Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
Economist Richard Wolff breaks down how Russia's crushing defeat of NATO sanctions has accelerated the decline of the US empire.
Wolff is joined by prominent economist Michael Hudson for a deep dive into the economic impact of the Ukraine conflict and how BRICS & China have played a key role in reshaping the global balance of power.
Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition.
Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a former Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Israel continues to expand its military operations in Syria
as the new government, led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, struggles to
stabilize the war-torn country.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) invaded Syria following the
surprising fall of the Assad regime on December 8, advancing several
kilometers in the governorates of al-Qunitra and Rif Dimashq and
launching hundreds of strikes against bases and equipment of the
now-dissolved Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
Meanwhile Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the IDF was ready to
“deepen” its advance in Syria and approach Damascus. It also said that
Israel was prepared to stay in the country for “a long time.”
So far, the new government in Syria has not made any move against the
IDF or even condemned Israel’s military operations in the country. This
may be a part of a pragmatic policy, as the government is now working
to solidify control over all of Syria.
Aside from Israel’s recent actions, the situation in the country remains tense, especially in the northern and eastern region.
In the northern Aleppo countryside, a ceasefire between the Syrian
National Army, which is backed by Turkey, and the Kurdish-led Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF) was reported. However, clashes are still being
reported from time to time.
We have marched in the streets in the millions already.
What we need are
coordinated general strikes, blockades, mass boycotts of business’ – we
need to stop business as usual, even for a few days to demonstrate the
power of a desperate people united to save life on earth.
In short, if
it doesn’t cause discomfort and pain to the capitalist war system and
those who run it, it will not work.
None of that above is easy to
coordinate and organize, especially given how technology has separated
us from the direct human connection, but if it was easy, it would have
happened already.
These are absolutely desperate times and everything,
rotten health care, the economy, [decaying environment], wars are connected.
If we are not
willing to organize and sacrifice, we are finished.
Sacrifice – swallow
that pill. Nothing will happen without it.
100
researchers call out FCC on Musk Starlink launches
By Sarah Fortinsky (The Hill)
Researchers are urging the federal
government to pause
further low-orbit internet satellite launches until a
comprehensive review is
conducted to determine the potential environmental damage that
could result.
In a letter to Julie Kearney, chief
of the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) Space Bureau, more than 100
researchers
expressed concern about the rapid development of low-orbit
satellites and urged
international cooperation to determine the best path forward.
“The environmental harms of launching
and burning up
so many satellites aren’t clear. That’s because the federal
government hasn’t
conducted an environmental review to understand the impacts.
What we do know is
that more satellites and more launches lead to more damaging
gasses and metals
in our atmosphere,” the researchers wrote in the letter.
“We shouldn’t rush forward with
launching satellites
at this scale without making sure the benefits justify the
potential
consequences of these new mega-constellations being launched,
and then
re-entering our atmosphere to burn up and or create debris,”
they continued.
“This is a new frontier, and we should save ourselves a lot of
trouble by
making sure we move forward in a way that doesn’t cause major
problems for our
future.”
The researchers noted that, in just
more than five
years, tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink service has
launched more than
6,000 units that now make up 60 percent of all satellites.
“The new space race took off faster
than governments
were able to act,” they wrote, adding that regulatory agencies
now lack the
policies to make fair assessments about “the total effects of
all proposed mega
constellations.”
They criticized the FCC for granting
licenses on a
“first-come, first-served basis,” noting orbital space and the
broadcast
spectrum are not limitless and they require an “unprecedented
system of
cooperation” with international regulators “to share the commons
of our final
frontier.”
“Until extensive coordination is in
place, we
shouldn’t let the commercial interests first to launch determine
the rules,”
they wrote.
The researchers also encouraged the
FCC to end the
“categorical exclusion of satellites” from environmental review,
writing, “that
launching 30,000 to 500,000 satellites into low earth orbit
doesn’t even
warrant an environmental review offends common sense.”
Due to a desire to confuse the public, CIA is now providing standard uniforms to all employees.
This is the new look that all leadership in Washington DC will soon be required to conform to as the so-called 'democracy' there publicly pivots toward its neo-nazi jihadist program.
GlobalSouth writes:We are in the throes of One War, an Omniwar, a new Full Spectrum
Dominance from a falling empire, with one objective : the weaponization
of everything. When an empire falls, one cannot make agreement with it. A
different figurehead is but a temporary phenomenon as the operations
and philosophy of empire is systemic.
See Syria after 13 years of U.S. state terrorism… what do you expect? by Finian Cunningham here
And Pepe Escobar's article Syria’s post-mortem: Terror, occupation, and Palestine here
The commander of Korea's special forces says he had been ordered to block lawmakers from access to the National Assembly on the night of martial law.
Addressing members of the media on this Monday Colonel Kim Hyun-tae commander of the 707 Special Task Force revealed that he had been told to drag lawmakers out of the parliament building to ensure that their number did not surpass 150.
Calling himself an "incompetent" commander he apologized for ordering his soldiers to storm the parliament adding that he had put his troops in "danger" and that they were the most tragic victims.
He also said that he had been acting under the command of former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun.
Separately, amid the political turmoil over governance, the Defense Ministry earlier today confirmed that under the country's law President Yoon Suk Yeol remains the commander in chief.
Around
the world, many hoped that the Russia-negotiated agreement in 2020
between the Syrian, government and the coterie of right-wing Jihadist
forces, common criminals and other forces against the government of
President Bashar Al-Assad, would finally end the nightmare of war,
displacement, torture, and mindless destruction suffered by the Syrian
people – victims of U.S. plans to overthrow all the major nations in
the Middle-East that might challenge continued U.S. domination. However,
just a few days ago, like cancer, the disease of U.S. imperialism has
suddenly metastasized.
The Black Alliance for Peace argues that current
U.S. imperialist actions in Syria need to be placed in a historical
context. It is important to remember that the vicious subversion of
Syria, which began in earnest in 2011, was only one of the two criminal
assaults that year on nations perceived to be obstacles to U.S. regional
hegemony. The other under U.S. assault was Libya. In Libya, however,
the Western-orchestrated assault resulted in not only the overthrow of
the government but the country’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, being raped
and murdered by the right-wing Jihadist friends of the U.S.
Linking
the U.S. imperialist assault on Syria to that of Libya is important
because it informs how the few authentic anti-imperialist forces that
still exist in the U.S. understand and articulate opposition to the
moves being made by U.S. and Western imperialism in their desperate
attempts to avoid the inevitable end of white world dominance. Our
positionality in relationship to the Pan-European white supremacist
colonial/capitalist patriarchy compels us to remind our friends and
sometimes allies, that they cannot pretend to be in solidarity with
Palestine and then cheer on the overthrow of one of the few states in
the world that has never turned its back on Palestinian people, no
matter what one might think of the internal politics of the Syrian
state. Such
concerns about the nature of the Syrian state became a cover for
defending U.S. imperialism and were expressed by dishonest actors or
those who were politically naive. Now that the U.S.-backed jihadists
have emerged triumphant, hope for authentic self-determination for the
Syrian people has once again been delayed.
Trump’s
absurd claim that the U.S. does not have anything to do with Syria is
only a reflection of why he will never gain full control over the state
and non-state apparatus that is directing U.S. foreign policy. The
notion that whoever is sitting in the white house represents the final
and only power of the U.S. state is dangerously naive. Just recall when
Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated a ceasefire with Russia in Deir
Ezzor, Syria only to have it ignored by hisgenerals and CIA.
Reigniting
the war in Syria will prolong the tragedy experienced by the people of
Syria since 2011. The Black Alliance for Peace will continue to monitor
the situation and will not hesitate to reveal the facts as we find them.
The U.S. is
bombing the central desert of Syria. It claims to strike
ISIS but the real target is any local (Arab) resistance which
could prevent a connection between the U.S. controlled east of
Syria with the Israel controlled south-west. There may well be
plans to further build this connection into an Eretz Israel, a
Zionist controlled state "from the river to the sea".
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on December 8 that it had
conducted a significant wave of airstrikes in central Syria, targeting
over 75 known ISIS camps, leaders, and operatives.
The operation
deployed multiple U.S. Air Force assets, including B-52 bombers, F-15
fighter jets, and A-10 attack aircraft, as part of ongoing efforts to
disrupt and degrade ISIS’s operational capabilities.
The strikes are a key element of CENTCOM’s mission to prevent ISIS
from reconstituting amid the volatile situation in Syria. The campaign
aims to ensure the terrorist group cannot leverage regional instability
to plan external operations.
CENTCOM reported that early battle
damage assessments revealed no indications of civilian casualties,
demonstrating the precision and planning involved in the mission.
In a statement, CENTCOM reinforced its commitment to countering ISIS in collaboration with allies and regional partners:
“There
should be no doubt – we will not allow ISIS to reconstitute and take
advantage of the current situation in Syria,” said General Michael Erik
Kurilla. “All organizations in Syria should know that we will hold them
accountable if they partner with or support ISIS in any way.”
The
airstrikes highlight the U.S.’s focus on maintaining regional security
and disrupting terrorist networks. CENTCOM reiterated its resolve to
continue such operations even amid dynamic developments in Syria,
working closely with its partners to ensure the effectiveness of these
efforts.
This operation marks a significant blow to ISIS, as the
coalition intensifies its efforts to stabilise the region and dismantle
remaining elements of the terrorist group.
On the eve of Christmas as thousands of Americans file towards the White House to watch the Christmas tree lights turned on, Christians come together to witness for Peace against the horror currently taking place in Gaza and the West Bank. Palestine.
A captive nation which has lived under Israeli occupation for 75 years.
In this video, renowned geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar provides a deep dive into Russia’s next moves in Syria as Turkey and Israel escalate their proxy war in Aleppo and beyond.
We examine the secret meetings held by Turkey in preparation for this operation, shedding light on the broader implications for the region.
From the shifting dynamics between Ankara, Tel Aviv, and Moscow to the potential fallout of this covert strategy, Pepe Escobar unpacks the latest developments and what they mean for Syria’s future.
Subjects covered:
• Erdogan's betrayal: what will be Putin's response?
• Who is really behind the Syria war?
• Will Russia rescue Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad?
Despite the torture
and Pentagon horrors,
Americans by half
say CIA
cruelty is
justified.
How could
that be a surprise?
We are a war
addicted nation,
our economy is fueled with
blood money.
The signs
are everywhere.
We are proud
to plant flags
(made in China)
in cemeteries
honoring
those formerly
jobless,
working class
servants
who
'sacrificed'
their lives
on behalf
of Mr. Big.
We uncritically
salute the flag,
Hitler would
have been
impressed
by how
our 'blitzkrieg'
has seeped
deeper into
our culture
than
'Sieg Heil'
did into his.
We are
arrogant,
we fabricate,
embellish,
lie,
and then
deny it all
before god
and the
devil.
We've been
trained
like rats
to take
the cheese.
It's time
to spit out
the poison
that eats
away at
our souls.
Our statewide antiwar coalition will bring its monthly protest series to Freeport in December.
We
expect many holiday shoppers will see our messages about the ongoing
genocide in Gaza, the expansion of U.S./Israel war on Lebanon and Syria,
and the growing threat of nuclear strikes in the escalating Ukraine
proxy war against Russia.
We will walk a few blocks on each side of Main St
in Freeport handing out flyers while holding signs and
banners.
News
of atrocities in northern Gaza continue to horrify the world as well as
airstrikes in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen with many innocent victims.
Israel could not conduct their genocide in Gaza without U.S. support --
including weapons made in Maine. Join us to raise your voice to say: no
more money for Israel's crimes.
Saturday Dec 21 at 1:30pm
Freeport downtown (intersection of Main & Morse) near L.L. Bean entrance.
Bring your own signs and banners, or use ours.
Our demands:
Peace in Ukraine - No weapons, no money for the Ukraine War
Abolish NATO – End U.S. militarism & sanctions!
Fund people’s needs, not the war machine!
No war with China!
Protect Earth's environment from the deadly insult of war!
End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel!
Fight racism & bigotry not war!
U.S. hands off Haiti!
End AFRICOM
Co-sponsors: Global
Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Maine Natural
Guard, PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, Communist Party of Maine, Maine
Green Independent Party, Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST),
Party for Socialism & Liberation Maine, Libertarian Party of Maine,
People’s Party of Maine, Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine,
Veterans for Peace - National, United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC),
and Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights (MVPR).
"The D.C. establishment backed Yoon because he was what they have wanted for decades"
By Tim Shorrock
In a shocking turn of events, South Koreans went to bed Monday night to the news that their unpopular president, Yoon Suk Yeol, had declared martial law over the country, only to awake on Tuesday to discover that the National Assembly—backed by crowds of citizens gathering in protest—had overruled Yoon and restored their hard-won democratic system.
By Wednesday, an uneasy calm had settled over Seoul. Yoon, who has been praised as a diplomatic wonder and staunch ally by President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, appeared to be on his way out. All of Yoon's senior aides, including his chief of staff, have resigned their posts even though the president had accepted the parliamentary demands and lifted his martial law order. Opposition parties in South Korea led by the left-liberal Democratic Party (DP) are now seeking to impeach Yoon over his actions, with the first votes scheduled for Thursday.
Yet even as the coup unravelled in full public view, the close ties between the Pentagon and Yoon's military could present a dilemma for Biden and the next Trump administration. The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea and a U.S. general holds operational control over the Korean Army and the U.S.-South Korean Combined Forces Command during times of war. That has led to serious strains in the bilateral alliance over the years.
The brief, almost comical military takeover in Seoul brought back dark memories of South Korea's last experience with martial law in May 1980, when the renegade general Chun Doo-hwan seized power in a rolling coup and sent airborne special forces to the city of Gwangju to quell the last outburst of demonstrations. His paratroopers massacred hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators, sparking South Korea's first armed uprising since the Korean War and a six-day standoff between Gwangju’s citizens and the U.S.-backed South Korean military.
“Everyone thought that such an event could never happen in South Korea again,” Lee Jae-eui, who witnessed the Gwangju massacre and participated in the uprising, told Drop Site News just after learning of Yoon's action. “Now, exactly 44 years later, an unbelievable ‘martial law declaration’ was heard in a democratized South Korea,” he said. “I thought, what kind of joke is this?” The shadow of Gwangju was also noted in South Korean press coverage of the public’s anger at Yoon. “This feels like we are going through the May 18, 1980, Gwangju uprising again,” one woman at the scene in downtown Seoul told the JoongAng Daily. “You call this a country?”
Similar sentiments were heard throughout the country, from conservatives and progressives alike. Many recalled that former President Park Geun-hye, the daughter of the former dictator, had attempted in 2017 to use the Defense Security Command to declare martial law to forestall her impeachment by the National Assembly (she was thrown out of office and later convicted of corruption). But the generals held back, and several were later prosecuted when the plot was discovered.
Yoon, too, was facing impeachment. He is a former prosecutor who was elected in 2022 by a narrow margin (of 0.8 percentage points) in a vote partly determined by young men furious with the gains made by women in Korea's patriarchal society. Once in power, he sought to reform and improve the country’s export economy by cracking down on South Korea’s powerful labor unions. He attacked opponents of his economic and national security policies as “communists” and pro-North Korean agents. For months, his popularity has dropped to historic lows of just over 10 percent.
Yoon's gambit began at 11:00 pm on Monday night, when Army Chief of Staff General Park An-su, a four-star general, issued a decree of martial law. It sounded much like the 18 years of authoritarian rule under Park Chung-hee, who took power in a military coup in 1961 and ruled with an iron hand until he was assassinated in 1979.
“All political activities, including those related to the National Assembly, regional assemblies, political parties, the forming of political organizations, rallies and protests are banned,” Park stated. “The act of denying free democracy or attempting a subversion is banned; fake news, manipulating public opinion and false instigation is banned.” He added: “Those who violate martial law can be arrested or raided without a warrant.”
Yoon followed with an address to the public. “At the moment, the Republic of Korea is like a candle before the wind—it could plausibly collapse at any time,” he said in a live broadcast. “I declare martial law to protect the [ROK] from the threats of North Korean communist forces, to immediately eradicate the shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect our free constitutional order.” Read the rest of this important article here
~ Tim Shorrock is an investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C. and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing. He was raised in Japan and South Korea and has been writing about the Korean Peninsula since the late 1970s. In 2015 he was made an honorary citizen of Gwangju for his reporting on the previously unknown US role in the 1980 coup. His work can be found at his website, timshorrock.com
This video discusses the rise and fall of the fascist puppet regime which occupied and brutalized the South of Vietnam from 1954 until 1975.
We learn how Vietnamese communists resisted, protested, and struggled against fascism under desperate and dangerous conditions and ultimately overthrew fascism and imperialism once and for all.
In a significant military encounter, Russian jets intercepted U.S. B-52H Stratofortress bombers near the Baltic Sea on November 25, 2024.
The incident occurred during a NATO training exercise known as Exercise Apex Jet, which involved the B-52s conducting simulated weapons drops in collaboration with Finnish and Swedish fighter aircraft.
The interception was deemed safe and professional by a U.S. defense official, allowing the bombers to continue their planned flight without incident.
The
problem is that US and Finland has signed an agreement that allows
fully the US to operate in Finland without even informing our officials.
The cars the US troops and their families use are registered in a way
which is impossible to check, so if they
provoke, it is impossible to reveal.
US troops and their agents can
provoke war without the Finnish government and parliament knowing it. We
resisted and tried to inform our parliament members what it is about,
but they did not even respond or if they responded they disqualified our
worries and tried to explain to us why it is just something that is in
line with the NATO membership.
We had no referendum about NATO either
and according to Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) there was a possibility to announce about it and
the majority of the more than 1000 comments that were made were
suggesting rejecting the DCA-"agreement" (=dictatorship).
Only one
member of the parliament, Anna Kontula, suggested rejection of DCA, but
was not supported, so the "agreement" (dictate) was accepted without
voting about it. And now they claim it was an unanimous decision.
Against the NATO membership 8 parliament members voted earlier, but there
was merely no discussion and our resisting comments were neglected as
well.
We really have a very bad spiritual situation- those who knows and
try to spread information are labeled and disqualified. The peace
movement is weak. I suggested we should demand referendum about NATO but
others said we are in minority and we cannot demand referendum. But I
think it depends where we live. I live in the North, in a Finnish
speaking area and I cannot see the amount of Russia-phobia that those in
the Swedish speaking surroundings experience in the south of this
country.
I think that if we would have had referendum about NATO membership there would have been better possibility to discuss, and
even if we, who resisted, would have lost - we would have known what the
people wish and thus it would be easier to accept.
Now we don´t know
what is the real opinion because the polls were not made right. They did
not choose samples from the population but a very small sample (about
1,300 persons) from some kind of internet panel. And they neglected to ask elders - saying it could upset their families - although we who are
born just after the WWII or even under the war or before the war, have
seen the cold war but also the detente with open borders to Russia and
cooperation and interaction between the peoples of our countries and we
have been enriched and benefiting in many ways from it.
So I think that
is why they did not ask persons of our age and older in the polls. So you see it is worse than I thought when I said that were NATO and USA is
in, there is democracy and safety kicked out - but it has been seen
before.
I hope still that reason and humanity will win in the end, that
we will start cooperation about the big questions about survival of the
mankind.
NATO is increasingly drifting towards the need to freeze the conflict in Ukraine in order to restore the Ukrainian armed forces' combat capability for a retaliation attempt, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) recently said.
"According to the information at the SVR’s disposal, in light of the apparent lack of prospects for a strategic defeat for Russia on the battlefield, NATO has become increasingly inclined towards the need to freeze the conflict in Ukraine. The West sees the implementation of this scenario as an opportunity to rebuild the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces and thoroughly prepare Kiev for a potential retaliation. NATO is already setting up training centers in Ukraine, through which it plans to train at least one million mobilized Ukrainian soldiers," the SVR said in a statement.
NATO is actively working with Western military-industrial companies, such as Germany's Rheinmetall, demanding investments from them, as well as sending specialists and equipment to Ukraine, the SVR said. NATO is expected to focus on the restoration of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex during the truce, the statement added.
The SVR also mentioned that the West would deploy "peacekeeping forces" about 100,000 strong to restore Ukraine's combat capability. "To solve these tasks, the West will have to actually occupy Ukraine. Naturally, this will be done under the guise of deploying a 'peacekeeping contingent' in the country ... A total of 100,000 so-called peacekeepers are planned to be introduced into Ukraine," the statement said.
According to the SVR's data, the territories proposed to be divided among the occupying powers are defined as follows: the Black Sea coast will be given to the Romanian "peacekeepers," the western regions of Ukraine will be controlled by Poland, the central and eastern parts of the country will be ceded to Germany, and the northern regions, including the capital, will be given to the United Kingdom.
Western countries have ramped up their military and financial aid to Kiev since the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Russia has repeatedly said that arms supplies to Ukraine hinder the conflict settlement and directly involve NATO countries in the conflict.
Look for the boomerang effect if Trump goes after BRICS + nations.
Just his threats of heavy tariffs on competitors has already forced China to cut-back on corn and soybean imports from America. Going to really hit the producers across the Midwest. Alot more of this would happen if Trump declares a tariff war with the whole BRICS bloc.
It's all about sovereignty. The US thinks it can manipulate others as it has done for much of its history.
An 'inspiring speech' of Ukraine recruitment officer was filmed
and widely shared online. The incident reportedly took place in
Poltava, but in fact, the motivation methods are pretty much the same all
around Ukraine.
Threatening a young man, whose health prohibits military service, the
officer revealed interesting statistics. There are a lot of Ukrainian
men captured on the streets dying in the training centers before they
even get to the front. According to the Ukrainian officer, there are
about 30% of non-combat losses in the training centers.
Catholic mass is held every day followed by protest (that includes singing and dancing) at the navy base gate in Gangjeong village on Jeju Island, South Korea. (Base military housing can be seen nearby in both videos. The land, previous to the destruction of the local farms, used to grow tangerines.)
The valiant Gangjeong villagers and supporters have maintained this daily vigil for 17.5 years. As of November 29th it has been 6,407 consecutive days!
The U.S. forced construction of the naval base as part of Obama's 'pivot to the Asia-Pacific' in order to encircle China. More ports of call for warships were needed. More airfields for US-NATO aircraft. More barracks for Pentagon and allied troops.
The people have fought heroically to save their small 500 year old fishing and farming community that is still being torn asunder in order to continually expand the base.
And now the US Space Force is working with South Korean aerospace corporation Hanwha to build a satellite construction facility on Jeju. And just offshore there have already been satellite launches from oil rig-type platforms.
Because of Jeju's proximity to China the U.S. sees the island as an ideal 'military operations center'.
Navy Aegis destroyers (built in Bath, Maine) along with submarines and aircraft carriers from the US-NATO regularly port at the base in Gangjeong village. Each time they arrive they are met with protests.
Peace groups around the world could learn alot about stick-to-it-ive-ness from the folks on Jeju Island when it comes to sustaining a protest movement thru thick and thin.
They use prayer, song, dance, art, a community kitchen and much more to keep their activities alive.
I've had the great fortune to travel to Gangjeong village many times over the years. I have wonderful friends there and they continue to inspire me every day. My heart goes out to them always.
See this excellent film about the early resistance in Gangjeong village made by former Mainer Regis Tremblay (now living in Crimea) called the Ghosts of Jeju. The documentary film will be shown on December 4 at the Archangel Film Festival in northern Russia.
Maine artist Robert Shetterley has a unique portrait display now under way inside the Bates Mill in Lewiston, Maine. He is showing all of his portraits since he began painting them in 2003.
John Harwood is an American journalist who worked as White House Correspondent for CNN from February 2021 until September 2022. Harwood was formerly an editor-at-large for CNBC. He was the chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC and a contributor for The New York Times. Before joining the Times, he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.
I frankly don’t understand why Taiwan doesn’t cut all ties with the US.
Ukraine gave the most graphic and conspicuous lesson to the world as to what inevitably happens to countries that side with the US and accept gifts (Trojan horses) from Washington to “defend” themselves from the countries representing the multipolar world (Global South and BRICS).
Can the message that Ukraine destroyed itself economically and essentially lost its sovereignty and independence by accepting the US Trojan Horse be any plainer or clearer?
This is the price any country will pay for cultivating independence on Washington!
Is any other interpretation even possible?
The analogy between the possibility of Taiwan’s accepting US weapons and also, [now happening], boots on the ground and Ukraine’s accepting the same “gift” from Uncle Sam is spectacularly obvious. Yet it looks like there still are separatists in Taiwan who are eager to fall into the same trap that Kiev fell into. There’s one born every minute!
It is no secret that by accepting the US “gift” to fight Russia, Ukraine lost its sovereignty (because it became a vassal of the US), the majority of its population, especially its male population, its economy (it is almost totally dependent on the US-backed West for its income), its war, and the part of its people who still possess reason and common sense are the biggest losers, having become slaves or prisoners of the extremists (Neo-nazis), who right now are scouring the streets for males, any males, to forcibly press into the service in the front lines now very accurately called “meat grinders,” Where the survival rate is measured in days.
Thus, for Ukraine, accepting the “help” of Washington is, literally, suicide.
It is mind boggling that even one Taiwanese would even so much as flirt with the possibility of accepting US weapons to fight their brothers across the strait.
Now, only a day after the ceasefire a motley of Turkish-backed rebels, SNA, and Al-Qaeda’s rebrand of HTS has launched a shock offensive that caught resistance forces off guard, reaching all the way past the gates of Aleppo, threatening to scuttle the city itself. Many reports have indicated that northern crossings between Turkey had opened, allowing the free stream of assistance southward, showing once more the duplicitous game Erdogan plays.
The aim seems obvious: Israel had hoped to defeat Hezbollah and thus eliminate Iran’s influence. But having lost, Israel has gone to Plan B, which is to eliminate Iran’s ability to resupply Hezbollah via Syria. To do that, Assad must fall. Not one to waste an opportunity, Erdogan appears to have played along for his own gains. Israel’s hand-print on the attack was obvious this morning, by the way, when SAA was hit with a major “exploding beeper and radio” attack, wounding many SAA servicemen—a perfect replay of the same attack on Hamas earlier.
The Empire as a whole—which includes the US and UK—have of course activated all their terrorist sleeper cells to assist the offensive because it serves them to keep Iran and Russia busy, particularly vis-a-vis Ukraine. Reports already claimed that Russia was forced to send various reinforcement contingents to Syria, which obviously stands to weaken Russia’s Ukrainian efforts. This includes a new general.
It’s clear that the conflict is taking on a global proportion of inter-connectivity, a true ‘world war’, just not in the schizo-panic sense of nuclear Armageddon. But rather where the world has self-assembled and divided into clear ideological camps which are increasingly entrenching themselves amongst each other out of necessity, pushed deeper and deeper into outright military alliances as is the case with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China, or in the case of Ukraine’s deepening integration with NATO.
By the way, some purport that the Syrian “revolution” which
spawned the conflict in 2011 was infact hatched immediately following
the analogous 2006 Lebanese war and ‘ceasefire’, for the very same
reasons: Israel was shocked to realize that they could not defeat
Hezbollah on the ground, and that Hezbollah stood to only grow more
powerful in the future. As such, its conduits for support had to be
excised, and thus Syria needed to be wrested from the arms of Iran. Of
course, it’s never just one thing: Israel’s interests happened to dovetail with many others, including those of the Gulf Arabs, Turkey, the US and its GWOT proxy, etc.
Lastly, Ukraine’s calling cards were also visible, not only with the
Syrian terrorists’ trained usage of FPV drones in the attacks, but their
choice of wearing yellow and blue head and arm bands.
On Saturday I joined the Advent season vigil at Bath Iron Works in Maine. The vigils will be held every Saturday with the upcoming ones on December 7, 14, and 21. They begin at 11:30 am for an hour.
We stand with signs and banners in front of the General Dynamics administration building and then walk down to one of the gates where the workers pour out at noon. Flyers are offered to the workers and some take them. Many pick-up trucks and cars crawl past us so we usually have a captive audience.
In recent years we have seen the BIW work force become increasingly younger. They've not had the many years experience of seeing our regular BIW protests like the past group of workers had.
The Navy shipyard builds Aegis destroyers that these days are operating in the Red Sea in support of Israel's genocide in Palestine. The destroyers continually fire Tomahawk cruise missiles into Yemen in an attempt to degrade its missile launch capability. So far it appears the US has had minimal success. The US fires very expensive missiles while Yemen responds with quite cheap weapons.
The destroyers made at BIW are also now appearing in the Black Sea, Baltic Sea and the Barents Sea as they attempt to encircle and provoke Russia. In addition Washington is also sending these warships along China's vast coastline and frequently through the Taiwan Straits in provocative moves toward Beijing.
In the photo above note the listing of all US military service branches - which now include the Space Force. Just below the banner you can catch a glimpse of one Aegis destroyer being built. General Dynamics (which owns BIW) is working on 6-7 destroyers at the shipyard.
Supporters of imprisoned former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan announced a “temporary suspension”
of street protests in Pakistan’s capital on Wednesday after a midnight
raid by the country’s security forces, according to media reports.
The
protest was called by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, and
thousands of his supporters marched on Islamabad starting on Sunday to
demand his release.
Khan, 71, who is currently imprisoned on
corruption charges, was ousted in April 2022. He has since faced more
than 150 indictments, which his party has denounced as politically
motivated.
Khan, who is currently detained in the Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, was
initially charged under anti-terrorism laws, then on corruption
charges, then for improperly receiving gifts from foreign countries,
then for revealing state secrets, and finally for violating Islamic law
with his marriage.
The former prime minister had accused the
Pakistani military and the United States of plotting his ouster,
claiming that Washington had conspired to overthrow his government after
he visited Russia.
The PTI, which claims to have won the popular
vote in the February election but maintains that Prime Minister Shehbaz
Sharif and the military rigged the count to stay in power, reportedly
stated on Wednesday that it would soon announce its future course of
action.
The Pakistan junta is scared of what Trump may do.
After the Islamabad massacre where over 100 peaceful protesters were shot, they're washing the streets and stealing the bodies to conceal the numbers and evidence.
And love for the Pakistan army is replaced by hate.
Free Imran Khan, the overwhelmingly elected prime minister by the people of Pakistan!
