). It had previously been accepted in the West that expressing alternative views on the world was a key element of democracy (provided that it didnt actually change the power structure!)-but no longer…Diversity of opinion and knowledge is one the key factors that can help ensure humans’ evolution does not come to a sticky and dead end sooner rather than later.
Now, young people who express their opposition to Israel’s appalling genocide can be arrested as agitators and ‘antisemites’ and those who oppose the West’s involvement in the Ukraine war are ‘Putin’s puppets’. Rational analytical thinking is not permitted.
That Canadian analysis also points to climate change as a major threat to Canada’s (and the world’s ) wellbeing , but nowhere in any state’s manifesto across the globe are we informed that one of the key rational ways to address climate change and loss of biodiversity is de-growth. Economic “Growth” (an oxymoron if ever there was one) is our true God. Everything is measured against the ‘God of Growth’ who knows nothing and cares for nobody.
The only little problem with the fiscal measurement process called GDP is that it cannot measure the health and living viability of the planet nor the wellbeing of the multitude of species who inhabit it, and on whom human beings are totally reliant upon for our survival.
In my own little part of the world, our new New Zealand coalition of right wing zealots have in a remarkably short time, slashed 5000 government jobs, (or ‘red tape’ as they prefer to call it!), made access to government welfare that much harder, attacked the core premises of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (our founding document), enhanced payments to rich landlords and promised tax breaks which will inevitably only benefit the wealthy. To add to the flavour they are currently working on a “Fast Track Act’ with their big business ‘colleagues’, to ensure that ‘development’ is not stifled or delayed by foolish issues such as environmental protection. Short term greed must always out-weigh long term human wellbeing and environmental protection.
Sadly New Zealand’s politicians , like so many Western politicians, seem to be progressively dumbing down to the point of becoming brain-dead zombies mesmerised by dollar signs, and where honesty, compassion and an understanding of the complexity and fragility of the living world and our total dependancy upon it, are things of the past..
And all the while, climate change pushes all living things on the planet ever more rapidly into a totally unrecognissable and unpredictable new world..
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Links
British singer-songwriter Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, criticised "the political obstinacy and deafness” of the British government for failing to halt and continuing to support the killing of innocents in Palestine during his speech at the national march in London. pic.twitter.com/k4vZQxXoWV
Climate change fiscal costs are largely currently assessed as solely the impacts of major weather events and consequent restoration costs. While restoration costs after extreme weather events are likely to rise exponentially over the next century and beyond, there are significant other fiscal impacts that also need to be factored into planning. Note also that damage to infrastructure from climate change will steadily increase in both intensity and frequency over the next 100 years and beyond.
Ignoring future planning for these certainties will result in even more damage to New Zealand’s economy and its citizen’s livelihood safety and wellbeing than is necessary. The impacts of climate change will be disproportinately felt by those with limited incomes.
The longer we delay anticipating and responding to the impending fiscal risks from climate change, the greater the impacts will be on New Zealanders.
Food security for all, but particularly those with limited or no income, is a key issue in maintaining the wellbeing of New Zealands’ human population.
As climate change increasingly impacts New Zealand, food supply chains are likely to become more and more disrupted, resulting in increasing costs and decreasing volumes for food and other supplies.
Supply chain disruption will occur for a number of reasons:
More and more frequent intense climate events will result in more frequent road/rail washouts and flooding of increasing magnitude both within New Zealand and beyond.
Sea and airline cargo will be increasingly disrupted by extreme weather events (including a significant rise in flight turbulence) and intense oceanic storms, resulting in increase damage to transport vehicles and food stocks, higher insurance costs and resultant food price increases, as well as disincentives for farmers to produce more produce as export costs rise.
Drought, flood and increases in temperature in New Zealand and overseas will result in reductions in animal numbers and plant based food.
Rising sea temperatures, along with ongoing unsustainable fisheries exploitation are likely to mean the large NZ fishing industry will collapse within a few decades
The recent expansion of the dairy ’industry’ into areas of New Zealand which are totally reliant on intensive irrigation, like the majority of the East Coast of the South Island, means such areas will become completely unsustainable for water intensive crops and animals. Already high irrigation levels in Canterbury, as a result of drought, are resulting in unsustainable levels of water being drained from local rivers and aquifiers as well as nitrate and other pollution of potable water supplies
Rising sea levels will increasingly impact on both sea and airport infrastructure. Most of New Zealand’s major airports are built in flood prone areas or close to the sea, and rising tides will impact on port sea walls, wharves, cranes and container storage areas. The cost of rebuilds and/or relocation of air and sea port infrastructure are very significant.
Consequent reduced food production for export by New Zealand food producers will result in increasing balance of payment’s deficits which will likely result in fewer overseas food and other imports, as well as less government taxation, resulting in less income to finance climate change mitigation.
As climate instability increases, specific areas of New Zealand like Northland and the East Coast of the North Island are increasingly vulnerable to major ongoing flood and slip damage and consequent food production losses. South Island East Coast and Nelson droughts are also becoming more frequent, with similar consequences.
Climate Change is also not only impacting of food supply but is also beginning to significantly impact on overall insurer costs for housing, businesses and new ‘developments’. As insurance premiums rise, all fiscal transactions will slow, as fiscal risks to suppliers and purchasers increase. A slowing economy ( estimated conservatively as a reduction of at least 20% in 30 years) will result in job losses and further risks to human wellbeing, unless forward planning and implementation occurs now
Disruptions to and increased risk in air flights will also inevitably result in progressive reductions in tourism income into New Zealand (currently 11.4% of GDP)
The recent analysis of Civil Defence responses to the Hawkes Bay weather event has demonstrated that Civil Defence is not sufficiently resourced to respond adequately to even the current level of extreme events. Two cyclones within a few weeks, as a Vanuatu has recently experienced, would stretch CD to breaking point. Significant increases in central and local CD resourcing are going to be essential. Similarly, Police and NZ Army will need upgrades to cope with the increasing frequency and magnitude of climate extreme events.
Energy Consumption
New Zealand’s increasing consumption of energy, particularly in increased use of EVs and other machinery that is being transitioned to electrification and also IT /AI/Cloud based impacts. While NZ currently has just sufficient sources of renewable energy, if current electricity demands continue to increase, considerable investment in renewable energy production in solar and wind will be required.
Carbon Credit Offset Costs
If we continue under this current government policies to take less action on local carbon reduction, we will need to purchase increased offshore carbon credits in the billions of dollars to meet our international obligations. Additionally, failure to meet our international obligations will impact on our capacity to export our produce to many countries.
Biodiversity Loss
The loss of New Zealand’s indigenous biodiversity is well documented and acknowledged as a major ongoing concern. However biodiversity loss of both indigenous and non-indigenous flora and fauna is occurring at an alarming rate in New Zealand.
We do not fully understand the intricate interconnections that occur between all species in Earth’s soil and air and the risks to inadvertently tripping ‘tipping-points’ resulting in extreme and sudden biodiversity loss are consequently high. There are also significant difficulties in attempting to measure the fiscal implications of biodiversity loss. However the current trajectory of biodiversity loss in New Zealand and across the world, has the potential to not only severely contract GDP globally, but potentially to extinguish all life on earth.
The fertility of our soil, increasingly contaminated with artificial fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides is rapidly deteriorating, particularly as mycorrhizal fungi; essential to soil fertility, cannot survive in toxic environments. New Zealand’s continued capacity to produce high volumes of agricultural exports will therefore be compromised in the medium to long term. The loss of pollinators through toxicity, loss of habitat and introduced viruses is also a major risk
Population Impacts
In recent years NZ governments have increasingly used migrant labour as a cost-effective mechanism to increase GDP, however without the consequent necessary increased development of critical infrastructure in housing, health or education. Rapidly increased populations have also put increasing pressure on biodiversity as ‘developed’ urban areas have expanded exponentially, and factors like recreational fishing and foraging by ever larger numbers of people , impact on species numbers.
Potential Solutions
Forward planning is urgently required to both proactively reduce the inevitable adverse impacts of climate change and to ensure sufficient funding and other resources are available to local and regional government and local communities. The human and fiscal costs of not proactively planning for the inevitable will be exponentially larger unless work is begun now.
Every Local community must be encouraged and resourced to become as self-sufficient as possible as supply chains are increasingly disrupted.
Local versus National
It is clear that local governments will not be able to finance the continuous work to both reduce local climate change impacts and to respond to local adverse events through rates increases. A formalised collaborative practical partnership between local and national funding bodies needs to be established specifically to address climate change risks.
National Resourcing
National systems are becoming increasingly financially pressured to respond to adverse event mitigation. It is therefore be essential to urgently establish a national funding body , likely based on the ACC contribution model that can resource the immense amount of work required.
Iwi
Local Maori iwi have traditionally played an immensely valuable role in supporting local populations put at risk by weather and other adverse events . Because of their strong local knowledge of the environments and resources and connections and their hugely practical responses to events , iwi need to be fully resourced to support ongoing emergencies. Further, local iwi’s traditional and Te Tiriti role of guardianship (Kaitiaki) of their lands needs greater recognition and support.
I am writing this blog post the day after Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel after Israel’s missile attack on the Iranian legation in Damascus which killed several high-ranking IRGC officers. It is worth noting that one of rationales given by Iran for its subsequent attack on Israel was the fact that-despite the UK, France and the US knowing full well that Israel’s Damascus missile attack was a blatant and unique (at that point) breach of both the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, they refused to endorse a UN Security Council resolution condemning the attacks. By doing so, the US, UK and France have acknowledged that they and their Israeli proxy do not choose to abide by the international rule of law or human decency.
Given that there appear to be no casualties from the Iranian attack, it would seem that Iran has taken some care to avoid deaths-in contrast to current and historical Israeli genocidal actions in Palestine and, to a lesser degree, Lebanon.
Washington reports that President Biden persuaded the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu not to launch a further reprisal attack on Iran despite Netanyahu’s earleir threats to do so. That’s a possible reason for the current uncharacteristic restraint from Israel, but in my view the more likely reason is that Israel’s military advised Netanyahu that a further attack on Iran would be suicidal, given Iran’s capacity to break through Israel’s much vaunted ‘Iron Dome” anti missile shield.
In addition,Washington on both the Republican and Democrat wings, have been itching to attack Iran ever since the Iranian revolution in 1979 which threw out the US and UK intelligence agencies supporting the brutal Shah’s Savak secret police, invaded the US embassy in Iran and nationalised the Iranian oil industry. This most recent Iranian attack comes after Iran’s previous attack on America’s illegal military bases in Iraq in response to President Trump’s decision to murder General Solomeini, Iran’s chief commander coordinating the destruction of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. That previous precisely targetted Iranian attack- despite again giving the US fore-warning, resulted in some considerable destruction and injuries at several American air force bases in Iraq.
This is undoubtedly the best analysis I've heard to date of the Iran strike on Israel. It's long-ish (about 10 minutes) but absolutely worth listening to.
The man speaking is Chas Freeman, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and, very relevant to the topic, former US… pic.twitter.com/lmiTB43024
Washington is thus now well aware that Iran can and will respond to further aggression from the US or Israel. The US’s multiple military bases in the Middle East are highly vulnerable to Iranian missile attacks, as are its navy and its commercial shipping in the Gulf of Iran. Sky-rocketing oil prices caused by blazing oil tankers in the Gulf would not improve Joe Biden’s chances of re-election for one thing!
So, predictably the West will further sanction Iran for responding to Israel’s major breach of international conventions when it bombed Iran’s Damascus embassy.
All of this action comes on the back of 6 months of the most depraved genocidal attacks on the Palestinian population in Gaza by the Israeli ‘Defence’ Force. The accuracy of that genocidal description has been confirmed by both the International Court of Justice and the UN, despite the denials from Israel’s Western allies, who continue to pretend that Israel’s genocide is a war against terrorism- there is however too much money at stake for the West to back down from their collusion in genocide now. President Biden alone gets enormous ($5.2 million over 34 years) money personally from the Jewish American agency AIPAC, and most of Congress is likewise in the pocket of AIPAC.
And the EU will of course not sanction or condemn Israel for its ongoing murderous savagery in Gaza.
Western media (and particularly my own New Zealand media) works hand in glove to desperately support the illusion of rectitude by America and its allies and reject their complicity in Israel’s genocide . We cannot be informed about the Nakba of 1948 for instance, the international implications of destroying another country’s Embassy, and we are never admitted into the mystery as to how Gazans are somehow dying of starvation- (what could be causing that we wonder?), or why there are many thousands of Palestinian brutalised hostages in Israeli ‘jails’ who might be exchanged for Israeli hostages?
We are not to learn how really depraved and corrupt our Western politicians are..
In Britain there are clear indications that the Jewish lobby funnels huge amounts of money into both the Tory and Labour parties (as Craig Murray notes 40% of Labour’s shadow cabinet, at least, are financed by the zionist lobby)as well as what they bizarrely call the ‘House of Lords’ to ensure both parties unanimously support Israeli mass murder in Palestine, despite their government lawyers acknowledgment of that genocide. Ironically Keir Starmer, the current Labour leader who is likely to sweep to power in the next UK general election, despite his incompetence and corruption, was once a human rights lawyer, so is knowingly complicit in this murder. And let’s not forget their dear ex prime minister Boris Bojo Johnson, whose sabotage of a Ukraine/Russia peace deal in 2022 has now resulted in his having the blood of over 400,000 Ukrainian men on his hands and his non- existent conscience.
I am ever hopeful as the world moves away from this brutal Western ‘rule based order’ to a multipolar world, that these corrupt stooges in the West will be committed to the International Court of Justice and spend the rest of their lives behind bars. It remains a mystery to me how these Western ‘leaders’ can face the world (and the mirror), knowing they have no integrity, no honesty and no compassion. If it were not for their savagery, I would pity them.
Critical thinking is clearly not a strong point for a Western ( or any other)politician . The amazing level of simple blind prejudice of Russia for instance allowed the analysts and leaders of the West to assume (contrary to the actual pre-existing evidence) that Russia would collapse under the West’s sanctions , that the ‘brutal dictator Putin’ would fall and be replaced by someone eager to please the West, while Russia would be defeated in Ukraine because NATO’s Western weapons were so much better than Russian ones and their Western military geniuses so much smarter than Russians!
So it was quite ok to fund train and support neonazis and other nationalist crazies in Kiev who believed they were descended from the Nordic master race, whilst the inferior ‘asiatic’ Russian hordes only had outside toilets and stole washing machine chips for their weapons!
Even now the West simply can’t seem to get it into their heads that they are on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of humanity. The Global South wants no more of the West’s brutal exploitation and colonialism and flat-out lies. And for some strange reason the Global South wants a liveable world!
Those devastating costs are only now being made manifest and will continue to do so at an accelerating rate for the next 1000 years or more.
But hey!- whose counting?
Postscript
Israel supposedly DID send a few Sparrow small air to ground missiles into Iran in response, and their terrorist proxies in Iran, the MEK, supposedly also sent a few toy quadrocopter drones of Isfahan– so I kind of got my analysis wrong- but not really!
As a sidenote: ‘In 2017, the year before John Bolton became President Trump’s National Security Adviser, Bolton addressed members of the MEK and said that they would celebrate in Tehran before 2019.’-wikipedia
Have you ever seen that kind of email header in your inbox? -hmmm-maybe not!
(Note: this post has been reproduced with the kind permission of changethatmind.com )
Our ‘modern’ society puts enormous pressure on all of us to consume and buy more; whether it’s the ads you see pop up on your smartphone as you scan the web, your social media accounts, your local newspaper or your TV, the billboards on your way to work or on the public transport you use-the exhortation to buy, buy, buy is constant and ever more insistent.
And our politicians extol the virtues of an ever bigger GDP, of ever more ‘progress’.
And we are all the victims of this propaganda war; we can’t escape, and we all succumb to one degree or another. We feel the need to have something more modern, something better something bigger, something more ostentatious, or even just keeping up with our friends, family or colleagues to have something at least as good as theirs. Why is that, do you think?
We’ve all heard that stuff about there’s only one Earth, but we all act like we don’t believe it and keep consuming enough for at least two! Maybe you’ve noticed how every year there’s a little less greenery, a little more concrete, or even how there’s far fewer bugs that splatter on your car windscreen, or that you don’t hear the birds you used to hear and see when you were younger.
Do you ever wonder why almost all the things we buy are inanimate things? -made of plastic, metal or dead plants?
So as our human population increases more and more, and every one of us wants more and more on this lonely little planet- what’s going to give?
And what can we do instead of consuming more and more?
‘Take the Jump’ has some great suggestions on how to decrease your footprint in the world…
What if we all reduced our consumption back to the level of what was being consumed in the 1950s in the West? How hard would that be?
And then there other parallel strategies that can also help reduce our footprint like reducing the stuff or ‘clutter’ in your home. ‘Homes & Gardens’ have some great ideas on reducing clutter. And there can be a certain pleasure in letting others get some enjoyment from the things you no longer need; whether it’s donating them to a charity or recycling agency, or selling them on Ebay or whatever your country’s equivalent online trader happens to be.
There’s no doubt our world is changing, and humans. inevitably, will have to change along with those changes- whether we choose to, or whether nature chooses for us.
Our making the choice for ourselves now is so much the better choice!
To a more fulfilled life and better world!
Paul at ChangeThatMind.com
Note that ChangeThatMind is not an affiliate of ANY of the agencies noted in this post; and thence does NOT receive any payment on any of the products not sold through this website!)
The New Zealand government , unsurprisingly, has, along with 11 other Western countries, decided to withhold funding to UNRWA because of allegations by the Israeli apartheid regime in Tel Aviv that 12 of its thousands of staff in Gaza and the West Bank had been involved in the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israelis.
As Amnesty International makes exceptionally clear-‘At a time when Israel, the occupying power, continues to flagrantly violate its obligations vis-à-vis Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, UNRWA has long served as a sole lifeline, offering indispensable humanitarian aid, education and shelter. The agency also provides desperately needed aid for millions of other Palestinian refugees living in neighbouring Arab countries.”
Please note that Noga Orbel’s statements are not the ravings of a lone psychopath, they are what passes for normal and acceptable in Israel’s parliament.
The United States, United Kingdom , Germany, France, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, Italy, Australia and Finland –and now New Zealand have all agreed that, despite the fact that they know Israel has been consistently lying for its 75 years of existence, to justify its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, that they should ‘suspend’ funding to the UNRWA which has been the literally sole lifeline of food and water to Gazans trapped in Gazan while Israel bombards them into oblivion and blockades and destroys all essential services to Gazans.
Dystopian. Evil. A checkpoint with a camera/facial recognition and a loudspeaker tormenting Palestinian refugees as they are forced to flee their homes: “Khaled Mashal did you send your suit to the dry cleaning today?” followed by “women and children pass only.” A genocide. pic.twitter.com/D0hWRSAMCH
What additionally needs to be said about the pyschopaths coordinating this genocide?
What these 12 ‘white’ countries (Japan is an honorary obedient white country in their eyes) are doing is directly aiding and abetting the psychopaths in Tel Aviv, in the mass murder of Palestinians. Without UNRWA aid to Gazans, many many more Palestinians will die.
The Zionist’s bizarre ideology insists that only Jewish people can live in the land of Palestine, and anyone else who has lived there who is not Jewish must be removed one way or another- through murder, imprisonment in Israeli jails or the open air concetration camps of the West Bank and Gaza , or expelled to refugee camps in another country.
That 2 million Gazans will now either starve to death, die by disease from polluted water, freeze to death from lack of shelter or lack of health services destroyed by Israel, is of course of no concern to these ‘civilised’ countries.
Purely coincidentally of course, the Israeli allegations and the very prompt response from Western nations to halt aid, comes just days after the interim ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which (despite the subsequent denials of Israel, its Zionist supporters and many of these same white nations) established a prima facie case of genocide by Israel against Gazans.
One might have thought that NZ politicians were not quite so stupid as their Aussie colleagues in signing up to the U.S. inspired AUKUS protection racket-confronting non-existent threats from Russia & China & wasting millions in taxpayers money.
New Zealand’s new Coalition government has, as of 23rd January 2023, formally agreed to support Israel’s genocide in Palestine by agreeing (at US request) to provide a small military force to support the American ‘coalition” to bombard Yemen.
The New Zealand prime minister Christopher Luxon, has committed outrageous lies to say there is no connection between the Gaza terror and the actions of Ansarallah (Houthi). Ansarallah has made it abundantly clear that the reason it has been attacking shipping heading to Israel is to try and force Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza.
Mr Luxon is self-evidently lying through his teeth in saying there is no connection between the Red Sea attacks by Ansarallah and Gaza. Unsurprisingly, our ‘great’ New Zealand journalists at the news conference where Luxon was interviewed on the Yemen announcement, blindly accepted these lies without a question.
The UK and US in their bombing campaign in Yemen are simply continuing the genocide that their previous Saudi proxy had waged in Yemen for 9 years from 2014, using American and UK weapons, American and UK military instructors and guidance systems, and in all likelihood, “retired” British and American pilots to bomb one of the poorest countries in the world.
New Zealand’s conservative National Party which Chris Luxon leads, has a long history of sucking up to every US war of atrocity- from Korea, (shelling North Korean fishing villages from our warships) Vietnam (sustained mortar fire into Vietnamese villages), Iraq( hiding in their military camp in Basra) , Afghanistan (supporting the US and Australians to murder and torture Afghans) to its proxy war in Ukraine ( providing logistics to Ukrainian neonazis to shell Donetsk City civilians with cluster munitions) ; but all tiny amounts of military support intended to bolster the U.S.’s ‘legitimacy’ in fighting these wars on the world stage.
However, the United States no longer has the credibility or respect of the Global South or indeed much of the world; particularly because of its unconditional support for Israel’s genocidal savagery in Gaza.
We live in a dystopian world where it’s completely normalized to subvert human interests to commercial interests, to toss tens of thousands of lives into the incinerator for wealth and convenience. Where war profiteers rake in vast fortunes for selling instruments of mass murder to genocidal governments, and where the most powerful empire in history declares a war to defend shipping containers at the cost of human life.
Don’t ever let these sick freaks convince you that this is normal.
The National Party, along with its right wing allies; New Zealand First and ACT, are stuck in a time warp where the “civilised’ white man rules the world, and might is right.
New Zealand’s credibility globally has just sunk to a new low.
