India Signs Up as U.S. Client State

Vijay Prashad says the Indian Prime Minister is eager to have a Logistical Support Agreement with the United States and participate in the US-led encirclement of China.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, journalist, commentator and intellectual. He is the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College. In 2013–2014, he was the Edward Said Chair at the American University of Beirut.

Stand for What We Believe In.....

More History

Augusto Sandino

By Eduardo Galeano
Memory of Fire: Century of the Wind

1928: Washington
Newsreel

In an emotional ceremony in Washington, ten Marine Corps officers receive the Cross of Merit for distinguished service and extraordinary heroism in the war against Sandino [in Nicaragua].

The Washington Herald and other papers devote pages to the crimes of the outlaw band who slit Marines' throats.  They also publish documents newly arrived from Mexico, with impressive numbers of spelling mistakes, proving that Mexican president Calles is sending bolshevik weapons and propaganda to Sandino through Soviet diplomats.  Official State Department sources explain that Calles began revealing his communist sympathies when he raised taxes on US oil companies operating in Mexico, and fully confirmed them when his government established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

The US government warns that it will not permit Russian and Mexican soldiers to implant the Soviet in Nicaragua.  According to official State Department spokesmen, Mexico is exporting bolshevism.  After Nicaragua the next target of Soviet expansion in Central America will be the Panama Canal.

Senator Shortridge declares that the citizens of the US deserve as much protection as those of ancient Rome, and Senator Bingham says: We are obliged to accept our function as international policeman.  Senator Bingham, the famous archaeologist who sixteen years ago discovered the ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, has never concealed his admiration for the works of dead Indians.

For the opposition, Senator Borah denies his country's right to act as the censor of Central America, and Senator Wheeler suggests that the government send Marines to Chicago, not Nicaragua, if it really wants to take on bandits.  The Nation magazine, for its part, takes the view that for the US president to call Sandino a bandit is like George III of England labeling George Washington a thief.

Can't Vote for Clinton

As Hillary Clinton becomes the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, Abby Martin and Paul Jay discuss the strategy of voting for the lesser evil and the potential foreign policy of a Trump or Clinton administration.

She cleans his clock.

See even more on this whole discussion from a critical anti-establishment and anti-imperial point of view here and here

The U.S. 'Regime Change' in Ukraine....

Ray McGovern….27 years as CIA analyst and former chief of the Russian desk in the CIA. He also was responsible for providing presidents from JFK through GHW Bush with the daily intelligence briefings.

Here’s the background, the lead up on the 2012 coup in Ukraine and the consequences. Ray’s comments are informative and even hilarious. Ray explains how Victoria Nuland, Obama and his national security council planned this coup and how Russian president Vladimir Putin reacted and why.

Ray explains what is behind Russia’s fear about the US missile defense system. What is important here is that most Americans do not know what is happening because they have been told by the administration, the generals and the media that Putin is very bad, and that Putin invaded Ukraine. It was all a lie!

Ray explains the real reason why the neocons planned and orchestrated the coup in Ukraine and it will surprise you. What he has to say about Vladimir Putin is profound not only about Putin the man, but for mutual respect and understanding of all nations.

Words and video by Regis Tremblay

Courage & Truth

Most 'liberal' Democrats don't want to hear the message in this video about Hillary Clinton but it is spot on.

She spells it all out.....the stolen primary election votes, the war crimes, Clinton's slavish support for corporate power.

Anyone who backs Clinton at this point should have their head examined because they are going to be in the same tent with fascists like South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (and a whole lot more like him) who are pledging for Clinton.

To watch Bernie today grovel after meeting with Obama - saying he will be teaming up with Clinton to take on Trump is nothing but betrayal of his 'revolution' and the millions who gave him money and worked their behinds off for him. 

It's disgraceful and sickening to watch.

Christ Would Not Bless 'Stealth' Destroyer at Bath Iron Works

Maine Activists to Commit Civil Disobedience at BIW Destroyer ‘Christening’ June 18 in Bath

Maine peace activists have announced their intention to commit acts of non-violent Civil Disobedience at the planned June 18 ‘Christening’ of the $4 billion Zumwalt ‘stealth’ destroyer at Bath Iron Works (BIW).

The activists maintain that the Zumwalt is a provocative escalation of the already out-of-control arms race aimed at China and Russia.

“It is time for us to stand up and call for the reversal of this endless and illegal war cycle that our country is engaged in,” the peace activists said in a statement released to the media.

“It is the children that these weapons are ultimately aimed at as we see the growing refugee crisis from countries where the US has been waging war. 

“We stand in solidarity with people around the world who are protesting at bases where the US will port these warships.  Not only would these destroyers kill innocent people but their sonar also severely impacts ocean life and the toxic materials released by these ships pollute the seas and the local environments where they are ported.

“Christ would not approve of his name being used to ‘bless’ such violence and the massive waste of the public treasury, especially when so many are hungry, homeless and without jobs and medical care.”

A University of Massassachusetts-Amherst Economics Department study reveals that military spending is actually the worst way to create jobs.  At the very time we face the coming ravages of climate change our tax dollars should be spent on building commuter rail systems, offshore wind turbines, tidal power systems, and solar power – all of which would create more jobs at BIW.

“We intend to stand at BIW on June 18 for those who can no longer stand or speak out, like Fr. Daniel Berrigan who left this world in May. Our elected officials don’t seem to hear the many calls for the conversion of the war machine to peaceful and sustainable purposes.  We feel we must risk arrest to wake up all those whose hearts are closed to the real message of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.”

A legal demonstration will also be held on June 18 at BIW from 9:00 am to noon along Washington Street in Bath.  Speakers and music will be featured. 

Zumwalt-class a Destroyer of Lives

Letters to Editor

Times Record (Brunswick, Maine)

I am writing regarding the christening of the Navy’s Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyer that is going to take place on June 18 at Bath Iron Works. I do not believe many things that the Navy, or the Pentagon states. Those two entities are masters of deception in many ways. However, the designation of the ship as a “destroyer” is one instance where they speak the truth. Does it strike anyone else as being sadly ironic that a vessel that is designed for destruction, including the destruction of who knows how many human beings, would be blessed in the name of Jesus Christ, also known as the Prince of Peace?

Human being are not all this destroyer will destroy. How many opportunities for the betterment of the lives of people are being destroyed as our government chooses to spend over $4 billion for this destroyer of lives? That money could do an amazing amount of good if it were funneled into things that actually improve people’s lives, such as education and health care. The government could even put that money into dealing, for once, in a realistic manner with a genuine threat to our national security...the very real threat of climate change, which even the Pentagon understands and acknowledges (not withstanding the fact that it does have the single largest carbon boot-print on the planet).

How many lives, among those beings who live in the sea, will be destroyed by this destroyer? It is well known that the Navy’s use of sonar can wreck havoc on the lives of marine species, disrupting biologically important behaviors such as feeding, breeding, migration, and communication. It can raise stress levels, lowering animal’s ability to successfully reproduce, and making them more susceptible to disease. And sonar use can and does result in hearing loss and other injuries, as well as death. Not all sonar victims wind up mass-stranded upon some shore: those that do are likely just the tip of the destruction iceberg.

And what of the lives of people living in places such as Gangjeong Village on Jeju Island in South Korea? Although the people there overwhelmingly opposed the building of a navy base on their shore, and have non-violently and heroically resisted its construction on a daily basis for going on 9 years, sustaining fines, imprisonment, and injuries at the hands of police, the base is now complete and soon will port US Navy warships. Perhaps this very same destroyer. Those people, who even today continue to resist, have had their village, their sacred places, and their once-beautiful environment destroyed by this base.

Yes, this Zumwalt is a Destroyer … of lives, opportunities, and peace. I do not believe the Prince of Peace would ever bless such a thing.

By Russell Wray
Hancock, Maine

Note: Russell is the artist who painted the banner at the top of this letter

Welcome to Democracy in America......

So in California the polls were showing Hillary and Bernie Sanders were in a statistical tie for the Democratic primary.  Then she wins by 13%.  Was it because several mainstream media outlets declared the day before the vote that Hillary had already won the nomination?  Or was it because in California many new voters were given the wrong information about which ballot they needed to request at the polls?  (There were tons of stories about this happening - even that the poll workers were mis-trained to give the wrong information.)

Hillary and Donald are long time buddies. I believe this whole election is a Hollywood production - a circus sideshow with Trump in the race to make Hillary look better. If Trump was a serious candidate he would not be doing his suicide act......

Donald took the job to enter the Republican field in order to create chaos inside the GOP.  Then once it became clear that he was running away with the GOP nomination they had to make sure he would not beat Hillary - that would mess up the plan.  So Donald has virtually daily been making racist, sexist, and stupid statements intended to create such controversy that the American people will vote for Hillary no matter what.  "We can't have Trump as prez" the people will say as they hold their nose and vote for Clinton.

Now why would Trump play along with this game you might ask?  He has a huge ego and enjoys the process.  Why did he play the professional wrestling game for years?  It was all fake and showmanship.  He loved it.  He does not stand for anything except making money and playing to the cameras.  So this whole election race is just another game for him.

The oligarchy wants Clinton to be prez.  She will give them everything they want - create more wars, force greater austerity cuts domestically, give a free ride to the Wall Street banksters - and she will do what Obama has done.... keep significant portions of the 'liberal' base demobilized while all of this is happening.

But Hillary can't win because her negatives are so high UNLESS she has an opponent so hated, so controversial, so despised, so lacking in experience - thus Trump enters the ring.  The perfect foil.

I know that most Americans still want to believe that they live in the USA - home of democracy and free elections.  They can't begin to imagine that this election is a rigged game - a theatrical production intended to pull the wool over our eyes.

Welcome to democracy in America - 2016 style.

Pentagon Uses Russian Rocket Engines

RT called me yesterday to comment on the effort by some in Congress to force the Pentagon to stop buying rocket engines from Russia.

How ironic this story turns out to be......

History Lessons

By Eduardo Galeano
Memory of Fire: Century of the Wind


1912: Daiquiri
Daily Life in the Caribbean: An Invasion

The Platt Amendment, handiwork of Senator Platt of Connecticut, is the passkey that the US uses to enter Cuba at any hour.  The amendment, part of the Cuban Constitution, authorizes the US to invade and stand fast, and gives it the power to decide who is or is not a proper president for Cuba.

The current proper president, Mario Garcia Menocal, who also presides over the Cuban American Sugar Company, applies the Platt Amendment, calling in the Marines to put unrest to rest.  Too many blacks are in revolt, and none of them has a high enough opinion of private property.  Two warships steam in and the Marines land on the beach at Daiquiri to protect the iron and copper mines of the Spanish American and Cuban Copper companies, threatened by black wrath, and the sugar mills all along the Guantanamo and Western Railroad tracks.


1912: Niquinohomo
Daily Life in Central America: Another Invasion

Nicaragua pays the US a colossal indemnity for moral damages, inflicted by fallen president Zelaya when he committed the grave offense of trying to impose taxes on North American companies. 

As Nicaragua lacks funds, US bankers lend the necessary monies to pay the indemnity, and since Nicaragua lacks guarantees, US Secretary of State Philander Knox sends back the Marines to take charge of customs houses, national banks, and railroads.

Benjamin Zeledon heads the resistance.  The chief of the patriots has a fresh-looking face and startled eyes.  The invaders cannot bribe him because Zeledon spits on money, so they defeat him by treachery.

Augusto Cesar Sandino, a no-account peon from a no-account village, sees Zeledon's corpse pass by, dragged through the dust, hands and feet bound to the saddle of a drunken invader.


1917: The Fields of Chihuahua and Durango
Eagles into Hens

A punitive expedition, ten thousand soldiers with plentiful artillery enter Mexico to make Pancho Villa pay for his impudent attack on the North American city of Columbus, [New Mexico].

 "We'll bring back that assassin in an iron cage," proclaims General John [Black Jack] Pershing, and the thunder of his guns echoes the words.

Across the drought-stricken immensities of northern Mexico, General Pershing finds various graves - Here lies Pancho Villa - without a Villa in any of them.  He finds snakes and lizards and silent stones, and campesinos who murmur false leads when beaten, threatened, or offered all the gold in the world.

After some months, almost a year, Pershing returns to the US.  He brings back a long caravan of soldiers fed up with breathing dust, with the people throwing stones, with the lies in each little village in that gravelly desert.  Two young lieutenants march at the head of the humbled procession.  Both have had in Mexico their baptism of fire.  For Dwight Eisenhower, newly graduated from West Point, it is an unlucky start on the road to military glory.  George Patton spits as he leaves this ignorant and half-savage country.

From the crest of a hill, Pancho Villa looks down and comments: "They came like eagles and they leave like wet hens."

Carlin's Message Still Lives

BDS Must Be Working Quite Well

Freedom of speech, action, association?  Not in New York.  The so-called 'liberal' Gov. Cuomo has signed a bill essentially outlawing the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement which opposes Israel's genocidal treatment of the Palestinian people.

(Just to show how cynical Cuomo and the Zionists are they even have a Muslim woman standing behind the happy governor - and a Catholic priest too.  The Holy Alliance!)

Remember the divestment movement against the apartheid regime in South Africa back in the 1980's?  Under these new rules that would have been illegal too......

Guess what Cuomo - it ain't gonna work.  The BDS movement is here to stay.

Amen.....

Connect the Provocative Dots

Click on the poster for a better view......

We are taking orders for our 2016 Keep Space for Peace Week poster just before we go to print.  We feel this poster reflects the growing dangers of the US/NATO encirclement of Russia and the Obama ‘pivot’ into the Asia-Pacific to “contain” China.  Please help us spread word about this provocative space technology directed Pentagon operation.

We urge people to organize local events during space week to help bring attention to these important issues.

Posters are $3 each or five for $12.  You can order online at https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/Space4Peace (type your order into the ‘Feedback’ box) or send a check to Global Network, PO Box 652, Brunswick, ME 04011.  Add $10 for any international orders of more than 5 posters.  

We Don't Want the Oil Company

Winning Hearts and Minds?

RT reports:

Three separate scandals involving American servicemen and contractors in a highly-controversial Navy base in Japan's Okinawa have finally resulted in an all-out alcohol ban on all the 18,600 sailors. The measure is the latest and comes after a Marine's drunk-driving stunt. 

Adding to the two cases involving murder and rape of two young Japanese women, a third incident saw a US sailor with six times the legal alcohol limit go on a joyride, hitting two cars in the wrong lane. The officer, Aimee Mejia, who was assigned to Kadena Air base, is now being held by Japanese police.

This is all in the midst of now nationwide anger over the antics in Okinawa, not to mention earlier opposition to such a prominent American presence on the island.

The latest incident took place as US forces were observing a 30-day period of mourning for the earlier murder victim. Part of the gesture by the American military included imposing strict measures on its servicemen and women, such as curfews and a partial alcohol ban when off base.

Starting Monday, all American sailors in Japan are banned from consuming alcohol on and off the premises. More severe movement restrictions were also imposed – the soldiers can now only go to the store, the gym and the gas station.

According to Washington Post, a US congressional delegation was due to visit Okinawa last week, but had its meetings cancelled, as local politicians didn’t wish to be seen dealing with Americans.

Yeah, the US 'democracy machine' is slipping some gears and not winning any hearts and minds. These are signs of a crumbling military empire. People are fed up with the arrogant and abusive American occupation treating the local people and their environment like shit.

Back here at home these stories are not in our papers.  Thanks to Russia Today (RT) for news that we'd not otherwise get.

Yeah Russia has their own agenda - they want the Pentagon's endless war project off their borders.  And Moscow is right to demand that - the hypocritical Washington crowd would be screaming bloody murder if Russia was doing military operations in Mexico or Canada.

My mother used to say - what's good for the goose, is good for the gander.  Right......

Please do what you can to help accelerate the pace of the US imperial decline......future life on Earth depends on a quick and relatively quiet collapse. 

Pilger: U.S. is in Preparation for War

 

Afshin Rattansi goes underground on the outcome of whoever wins the White House in November. 

 

Multi-award winning author and filmmaker John Pilger gives his take on the threat of World War Three as Britain's defence secretary Michael Fallon jets off to Singapore for the Asian Security Conference where the keynote address will be given by US Defence Secretary Ash Carter.

What Do We Want?

Yes
please
answer this Q?

What do we want?

Do we even have any idea?

Because
after all
our minds
have been colonized
by corporate
advertising
they've filled
our thick skulls
with their images

burgers
bikinis
beer
fried chicken
soap
clothes
cars
shop
til
you
drop

Politicians
use these
mind-washing
techniques
to develop
new ways
of controlling
the masses

Public relations
has infected
our culture
to the degree
that
we don't really
know
who we are
or what we
actually want?

We are
focused grouped
to death
we are being
manipulated
by the
corporate agenda

Our choices
Hillary
or Donald.....

what do we
really want?

U.S.-NATO Provoking War with Russia

U.S. preparing for war with Russia - does anyone notice or do you figure it will all work out just fine since Washington knows what it is doing?

When Russia shows any reaction at all the western media accuses Moscow of being provocative.....who though is actually poking the hornet nest?

One question I have - when this U.S. military convoy passes through these little communities where did the people get American flags?  Do the local shops just happen to have shelves full of them or are they shipped in by Pentagon advance teams?

It is very likely that much of this military equipment will be left in the Baltics - prepositioned for the time when a real shooting war might begin.

Sunday Song