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. @BruceKGagnon

Saturday, May 14, 2022

Rising gas prices

 


 

Moon of Alabama

Diesel fuel prices in the US have gone up nearly 10% in the last month - after the SPR release. This includes literal new record prices every single day for several weeks.

Gasoline in turn is going to take a serious shot at setting new records this week.

Gasoline (Record price 4.331 set on 3/11/2022)

    Current Avg. 4.317

    Yesterday Avg. 4.301

    Week Ago Avg. 4.187

    Month Ago Avg. 4.139

    Year Ago Avg. 2.960


Diesel (Present price is record)

    Current Avg. 5.539

    Yesterday Avg. 5.531

    Week Ago Avg. 5.296

    Month Ago Avg. 5.062

    Year Ago Avg. 3.109

And yes, gasoline and diesel prices in the UK and Europe are higher...but the average Brit household drives 7,400 mile per year; the average European household drives 7062 miles per year vs. the average American household drives 14,200 miles per year (depending on source)...and has a far worse average gas mileage on top of that. US average MPG = 25, UK = 38.8, presumably EU slightly higher than the UK.

It is furthermore not the least bit clear that the average American household can significantly reduce the amount of miles driven.

And sure, a doubling of gas prices means only $500 more spending a year in the US - but again the effect of fuel and food price increases is always the greatest on the poor.

The rich effectively don't care, even if they weren't less affected to start with due to newer cars/higher average mpg or EV ownership.

Timing is everything: Unpacking Assad’s visit to Tehran

 


Five reasons for President Assad’s unannounced visit to the Iranian capital amid rapid geopolitical developments in the region


By Abdel Bari Atwan


Since the onset of the brutal war against Syria in 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rarely travels abroad. His rare foreign visits are carefully calculated, and devised to discuss strategic issues of great importance, politically, militarily and economically.

In the last decade, Assad has restricted these visits to only two capitals, Moscow and Tehran. The only exception was his surprise trip last March to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, which followed an Emirati outreach to Damascus an previous months.

In this context, any foreign trip by the Syrian president always draws interest. His visit to Tehran last Sunday, during which he met the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, was not announced for security reasons until after its completion and his return to Damascus. This is something that does not need to be explained as the man is a target, especially for the United States of America and the Israeli occupation state.

Little information about Assad’s visit was available, as the parties only provided media with photos of his two meetings with Khamenei and Raisi. However, the timing of his trip can tell us a lot more about its purpose.

The reasons for Assad’s visit to Tehran can be summarized in the following five points:

First: It coincided with the start of the largest Israeli military maneuvers of its kind near the Syrian and Lebanese borders, amid reports and rumors of preparations to launch a major war against the Axis of Resistance, especially Syria, Iran and Hezbollah. Tel Aviv is in the grips of terror due to the escalation of the strength of this Axis, Israel’s failure to impact Vienna negotiations, and Iran’s closeness to acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities.

Second: In his speech on the International Quds Day (April 29), the Secretary-General of the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, affirmed that Iran and its resistance alliance will retaliate against any Israeli aggression in Syria. He stressed that the notion of a “response in the right time and place” has gone irreversibly, which requires Syrian-Iranian coordination at highest levels, in preparation for an upcoming confrontation on Syrian soil that may turn into an all-out war.

Third: Lebanon is about to enter a critical and sensitive stage beginning on 15 May, with the holding of parliamentary elections that are neck-deep in foreign interference, especially from the United States, France, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The results of these elections may lead to political and military confrontations if they do not conform to the calculations of some internal parties and their supporters abroad.

Fourth: After the Russian military operation in Ukraine commenced, the Arab region has witnessed new political and military rules of engagement, which may lead to a dramatic change in regional and international alliances. Recently, we witnessed an Egyptian, Saudi, and Emirati rapprochement with Russia – and a sharp rise in their tensions with their historic American ally – after the Arab states rejected Washington’s request to increase gas and oil production to lower prices and replace the disruption of Russian energy sources to Europe.

Fifth: Syria is facing a severe energy crisis due to the US occupation of gas and oil wells east of the Euphrates, and the suffocating US siege and blockade imposed on the entire country. Iran is Damascus’ only lifeline as Syrian cities plunge into darkness due to power outages, with the onset of the hot summer months looming.

Click for better view


Far from anticipating events and rushing into speculations that may not be accurate, it can be said, with great caution, that this June may be hot indeed – similar to countless previous ‘Junes’ that witnessed the outbreak of many of the Arab region’s wars over the past 75 years.

After the Russian-Ukrainian war, it is clear that Moscow has found Damascus and Tehran to be reliable allies, and Israel to be an ungrateful friend that supports Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and stands openly on the American side. While Tel Aviv initially sought to position itself as a neutral party to the conflict, that notion dissipated quickly with a statement by its Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who condemned the “Russian invasion” as a “war crime.”

The escalating war of words between Russia and Israel may have provided Iran and Syria with a green light to respond to any Israeli aggression, and thus lifted the ban on the Syrian Arab Army’s use of the Russian “S-300” missiles to counter Israeli air strikes on Syrian territory.

Moscow’s welcoming of a Hamas delegation in recent days only appears to solidify the view that Russia’s position on Israel may be shifting – whether this is a major policy shift, or merely a harsh warning to deter Tel Aviv, is yet unknown.

The next major Israeli raid on Iranian targets on Syrian territory, if it happens, may be the real test, and we are waiting on pins and needles for its outcome.

Friday, May 13, 2022

Come join the Asia-Pacific warmongers!





It is bad enough that Australia has climate rogue status due to its fossil fuel exports but now the Liberal-National government wants Australia to become one of the world’s top ten arms exporting countries! 

On May 10, several peace groups organised protest at Darling Harbour, the venue of 2022 Indo Pacific Expo naval arms bazaar in Sydney. Speakers at the rally included: Nick Deane, a member of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network, Marrickville Peace Group and the Sydney Anti-AUKUS Coalition; former Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon; Alexander Brown, a member of Wollongong Against War and Nukes; Alexander is a member of Wollongong Against War and Nukes; Lynda Forbes Hunter Peace Group; Warren Smith, Deputy National Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia; Pip Hinman, from Sydney Stop The War Coalition and the Socialist Alliance; Jake Lynch, Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, and the Patron of BDS Australia; Nick, Communist Party of Australia; and Wendy Bacon, academic, investigative journalist and activist. Patrick Harte performed several anti-war songs. 

Video made on Gadigal land by Peter Boyle.  

Thursday, May 12, 2022

Who will bend first?





Year 2004 - Radio conversation between a US navy ship and the north west of Spain, with English subtitles. Enjoy!
 

It's a cartoon world

 

Vegetable farmer and activist Richard Rhames from Biddeford, Maine

 

I needed some solace yesterday - some reassuring words from someone I know well and firmly trust. I called Richard Rhames in Biddeford, Maine. He's a veggie farmer and for many moons has been a public access TV activist in our state.

Richard had me on his show (Out in left field) lots of times and I reciprocated by inviting him to come on my show (This Issue). Both of our shows were on public access TV. In my case This Issue was on 17 local cable stations across Maine since 2003. Covid shut the whole thing down once it hit.

When Richard answered the phone yesterday I asked if Dr. Rhames was there. I told him I needed a 'consultation'.

I didn't have to ask many questions as he takes off like a rocket and lays it all out. I wanted to hear all of his thinking about what the US is trying to do.

I took five-pages of notes and decided to turn his words into a bit of a poem. Richard was indeed prophetic.  

 

It's a clown World
just read the story
if you can get lucky enough
to find it printed or aired
anywhere.....
and what will the slant
be?

Hopefully not like the
constant lies from
NPR and the other
CIA controlled
media.
 
It starts
with the lack of exposure
to our own history.
It's hidden.
 
It's a cartoon society
of 'good guys vs bad guys'
Red, white and blue Superman
all the way.
 
Could it go nuclear?
Only restraint in DC
is the Pentagon,
and when the Pentagon
is the one we have to rely on,
well, we are fucked.

Doomers or Gloomers?
Are we going under water?
What is the tipping Point?
No rain in New Mexico,
dry in California,
fires burn, make their own wind.

They're clueless!
It's like the production 'Hair'
back in the 60's,
 
(What happened to all those 'hippies'? They didn't like Vietnam, why aren't they speaking out on US-NATO war in Ukraine? Makes no damn sense.)
 
So, a line from Hair: 'Listening to the new told lies'.
Wheels are coming off,
they only pick on those who can't fight back.
It's a desperate position of
weakness.
 
Think of the mobsters
busting knees.
It's same as 
the Washington-Brussels-Berlin-Paris-London
military muscle
now working over Ukraine
on their way to
Moscow and Beijing. 

This time though
US-NATO psychopaths
are picking on
a nation that 
does not bluff.
Russia has been thru this before,
European invaders,
Nazis,
wanting to take their resources.
 
Mr. Big just can't be content
working cooperatively with
the rest of the world.

Poland is likely
the next rabid dog 
sent into the fight to rubbish Russia. 
This guarantees a wider war,
just what MIC wants.
 
So in the end,
do we cheer for Trump,
or Biden, Kamala, or 
who ever is next up?
 
The oligarchy makes the picks
and feeds them to the parties 
and the media,
who feed them to the people.
 
We are like a bird in the nest,
mouth open,
hungry for anything we can get.

After all, we are just the
superfluous populations.
 
Bruce

U.S. Peace Council Statement

 


A Manufactured Crisis in Ukraine 
is Victimizing the World's Peoples

With the conflict in Ukraine entering its third month, the likelihood of a successfully negotiated peace — an immediate necessity — is becoming ever more remote. This proxy war by the United States is designed to use the Ukrainian people to mortally disable Russia. Those who profit from war benefit, while those most vulnerable suffer: Ukrainian civilians, but more broadly working people internationally and especially in the Global South.

It was expected that the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 would put an end to the first Cold War and the threat of world nuclear annihilation. Instead, the world’s remaining superpower continued its imperialist quest of global “full spectrum dominance” to prevent the emergence of “any potential future global competitor.”

Domestically, instead of a “peace dividend” in 1991, the bi-partisan consensus of Democrats and Republicans has been a policy of relentless military expansion. The U.S. military now consumes over half of the federal discretionary budget, which is 12 times the size of Russia’s defense spending. The Ukraine war has been used to justify Congress’s most recent obscene additional $29 billion in war appropriations over what the Pentagon itself had requested, $800 billions of which will go directly to Ukraine in the form of hi-tech military weapons. 

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine is providing convenient cover for the current administration to renege on promised social programs such as COVID protections, full student loan debt relief, free community college, or the public option for Medicare, and the promised seven days guaranteed paid sick leave for the workers. The war has been used to encourage fossil fuel production and blocking fracking on federal land has been forsaken. 

 


A U.S.-Manufactured Conflict

Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine could have been avoided if the U.S. had not relentlessly provoked it. The U.S. provided weapons and military training to the fascist-infiltrated Ukrainian army that has targeted ethnic Russians in Ukraine since the U.S.-orchestrated coup in 2014. Some 14,000 people had died in the conflict before Russia directly intervened. 

Russia repeatedly called for respecting the ceasefire outlined in the Minsk Accords. The 2015 Minsk II Agreement called for autonomy for the separatist Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, where the majority are Russian-speaking, along with release of prisoners of war and withdrawal of heavy weapons.

Instead, the Ukrainian army increased its attacks on its own citizens, although the peace agreement had been signed by representatives of Ukraine along with Russia, the separatist provinces, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for western Europe. Then in late February, a planned full-scale assault by the Ukraine army on the separatist region immediately precipitated the Russian invasion.

The conflict could not have continued without weapons and intelligence openly provided by the U.S. In a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported that the U.S. and NATO had supplied 60,000 anti-tank and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons to the Ukrainian army. In recent weeks, the Biden administration ordered another $1.6 billion of “lethal aid” to Ukraine further escalating the conflict.

NATO — the U.S.-Dominated Global War Machine

Contrary to its claims, NATO is not a defensive organization. Its purpose from the start has been to act as an instrument for U.S. world domination and to prevent all challenges to the U.S. hegemony. That is why it was not dissolved in 1991 after the dissolution of the Socialist Camp’s Warsaw Pact. On the contrary, despite the promises made by high U.S. officials to Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would expand “not one inch east,” it was expanded into fifteen new countries. This relentless eastward expansion of NATO during the past decades has been an existential threat to a nuclear-armed Russia and the main cause of the present military conflict in Ukraine. Now, driven by the war in Ukraine, NATO may be able to add Sweden and Finland in western Europe and Ukraine and Georgia in eastern Europe to its list of members.

NATO is not a true alliance. It is in fact an integrated imperialist army under direct U.S. command. Its constituent states are bound to dedicate significant portions of their national budgets to maintaining this war machine and to offer up their youth as soldiers.

Nor is it serving the interests of Europe, where U.S. nuclear weapons are stationed — in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey — making them immediate targets if the cold war turns hot; likewise for Poland and Romania, which now host the U.S. “missile defense” facilities for NATO aimed at Russia. 

Severing Russia from Europe Through Weaponizing Ukraine

Not only has the Ukraine conflict been used to oblige NATO members to buy more weapons from U.S. military contractors, but the larger U.S. objective of economically severing Russia from Europe is being advanced. Precluded is an integrated Europe with peaceful commerce between Russia and its neighbors. Instead, Germany, for instance, is being compelled against its economic self-interest to buy U.S. liquified natural gas rather than getting supplied from Russia via the Nord Stream II pipeline at a fraction of the cost.

The eventual peaceful integration of Russia with the rest of Europe has now been forestalled for the foreseeable future. Such a potential integration could have served in the long-term as a counterbalance to U.S. hegemony. Thus, severance of Russia from Europe has been a paramount strategic geopolitical objective for the U.S. And forget about pledges to restore engagement with Cuba, rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, or negotiate with North Korea for a denuclearized zone.

Weaponizing Ukraine as a part of NATO is the key to, in the words of the semi-governmental Rand Corporation, “overextending and unbalancing Russia.” Early on, U.S. strategic planners, such as President Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, put into play the elements that would eventually precipitate Russia’s military response on February 24th.

For all the reasons stated above, the U.S. government has pursued trapping Russia in the Ukraine conflict and has every incentive to prolong the conflict. Ukraine’s hands are tied, as it cannot negotiate a settlement without permission from the U.S., which is unlikely to be forthcoming.

 


Global Consequences

The reverberating consequences of the conflict and the associated sanctions by the U.S. and its allies on Russia have been devastating, causing food and fuel shortages globally and an ensuing inflation in the cost of living most impacting those who can least afford it.

Climate chaos, the ongoing pandemic, and inflation are all exacerbated by the conflict. Instead of international solidarity and cooperation to combat these threats, the opposite is occurring with global fragmentation. The U.S. is threatening to sanction countries such as China and India, home to 35% of the world population if they do not cut economic ties with Russia. Pakistan recently experienced a U.S.-backed coup, in part for continuing to have a friendly relationship with Russia.

Call for Peace

With the U.S. imperialist thrust to prolong the proxy war to weaken Russia, the voices for peace are regrettably few. Liberals in the U.S. supporting the Democratic Party are reluctant to take a principled stand for peace. Rather, they fully call for the overthrow of Putin and punishing the Russians for their transgressions.

Although liberals were quick to invoke the specter of fascism when it could be associated with President Trump, they exhibit little concern about aligning with real self-avowed fascist elements in Ukraine. Yet the resurgence of a radical right is directly tied to the capitulation of liberals to a failed neoliberal agenda (along with an embrace of a neoconservative outlook on foreign relations), which has alienated and victimized many workers who previously supported liberal and social democratic alternatives.

The Republicans, viewing the upcoming midterm congressional elections, have taken the tactic of advocating for an even more adventurous jingoism. Meanwhile, many alternative views to the imperialist narrative have been de-platformed from social media leaving the U.S. public with a steady diet of Russophobia.

Even the left is not entirely unified on a peace platform. Some view the conflict as simply an inter-imperialist rivalry between a capitalist U.S. and a capitalist Russia primarily over natural resources in which the working class has no stake. While there are elements of truth in such a view, it ignores larger and far overriding issues, especially the destructive impact of NATO’s success in Ukraine on the lives of the working people throughout the world. 

On the basis of this assessment of the present situation in Ukraine, the U.S. Peace Council reiterates its statement of March 24 calling for rapidly de-escalating the violence and negotiating a peaceful resolution. Analysts across the political spectrum agree that never has the world been so close to nuclear holocaust.

We call upon the Biden Administration to stop fueling the fire and prolonging the war by sending billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Ukraine. It is time for these funds to be spent on critically-ignored human needs instead of waging imperialist wars against other nations.

U.S. Peace Council 
May 10, 2022  

More and more BS & conflict of interests

 


More and more - tanks, weapons, armor, anti-aircraft, Stingers, anti-ship, air-defense, UAV's, go on offense, ammunition, weapons, send the very best, weapons, missiles, keep spigot open, flow the weapons, long-war, war measured in years, likely go on, stay focused, howitzers, Patriot, THAAD, shopping list, supplies, do more, more direct involvement of some kind will be inevitable, armed drones, lots of ammo, arm the Ukrainians.....

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Very, very interesting

 


Solzhenitsyn died in 2008, but I thought it was interesting that in many ways he predicted this conflict could happen, already in 1968, many years before the break up of the Soviet Union. 

Then other texts from later years show a good analysis of Russian-Ukrainian relations and where were they could be going. Unfortunately, they ended in the war he most feared. 

Texts are from The Gulag Archipelago vol. 5 (1968), a letter from 1981, Rebuilding Russia (1990) and one of his last interviews, for German magazine Spiegel (2007). 

All interspersed with footage from several documentaries including “Roses have thorns" (2014) about the Odessa massacre, “The Trap” (2007) about shock therapy in Russia in the 1990s, "The Children of Leningradsky" (2005) about street children in Moscow in the 1990s, "Donbass" (2016) by Anne-Laure Bonnel, plus footage from the current war from different news sources. 

Tom

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Demonstration for Peace at US embassy in Hungary

 


 
“We came here in front of the US Embassy so they could hear clearly what we were saying! We do not want war for the sake of either America or NATO! We want to live in peace and good relations with Russia! ”

Joint demonstration of peace-loving people in Budapest, organized by non-governmental organizations.


Speech by Endre Simó, President of the Hungarian Community for Peace
 

Greetings on behalf of the Hungarian Community for Peace! It is important that we are together people of many worldviews, creeds and temperaments for our common cause, for the protection of the peace of our country against those who would be willing to sacrifice our peace if we left, as they did with Ukraine. Fate has given us, peace-loving Hungarians, the task of not letting ourselves be deceived and shedding our blood for foreign interests. Let us learn from history and not believe the sound of the siren of those who profess to be our allies, even though our country is only a map for them.

We came here in front of the US Embassy so they could hear clearly what we were saying! We do not want a war for the sake of either America or NATO, as you Americans are commanding! We want to live in peace and good relations with Russia! Here in Central Europe, we want to live in peace with both East and West! We are not enemies of you Americans, we want to be your partners in East-West cooperation, in implementing a security system in which all parties involved recognize the right of others to security and guarantee it in law. We wanted to express this to you several times in person, but we knocked on your door in vain! If we got to the reception of your fortress at all through the tank traps. Have you ever been to the Russian embassy? Have you seen similar obstacles and obstructions there? And it is not the Russians who are our allies, but you! Or not? What are they afraid of? Whether we want to live in peace and good relations with others? We also did not receive a reply to our letter to President Biden drawing his attention to our national interests stemming from the geographical location of our country. They act as if there were no national interest other than their own! And even if it were, it would have to be subordinate to the American interests.

This war could have been avoided if you also wanted to. But neither your government nor the Deep State behind it wanted to. You wanted a war in our neighborhood. You urged the Kiev group, which came to power with your help in a coup in 2014, not to implement the Minsk agreements, not to give autonomy to the Donbass. You have denied Russia what you are demanding for yourself: security. Russia has called for NATO to end its eastward expansion, for Ukraine not to be a member of a military bloc but to be neutral. Your government has declined the request. Russia has asked not to install offensive weapons in Ukraine, but you have deployed and even sent experts there who have trained the Ukrainian army to use nuclear weapons. Moscow has also called for NATO forces and armaments to be withdrawn from countries that became members of the Atlantic bloc after 1997. This was also rejected. And meanwhile, Russia was provoked non-stop on land, sea and air.

Anyone who breaks his neighbor’s window at night must reckon that the victim will not seek justice from a court, especially if the court is under the influence of the perpetrator, but will assert his right to live free from harassment. He gives him enough physical treatment so he doesn’t even think about breaking his window again. We are now living the moments of this treatment. At the same time, the one who entrusted the perpetrator also gets a slap. The perpetrator and his instigator now plead in the victim’s pose. They declare agressor the victim of their agressivity who wanted to put an end to it. They knew what was going to happen! Moscow has predicted what it will do if the nice word doesn’t work. The bully and his instigator now invoke their human rights and violated physical integrity and want to convince the world that they have acted aggressively in defense of the free world and democracy.

 


     Mr. President Biden, in the name of what kind of freedom can others be threatened and harassed?

In the name of what kind of free world can the right of countries and peoples to live safely, to develop normally, to prosper be challenged?

What makes a world whose leading state is interested in arms sales and warfare free?

What would make the Ukrainian system democratic, which denies the linguistic, cultural, ethnic and religious identity of the peoples and nationalities that make up Ukraine and proclaims itself to be a unified nation-state?

What kind of freedom and democracy is there where people are divided into indigenous and second-class citizens, ethnicities, and are racially discriminated?

What is freedom and democracy like in a country where Hungarian, Ruthenian, Russian, and others can only speak their native language when the law allows it?

What kind of free world is it that tolerates the army of a “democratic Ukraine” killing 13,000 Russians who refused to submit to the US-backed regime in Kiev?

What kind of idea of ​​freedom drives one who sees himself as the custodian of freedom and democracy, demands that others conform to his model, and if they do not want to, he uses violence against them?

This is the freedom of arbitrariness! Freedom to abuse democracy!

America is sick and has infected our neighbor, Ukraine too.

I myself have found in recent years that parallely with the decline of the American Empire, there has been a growing view amongst the global financial circles that the United States has made a mistake that in World War II it did not enter into an alliance with Hitler against the Soviet Union, but entered into a coalition with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. They believe that Russia can be conquered, fragmented and divided among themselves. Russians considered an inferior race would be deported beyond the Urals or simply exterminated. Pure Nazi race theory! Their plan is supported by the hundreds of biological laboratories set up around Russia and China, dozens of which have been revealed in Ukraine. Biological weapons research was conducted in these laboratories. Experiments have been performed with microorganisms, insects, and mammals and poultry capable of spreading pathogenic substances. Biological weapon components were produced. Documents have also been reported on spraying with drones and experimenting on humans. The laboratories are operated by the Pentagon, the U.S. Department of Defense. Written evidence has emerged of President Biden’s son Hunter’s interest in bioweapon research.

Canadian General Trevor John Cadieu, head of the No. 1 biological laboratory at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, who tried to escape the catacomb, was arrested and taken to Moscow to be brought to justice.

The Western media keep silent about all this. Because it is obliged to keep silent. A journalist who wants to inform objectively, even in his own editorial office, encounters censorship, and if he tries to insist, he flies a short way. Large Western news agencies and the press, once proud of their objectivity, are forced to provide false information about the conflict in Ukraine. Not only do they keep silent about its causes, they also have to lie if they don’t want to be disconnected from the net. Only what the power considers to be true can be true. Thus, it could happen that the Russians were accused of war crimes committed by the Ukrainian neo-Nazis. See the explosion of the theater in Mariupol and the massacre in Bucha. It is now well known from video recordings and testimonies that it was a play held in Bucha: corpses transported from elsewhere were spread on the roadway to make an impression. The performance was mainly staged by the British with the corpses of civilians who were used as living shields by the glorious Ukrainian army in residential buildings, schools, and hospitals. They finalize a panel report that, based on concrete data and eyewitness testimony, could prove that the Mariupol theater was not blown up by the Russians, killing 600 civilians, but by the infamous Azovist neo-Nazis, who are now defending to the last drop the Azovstal steel plant and NATO officers trapped in the PIT-404 sector of the underground system and those of the secret bioweapons laboratory.

Do you see what the free world is warping into when the profit interests of a handful of groups run counter to the idea of ​​freedom? They dust, deceive, lie in our eyes. All this in the colors of the defenders of democracy.

Although the Hungarian Peace Community is aware of what happened why, and why Russia was forced to resort to military means, we did not come here to justify the war that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers, 2,500 civilians, including 225 children, but to show a way out of it.

 


The name of peace is compromise. America and NATO must recognize Russia and China’s right to security! They must acknowledge that they can no longer dictate to the peoples, least of all the Russians and the Chinese, but must treat them with respect. They must negotiate with them as an equal partner. And they must build the future together with them on peaceful cooperation based on mutual benefits, rather than on unilateral benefits. It must be acknowledged that our security is one and indivisible! No one has the right to claim their own safety to the detriment of others! The Western powers are not yet willing to acknowledge this. But they will be forced to! Unfortunately, the facts continue to show that groups accustomed to deciding the fate of countries and peoples from the offices of skyscrapers in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago will not relinquish their privileges on their own if they are not forced to do so!

Ukraine is the scene of this global struggle. Station on the road to a world order of peaceful coexistence and cooperation. If Ukraine is demilitarized, denazified, and forced to neutral, if the equality and independence of the peoples living there, including the Hungarians, is guaranteed within a federation, the West will be forced to acknowledge that the future of humanity is no longer shaped by those who speak of freedom, democracy and human rights, while doing the opposite, but those who want to put it into practice. Fortunately, there are more and more people who understand this in the West, even though their voices are still stifled.

We Hungarians can best serve the cause of peace if we do not give in to any temptation and incitement to war, but remain our own lords! We expect Viktor Orbán to be coherent and not let Hungary sink into a war! We find the Prime Minister’s courageous stance against those of our allies who view the sovereign policy of the Hungarian national interest with a bad eye! We would find it even more courageous if the government banned not only the direct delivery of weapons to Ukraine, but also the indirect transfer to other NATO states via Hungary! The government should pursue a neutral policy despite the fact that Hungary is a member of NATO! We call on the Hungarian government to veto the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, just as it has vetoed Ukraine’s accession. This would help both the Finnish and Swedish people to remain neutral and not be dragged into the conflict by the same people that Hungary must beware of. The Hungarian Community for Peace agrees and assures the government, and Viktor Orbán personally its support against  the European Union’s plan to ban Russian oil imports, and criticizing the Western sanctions policy against Russia, because he is aware that it will hit us back, and all those who commit it.

We would like our foreign policy to grow up to the requirements of our time, to draw on the experience of Hungarian diplomacy in the 1970s, when Budapest brought the parties in the Cold War to a negotiating table and launched the co-operation process of Helsinki. We have to do it again now! We need to build a bridge instead of digging a ditch! An international conference should be set in motion to lay the foundations for a European and international system of collective security and cooperation. Let’s dare to be big again! To show what kind of world our people are capable of! The government can count on our Peace Community in the bridge building up.

The humane, helpful attitude towards the refugees in Ukraine is worthy of the reputation of our nation! The Peace Community is still raising donations to help refugees from Ukraine.

We stand ready to assist the government in enforcing a neutral policy for peace and security for Hungary. We want the public service media to give space to the opinion and voice of the peace-loving Hungarian, because peace is not only a matter for the government, but for our people and nation! For all of us!

May 9, 2022

Truth be told....

 


Always wise words from America's great author and humorist.

And America's most famous anti-imperialist.

Inhuman treatment of civilians by Ukraine army

 


By Vladimir Kozin

Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine continues to accumulate facts of the inhumane treatment of civilians by Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). It has been reliably established that Ukrainian army units and nationalist battalions are setting up powerful fortifications in large enterprises, including the chemical industry, at the orders of their US and UK handlers.

For example, the militants have placed heavy weapons on the territory of the Azot company in Severodonetsk, Lugansk People's Republic, and are holding more than a 1,000 factory workers and local residents in underground facilities as "human shield". At the same time, the nationalists have been systematically firing MLRSs in Pervomaisk, Stakhanov and Kalinovo, thus provoking the Russian Armed Forces to retaliate in order to further accuse the Russian military of killing civilians and causing a man-made disaster in the republic. The neo-Nazis also booby-trapped tanks containing chemicals (ammonia, ammonium nitrate, nitric acid) for immediate detonation in case they were forced to abandon their positions.

The implementation of this cynical crime will lead to the chemical contamination of air, terrain and water sources. At the same time, there is a particular danger of highly toxic substances entering the Seversky Donets River, which is the main waterway and source of drinking water for eastern Ukraine and the Donbass republics.

The commission of similar inhuman provocations by nationalist battalions, according to testimonies of captured AFU soldiers, is also planned at other facilities within the boundaries of the so-called "triangle of chemical industry" (Severodonetsk, Lisichansk and Rubezhnoe; total area - 338 sq km, population - about 300,000 people), where more than 30 chemical companies are concentrated, the largest being Ukrkhimenergo, Severodonetsk-based ORGHIM, Energohimmash, Zarya, LLC, Severodonetsk Chemical and Metallurgical Plant, Severodonetsk Novofert Liquid Chemical Fertiliser Plant, Yuzhny Chemical Plant, and Benzol Chemical Company.

In addition, according to reliable information, the Ukrainian Security Service is planning provocations using chemical weapons in the settlements of Vysokopolie, Ivanovka, Knyazevka and Topolnoe in Kherson region, as well as in Apostolovo in Dnepropetrovsk region by 24:00 on May 6, 2022 to further accuse the Russian Armed Forces. Moreover, while previously in preparation for such provocations the civilian population was withdrawn from the area of planned contamination, now, in order to maximise the resonance, no warning was given to the population.

Russia warned the "civilized West" as well as the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in advance that the above and other similar provocations about alleged "Russian atrocities" are soon to be widely spread by the Ukrainian authorities through the Western media and in various Internet resources.

On May 7, 2022 in Kharkiv Region, nationalists in Tsirkuny gathered local residents under the threat of physical violence and transported them to the southern outskirts of Borshchevaya, where the militants, shielding themselves with "human shield", were moving towards the frontline towards the Russian military units, provoking them to open fire on civilians. As a result of the spot fire, the Ukrainian nationalists were defeated: some of the personnel were eliminated and the rest scattered. However, no civilians were harmed.

Such actions by militants completely replicate Nazi tactics during the Great Patriotic War [WW II] and once again demonstrate the inhumane attitude of the Kiev regime towards its own people and its complete disregard for all norms of morality and international humanitarian law.

 ~ Dr. Vladimir Kozin is Member, Russian Academy of Military Sciences, Member, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and Vice President, Russian National Institute for Global Security Research

Monday, May 09, 2022

May 9: Nazis in Ukraine?

 

 Just in case you doubt it - he even has Hitler tattooed to his arm.
 
 
 
Today, 9 May, Ukraine’s cities, which went under Russian control, held celebrations to commemorate the anniversary of the USSR’s victory in the Great Patriotic War.

Thousands of people attended the celebrations, carrying Soviet and Russian flags as well as pictures of their relatives who fought against Nazism in 1941-1945.

The nationalist regime in Kiev has been trying for decades to burn out of the Ukrainians’ memory of the heroic deeds of their ancestors – the soldiers and officers of the Red Army.

The modern pro-NATO Ukrainian leadership has officially proclaimed Nazis who served in the SS as heroes. As resulted from the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-1949, the SS was ruled to be a criminal organization responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the mass murder of civilians, medical experiments on people, the genocide of Jews, Slavs and other peoples.

Today, Western and Ukrainian media are actively purged of information about SS and crimes of other organizations of the Nazi party . Information on the crimes is provided with significant reservations and doubts about the legitimacy of the Nuremberg Tribunal decision. For example, check Wikipedia or try using a Google search to find it.

However, people whose families were touched by the crimes of the Nazis remember the facts. In Kherson and other regions of Ukraine, Nazi criminals burned in locked barns, hanged and shot tens of thousands of civilians. These people also remember that the German Nazis were actively assisted by nationalists from the western regions of Ukraine, who surpassed their masters in cruelty.

It has been deadly dangerous to speak out against Nazism in Ukraine over the last eight years. People who dared to do so simply disappeared or were maimed and killed with impunity by neo-Nazis.

Today, for the first time for a long period, the fear of telling the truth receded. Look at these images from various cities in eastern and southern Ukraine that are now under the control of the L/DPR or the Russian MoD.
 
 
May 9, 2019 March of the Immortal Regiment in St. Petersburg
 
On this day in 2019 our Global Network Russia Study Tour (Moscow, Crimea and St. Petersburg) found us in the parade that drew 1.2 million people in St. Petersburg. During WW II 26 million citizens from the Soviet Union were killed at the hands of the German Nazi army.
 
 
 
Like others in the march I carried a photo of my mother's two brothers who were in the Navy during WW II. Both of their ships were sunk by the Nazi's and miraculously they survived but both died at a relatively young age from heart attacks. The family always believed the trauma of that experience led to their unexpected early passing.
 
Bruce
 
 
May 9, 2019 in St. Petersburg

'Global NATO' To Have Disastrous Effect On World Security

 


By Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst

In late April, when the UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called for the creation of a “Global NATO” as part of “a shift in world order”, few seem to have noticed the magnitude of such an announcement. The statement followed calls by US President Joe Biden for a ‘New World Order to be established’ just four weeks prior during his Warsaw speech. The UK Foreign Secretary claimed that the world order established after the Second World War was failing and that the formation of “a global NATO” was necessary to “restore Western and allied ascent” in global affairs.

    “My vision is a world where free nations are assertive and in the ascendant. Where freedom and democracy are strengthened through a network of economic and security partnerships.”


She stressed that the UN Security Council and other post-WWII security structures “have been bent out of shape so far, they have enabled rather than contained aggression.” The bending (or outright ignoring) of UN rules to enable aggression on various countries is most certainly true, just not in the way Liz Truss thinks.

The statement comes amid repeated expressions of frustration among many Western leaders that of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council, the only two non-Western members (China and Russia) blocked resolutions targeting other non-Western countries such as Syria, Zimbabwe, Iran, Sudan, and most recently Russia itself. It follows longstanding calls for a new global governance superstructure, most likely based on NATO, which would allow the West and Western-aligned countries to “assert and coordinate greater power” in global affairs. In other words, a more “optimized” use of the dwindling power of the political West and its vassals while attempting to take control of other countries’ resources.



Truss stressed that under this new form of globalization, access to international security and trade should be made conditional on countries’ political positions. The UK Foreign Secretary stated that “economic access is no longer a given” and that it “has to be earned.” She added that countries who wish to earn it “must play by the rules” and that “this also includes China.” These statements come as Western powers openly threatened they would target Russian shipping in international waters, a move similar to targeting Iran and North Korea. The possibility of targeting Chinese shipping was notably also raised in a US Naval Institute paper two years prior. This effectively amounts to piracy, ever so euphemistically called “enforcement of freedom of navigation”.

In regards to the “Global NATO” and the future targeting of China, Truss emphasized plans to further arm the government in Taipei, in what would be yet another direct move against the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is universally recognized as a part of China by the United Nations, all UN member states, as well as the constitution of the island itself. However, maintaining state-like institutions and Western-aligned administration there has increasingly been raised as a priority for Western security architecture.

Combined with attempts of a crawling reformation of the UN, the creation of a “Global NATO”, whatever it may be called, would spell a disaster for the security of the world. The North Atlantic Alliance has a dubious security track record, to say the least. Despite being formed as a supposedly “defensive” security pact, the alliance is anything but. It has so far attacked numerous countries, starting with the destruction of former Yugoslavia to invasions and bombings all across the Middle East, stretching from Libya to Afghanistan.

Concurrently, the belligerent alliance is continuing its expansion in Europe, getting ever closer to Russian borders. Despite decades of Russia’s repeated pleas and warnings, NATO refuses to honor the promise given to Mikhail Gorbachev that it would not be expanding “an inch to the east”. The result of such a policy are the tragic events now taking place in Ukraine. Worse yet, the US, as NATO’s leading member, has withdrawn from all arms control agreements, with the exception of the New START, which is set to expire in less than 4 years.



NATO’s aggressive posturing in Europe and the Middle East has pushed the world into another arms race, with Russia being forced to develop a plethora of new types of weapons, most notably hypersonic weapons and new advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles to restore the delicate strategic balance of power. Middle Eastern powers, such as Iran, are forced to spend a large portion of their GDP on the military since the US (and by extension NATO) has been threatening the country for decades. Conflicts in both Ukraine and Syria primarily stem from NATO policies toward Russia and Iran.

This new “Global NATO” is set to spill over this instability into the Asia-Pacific region, which has so far enjoyed a decades-long period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. The crucial part of this growth has been the blistering economic development of China. In order to curb China’s growth, the US first engaged in a massive trade war with the Asian giant. However, with the realization this would only have a very limited effect on China’s growing power, the US and NATO are determined to challenge China militarily, forcing it to spend more on defense, while also fragmenting the Asia-Pacific region along geopolitical lines. Western planners believe this would inevitably lead to economic decoupling, which would negatively affect China’s export-oriented economy and long-term development.

It’s a certainty that countries such as Japan and Australia would be involved in these efforts. However, getting other powers in the region to come on board will be much more problematic. South Korea is too focused on Pyongyang and China’s influence there is still appreciated in Seoul, in addition to extensive economic cooperation. India, for its part, is deemed as “too independent” for the taste of the political West, which now effectively operates under a “you’re either with us or against us” foreign policy framework.

Sunday, May 08, 2022

Always good reports

 


 

More coming up soon from, and on Azovstal, Mariupol! 

Stay with me for that, and if you have any questions, would like to support my work - all completely independent, email me at gwplondon@gmail.com - thanks! 

Graham Phillips

Sunday song

 

 


How media shapes 'reality'

 


 

In recent years the western media has worked overtime to change perceptions about Russia's key role in defeating the German Nazi army during WW II.

It's even gotten to the point that Russia is no longer invited to attend the regular V-Day remembrance events in France.  

War cemetery in Nijmegen, Netherlands sprayed with anti-Russian texts

 

See more on this here