Train wreck blues...neglect runs rampant

 

I got the train wreck

blues

everything is coming 

apart at the seams,

all the lies

we have been told

mount up to a 

deafening clatter

that distracts the 

overwhelmed public.

Roads, bridges,

rail lines,

water & sewer systems,

schools,

hospitals,

farms and waterways

all abandoned by a corrupt

system of maximum greed 

and minimal concern.

Neglect runs rampant.

 

Mr. Big has gone global,

doesn't care about country

any more.

The masses are just

delusional patriots

who swallowed

the Hollywood story line

about democracy, freedom

and

justice for all.

The time has come

to thin the herd

as those living in the garden

move to deal harshly

with the great unwashed,

those in the jungle.

Few really

want to know,

they'd rather not think

about it all,

it's a shocking image

to hold close

to our hearts.

The fear must be

suppressed.

 

Some think they can escape

the hard times coming,

while they watch

the corrupt oligarchs

buy gold

and lock themselves

into their protected

enclaves,

sheltered from the 

times ahead.

 

Have we become 

too individualized

to grasp

class solidarity

and stand for 

what is right?

Bruce

Huge protest at key U.S. war base in Germany

 

 Germans uneasy about U.S. pressure to back Ukraine

 

By  Rachel Marsden

Ramstein Air Base, Germany: Protesters gathered on Sunday at this military base about 37 miles from the French border, the focal point of the largest community of Americans (over 50,000) outside of the U.S.

Nicknamed “Little America,” Ramstein Air Base has been home to U.S. forces since the end of the Second World War, but also serves as the central command for NATO’s air and space operations. More recently, it has become the meeting place for the Ukraine Defense Contact Group of western defense chiefs as they discuss and approve increasingly heavy Western weapons for use in Ukraine against Russia.

[Ramstein also hosts the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM), and U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM).]

The irony isn’t lost on the protesters gathered here — and in cities all around Germany — that the country whose military was once tightly controlled and limited by Western allies in the wake of WWII is now being egged on by these very same allies to take a leading role in escalating what some Germans fear is shaping up to be yet another world war on European soil.

It’s a role that runs contrary to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s routinely expressed desire to avoid moving further away from a peaceful diplomatic resolution in Ukraine.

“We are sticking to our balanced, decisive course in supporting Ukraine and preventing an escalation of the war,” he said last September.

Fast-forward to the end of January in the wake of a meeting on this very base about Leopard tanks for Ukraine. Poland had already taken the position that it would send its own German tanks regardless of whether Berlin approved their re-export. The U.S. had pledged Abrams tanks. And Scholz suddenly changed his tune.

 

“We have carefully weighed every arms shipment, coordinated them closely with our allies, first and foremost with the United States,” he said after his government approved both original and re-exported Leopard 2 tanks for Ukraine. What changed his mind? A ruse, by Washington, apparently.

Biden’s “reluctant” announcement to send the American tanks “unlocked a flow of heavy arms from Europe and inched the United States and its NATO allies closer to direct conflict with Russia,” the New York Times reported. And while some German tanks have already arrived in Ukraine (specifically the hand-me-downs from Poland), Washington’s aren’t set to arrive in the country until at least next year.

Protesters here resent Washington’s role in pushing Germany and Europe into largely symbolic weapons pledges — after all, what good is Germany’s 18 pledged Leopard tanks really going to achieve against Russia’s arsenal, they say. A similar rally the day before, in Berlin, amassed 50,000 demonstrators, including some of those who were also in Ramstein. They also called for diplomacy over weapons deliveries. The press has largely characterize the marchers as far-left, or far-right, or both — which might be a useful exercise if over half the country didn’t find common cause with them.

German voters are split on the country’s participation in the conflict, and there’s certainly no outcry for an escalation — let alone a German-led one. On the contrary, a Forsa Institute poll in January found 80 percent in favor of negotiations even at Ukraine’s loss. A recent Ipsos poll shows a majority of Germans are now more concerned about their economic survival than with financially backing Ukraine.

Germany has become Europe’s economic and industrial engine largely as a result of historically directing far more investment in those sectors than in foreign wars — a position that many American voters wish their own leaders would adopt. There’s a sense here that Germany is now simply just going along to get along with the U.S. in the interests of showing off western “unity” — even if it’s at the expense of the country’s own.

America’s beef with Russia has already cost Germany its competitiveness. Much like the donation of Leopard tanks, Berlin was pressured by Washington into dropping its Russian gas supply via the Nord Stream pipeline network that fueled its industry — which then mysteriously blew up in what investigative journalist Seymour Hersh attributes to a U.S.-led covert operation. The collapse of Germany’s energy lifeline from Russia has left its citizens paying sky high prices for American gas, and its industry susceptible to efforts by the Biden administration to seduce them into relocating across the pond in exchange for tax benefits and lower energy costs under the Inflation Reduction Act.

There’s a sense that the establishment isn’t listening to the average person and is catering instead to special interests. It’s a risky posture that will only serve to drive voters away from traditional establishment parties and figures as the situation worsens. And there’s a palpable fear of the conflict — and Germany’s involvement in it — spiraling out of control, with the Biden administration recklessly leading the charge.

~ Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of independently produced talk shows in French and English.

Okinawa: 'We don't want U.S. bases & war'

 

 

A large-scale rally was held in Okinawa, Japan on Sunday, to protest against the government's updated national security policy including the possible increased defense spending, missiles deployment on Okinawa Islands, and Self-Defense Forces expansion.

 

Next national anti-war mobilization March 18 (event in Maine)

 

 

Coinciding with the 20th anniversary weekend of the criminal U.S.-invasion of Iraq a major set of actions will take place including a demonstration at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Saturday March 18 demanding "Peace in Ukraine – Say NO to Endless U.S. Wars” and “Fund People's Needs, Not the War Machine.”

Since 2003, the U.S. has engaged in sanctions (economic war) on more than 40 countries. These targets of U.S. economic warfare include the people of Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iran, Russia and many other nations. Even in the wake of the worst disasters, like the recent deadly earthquake, Washington keeps its cruel sanctions in place against Syria. U.S. bases and “commands” blanket most of the world. It is a global empire.

The Biden administration is determined to escalate the Ukraine war. The real goal of the massive arming and training of Ukrainian forces has nothing to do with the interests of Ukrainian, Russian or American people. The aim instead is to “weaken Russia” as stated by the U.S. Secretary of Defense himself, even at the risk of a catastrophic nuclear war that could end life on Earth. 

A U.S. General commanding 50,000 troops in the Pacific also issued a letter to his sub-commanders in recent weeks informing them that he believes that the United States will be at war with China within two years. The danger of global war is growing! The people must act!

 

The demonstration will make connections between the human and financial toll of U.S. militarism at home and abroad. Key demands include:

•     Peace in Ukraine - Negotiations not escalation!
•     Abolish NATO – End U.S. militarism & sanctions!
•     Fund people’s needs, not the war machine!
•     No war with China!
•     End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel!
•     Fight racism & bigotry at home, not other peoples!
•     U.S. hands off Haiti!
•     End AFRICOM! 

In Maine we will hold a 'No war with Russia' peace vigil on Saturday, March 18 at 1:30 pm in Westbrook. (Intersection of Stroudwater St. & William Clark Dr. (Westbrook Market & Dunkin are there)

 

Event co-sponsors: Maine Natural Guard, PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, Maine Green Independent Party, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Communist Party of Maine

~ For more info please contact us at (207) 844-8187 or globalnet@mindspring.com

Calls for Nordstream investigation at EU parliament

 

 

EU MP's from Ireland Mick Wallace and Clare Daly are among the very few in Brussels speaking out against the US terrorist attack on the Nordstream pipelines as reported by Pulitzer prize journalist Seymour Hersch.

Many already seem to have forgotten about it but I don't intend to let it slide.

A friend who attends a Unitarian church has been speaking to the people at his church about this issue. He says they know the story but don't want to talk more about it and don't appear to want to get to the bottom of the case.

When I asked why his fellow church members don't appear to be alarmed, he said it is likely because they are Democrats and their party is responsible for this attack.

More of the same it seems.

Bruce

Is America preparing for a coup in Hungary?

 

 

By Simó Endre 

Hungary 

According to information from various sources on the Net, the United States government entrusted the CIA with the task of preparing a coup to overthrow the legitimate Hungarian government. They want to bring to power a puppet government that obeys American expectations, namely actively supports Ukraine against Russia, and stops building relations with the East. They want to prevent Viktor Orbán's government from taking the path of neutrality and unilaterally coming to terms with Moscow. 

According to the information, their plan would be wrapped in the guise of protecting democracy, human rights and the free world, and would be presented as a triumph of freedom against "Orbán's despotism" and "betrayal". 

It is believed that the trip to Budapest by Samantha Power, the representative of the US Agency for International Development, is also part of the preparation for the takeover with strengthening the "independent press" and "increasing the demand for democracy and freedoms" in Hungary. 

In the first step, anti-Russian peaceful demonstrations will be organized (some have already been organized), then more and more determined demonstrations will follow with the participation of American-funded Hungarian civil organizations and liberal parties. 

In the next stage, they would carry out provocations and finally carry out their plan with violent action. The scenario would be based on the 2014 "Euro Maidan". Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also hinted at an American intention to take over power in his annual review speech on February 18. He announced that his government would "stand the ground". 

Published in California & Maine newspapers

 

The U.S. war on everyone

Members of the U.S. government planned and helped implement the Nord Stream pipeline destruction. This was confirmed by (investigative reporter) Seymour Hersh this month. These are grave criminal actions.

Actors may include President Biden and CIA Director William Burns. Congress must investigate and bring to justice the participants in these crimes  – both individuals and government agencies.

The Washington Post also confirms the U.S. provides coordinates for all the HIMARS attacks in Ukraine. That includes in civilian areas of eastern Ukraine. It is probable the U.S. has provided coordinates to Kiev forces for other weapons attacks since 2014 on eastern Ukraine towns and infrastructure, killing 14,000 by December 2021.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) urges the President to change course. Representative Matt Gaetz and 11 others introduced the “Ukraine Fatigue” resolution to halt aid to Ukraine — the first breath of sanity by Congress. This U.S.-caused conflict has brought the world
to the brink of nuclear war. The public must stop this madnes. 

Nina Beety

Monterey, California 

 

Nord Stream report needs investigating

I was horrified, and you should be, too, to read Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s recent article detailing an attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, allegedly by the Biden administration.

Congress must immediately begin investigating and bring the participants of this potential crime to justice.

This would be a massive disgrace for our nation, which is already fast becoming a pariah state in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Natasha Mayers
Whitefield, Maine

Space dangers: Contested orbits and mounting space junk

 

By Bruce Gagnon 

Space orbital parking lots are getting dangerously crowded risking cascading collisions ( Kessler Syndrome) which could become so severe that space flight would be impossible due to the orbiting field of debris. If this was to occur much of life on planet Earth would go dark as our daily activities are enabled by space satellites (GPS, Internet banking, weather prediction, cell phones, air traffic control, etc).

In addition, because of the massive escalation of satellite launches, astronomers are complaining that we are losing the night sky.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX makes rockets and satellites to build Starlink, a broadband Internet system that once completed will cover the entire world. SpaceX has so far put 2,500 satellites into orbit and plans for 42,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO) occupying 80% of this space.

The Pentagon funds and tests Starlink to use its military capabilities. Starlink satellites are being utilized by the Ukrainian military to guide drones, artillery shells, and missiles into Russian positions and at civilian targets.

Very recently Musk has begun to slightly restrict the use of Starlink by the Ukrainian military as he feared that Russia might take action against the constellation.

Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) have been tested by India, US, Russia and China. ASAT’s need no explosives, at orbital speeds kinetic energy (one thing smashing into the other) does the job. 

Virtually all warfare on the planet is now enabled by space technology. Thus filling up the increasingly limited parking spaces in various orbital regions will determine which nation has an advantage.

NATO in 2019 announced a new doctrine calling space a ‘fifth operational domain’. NATO maintains that the US-led bloc will use commercial satellites as a military booster. 

The 1967 U.N. Outer Space Treaty prohibits ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in space or on ‘celestial bodies’ like the moon. But currently ‘weapons of selective destruction’ fall outside of the OST. Thus a new treaty is urgently needed.  

 

 

Russia and China have been leading the effort at the UN to create a new treaty to ban all weapons in space for many years. But the US and Israel have been blocking such a step for peace in space. The official US line through Republican and Democratic administrations is ‘there is no problem in space, and no new treaty is needed’.

During recent years the numbers of satellites orbiting the Earth has grown dramatically. Thousands more satellite launches have been approved by the Federal Communications Commission despite legal action by a coalition of groups (including the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space).

Each launch releases toxic agents which are destroying the Earth’s ozone layer. In addition, when satellites fall from lower earth orbit and burn-up on reentry they release a deadly stew of electronic particles into our atmosphere.

Russia has issued a warning to the US-NATO that they are ‘exposing civilian space assets to potential attack by utilizing them for military purposes’.

In early February Ukrainian troops fired rockets from a US-made HIMARS system which hit a hospital in Novoaydar, killing 14 Russian-ethnics and injuring 24. Russia claimed that Kiev used western satellites operated by NATO personnel to target the hospital.

In late February China announced that it was preparing to launch close to 13,000 satellites into LEO in a move to counter Musk’s SpaceX network. China stated that they intended to ‘ensure that our country has a place in low orbit and prevent the Starlink constellation from excessively preempting low-orbit resources.

~ Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and lives in Brunswick, Maine.

US-NATO threatens Global South

 

Geopolitical Economy Report

 

The foreign ministers of the US, Germany, and Ukraine told the world at the Munich Security Conference, “Neutrality is not an option” in the West’s proxy war against Russia, implicitly criticizing the vast majority of Global South countries, which are independent.

U.S. nukes near quake disaster in Turkey

 

Click on map for clear view

 

50 US nuclear weapons are stationed illegally at the Incirlik Air Base in Adana, Turkey. They are located just a few miles west of Gaziantep, Turkey which was Ground Zero of the recent devastating earthquake in Turkey. 

Demand that the US remove their nuclear weapons immediately.

Our nuclear weapons on Russia's border have provoked Russia, lead to war, threaten all creation, and they could be destroyed in an earthquake!!

By Kathy Boylan

Catholic Worker

Washington DC

NATO entering new phase in Indo-Pacific “at lightning speed”

 

 

By Rick Rozoff     

Atlantic Council
February 6, 2023

NATO is entering a new phase in the Indo-Pacific

[Recently], US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the Philippines’ National Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez announced plans to accelerate the implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA)…granting US rotating forces access to four additional military bases, bringing the total number of EDCA sites to nine. It’s the latest example of the Biden administration’s strategy to harness the United States’ “unmatched network of allies and partners” in competing with China. While the US-Philippines announcement is getting plenty of air time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s visit to South Korea and Japan last week is not – but it deserves equal attention. Indeed, of the two, the latter development could prove to be more consequential.

[T]he United States already has access to five air bases, including the Antonio Bautista Air Base in Palawan…as well as Cesar Basa Air Base and Fort Magsaysay near Manila on Luzon Island….

The strategic implications of Stoltenberg’s visit to Seoul and Tokyo….While diplomatic relations between the two northeast Asian countries and the Alliance are nothing new – both South Korea and Japan have been members of NATO’s “partners across the globe” for more than a decade – Stoltenberg’s visit shows that the transatlantic Alliance’s strategic approach to the Indo-Pacific is entering a new phase.

…As the secretary general told an audience in Seoul, his delegation’s visit is “a strong expression of the great importance we attach to the partnership between the Republic of Korea [South Korea] and NATO.”

Throughout his visit to the region, the secretary general argued that NATO’s security and East Asia’s security are interconnected….

Stoltenberg’s language and tone when referencing China this past week was particularly noteworthy. China only appeared on NATO’s agenda for the first time at the Alliance’s London Summit in December 2019….Skip ahead to last week and the language Stoltenberg used to describe China represents a noticeable shift. The secretary general told reporters in Tokyo that Beijing, together with Moscow, is “leading an authoritarian pushback against the international rules-based order.” In case his point was lost on the assembled journalists, he continued: “What is happening in Europe today could happen in East Asia tomorrow…and noted the “scale of the challenge” that China presents requires the Alliance and Japan to “work together to address it.”

…All of this is a far cry from just a few years ago. In Alliance terms, the shift in NATO’s strategic messaging on China has occurred at lightning speed.

Stoltenberg’s visit marked more than just a shift in rhetoric. It marked a growing realization since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February on the part of both NATO and US allies in the Indo-Pacific that the security of the North Atlantic and Asia are “inseperable.” There have already been tangible results, such as progress toward a new Individually Tailored Partnership Programme between NATO and Japan, a framework agreement that outlines each NATO partner’s objectives for its relationship with the Alliance. Stoltenberg also used his trip to publicly announce his intention to invite both the South Korean and Japanese leaders to the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, later this year. In a historic first, leaders from Japan and South Korea – together with leaders from New Zealand and Australia – attended the Madrid Summit last summer where NATO unveiled the new Strategic Concept…. 

U.S. provokes confrontation with China

 

 

Amid Beijing’s calls for peace and stability in the region, and asking Washington to stop its aggressive, bullying behavior, the US military continues to provoke China by flying aircraft inside the South China Sea with mainstream media like CNN and NBC onboard, at one point taking their jet down to just 300 meters above sea-level and making a beeline for a Chinese navy vessel. 

How ordinary Americans think this US aggression on the other side of the world is okay is beyond me. 

We’ll discuss. This is Reports on China, I’m Andy Boreham in Shanghai. Let’s get reporting.

Brecht: 'You have to stand up, if you don't want to go under....'

 

 

General, your tank is a powerful vehicle

It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.

But it has one defect:

It needs a driver.

By Bertolt Brecht

Brecht is convinced: "The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn't hear, doesn't speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn't know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn't know that, from his political ignorance, is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies."

• "Then the man, in cheerful disposition asked again: 'How did he make out, pray?' Said the boy: 'He learnt how quite soft water, by attrition over the years, will grind strong rocks away. In other words, that hardness must lose the day.'"

• Brecht's unshakable optimistic and anticipatory conviction was that Hitler's regime will fall. Peaceful and persistent cooperative popular movements can overcome the most brutal 'elite' in the long run. Those in power now will not have the last say. Things are not going to be as they are. Fascism will not prevail. At the same time Brecht was neither naive nor an illusionist. He wrote elsewhere: "Where there is violence only violence can provide the remedy". It is all about the historical context.

• "No help will come from the Gods who are leaving the solution to mankind."

His understanding of an educator was to raise questions, to make suggestions, to encourage debate. Brecht remains a writer who believes in reason and the values of enlightenment as much as in poetry. All his late dramatic art is characterized by his belief that "You have to stand up, if you don't want to go under, surely you will understand that."

The Great Disorder

We see the curtain closed, the plot un-ended.

In your opinion then what's to be done?

Change human nature or the world?

Well which?

Believe in bigger, better gods or none?

The right way out of the calamity

 

You must find for yourselves.

Ponder my friends.

How men with men may live in amity

And good men - women also

reach good ends.

There must, there must be some end

That would fit.

Ladies and gentlemen, help us

look for it.

~ All of this was extracted from a recent lengthy paper on Brecht by Irene Eckert who lives in Potsdam, Germany in January 1923. All editorial comments in this piece belong to Irene.

Rising for peace in Deutschland

 

 

Thousands of people on Saturday gathered at the Brandenburg Gate, a landmark in German capital city Berlin, to protest against weapon supplies to Ukraine and call for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. 

Canadians hit the streets

 

 

Canadian anti-war protesters gathered in Vancouver on Friday to condemn NATO for fueling the Ukraine crisis by constantly sending weapons while calling for peace talks to settle the year-long conflict.  

Sunday song