Internet Hunter Gatherers,
My bcc news sends did not get through the last 2 times, so I have given the internet a couple of days to forget me, without trying again to send them every day.
Here are the links to the blog posts:
Tulsi Gabbard stands with 9/11 families is really informative to watch. They repeatedly call her "their champion".
Offensive News has gotten enough hits that I presume some folks have looked at it when it did not come to their inbox. The theme of sudden turmoil and change carries on today, but this one focuses on the precarious situation we live in, on ICU life support systems, that can't last forever.
Caitlin Johnstone says "Things are only going to get weirder", and I completely agree.
Hunter S. Thompson said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
I often hear people in my line of work saying “Man, we’re going to look back on all this crazy shit and think about how absolutely weird it was!”No we won’t. Because it’s only going to get weirder.
It’s only going to get weirder, because that’s what it looks like when old patterns start to fall away.
Pepe Escobar says: South America, Again Leads the Fight Against Neoliberalism
The presidential election in Argentina pitted the people against neoliberalism and the people won. What happens next will have a tremendous impact all over Latin America and serve as a blueprint for assorted Global South struggles.
Paul Craig Roberts, who served in the Reagan administration, makes the well reasoned argument that the risk of accidental nuclear war between the US and Russia is higher than it was through most of the cold war. He gives numerous examples where it almost-happened, except for some individual deciding to go against orders and not push the button. Pre-emptive US attack on Russia is now a plausible scenario, so mistaken counter-attack is more likely.
Former CIA official Ray McGovern reminds us that on October 27, 1962, during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a single Soviet Navy submarine captain, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, prevented the outbreak of nuclear war. Arkhipov was one of two captains on Soviet submarine B-59. After hours of B-59 being battered by depth charges from US warships, the other captain, Valentin Grigorievich Savitsky readied a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon capable of wiping out the entire USS Randolph carrier task force, to be readied for launch. It didn’t happen only because Arkhipov was present and countermanded the order and brought the Soviet submarine to the surface. Ray McGovern tells the story here: https://www.zerohedge.com/
Brother Randy gave me the heads-up on Tulsi Gabbard calling for a RoundUp ban, and I found it on a nicer site than Newsweek...
Presidential candidate, Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, has renewed her criticism of the agro-chemical industry’s use of toxic pesticides, calling for Monsanto’s Roundup to be banned.“I’ve said it before, I’ll keep saying it: ban roundup!” Gabbard said in a tweet on Friday. “It’s long past time we stopped relying on corrupt corporations with a profit incentive to fund science telling us their chemicals are ‘safe.’ Victims shouldn’t have to go to trial to get the truth.”
In February she tweeted: “We need to ban all products containing glyphosate, including Roundup. It’s poisoning our people, butterflies and other insects, the land and the water.”
Tom sends this Fox News story:
Tulsi Gabbard wants findings of probe into possible Saudi 9/11 involvement declassified
The Saker presents very good analysis of how and why "The Axis of Kindness" is losing narrative control in the lands of sand and oil. Instant fallback to the nuclear-option shows actual weakness.
It is now time to try to make sense of all this and try answer the question of why one group of relatively strong actors had so much bad luck as to become weaker and weaker, while the weaker became stronger and stronger.The first thing we need to agree upon is that irrespective of the public posturing, everybody is, and has been, talking to everybody else. This “conversation” could be official and public, or behind closed doors, or even by means of intermediaries and, last but not least, a state version of “body language”: by means of actions which send a message to the other party or parties. Still, while this is certainly true, it is the quality of the communications between the various parties which made all the difference. When, say, Netanyahu or Trump publicly proclaim they they don’t give a damn about anything at all (including international law) and that they reserve the right to threaten or even attack anybody, at any time, for any reason whatsoever, this is a very clear message to, say, the Iranians. But what is that message, really? It says a couple of things:
Resistance is futile because we are so much stronger than you and therefore
We don’t give a damn about you or your national interests and therefore
We are not interested in negotiating with you (or anybody else for that matter). Your only solution is to submit to us
This is really crucial. The USA and Israel have proclaimed their total superiority over the entire planet and, specifically, over every single actor in the Middle-East. Furthermore, their entire worldview and ideology is predicated on this very strong sense of military superiority. Ask any Israeli or US American what their countries will do if some coalition of local powers is successful in attacking them: they will reply something along the lines of “we will simply nuke all the friggin’ ragheads and sand-niggers – f**k them!”. This line is always delivered with a tone of absolute finality, a total certitude and the mental equivalent of “’nuff said!”.
How Controlling Syria's Oil Serves Washington's Strategic Objectives
I'm going to insert my thoughts here. The US can deny Syria something which is it's property, and which it desperately needs, and can retake militarily, only so long.
It is a bargaining chip.
Trump needs to look like he gets some little wins on the way out. He declares "We are keeping their oil", and it gets some good reviews in the US/Israel. He will need more good press when he makes his great-deal and sends the last 1000 troops in Syria to Saudi Arabia.
The US also has a strategic outpost near Israel and Jordan. Perhaps Trump needs some cover to vacate that.
Syria and Russia do want to help Trump save face on the way out, so they will.
Israeli interests hate this, because they incrementally lose their big-dumb "ally" in the neighborhood.
What is good press for Trump "We took their oil", is bad PR for the empire,
US Loses More Than Just The Battle Over Nordstream 2, Tom Luongo
Never once did I think this day wouldn’t come where the U.S. would eventually (fail to) shut the pipeline down. The reason is simple. Europe, and specifically Germany, need the gas and there is no compelling reason for Germany to cave in the end if it wants to survive the 21st century a first world economy.Russian piped gas is simply too cheap for any LNG to compete with.
In a sense, this pipeline is Germany’s declaration of independence from seventy-plus years of U.S. policy setting. Never forget that Germany is occupied territory with more than 50,000 U.S. troops stationed there.
So it is supremely rich of President Trump call Nordstream 2 something that could make Germany a “hostage of Russia” when it’s been a hostage of the U.S. sinced 1945.
Don't buy a Tesla or a Prius, just drive less, bike more and be more human, less an economic entity.
“Brands are allowing people to pat themselves on the back without them personally having to sacrifice anything,” Will Fowler, creative director for Headspace, told the Guardian in 2017, describing the bull market in corporate virtue-signaling. And this is the essence of green consumerism – reassuring people used to a high-consumption standard of living that they need not change their lifestyle in order to reduce their carbon footprint.
In reality, consuming less is always better than consuming a “green” product. But there’s no way for companies to monetize non-consumption, and no way to grow a nation’s economy through not spending money. For all the ink wasted in touting “compassionate capitalism,” unrestrained economic growth is not compatible with reducing humanity’s environmental impact. No country can buy its way to zero emissions (though that won’t stop governments from trying with constructs like carbon offsets and cap-and-trade that reek of magical thinking).
In reality, consuming less is always better than consuming a “green” product. But there’s no way for companies to monetize non-consumption, and no way to grow a nation’s economy through not spending money. For all the ink wasted in touting “compassionate capitalism,” unrestrained economic growth is not compatible with reducing humanity’s environmental impact. No country can buy its way to zero emissions (though that won’t stop governments from trying with constructs like carbon offsets and cap-and-trade that reek of magical thinking).
Peace , Or The Fight Against CO2, by Thierry Meyssan, is an odd article, which is really good on historical perspective, but somehow loses something completely in translation (perhaps). The fight to control fossil-fuel access is the strategic military objective, not the existence of the fossil fuels.
To my mind, the one rational path is to take the destructive and fuel-gluttonous military machine out of this, step back from futile war, and negotiate rational use of dwindling fuel supplies, while we all come up with more holistic and human adaptations.
Lets live and let live, ok? Thanks Eleni.
Following the Seasons
