Wednesday, July 31, 2024

U.S. attempted coup in Venezuela

 


Here’s what the media isn't telling you about the Venezuelan election....

 


#Venezuela’s coup leader, MarĂ­a Corina Machado, has been groomed by the US empire for decades.

She probably has a mansion in Miami and $10 million in a savings account with Bank of America. 

~ Also see the video interview with Ajamu Baraka, the Chair of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace, and senior editor at the Black Agenda Report (BAR) who was on the ground in Venezuela for the elections here.

Genocide protesters target Air Force Thunderbirds at Brunswick Air Show

  

 

Statewide peace and Palestinian rights groups will rally outside the Great State of Maine Air Show on Saturday, August 3 in Brunswick to draw attention to the U.S. Air Force role in the in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The Air Force Thunderbirds will perform as a recruiting tool along with other activities designed to entice young people into considering military enlistment. 


Protesters will gather at 9:00 a.m. outside the main gate of Brunswick Landing (Admiral Avenue at Bath Road) at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station. Activists will distribute flyers designed to push back on recruiting kids and to make clear the connection between the U.S. Air Force and Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza. 

 

The IDEAL Maine Social Aid and Sanctuary Band will be on hand to entertain those protesting and those waiting in bumper-to-bumper traffic to enter the air show.

 

“Stop traumatizing kids to kill in war and participate in genocide,” said Jae Echeverria of South Berwick. “Teaching kids to murder hurts their psychological development. Let kids play, let them learn, let them grow. Don’t set them up for recruitment into the military.”

Organizer Lisa Savage of Solon said, “U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolated at the Israeli embassy in Washington DC last February saying he could not live with his complicity in genocide. He shared how his job in the U.S. Air Force was to provide surveillance and targeting information for Israel’s war planes. Since Bushnell’s death, numerous U.S. Air Force personnel have offered resistance by hunger strikes, burning their uniforms, applying for conscientious objector status, and going AWOL.”

Pratt & Whitney, which has a plant in South Berwick, Maine, is a sponsor of the airshow. It also manufactures components for F-15 and F-16 fighter jets used by Israel. On an October 24 call with investors, RTX (formerly Raytheon and current owner of Pratt & Whitney) CEO Greg Hayes said, “I think really across the entire Raytheon portfolio, you're going to see a benefit of this restocking.” 


“To date the ‘benefit’ of selling war plane components to Israel includes the documented deaths of 60,000+ Palestinians in Gaza including 16,000+ children. As this has been highly profitable for RTX they can afford to sponsor burning jet fuel and polluting the air above Maine for so-called entertainment,” said Bruce Gagnon of Brunswick. 


Co-sponsors of the event include Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Maine Natural Guard, PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, Maine Coalition for Palestine, Healthcare Workers for Palestine - Maine, and Maine Labor for Palestine.

 

References:  

Raytheon's CEO said on an earnings call that the company stood to 'benefit' from DoD budget increases due to the war in Israel Business Insider October 24, 2023 https://www.businessinsider.com/raytheon-ceo-benefit-dod-budget-increases-war-israel-2023-10

Aaron Bushnell: The US air man who shouted 'Free Palestine' before lighting himself on fire Middle East Eye February 26, 2024 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/aaron-bushnell-air-man-who-shouted-free-palestine-lighting-himself-fire

Troops Are Quitting the US Military Over the Genocide in Gaza BreakthroughNews June 27, 2024 https://www.youtube.com/live/1uPK4ZN4fFc?si=jmqE4I4lL5KiVUiD

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

What's next in Lebanon?

 


 

Will the zionists in Israel-US make the crazy decision to fully widen the war into Lebanon?

If so it will likely quickly widen far beyond including possibly into Iran. 

How much longer can Washington play this warmongering game along with Israel?

Monday, July 29, 2024

Chaos inside Israel

 


Things beginning to come apart in Israel.

Infighting happening over the arrests of IOF soldiers who have been sodomizing Palestinian prisoners. Right-wingers stormed the base where they were being held.

The contradictions are mounting.

Keep the protests around the world growing as the pressure will surely continue to make it more likely that the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv will crash under the weight of international demands for liberation of the Palestinian people as well as the mounting insanity inside the country.

In addition Israel's economy is in crisis.

Back in Washington

At least a dozen junior staff members in Congress intensified their protests on Sunday night when they launched a website that allows them and other like-minded individuals to openly publish anonymous memoranda that criticize US policy regarding "Israel" and the war on Gaza, including the views of their own superiors, without fear of reprisal.

The forum, called the Congressional Dissent Channel, is modeled after the State Department’s dissent channel for Foreign Service officers, according to organizers. That channel was established throughout the Vietnam War, an additional war that sparked deep political rifts in the US and inspired a protest movement, especially among youth.

However, the new website is the exact opposite of that channel, which was a classified internal government system where publicly-identified writers offer opposing viewpoints that are carefully and confidentially distributed. It is a public forum where congressional aides can remain anonymous and expose internal conflict within their offices.

Sunday, July 28, 2024

Two protest day in Maine @ Bath & Wiscasset

 

About 100 folks gathered along the side walks outside Bath Iron Works 

The usual parking lot entrance was closed by police

 

Mary Beth with BIW crane in background

Police opened another entrance farther away from our crowd. This is where the arrests were made.

We concluded the BIW protest with a short march along their production facilities

 

2nd Protest on US 1 in Wiscasset


At the foot of the bridge on busy US highway 1

At the intersection before the bridge




Lincoln County cops with nothing to do in yellow vests


Closing circle with a solidarity song

 

Yesterday was my birthday and there could not have been a better gift than having two protests in the midcoast region of Maine.

We began the day with an 8:30 am assembly at the Navy Bath Iron Works (BIW) shipyard to protest another 'Christening' of a destroyer soon to be sent to either the Red Sea to attack Yemen, the Black Sea aimed at Russia or the Yellow Sea off China's coast. There are currently seven more destroyers being built at BIW by General Dynamics which is up to its neck in complicity for the genocide in Palestine.

Nine people were arrested for blocking one of three entrances into BIW's spacious parking lot. (We successfully kept the other two entrances closed.) What used to be an open event for the public is now (due to our constant protests at these ceremonies) by invitation only. See the Portland Press Herald coverage of the protest here.

The Bath police were out in full coverage of our protest as well as the Maine State Police, Massachusetts State Police and New Hampshire State Police. They even had the Coast Guard patrolling the river along BIW. They must have been expecting some big doings.

Later that day we did an hour-long protest at the US 1 bridge in Wiscasset which is one of the slowest moving traffic jams during the summer in Maine. Thus we knew it would be a good spot for a 2nd protest since it is fairly close to BIW and on the route that activists heading back north would take anyway to get home. 

So during that hour we had thousands of cars crawl by us with many waving and honking. One Wiscasset policeman told me 'You guys were great. This is how it should be in America'. A nice comment for sure.

Next week we do this all over again at the Air Force Thunderbirds airshow in Brunswick at the former naval air station. We begin at 9:00 am with another huge traffic jam allowing us to hand flyers to the cars crawling into the event which serves as a major military recruiting event for the younger generation.

Our peace folks in Maine are really special.

Bruce

Photos by MB Sulllivan and Press Herald. (Click on the photos for a better view)

Sunday song

 


 

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Must watch this short video

 


 

Dear all! This video includes scenes and reports from wounded children in Gaza. If this offends you, please skip over the section showing these scenes in Gaza. That's why YouTube also have this warning. 

Col. Douglas Macgregor: 

"At this moment, the war in Gaza has already destroyed or disrupted millions of lives. Precise numbers are hard to confirm, but hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis have been internally displaced, wounded or killed. These aren't just numbers; they are shattered families and ruined lives. And yet, there are policymakers in Washington contemplating war with Iran. I ask you: If the human cost of the war in Gaza, a localized conflict, is this high, how much higher will the cost of a war with Iran be? 

For decades, we've lurched from one costly conflict to another – Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Ukraine. The price? $10 trillion and tens of thousands of American lives. But who pays this price? Not the policymakers or defense contractors who profit from these wars. It's the children of farmers, truckers, nurses, and plumbers who fight, suffer, and die." 

30 Months of Weekly Vigils for Palestine @ Brunswick, Maine

 


 

Bruce Gagnon interviews fellow anti-imperialist protester Lou Kimball from Harpswell, Maine. 

They vigil every Thursday in downtown Brunswick from noon to 1:00 pm in front of the Tontine Mall. They've been holding this vigil for the last 30 months no matter the weather and have only missed a handful of weeks. 

History lesson: Germany never got rid of their Nazis

 


 


The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah was issued with a legal order by the German government banning him from giving this speech via Zoom to the Palestine Conference in Exile, organized by supporters of Palestinian rights in Germany on 25-26 July 2024. 

The order threatened Abunimah with fines and up to one year in prison for participating in the conference. He did so anyway. 

Friday, July 26, 2024

Americans, you’re being played....

  



Americans, you’re being played....

5G impacts on human health

 


 

The newest technology that powers our smartphones is 5G, the fifth generation of wireless cellular technology that’s supposed to make things work better and faster. Before it was deployed around 2019, there were global calls for a pause from some governments, activists, and scientists until the health impacts could be studied. But that didn’t happen. And earlier this year a big government study on the possible danger of wireless radiation was abruptly halted midstream. Today, we hear from both sides as to what might be going on. 

Full Measure is a weekly Sunday news program focusing on investigative, original and accountability reporting. The host is Sharyl Attkisson, five-time Emmy Award winner and recipient of the Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting. She is backed by a team of award winning journalists. 

Each week, we have a cover story that explores untouchable topics in a fearless way including: immigration, terrorism, government waste, national security and whistleblower reports on government and corporate abuse and misdeeds. 

Full Measure is broadcast to 43 million households in 79 markets on 162 Sinclair Broadcast Group stations, including ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW, MyTV, Univision and Telemundo affiliates. It also streams live Sunday mornings at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Thursday, July 25, 2024

Calling out the EU's leading appointed fascist

 


Irish Sinn FĂ©in MEP Lynn Boylan criticised Ursula von der Leyen's record on the Israel-Palestine conflict ahead of a vote in the European Parliament. 

Ursula von der Leyen has secured a second term as European Commission President, following a vote of a small insiders committee in the European Parliament. She was not elected by the entire EU parliament.

After MEPs voted to support her candidacy, Dr von der Leyen said she could not “begin to express how grateful I am”. 

Although she had the backing of the Irish Government, Dr von der Leyen’s bid for a second term was opposed by many Irish MEPs. 

Previously, during a visit to Israel, the European Commission President said Israel has a “duty to defend its people” and did not publicly ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to follow international law.

Netanyahu claims protests support barbarism

 


 

Thousands of protesters gathered on Capitol Hill to demonstrate against the Israeli Prime Minister's visit. 

They called on the Biden administration to stop arms shipments to Israel and to end the war on Gaza. 

Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi reports from Washington.

 

BIW deep into war on Palestine & Yemen

 



BIW built destroyers outfitted with interceptors are deployed in the Red Sea aimed at Yemen.

BIW made destroyers are in the Black Sea aimed at Russia.

BIW built destroyers are in the South China Sea aimed at China.

BIW says their warships are defending the US. They are not.

BIW's warships are part of the US aggressive offensive international imperial warmongering presence.

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

History lesson: 'America's role in the world is security export'

 


 

In the early years of the illegal George W. Bush 'shock and awe' attack and occupation of Iraq I was watching C-SPAN TV one evening.

They showed a three-hour presentation of then Naval War College instructor Thomas Barnett who had written a new book called the Pentagon's New Map.  Barnett was introduced to the top-brass from the military & CIA audience as then Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld's 'strategy guy'.

Barnett proposed in his plan that America's role in the world under corporate globalization was 'security export'.  He said that the US would not make things anymore - shoes, cars, TV, cell phones, washing machines and other consumer products.  It's cheaper for the leading corporations to move overseas where labor is cheaper.

America's job Barnett said was to go around the world and control the 'non-integrating gap' - those nations who are not presently under the full control of western bankers.  Iran, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, Russia, China and the African continent, etc. 

Barnett declared that the Pentagon would go into one of these nations with overwhelming force - what he called 'Leviathon'.  But the problem he said, is who will run these countries after we take them over?  What we need he said is a force to run these nations after the initial take down.  He called this team 'Systems Administration'.  Not too soon after watching this presentation I noticed that Lockheed Martin had received a huge contract to train 'Sys Ad' forces. Barnett said our 'Sys Ad' troops would never come home.

Barnett also claimed that the US will need legions of young people to go into the 'Leviathon' force and that they should be easy to find because there are essentially no jobs in this country anymore.  He said that we need to recruit these 'angry young men' who while away their time playing violent video games.  There are an endless supply of them across America.

But increasingly, likely due to endless war and stories about PTSD, young people are figuring out that the Army is not such a great job.  So the Army has a plan.  Lower the enlistment age to 16 years old. They are now floating trial balloons to see how the public and Congress respond.

The Washington Times reported:

The best way to fix the U.S. armed forces’ recruiting challenges may involve dipping further into the nation’s high schools.

As the Army, Navy and other services contend with a thriving economy and a directive to expand their ranks, there is a growing debate over whether the military should consider lowering the minimum enlistment age from 17 to 16. More than a dozen countries, including the United Kingdom, already have adopted the policy.


“For one, many of the factors that disqualify older youths from joining — like criminal records — are not as present in younger teens,” said Shane McCarthy, chief marketing officer of Sandboxx, a leading technology platform that connects military members stationed abroad with families and friends at home. Mr. McCarthy also has advised military commands on how to better target recruits.


Since first hearing Barnett's presentation it has become clear to me that his 'strategy' has increasingly been adopted by the US military and related civilian contractors. And by most of the Congress who have become not much more than paid reps for the war machine and Wall Street.

In the end Barnett himself, and his neo-colonial program, are filled with arrogance and American exceptionalism.  It's all about global domination on behalf of corporate capitalism.  Barnett likes to claim that 'The world is my playground'.

Now it appears in order to pull this whole plan off they need to have more of our younger kids.  It's a sign of failure and imperial decline.  Don't let them get away with it.

Bruce

Tucker interviews Jeff Sachs

 


 

Professor Jeffrey Sachs is the President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. 

He is the author of many best selling books, including The End of Poverty and The Ages of Globalization. 

Sachs gives a mostly full and accurate assessment of the Ukraine war, and American foreign policy more broadly. He's got lots of interesting and historically important stories.

Tucker shows great moral outrage over the Ukraine proxy war on Russia.

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

No democracy here....

 


 

Black activist and online commentator Afeni X recently posted a video explaining why, under NO circumstances, will she be voting for Kamala Harris, nor should anyone else who cares about the African-American community. 

Harris was a proud prosecutor — a cop who kept inmates in prison after their sentences were served just so they could perform what amounted to slave labor, Afeni says. 

Jimmy and Revolutionary Blackout Network host Nick Cruse discuss Afeni X’s commentary and how her [Harris] CV is filled with activities that should make any true Democrat shudder.

Australian Labor Party suspended senator for vote to recognize Palestine


Fatima Payman

 

By Joe Lauria (Consortium News)

John F. Kennedy’s 1956 bestseller book, Profiles in Courage, propelled the Massachusetts senator to national prominence and helped pave the way to the White House.   

Though it was largely written by his ghostwriter Ted Sorensen, the book won Kennedy the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for biography. It was read by generations of American schoolchildren as an important lesson to learn, and it returned to the bestseller list upon Kennedy’s election to the presidency in 1960 and his assassination in 1963.

The book tells the story of eight U.S. senators — the most famous of which were John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster and Sam Houston — who followed their conscience rather than the dictates of their party or the popularity of their positions.

The book praises these senators for breaking with party discipline to speak their minds, even at the risk of great personal cost.   

In the Australian Senate earlier this month, the ruling Labor Party suspended one of its senators for crossing over to the Green Party benches to vote in favor of Australia recognizing the state of Palestine.

Labor maintains the bogus line that Israel has to recognize Palestine first after negotiations. (The Israeli Knesset on Wednesday voted 68-9 against recognizing Palestine).

Senator Fatima Payman, a refugee from Afghanistan, had already upset her party in mid-May when she accused Israel of genocide and uttered the phrase, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” That signifies a single Palestinian state with one man/one woman/one vote and does not at all call for harm against Jewish Israelis. It is a cry for democracy and against apartheid.

The Australian Parliament then voted 80-5 against recognition on May 30 in the same week that Spain, Norway and Ireland had recognized the already existing Palestinian state. Among the five votes in favor was Payman, who breached a more than century-old Labor Party rule that forbids any of its members to vote their conscience — even if an ongoing genocide is trying to wipe out the state in question.

It would be the least that a country could do, to join 145 other nations in recognizing Palestine before Palestine no longer exists.

A correspondent in The Sydney Morning Herald wrote:

    “Payman’s decision to cross the floor … and vote with the Greens on a motion recognising Palestine has highlighted Labor’s ancient rules that forbid crossing the floor, under implicit threat of expulsion, and made plain how dated the edict seems in an age in which people respect speaking out more than keeping quiet to work with the collective.

    In an increasingly diverse party room, Labor should ease up a little on the iron discipline of enforcing lockstep voting, or it will again be confronted by MPs who, like Payman, choose to defect rather than toe the party line.”


For her violation of the rules, Payman was suspended from caucusing with the Labor Party. Days later, as Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in the middle of his final Question Time before the winter break here, Payman held a press conference in a Parliament House corridor, at which she quit the Labor Party to become an independent.

“My family did not flee from a war-torn country to come here as refugees for me to remain silent when I see atrocities inflicted on innocent people,” she said. “Witnessing our government’s indifference to the greatest injustice of our time makes me question the direction the party is taking.”


She left Labor because of a 1902 contract all Labor MPs must agree to.  As columnist Tony Wright wrote in the Herald:  

    “In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party has managed to evolve since it was founded in 1900, and its parliament whips will allow MPs to vote against directives for compelling local or personal reasons.

    But in Australia, the pledge has remained essentially unchanged since 1902 and is still signed by all prospective Labor MPs. It means that once the members of caucus – which is to say, the gathered Labor MPs – have agreed on a chosen path, no member can wander from the track. […]

    Could her party really expect [Payman] in 2024 – a woman who says pointedly she was ‘not elected as a token representative of diversity’ – to ignore her own beliefs and the concerns of a significant part of the constituency she represents as rivers of blood flow in Gaza? Yes, she must, declare the party’s elders, all the way up to the prime minister … “


Penny Wong, the Labor foreign minister, complained that as a gay woman she had to vote against same-sex marriage “because I believed in the power of the collective.”

She wants credit for having voted against her own interests and her own conscience, while punishing a politician for following hers.

In the face of a live-streamed genocide, the Australian Labor Party is unable to break with the United States and other Western governments in supporting Israel with arms and diplomatic cover in what can only be called a profile in cowardice. 

~ Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times.

Lebanese FM warns escalation with Israel to drive region into abyss

 


 Xinhua

Lebanese Foreign Affairs Minister Abdallah Bou Habib on Wednesday warned against "Israel's intention" to escalate war with Lebanon, adding that any miscalculations would drag the entire region into abyss, the National News Agency reported.

During a meeting at the UN Security Council in New York, Bou Habib said that if a bigger war occurs, it would shake the entire Middle East and lead to a new displacement crisis in Europe, not only from Lebanon and Israel but also from neighboring countries fleeing missiles, drones, and warplanes.

He called for Israel's cessation of land, sea, and air violations of Lebanon's sovereignty, which have "exceeded 35,000 violations since 2006 to date." 

Bou Habib also called for halting cyberattacks that threaten Lebanon's security and safety of networks, devices, applications, and electronic data in vital Lebanese facilities, especially the Beirut airport, which threatens public safety.

Furthermore, the minister asked for adherence to the UN peacekeeping forces operating in southern Lebanon, which have contributed since their establishment to maintaining calm and stability in the region.

Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon.

Monday, July 22, 2024

Video: Global Network 32nd Annual Meeting

 



The Global Network is proud to be in our 32nd year of organizing to stop the arms race in space. It's actually a mixed blessing. 

We've not faded into the sunset but we've not yet stopped the aerospace industry from their agenda to move weapons and nuclear power into the heavens. We still have much work to do. So we continue to educate, organize and activate people around the world to join this quest. 

We begin with a handful of  presentations by our leadership and then open the floor for questions and comments from those in the audience. 

Speakers include: 

  • Koohan Paik-Mander (Hawaii): Missile defense: the big "KICK ME" sign 
  • Agneta Norberg (Sweden): US presence & military development in Sweden 
  • Dr. Dave Webb (UK): Concerns about spaceports & militarisation of space 
  • Choi Sung-Hee (Korea): Role of the space industry in South Korea 
  • Lisa Savage (US): Solidarity with Palestine 
  • Karl Grossman (US): Mining the Sky 
  • Dr. Sandeepa Bhat B (India): Space Security from the Indian Perspective 
  • Bruce Gagnon (US): Panel discussion moderator

Three upcoming Maine protests

 


Protest at Bath Iron Works (BIW)
New destroyer 'christening' ceremony
9:00 am to 11:00 am
Washington Street
 
then
 
Gaza solidarity stand-out in Wiscasset
Near Red's Eats on US 1 at bridge
1:30 - 3:00 pm
 
We'll have lunch in between the events at food vendors across from Red's Eats. Plenty of tables right on the river.

and finally....

 

Israeli port of Eilat declares bankruptcy

 

Port of Eilat in Israel

 

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

 

The Israeli port of Eilat has officially declared bankruptcy due to a significant decline in commercial activities and revenues, a senior official confirmed.

This downturn is attributed to the naval blockade imposed by Yemen’s Ansarallah group on Israeli-linked cargo ships since last November.

“It must be acknowledged that the port is in a state of bankruptcy,” stated Gideon Golber, CEO of Eilat Port. “Only one ship has arrived here in recent months. The Yemenis have effectively cut off access to the port.”

Earlier this month, the port of Eilat requested financial assistance from the government, having remained inactive since Tel Aviv launched its latest war on Gaza in October last year. 

In December, Golber reported an 85 percent decline in operations since the Yemeni Armed Forces began targeting Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea. He also indicated that if the situation continued, Eilat Port might need to temporarily lay off employees.

Meanwhile, the ports of Ashdod and Haifa on the Mediterranean are preparing for a potential “escalation from the North with Hezbollah,” according to the Jerusalem Post. Both ports are within range of Hezbollah’s missiles.


Shaul Schneider, Chairman of Ashdod Port, warned that if the northern front opens with Hezbollah, all of Israel’s ports except for Ashdod will become inoperative due to the escalation in the north and the closure of Eilat Port.
In an interview with Israeli newspaper Maariv, Schneider noted that Ashdod is the only government port and emphasized that Israel is effectively an “island nation,” with 99 percent of its goods arriving by sea.

He explained that Ashdod handles 40 percent of these goods and has recently served both Israeli and American security and military institutions with their ships.

Schneider highlighted that Ashdod is a critical strategic facility that continues to operate despite being targeted by missiles.

Arab Resistance

Starting in November, Ansarallah has joined other Arab Resistance groups in targeting Israel amid a bloody Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip.

The other groups include Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and, as of late, the Islamic Resistance in Bahrain.

The Ansarallah’s position was directly linked to Israel’s policy of starving Palestinians in Gaza. But instead of demanding an end to the Israeli siege on Gaza, the US began attacking Ansarallah positions in Yemen, killing and wounding many.

In June, the group announced that it launched its “fourth stage of escalation” against Israel until the Israeli war ends and the Gaza siege is lifted.

Saree said in a statement at the time that Ansarallah members “will target all ships headed to Israeli ports in any area we reach regardless of their nationality and destination.” 

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Sunday song

 


 

Where residents feel like presidents

 

For Israel, the war itself is the end, not the means

 



Haaretz Opinion

By B. Michael

Now, after around 100 Palestinians donated their bodies to better glue Bibi's derriere to his deerskin armchair, we may begin to tell the truth: Israel has not been a state for some time. It is an army base. Nothing but an army base.  

All that most of its inhabitants are concerned about is the vital question of who shoulders the greater burden when "carrying the stretcher," but are hardly bothered by who is on the stretcher, who is lying on it. What and who are they all carrying, those obedient stretcher carriers? And to where?

Had they bothered to check, they would have found only two groups of spoiled nuisances lying there. The one lies there because it received permission and funding to be as idle as it wishes. The other is waiting there for the coming of the Messiah, making everybody else miserable in the meantime. Why? Because God told them to. He speaks to them regularly.

And under the stretcher, millions of wild weeds crowd together. Those on whom it is permissible to step, to spit, to collect the taxes needed to finance the trappings of power. In return, the wild weeds get gurnisht. Here and there, they are allowed to die in war or to be taken hostage, which is really the same thing, and then they are praised to the skies. After all, sooner or later the government will once again need suckers who will die for it, so as to renew the holy war.

Nobody is telling them the depressing truth: The war is not a means to some end. The war itself is the end. Why? Because it is much easier to control a country that is at war. Then, everything is so sacred. Forbidden. Secret. "Not now." "Only when it's over." But it will never be over. War is our life. We have no existence without it.

With God's help – we shall always devour the sword, we shall always feed the sword, and we shall always sell a sword to anybody who wants one.

In fact, from its very first day the state has been in one, long, continuous war. Why? Because that's how we like it. Because if you were to take our war away, in an instant we would completely fall apart. And so, there is only one fitting name for this 80-years' war: the "Peace for War" war.

Above all, we like to fight the Palestinian people. Not only with bombs and cannons, also with settlements. And discrimination. And dispossession. And with the simple pleasure of harassment. Why? Because it's there. Because this seems easiest to us. Because it's what God said to those who talk with him regularly. And who wants to argue with God?

My army base no longer interferes in the missions of "the state." I don't want to. What, now? When there's a war on? When soldiers are dying? Health? Education? Welfare? High prices? Police? Infrastructure? Forget it! We're only dealing with stretchers now.

Eight one-ton bombs to kill one man. For fun. For revenge. So that everyone knows that it's permitted to kill 100 innocent people in order to assassinate one man. It won't help in any way but it's good for morale, it will iron out some of the wrinkles in our ego, it will gladden the nation and rescue Bibi.

The strikes were precise, of course. Ask all the military reporters. Surgical, even. Bravo. If emergency rooms used such precise surgery, Israel's population would be halved in no time. You know how much money that would save Smotrich?

It won't be easy to get out of the hole we fell into, maybe it's already impossible. A hole is no place to raise children.

~  Michael Brizon, who writes under the pen name of B. Michael, was born in 1947 and has written satirical columns and op-eds for Haaretz for close to 20 years.

Saturday, July 20, 2024

NATO webinar: An Aggressive, Destabilizing Danger to the World




From its very beginning following World War II, NATO has been an aggressive and destabilizing force acting to ensure the dominance of the collective West. NATO emerged in the wake of Operation Paperclip and Operation Gladio. Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945–59. 

From its very beginning following World War II, NATO has been an aggressive and destabilizing force acting to ensure the dominance of the collective West. This webinar will discuss NATO’s history and its current actions which are clearly potential triggers for a nuclear confrontation. 

Our speaker Bruce Gagnon has been organizing on space issues since 1982 and co-founded the Global Network in 1992, which he still coordinates. He has spoken around the world and published many articles related to the militarization of space and other issues related to war and peace He has been an activist and organizer almost all of his adult life and blogs regularly at Organizing Notes. 

See Jeff Sachs & Tucker Carlson interview on this same subject here.

US-NATO bases in Sweden

 

US-NATO closing in on Russia. Will this be the trigger for full-blown WW3? 

Is this not a provocation by the west against peace in the region? 

Now with Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and many others in NATO, Russia is surrounded by hostile forces who unabashedly pronounce that they want regime change in Moscow and the breaking up of Russia into smaller nations. 

How would the US respond if the shoe was on the other foot? What if Russia and/or China encircled the US? What would happen?

Washington would go ballistic!

Our so-called leaders, the media, and many organizations that blame Russia for all of this are pure and simple nuts!

Bruce  

Friday, July 19, 2024

Must watch interview

 


 

This is a really excellent interview by Sabby Sabs with Seyed Mohammad Marandi, Professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran in Iran.

His analysis on the current situation in Palestine and Lebanon are quite informative. 

He reviews the current global movement against zionist apartheid in Israel and the enormous damage being done not only to Gaza but also to Israel itself. 

Congress to 'honor' war criminal Netanyahu

 


 

Benjamin Netanyahu is coming to Washington to address Congress on July 24th. 

Activists are calling for a mass mobilization to arrest him for war crimes.

Proof that AIPAC runs American political institutions and corporate run media.

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Reminder: GN annual meeting July 20


 
                       Register now for July 20 GN Zoom meeting
 
 
The Global Network is in our 32nd year of organizing to stop the arms race in space.
 
The Pentagon maintains that the next world war will be 'won or lost in space'. Brig Gen Jesse Morehouse from US Space Command has said that the US had 'no choice' but to prepare for orbital combat and that the US 'is ready to fight tonight in space if we have to.'

We won't give up on our efforts to build an international consciousness and base of support that works to protect the heavens from the insanity of war.

Please mark your calendar now to join us on July 20th for our two-hour annual meeting.

We'll begin with a handful of 10-minute presentations by our leadership and then open the floor for questions and comments from those in the audience.

Latest developments from GN board members
 
  • Koohan Paik-Mander (Hawaii): Missile defense: the big "KICK ME" sign
  • Agneta Norberg (Sweden): US presence & military development in Sweden
  • Dr. Dave Webb (UK): Concerns about spaceports & militarisation of space
  • Choi Sung-Hee (Korea): Role of the space industry in South Korea
  • Aruna Kammila (India): Israel and Hamas issue
  • Karl Grossman (US): Mining the Sky
  • Dr Sandeepa Bhat B (India): Space Security from the Indian Perspective
  • Bruce Gagnon (US): Panel discussion moderator

Register in advance for this Zoom meeting:

When: July 20, 2024 10:00 am to Noon EDT UTC (GMT) 14:00

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAuc-GvpjgoE9UfnpstI2Ef08hn1tz-OuyB
 
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
 
Thank you. 
 
 Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
 
 
 


 

 

 
 
'Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.'
~ Henry David Thoreau