Reflections on a Trip and More.....

I got home last night after the long, but uneventful, trip from England to Maine.  It took a train, two planes, a bus and a car to get me from Leeds back to Bath.

I thought I'd share some reflections from the trip and also some thoughts about 'endless war' events currently in the news.

• The people we met with in Sicily were top of the mark - good organizers, very kind and welcoming.  We ate pasta two meals each day while there and I was in heaven.
• Two of the No MUOS groups (in Ragusa and Niscemi) have joined the Global Network as affiliate members which is a great thing.  We were impressed with their campaign to shut down the new US space directed communications base in Niscemi.  We asked them to try to get more English language subtitles on protest videos and the like so that more people can learn about their campaign.
• Dave Webb did a great job lining up my trip around England.  I spoke on three different college campuses and we drove a long way to three different US space warfare downlink/radar installations throughout Britain.  We met many determined activists along the way.
• Luckily throughout the trip to Sicily and England we did lots of walking which is often hard to do when you are traveling.  
• Activists in England are very excited about Jeremy Corbyn winning the Labor party chairmanship in recent months.  Corbyn is a long-time Parliament back bencher from London who has been an active leader in the peace movement for years.  The inside story is that the battle for Labor's soul - between the left and the remnants of the Tony Blair crew - has taken on new life as Corbyn reluctantly took his turn to run for chair and unexpectedly this time the public responded wildly which has put life back into all the movements.  The corporate media is attacking Corbyn mercilessly every day and he and his spokespeople have decided only to do live interviews so that their words cannot be cut and pasted into trash stories intended to mislead the public.  Smart idea.
• Dave and I rode the trains a couple times and the privatization of the once proud British rail system continues to show that the corporations can't and won't deliver important services to the public.  The corporations are not keeping the rail lines in good repair which means the public has to repeatedly bail them out with more funds.  The trains don't run on time and many scheduled routes are changed or cancelled creating much disarray and disapproval from the riders.  
• The French terrorist event happened just as we were moving from Sicily to England.  When I, and others, heard about a terrorist 'passport' being found (coincidentally just like on 9/11 in New York) we didn't buy the story.  While I have no evidence to support this - I do believe that the French terror event was another of the Gladio-style false flag events that continue to be used by the western capitalist governments to promote war and the loss of our freedoms.  
• In the case of the French terror event the US, France, England and other NATO allies are using the horrible killings to justify widening their already insane war in Syria.  The massive refugee crisis in Europe has largely been a result of the US-NATO wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.  I am convinced that the ultimate US-NATO goal is to widen the chaos even further which serves several wicked purposes: forces the public to support even more wars; creates even more military industrial complex profits which means more austerity cuts in human services; helps undercut the big protests (now looks like they have been banned) in Paris around the climate change summit; and ultimately consolidates power in the corporate dominated governments of the NATO war machine as we see even many left/liberal politicians now scrambling to prove they will be 'tough on terror'.  Hillary Clinton is just one example.
• Turkey's shooting down of a Russian jet today raises the question about NATO (Turkey is a NATO member) possibly attempting to find a pretext to create a "No fly zone" across Syria (something Hillary Clinton has been advocating).  This would put Russia and NATO directly at odds and increase the possibility of a more direct war between them.
• The recent energy blockade of Crimea and cutting the power lines by US-sponsored Ukrainian agents seems to be timed to increase the pressure on Russia at the same moment that the US-NATO are expanding their war to take down the Moscow supported Assad government in Syria.  The US-NATO is obviously working overtime to create as many points of instability as possible on or near the Russian border.  I would not at all be surprised to see the puppet government in Kiev (under full US control) again move to restart the war and shelling of Ukrainian citizens living in the Donbass (eastern Ukraine) along the Russian border. 
• I've got much administrative work to get caught up with since being away.  As winter approaches here in Maine there is also much yet to do to prepare the house and outside for the coming snows.  I went out and brought in some wood today which is something I always enjoy doing.