Gracious Hosts,
Can Nationalist-Team-Trump offer the global-financial-elites a better business deal than the DNC Wall-Street-globalists can? Maybe... Everything hinges on bleeding the productive economy for their profit, but there are different ways to go about that. These excerpts from a Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff interview may cast some light...
Michael Hudson interview: The Myth That the US is Rapidly Approaching Bankruptcy
Michael Hudson: Well, when Republicans and now the Democrats, ever since Obama, sought to frighten voters into supporting an attack on Social Security by trying to privatize it with the right-wing congressional commission he sponsored, there’s been a lot of deceptive rhetoric about the federal debt and how the budget deficit forces us to make hard choices, hard for the people, the 90% of the population who are going to have their social spending, Social Security, and other basic government programs squeezed out by what the both Democrats and Republicans want to cut back.The real problem leading to bankruptcy today is private debt. There’s no problem at all with government debt going bankrupt. Governments don’t go bankrupt. They can always print the money...
..Well, I want to put this debt issue in perspective. And in order to do that, I think it’s necessary to think in terms of balance sheets. In one way or another, it’s a question of who, whom. To whom does the U.S. government owe its debts?...
And I’ll explain later, the government has no intention or likelihood of having to pay a large part of its foreign debt.
So the second point that’s important to start with is to recognize that one party’s debt is another party’s assets. The government debt is a preferred asset of most of the economy.
So let’s look at who holds the government debt as an asset. Well, with all of today’s gloom and doom talk, it may surprise people to say that the U.S. debt is perhaps the most desirable financial asset on the planet. That’s why so much of it is owned by the wealthiest layer of the U.S. population...
..And these Treasury securities that foreign governments hold are to finance the U.S. budget deficit that is a result largely of U.S. military spending to create the 800 military bases we have around the world to surround countries and sort of force them not to abandon the dollar standard, but they’re financing their own encirclement and their own basic U.S. military buildup against them.
And that makes the U.S. foreign debt to foreign central banks a free lunch. The U.S. can just spend it as much as it wants. The dollars that it spends end up in the foreign central banks of Europe and also of China.
And foreign central banks don’t have an alternative unless they’re to use these dollar inflows and buy gold or something else. And of course, if they do that, the United States declares them an enemy for trying to de-dollarize and essentially declares a financial war on them.
Well, this free lunch is something that nobody expects to be repaid. The U.S. is not able to create enough of a balance of payment surplus to pay Germany and France and China and Russia and Japan, all of the securities that it owes them...
..When the oil war happened in 1974 and the OPEC countries quadrupled their price, the price of oil, they were told, you can charge whatever you want for your oil, but you have to keep all of your savings, all the receipts you get from this oil, you have to keep that in US currency. We’re not going to let you buy US companies, but you can buy stocks and bonds, but basically you have to put it in US banks to buy treasury bills. You can’t really spend it for anything at all. You’re stuck with it. And if you don’t do that, we will treat that as an act of war...
..If the government wants to spend money into the economy, it asks the Federal Reserve to buy US Treasury securities. So the Federal Reserve owns these securities and the banking system owns US securities as backing and reserves for its own deposits and loans. That’s how banks work, holding reserves. So this part of the US debt also isn’t supposed to be paid. And there’s no way that the US is going to go bankrupt. If the US had no debt at all, there’d be no government debt to hold as bank reserves. There’d be no reason for the Federal Reserve to exist. You can see the problem.
So just like the paper money in your pockets, this other Federal Reserve holding, foreign bank holding of government debt are not expected to be repaid. And I think this kind of financial maneuvering shows that the United States doesn’t really have to borrow. It can really, in effect, print the money. But when it prints the money, this money it prints, just like issuing paper money, the money it prints is counted as a debt to the Federal Reserve. So it’s all a wash transaction, sort of the illusion of a debt that somehow is in trouble...
..Chinese officials have told me that they don’t expect the US dollar really to go down. They’re reducing their holdings of dollars in favor of gold and other foreign currencies, but they still hold enormous amounts of dollars because they expect them essentially to remain a strong currency. So just like the paper money in your pockets, this other Federal Reserve holding, foreign bank holding of government debt are not expected to be repaid. And I think this kind of financial maneuvering shows that the United States doesn’t really have to borrow. It can really, in effect, print the money. But when it prints the money, this money it prints, just like issuing paper money, the money it prints is counted as a debt to the Federal Reserve. So it’s all a wash transaction, sort of the illusion of a debt that somehow is in trouble...
So basically, the enormous increase in wealth that the wealthiest 10% of Americans have made since the Obama bank bailout in 2008, this stemmed from the fact that the US debt has been thrown under the finance and created the largest bond market boom in history.
This bond market boom has only benefited the wealthiest financial classes. So here’s wage level and income for the bottom 90%, flat. For the top 10%, it’s gone up and up...
Richard Wolff (Germany): I think maybe I can help in this regard because there really isn’t a contradiction between the notion of the financial markets that the dollar is the safest place or the safest form in which to hold your wealth, the dollar obligations of the United States government given the way the world is working...
..Here’s the unspoken assumption of the private world, which we’ll see is reasonable. The assumption is that the United States government, despite the level of debt it’s involved in and despite its shrinking global footprint, has an internal political capability of making sure that the people who hold that debt will not be in any way damaged by how this problem gets solved.
In other words, what they’re doing is they’re saying you can afford to keep your wealth here, which we need you to do, and here’s what we’ll do in exchange. We’ll make sure that the angry people who are going to have to pay the freight of all of this will not be able to disrupt it...
In other words, what they’re doing is they’re saying you can afford to keep your wealth here, which we need you to do, and here’s what we’ll do in exchange. We’ll make sure that the angry people who are going to have to pay the freight of all of this will not be able to disrupt it...
..So the American people say, okay, don’t pay the interest on the debt. There it is. Then you have 800 billion bucks right now, and that’s way more than you need to give us free education, free health care, and all the rest we’ve just asked for. Do that. We elected you. Do that. And if you don’t do that, we will unelect you and replace you with people who will.
Oh my gosh, say all the people in the world who own the debt.
That’s a very important point that Michael made. For every debt, there’s somebody holding that debt for whom it is an asset, and they want to protect their assets. They don’t want there to be a risk that the United States government will stop paying interest on the debt.
So the American government’s pledge to them, unspoken but very real, don’t worry, we will cut back on everything to the American people to preserve your interest in getting paid off for that debt that you own and that you invested in. You European rich people, you potentates around the world ripping off your own populations and investing it in dollars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll protect you who don’t elect us but who fund us. And we will screw the American people because you elect us but you don’t fund us...
'We're living a Lie': Astronaut reveals shock realization after viewing Earth from Space
Oh my gosh, say all the people in the world who own the debt.
That’s a very important point that Michael made. For every debt, there’s somebody holding that debt for whom it is an asset, and they want to protect their assets. They don’t want there to be a risk that the United States government will stop paying interest on the debt.
So the American government’s pledge to them, unspoken but very real, don’t worry, we will cut back on everything to the American people to preserve your interest in getting paid off for that debt that you own and that you invested in. You European rich people, you potentates around the world ripping off your own populations and investing it in dollars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll protect you who don’t elect us but who fund us. And we will screw the American people because you elect us but you don’t fund us...
Michael Hudson: This is the big squeeze that has been planned now for 20 years, the plan to take social spending out of the hands of government and to privatize it. Well, what are they going to do?
They’re not going to simply say, we won’t pay Social Security, because that’s a contractual obligation that the government has settled up. But what they say is, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take the Social Security Fund and we’re going to create a government grant to, let’s say, BlackRock and other money management companies to manage the Social Security in the form of a huge privatized mutual fund, just like the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Malaysia was handled by Wall Street and criminally just ripped off by the financial managers.
That’s what financial managers do. That’s what Goldman Sachs was criminally prosecuted for, for the billions of dollars that it embezzled from the money that it was supposed to be handling as a fiduciary from the Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund.
They want to do that with all of the Social Security Fund and they want to take this money, the government funding for Social Security that you’re paying every month, and all that’s going to be paid into this mutual fund that’s going to buy U.S. stocks and bonds.
And the financial sector says, if we can do that, this will create a huge stock market bubble. Boom. Because look, all this money, instead of being paid into the government to finance its war spending and the other spending that governments do, now it’ll be spent on the stock market.
And thank heavens, the stock market is so over debt leveraged now. It’s so almost insolvent that we’ve saved the stock market Ponzi scheme from the brink of insolvency. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/the-myth-that-the-us-is-rapidly-approaching-bankruptcy.html
They’re not going to simply say, we won’t pay Social Security, because that’s a contractual obligation that the government has settled up. But what they say is, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take the Social Security Fund and we’re going to create a government grant to, let’s say, BlackRock and other money management companies to manage the Social Security in the form of a huge privatized mutual fund, just like the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Malaysia was handled by Wall Street and criminally just ripped off by the financial managers.
That’s what financial managers do. That’s what Goldman Sachs was criminally prosecuted for, for the billions of dollars that it embezzled from the money that it was supposed to be handling as a fiduciary from the Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund.
They want to do that with all of the Social Security Fund and they want to take this money, the government funding for Social Security that you’re paying every month, and all that’s going to be paid into this mutual fund that’s going to buy U.S. stocks and bonds.
And the financial sector says, if we can do that, this will create a huge stock market bubble. Boom. Because look, all this money, instead of being paid into the government to finance its war spending and the other spending that governments do, now it’ll be spent on the stock market.
And thank heavens, the stock market is so over debt leveraged now. It’s so almost insolvent that we’ve saved the stock market Ponzi scheme from the brink of insolvency. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/the-myth-that-the-us-is-rapidly-approaching-bankruptcy.html
Former NASA astronaut Ron Garan returned to Earth after spending 178 days in space with a profoundly changed worldview.
Garan now believes many of the planet's issues could be addressed if more people experienced what scientists call the "overview effect."
Garan, who traveled more than 71 million miles in a total of 2,842 orbits, realized that Earth is more fragile than he initially thought.
“When I looked out of the window of the International Space Station, I saw the paparazzi-like flashes of lightning storms, I saw dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them and I saw the unbelievable thinness of our planet's atmosphere. In that moment I was hit by the sobering realization.”
Ronald came to the understanding that every living thing on Earth was being kept alive by a very thin layer and people don’t realize just how connected we all are.
“I saw an iridescent biosphere teaming with life, I didn't see an economy, but since our human-made systems treat everything including the very life-support systems of our planet as the [...] subsidiary of the global economy, it's obvious from the vanish point of space that we're living a lie,” he added.
Ronald has urged people to shift their thinking for the overall benefit of humanity and move from thinking “economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy”... ..William Shatner, best known for his role as James T. Kirk in the Star Trek series, noted after his visit to space, "It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered." He described the contrast between the "vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below" as overwhelming and filled with sadness.
"Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna… things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind," Shatner lamented. https://en.interaffairs.ru/article/we-re-living-a-lie-astronaut-reveals-shock-realization-after-viewing-earth-from-space/
Garan now believes many of the planet's issues could be addressed if more people experienced what scientists call the "overview effect."
Garan, who traveled more than 71 million miles in a total of 2,842 orbits, realized that Earth is more fragile than he initially thought.
“When I looked out of the window of the International Space Station, I saw the paparazzi-like flashes of lightning storms, I saw dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them and I saw the unbelievable thinness of our planet's atmosphere. In that moment I was hit by the sobering realization.”
Ronald came to the understanding that every living thing on Earth was being kept alive by a very thin layer and people don’t realize just how connected we all are.
“I saw an iridescent biosphere teaming with life, I didn't see an economy, but since our human-made systems treat everything including the very life-support systems of our planet as the [...] subsidiary of the global economy, it's obvious from the vanish point of space that we're living a lie,” he added.
Ronald has urged people to shift their thinking for the overall benefit of humanity and move from thinking “economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy”... ..William Shatner, best known for his role as James T. Kirk in the Star Trek series, noted after his visit to space, "It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered." He described the contrast between the "vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below" as overwhelming and filled with sadness.
"Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna… things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind," Shatner lamented. https://en.interaffairs.ru/article/we-re-living-a-lie-astronaut-reveals-shock-realization-after-viewing-earth-from-space/
Dr. Zarni, a world-renowned genocide scholar, said he is not comfortable in creating a hierarchy of evil (and crimes) but he is prepared to say that Israel is “resorting to Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel)-like policies of collective punishment with the intent to bring about the physical destruction of the population of Gaza.”...
..Dr. Zarni said the Israeli regime’s kill rate of children and infants in the besieged territory is “far worse” than the number of children slaughtered at the Mauthausen Concentration camp in Hitler's native upper Austria.
“The SS slaughtered 23,000 children at Mauthausen in roughly 7 years ( between the autumn of 1939 and Spring of 1945) whereas Israel has brought about the direct murder or death of 17,000 Gazan children and infants in mere 11 months,” the scholar and activist told the Press TV website.
While the world is still debating whether the Israeli regime is committing genocide and war crimes in Gaza, Dr. Zarni said the “moral majority” of the world – as evidenced by the protests around the world, in both Global North and Global South – “are not debating about Israel's crimes in Gaza.”
“It is Western politicians, Western states, ideological institutions such as the media, universities, and thinktanks - themselves built via settler colonialist genocides and colonial loot, theft and pre-colonial slavery and slave trade - that are splitting legal hair and propagating this lie of "Israel has the right to defend itself,” he emphasized.
He said that based on his studies and research of the Cambodian genocide, the Nazi genocide or the Burmese genocide of Rohingya, the Israeli genocide in Palestine has produced what he calls "the ecosystem of genocidal methodologies."
“I will say that Israel's Zionist project of establishing, maintaining and expanding the Jewish majority (or supremacy) state has produced what I call "the ecosystem of genocidal methodologies" with a singular mission of destroying, at varying speeds, the native population of Palestine,” he noted. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/09/09/732974/israel-genocide-gaza-produced-ecosystem-genocidal-methodologies-scholar
“The SS slaughtered 23,000 children at Mauthausen in roughly 7 years ( between the autumn of 1939 and Spring of 1945) whereas Israel has brought about the direct murder or death of 17,000 Gazan children and infants in mere 11 months,” the scholar and activist told the Press TV website.
While the world is still debating whether the Israeli regime is committing genocide and war crimes in Gaza, Dr. Zarni said the “moral majority” of the world – as evidenced by the protests around the world, in both Global North and Global South – “are not debating about Israel's crimes in Gaza.”
“It is Western politicians, Western states, ideological institutions such as the media, universities, and thinktanks - themselves built via settler colonialist genocides and colonial loot, theft and pre-colonial slavery and slave trade - that are splitting legal hair and propagating this lie of "Israel has the right to defend itself,” he emphasized.
He said that based on his studies and research of the Cambodian genocide, the Nazi genocide or the Burmese genocide of Rohingya, the Israeli genocide in Palestine has produced what he calls "the ecosystem of genocidal methodologies."
“I will say that Israel's Zionist project of establishing, maintaining and expanding the Jewish majority (or supremacy) state has produced what I call "the ecosystem of genocidal methodologies" with a singular mission of destroying, at varying speeds, the native population of Palestine,” he noted. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/09/09/732974/israel-genocide-gaza-produced-ecosystem-genocidal-methodologies-scholar
The daily Israeli murder campaign in Gaza continues unabated.
Netranyahoo is blocking (vid) any proposal for a ceasefire by adding new conditions to the already agreed upon details. His latest quest is to get permanent military control of the so called Philadelphia Corridor which designates the borderline between Egypt and Gaza.
There are two international agreements, brokered by the U.S. and agreed upon by Egypt and Israel, which prohibited anything more than a temporary light force in the corridor:
The US had assured Egypt that Israel's actions along the border would comply with both the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 2005 Memorandum of Understanding. These agreements place clear limitations on Israel’s military presence near Egypt's borders, allowing only small Israeli units for security purposes, and were designed to ensure stability and avoid prolonged occupation in sensitive areas.
Netanyahoo does not care at all what the White House might have promised to Egypt...
..Former war cabinet member Benny Gantz on Sunday said Israel should shift its focus toward Hezbollah and the Lebanese border, warning that “we are late on this,” ...
“The time for [action in] the north has come,” said Gantz on Sunday during the Middle East America Dialogue (MEAD) summit in Washington, DC, adding, “Actually, I think we are late on this.”
Netanyahoo agrees:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged his government on Sunday to prepare for “changing the situation” on the northern front with Lebanon given the ongoing clashes and mounting tensions.
Speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting, he said the situation in the north cannot go on, calling on the army and all security agencies to prepare for change on the front.
The government is committed to returning all residents of the north safely to their homes, he added, while describing Hezbollah in Lebanon as Iran’s “strongest” arm.
Meanwhile, Israeli security sources told local media that the battle with Lebanon is “imminent”, but the timing for it hasn’t been set yet...
..The intentional targeting of medical personnel is a tactic that Israel is also using in Gaza. Hizbullah and its friends do not believe that any new Israeli action is yet imminent: The latest flurry of Israeli threats regarding an imminent military operation in Lebanon are only aimed at “intimidation,” diplomatic sources said.
“They are also aimed at blocking the latest Iranian-American rapprochement, whose first signs have appeared in the agreement reached in Iraq, which would not have happened without an Iranian green light,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Monday.
Iraq and the United States have agreed on a phased pullout of the U.S.-led anti-jihadist coalition but have yet to sign a final agreement, the Iraqi defense minister said Sunday. https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/09/zionists-who-call-for-more-war-may-well-get-it-.html#more
“The time for [action in] the north has come,” said Gantz on Sunday during the Middle East America Dialogue (MEAD) summit in Washington, DC, adding, “Actually, I think we are late on this.”
Netanyahoo agrees:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged his government on Sunday to prepare for “changing the situation” on the northern front with Lebanon given the ongoing clashes and mounting tensions.
Speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting, he said the situation in the north cannot go on, calling on the army and all security agencies to prepare for change on the front.
The government is committed to returning all residents of the north safely to their homes, he added, while describing Hezbollah in Lebanon as Iran’s “strongest” arm.
Meanwhile, Israeli security sources told local media that the battle with Lebanon is “imminent”, but the timing for it hasn’t been set yet...
..The intentional targeting of medical personnel is a tactic that Israel is also using in Gaza. Hizbullah and its friends do not believe that any new Israeli action is yet imminent: The latest flurry of Israeli threats regarding an imminent military operation in Lebanon are only aimed at “intimidation,” diplomatic sources said.
“They are also aimed at blocking the latest Iranian-American rapprochement, whose first signs have appeared in the agreement reached in Iraq, which would not have happened without an Iranian green light,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Monday.
Iraq and the United States have agreed on a phased pullout of the U.S.-led anti-jihadist coalition but have yet to sign a final agreement, the Iraqi defense minister said Sunday. https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/09/zionists-who-call-for-more-war-may-well-get-it-.html#more
Nissim Vaturi, a member of Likud and the Knesset’s foreign affairs committee, made the remarks to the regime’s Kan public broadcaster on Monday.
“There is no other way,” he alleged, adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was of the same opinion and that “this is something that will develop in the coming days.” https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/09/09/732951/Israel-war-Lebanon-Hezbollah
An Israeli rabbi with strong links to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling party was filmed blessing a solider standing trial for raping Palestinian prisoners from Gaza. Rabbi Meir Mazuz told the accused soldier that he would be found completely innocent, 'what did you do? Beat the enemy? So what?' After the soldier's lawyer, Attorney Demari, told the rabbi they had proof the victim was lying, the rabbi responded 'but what if it were true? Don't we have the right to act like this?' https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240909-top-israeli-rabbi-blesses-soldier-accused-of-gaza-rape/
Jonathan Cook, Israeli Torture Chambers Aren’t New
For many years I lived just up the road from Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where new film of Israeli guards torturing Palestinians en masse has been published by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.
I drove past Megiddo prison on hundreds of occasions. Over time I came to barely notice the squat grey buildings, surrounded by watch towers and razor wire. There are several large prisons like Megiddo in Israel’s north. It is where Palestinians end up after they have been seized from their homes, often in the middle of the night. Israel, and the Western media, say these Palestinians have been “arrested,” as though Israel is enforcing some kind of legitimate legal procedure over oppressed subjects — or rather objects — of its occupation.
In truth, these Palestinians have been kidnapped. https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/09/israeli-torture-chambers-arent-new/
Aaron David Miller is an American Middle East analyst, author, and negotiator. Miller worked for the US Department of State for 24 years and as an advisor on Arab-Israeli negotiations.
Miller said on CNN on September 4, that the ceasefire deal between Netanyahu and Hamas will not happen, because the sticking point is not the Philadelphia Corridor, it is about Netanyahu’s seat in office...
..Hundreds of thousands of Israelis are in the streets demanding that Netanyahu sign a ceasefire deal to release their hostages. Israeli opposition leaders and Israeli peace activists are demanding a ceasefire and a change in the government. Miller said on CNN on September 4, that the ceasefire deal between Netanyahu and Hamas will not happen, because the sticking point is not the Philadelphia Corridor, it is about Netanyahu’s seat in office...
The International Court of Justice ruled that the occupation of Palestine was against international law.
Hamas, the Palestinian resistance, is holding to their condition for the Israeli military to pull out completely of Gaza to accept the ceasefire between the two sides. But, Netanyahu is sticking to his demand of keeping troops inside Gaza on the Egyptian border, referred to as the Philadelphia Corridor.
Hamas has kept Netanyahu from achieving his military goals in Gaza. No senior Hamas leaders have been killed in Gaza, and the military wing of Hamas is still strong and fighting.
Hamas started a fight on October 7 which galvanized the international community on the side of the Palestinians. The two-state solution is cited by the US, and the UN as the only solution to the conflict. The only country against the two-state solution is Israel.
Netanyahu asked AIPAC to put pressure on US President Joe Biden to drop out of the race. Biden was demanding Netanyahu make a ceasefire deal, to release Israeli hostages as well as stop the bloodshed in Gaza.
Netanyahu Will Prolong the War on Gaza Until Trump Takes Office
Biden’s decision to drop out of the race for re-election came just days after Netanyahu reneged on a ceasefire promise to Biden.
Netanyahu refused to comply with Biden because Netanyahu’s freedom depends on staying in office. If he goes against his right-wing religious extremist allies, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, they will drop his government like a hot potato.
If Netanyahu is out of office and has no immunity, he will serve jail time for the corruption charges he was found guilty of...
..Netanyahu is betting on VP Kamala Harris winning over Trump. Despite that former President Donald Trump did more for Israel than any previous president, Trump has never forgotten that Netanyahu endorsed Biden in the 2020 election. Israel has thousands of citizens who hold US citizenship as well and vote in US elections. If Netanyahu is out of office and has no immunity, he will serve jail time for the corruption charges he was found guilty of...
Trump is well known for shutting down foreign wars which are a financial drain on the American taxpayer. If Trump is elected, Netanyahu might get a phone call telling him the billions of dollars in weapons and cash to Israel are being cut off, and demanding Netanyahu sign a ceasefire deal...
..Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace in Gaza and Israel. The Israeli hostage families feel betrayed by their government, and their loved ones are forgotten and dying in Gaza. https://www.globalresearch.ca/netanyahu-refuses-gaza-ceasefire/5867329
The camp has been designated a 'safe zone' by the Israeli military but has been repeatedly targeted https://news.antiwar.com/2024/09/09/forty-palestinians-reported-killed-in-israeli-strikes-on-al-mawasi-camp-in-gaza/
Speaking from the Egyptian city of Rafah on the border with Gaza, the EU foreign policy chief reveals the bloc is considering a proposal to impose sanctions on two Israeli ministers. https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/-israel--refusing-to-allow-1-200-aid-trucks-into-gaza--eu-s
Palestinians in Nablus held a funeral procession for a Turkish-American activist killed by Israeli forces in Beita. Meanwhile, Israel continued to close its borders with Jordan for the second day in a row following a shooting at Allenby bridge. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/09/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-339-israel-winds-down-west-bank-operation-continues-blockade/
“Relatively late in the game the Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going and it became clear to us, clear to the Brits, clear to others that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's main condition was buried in an annex to this document that they were working on,” she said of the deal being discussed by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Türkiye’s largest city.
The proposed agreement included limits on the kinds of weapons that Kiev could possess, as a result of which Ukraine “would basically be neutered as a military force,” while there were no similar constraints on Russia, the former diplomat explained.
“People inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal and it was at that point that it fell apart,” Nuland said.
The veteran diplomatic hawk, who during her time in the State Department was renowned for her hostility towards Russia, quit the post of under secretary of state for political affairs in March this year. Nuland played a key role in the violent Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, which toppled Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich. https://swentr.site/news/603708-ukraine-istanbul-us-nuland/
The proposed agreement included limits on the kinds of weapons that Kiev could possess, as a result of which Ukraine “would basically be neutered as a military force,” while there were no similar constraints on Russia, the former diplomat explained.
“People inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal and it was at that point that it fell apart,” Nuland said.
The veteran diplomatic hawk, who during her time in the State Department was renowned for her hostility towards Russia, quit the post of under secretary of state for political affairs in March this year. Nuland played a key role in the violent Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, which toppled Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich. https://swentr.site/news/603708-ukraine-istanbul-us-nuland/
Jim Kunstler, The Votes and Who Counts Them
“The world is a dangerous place to live — not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” —Albert Einstein They come to The Times fully equipped with the armamentarium of advanced, progressive, innovative, nuanced, cutting-edge modes of understanding our world — which, you’ll agree, is a pretty goshdurned complex place, and rather niggardly in yielding its secret workings. Hence, The Times has concluded that the Constitution is flawed, perhaps fatally, because it allowed for the election of Donald Trump once, and now, possibly, a second time:
"It’s no surprise, then, that liberals charge Trump with being a menace to the Constitution. But his presidency and the prospect of his re-election have also generated another, very different, argument: that Trump owes his political ascent to the Constitution, making him a beneficiary of a document that is essentially antidemocratic and, in this day and age, increasingly dysfunctional.” https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/the-votes-and-who-counts-them
Alastair Crooke, Enabling a “Brutus” to slay the Elon Musk “Caesar”
In the Washington Post on Monday, the headlines read: Musk and Durov are facing the revenge of the regulators. Former U.S. Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, in the British Guardian newspaper, published a piece on how to ‘rein-in’ Elon Musk, suggesting that “regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest” on lines of that which befell Pavel Durov recently in Paris. As should be clear to all now, ‘war’ has broken out. There is no need for further pretence about it. Rather, there is evident glee at the prospect of a crackdown on the ‘Far-Right’ and its internet users: i.e. those who spread ‘disinformation’ or mal-information that ‘threatens’ the broad ‘cognitive infrastructure’ (which is to say, what the people think!)...
“There is an unholy alliance of western leaders – Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz – whose hatred of what they call populism is undisguised. In his recent visits to Berlin and Paris, Starmer constantly referred to the threat posed by populism. During his meeting with Scholz in Berlin on 28 August, Starmer spoke about the importance of defeating “the snake oil of populism and nationalism”...
..So, what is the source of the élite’s anti-populist hysteria? The answer is that the latter know that they have become severed from the values and respect of their own people and that it is only a matter of time before they are seriously challenged, in one form or another...
..Why war?Because, after the 2016 U.S. election, the U.S. political backroom élites blamed democracy and populism for producing bad election outcomes. Anti-establishment Trump had actually won in the U.S.; Bolsonaro won too, Farage surged, Modi won again, and Brexit etc., etc...
..By 2023, the New York Times was running essays headlined: “Elections Are Bad for Democracy”...
..Cultural War 2016 represented the onset of cultural war, as Mike Benz has described in great detail. A complete outsider, Trump had crashed through the System’s guardrails to win the Presidency. Populism and ‘disinformation’ were the cause, it was held. By 2017, NATO was describing ‘disinformation’ as the greatest threat facing western nations...‘
..Democracy’ they said, was no longer to be defined as a consensus gentium – i.e. a concerted resolve amongst the governed; but rather, was to be defined as the agreed ‘stance’ formed, not by individuals, but by democracy-supporting institutions. [ie. what used to be called "oligarchy"].
Once re-defined as ‘an alignment of supporting institutions’, the second ‘twist’ to the democracy re-formulation was added. The Establishment had foreseen a risk that were a direct info-war on populism pursued, they themselves would be portrayed as autocratic and imposing top-down censorship.
The solution to the dilemma of how to pursue the campaign against populism, according to Benz, lay in the genesis of the ‘whole of society’ concept whereby media, influencers, public institutions, NGOs and allied media would be corralled and pressured into joining an apparently organic, bottom-up censorship coalition focused on the scourge of populism and disinformation. This approach – with the government standing at ‘one removed’ from the censorship process – seemed to offer plausible deniability of direct government involvement...
..An outwardly bland ideological alignment focussed on ‘our democracy’ and ‘our values’ would nonetheless allow for the re-integration of these enduring structures to foreign policy (hostility to Russia; support for Israel; and antipathy towards Iran) to be re-formulated as the appropriate rhetorical slap in the face to the Populists. Once re-defined as ‘an alignment of supporting institutions’, the second ‘twist’ to the democracy re-formulation was added. The Establishment had foreseen a risk that were a direct info-war on populism pursued, they themselves would be portrayed as autocratic and imposing top-down censorship.
The solution to the dilemma of how to pursue the campaign against populism, according to Benz, lay in the genesis of the ‘whole of society’ concept whereby media, influencers, public institutions, NGOs and allied media would be corralled and pressured into joining an apparently organic, bottom-up censorship coalition focused on the scourge of populism and disinformation. This approach – with the government standing at ‘one removed’ from the censorship process – seemed to offer plausible deniability of direct government involvement...
The war may escalate; It may not end with a disinformation eco-system. The New York Times in July posted an article arguing how The First Amendment is Out of Control and in August another piece entitled, The Constitution is Sacred. Is it Also Dangerous?
The war, for the moment, is targetted at the ‘unaccountable’ billionaires: Pavel Durov, Elon Musk and his ‘X’ platform. The survival or not of Elon Musk will be crucial to the course of this aspect of the war: The EU’s Digital Service Act was always conceived to serve as ‘Brutus’ to Musk’s ‘Caesar.
Throughout history, self-regarding and self-enriching élites have become dangerously contemptuous of their peoples. Crackdowns have been the usual first response. https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/09/09/enabling-a-brutus-to-slay-the-elon-musk-caesar/ A Midwestern Doctor, We Must Never Forget 9-9-21 , How Biden's Mandates Devastated America and His Presidency (I just got fired, but I'm fine.)
On 9/9/21, Biden gave one of the most divisive speeches in American history. There he announced his illegal workforce mandate (which was later struck down by the Supreme Court), repeated a series of known lies about the COVID vaccine and repeatedly attempted to incite hatred against the unvaccinated. Since the entire conference was 27 minutes long (which made it too long to watch), I spent a while trimming it down to the key points. The primary reason I made this article was to highlight this video, so please consider watching it (and take note of how much more lucid and coherent he was just three years ago). https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/we-must-never-forget-9-9-21
Spike Proteins, like cancer cells, can be seen as an “invasive species” which generate a pro-tumorigenic microenvironment. No wonder cancer surges. https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/a-new-paper-by-tanriverdi-et-al-supports
Dr. Mercola, Magnesium 101 — A Comprehensive Guide to Its Health Benefits https://www.globalresearch.ca/magnesium-101-guide-health-benefits/5867467
Pursuing Healthy Existence (pictured with Jenny)
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