Organizing Notes

Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....

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Location: Brunswick, ME, United States

The collapsing US military & economic empire is making Washington & NATO even more dangerous. US could not beat the Taliban but thinks it can take on China-Russia-Iran...a sign of psychopathology for sure. We must all do more to help stop this western corporate arrogance that puts the future generations lives in despair. @BruceKGagnon

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Chinese reaction to Pelosi's 'WW3 crank-up tour'

 


 

This week, we're looking at media reports on Taiwan. How are news outlets covering U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's possible visit to the island? Are media giving people a clear picture of what's going on? Or hyping up the so-called China threat, even pushing for her visit? 

Guests: Shao Yuqun, senior fellow, Shanghai Institutes For International Studies; Sourabh Gupta, senior Asia-Pacific international relations policy specialist, Institute for China-America Studies; Josef Mahoney, professor, East China Normal University.

Sunday song

 
 

 


Saturday, July 30, 2022

Solidarity with the Uhurus



St. Pete for Peace [Florida] stands in 100% solidarity with the Uhuru Movement who came under attack on Friday by the FBI and Justice Dept for alleged ties to a Russian citizen trying to interfere with U.S. elections. The charges are as tired and preposterous as they are serious. 

Anti-Russia hysteria has been sweeping the U.S. for years, and our efforts – and countless others - have been significantly touched by it, so it is not shocking to see what is happening to the Uhurus, but that doesn’t make it any less disturbing or infuriating to watch our friends in St. Petersburg get persecuted for their beliefs.

Uhuru Chairman Omali Yeshitela was taken away in handcuffs, the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg was raided, and at least 3 other Uhuru members, including Jesse Nevel are reportedly under investigation.

In 2003 we began working with the Uhurus and we have always had complete respect for their leadership, advanced knowledge and principled stance on Western imperialism, free speech and liberation.

The DOJ may find a way to make a case that the Uhurus earned money from somebody who has connections to the Russian government, but that’s not a crime, even it were true. And accusations that the Uhurus could ever be bought off to influence a U.S. presidential election are naïve.

Given that former National Security Advisor John Bolton, former CIA Director Mike Pompeo and former CIA Director James Woolsey recently admitted, on camera, to U.S. interference in other countries elections, the charges against the Uhurus are even more duplicitous.

Watch a member of Uhuru House speak at a press conference responding to these charges here

What is BRICS?

 


 

Professor Richard Wolff informs us of the powerful economic partnership of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (B.R.I.C.S) and how U.S. reaction to Russia's invading of Ukraine is impacting their partnerships. 

"They are the engine of the world economy in a way that was once said of Western Europe, North America and Japan. And it's moved in large part to the BRICS." - Richard Wolff

Friday, July 29, 2022

This is how Kiev troops treat their own citizens in the Donbass

 



 

 

In the days leading up to Russia and the LPR forces fully taking control of Lysychansk we met a mentally challenged man that was arrested & he claims Ukraine mentally tortured him. In this report we show you his story.

Patrick Lancaster is a US Navy veteran and independent crowd-funded journalist. 

Thursday, July 28, 2022

Japanese Hawks visit Taiwan to coordinate war

 


 By Kiji Noh

As we see Taiwan turn into a flashpoint with Nancy Pelosi's visit, here are some big picture perspectives and facts:

Taiwan was stolen from China and turned into a Japanese colony.  It was returned to China after WWII in the Cairo Declaration, but the current LDP Japanese government is packed with  (Nippon Kaigi) ideologues that believe in remilitarizing to reconstitute the Japanese Empire.  They understand the way to do that is 1) annul their peace constitution and 2) fully remilitarize by 3) aligning themselves with US plans to contain and take down China ("Pacific Pivot"/"Indo-Pacific Strategy"). Taiwan is a key area for them, geo-strategically and historically.  They are planning to be involved in a war over Taiwan, and the US wants and encourages this. 

High level US strategy ("grand strategy") is to trigger a war with China (see Rand's "Thinking through the unthinkable"; ASB)  

Elbridge Colby (US author of the 2018 National Defense Strategy) fleshed this out in more explicit detail in the "Strategy of Denial" where he said that the US cannot compete with China economically, or even in an arms race. A recycled "domino theory" of China's global imperial ambitions, Colby believes that US credibility is on the line.   It must instigate a war, preferably over Taiwan, preferably in a manner where the blame can be placed on China to rally (create "a binding strategy" with) the rest of the world (in an "anti-hegemonic coalition") against it.  Infowar and geo-informational delegitimation is key.  

Jake Bebber, summarizes:


To ensure America’s freedom, security and prosperity, the United States must maintain a favorable military-economic balance of power with respect to key regions of the world. Asia’s demographic and economic weight clearly place that region as the most important to American interests, and therefore the cornerstone of American policy must ensure that Asia is not subjected to regional hegemony... it is critical that the United States preserve its differentiated credibility related to denying China regional hegemony...This demands that force structure and capabilities be prioritized around identifying and defeating China’s best strategy to achieve regional hegemony.... For both ideological and military reasons, Taiwan is the prime target of China’s focused and sequential strategy...There is a good probability that denial defenses might fail in part or completely, requiring the coalition to adapt and seek to recapture Taiwan or the other allied and partner nations.

Therefore, considerations must be given on how to influence and shape the resolve of the people and bind them to the outcome of the war. A component of strategy must be to force China to fight in ways that change or reinforce the coalition’s threat perception. China will be made to reveal its aggressiveness, ambition, cruelty, unreliability, power, and disrespect for the honor of other states, which in turn strengthens the resolve of coalition members. The premise of the binding strategy is that military and other material power is employed to create “political, perceptual effects that matter in war.” Thus, military planning must sometimes serve political purposes that shape the war to unfold in such a way that key decision makers and populations “increase their valuation of the stakes at hand.”


President Biden's privy war council, CNAS (whose members occupy 18 top cabinet positions) believe that a) the US can win a war with China b) that Japan (& Korea) should play a key role in fighting this war ("binding strategy").  

 


Action steps: 

Biden in Israel - a big nada, zero

 


What (if anything) did Biden leave to Israelis & Palestinians?


Upon arriving
In Israel,
President Biden
Voiced verbal
Support for
The Two State Solution -
But immediately
Made it clear that
He would do nothing
To get this solution
Implemented.

Biden had very little
To offer to
The Palestinians.
Not even reopening
The US Consulate
In East Jerusalem -
A measure he had
Explicitly promised.

Biden took off
To Saudi Arabia,
His main destination,
Leaving behind
Millions of Palestinians
Under continuing
Brutal oppression.

Defence Minister Ganz
Who aspires to
Become  Prime Minister
Declared that he would not
Negotiate with
The Palestinians
But only seek to
"Reduce the conflict".

But is it really possible
To reduce the conflict
And ask the Palestinians
To endure the occupation
And wait patiently
For another
American President
Or for a true
Government of Change
In Israel?

This illusion
Might blow up
In all our faces.

Gush Shalom statement, July 26, 2022 

 

Palestinians [should] start aggressively lobbying all nations, globally to work towards a one-state solution. One person, One vote, No religion.What will happen? They will not get a one-state solution. No way for that. But if  Palestinians start lobbying all nations towards a one-state solution, and some countries start taking this idea seriously, this might make Israel agree to a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders.  That is how Zionists think. From the Zionist point of view, losing the West Bank is like getting your leg or arm be cut off. but losing the Jewish Majority is like getting your head cut off. So if you threaten them with decapitation, they might agree to an amputation instead.

Adam Keller

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Example of effective issue linkage

 


I'd like to congratulate the organizers of this upcoming August 6 event in Minnesota.

I am impressed with how they linked the horrid memory of Hiroshima/Nagasaki with the current conflicts today that very well could be the trigger for the next nuclear war.

Instead of half-stepping they also called Ukraine just what it is - a US-UK-NATO proxy war on Russia. Sadly many 'peace groups' across the west are misinterpreting the current war against Russia.  I've shared articles and videos for months that clearly reveal the true intention of the western warmongers. They want regime change in Moscow and Beijing. The west started this war.

The white oligarchic west is fighting to hang onto to its centuries long control and domination of the global south - Middle East, African continent, Indo-Pacific, Latin and South America. These populations (representing the most people on our tiny spinning orb) have had enough of the corrupt western run capitalist system that results in barbarism and slavery.

Russia and China have developed the ability in recent years to stand up to the Neo-con bullies who now run the show in Washington, Berlin, Brussels, Paris and squeaky London. So it is natural that the fading white west pulls out its favorite card - create more division and chaos.

Thus any nation that dares utter a peep of criticism or opposition toward the west is cancelled. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Libya, Yemen and many other nations well know this modus operandi of the western criminal cabal. 

Washington has its agents - puppets sprinkled around the globe - particularly visible in Europe. The CIA, after the end of WW II, used the Gladio terror program to ensure that most governments across Europe had its agents in charge. These governments (under US bankster direction) have continued their colonial domination of most of the global south.

Some 'progressive leaders' are afraid to speak out and tell the entire truth about what is actually going on today. 

During my 44 years of professional organizing (United Farm Workers Union, urban social justice organizing and then peace movement) I've seen lots of groups come and go. I understand how the funding world basically works. I have a clear picture about who gets $$$ and why. I have a decent picture of who the funders are and how they use the $$$ to 'guide the message' of the movement(s).

So there are social, economic and political reasons why some peace movement leaders feel the necessity to dump on Russia before daring to criticize Washington for creating the pretext in Ukraine that could lead to a red-hot exchange with Russia. I get lots of newsletters in the mail from groups around the world and it astounds me how many of them say little to nothing about the US role in Ukraine. They make little apparent connection between current US provocative foreign policy and the nuclear war that they so abhor. 

These strategic organizing mistakes mean one key thing - the public (who these groups are supposed to serve and educate) is left to get much of their information from corporate hired media lackeys. So such groups have failed in their #1 mission. They should be sharing the truth, helping to show how our own government is the instigator and director of this coming conflict between US-UK-Israel-NATO and Russia, China, Iran, etc. 

People in the global south know that the coming war by the west is about the oligarchs in those nations making a last ditch effort to hang onto their money, power and control. They are being cancelled. Call it karma.

You've got to pick sides in this world. I'm not a pacifist but have many tendencies in that direction. It's my connection to the spirit world which guides me. 

There is a demon out there - the global south has been trying to reason with the demon for centuries - but the warlords can't listen. Mr. Big is blinded by his greed and disconnection from nature. How are the western oligarchs to be restrained before they do even more harm? Do nations have the right to stand up to the demon?

Russia has been invaded for hundreds of years by those who want her resources. By the end of WWII, 27 million Soviet Union citizens died at the hands of Hitler's Nazi army. Russians have had enough of the western raiders. They reject NATO expansion and all the chaos that comes with it.


Tao He writes: 'The primary motive of British imperialism in China in the nineteenth century was economic. There was a high demand for Chinese tea, silk and porcelain in the British market. However, Britain did not possess sufficient silver to trade with the Qing Empire. Thus, a system of barter based on Indian opium was created to bridge this problem of payment.  The subsequent exponential increase of opium in China between 1790 and 1832 brought about a generation of addicts and social instability.  Clashes between the Qing government and British merchants ultimately escalated into the infamous Opium Wars.' [Big family fortunes
were made in UK, France, US by the opium trade. Franklin Roosevelt's family made money in the opium trade, as did John Kerry's. Columbia University, Harvard and Yale were built with opium trade profits.]

China has not forgotten about western colonization.

The story goes on and on....

We are approaching the decisive moments of the Ukraine war where it is estimated that by the end of August Russia should have the Donbass liberated. But just west of the Donbass, the US-supplied HIMARS long-range missile launchers could still be fired from Kiev-controlled lands. What should Russia do then? These HIMARS are predominately aimed at civilians in the Russian-ethnic regions of eastern Ukraine.

Videos are uploaded virtually every day of Ukrainian troops requesting to be allowed to retreat before they are killed. Zelensky (and his CIA bosses) tell them to dig trenches and keep fighting. The Russians know this war in being directed by Washington. Moscow understands that negotiation is not on the Neo-con agenda. The western oligarchs must have victory or nothing else. They are willing to burn the people of the world if they have to do so. 

That is how fascists work.

Bruce 

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Budapest protest: We want peace!

 


 

Speech by Endre Simó, president of the Hungarian Community for Peace at the peace demonstration in Budapest on July 25, 2022


When a government says peace and acts against it, the least we can do is to protest against it and demand that it unequivocally and irrevocably represent the peace interests of the Hungarian people!

I am glad that here in Nyugati Square, communists and people with other worldviews stand together for the peace of Hungary and demand that the government keep its election promise!

They promised that they would not let our country be plunged into war. And now we see more and more concessions being made to those who do not want peace in Ukraine, but war against the Russians.

It has not been a week since our Minister of National Defense voted in Brussels to send more weapons to Ukraine. We Hungarians do not give weapons to Kiev, but we finance the arms shipment of our allies worth 500 million euros with Hungarian taxpayers' money.

In its decision of March 7, the government authorized the settlement of NATO forces in Transdanubia and their passage through our territory and airspace. Since then, the license has been extended to the entire territory of the country. At the NATO summit in Madrid, our Prime Minister also agreed to increase the number of NATO forces stationed in Eastern Europe, including in our country, by almost eight times.

The government gave NATO and its leading power a free path to deliver weapons and ammunition to Ukraine through the territory and airspace of our country.

He did not veto NATO expansion with Finland and Sweden, although he did with Ukraine.

On July 15, Olivér Várhelyi, the Hungarian Commissioner of the European Commission, assured the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Denis Smichal, of her unwavering military and financial support.

On July 7, Lt. Gen. Romulus Ruszin-Szendi, the commander of the Hungarian army, held a secret meeting in Kiev with Valery Zaluzhnyiyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army. On the Ukrainian side, his visit was evaluated as Hungary supporting Ukraine against Russia.

The President of our Republic, Katalin Novák, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, bases her international negotiations on curbing Russian aggression.

Viktor Orbán also echoes the voice of Russian aggression. Who knows why he turned a blind eye to what the Kiev regime carried out against the people of Donbass for eight years, taking the lives of 13,000 Russians.

At Tusnádfürdő on Saturday, our Prime Minister encouraged the European Union to act as a peacemaker between Russia and Ukraine. He just forgot to say what he was doing for peace.

After all, the government regularly votes for anti-Russian sanctions, and then we go to Moscow to beg for gas!


"Our NATO and EU allies don't let us do what we want, they keep blackmailing us," the Hungarian government defends itself against the people, who can hardly even buy bread anymore.

Why should we allow this? It is not yet clear enough how much damage the EU policy is causing us? Isn't it enough that one million Hungarians have lived in poverty up until now? Do we need those who haven't had a cold to catch a cold?

Kerosene lamp instead of electricity? Do we want to lose our pants while pushing the cart of the EU and NATO?

Prices have gone so high that only those whose salaries are raised by 33 percent can defend them! The ministers. And for others, the government's message is that "this is not the time for a wage increase".

While the government has no problem making a living, many millions of Hungarians face impoverishment. What was natural yesterday will be luxury tomorrow. Heating, lighting and healthy food will be luxurious.

Of course, only if the people agree! As I see that there is a danger of social destabilization due to the rapid devaluation of wages and pensions that follow the prices. Provided that we stick to the bad while there is better!

The name of the good solution is reconciliation with Russia.

Normal trade instead of sanctions, building relations instead of reducing relations, building bridges instead of digging ditches, cooperation instead of confrontation!

There is a world that does not want to subordinate us, but considers us as equal partners. Why should we refuse? Wouldn't there be a higher order of values than serving foreign interests and risking war for the sake of those whose map is this landscape?

We Hungarians are not used to letting them subjugate and oppress us! We want to be independent and neutral in both directions! We want to live in good relations with both the East and the West! We want to develop, progress, prosper, according to the moral commandment of mutual respect, equality, and peaceful cooperation!

We have to act, we don't have to wait until the vortex of Western politics, which is immature for compromise, swallows us up! Only those who truly serve the national interest, the interest of their own people, can find a way out of the crisis!


That is why we, the Peace Community, warn our people and the government not to allow the West to undermine the security of Hungarian society with its anti-Russian behavior and rejection of Russian security demands. If our own allies refuse to come to terms with Russia, we have to come to terms with it without them! This is dictated by our national interest!

The Hungarian Community for Peace appeals to people, social and political organizations and communities: let's create a Peace Forum to protect the peace of our country and strengthen our national sovereignty. Please, those who value the peace and independent future of our people, indicate your intention to join forces so that together we can form the Forum for Peace movement!

May our noble service be accompanied by the support and love of our people and nation! 

Macron buys Russian oil via UAE

 


 

Call it Hypocrisy 
Call is bait-and-switch
Call it fool the fools
Call it phony-ism 
Call it a shell game.
 
Any way you put it,
France 'betrays' the EU sanctions,
likely not the only country
doing so.
 
It's all a game
a deadly game
a criminal game
an evil game.
 
The goal is get 
Putin 
removed.
 
But the EU leaders
first worry about 
regime change 
at home.
 
Just like Draghi in Italy,
or Boris in London.
Whose next?
 
Macron works his 
slight-of-hand,
magic tricks,
hoping not to fall victim
to the revolutionary anger
of the workers and the poor.
 
But are the EU 
mis-leaders really
in control of their own nations?

How does one spell
 
Who is
pulling the strings
inside the 
EU capitals?

Bruce

Monday, July 25, 2022

Pelosi heating up possible war with China

 


 

WSWS

 
Nancy Pelosi could do a zoom meeting, saving 12 hrs of travel & jet fuel, or she could precipitate WWIII.

Any bets on which choice the Biden-CNAS-Blue team warhawks are likely to make?

The US military is considering “moving aircraft carriers or sending fighter planes for close air support” as part of a potential trip by US house speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

The Wall Street Journal wrote, “And now that both she [Pelosi] and Mr. Biden have raised the prospect of a military threat, any decision to stay home would look like a retreat under Chinese pressure. Mrs. Pelosi almost has to take the trip now.”

The simultaneous escalation against Russia and China comes three weeks after New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) released a 90-second public service announcement (PSA), giving instructions to city residents on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack on America’s largest city. 

The video begins with the narration, “So there has been a nuclear attack. Don’t ask me how or why, just know that the big one has hit.”

Google & AI Ethics

 


 

Google Engineer Blake Lemoine joins Emily Chang to talk about some of the experiments he conducted that lead him to think that LaMDA was a sentient AI, and to explain why he is now on administrative leave.  

Sunday, July 24, 2022

History lesson: What happened in Georgia in 2008?

 


 

All filmed in South Ossetia, January 2018. 
 
Phillips is a journalist from Britain and has been reporting from this part of the world for many years.
 
Interesting fact: After the short Georgian war was over the very first US elected official to venture to the capital Tbilisi was then Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE). Biden went to deliver promises that the US would continue funding the Georgian military. The US goal was to use Georgia in much the same way Washington and Brussels are using Ukraine today in their on-going attempt to destabilize Russia. 

Sunday song

 



Saturday, July 23, 2022

Boris thinks Ukraine is just a fun game - he is one sick MF

 


 

Boris toys with the destruction of life on the planet. He belongs in an insane asylum for certain.

Take the toys away from the boys....and girls.

Bruce 

PS Boris might as well say 'Heil Hitler!' at the end of the video.

Global Banks Privately Prepare for ‘Dangerous Levels’ of Imminent Civil Unrest



By Nafeez Ahmed

Global banks and investment firms are bracing themselves for an “unprecedented” upsurge in civil unrest in the US, UK and Europe as energy and food price spikes are set to drive costs of living to astronomical levels, Byline Times can exclusively reveal. 

The information comes from the head of a ‘financial institutions group’ – which provides expertise and advisory services to other banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions – at one of the largest investment firms in the US.

The senior investment executive, who spoke to Byline Times on condition of anonymity because the information he revealed is considered highly sensitive, said that contingency planners at top financial institutions believe “dangerous levels” of social breakdown in the West are now all but inevitable, and imminent. An outbreak of civil unrest is expected to occur anytime this year, but most likely in the coming months as the impact of the cost of living crisis begins to saturate the lives of “everyone”.

"Well-to-do middle classes will find it hard to afford staple foods and pay bills. So we are anticipating dangerous levels of civil unrest that could spiral into an unprecedented social crisis".

The executive works at a leading Wall Street firm which is considered a systemically important financial institution by the US Financial Stability Board. These are institutions whose functioning is considered critical to the US economy, and whose failure could trigger a financial crisis.

According to the executive, major banks all over the world including in the US, UK and Western Europe are instructing their top managers to begin actively planning how they will respond to the impact of financial disruption triggered by a prolonged episode of civil unrest. However, the banking official did not elaborate on what these planning measures involved beyond reference to stress testing to determine the impact on investment portfolios.

While increased civil unrest in developing countries has been openly discussed by major institutions such as the UN, World Bank, IMF and other institutions, this is the first time in recent years that expectations of a coming epidemic of social breakdown in Western societies has been attributed to top banking and investment firms.
 

“All the major banks know that the cost of living crisis is out of control,” said the top financial advisor.

“The pandemic was bad enough and highlighted how certain groups of people were going to be worse affected, the poor, minorities and so on. But the combination of energy and food shocks are a tipping point that will push Western societies over the edge. This will impact everyone. Well-to-do middle classes will find it hard to afford staple foods and pay bills. So we are anticipating dangerous levels of civil unrest that could spiral into an unprecedented social crisis.” 

The warning comes as Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey described how “apocalyptic” food and energy price rises and a 30-year high rate of inflation would lead to a “very big income shock” driving up unemployment and slashing household spending. 

But that barely scratches the surface. The senior US banking official warned Byline Times that the current crisis was about to plunge the general public, including middle classes, into deepening poverty. Worse, the conventional economic toolbox to address financial volatility had run out of stream:
 

“There isn’t anything left in the toolbox of the existing financial system. We’ve run out of options. I can only see the situation worsening.”

The official claimed that they had been made aware of the internal planning by various banks through conversations with senior colleagues in recent weeks.

The official’s warnings fit into an analysis I’d put together in 2017 where I had argued that a combination of energy, food and debt crises similar to what we had seen in the run up to the 2008 financial crash were likely to reappear in the coming years in a more intense form. The global system, I’d warned, was in the midst of a protracted collapse process as the incumbent fossil fuel-dominant paradigm crumbles into a spiral of diminishing returns. Although I’d expected this global crisis convergence to happen earlier, it was delayed by the impact of the pandemic, which temporarily reduced demand and global consumption.

A major outbreak of civil unrest this year would be consistent with a rising trend in political violence over the last decade since the 2008 financial crash, as documented by the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Peace Index. Between 2011 and 2019, demonstrations, strikes and riots around the world increased by 244% and continued to increase in 2020 during the pandemic.

The Global Peace Index’s latest figures show that global peace has deteriorated for the ninth time in a row by 0.07%, and has overall worsened over the last 15 years. Violent demonstrations and riots have now occurred in 158 countries, over 80% of the world. This escalating trend in civil unrest fits into a pattern of ‘systemic’ social unrest, with multiple countries simultaneously expressing dissatisfaction, anger, and demanding change.

The rising trend did not begin 15 years ago. It, too, is part of a much longer rising trend in political violence which began to especially accelerate since the 1970s, which is when the global economy first entered a stage of ecological ‘overshoot’.

The evidence of escalating instability in the global system suggests it is entering a period of rapid, dramatic change as incumbent industries and political institutions are losing control. While the prospect of intensifying instability is daunting, the weakening of the status quo is opening up a new possibility space to explore previously unthinkable alternatives.

The managers of the incumbent paradigm cannot see this opportunity. In particular, they cannot recognise that the feedback loop of accelerating energy, economic and food crises is intensifying because the dominant carbon-intensive industries in these sectors are economically obsolete, with huge geopolitical consequences as they unravel before our eyes.

Contrary to the grim fatalism of established financial institutions – which see no way out of a crisis very much of their own making – new visions and ideas for economic transformation coupled with the continued acceleration of key technology disruptions in energy, transportation and food suggest that the very collapse of the incumbent paradigm is paving the way for a breakthrough into a new system. But citizens, including those working in the financial sector, must be able to see this opportunity before they can seize it. 

Friday, July 22, 2022

A covid tragedy: smell and taste gone

 


 

Diana Selic, a 45-year-old baker, is now struggling to restore her normal sense of taste and smell. 

Originally from Serbia, she has been living in #France for 23 years and now owns a bakery in Lyon. In the summer of 2021, Selic contracted COVID-19 in Budva, Montenegro, leaving her with the aftermath of the loss of smell and an altered sense of taste. She still hasn't fully recovered. 

These symptoms have impeded her work as a baker and her ability to enjoy the foods she loves. #longcovid "It's unbearable for me to not be able to smell," Selic said. She has been cooking all her life, but now she doesn't know how to do anything right. "There's not much that I can do except try to re-educate my brain, which is not an easy task."

In this video, she tells CGTN global stringer about her struggles to accommodate this disturbing inability.

Western Tensions With Russia And China Extend To Outer Space

 


  ESA has ended its cooperation with Russia on Mars over the Russian special operation in Ukraine.

 

By Uriel Araujo (Researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts)

In June, authorities from both the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) met in an unprecedented virtual summit to discuss joint missions. Chinese and Russian authorities were not present. ESA’s Director General, Josef Aschbacher claimed that since the outbreak of the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict this year, “the world order has changed”.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson had suggested American rockets be employed to speed the now suspended European ExoMars. It aimed to investigate the geo-chemical aspects of the Martian  landscapes in the search for forms of life or traces of it and to identify hazards for a future human mission to the planet. It also aimed to exploit solar electric power on the Martian surface and to access its subsurface, amongst other goals.

ESA and the formerly called Russian Federal Space Agency (now Roscosmos) signed a contract in August 2009, which included their cooperation on two Mars endeavors, Russia’s own Fobos-Grunt project and ESA’s ExoMars. Then, in December 2009, ESA also approved NASA’s participation in a Martian exploration mission. However, in 2012 NASA terminated its participation for budgetary reasons. In 2013, ESA and Roscosmos signed a deal thereby making Russia a full partner, with all scientific results becoming intellectual property of both the ESA itself and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 2016 the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) was sent to map methane’s sources on Mars. A second launch had been planned, but since 2016, however, ExoMars has suffered a series of delays due to financial problems. The Roscosmos lander called Kazachok was supposed to deliver the ESA Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars, but the European agency suspended this mission over the issue of Ukraine in March. It now expects to resume these operations, in a new mission (yet to be named), without employing Russian landing platforms. This change however will postpone such plans, which are now expected to take place after 2028. ESA has frozen almost all liaisons with the Russian Federation.

The European Agency, though, has maintained its partnership with China since at least 2003, and Chinese and European cosmonauts had been training together. In 2017, ESA director Rudiger Seine stated that the agency’s goal was “flying European astronauts on the Chinese space station from 2022”. The problem is that today many voices are demanding that this collaboration be suspended too, over Beijing’s supposed “no limits” partnership with Moscow. It had been already interrupted anyway due to the pandemic and at this point it might never resume.

As of today, the European Parliament has imposed sanctions on Chinese authorities over human rights issues pertaining to the Muslim minority in China and Beijing, in turn, has responded sanctioning Europe’s own Subcommittee on Human Rights. The “red line” for the West seems to have been the perceived Chinese support for Moscow in the Ukrainian crisis.

ESA needs partners, and amid such tensions, it would only be natural for the agency and NASA to further strengthen their ties, under a common “universalist” Western narrative that focuses on “human rights”, “democracy”, and so on, in spite of the contradictions and the hypocrisy that such discourse veils, while the West covers up Ukrainian own human rights abuses and its blatant far-right extremism and neo-Nazism.

Interestingly, NASA and Roscosmos announced on Friday that integrated Russian-American flights to the International Space Station (ISS) will remain. This announcement was made shortly after the Russian agency Director General Dmitry Rogozin was replaced with Yuri Borisov. Rogozin had been in the middle of tensions with the US, over his denouncing of Elon Musk, the head of the American SpaceX, whom he accused of providing military communication for “fascist forces” in Ukraine. Rogozin’s replacement has been interpreted by some as a kind of Russian concession, in the spirit of dialogue and scientific cooperation.

Two weeks ago, Nelson had stated that “you need both Russians and Americans to operate the space station”. Even in March, at the beginning of the current war, he said, referring to the civilian space programme: “Despite all of that, up in space, we can have a cooperation with our Russian friends, our colleagues.”

This new development is quite surprising considering the fact that the US-led West has been seeking to “cancel” Russia in all realms of life (even arts and science) amid an intense russophobic campaign. It might be yet another sign that Washington still considers adopting a more conciliatory tone, as plan B or at least toys with the idea, trying to keep some channels open, in spite of the aggressive rhetoric and the lack of good diplomacy.

In any case, one should expect things to get tense in space too, even in “civilian” areas, as NATO’s new space doctrine recognizes outer space as a “new operational domain”, where it seeks to oppose Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Moreover, there is now a space race over placing a base on the moon, with increasing Russian-Chinese collaboration. Emerging powers such as Turkey aspire to dominate space technology, and the new American Space Force uses its Gulf base to monitor Iran.

All civilian aspects of outer space exploration involve in fact highly strategic knowledge and applications. This realm could be understood as the “new sea”, with new continents to explore. Thus, the geopolitical and geo-economic competition among powers that today encompasses earth and ocean should extend itself to the realm of space too, even extending to the celestial bodies. 

Thursday, July 21, 2022

"2023 Will Be A Year From Hell"

 


  

 Martin Armstrong Warns of 

Inflation-Driven Civil-Unrest


by Tyler Durden (ZeroHedge)



Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong says the time to prepare is now for what is coming in 2023.

Armstrong’s Socrates computer program is predicting “2023 will be the year from Hell.”

Armstrong explains, “Our computer is predicting a ‘war cycle’ that hits in 2023, but that is also civil unrest..."

    "...so, you are looking at revolutions and etc. because of inflation.  Our projection on oil is that it is going to go up dramatically into 2023.  It’s going to be the same thing, I think, for gasoline prices.  This is just not over yet.  The euro looks like death warmed over...

    Our computer is projecting the continued decline of the euro and rising commodity prices.  With these sanctions on Russia, you just had the leader of Hungary say Europe is committing suicide.  The sanctions are hurting Europe more than they are hurting Russia.  This is like a shot to the lung.  They can’t even breath at this stage.”

Armstrong says you are not going to have to wait until next year to see extreme stress in the financial system.  Armstrong is seeing financial upheavals coming in the August and September time frame.  So, the economic pain is already here and getting worse, especially in Europe.  Armstrong says,

    “I think you are going to see this come to a head. . . . It’s definitely tanking more anyway. . . . What makes things even worse for the world is the dollar going up and not down.  This is because you had all these emerging markets issue debt in dollars...

    They were borrowing in dollars because it was a cheaper interest rate, and they had no concept of the foreign exchange risk...This happened in Australia.  The currency swings, and, now, suddenly you owe 20% more....

    You had the same thing with all these emerging markets. . . . Now, the dollar is going up and you are seeing bank runs.”

Armstrong says not only is the euro dramatically declining, but the euro bonds are being shunned by U.S. banks.  This is another bad financial sign for the EU.

Armstrong says,

    “All these things are a real crisis.  I can tell you that speaking to the top three banks in New York City, they refuse to accept any European sovereign debt as collateral—period.  That is what started the whole repo crisis in 2019.”

So, we are entering into a debt crisis with the EU financial system in the crosshairs.  Armstrong says,

    “This is why they are pushing for war.... They think they can create a new monetary system, and to do so, they need war.  

    They think they can keep it just conventional.  Then the United Nations can emerge as the white knight and the peacemaker.

    Therefore, we get another Bretton Woods.  You can redesign all the currencies, and when you do that, you wipe out all the debt.  That is what is on the agenda....

    There is no way they can get out of this other than default.  If they default, they are worried about millions of people storming the parliaments of Europe...

    This is really a tremendous financial crisis that we are facing.  They have been borrowing year after year since WWII with zero intention of paying anything back.”

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Why is the US-NATO rushing into war with Russia and China?

 


 

The latest Space Alert podcast interview is with John Walsh who lives in the Bay area in California.
 
Until recently John was Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School.

He has written on issues of peace and health care for the San Francisco Chronicle, EastBayTimes/San Jose Mercury News, Asia Times, LA Progressive, Antiwar.com, CounterPunch, Consortium News, Scheerpost and others.

John is also an active member of Veterans For Peace Russia Working Group.

He is interviewed by Global Network coordinator Bruce Gagnon who lives in Brunswick, Maine.

Kiev's Nazi forces attack Donbass since 2014

Since 2014 the US-UK-NATO armed, trained and directed military forces of Ukraine have been sent to the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine (along the Russian border) to kill their fellow citizens whose only crime is they speak Russian.
 
Since the US orchestrated coup d'etat in Kiev in 2014 more than 14,000 people have been killed in the Donbass and more than 34,000 wounded.
 
The New York Times reported on June 25 that the CIA (with allied intelligence agency support) has been directing the war in Ukraine.

So far the US Congress has appropriated  $54 billion for the US proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.

$54 billion and counting

When it came to a vote in the US House and Senate - all Democrats in Congress voted in favor of sending these funds to Kiev. Only Republicans (primarily in the House) voted NO.

The funding bills passed overwhelmingly at the very time our own economy in the US is suffering dramatically. The same can be said about NATO member nations who also have sent major funding to Kiev for the war.

The Rand Corporation study of 2019 calls for the 'Overextending and Unbalancing Russia'.

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Watching the dollar slide downhill....

 


 

Washington's desperation and arrogance is increasingly slamming the dollar into irrelevance.  

Nations (particularly in the Global South) are realizing they can't trust the Empire of Lies anymore. 

Why should they put their faith in the dollar when at any moment, if they dared disagree with Washington on an issue, their monetary assets could be frozen and stolen from them like the US-EU has done to Afghanistan and Russia?

This was a huge wake-up call for much of the world.

The momentum is building across the planet - nations are moving away from western economic and political institutions. Instead they are getting in line to join multi-polar institutions. This trend will only grow in the coming months and years.

We are witnessing the collapse of the American empire - right before our eyes.

Call if Karma, justice, blow-back, or whatever - but call it real. Call it now.

Bruce 

By making China the enemy, NATO is threatening world peace

 


 

By Jonathan Cook

 

  NATO’s new posture towards Beijing brings into question its whole claim to be a ‘defensive’ alliance


As the saying goes, if you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The West has the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), a self-declared “defensive” military alliance – so any country that refuses its dictates must, by definition, be an offensive military threat. 

That is part of the reason why Nato issued a new “strategic concept” document last week at its summit in Madrid, declaring for the first time that China poses a “systemic challenge” to the alliance, alongside a primary “threat” from Russia.

Beijing views this new designation as a decisive step by Nato on the path to pronouncing it a “threat” too – echoing the alliance’s escalatory approach towards Moscow over the past decade. In its previous mission statement, issued in 2010, Nato advocated “a true strategic partnership” with Russia.

According to a report in the New York Times, China would have found itself openly classed as a “threat” last week had it not been for Germany and France. They insisted that the more hostile terminology be watered down so as to avoid harming their trade and technology links with China.

In response, Beijing accused Nato of “maliciously attacking and smearing” it, and warned that the alliance was “provoking confrontation”. Not unreasonably, Beijing believes Nato has strayed well out of its sphere of supposed “defensive” interest: the North Atlantic.

Nato was founded in the wake of the Second World War expressly as a bulwark against Soviet expansion into Western Europe. The ensuing Cold War was primarily a territorial and ideological battle for the future of Europe, with the ever-present mutual threat of nuclear annihilation.

So how, Beijing might justifiably wonder, does China – on the other side of the globe – fit into Nato’s historic “defensive” mission? How are Chinese troops or missiles now threatening Europe or the US in ways they weren’t before? How are Americans or Europeans suddenly under threat of military conquest from China? 

Creating enemies 

The current Nato logic reads something like this: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February is proof that the Kremlin has ambitions to recreate its former Soviet empire in Europe. China is growing its military power and has similar imperial designs towards the rival, breakaway state of Taiwan, as well as western Pacific islands. And because Beijing and Moscow are strengthening their strategic ties in the face of western opposition, Nato has to presume that their shared goal is to bring western civilisation crashing down.

 


Or as last week’s Nato mission statement proclaimed: “The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.”

But if anyone is subverting the “rules-based international order”, a standard the West regularly invokes but never defines, it looks to be Nato itself – or the US, as the hand that wields the Nato hammer.

That is certainly the way it looks to Beijing. In its response, China argued: “Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, [Nato] has not yet abandoned its thinking and practice of creating ‘enemies’ … It is Nato that is creating problems around the world.”

China has a point. A problem with bureaucracies – and Nato is the world’s largest military bureaucracy – is that they quickly develop an overriding institutional commitment to ensuring their permanent existence, if not expansion. Bureaucracies naturally become powerful lobbies for their own self-preservation, even when they have outlived their usefulness.

If there is no threat to “defend” against, then a threat must be manufactured. That can mean one of two things: either inventing an imaginary threat, or provoking the very threat the bureaucracy was designed to avert or thwart. Signs are that Nato – now embracing 30 countries – is doing both.

Remember that Nato should have dissolved itself after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. But three decades later, it is bigger and more resource-hungry than ever.

Against all advice, and in violation of its promises, Nato has refused to maintain a neutral “security buffer” between itself and Russia. Instead, it has been expanding right up to Russia’s borders, including creeping furtively into Ukraine, the gateway through which armies have historically invaded Russia.

Offensive alliance

Undoubtedly, Russia has proved itself a genuine threat to the territorial integrity of its neighbour Ukraine by conquering its eastern region – home to a large ethnic Russian community the Kremlin claims to be protecting. But even if we reject Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated assertion that Moscow has no larger ambitions, the Russian army’s substantial losses suggest it has scant hope of extending its military reach much further.

Even if Moscow were hoping to turn its attention next to Poland or the Baltic states, or Nato’s latest recruits of Sweden and Finland, such a move would clearly risk nuclear confrontation. This is perhaps why western audiences hear so much from their politicians and media about Putin being some kind of deranged megalomaniac.

The claim of a rampant, revived Russian imperialism appears not to be founded in any obvious reality. But it is a very effective way for Nato bureaucrats to justify enlarging their budgets and power, while the arms industries that feed off Nato and are embedded in western capitals substantially increase their profits.

The impression that this might have been Nato’s blueprint for handling Moscow is only underscored by the way it is now treating China, with even less justification. China has not recently invaded any sovereign territories, unlike the US and its allies, while the only territory it might threaten – Taiwan – is some 12,000 kilometres from the US mainland, and a similarly long distance from most of Europe.

The argument that the Russian army may defeat Ukraine and then turn its attention towards Poland and Finland at least accords with some kind of geographical possibility, however remote. But the idea that China may invade Taiwan and then direct its military might towards California and Italy is in the realms of preposterous delusion.

Nato’s new posture towards Beijing brings into question its whole characterisation as a “defensive” alliance. It looks very much to be on the offensive.

Read the rest of this important article here

 ~  Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, Israel is a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). Read other articles by Jonathan, or visit Jonathan's website. 

Koohan Paik-Mander discusses military ecocide in the Pacific

 


 

GN Board member Koohan Paik-Mander speaks about the giant RIMPAC war exercises now taking place in Hawaii -- on land, in air, on coastlines and on the open seas. 

The militaries of 26 nations have come together and are enacting the next World War.

Monday, July 18, 2022

China builds rail & schools while U.S. drops bombs

 


 

By Kiji Noh

Good big picture analysis by Andy Boreham [in the video above].

But the "debt trap diplomacy" trope here is not just information warfare to attack and delegitimate China. It is to ensure that any subsequent government Sri Lanka (SL) breaks or reduces ties with China.

SL is very likely a US-instigated or encouraged color revolution, using US--not Chinese--debt-trap weapons to force chaos, regime change, austerity, and to ensure US military basing.

Sri Lanks is not particularly indebted.  There is a short term dollar liquidity issue, a few billion that was due in the short term. This issue is tied to disruptions from US-led sanctions on Russia--trade, remittances, tourism.

These short term cash positions could have been managed by rolling over the debt, if the West, which holds most of the debt had decided to. Instead, it has tightened the screws, put SL into a choke hold, thus leading to a dollar liquidity crisis--a financial cardiac arrest. This has led to extreme shortages of fuel and fertilizer, and this in term has stoked protests and discontent.

The US, through proxies, has leveraged this into a full blown crisis--"make them scream"--and now a coup, a coup that asks for IMF intervention--just as the Hong Kong rioters asked for Trump's intervention.  

You know you're in color revolution territory when the protestors make demands for foreign intervention.

This is the IMF's definitionally insane 17th round of intervention in SL, so it's not like they were asking for something they hoped could work.

The IMF will strip assets, privatize SL health care and public infrastructure putting SL into an IMF headlock and kneel it back down into a subordinate (as opposed to non-aligned) role as part of US Indo-Pacific strategy against China.

The coup was related to the fact that SL is getting close to China and Russia.  It was developing with the help of China.  It had avoided an earlier crisis on sovereign debt with Chinese help (it leased--not gave--the port of Hambantota to China). 

Most recently, SL had negotiated a resolution to its fuel crisis with Russia.  It was to receive Russian fuel. Like the EuroMaidan, immediately afterwards, after this negotiation, the Coup happened.  (Victoria Nuland had visited a few months earlier).

The structures of modern governance in most countries are not yet strong enough to resist a coup if the US sets its mind on it, just as few of the countries of the global south (Korea, Indonesia, Africa, Latin America) or Europe were able to resist US interference during the cold war.  

SL is a key node of the Belt & Road  Initiative --in particular the Hambantota port and the economic zones that China built.  It is geopolitically important for the US's Indo-Pacific strategy.  It is a [strategic] point in the Indian Ocean (and the US base in Chagos Islands is threatened by ICJ judgements).

The US signed a secret SOFA agreement to build a base on SL with the FM--secret, as in not even notifying the ministry of defense. When this leaked, the base agreement became imperiled. This change of government will ensure the base goes through.

This is a message to the world: cooperate with China to develop independently and get out from under our yoke, and you will be in a world of chaos & pain. 

Sunday, July 17, 2022

Sunday song

 


 


Saturday, July 16, 2022

U.S. sending updated nukes to bases in Europe

 


                             THE NEW NUCLEAR BOMBS MADE IN USA


 By GRANDANGOLO (Italian TV peace network)

 

"Production of the B61-12 nuclear bomb begins," Sandia National Laboratories from the United States announced. The B61-12, which replaces the previous B61 deployed by the U.S.  at Aviano and Ghedi and other European bases, is a new type of weapon.

It has a nuclear warhead with four power options, selectable depending on the target to destroy.

It is not dropped vertically, but at a distance from the target on which it is directed guided by a satellite system. It can penetrate underground, exploding deep to destroy command center bunkers in a nuclear first strike. The B61-12s, classified as "non-strategic nuclear weapons," are deployed in Europe – in Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain and probably other countries – at distances far enough to strike Russia. They thus have offensive capabilities similar to those of strategic weapons.

Another nuclear weapon system, which the United States is preparing to install in Europe against Russia, is ground-based intermediate-range missiles. They can also be launched from  "anti-missile shield" installations, deployed by the U.S. at bases in Deveselu  (Romania) and Redzikowo (Poland), and aboard five warships cruising in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and  Baltic Sea close to Russia.

That such installations have offensive capabilities, Lockheed Martin itself confirmed.  
 
Outlining the characteristics of the Mk 41 vertical launch system, used in both land and naval installations, it specifies that it is capable of launching "missiles for all missions, both defense and long-range attack, including Tomahawk cruise missiles." These can be armed with nuclear warheads.

Europe is thus being turned by the U.S. into the front line of a nuclear confrontation with Russia, even more dangerous than that of the Cold War.
                                   
~  Grandangolo can also be seen on live TV on mobile or computer at the site:                                        https://www.byoblu.com/diretta-tv/

Friday, July 15, 2022

Evo Morales: UK Role in Coup That Ousted Him

 


 


The President of Bolivia from 2006-19 invites Declassified to his house deep in the Amazon rainforest for an exclusive interview – on the UK role in the coup that overthrew him, how he reversed 500 years of history and industrialised Bolivia, and the efforts of the US and its British ally to bring him down.


  •     THE COUP: ‘The U.K. participated in it – all for lithium’
  •     THE BRITISH: ‘Superiority is so important to them, the ability to dominate’
  •     THE U.S. : ‘Any relationship with them is always subject to conditions’
  •     NEW MODEL: ‘We no longer submit to transnational corporations’
  •     JULIAN ASSANGE: ‘The detention of our friend is an intimidation’
  •     NATO: ‘We need a global campaign to eliminate it’
  •     BOLIVIA: ‘We are putting anti-imperialism into practice’
 
 See Matt Kennard's full article about this interview at Consortium News

No confidence in US institutions - latest national poll

 


 Click on graphic for better view

So what comes next from the public as their outrage grows?

Will they think re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic will be enough (congressional elections in November) or will the people begin to call for truly systemic changes in the US oligarchic-run nation?

We are sitting on pins and needles waiting for the worm to turn....

An early Dem prez-vp prediction for 2024

 

Governors Gavin Newsom (California) and J.B. Pritzker (Illinois) appear to be early picks to be the Dem nominees for Prez and V-P in 2024

 

No, I don't have any inside scoop on the 2024 Democratic party nominees for the president and vice-president.

But I've learned over the years to keep my ears on the RR tracks - so I can hear the train coming as the Native Americans used to say.

During the past couple of days I've seen and heard corporate media puff pieces on both these guys - from the Washington Post to National Public Radio. For a small sampling see articles here, here, here and here.

Wall Street knows they have to move on from Biden real fast. He might not even make it till 2024. So the skids are being greased as they like to say.

Let's look at who these two guys are:

  • Gavin Christopher Newsom is serving as the 40th governor of California since January 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California from 2011 to 2019 and as the 42nd mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.


He was elected governor in the 2018 election. Newsom faced criticism for his personal behavior and leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was followed by an attempt to recall him from office. He prevailed in the 2021 recall election. 

Newsom was born in San Francisco, to Tessa Thomas (née Menzies) and William Alfred Newsom III, a state appeals court judge and attorney for Getty Oil. He is a fourth-generation San Franciscan.
 

  • J. B. Pritzker, a Democrat, took office as Governor of Illinois on January 14, 2019. 

Jay Robert "J. B." Pritzker is an American billionaire heir, businessman, philanthropist, and politician serving as the 43rd governor. His family, which owns the worldwide hotel chain Hyatt, is considered among the US’s richest families. Pritzker is based in Chicago and has started several venture capital and investment startups like the Pritzker Group, where he is a managing partner. He has an estimated personal net worth of $3.6 billion.

Pritzker was born and raised in Atherton, California, from a Jewish family prominent in business and philanthropy. The Pritzkers are consistently named near the top of the Forbes "America's Richest Families" list since its 1982 inception.

Both of these guys obviously come from wealthy and hugely connected families. Call them leading oligarchs.

Why would the Dems pick them?

After 'stumbling Biden', the Dems need to go 'young and vital' and what better public relations gimmick than picking someone from California. Newsom showed himself to be a total political hack and hypocrite when he threw a party in a swanky restaurant in the middle of Covid lock-down for some well-connected chums. They were not wearing masks while everyone else was told to do so. 

 

The Electoral College is the process by which the states and District of Columbia elect the president of the United States. Each state is represented by a number of electors equal to the size of its congressional delegation. There are 538 electors in total. To win the Electoral College, a candidate must receive a majority—at least 270—electoral votes.

 

California is a huge state and will have 54 electoral votes in the 2024 national election - the most of any state in the country. Illinois will have 19 electoral votes in 2024 - tied for 5th most of any state in the nation. (Pritzker has a second home in Florida which has the 3rd most electoral votes - 30 of them.)

Pritzker could theoretically help the Dems in the mid-west 'rust belt' that their party has long ignored as corporations moved industrial jobs overseas. Working class people in this region went big for Trump in the last two elections. (Even many self-identified union members who were Democrats abandoned their party and voted Trump.)

Pritzker's corporate connections would likely help bring in boatloads of campaign donations.

Obviously the Dems know they can't hand the baton to current V-P Kamala Harris. People don't take her seriously.

So keep your eyes and ears open and see if this early promotion of these two guys in the corporate media is part of a trend. This is how politics works anymore - it is all show and tell - Hollywood and Madison Avenue scripted. The story-line is being written and pushed out into the minds of the people at this time. National elections have nothing to do with real democracy.

Time will tell.

I can assure you no matter who the Dems or Repubs nominate in 2024 - I won't be voting for either party.

Bruce  

Thursday, July 14, 2022

Farmers on the rise

 


 

Dutch farmers protest and got huge support from citizens.

No farmers, no food.

Governments are beginning to fall.

Stop the sanctions on Russia which are causing many of these problems as farmers can't afford rising fuel costs and without fertilizers can't grow food.

The US-EU strategy has backfired.