Unresolved conflict since the end of WW2

 

Strategic Culture Foundation

An American deep state coup, then and now

A couple of observations are notable. November 22 marks the date 61 years ago when an American president, JFK, was murdered by the U.S. deep state. A coup d’état was executed very much for the objective of keeping the Cold War going with the Soviet Union because of the vested economic interests of U.S. militarism and the military-industrial complex.

All these years later, the U.S. deep state is attempting another coup against the democratic wishes of the American people for a peaceful end to the proxy war in Ukraine. The U.S. ruling elite want the war against Russia to persist in maintaining their lucrative profits and for existential reasons of empire. Joe Biden is a brain-dead president who is signing orders pushed in front of him by deep-state operatives like Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan just before he wanders off to a retirement home – or into the Amazon jungle à la the hilarious photo-op at the G20 summit in Brazil this week.

Ukraine proxy war back to Nazi Germany

This long perspective also puts the Ukraine proxy war into a proper, wider historical context. The conflict in Ukraine did not start in February 2022. It did not even start with the CIA-backed coup in Kiev against an elected president in February 2014. It did not even start with the U.S.-financed Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004. This conflict goes back at least to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 when the United States and its imperialist allies immediately responded by creating the Cold War with its newly forged imperialist instrument known as NATO, in part by deploying Ukrainian fascist collaborators to covertly attack Russia. After World War Two, the CIA and Nazi remnants like spymaster Major General Reinhard Gehlen were united in purpose along with the British MI6 to defeat the Soviet Union. What is transpiring today in Ukraine is the culmination of a systematic conflict, essentially about projecting and maintaining Western imperial power.

The emergence of Russia, China, the BRICS, and the Global South has amplified Western imperial angst and diehard hostility to preserve global power and privilege. The latter hegemonic Western system is the epitome of fascism and neocolonialism.

Historical nemesis

There is a profound historical nemesis at this juncture. Will the U.S. imperial aggressor and its NATO front go down in defeat, or will it push the world to a final global war?

Russia is not bluffing. It won’t back down because of the historical sacrifices it has made already to defeat fascist tyranny – 27 to 30 million [Soviet] dead in World War Two alone. The Russian nation’s pain and suffering from imperialist aggression make it defiant and resolute in a way that the Western regimes could never comprehend or emulate.

Will sanity prevail? The American and European people have onerous obligations to hold their criminal elite rulers accountable.

History lesson: Convert BIW news conference

 

June 21, 2019 News Conference organized by our Bath Iron Works navy shipyard conversion project team here in Maine.

The event was held at the public library in Portland. 

Great speakers including Maine Penobscot tribal Chief Barry Dana.

Latest Space Alert newsletter now online

 

Our latest Global Network Space Alert newsletter is now at the printer.   You can find it online at our web site here   This war-time edition features articles and writers from around the globe talking about Palestine (including how space tech aids the attacks on Gaza and Lebanon), US-NATO's proxy war on Russia using Ukraine as the blunt instrument, the US pulling Japan and South Korea into the planned western war on China, the implications of an increasingly contested & congested Lower Earth Orbit (LEO), finding our ecological niche on our Mother Earth, our two-page spread called Odds & Ends, and of course our usual 'funnies' cartoon section.    Find all Global Network social media links here

Hurricane victims don't matter to Washington

 

U.S. can't afford endless war$ and helping hurricane victims.

Simple as that.

Washington has its priorities and the American people are at the bottom of the list. 

Thank goodness for the many volunteers and donations that help a bit - but still no ultimate replacement for federal assistance.

Latest GN podcast about spaceports with UK PhD student Daniel Walsh

 

Here is our latest Space Alert podcast with an impressive young man Daniel Walsh from the UK.

 

His PhD research is taking a critical look at the development of spaceports around the world. In particular he's looking at the impacts of these spaceports on indigenous communities and the environment.

 

During this interview we talked about many spaceports (old or now under consideration) including in Texas, New Mexico, California, Florida, Maine, Alaska, Scotland, New Zealand, Brazil, Sweden, Indonesia, Kenya, Russia, and more.

Daniel also spoke eloquently about the venture capitalists 'financialization of outer space'.

 

The GN has previously put videos about some of these spaceports in our YouTube library here

 

Two of them in particular are:

 

Kodiak Island, Alaska here

 

Rocket Lab, New Zealand here

Will the ceasefire hold?

 

Will this ceasefire hold?

Is the US-Israel hoping to pit the right-wing Lebanese military against Hezbollah?

Is Israel just using this ceasefire to rest their worn out troops and re-supply their military with more US-EU weapons?

Will Israel use this time to double-down on the genocide in Palestine?

Ray Davies on Thanksgiving

 

Thanksgiving history lesson: 'The Rock is a Crock'

 

Located near the Plymouth Rock monument

Our dinner stop on Thursday evening

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2011 

(One day's blog during the Peace Walk for a New Spring led by Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhists from Leverett, Massachusetts)

We had lunch at a church in Plymouth, Massachusetts today. We walked through a torrential downpour and winds that approached 30 mph. When we arrived we walked down near the water to the spot where the pilgrims landed in 1620. The legend is that when they got off their boat they prayed at a huge rock that today has a big-pillared shrine around it. During the lunch one man, a former Navy submarine captain and now a member of Veterans for Peace, told us that the "rock is a crock". For those of you not familiar with that expression - crock means a pile of shit. The story was made up to build the mystique about the pilgrims.

By the time we got to the church in Plymouth my waterproof shoes were full of water and my socks were dripping wet. My waterproof pants were wet inside and my long underwear were wet. I changed and stuffed my shoes with paper to help dry them out. After lunch we walked about five more miles in the rain to a church in Duxbury and by the time we got here I had even more water in my shoes and my leather gloves were full of water. Some cars would slow down as they approached us along the road knowing that the huge water puddles alongside the road would splash us if they drove fast. But some cars and trucks plowed right into the puddles sending a stream of water onto our already wet bodies as we walked down the road. I spent alot of time trying to work out in my mind how people could be so cruel. Anyone who has been driving for more than one week knows what happens when you zoom thru standing water on a street.

Last night we slept on the floor in the home of a woman named Mother Bear who is a Wampanoag leader on Cape Cod. We first met her at the Old Indian Meeting House in Mashpee which has recently been renovated. This simple church is a living testimony of the native people's effort to keep their culture intact through all the years of adversity. Mother Bear served us one of the best clam chowder suppers I've ever eaten.

Her home is like an Indian museum. When you walk in the door weaved baskets hang from the ceiling and photos of Wampanoag people in traditional dress are all over the walls in virtually every room. A bear skin rug, with the head attached, was sitting on a chair and a large animal hide hung over the fireplace with Mother Bear's family tree etched into the smooth side.

On the wall in the dining room was a large map (1877) of the town of Mashpee and if you looked carefully you could see the town divided into 60 acre plots with the names of natives in each of the plots. Mother Bear told us that the land was given to each member of the tribe so they could have a community where their culture could be preserved. But then the state of Massachusetts mandated that they form an official town charter which required them to begin collecting property taxes. Most of the Indians could not pay the taxes and over time they lost their lands as white people bought up the tracts. At one time the Wampanoag controlled all the elected offices in Mashpee but now that is all gone as the dominant white population has taken over the town and built condos and shopping centers.

These same kinds of things happened on Indian reservations throughout the country as the whites always found a way to take lands set aside for the native people.

I did not know the story about Plymouth rock being a phony until today but it did not surprise to me at all. So much of our history in this country is illusion and public relations. This is just one more important example. 

 

Bruce

B-52's to UK as Biden ups threat escalation

 

Four U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers, assigned Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, have arrived at RAF Fairford, England. 

The American long-ranged strategic bombers are being sent to the UK as further evidence of the Biden neo-con agent's threat escalation against Russia.

This video shows the start of the B-52 deployment with filming at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, RAF Fairford Operations and missions over Europe featuring Royal Danish Air Force F-16 and German Air Force (Luftwaffe) Eurofighter Typhoon. 

There is also very brief footage of a B-52 conducting the first ever high explosive weapons drop in the Cudgel Range in Lithuania. 

Pepe Escobar: Captain America’s Delusions

 

Journalist Pepe Escobar breaks down the US-NATO insanity that continues to escalate war on Russia.

Since the recent Russian display of their hypersonic intermediate range missile (called Hazelnut in English) the west has responded with more warmongering language threatening additional missile strikes on Russia. 

France and the UK are even discussing sending troops to Ukraine to fight Russia.

Neither France nor the UK are in any position to battle Russia, though the west in its desperation appears stupid enough to have a go at it since they don't give a damn about Ukraine nor their own troops. Do they want their own nations blown up too?

Hang onto your hat - the US-NATO are dangerous declining colonial powers and just might be willing to take the whole world down with them if they can't remain the KING OF THE HILL.

Bruce

Key European NATO bases in reach of Russia's Oreshnik hypersonic missile

 

Map showing showing rough locations of major US and NATO army bases, air and naval facilities throughout Europe.

Sputnik

In his remarks unveiling the Oreshnik missile system on Thursday, President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow reserves the right “to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow using their weapons against our facilities.”

Russia's new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile has a 2.5-3 km/s flight speed, a 1-1.2 ton payload, is equipped with multiple independently target-able reentry vehicles, and is designated as an intermediate-range missile, which means a firing range of up to 5,500 km. During its test combat deployment against a Ukrainian military-industrial target Thursday, the Oreshnik was thought to have traveled 1,000 km or more to Dnepropetrovsk from Russia's Astrakhan region.

Here are some key NATO facilities within reach of the new hypersonic intermediate-range missile:

Eastern Europe

Poland

• Lask Air Base (home to permanent US Air Force detachment)

• Forward Operating Sites Powidz, Zagan and Poznan (US Army weapons and equipment storage)

• US Army Garrison Poland (V Corps Forward HQ), Poznan

• Redzikowo Base (home to US Aegis Ashore missile defense site)

Estonia

• Amari Air Base (situated in Harjumaa, northern Estonia; deemed key for NATO "air policing" operations over the Baltic Sea)

Latvia

• Selonia Military Training Area (touted as the largest NATO training camp in the Baltic)

Lithuania

• Rudninkai Military Base (future home of Germany's first permanent base abroad; set to station some 5,000 Bundeswehr troops when completed)

Romania

• Deveselu Military Base (another US Aegis Ashore site)

• Mihail Kogalniceanu Military Base (NATO’s easternmost base in Europe, home to US Army Area Support Group Black Sea regional command)

Bulgaria

• Bezmer Air Base (key potential storage site for US long range aircraft)

• Novo Selo Range (major NATO training base)

• Graf Ignatievo Air Base

Kosovo

• Camp Bondsteel (set up in 1999 after the NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia and occupation of Kosovo. Largest US base in the Balkans)

Northern Europe

Finland

• Mikkeli (future home of NATO Multi Corps Land Component Command HQ, as little as 150 km from Russian border)

Sweden

• Karlskrona Naval Base (key to NATO calculations for establishing total control of the Baltic Sea)

Western Europe 

Germany
Home to by far the largest US garrison in Europe and the second-largest US deployment abroad, besides Japan. Home to some 35,000 troops and support personnel.

• Ramstein Air Base (largest US and NATO air base in Europe, key to US operations in the region and Middle East, including the once secret US drone program)

• Spangdahlem Air Base

• NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen

• Buchel Air Base (stores US nukes)

• US Army Garrison Ansbach

• US Army Garrison Bavaria

• US Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz

• US Army Garrison Stuttgart

• US Army Garrison Wiesbaden

Belgium

• US Army Garrison Benelux

• Kleine Brogel Air Base (stores US nukes)

Netherlands

• Volkel Air Base (stores US nukes)

Italy
Another key US garrison country in Europe. Jumping off and/or transit point for US and NATO military operations in the Middle East and North Africa, including the 2011 aerial aggression against Libya, which triggered a wave of migrants and refugees flooding into Europe via Italy.

• Aviano Air Base (stores US nukes)

• Ghedi Air Base

• Naval Air Station Sigonella, Sicily

• Naval Support Activity Naples (HQ of US 6th Fleet)

• US Army Garrison Italy

Greece

• Naval Support Activity Souda Bay, Crete

UK

• Royal Air Force Lakenheath

• Royal Air Force Mildenhall

• Royal Air Force Alconbury/Molesworth

• Royal Air Force Croughton, Fairford, Welford (common stopover site for US strike and strategic bomber aircraft)

• Royal Air Force High Wycombe (RAF HQ)

• Portsmouth Naval Base (home to two-thirds of Royal Navy’s surface fleet)

Spain 

• Rota Naval Base (permanent home to six US missile destroyers). Key strategic facility for US operations in the Mediterranean Sea.

• Moron Air Base

Portugal

• Lajes Air Base, Azores Islands (key NATO transatlantic logistical hub, targetable if Oreshnik can be redeployed from Astrakhan region to new launch locations somewhere west of Moscow)

'We are now on escalation ladder inching toward nuclear war'

 

Military intelligence analyst Rebekah Koffler discusses the Kremlin's reaction to President Biden allowing Ukraine to fire long-range U.S. missiles deep into Russian territory on 'Fox News Live.'

This woman is breaking all the rules and telling the truth on corporate TV.

Is Biden really making the decisions at the White House? If not him, then who is leading this run-a-way nuclear train?

Gagnon speaks on militarization of space to NYC VfP

Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space Coordinator Bruce Gagnon addresses the New York City Veterans For Peace monthly meeting Nov. 20, 2024.

The talk was about how space tech currently coordinates all warfare on the planet.

He also discusses Operation Paperclip that brought about 1,600 Nazi operatives to the US after WW2. The entire US MIC was seeded with these Nazis. Was their an ideological contamination as a result?

In addition he discusses the current US-NATO operation to attempt to break Russia up into many smaller nations - similar to what was done to the former Communist Yugoslavia during the Bill Clinton administration. 

He concludes with the provocative NATO plan to move into the Asia-Pacific in preparation for war with China.

'They can come for anyone'

 

“Surveillance means shrinking space for democratic expression, and we’ve all got to worry about that.” Ronan Farrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The New Yorker, joins Desi Lydic to talk about his new HBO documentary, “Surveilled.” 

They discuss what the film reveals about spyware technology and how it’s being used against political dissidents, activists, and everyday people, the lack of governmental restraints on its scope, and the importance of protecting journalism and free expression during a second Trump administration.

Sabby analysis of Bernie Senate bill to stop funding Israeli war crimes

Sabby exposes the deep hypocrisy in Congress by dissecting the debate, behind the scenes arm-twisting and the actual votes....

And the social media fallout from this 'done deal' in Washington.

It's a total reflection of the games being run by the elite at AIPAC, Wall Street and the MIC.

The bottom line is to find out how your 'Representative/Senator' actually voted.

Finally, stop falling for the hype and get out on the streets.

Bruce

History lesson: Berkeley Free Speech Movement

 

 The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

 With the participation of thousands of students, the Free Speech Movement was the first mass act of civil disobedience on an American college campus in the 1960s. Students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom. The Free Speech Movement was influenced by the New Left, and was also related to the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement.

Mario Savio: "We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received, from a well-meaning liberal, was the following: He said, 'Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?' That's the answer!

Well, I ask you to consider: If this is a firm, and if the board of regents are the board of directors; and if President Kerr in fact is the manager; then I'll tell you something. The faculty are a bunch of employees, and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw materials that don't mean to be—have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any product. Don't mean… Don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"

Sunday song

 

 

Image gallery with latest news

 

 

 

 

 

 Ukrainian POW telling how they have been ordered to kill Russian-ethnic civilians in eastern Ukraine Donbass region

 

Enough said for now....

Bruce

‘People’s Arms Embargo’ at Travis AFB in California

 

By Rick Sterling

Seventy-five protesters gathered under threatening skies at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California at 6:30 am on Wednesday, November 20. Their mission: to speak out and briefly interrupt the shipment of weapons to Israel from this air base.

For 90 minutes, they showed banners such as “Stop Arms for War Crimes” and “Stop Travis: No US Weapons for Genocide. ” They delayed traffic on the busy six-lane roadway into the base by frequently pressing the button to allow pedestrian crossing.  Fliers were handed out to receptive drivers. The flyers asked “Why are we blocking access to Travis Air Base and messing up your day?”.  It was explained that while November 20 is World Children’s Day, weapons to Israel from Travis are being used to kill children. Bombs loaded onto planes at Travis and other US air bases have killed many thousands of children. 

David Vidmar grew up on Travis Air Base. He said, “I am participating in the People’s Arms Embargo to honor my father as he would have been sickened by the indiscriminate targeting, slaughter and starvation of Gazan children and women in Israel’s genocide.” 

In the second stage of the protest, protesters completely blocked the roadways into the base. Ultimately, they shut down all of the entry points to the base before Fairfield police arrived en masse and arrested those blocking the roadway. A total of 28 persons were arrested for blocking the north, south, and main entry gates to Travis AFB.

Some of  those arrested were processed in a few hours.  Ten persons were still in Solano County Jail six hours after the action. It is not known when they will be released. They include Toby Blome, David Hartsough and others who were organizers of this action. 

The protesters have been charged with blocking the road and “not following a lawful order”. 

Many people globally believe the US is violating international law by continuing to provide weapons  for what the International Court of Justice describes as “plausible genocide”.  One year ago many prominent US State Department and USAID officials criticized the Biden policy of blanket support for Israel. Yet it continues unabated.  Today’s action at Travis AFB highlights the discrepancy.

~ Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the SF Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com.

New U.S. missile base in Poland: Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse

 

The US just officially opened its new Aegis Ashore missile base in Poland (after nine years of construction) to go along with a similar one recently opened in Romania.

These launch platforms (same as what is found on Navy Aegis destroyers built in Bath, Maine) can fire either nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missiles (the first strike sword) or SM-3 interceptor 'missile defense' systems (the shield). 

According to Simplicius:

This facility has the infamous dual-use MK41 vertical launchers (VLS) which fire the defensive SM-3 missiles, but are also capable of launching long-range nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, amongst other things. The Rezidkowo base is only 160km from Kaliningrad and within Tomahawks’ range even of Moscow.

Russia’s now-unveiled Oreshnik [hazelnut] is essentially a direct counterweight to the Aegis Ashore.

So the US has created the ability to launch a first-strike with Tomahawk cruise missiles into Russia and the American people know virtually nothing about this 2024 Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse. What does any thinking person expect Russia to do? Imagine if Russia or China built a similar facility in Mexico or Canada - Washington would go ballistic!

As the video above reveals this new US launch facility is now a target. 

 

These kind of intermediate-range missile systems used to be banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. The US pulled out of the treaty in 2019.

The US withdrew from the landmark 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002. That treaty banned missile defense systems. So it is clear that the Pentagon has been developing this offensive strategy for some time to encircle Russia and China with these 'sword and shield' missile systems on the land and at sea using Aegis destroyer platforms.

In July 2024 NATO announced that the US would, starting in 2026, deploy nuclear capable intermediate range missiles in Germany.

Of course this has led Russia and China to develop new missile technologies that could evade and overwhelm the US 'sword and shield' systems as we just witnessed Moscow fire the Oreshnik [hazelnut] missile that hit a vast Ukrainian military production facility in eastern Ukraine.

So the US in effect has created a new nuclear arms race due to its arrogant exceptionalism which moves the world closer and closer to WW3 and possibly nuclear Armageddon.

Bruce 

U.S. foreign aid is embarrassing itself

Caltrain is sending its retired diesel fleet to Lima, Peru. The locomotives Caltrain is selling to the city of Lima are 40 years old. To send the trains to Lima for further use, Caltrain had to first procure a waiver from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District so the trains could still return to service.

Moon of Alabama

Three days ago the President of China Xi Jinping opened a Chinese financed a deep-water port in Chancay, Peru.

LIMA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a $1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent.

Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening of the Chancay port, about 80 kilometres (48 miles) north of Lima on the Pacific Ocean, and signed a deal to widen an existing free trade agreement.

Xi said that Chancay, a 15-berth, deep-water port, was the successful start of a "21st century maritime Silk Road" and part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, its modern revival of the ancient Silk Road trading route.

The U.S. is, according to Newsweek, considering Peru to be in its "backyard" (for the record: the distance between Washington DC and Lima, Peru, is 5,700 kilometer):

However, a Chinese state-owned enterprise running a deepwater port so close to U.S. soil has Washington worried. The project marks another significant expansion of China's presence in a part of the world the U.S. considers its sphere of influence.

"On the big geostrategic issues, the Peruvian government is not sufficiently focused on analyzing the benefits and threats to the country," an anonymous U.S. official told the Financial Times late last year.

U.S. Southern Command chief Army General Laura Richardson characterized China's infrastructure projects across the Caribbean, Central and South America as a security threat. "They're on the 20-yard line, in the red zone to our homeland," Richardson told Newsweek last year, referencing China's closer proximity.

Not to be outdone by China's generous investment the U.S. decided to publicly counter it. A day after Xi opened the port megaproject U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken dropped into Lima:

Secretary Antony Blinken @SecBlinken - 2:28 UTC · Nov 17, 2024

Today we announced that the United States will support the city of Lima in building a new passenger train line that will expand access to reliable and affordable transportation for over 200,000 people every single day.

In his speech Blinken said:

“Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance.” Paul Simon, one of our great poets, wrote that line in one of his songs, and I think it speaks powerfully to each of us. Trains connect people. They bring communities together. They take distances down between us. And they are not just a symbol, but the practical manifestation of possibilities – the possibilities that come when we connect to each other. They’re so much a part of the national mythology of the United States, our own extraordinary construction project. And I’m so grateful today to be part of this project in helping create greater connectivity here in Peru.

And so this is an exciting day in our partnership: The United States will support the City of Lima as it develops the new passenger train line that’s going to connect downtown to the eastern suburbs. The Caltrain rail system in California, as you’ve heard already, will contribute more than a hundred high-quality railcars and engines, and American companies will provide over 50 percent of the services for this project and the supplies for the project, from signaling equipment to railroad tracks to engineering and design expertise.

Caltrain? Why Caltrain?

Caltrain finds international buyer for retired diesel fleet - SFGate

Caltrain is sending its retired diesel fleet to Lima, Peru, where it will have a second chance at life by providing commuter rail service. On Saturday, the U.S. Department of State, Lima representatives and several world leaders will celebrate the next stage for the trains while gathering for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the Peruvian capital.
...
“These trains have a long and proud legacy of service that we’re proud to pass along to the people of Peru,” Caltrain Board Chair Dev Davis said in a news release. “The F40s hold a special place in the heart of train enthusiasts, and there’s no better task for them than to keep helping people get where they need to go.”

Caltrain received $6.32 million from the deal, which involved selling 90 passenger cars and 19 diesel locomotives. Sam Sargent, Caltrain’s director of strategy and policy, told SFGATE on Friday that there were other buyers interested in the fleet, but the department was drawn to the offer from the Municipality of Lima, Peru, since it wanted to purchase the fleet wholesale.

The locomotives Caltrain is selling(!) to the city of Lima are 40 years old. As are the passenger cars they will be pulling. The locomotives' exhaust fuming engines had been made inoperable to get funding for the new electric trains:

To send the trains to Lima for further use, Caltrain had to first procure a waiver from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District so the trains could still return to service.

The people in Lima will surely notice how much more the U.S. is caring about its 'backyard' than China is.

Douglas Macgregor at his best

 

COL. Douglas Macgregor on Netanyahu Arrest Warrant!

PLUS - Russia fires first ICBM in combat for the first time in history. 

Galloway: 'Biden fit enough to start WW3'

 

How Biden mistook the nuclear football for a chamber pot. 

OAPs' stolen coal. Torpedoing the Trump battleship. And Russia's on the march.

Expanding provocations: Brits role in Ukraine war

 

SouthFront

This video features a review of the UK's role in the proxy war in Ukraine aimed at Russia.  

From blocking early negotiations to end the war to constant British demands that Ukraine implement strategies that failed - one after the other.

Of course the US, Germany, France and other NATO nations also played huge roles in this failed operation.

In addition mercenaries from across the world were continually sent to Ukraine to augment their beleaguered troops. 

And as we now see with the long-range missiles aimed inside of Russian territory, these so-called allies of Ukraine have armed them to the teeth ensuring maximum profits for western military  corporations.

Then we have western corporations like Monsanto, Cargill, Blackrock and others that are buying up large parts of Ukraine.

The main goal is to inflict maximum damage on Russia, and this can only be achieved by weakening it from within. That is why the political and information confrontation is so important for the puppet Kiev regime, which is fiercely fighting using the weapons of fakes and provocations, including bloody operations on the ground that do not make any military sense like in the Kursk region of Russia where Ukraine has lost more than 30,000 troops. 

The West, which has found itself in a desperate situation, is trying to put Moscow on time pressure while forcing it to give instant responses to any provocation.

"American servicemen are involved in [ATACMS] missile guidance... and coordinating their flights to deliver the strike. We can say this with complete confidence," Alexander Mikhailov, head of Russia's Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, told Sputnik.

If the Russian military does not respond to the recent strikes of ATACMS (range 190 miles) in the Bryansk region and now UK supplied Storm Shadow missiles (range of 560 kilometers) in Kursk and Crimea, Moscow risks suffering a severe image defeat. The West expects that by not responding, the Kremlin will lose confidence and this will fuel internal destabilization in the country.

On the other hand, any response to the western escalation will complicate Moscow’s relations with the United States, in particular with Trump, who is coming back to power. The sharp escalation of the confrontation means that some of the elite clans (neo-cons) of the US warmongers are out of control and playing their own dangerous and provocative game. 

This situation could easily spiral out of control.

Note: Actually this graphic is old. The US has sent about $180 billion to Ukraine so far with billions more sent from EU nations.

US vetoed another U.N. resolution for ceasefire in Gaza

 

On a bridge in Asheville, North Carolina. Banners made by Ken Jones.

UNITED NATIONS, November 20. 

The United States has used its veto right and blocked a UN Security Council draft resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a demand for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Gaza Strip prepared by the organization’s ten non-permanent members.

Fourteen of the 15 members of the Security Council voted in favor of the document. This is the fifth time that the United States has blocked resolutions providing for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip since tensions escalated in the Middle East last October.

The resolution was drafted by ten non-permanent members of the Security Council and consists of nine paragraphs, the first of which calls for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire respected by all parties. The document also calls for the release of all hostages held in the enclave, respect for international law by all parties, and humanitarian access to the civilian population of Gaza. The draft resolution also includes a clause stating that if the document is adopted, the UN Secretary General should submit a written report on the implementation of the resolution to the Security Council within three weeks.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, a total of 44,000 Palestinians have been killed and 104,000 injured in the enclave since tensions escalated last October. 

Jewish professor fired for anti-Zionist posts

 

The Electronic Intifada

Across the US, students and faculty are continuing to resist repressive measures by university administrations intended to stifle or even criminalize speech in support of Palestinian rights, as the genocide in Gaza continues.

Along with elite US institutions calling riot cops on their own students who have been holding sit-in protests, or attempting to prevent students from holding protests altogether, some universities have tried to categorize the political ideology of Zionism as a protected identity class in order to define anti-Zionist speech as racist hate speech.

“As long as I’ve been a teacher, I’ve been teaching about Palestine – it’s always been either central or integrated into the work that I do,” Maura Finkelstein told The Electronic Intifada Podcast.

Finkelstein, a scholar of anthropology and a writer, taught at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania for nine years.

She had been teaching a course on the anthropology of Palestine, a class that she says had been approved by the college.

But even though she was tenured, she was fired in May 2024 over her social media posts in support of Palestinian rights and against the political ideology of Zionism – a move that has been seen as a warning to other anti-genocide professors.

The firing followed months of targeted harassment by Israel lobby groups and individuals who pressured the university to fire Finkelstein, accusing her of “Jew hatred” over her anti-Zionist principles. Finkelstein is Jewish.

The Intercept reported that Finkelstein “was the subject of a campaign of thousands of anonymous, bot-generated emails sent every minute for over 24 hours to the school’s administrators – as well as local news outlets and politicians – demanding the professor’s removal.”

The college administration told Finkelstein that “numerous families of students had called to express concern about her position,” The Intercept notes. “A Change.org petition started in late October by unnamed ‘Muhlenberg College alumni and supporters’ called for Finkelstein’s firing over allegedly ‘pro-Hamas’ rhetoric; it gained over 8,000 signatures.”

Finkelstein told The Electronic Intifada that one of her social media posts – a repost to her personal account of a statement about refusing to normalize Zionism by the Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi – instigated condemnation by a Muhlenberg student who had never attended her class.

“Because the student identified as a Zionist, and because the student believed that Zionism and Judaism were the same, [the student claimed that] I was violating the equal opportunity non-discrimination policy that would essentially be denying the student access to an education,” Finkelstein said.

She explained that even though the student did not know her, “the student assumed from the social media posts that they would not be safe in my class. It went through a three-and-a-half-months-long investigation, it went through various faculty, staff and administrative panels, and I was told that I was terminated for cause, which is immediately no access to severance.”

“Perfect collision”

Finkelstein says that according to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), she is the first tenured professor to be fired since October 2023 over support for Palestinian rights.

“Of course, there were cases in the past,” she notes, citing professor Steven Salaita’s firing by the University of Illinois in 2014, as well as “countless adjuncts, visiting assistant professors, lecturers, other contingent faculty who have lost their contracts, who’ve lost their jobs without the same kind of foundation that would cause outrage.”

There is a fear, she says, for academics who are being sanctioned now “that if they go public with the story, they’ll never work in higher ed [education] again. And I think that that’s a real threat.”

With her own case, Finkelstein explains, it crystallizes at least two of the big crises in higher education right now.

One crisis is the “constant erosion of federal funding, of federal support [that] has created these institutions so that they’re completely, or almost completely, dependent on tuition and donor support,” which creates a financial model that “isn’t actually about education, this is about the accumulation of resources,” she says.

The second is that administrators are in a position where they “don’t know what Judaism is. They don’t know what Zionism is. They probably actually don’t know much about the decisions they’re making. What they do know is [that] if they alienate their financial base, they will collapse.”

Finkelstein says that she understands why some professors are scared to speak up in defense of Palestine and potentially lose their jobs. But, she adds, her colleagues should not self-censor.

“We all need to be talking about Palestine. We all need to be teaching about Palestine because, in an ideal world, they can’t fire us all.”