Category: Uncategorized

Recognising the Environmental Impact of Consumption

Tena koutou
While the NZ Government’s decision to  declare a climate emergency  in New Zealand is to be applauded-  currently there appear few mechanisms  to   achieve a carbon-neutral  government by  2025. Prime Minister Jacinda Adern’s touted response to  have all  government vehicles  electric,  is a case in  point of the contradictions in  environmental  policy. There is an  urgent  need for all  citizens to recognise the  impact of product and service consumption.
While electric cars will  reduce carbon  emissions through  vehicle  exhaust pipes, the production of the required number of  electric vehicles will  result in  further destruction of our environments-  lithium  mining for batteries ,  steel  production,  plastics production. to  name just  a few.  A sleight of hand process that  reduces emissions in  one area and replaces it with  more consumption in  another-  is simply deceitful  and will  not improve our environmental impact. Any  climate “emergency planning (an  ’emergency’  implies a short -term  problem- this is not a short-term issue)  must  also  address the collateral  bio-diversity loss that  is occurring in New Zealand and everywhere in  the world.
As a recent Israeli  study  amply demonstrates;  production of inert ‘stuff’  by  humans now literally out-weighs  the living  things on  this planet https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/09/human-made-materials-now-outweigh-earths-entire-biomass-study
We are replacing  living entities with  dead inert  matter at  a rapidly  increasing rate-  a recipe not just  for  an  emergency,  but a planetary  disaster.
While moving to  a steady  state economy is the only plausible  response to   the disaster rapidly unfolding  on our little plant; current levers of power and influence globally and in New Zealand clearly will not allow that  to  happen in  the short -term.
Consequently ,  rather than moving gently and steadily to  a slow-down  and cessation of human  ‘growth’ ,  we are  rushing headlong and ever faster  towards the precipice of environmental  catastrophe,  before we  fall over…and reach ‘steady-state’  in a way  that  will  cause huge immediate human  and other species’ suffering  and death.
To   hopefully avoid that precipitous  fall, I would suggest a measure that  will  in a relatively short  time ,  allow all  members of New Zealand society to   appreciate we cannot continue  this headlong dash  to  oblivion.
A requirement  that all animate and non-animate goods   and services in New Zealand carry  a warning label  which  indicates how much  the product has impacted on  both  climate change ( positive or negative) but also  ( and more crucially)  biodiversity. The labeling could be something similar to   cigarette warning labels and provide an  opportunity for purchasers to  be aware of the environmental  impact  of their purchase,  to  compare  goods’  environmental impact  and to encourage producers to  reduce their  environmental  footprint..
Over time this labeling would also  provide an opportunity for government  to   additionally tax those products and services  that  were  high in  environmental  impact,  once public support had reached an  acceptable level.
From  there, the public debate on how to  implement a  sustainable  steady  state economy  could proceed.
As you will  be well  aware, as you see the  data continue to   pile in at  an  ever increasing rate  on  global  warming and bio-diversity loss ,  we now  have little time and opportunity  to change our trajectory.
nga mihi
Footnote
The response to  my email   from  New Zealand’s Ministry of the Environment  courteously noted my suggestions,  but declined to  support it,noting that there were some unnamed private New Zealand companies interested in such  an idea.
Subsequently my daughter has suggested that  there would be web  companies out there who  could develop  an  app  which   could provide information online  for ‘consumers’  on  the relative  carbon  footprint and impact on  biodiversity of products being sold.
Yes please!

The Anti Sino-Russian Agenda

Over the last few months  (May,  June, July 2020) we have seen  increasing numbers of media articles lambasting the Chinese and Russian  governments for  various supposed or presumed crimes.  In almost every  case of these articles –  little or nothing has been presented to  argue an alternative view of this anti-Sino-Russian agenda ( which  one would suppose to be one of the virtues of a ‘free”  press).

We are told that  the Chinese or Russians are ‘highly likely’  to  have done this or that,  often  purely based on  ‘opensource’  material- i.e.  online authors  with  a variety of axes to  grind about Russia or China, and who  invariably use speculation , innuendo  or simply falsehoods, to  explain  their prejudices and  their sponsors.

Along with other U.K. media, The Guardian, once a British left-wing newspaper,  now continually trots out anti-Russian propaganda,  with the latest most absurd article being its  allegation that  Russian hackers had stolen   information about a COVID-19  vaccine  from  Oxford University. The newspaper reports failed to mention  however that  the Russian  government had in  fact previously purchased the  vaccine  information, so  was somewhat  unlikely to  have also  stolen it.

The  fictions  about Russian involvement in the tawdry Skripal affair and the subsequent death of Dawn Sturgess  have been meticulously pulled apart by  Craig Murray and others and shown to  not only be implausible,  but impossible. However as Craig Murray  reminds us,  simply to  argue that  the Russian’s were highly unlikely to have  been  responsible for what  happened to  Sturgess or the Skripals,  does not mean  that  the Russian  government,  like most large  state agencies around the world-  does not engage in  illegal  international  activities.

It should be clear however that  the ongoing farcical  campaign  against  President Putin by  the Western press, relates less to  any real  international  Russian activities that  breach  “international  norms”-and rather more to  do  with  the annoying habit of the Putin  administration  of  blocking ongoing foreign access to  Russia’s state assets,  which  under President Yeltsin were  appropriated by  so-called Russian  oligarchs and siphoned off through  bank accounts managed via the City of London. Now in  dire economic circumstances because of Brexit and COVID-9  lockdown, the British  government is desperate to  regain  access to  that  little gold-mine.

Similarly with  the U.S.  economy in  free-fall,  the Americans are desperate to halt the rise of China. China is fast becoming  a world leader on the economic and technological  innovation front, and with   largely comprehensive and safe response to  COVID19,  appears to have weathered much of the resultant economic storm  from lockdown. In  contrast,  both  the U.S. and the U.K.  have demonstrated staggering levels of stupidity and incompetence in  their response to  the virus, which  will  mean ongoing risks to  their economies for  years to  come.

The United States response  therefore, to issues like the Russian  Nordstream2 pipelines to  Europe and their determination to bring down Huawei’s  technological  leadership  in 5G  or the attempt to  undermine China’s Belt and Road   are simply  part of the U.S.’s  intent to  ensure the U.S.  retain its  global  economic leadership  for as long as it can so  that American big business can continue to  exploit its more vulnerable partners, while its internal  infrastructure crumbles.

Along with  attacks on  Russian  and Chinese  economic initiatives,  we see ongoing American  and U.K.  attacks on  Chinese and Russian  vulnerabilities. In  China those attacks focus on  the Uighur separatist  and  jihadist concerns  ( funded and trained in Syria by  the Turks,  the Saudis and Western  intelligence ‘interests”)  and the subsequent  Chinese government crackdown on  the Uighur population, and also  on  the Chinese response to   sometimes violent demonstrations by   young Chinese people in Hong Kong – which  again  have been  supported in  their battle for a fictitious  Free Hong Kong (something that  their former British  colonial  overseers only appeared to promote in the last few years of the colony  once it become clear that  HK was going to be returned to  Chinese government rule) The waving of American and British   flags, singing the Star Spangled Banner  and  the calls for the “Han  Chinese’  to  stay  out of HK by Chinese Han HK  protesters, only highlighted the absurdity of the issues they  were demanding. Hong Kong could not survive  a year  without their economic lifeline to  the mainland.

There is no  doubt that  the Chinese government will  be ruthless in  its crackdown on  dissent,  but we should not forget how ruthless both the Americans and the British have been in  their exploitation of “the coloured races’  over the last 100  years; From  the use of Hong Kong to  funnel  opium  to  addicts on  the mainland right up  to  the Japanese invasion of HK  in 1941 ( which  was only stopped because the Japanese did not have access to   the  British controlled opium  producers ),   the atom  bombs over Nagasaki  and Hiroshima,  the Korean genocide  where millions of North  Korean civilians  were exterminated  as American  and British  ( and other ‘allies’ )  bombed every town  and city in North Korea, to   the millions dead in  Vietnam  Cambodia and Laos:  Libya,  Syria, Iraq, Yemen … the list  of barbarity  is endless.

In Russia we saw U.K  and U.S.  media  creating fictitious articles about the little green (Russian) military men in Eastern Ukraine,  and Russian  tanks rolling over the border into  Ukraine , while extolling the virtues of those ‘patriotic’ Ukrainians of dubious lineage,  along with the constant analogies to Putin as  Hitler as Russia assumed peaceful control  of the Crimea ( for several  hundred years  populated almost entirely by  Russians) .

As the British and U.S.  begin  their rapid slide to long term  economic  depression, we shall  undoubtedly see more  strident and likely more ridiculous claims surface about the Russians and the Chinese. However as the Russia/ Brexit  media response has shown in  recent times;  it works!  Many of the British  and American  public are indeed  gullible and uneducated  enough to  believe anything that their government throws at  them. Yes, of course the Russians made Brexit  a reality by  putting a few articles in Russia Today  and Sputnik supporting the British  exit from the European  Europe!!

But,  through  all of this,  we should note that  these competing nations appear oblivious to  the rapidly developing climate  catastrophe,  now   aligned with  catastrophic species loss.  War  and human deprivation  are key drivers of the degradation of our environment;  alongside the insane drive for our global  populations to  ‘consume’  more inanimate things whilst destroying our living world.

Sadly ,  real   human  statemanship, intelligence   and vision simply does  not exist  in our time of greatest need.

Links

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/

 

 

A No-Growth Economy

Looking for Answers
Looking for Answers

COVID-19  has demonstrated the remarkable limitations  of rational  decision-making in  a number of  Western countries;  particularly in Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S;  as well  as the unlimited  capacity for crazed behaviours of  some leaders like President Bolsinaro  in Brazil.

It would appear that western countries are not generally particularly good at keeping their populations safe.

We see countries desperately trying to ‘re-start’ their economies with  subsidies and other mechanisms – attempting to  create a return  to  the old world of  constant growth.

We see the United States now calling in its allies and mainstream media across the world; ramping up the anti-Chinese hysteria to try and ensure China does not come out of this pandemic as a stronger super-power and world leader.

And here in New Zealand we see  a government which has  very  capably managed the pandemic with  evidence based practice, now  pretending that  we can  return  to  old ‘normal” .    A world of constant growth in a finite world: returning to the constant destruction of our ever more precarious   living world for more human ‘progress’. –more tourism, more roads, more building construction more air-flights. …

No  government money  towards a few ‘greening’  projects can  alter the fact  that  our ‘progress’  is rapidly  destroying the living  branch  we humans  are clinging to.

We need a no growth economy now! An economy which understands that if we continue to expand our human boot-print year upon year- we hasten not only all other species’  destruction , but also our own.

That point of no return may have already passed, but   we need to  act urgently to restore the natural  world we are  rely upon  for our existence-  more trees,  more sustainable  agriculture,  and above all,   total respect  for all  living things.

If we thought COVID-19 was big; the environmental crisis the world faces right now will eclipse everything we have ever faced. It’s time to try and reduce the risks to us all-now!

Links

https://theecologist.org/2020/may/18/case-degrowth-time-pandemic

 

Le Mesurier, Syria, Corruption & the OPCW

James Le Mesurier
James Le Mesurier

As Craig Murray  has eruditely noted,  even  the greatest of scoundrels who  die, have  wives, children  and other people who  love and care for them and who  mourn  their loss.

That James le Mesurier,  likely “ex”-MI6  operative and founder of the White Helmets, was a scoundrel  and a man  with  few ethics is indisputable;  however you would certainly  not know that  from  Martin Churlov’s fawning obituary  in  the Guardian .

What  however we do  get  from  that obituary  is an  acknowledgment of the close ties that  Le Mesurier and MI6 had and continue to have with  Israeli  secret  police and military  in  brutally putting down  what  Churlov describes as the Gaza “insurgency” ( a curious  but telling name for an  uprising against  the disgusting barbaric ( and internationally illegal) Israeli occupation and imprisonment of Gaza’s population). But again;  this should not come as a surprise;  we know the U.K.  intelligence  community’s and UK Military’s longstanding and ongoing involvement with  corruption,   torture  and murder across the Middle East , and its mercenary  longstanding involvement with   the Saudi  regime’s jihadist  terror and genocidal  campaigns against  Shiites.

If you believe Martin Churlov,  Le Mesurier was able to  somehow mysteriously  access large amounts of  Western government money  to  establish  and maintain and provide Western  logistics  to  a band   of humanitarian workers   who  operated in  areas where the officially recognised Syrian  Red Cross could not access because the jihadists would have killed them.

In  Wikipedia we are told (without any hint of sarcasm) that: The Times reported that Le Mesurier was “the subject of an intense black propaganda campaign for years by pro-Assad activists and Russian diplomats”.[28][29] The New York Times reported that the group and Le Mesurier were the target of “unfounded conspiracy theories”.[3] It was alleged that Le Mesurier’s British Army background meant that he was effectively operating as a British state agent.[30] Janine di Giovanni has written the claim he was a spy lacks any evidence.[31] The accusations, from those who are opposed to any Western involvement in Syria and are backers of the Assad regime, include bloggers connected to the English-language Russian media who claim the White Helmets and Le Mesurier were intending to push for regime change in Syria.[32][33]

One of  the White Helmet’s  key  functions ( unlike any other  internationally  recognised humanitarian  mission),  was to  publicise itself and the  supposed military actions of the Syrian Arab Army  (SAA) under Assad. The recent expose of reports  made by   the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) after the allegations by  the White Helmets of  SAA  chemical  weapons use in Douma,  clearly show corruption at  a senior level in the OPCW to  manipulate evidence and come to  conclusions not supported by  their investigators .

Le Mesurier died mysteriously;  somehow falling from  his balcony at his home  in Ankara to  his death in  the middle of the night without his wife hearing anything. And yes, security cameras reveal  no breach of security  at his home-  so  presumably-no  evidence of murder.

Did Mesurier jump  because he knew he was soon to  be exposed to  the world as the charlatan  he was,   and not the  humanitarian portrayed so  well  in  the White Helmet’s  expensive movie and Western mainstream  media?

White Helmets | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix – YouTube

Or was he pushed because he knew too  much? Perhaps we will  never know.

We do  know from TASS   however that  the British have been  getting increasingly concerned about the ongoing ever-deeper  incursions into  Idlib  in Northern Syria by  Russian  and SAA  troops,  where most of their intelligence operatives are working alongside the jihadists and particularly Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) , the Al  Qaeda affiliated  group funded by  the Saudis. A  captured British operative  in Idlib could reveal  much  of the  very  embarrassing support   by the British  French,  US and Turkey of  the jihadists (including the White Helmets),  and their  links to  Israeli operatives.

In  addition, “Old Boy” Boris Johnson’s Etonian and City of London  links might be put  even more at  jeopardy  if any  of this little escapade comes to  light during the current British  General  Election…

As with  U.S.  foreign policy, we need to  understand that  British realpolitik  is simply about the money.  How much  can I or my cronies   get  out of this next  little war?

External Links

The Sad Death of James Le Mesurier

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/13/james-le-mesurier-obituary

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/nov/17/british-government-army-accused-covering-up-war-crimes-afghanistan-iraq

https://tass.com/world/1089495

The USA’s History Of Controlling The OPCW To Promote Regime Change

The ‘White Helmets’ and the Inherent Contradiction of America’s Syria Policy

Who is James Le Mesurier?

OPCW Losing Credibility As Even More Revelations Surface On Douma

International Middle East Media Center- and Israeli violations of norms of humanity

Relevant New Antarctica Links

Lieutenant-General Soleimani & the Red Flag of Qom

No flies in Syria

The Downing of MH17 & Its Curious Convolutions

The Dutch investigation into  the  crash  of Malaysian  Airlines MH17 on 17th  July 2014 in  Eastern  Ukraine where  fighting between  “Russian-backed”  Eastern Ukrainian separatists and government forces was occurring , with  the death  of  all 298  passengers and crew,  has finally been  released.

The crash  followed the disappearance of another Malaysian  Airlines plane flight 370  over the Indian  ocean on 8th  March  2014:  again  with  all  passengers and crew lost-  a rather unusual  coincidence .

To  no-one’s surprise, the investigation has indicted 3 Russians and one Eastern Ukrainian,  who  will  be unlikely to  face the court because both  countries’  extradition laws would forbid  their extradition.

Several  hours before the investigation results were announced ,  the “independent” investigative online journalist  Bellingcat (according to  Wikipedia “Half of (Bellingcat’s)  funding comes from grants and donations, the other half from running workshops training people in the art of open-source investigations”,  released their more comprehensive list  of Russians supposedly involved in  hauling a BUK ground to  air launcher and targetting system across the Russian/Ukrainian  border,  shooting down  the civilian jet  and then  hauling it back  across into  Russian  territory. The reasons for going through  this elaborate process to  shoot down  a civilian  jet   with  Malaysian, Dutch  and Australian nationals on-board are not explored….

However the OffGuardian  notes that  Bellingcat’s funding is largely “from the Atlantic Council and the National Endowment for Democracy’-   institutions not known  for their pro-Russian,  let alone neutral  stance on  anything.  Bellingcat  is well-known for his  very dubious  statements  and ‘proof” of direct  Russian  involvement in  the Eastern Ukraine war, his curious MI6 related account of the Skripal poisonings (well-debunked by  Craig Murray),  and his  accusations of Syrian (Russian  supported)  SAA involvement in  gas attacks against   civilians,  recently  debunked by  leaked  reports from  the OPCW.

The U.K.  express noted  that  ‘Dutch investigators maintain there is photo and video evidence showing the BUK system used to shoot down the plane came from the 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade, which is based in Kursk, western Russia.” As far as can be  ascertained,  this “photo  and video  evidence’  had been  provided to  the investigative team  by  Bellingcat’s  ‘independent’ journalists.

And, as The Saker notes; the list of these (four)  “suspects” can be randomly expanded, up to the country’s top brass. After all, in order to transfer the Buk across the border, a whole interdepartmental operation is necessary. It is possible to take it only from a military unit. And before this – the (Russian) Ministry of Defence. It has to move to the border along roads and through settlements. This means the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which such a movement has to be coordinated with.

And lastly, protecting the border is a prerogative of the FSB. It is clear that any officer of any of the listed departments will not take part in such an operation without the approval of the highest administration.

Well, and the heads themselves will not involve themselves in such complex and dangerous work without having coordinated it first with the Supreme Commander – the president.

While such   further accusations  will suit many in the Russophobe West-  they  simply do  not stack  up  as being  possible, plausible  or rational. For what  possible reason would the Russian  Government authorise the shooting down of a Malaysian  civilian  airliner over  disputed  Ukrainian territory ?

The Dutch   investigators  say the missile launcher  crossed the border from the  Kursk  Oblast,  Russia, into Eastern Ukraine, and returned after the aircraft had been brought down,  a one way  distance of approximately 130 kms. The BUK launcher would have travelled at  a maximum  speed of 65 km/hour.

Despite an all-Malaysian  crew,  and Malaysian passengers being the second largest  group  of nationals on  the plane, and the  owner of the airline ,  Malaysia (along with  Russia)  was denied access to  the plane’s black  boxes and other parts of the investigation,  while the Ukraine,  who  may  or may  not have been  the guilty party,  was allowed free access and the right to deny the public access to  any parts  of the information collected by  the investigative team.  A curious state of affairs.

Malaysia only supports some aspects of the investigative team’s conclusions, and describes the investigation as “politically motivated”

There is much  dispute online about the weapon  used to bring down  the plane, but the current evidence does seem  to  suggest  a Russian -made  BUK type  ground  to  air missile with  a fragmentation head.  The missile appears to  have  hit the plane  primarily in  the cockpit area,  causing catastrophic immediate damage  and immediate loss of  flight recording –  although   curiously little external  damage   aft of the cabin  until  the plane hit the ground and exploded. Russia  maintains the missile numbers found indicate that  it was an  early version of the BUK missile which  was likely owned by  Ukrainian government forces,  but the investigation states that  it was a recent BUK version only owned by  the Russians.

A very  curious state of affairs…

 

Links

Discuss: MH17 “suspects” named

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/mh17-suspects-dutch-reveal-backgrounds-of-ukraine-separatists/ar-AAD7n40

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1134749/mh17-news-latest-malaysian-airlines-crash-russia-missile-ukraine

MH17: "New evidence", same issues

 

http://johnhelmer.org/malaysian-prime-minister-mahathir-accuses-us-and-allies-of-mh17-fabrication-violation-of-rule-of-law/

http://www.whathappenedtoflightmh17.com/about/

https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Bellingcat

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/06/19/identifying-the-separatists-linked-to-the-downing-of-mh17/

The case of MH17 and the imitation of a Maidan in Georgia: the provocations of globalists

Ignorance and Narrow-mindedness

As Lord Acton  noted: “There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion”.

Having quoted that very  useful  piece of advice, it is also  useful  to  note that  ‘ignorance”  and ‘narrow-mindedness’  are comparative things.  We could also  quote that  epitome of evil  and narrowmindedness  Donald Rumsfield ,  ex-U.S.  Secretary of Defence: Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.[1].

What  we don’t know ,  we don’t know how to  find,  let alone know it when  we see it!. Our human  brains are re-wired from  birth to  only  see those things that  are acceptable and useful  at a given  moment in  time. Those things that  don’t fit our schema of the world   are ‘unsee-able” . Combine that  with homo sapiens’ endless proclivity for self-delusion, and we have  billions of animals wandering this planet in  a complex state of complete  ignorance;  all  with  the capacity to  kill and ‘de-humanise’ many of their  fellow   human  being  and destroy countless  other numbers of non-human  species. The most ‘wonderful’  extreme   example of that  delusion is the majority of the population of the United States  and its so-called ‘leaders”.

The  endless  cycle of myth-making  in  the United States starts with  the  hype  that  the United States was founded by  their  so-called “Founding Fathers’  to  espouse justice and freedom from oppression. In reality it was founded to  ensure that  those who  had money  in  the new American  colony  ,  retained and expanded that wealth. The genocide against  the indigenous population of  North  America and the  exploitation of black  people,  first  as slaves and then  as second class citizens, and the ongoing institutionalized process to  keep  poor people poor  with the  bare minimum of  state support,  puts the  lie to  those noble statements of the Founding Fathers.

Finian  Cunnginham’s elegant summary of the  United States’   brutal  colonial  policy  makes it clear that  the United States’ wealthy  have  never limited themselves  to extracting profit from  those less fortunate  in  their own populations,  but has conducted a centuries’ long endeavour to  extract  wealth  by  war and terror  from  any country   unable to  defend itself from  the United States’ predations.

We should note  however that  the United States is  simply emulating  its previous colonial  oppressor , “Great” Britain,  who  in  turn  emulated their European neighbours’  brutal  colonial  drives, and which  in  turn ,  go  back  to   the empires of Rome and beyond. Exploitation  and the brutalising  of those more vulnerable (and especially other species) appears to  be one of those characteristics of mankind  that  is contagious. For the sake of the planet ,  we now have to  eliminate that  contagion.

However, as Lord Acton noted,  confronting that  ignorance and narrow-mindedness will  not be the answer . To  ensure the survival  of this planet  we must   now work  to  build  a world that  makes it impossible for human  beings to  not only exploit each  other-  but to  exploit  other  living entities . For living things to  survive on  this planet, we must  all learn to  co-exist.

It is now very  fashionable to  talk  about George Orwell’s ‘1984’ promulgations  from the Oceania government  to its population that  ‘War is peace / freedom is slavery [and] ignorance is strength.” And it would appear  governments are  increasingly actively engaging in  this double -speak,  whether using terms such  as “fake news” to  undermine the capacity of people to  explore and understand the world, or  simply through   the  relentless pumping out  of  extreme banal “news” to  numb the population.

However it is important to  note, that  if we examine closely,  we can  see that  all  ideologies engage in  this double-speak. Ideologies destroy our direct  understanding of the world – our capacity as individual  human beings to  directly experience the joy  and sanctity of other living things,  of all  of our  glorious living world.

 

 

 

 

 

Links

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton

The Ship of Fools- The Extraordinary Incompetence of our ‘World Leaders”

As   United States  ‘ gunboats’  sail  into  the Persian  Gulf to  confront a completely imaginary  threat  from  Iran;  as we witness  UK politicians floundering to  come up  with  some deal  to  exit or not exit the EU,  and as we witness Vladimir Putin  and his  capitalist  Russian  entourage in  total  denial  about climate change; as we see literally crazed American  decision-makers like Marco Rubio,  John Bolton  and  Mike Pompeo  ( “We lied we cheated,  we stole” – and we murder and torture and commit genocide)

move inexorably forward to  a completely fictitious casi  belli  and  lethal  wars   in Venezuela  ( or anywhere else in  the world that  they  have  decided they  don’t like),  the world burns. (We are now at record-breaking levels of 415 carbon dioxide parts per million and accelerating)  The combined and inter-related  drivers of climate change and species loss are causing the world to  move ever faster to  environmental  breakdown.

Perhaps  having these very  stupid  psychopaths in  positions of  (human) power across the world  is Gaia’s way  of  ensuring that humanity  will  no  longer, in  a few very short years,  be able to  continue to  devastate the living world.

It is  then  more than a little disturbing to hear from  greatest of powerful  fools Donald Trump  that:

Under my Administration, we are restoring @NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars. I am updating my budget to include an additional $1.6 billion so that we can return to Space in a BIG WAY!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2019

The United States has displayed  a woeful  and complete lack  of moral   and intellectual rectitude  for over a century on  this planet. Inflicting the United States  on  the rest of Universe to  plunder,  destroy and  murder ( assuming there are other living entities ‘out there” ) is not exactly good for the rest  of our Universe.

While it would appear that  Putin  has some modicum of intellect,  ( but with  a very  narrow focus of  Russian  nationalism  and capitalist  economics, and no  insight or long term  view of the  world’s  need for survival), its very  clear  every American  politician  and  policy  maker  with  any influence in  Washington has  such  a limited understanding of the world beyond America’s borders,  and such  a  distorted understanding of their barbaric violent  history, let alone an understanding of climate and species loss, as to  render any  rational  decision-making  impossible.  The extraordinary  ‘Russia-gate’  accusations and investigations have  unsurprisingly  not come up  with  any Russian  collusion or electoral  hacking  despite  the best  efforts of the American corporate media and politicians . Pure logic would have shown  that  it would be impossible to    sway  a sufficient  proportion of the  largely uneducated  American  public with  rational  arguments. The last  presidential  election choice between  a small   boy with   matches and a  psychopath did not leave the Russians with much  room to  maneuver!

And in China,  under General  Secretary Xi Jinping, the Belt and Road initiative is well  on its way  to  vastly increasing  consumerism  across Eurasia and  its resultant  environmental  depredations, and further despoliation of the remaining few natural  environments in Laos,  Burma and beyond with  railways,  roads,  dams and the  other usual  marks of human  “progress” .

It would thus  be  very helpful if a higher power could lock  away  those in Washington and their ‘Defence’  department,  along with  a few of those somewhat  less malignant cancers on  the planet, despoiling our planet  for  their own  safety and  the safety of  all  other living things on  this planet, for the rest  of their lives.

The world   has no  leadership  of anyone with  a modicum  of intellectual  or moral  rigor.  The human  race is  being  inexorably ‘lead’  by incompetent fools towards disaster. We have to  turn  away  from pushing the living world to  catastrophe. And make no  mistake;  a superficial  blaming of capitalism  for the world’s woes is not enough. Our depredations of the environment go  back  far further than  the 19th  century  Industrial  Revolution (although  the damage has been greatly exacerbated by  that revolution) .

Richard Attenborough  ably delineated the massive damage to  the Mediterranean  world by  Roman  and  other  ‘civilizations” in  destroying the natural  forests of the region, and changing the climate of the Mediterranean  world . Its  also likely that  pre-Roman  civilizations are also  largely responsible for the  almost total loss of forests and habitat in  North  Africa. We not only have to  remove capitalism  as a driver for  “progress’ –  we also  have to  instill  in  every  human  being an understanding that  we cannot survive without our fellow species-  that  all  life is sacred.-  and that human “progress”  is a  self-absorbed, self-perpetuating,  myth. All  human change has to be balanced against  the inevitable loss of species and habitat  to  other species-  and we can  no  longer afford that  species loss

As George Monbiot notes: A system based on perpetual growth cannot function without peripheries and externalities. There must always be an extraction zone, from which materials are taken without full payment, and a disposal zone, where costs are dumped in the form of waste and pollution. As the scale of economic activity increases, until capitalism affects everything from the atmosphere to the deep ocean floor, the entire planet becomes a sacrifice zone: we all inhabit the periphery of the profit-making machine.

We must  take action soon!

https://www.naturalclimate.solutions/the-science 

 

Links

https://www.stopecocide.earth/take-action

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/442944-fbis-steele-story-falls-apart-false-intel-and-media-contacts-were-flagged

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/irans-space-odyssey-raises-red-flags-nuclear-community-42397

 

https://www.monbiot.com/2019/04/30/the-problem-is-capitalism/

https://www.monbiot.com/2018/01/31/stepping-back-from-the-brink/

 

“Death to Wikileaks”: the battle for truth

The recent Guardian article penned by  Luke Harding – of famed ‘the Russians are invading Ukraine with  a convoy of (mythical)  tanks”  and other anti-Russian hysteria,  and  co-author Dan Collyns,  alleges that  Paul  Manafort, U.S.  convicted felon and former Republican  campaign  chief for Donald Trump’s election campaign, met  and conspired with  Julian  Assange of Wikileaks  to  ensure Hilary  Clinton was not elected President.

The authors of the Guardian story, Dan Collyns and Luke Harding, were in Ecuador recently with Equadorian , Fernando Villavicencio, who ‘assisted’  with this story  and who they had previously worked  with on  other  evidence -free  stories. Villavicencio ( Fernando Villavicencio, oil exsindicalista refugee in the US)  has fabricated claims about people visiting Assange in the past. In May he claimed Farage visited Assange on 28 April  2009, a month after Ecuador initiated its 8 month-long isolation of Assange, banning phone calls, all visits and  internet. Assange’s isolation at  the Embassy coincided  with the  defeat of Ecuadorean president  Rafael  Correa to  U.S.  supporter Lenin Moreno. The Guardian article states ; based on  the allegations from  Villavicencio,  that Manafort entered the Equadorian  Embassy  in London  where Assange is currently in  refuge,  and spoke   to  Assange, on  several occasions.  But as  Craig Murray  notes ,  the Equadorian Embassy  security files,  let alone the London Police records,   strangely show no  evidence of such  meetings.  Embassy employees who were there during that entire time period  also say they never saw Manafort or heard of his visit.

Assange and Wikileaks; and also  separately,  Paul Manafort, are  now proposing legal  action  against  the Guardian.  Wikileaks is raising money here for their legal  appeal. In likely response to these legal  threats, the Guardian has now edited its original  story  to  soften  the tone  of the allegations.  See the edits here  at   https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1706143/diff/0/1. If both libel  actions are successful  against  the Guardian;  its capacity to   survive financially are questionable -as will be its reputation as a reputable news-source.  Why  then would the Guardian  take such  a risk? It is to be noted that  legal  libel proceeding costs in  the U.K.  can be up to  140  times the costs of similar proceedings in  Europe ( ironically this is a Guardian link) .

Wikileaks’ crime is not only that it did the unpardonable;  it published leaked   information that  accurately and truthfully described war  crimes committed by  both  the U.K. , the US and  other Western states,  but more importantly  Wikileaks also  has put into  question the very  lucrative financial  dealings of the City of London  and also the Maltese government.    Without these illegal   financial dealings,  (primarily via Russian ‘oligarchs’ who  have  fled Russia), it is possible  that  the City of London   and much of the British  economy,  could collapse.

These murky financial  dealings  intermesh  with   much of the  terrorist activities carried out by  Western (particularly U.S.) intelligence agencies  to  ensure  their corporate sponsors  retain  their supplies of cash regardless of the  impacts on  lives  and the local environment. South  American  right wing governments and  their military/intelligence agencies have played a key  role in  these activities –  hence the arrival  of the very  dubious Fernando Villavicencio and his timely allegations of  collusion between  Trump,  Assange and the Russians.

Jimmy Llama notes  many  convoluted links to  neo’liberal’  thinktanks,  shady  corporates and   U.S.   and other individuals    such  as Bill  Browder,  famed for instigating  the U.S. Magnitsky Act ( Russia  has now accused Browder of Magnitsky’s murder) and a key player in  the Russiagate allegations.

These allegations are one of many determined concerted media  efforts to  ensure that once  Assange is  no  longer under the protection of the Ecuadorian  London  Embassy,  there will  be limited public backlash   against  those governments responsible for his subsequent  deportation to  the U.S.  –  his show-trial and likely disappearance..

That  process is after all ,  standard practice  already by  the United States and others;  make allegations against  someone you don’t like or need ,  inform  the necessary  Western authorities,   and a  drone   can  eliminate any unnecessary  evidence forthwith.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks have indeed played a very dangerous game-  unmasking the  extremely brutal  and vicious  international  game of exploitation and greed by  those  in  positions of power  in  the name of “democracy and freedom”…

Links

 

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/27/it-is-possible-paul-manafort-visited-julian-assange-if-true-there-should-be-ample-video-and-other-evidence-showing-this/

Assange Never Met Manafort. Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant MI6 Lies

https://www.latimes.com/ct-julian-assange-russian-visa-20180917-story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy

https://www.couragefound.org/2018/11/the-guardian-publishes-fabricated-claims-of-paul-manafort-visiting-assange/

https://www.gofundme.com/wikileaks-suing-the-guardian-over-manafort-story

https://archive.fo/9w6Zv

The Fate of Julian Assange: Chris Hedges Interviews Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria

A Written Guide to the Guardian’s Smear Campaign Against Assange

The Truth About Fernando Villavicencio, the Guardian’s Source for Their Anti-Assange Campaign

Russiagate Part One: The Story That Everyone Missed

Russiagate Part Two: Malta

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-really-killed-sergei-magnitsky-16612

https://wikileaks.org/Statement-Julian-Assange.html

https://justice4assange.com/

Misreporting Manafort: A Case Study in Journalistic Malpractice

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Why-No-Outrage-Over-Ecuadors-Illegal-Constituent-Assembly-20181130-0016.html

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

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?