Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Put The US In The Time Out Chair

 


Put The US In The Time Out Chair

by C.A. Matthews 

When you work in a kindergarten, you see a lot of a particular kind of behavior. One kid—sometimes the biggest physically in the group but not always the most mature emotionally or mentally—will walk over to a fellow student and take a toy or object away from him without a moment’s thought. The big kid just yanks it out of the smaller kid’s hands and might even hit him over the head with it in the process. The teacher is then forced to step in to protect the injured child because obviously the big kid doesn’t understand that he’s acting like a douchebag and has broken all the rules of civilized society.

Placed into the “time out chair,” the big bully sits there and stews, spouting off all sorts of gripes about how the smaller kid didn’t “share” the toy with him when he asked nicely. Of course the teacher or a staff member never witnessed any manners whatsoever on the part of the bigger child. It’s all lies and the big kid knows it, but he sits in his time out chair and continues to whine and cry about how unfair everybody is to him simply because they won’t share their toys and don’t care to be beat up by him. Oh, boo-hoo-hoo!

Flash forward a few decades and you’ll see the “big kid” acting like a douchebag once again, taking things that don’t belong to him and screaming that it’s not fair that the “little kids” don’t like having their resources grabbed in a violent manner without permission. Here is an example of our current president doing just that on the behalf of the American people:

On Tuesday night US Central Command announced that it had "conducted precision airstrikes in Deir ez-Zor Syria" in order to "defend and protect U.S. forces from attacks like the ones on August 15 against U.S. personnel by Iran-backed groups."

"The President gave the direction for these strikes pursuant to his Article II authority to protect and defend U.S. personnel by disrupting or deterring attacks by Iran-backed groups," CENTCOM said.

Iran has denied any link to the troops targeted in the airstrikes, up to ten of whom were reportedly killed. (...)

"US claims to be in Syria to fight ISIS, but it rarely fights ISIS," journalist Aaron MatΓ© tweeted of the exchange. "It's actually there to deny Syria its own oil and wheat, and to occasionally attack Syrians and their allies who defeated US-backed sectarian death squads in the dirty war." -- US Invades Syria, Kills People,Claims Self-Defense

The US simply takes away resources from Syria like a bully grabbing a toy away from a smaller kid. Aren't you pleased that we have such a respectful and neighborly Commander-in-Chief? 


It's not like Americans haven't done it before. After bombing Afghanistan for twenty years and then withdrawing, the US decided to keep $7 billion worth of Afghans' money sitting in our banks. Yeah, the big bullies stole ordinary Afghans' money, and now millions of Afghan children are starving. But when did doing the right and moral thing ever stop a bully from grabbing a smaller kid's lunch box?

The biggest and most destructive sanction currently facing Afghanistan is the seizure of more than $7 billion of the country’s assets that are held at the US Federal Reserve. This is equivalent to about 40 percent of Afghanistan’s economy, and about 14 months of the country’s imports – which include food, medicine, and infrastructure needs that are vital to public health. --US Sanctions on Afghanistan Could Kill More Civilians than 20 Years of War

According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), nearly 23 million Afghans, or 55% of the population, are facing “extreme levels of hunger.” Of those, almost 9 million are at risk of famine.

UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch called it “a crisis of hunger and starvation.”

Yet there is little discussion inside Washington of the disastrous impact of US sanctions. --Millions in Afghanistan Are Starving Due to US Sanctions

Sometimes, bullies will gather together into a grouping of bullies to make it easier to gang up on a weaker kid or kids. Gangs of bullies are able to grab a ton of toys or "resources", as they’re known to most grown ups. A recent headline tells us that's exactly what a gang consisting of the US, NATO, and a few others are doing in Ukraine:

Representatives of Western governments and corporations met in Switzerland this July to plan a series of harsh neoliberal policies to impose on post-war Ukraine, calling to cut labor laws, “open markets,” drop tariffs, deregulate industries, and “sell state-owned enterprises to private investors.”

Ukraine has been destabilized by violence since 2014, when a US-sponsored coup d’etat overthrew its democratically elected government, setting off a civil war. That conflict dragged on until February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded the country, escalating into a new, even deadlier phase of the war.

The United States and European Union have sought to erase the history of foreign-sponsored civil war in Ukraine from 2014 to early 2022, acting as though the conflict began on February 24. But Washington had sent large sums of weapons to Ukraine and provided extensive military training and support over several years before Russia invaded.

Meanwhile, starting in 2017, representatives of Western governments and corporations quietly held annual conferences in which they discussed ways to profit from the civil war they were fueling in Ukraine.

In these meetings, Western political and business leaders outlined a series of aggressive right-wing reforms they hoped to impose on Ukraine, including widespread privatization of state-owned industries and deregulation of the economy.

On July 4 and 5, 2022, top officials from the US, EU, Britain, Japan, and South Korea met in Switzerland for a so-called “Ukraine Recovery Conference.” There, they planned Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and performatively announced aid commitments – while salivating over a bonanza of potential contracts.

--West Prepares to Plunder Post-War Ukraine with Neoliberal Shock Therapy: Privatization, Deregulation, Slashing Worker Protections

There’s no aggressive behavior under the sun that would surprise a kindergarten teacher, and there’s nothing new about how stronger nations treat weaker ones. The US and its Western allies want cheap liquid natural gas, and they don’t want to go crying to Russia or even Saudi Arabia to get it. So, they take it from Syria. The indiscriminate bombing and killing of innocent civilians along the way is just the price you pay for being the smaller kid in the global classroom.    

Western corporate interests—especially those of the military industrial complex, such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, etc.—wanted to make some money off of the disintegrating Soviet Union thirty-something years ago. It seemed like a piece of cake to these capitalists to walk in and take their resources since the Cold War was now officially over. The largest part of the former Soviet Union (now simply “Russia”) helped many of the weaker kids (former Soviet nations) in their classroom get back on their feet economically. This cooperative activity didn’t sit well with the West. The US of Big Bullies and friends started working on angles to grab the natural and man-made resources of the weaker nations of the now defunct USSR. 

The unrest in Ukraine in 2014 gave the West the opportunity they’d been looking for to make a grab for these resources. The CIA helped to instigate a coup against the elected government of Ukraine because the Ukrainian voters (heaven forbid!) elected a pro-Russia president who wanted to increase trade with their much larger neighbor. With Ukraine’s ports and a liquid natural gas (LNG) pipeline (the Russian-German Nord Stream 2), Russia and Ukraine together could make some serious cash by selling LNG to European countries to heat their homes and businesses.

The US of Big Bullies and its gang of NATO wasn’t going to suffer this indignity. How dare a weaker kid keep his toys and share them with another kid—a kid we don’t like (and are possibly even jealous of)! Grabbing Ukraine’s resources and causing the big brotherly country that helped them (Russia) to collapse at the same time became US priority number one. Six months and a lot of death and destruction later, the entire world can see what happens when a big bully like the US tries to get its way by grabbing resources from and then hitting a smaller kid who simply wanted to get along with his fellow classmates, or neighboring countries in this instance. 


I realize that I’m simplifying things, but, like most teachers have discovered, sometimes it’s the best way to get down to the root of an aggressive behavior so we can end the aggression once and for all. We can’t continue hiding this behavior of resource grabbing or else it will never stop. We can't keep denying it, lying about it in our mainstream media, or attempting to rename it. 

The US military intervention in other countries has got nothing to do with giving Syria or Afghanistan or Ukraine "freedom and democracy." It's the US acting like a big bully by bombing weaker nations into submission in order to make a lot of profits for the military industrial complex and other Western corporations. All moral people must expose this evil for what it is so we can deal with it like adults, not children. 

It's time we put the US and NATO in the time out chair.

I sent a few grabber-hitters to the time out chair when I worked in a kindergarten class. Usually by the end of the school year these bullies matured a little emotionally. They began to understand why hitting and stealing toys/objects from their classmates wasn’t a good idea. Their first grade teachers praised our patience and stick-to-it-ness. It (almost) made the stress of dealing with these miniature Napoleons worth it.

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t have a school year to wait and see what will happen if we don’t stop the US and the West’s aggressive behaviors. We’ve got warmongers in Congress who want to provoke a war with China next. What’s sane about a bully taunting and grabbing at resources from other countries who own nuclear weapons? Nothing. Nothing at all. 

The next time you read how a far away country like Syria is a “threat” to the US look at what kind of natural resources they have. Look at where it’s positioned on the globe. Perhaps it’s located next door or within a short bomber’s flight distance of another country we’re jealous of and want to push out of our “classroom” so we can grab all their “toys”.

And stop making excuses for the United States of Bullies—even if you're a member of their "gang." Because how will Americans ever  grow up and stop their aggressive ways if they’re not taught a lesson by sitting in the time out chair?


Related Articles

US Invades Syria, Kills People, Claims Self-Defense https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/us-invades-syria-kills-people-claims

US Carries Out Airstries in Syria's Deir Ez Zor Province https://popularresistance.org/us-carries-out-airstrikes-in-syrias-deir-ez-zor-province/ 

US Sanctions on Afghanistan Could Kill More Civilians Than 20 Years of War  https://multipolarista.com/2022/02/05/us-sanctions-afghanistan-death-war/

Millions in Afghanistan Are Starving Due to US Sanctions https://multipolarista.com/2022/01/23/afghanistan-starving-us-sanctions/

'We Will Die by Poverty before Dying of Covid’: Young Adults and Multi-Layered Crises in Afghanistan  https://areu.org.af/publication/2205e/

US Judge Says Billions in Seized Central Bank Funds Belong to Afghan People https://scheerpost.com/2022/08/30/us-judge-says-billions-in-seized-central-bank-funds-belong-to-afghan-people/ 

West Prepares to Plunder Post-War Ukraine... https://multipolarista.com/2022/07/28/west-neoliberal-recovery-conference/

Revealed: US & EU Plans to Plunder Ukraine (video) https://youtu.be/1WsB-vvMLZk

This is Why the EU Doesn't Want Russian Gas (video) https://youtu.be/vC9yRNYWb84

The Uncomfortable Truth About Zelensky, featuring Scott Ritter (video) https://youtu.be/qmpnVbbqqOE 

Free Speech Doesn't Matter If Propagandists Determine What People Say  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/free-speech-doesnt-matter-if-propagandists 


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Tuesday, August 23, 2022

The 50 Year Apology

 


The 50 Year Apology

by C.A. Matthews

It’s amazing how fast your mind can go back in time when you hear a name or see a face that you haven’t seen in almost 50 years. 

This week I’m taking the wise advice of Vegematic (subscribe to his YouTube channel and watch his latest here) and taking a break from the stress of the current headlines. I’m tripping down Memory Lane and writing about something that greatly interested me when I was younger, namely film-making and Hollywood.

I wanted to be a movie director/documentary maker when I was fresh out of high school. My dream never materialized, but I’ve followed some film creatives over the years. One face that I saw on television at the Academy Awards Show almost fifty years ago flashed in front of me this past week. 

It made me think of how “important” I thought the Hollywood elite were back then. Now I know better—they are simply puppets, repeating what the oligarchs want repeating so the struggling masses don’t rise up and overthrow the oligarchy. As puppets, what they say and do isn't all that important to me anymore, but I still find their actions and non-actions fascinating.

Zach Sharf of Variety sets the scene:

Sacheen Littlefeather dominated headlines this week after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issued a formal apology to her for the mistreatment she faced at the 1973 Oscars. Littlefeather, who was 26 years old at the ceremony, took to the stage on behalf of Marlon Brando, who was named best actor for “The Godfather,” and declined the award for him. Brando cited Hollywood’s problematic portrayal of “Native American Indian people in film and television” as his reason for rejecting the Oscar.

 (...)“[John Wayne] did not like what I was saying up at the podium,” Littlefeather said. “So, he came forth in a rage to physically assault and take me off the stage. And he had to be restrained by six security men in order for that not to happen.”

“It was interesting because some people were giving me the tomahawk chop. I thought, ‘This is very racist. Very racist indeed.’ And I just gracefully walked and ignored them,” Littlefeather continued.

 Samantha Ibrahim of The NY Post tells us what all the apology entails:

Littlefeather was sent a formal apology from the Academy earlier this summer regarding the incident and is set to be gifted a longer one during an event titled “An Evening With Sacheen Littlefeather” come September.

“The abuse you endured because of this statement was unwarranted and unjustified,” wrote former Academy President David Rubin in the note. “The emotional burden you have lived through and the cost to your own career in our industry are irreparable.

“For too long the courage you showed has been unacknowledged,” he continued. “For this, we offer both our deepest apologies and our sincere admiration.”

Here's a clip of what actually happened that night:

https://youtu.be/2QUacU0I4yU

Almost fifty years later, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences wants to make a formal apology to Sacheen Littlefeather. They want to say they’re sorry for allowing a bunch of racist assholes to taunt and boo her statement, a political statement she made on behalf of her friend Marlon Brando. They want to say they didn’t agree with John Wayne’s drunken threats, but they don’t want to come out and simply say that Hollywood's most beloved Western actor (and huge money-maker to this day) John Wayne was wrong, either.

But come on! Fifty freakin’ years? What was the big hold up admitting your sins, Hollywood elitists?

Sacheen Littlefeather’s budding career in film was destroyed that night. She was instantly blacklisted (or is that red-listed?) and never appeared in a movie or TV show again. Walking onto that television stage was a big sacrifice to make for a young actress with a promising career, but Sacheen did so because she believed in the nobility of the cause she represented. She admired Brando’s gumption for turning down his Best Actor "Oscar" for The Godfather on the first world-wide live television broadcast of the awards ceremony in order to share a most important message. Viewers around the world heard the name “Wounded Knee” for the first time and were motivated to find out more about the injustices that happened there.

Littlefeather’s life hadn’t been a bed of roses before the incident at the Academy Awards. She was sent at a very young age to live with her maternal grandparents. They forced her to attend an all-white Catholic school where she felt like she didn't fit in. But she started to reconnect with her Apache roots as she matured and became an activist in the 1960s.

Sacheen received a degree in holistic health and nutrition after she suffered from collapsed lungs, a consequence of her childhood  tuberculosis, at the age of 29. Using her healing knowledge, she joined with Mother Teresa to take care of AIDS sufferers in hospices. As a mentor, she has become an admirable role model for many young Native Americans.

No one will ever convince me that the Academy is just about the arts and sciences of motion pictures. Hollywood is just as political (perhaps even more so) as Washington, DC. Obscenely wealthy, powerful white males can never be seen as “weak” to the lower classes, so they couldn’t be seen making an apology to a Native American activist concerning their racist conduct in 1973...or 1983...or 1993… or 2003...or 2013...

That it took almost five decades, a documentary about Sacheen’s life, and the public acknowledgment that she is battling breast cancer, only proves how little their apology really means to them.

So why are they doing it now? There could be some genuine contrition on some of their parts. But I think it’s more likely because the internet has made it far easier for folks to see the horrors of racism up close and personal. 

White elites, like the oligarchs of Hollywood, know that they are making big business off of people of color worldwide and that market is growing. It’s better for their profit margins for them not to be confused with your garden variety, right-winger, white-robe-wearing yahoo type of racist. They want to clean up their image in order to make more money.

If there’s anything that neoliberals have learned over the last six years, it’s this: Make a big production out of looking like a humble servant of the people while you simultaneously screw over the public by spewing tons of propaganda to sell your sick and twisted version of reality. 

You know the reality I speak of all too well. It’s the neoliberal reality where $800+ billion goes to a proxy war (with nuclear war overtones) to fatten the military industrial complex billionaires. It's the reality where nothing much ever goes to feed, house, or provide medical care for struggling working class Americans. In neoliberal reality, there's no such thing as "discrimination" or "racism" because what neoliberals themselves don't experience cannot possibly be happening elsewhere in their country or anywhere on the planet.

You might have been taught from an early age to think that the “good guys” in the movies where the white cowboys like John Wayne and the “bad guys” were the red-skinned “savages” native to North America. Sacheen Littlefeather’s brave sacrifice in front of the cameras in 1973 proves that narrative wrong on oh-so-many levels. Her courage in real life is a billion times more heroic than any silly stunt openly racist John Wayne might have performed on the silver screen. 

May many more activists follow Sacheen Littlefeather's example both now and in the future.


Related Articles:

Sacheen Littlefeather: John Wayne ‘Came Forth’ to ‘Assault’ Me at the 1973 Oscars but Was ‘Restrained by Six Security Men’ https://variety.com/2022/film/news/sacheen-littlefeather-john-wayne-assault-oscars-1235345008/ 
 
Sacheen Littlefeather: Raging John Wayne tried to attack me at 1973 Oscars https://nypost.com/2022/08/19/sacheen-littlefeather-raging-john-wayne-tried-to-attack-me-at-1973-oscars/

‘I promised Brando I would not touch his Oscar’: the secret life of Sacheen Littlefeather  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/03/i-promised-brando-i-would-not-touch-his-oscar-secret-life-sacheen-littlefeather

Sacheen: Breaking The Silence (documentary)
https://www.onebowlproductions.com/sacheen
trailer: https://youtu.be/XggxxJpyrsw 
 
 
Wounded Knee '73: American Indian Movement (video)
 
Nuclear Waste Ravaged Their Land. The Yakama Nation is on a Quest to Rescue It. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/20/yakama-nation-nuclear-waste-cleanup
 
If Everyone is King, No One Is
 
Research Shows Critical Race Theory Could Be a Valuable Teaching Tool for Overcoming Racism
https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/research-shows-critical-race-theory

The Human Species is Acting Like a Self-Destructive Individual
https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue/the-human-species-is-acting-like-a-self-destructive-individual
 
The Chris Hedges Report: Psychology of a Klansman
 
Will You Survive Humanity's Deadly Trajectory? (The Vegematic Show) https://youtu.be/kFVxJlnIRgw
 

Toledo Pride Parade 

The LGBTQIA+ community, another discriminated group, is also due a "50 year apology" from the elite establishment. Some cities celebrate Pride Month in June, but Toledo does things a little differently--it's celebrated all summer long here. This past weekend was the annual Pride Parade, and the turnout was wonderful after the COVID hiatus. Happy Pride everyone!

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Tuesday, August 16, 2022

The Rule of Tyrannies


The world will never know peace as long as war is profitable. The world will never know health as long as sickness is profitable. The ecosystem will never thrive as long as ecocide is profitable. We will remain ruled by tyrants for as long as our systems elevate tyranny. --Caitlin Johnstone,  All Our Systems Are Built To Elevate Viciousness

The Rule of Tyrannies
by C.A. Matthews

There is no water left on Earth that hasn't been tainted with micro-plastic particles.
 
There are mass die-offs of trees, plants, and animals due to rising temperatures and the subsequent droughts and fires that ensue.
 
The sea levels are rising because of melting ice sheets at the poles, causing flooding and drowning entire island chains.
 
There are many who shout racist-elitist taunts at the migrants fleeing from natural disasters and violent conflicts caused by our rapidly warming planet and our economic system's insatiable need to overthrow any leaders who don't do business on our country's terms.

There is another pandemic on the horizon with the emergence of the monkeypox virus in the US. With no universal health care, possibly another million plus Americans will suffer and die from a preventable illness. (The current rate is 400+ COVID-19 deaths per day and an untold number of people suffering permanent disability from Long COVID.)
 
There are politicians spouting nonsense about "winnable nuclear war" as if radiation faded away mere hours after dropping a nuke bomb. These same politicians continue to militarize the police, an unspoken threat against the working classes to stay in their designated place. The politicians' military industrial complex donors are happy with this outcome.
 
There are those who still think nuclear power is "clean energy" even after the disasters of Chernobyl, Fukushima, and others. They are doing their best to prevent cleaner sources of energy such as solar, wind and geothermal from ever becoming a part of our power grid, as a recent bill  passed in Congress and praised by the fossil fuel industry demonstrates.

What is the key element winding its way through all these seemingly unrelated abuses of our planet, its peoples, and all its creatures? If you said "money" or more accurately "the love of money" then you win today's prize. The prize is that you get to die knowing how these man-made insults to Mother Earth were entirely preventable.


 (Watch the documentary 2040 to learn how current technology can address all the above challenges. They're not unsolvable problems. We are capable of affecting positive changes to save the planet, but we have to be willing to do so and we need to start today.)
 
The love of money, or profits, if you will, is selling humankind's destiny down the river of greed in order to make a few more billionaires even richer. Why any person needs incalculable wealth to survive when the rest of us get by on mere pittances is a mystery to me. I don't know about you, but this obsession billionaires have with accruing more and more digits in their bank account ledgers just makes me angrier and angrier.
 
Time is running out for our dear Mother Earth. We've seen the effects of climate catastrophe speeding up this summer in heatwave after sweltering heatwave. Some say we've gone beyond the point of no return. And all because these billionaire tyrants can't make enough money to satisfy their lusts. They are obsessed with "growing the economy" while gouging workers for basic necessities like food, medicine, and shelter. These greedy tyrants can't get enough until they destroy all the beautiful diversity of life on this planet.
 
Will somebody--anybody--make it stop? Please.


If our dying world and our empty bellies can't motivate us lowly workers to stand up for ourselves and the planet, then what will? We've been terrorized by tyrants using a sadistic economic system called capitalism for far too long. To save Earth and humanity, capitalism must die. It must die and be replaced with a kinder, gentler system that treats everyone and every living thing with the respect and dignity he/she/they/it deserves.
 
Will taking the reins away from the tyrants now in control be easy? No. Will it possibly cost us some of our lives in the struggle? Yes. But we have no choice--our planet is being destroyed by sadistic psychopaths. Psychopaths who can't see the forest for the trees since they've chopped all the trees down to print more useless currency!
 
It would be wonderful if the tyrants of the 1% came down off their thrones and gave the 99% the keys to the kingdom, but don't count on it. If they've convinced their politician-puppets to spout nonsense about the benefits of nuclear warfare, and how justice can be found in increasing policing and military agencies to take up arms against us, then we must be prepared to deal swiftly and strongly with shutting these monsters down.
 
We can't wait, hoping and praying these tyrannical psychopaths will come to their senses and learn to be empathetic. Odds are they never will. We can't risk what is left of our Earth still able to harbor life.

It's life or death for our world. I vote for the death of the tyrants and their capitalist system so that the vast majority of us may live. Live in peace and harmony together with nature--not constantly fighting against Our Mother Earth in order to acquire huge sums of meaningless money.
 
We've only got one planet. Let's do what needs to be done. Let's take good care of her so she will continue to take care of our children and grandchildren in the future. Don't allow the tyrants--bent on destruction to slake their thirst for blood money--stand in our way.

Things you can make money out of:

  • War

  • Ecocide

  • Sickness

  • Finite commodities

Things you can't make money out of:

  • Peace

  • A thriving biosphere

  • Health

  • Energy sources you can't control

While we use money to value things, we will never be free. --Caitlin Johnstone, China Threatens the US Empire, Not the US Itself


Related Articles:

Solving Plastic Crisis Through Community Empowerment https://popularresistance.org/solving-the-plastic-crisis-through-community-empowerment/ 

US Houses Passes Pro-Corporate Climate Bill
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/13/zxah-a13.html

Trailer for the documentary 2040: https://vimeo.com/429859999

Monkeypox is Yet Another Health Crisis Fueled by Governmental Neglect https://truthout.org/articles/monkeypox-is-yet-another-global-health-crisis-fueled-by-governmental-neglect/

Land of the Dying: Alarming Study Shows US Killing Its Own Population
https://scheerpost.com/2022/08/09/america-land-of-the-dying-alarming-study-shows-us-killing-its-own-population/

Capitalism is Making Us Sick and Sucking Us Dry
https://truthout.org/audio/capitalism-is-making-us-sick-and-sucking-us-dry/

The U.N. Just Declared a Universal Human Right to a Healthy Sustainable Environment https://popularresistance.org/the-un-just-declared-a-universal-human-right-to-a-healthy-sustainable-environment/

High Profile Paper on Catastrophic Climate Impact...
https://popularresistance.org/high-profile-paper-on-catastrophic-climate-impacts-echoes-our-what-lies-beneath-analysis-on-fat-tail-existential-risks-and-ipcc-reticence-published-four-years-ago/

Climate Reality Is Hitting Us Like a Breakaway Glacier https://truthout.org/articles/climate-reality-is-hitting-us-like-a-breakaway-glacier/

Big Oil and Gas Reap Record Profits as the World Burns https://scheerpost.com/2022/08/02/big-oil-and-gas-reap-record-profits-as-the-world-burns/

Why Is There More Media Talk About Using Nuclear Weapons Than About Banning Them https://scheerpost.com/2022/08/09/why-is-there-more-media-talk-about-using-nuclear-weapons-than-about-banning-them/  

Modern US Warmongerng Is Scaring Henry Kissinger https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/modern-us-warmongering-is-scaring 

Why Can't They Say It? (video--Lee says "it" at approx. 17 min.) https://rumble.com/v1g38yp-why-cant-they-say-it-with-lee-camp.html

All Our Systems Are Built To Elevate Viciousness https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/all-our-systems-are-built-to-elevate

China Threatens the US Empire, Not The US Itself https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/china-threatens-the-us-empire-not

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Tuesday, August 9, 2022

Whee! Let's Start World War 3!

“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.” -- US Army General Omar Bradley, Armistice Day 1948

 

Whee! Let's Start World War 3!  

By Coast Watcher  

Capitalism loves war! And it loves it with a passion Romeo and Juliet could only have dreamed of. 

The profits that roll in from the vast military industrial complex’s sales to nations around the world alone are far greater than the GNP of most countries. Of course, in order to sell armaments there needs to be an actual war—or at least the threat of one. Armed tension is a great incentive for weapon sales. That way all those potent weapons systems can be bought and deployed immediately or at least stored until they could be used or sold on to others by their use-by date. 

But not all weapons ever reach their intended user. According to a recent CBS News report up to 30% of the weaponry sent to Ukraine doesn’t make it to the front lines. [Editor's note: The CBS News link about black market arms sales in Ukraine was taken down because of the Ukrainian government's pressure, but you can now watch it here: https://www.bitchute.com/embed/g5OgTXkzzLy9/] Instead they find their way onto the lucrative black market, where they'll end up in the hands of terrorist organizations. (Generally this means people who’ve had enough from the US government and could use these weapons to make their point.) 

It’s not only the MIC that profits from war or a perpetual state of armed tension. Big Oil in the shape of Standard Oil sold its product to both Axis and Allies during World War I. The vehicle industry makes out like bandits, too. GM and Ford continued to operate quite openly in Germany during the Nazi regime of World War II. 

US corporations are rather practical-minded when it comes down to things such as working with Nazis. They figure making a buck means a buck made--whether or not it comes from your side or the other in a conflict. 

Computer-related hardware sales are another major factor when it comes to starting a war, but sometimes the banging of war drums fails to achieve the desired effect. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent controversial visit to Taiwan caused China to end trade in microprocessor chips of the kind that fit in the American Javelin missile system, the very weapon currently being sold by the US to Ukraine. Production of the weapon is now suspended until another supplier can be found.

Oops.

Pelosi’s visit is a classic example of an insider stock-trader capitalist seeking to profit from war or near-war conditions. (For even more eye-opening insight into how deeply America's and China's economies are intertwined, check out this NPR story.) The Pelosi family’s investment in Taiwanese industry is a matter of record. Whether it’ll ever yield them profits is debatable since her provocative visit to the island has goaded China into action.

The Chinese government warned Biden that the Speaker’s visit would “cross a red line.” Biden retorted that he didn’t recognize red lines—something he also said prior to Russia’s similar warning  about Ukraine's bombing of the Donbass region. Their intervention to defend ethnic Russians is nearing the point where over a quarter of the country is now under control of the Russian Army.

It’s quite reasonable to assume it won’t be long before negotiations are begun in earnest to end the Ukrainian war. What’s left of Ukraine will remain a poor relation in Europe, saddled with immense debt to the United States for generations. There are even rumors that parts of the country will be given to Poland as a reward for supporting the NATO forces in this entirely preventable conflict.  

All this needless death and mayhem was set in motion by the US/NATO forgetting the Minsk Accords in order to shut down the Russian/German built Nord Stream 2 liquid natural gas pipeline so that Europe would be forced to purchase their energy supplies from the US. It's not like that this foolhardy military escapade has affected the price of gasoline and foodstuffs for average Americans though, right?

Pelosi's visit to Taiwan heralds the US military industrial complex's next money-generating event. Biden's recent remarks and Pelosi's trip have provoked the Chinese Navy to conduct exercises geared toward a possible intervention in their breakaway province. Naval exercises are to take place in both the island’s “national waters” (which aren’t officially recognized by any maritime nation) and in the Taiwanese Straits.  

Biden has warned China that the latter move is violating a previous understanding about the Straits. This is a clear indication that the US is contemplating military action to protect Taiwan from invasion from the mainland. It’s practically a given that conventional military exchanges between the US and China could escalate to a full-on nuclear war, one that could annihilate the entire planet.

Could it be the capitalists' answer to global warming is a nuclear winter? 

The super-rich somehow believe they’ll be safe, tucked away in their luxury bunkers in the south of New Zealand. But who will wash their dishes and grow their food if the rest of the world's population succumbs to radiation poisoning?

Has capitalism gone too far in its greed for new opportunities for weapon sales? Indications are that it has. Are the US and the West in general ready and prepared to wage an all out nuclear war, the final military conflict on Earth?  

US plans to cope with a nuclear holocaust have been in place for decades. New York recently ran a series of public service announcements on TV showing what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. From the procedures outlined in the ads it amounts to little more than the old “duck and cover” ideas of the 1950s and are about as effective (read: not very). Experts agree that the best response to an attack with modern nuclear weapons is to put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.

Most people dwell in a blissful mental state of denial, a place where the prospect of all out nuclear war is but a remote possibility. To these deluded folks today will be the same as yesterday. Tomorrow, of course, will be the same as today. There’s food to buy, a roof to keep over your head, work to think about... Existence as we know it and all life on Earth can’t possibly come to an end because of the simple and malevolent greed of the military industrial complex. 

Can it?

For more background info, read:

Nancy Pelosi, Stay Out of Taiwan!
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/02/pers-a02.html

A Brief History of Taiwan  https://www.thoughtco.com/brief-history-of-taiwan-688021


BIO: Coast Watcher is beginning to wonder if everyone isn't a little bit suicidal. Or maybe, just maybe, average people have been fooled into thinking that their MIC corporate-owned political leaders actually care about their safety and nuclear holocaust is necessary? Either way, we've got to wake up and toss these 1% warmongers out and fight like hell to build a safer and healthier world.

From The War Does Not Want A Global NATO: 

In 1955, 10 years after the U.S. dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima (Japan), the Turkish poet NΓ’zim Hikmet wrote a poem in the voice of a 7-year-old girl who died in that terrible act. The poem was later translated into Japanese by Nobuyuki Nakamoto as “Shinda Onnanoko” (“Dead Girl”) and frequently sung in commemorations of that atrocity. Given the harshness of war and the escalation of conflict, it is worthwhile to reflect once more on Hikmet’s beautiful, haunting lyrics:

I come and stand at every door
But no one hears my silent tread.
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead.

I’m only seven, although I died
In Hiroshima long ago.
I’m seven now as I was then.
When children die, they do not grow.

My hair was scorched by swirling flame.
My eyes grew dim; my eyes grew blind.
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind.

I need no fruit, I need no rice.
I need no sweets, nor even bread.
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead, for I am dead.

All that I ask is that for peace
You fight today, you fight today
So that the children of the world
May live and grow and laugh and play.

Related Articles:

Where We Stand on August 6 and 9, 2022 https://popularresistance.org/where-we-stand-on-august-6-and9-2022/

The World Does Not Want A Global NATO https://scheerpost.com/2022/08/01/the-world-does-not-want-a-global-nato/ 

NATO-Backed Network of Syria Dirty War Propagandists Identified https://mate.substack.com/p/nato-backed-network-of-syria-dirty

US empire preparing to discard Zelensky regime, pivoting to Taiwan to make up for its losses  https://popularresistance.org/amnesty-international-report-exposes-ukraines-violations-of-international-law-deliberate-use-of-civilians-as-human-shields/

War With Iran (podcast/article)  https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/listen-to-this-article-war-with-iran#details  

"Russian Propaganda" Just Means Disobedience https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/russian-propaganda-just-means-disobedience  

Westerners Think They Are Free-Thinking Individualists And It's Effing Adorable  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/westerners-think-they-are-free-thinking

The US made a breakthrough battery discovery — then gave the technology to China  https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1114964240/new-battery-technology-china-vanadium 

Soldiers Speak Out Against America's Misguided Wars https://popularresistance.org/the-chris-hedges-report-soldiers-speak-out-against-americas-misguided-wars/

Big Chip In US China Crisis
https://popularresistance.org/big-chip-in-us-china-crisis/

Scott Ritter & Richard Medhurst: Will Taiwan Be the Next Ukraine? (video) https://youtu.be/J4rhvCv5_hc

This Is How It Ends (Pelosi's Destroying Ongoing Chinese/American Negotiations Over Climate Change) https://rumble.com/v1f7zg3-this-is-how-it-ends.html

Government Secrets Podcast: How GM & Ford Helped The Nazis
https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/governmentsecrets/id/23833361

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