TODAY. The failed social species – Homo-not-sapiens-at-all
‘We’re supposed to be “social animals”, but I wonder about that.
Especially the “advanced” world, the predominantly white people, and particularly the anglophone world are directing their attention, their energy, and above all their MONEY. into ways to kill each other. More importantly perhaps, to kill “less white” people – Arabs and Chinese.
In Pakistan, melting of glaciers and extreme rain is causing heavy loss of life.
Today I read that millions of people in China are threatened by record-breaking floods – tens of thousands evacuated.
European villages are suffering unprecedented extreme heat stress, with rising numbers of heat deaths, as well as having experiencing months of drought and wildfires
One might think that the most important task for a social species would be to help these victims of global heating, and indeed to put a stop to, or at least slow down global heating.
But perhaps, the not-very-bright leaders of the advanced countries do not understand that we are all in fact one species, that for example, Palestinians are not a separate species of untermenschen. That even Russians and Chinese are people, too.
And that we’re all in the same perilous boat -and the job is to deal with climate change – not to enrich weapons manufacturers.
Bankers upgrade Lockheed stock after Iran strikes at Israel
defense contractors are actively shaping U.S. foreign policy through lobbying and campaign contributions, among other tactics.
The American company has played an outsized role in Tel Aviv’s bombing and invasion of Gaza since Oct. 7
NICK CLEVELAND-STOUT, APR 17, 2024 https://responsiblestatecraft.org/lockheed-martin-israel-war/
Over the weekend, Iran launched over 300 missiles at Nevatim Air Base, a base in southern Israel that houses U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who oversaw a strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria just a few weeks ago, has already promised to retaliate. Observers viewed these brewing tensions with concern, ringing the alarm bells of the breakout of a wider war.
Not JP Morgan analyst Seth Seifman. On Monday morning, Seifman upgraded JPMorgan’s outlook from “hold” to “buy” for Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of Israel’s F-35s, and set a higher price target for the stock.
Seifman says the change was pre-planned, but noted that these developments could be good for business. “What we can say is that it’s a dangerous world and while that is not a sufficient condition for defense stocks to outperform,” he said, “it is a potential source of support, especially when they are under-owned.” JP Morgan owns $355 million worth of Lockheed Martin stock, about a third of which was bought in the last quarter of 2023.
UK investment bank Liberum Capital was similarly bullish on defense stocks, so long as a wider war does not break out. “In our base case scenario of Israel retaliating but in a limited way that keeps the conflict from escalating further, this could lead to a 5-10% correction in the stock market together with further strength in the U.S. dollar,” Liberium told investors. “The obvious short-term winners will be oil & gas stocks as well as defense contractors.”
As finance journalist Jacob Wolisnky put it in a recent preview of defense stock picks, “Where there’s war, there’s money to be made.” At least one member of Congress agrees. Yesterday, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) disclosed that he bought Lockheed Martin stock on March 29.
Lockheed Martin has played a large role in Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza, manufacturing Hellfire missiles, providing transport planes, and supplying F-16 and F-35 fighter jets. A missile that hit journalists on November 9 of last year in Gaza City was reportedly manufactured by Lockheed Martin. “Their core business model has no respect for human rights,” said Jilianne Lyon, who leads shareholder advocacy campaigns at Investor Advocates for Social Justice.
While privately acknowledging conflict is good for business, the defense industry and its financiers publicly claim they are simply doing America’s bidding. As Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet once said, “It’s only up to us to step to what we’ve been asked to do and we’re just trying to do that in a more effective way, and that’s our role.” After all, it was the U.S. government — not Lockheed Martin — that came to Israel’s defense and intercepted the majority of Iran’s missiles.
But this “we just do what we’re told” defense doesn’t quite work given that defense contractors are actively shaping U.S. foreign policy through lobbying and campaign contributions, among other tactics. Aaron Acosta, program director at Investor Advocates for Social Justice, told Responsible Statecraft that defense contractors “are often the ones creating demand by lobbying the U.S. government and pushing for sales of these weapons.”
In 2023, Lockheed Martin spent over $14 million lobbying Congress. The three companies that lobbied the House’s version of the annual defense policy bill the most were RTX (formerly known as Raytheon), Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics. During the 2022 election cycle, Lockheed Martin contributed nearly $4 million to political candidates. So far, 2024 promises similar results. In its 2023 annual report, Lockheed Martin wrote that, “Changes in the U.S. Government’s priorities, or delays or reductions in spending could have a material adverse effect on our business.”
Sure, 84% of voters might be concerned about the U.S. being drawn into conflict in the Middle East. But as far as defense companies and their shareholders are concerned, business is booming.
Missile Defenseless
https://indi.ca/missile-defenseless/ 21 Apr 24
Missile defense is a fascinating idea — that you can shoot down arrows with other arrows — and it sorta works. Until it doesn’t, and until you get the bill. Missile defense is not some magic shield that allows you to be a total asshole and avoid all consequences. You literally pay for it. Just look at ‘Israel’, blowing nearly 10% of its yearly IDF budget in one night of ignominy.
After ‘Israel’ bombed their consulate, Iran threw maybe $100 million in the air and ‘Israel’ threw $1.3 billion after it. It was literally good money after bad. It’s like if someone threw a brick at your house, and you threw your TV at the brick. It’s like smashing a roach with a Rolex. It’s like preventing broken windows by throwing your own glassware out the window. ‘Israeli’ missile defense is the definition of Pyrrhic victory. They’re lighting their own money on fire and crowing about how bright it is.
A big part of attritional war is depleting the enemy’s ammo, and this ammo depletes itself. If any enemy throws enough cheap munitions in the air, the ammunition will come out and destroy itself. You don’t need to even target the enemy’s ammo dumps, they’ll target your missiles and run into them! Depleting the enemy’s munitions at a 1:12 (cost) ratio is in itself is a tactical victory. If your enemy runs out of munitions in two weeks, that’s strategic defeat. And if 16% of missiles breach the defenses on day one, that’s just embarrassing.
This all happened to ‘Israel’ under the best possible conditions, with weeks of warning and all the imperial bitches (Jordan, France, UK) barking. All the kings horses and all the kings men, can’t put ‘Israeli’ deterrence back together again. They can propagandize their own people, but the military people know what’s happened on April 14th. As does anyone with a calculator and a bit of common sense. Like October 7th, it was a tactical, strategic defeat. They got hit at high cost and can’t sustain this model without blowing through their entire budget in a matter of weeks.
This model of air defence is literally throwing gold at tin. The payload of a Patriot missile is worth more than its weight in gold (a 90 kg payload on a $6-10m missile), and they fling them at cheap ballistics or even drones. This obviously can’t go on forever, as you could see with the IOF’s air defenses buckling in one night, letting multiple hits in. Imagine how much worse it could be if these weren’t just warning shots, and if the hits kept coming. Missile defense against the consequences of your own actions is a very expensive proposition, while simply not being an asshole is free. But this is of course incomprehensible to capitalists.
This is the same fate US warships faced in the Red Sea. They were shooting million dollar missiles at thousand dollar drones from Yemen and crowing about it, but now they’ve had to retreat and beg for peace. Their fancy missile defenses (mostly) worked at protecting their own warships, but they couldn’t secure imperial shipping at all. And it’s not that the Yemen couldn’t damage American warships, they have superior weaponry (hypersonics) in reserve and at any point they could just swarm the Carbon Crusaders. It’s just that, as Napoleon said, when your enemy is defeating themselves, why interrupt? If they want to literally explode their money, let them. The US can’t reload its missile batteries at sea, so after a little battering, they have to just leave. Thus one of the poorest countries in the world has defeated the world’s richest navy, by exploiting its profligacy.
This is the fate of American Empire in general. They pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in 2002 and thought they could hide behind anti-ballistic missile defenses, bombing whoever they pleased, selling expensive ‘defense’ systems to the vassals they put in the firing line in the first place. But now Russia, Iran, and even Yemen have hypersonic missiles that can take fast, unpredictable paths, effectively under most missile defenses. Everybody has drones that can overwhelm defenses with sheer quantity. America has developed defenses against the ballistic missiles of last century, but anything not taking a basic parabolic arc is a diabolical problem to them.
Missile defense will undoubtably evolve in response to these new threats, but when Russia can turn old, ‘dumb’ bombs into glide missiles with cheap attachments, they can simply overwhelm them with quantity. When wedding drones can be weaponized (in revenge for all the weddings Empire bombed), expensive air defenses actually become a liability. The best missile defense is actually diplomacy, which is incomprehensible to Empire these days. They still believe in a technological solution to their own illogical terrorism. It’s like someone who builds more and more elaborate bear-protection suits, and never once considers not poking bears in the first place.
This is the state of modern missile defense, which is really nothing new. As my historical thesis goes, same shit, different day. Offense and defense have always co-evolved in competition; a stronger sword begets a stronger shield, a longer bow begets a higher wall, missiles beget missile defence in general. Offensive weapons evolve with defensive weapons in a constant mating dance of death. The long history of humans fucking themselves is fertile ground for the reproduction of weapons. But it is all ultimately folly.
The best defense is not being offensive in the first place. This is something the White Empire simply cannot understand, having gotten away with it for so long. But now the natives have rockets and rocket launchers, and all the missile defenses in the world can’t protect their hegemony. All that’s left is hubris, which is not at all the same thing. They’re throwing gold after tin, while slaughtering defenseless children. This is simply the pride before the fall, as the worst missile offenders become missile defenseless.
Under UN Charter, Iran’s Attack Was a Legal Response to Israel’s Illegal Attack
Iran’s attack on Israel was lawful self-defense carried out in compliance with international humanitarian law.
On April 13, Iran’s aircraft struck two air bases in the Negev desert, where the April 1 attack on Iran’s consulate had been launched. “Iran retaliated against those targets in Israel directly related to the Israeli attack on Iran,”
By Marjorie Cohn , TRUTHOUT, April 18, 2024
On April 1, Israel mounted an unprovoked military attack on a building that was part of the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, Syria, killing seven of Iran’s senior military advisers and five additional people. The victims included Gen. Mohamad Reza Zahedi, head of Iran’s covert military operations in Lebanon and Syria, and two other senior generals.
Although Israel’s attack violated the United Nations Charter, the UN Security Council refused to condemn it because the United States, the U.K. and France exercised their vetoes on April 4.
Iran considered this attack on its consulate “an act of war,” Trita Parsi wrote at Foreign Policy.
On April 11, the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations stated: “Had the UN Security Council condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated.”
Then, on April 13, in response to Israel’s attack, Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles at the Israeli air base from which the April 1 attacks had emanated. Only two of them landed inside Israel and no one was killed; a Bedouin girl was injured. The U.S., U.K., France, Jordan and Israel intercepted the remaining Iranian missiles and drones. A senior U.S. military official said “there’s no significant damage within Israel itself.”
The Iranian mission to the UN wrote in an April 13 letter to the UN secretary-general that Iran’s action was conducted “in the exercise of Iran’s inherent right to self-defense” under Article 51 of the UN Charter “and in response to the Israeli recurring military aggressions, particularly its armed attack” on April 1 “against Iranian diplomatic premises, in the defiance of Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations.”
The April 1 attack was not the first time Israel had attacked key Iranian personnel………………………………………………………………………….
Iran made clear that it seeks to avoid further escalation that could spark a widespread regional war. An April 13 social media post from Iran’s permanent mission to the UN stated, “The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!”
At a Security Council meeting on April 14, Iran’s UN Ambassador Saeid Iravani defended the lawfulness of the missile and drone attack on Israel. He noted the hypocrisy of the U.S. and its allies that claim Israel is acting in self-defense as it conducts its genocide of the Palestinian people:………………………………………..
Israel’s Attack on Iranian Consulate Violated the UN Charter and Vienna Conventions
Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel was a lawful exercise of self-defense in response to Israel’s unlawful April 1 attack on the Iranian consulate. The Israeli attack was an illegal act of aggression.
Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter states, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
An act of aggression is inconsistent with the purposes of the UN. Article 39 of the Charter says, “The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”
An “‘act of aggression’ means the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations,” under the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court. Aggression includes “the invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State.”
Moreover, “Consular premises shall be inviolable,” according to Article 31 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Article 1 defines consular premises as “the buildings or parts of buildings and the land ancillary thereto, irrespective of ownership, used exclusively for the purposes of the consular post.”
The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations likewise provides in Article 22.1 that, “The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.”
During Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Syria, it targeted and killed very senior Iranian officials. The attack constituted an act of aggression, which triggered Iran’s right to self-defense.
Iran’s April 13 Attack on Israel Constituted Lawful Self-Defense
Article 51 states, “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
An armed attack includes not just an attack against the territory of a state, including its airspace and territorial sea, but also attacks directed against its armed forces or embassies abroad.
On April 13, Iran’s aircraft struck two air bases in the Negev desert, where the April 1 attack on Iran’s consulate had been launched. “Iran retaliated against those targets in Israel directly related to the Israeli attack on Iran,” former U.S. weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote.
Nevertheless, the Security Council has failed to adopt a resolution condemning Israel’s attack on Iran’s consulate, as Iran pointed out in its April 13 letter to the UN secretary-general.
At an April 14 meeting of the Security Council, the Israeli representative declared that Iran is the number one global sponsor of terrorism and the world’s worst human rights violator. It is Israel, however, that has killed nearly 34,000 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and children — during its campaign of genocide in Gaza that has now entered its seventh month.
Iran’s self-defense action was the natural outcome of Israel’s violations of international law — both on Syrian territory and elsewhere — the representative from the Syrian Arab Republic said at the April 14 council meeting. Israel is trying to cover up its genocide and military failures in Gaza, the Syrian representative added.
Iran’s Attack Satisfied the Principles of Proportionality, Distinction and Precautions……………………………………………………………….
Netanyahu Is Gunning for War With Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like nothing better than to start a war with Iran. Netanyahu considers Iran an “existential threat” to Israel. He persuaded former President Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, which was working to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
As the world waits for Israel’s response to the Iranian attack, President Joe Biden said the U.S. would not assist Israel in an offensive military action against Iran but it would give Israel defensive support if Iran attacks Israel. “But the distinction between offensive or defensive support becomes meaningless the second a war breaks out,” wrote Trita Parsi.
Today, the U.S. and U.K. imposed additional punishing sanctions on Iran. Unilateral coercive measures, levied without the imprimatur of the Security Council, are illegal and generally harm only the general population…………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://truthout.org/articles/under-un-charter-irans-attack-was-a-legal-response-to-israels-illegal-attack/
5 Reasons Why What Congress Just Did Does Not Help Ukraine
Crimea was Russian or Soviet from 1783 to 1991. No election should ever be held with armed troops anywhere within sight. And it’s no simple matter to say that Crimea should hold a new referendum, since people have left and entered. But nobody seriously doubts that any fair election in 2014 or at any time since would have resulted in a majority choosing Russia. The Donbas needed some degree of independence before Minsk II and still does.
It needs it free of militarized borders and chest-thumping empires. Some consideration should be given to whether the people who live there “win” or “lose” — that is, how their lives look going forward. For them and for the world, peace is preferable to war, and peace is prevented by endless weapons and endless opposition to negotiations.
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, April 21, 2024, https://worldbeyondwar.org/5-reasons-why-what-congress-just-did-does-not-help-ukraine/
You may have heard that the U.S. Congress is finally doing the decent, moral, liberal, democratic, Democratic thing and aiding Ukraine.
You may believe, as pretty much everyone I ask tells me, that there was only one other choice available, namely “letting Putin win.”
You may agree with me that the Russian government and its leader — like every government I’ve ever heard of — have done horrendous things, that invading a country militarily is one of the worst things that can ever be done (with the possible exceptions of invading Libya or Yemen or Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere in Latin America, but still), and that rewarding a military invasion is a terrible precedent that could encourage more military invasions (with the possible exception of keeping those bases in Iraq or Syria, or selling more weapons to Saudi Arabia, or marketing that empty beachfront property in Gaza — and who the heck is Niger to tell U.S. troops to leave Niger? I mean come ON! — but still). I’m with you. Between (A) send more unimaginably huge piles of money that materializes out of nowhere and (B) allow a military invasion to succeed, I’m for A.
But please consider five slight complications to this simple tale.
- What the U.S. Congress just did is send huge piles of money that comes out of urgent non-optional crises like climate, eco-collapse, disease, poverty, and homelessness, mostly to U.S. weapons dealers, damaging — yes damaging — the U.S. economy, in order to send mountains of weapons to the war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza, and a yet-to-be-ginned-up war in Asia. No matter how much you support the war in Ukraine, unless you also support providing enough weapons to murder every last person in Gaza and the West Bank, and in addition support building up toward a catastrophic war with China, you ought to at least have mixed emotions here.
2. Countless experts around the globe believe that the war in Ukraine has placed the world closer than ever before to nuclear apocalypse. I picture two cockroaches endowed with the power of speech meeting each other as they crawl over the ruins of the de-personed Earth. One says “Well, at least they stood up to Putin,” and the other simultaneously, “Well, at least they stood up to NATO.” Upon which the war that eliminates all cockroaches is begun. But where, while we still breathe, are our priorities? Is smashing every aspiration of the criminal Russian government (which I’m all in favor of) in order to uphold a rules-based order in which you can freely fuel a sadistic genocide in Palestine (which I’m not so much in favor of) a higher priority than preserving life? And if so, why are you not over there killing Russians yourself, instead of over here cheering for Congress buying more weapons?
3. ’ll leave the option of Russia “winning” to point #4 below. But what is the other option exactly, the one that has been so correctly and nobly chosen? It’s clearly not Russia losing. Nobody even pretends it is. It’s clearly just continuing the endless slaughter with no desirable outcome for either side anywhere on the horizon. Yet more Ukrainians can go on dying, and Russians can go on dying in larger numbers, but that can’t continue until everyone’s dead, not without nuclear escalation — possibly following a French escalation that U.S. media outlets might begin by opposing. So what is it that you think you’ve chosen? Choosing “Not Putin Winning” is great, like choosing “The Candidate Who Isn’t Trump.” Who could disagree? But what if there were an option superior to “Putin winning” and also superior to endless war that risks apocalypse?
4. It helps to face for a moment the complex story of Ukraine, to come to grips with some facts that are as well established as is the illegal, immoral, murderous Russian invasion of 2022, such as that U.S. and foreign officials (including the current CIA director) warned for decades that NATO expansion would create this war — and some (such as the authors of a RAND Corporation report) advocated for just the provocative steps that were taken in order to create this war, that the U.S. supported a coup in Ukraine in 2014 that overthrew a government pursuing neutrality, that the coup government threated the rights of Russian speakers, that the people of Crimea heavily favored returning to Russia, that Ukraine waged a war on its eastern provinces for 8 years, that Ukraine and its Western partners never intended to and never did honor the Minsk II agreements which could have meant lasting peace, that Russia and Ukraine were ready to agree to peace 1 month into the Russian invasion at talks in Turkey where they agreed on Russian withdrawal and a Ukrainian commitment not to join NATO or allow NATO bases in Ukraine — until the U.S. and UK said No, as they have continued to say in the face of horrific suffering, not to mention in the face of nearly identical peace proposals from African leaders, Latin American presidents, the Pope, the Chinese government, and scholars and activists across the globe. This history does not erase, but does complicate, the tale of angelic Ukrainian innocence against evil Russian outlaws.
Crimea was Russian or Soviet from 1783 to 1991. No election should ever be held with armed troops anywhere within sight. And it’s no simple matter to say that Crimea should hold a new referendum, since people have left and entered. But nobody seriously doubts that any fair election in 2014 or at any time since would have resulted in a majority choosing Russia. The Donbas needed some degree of independence before Minsk II and still does. It needs it free of militarized borders and chest-thumping empires. Some consideration should be given to whether the people who live there “win” or “lose” — that is, how their lives look going forward. For them and for the world, peace is preferable to war, and peace is prevented by endless weapons and endless opposition to negotiations.
5. Prior to this recent “aid” package, 62% of U.S. federal discretionary spending was going into militarism. Now it’s more. The other 38% and shrinking has to cover environment, education, health, housing, transportation, agriculture, and everything else. Normalizing endless massive warmaking, just because it’s non-U.S. troops dying, is a path to disaster. To begin considering a different course, here are a few eye-opening reads:
Primer on Foreign PolicyAction for Ukraine and the WorldThe
EU Can Only Survive as a Peace Project and Not as a NATO SubsidiaryWBW Advisory Board Member
Matt Hoh Addresses United NationsAre We Stumbling Into World War III in Ukraine?
Attacking Pope, Militarists Target Ukrainian
Peace Formula of President ZelenskyyPutin’s Draft Treaty Between Russia and Ukraine Did Exist
Letter on Ukraine from Latin America to the World
Message from Ukraine to Europe After Two Years of War in Ukraine, It’s Time for PeaceA World BEYOND War
Tens of thousands evacuated from massive China floods
Authorities have evacuated nearly 60,000 people from their homes in
Guangdong, as days of heavy rain caused massive flooding in China’s most
populous province. Eleven people have gone missing, while no casualties
have been reported so far.
Footage on state media and online show large
swathes of land inundated by the floods and rescuers ferrying people on
lifeboats in waist-deep water. Several major rivers have burst their banks,
and authorities are closely monitoring “dangerously high” water levels.
They had warned that the level of a river in northern Guangdong could hit a
“once in 100 years” peak on Monday morning, though this had yet to
materialise by noon.
BBC 22nd April 2024
Now is the Time for All Good Men and Women to Come to the Aid of Our Country USA
Our Constitution; Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness… Economic Security, Being Sacrificed to Endless Wars
DENNIS KUCINICH, APR 22, 2024 https://denniskucinich.substack.com/p/now-is-the-time-for-all-good-men?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1441588&post_id=143867195&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=puo10&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Dwight David Eisenhower, the Prophet-President of the United States, sixty-four years ago warned of the ascension of the military-industrial state, presently morphed into the military-industrial-intelligence complex, which, fully in control of our government, induces and manipulates our fears, creating serial enemies, justifying endless war for profit, openly canceling long-cherished constitutional rights, within the hoary rubric of “National Security,” read: Plunder of the American taxpayer.
Congress, as an Article One creation is in the thrall of murderous interest groups which are actively driving mass killings, assassinations, famine and ethnic cleansing, the progeny of genocide, in plain sight, recycling U.S. taxpayers’ hard-earned money to tighten its grip on American politics, all the while using its media influence to deny any of this is happening, denying even the existence of a people, or how they died, as bodies pile up by the tens of thousands in Gaza.
The extent to which patriotic Americans are being cynically manipulated is exemplified by events of the past week. Congress forfeited, by single votes in the House and Senate, our Fourth Amendment right to unreasonable search and seizure, passing the FISA extension and setting the stage for an official police state.
Next, Congress cheered as members wildly waved the flag of another nation inside the chamber of the House, (!) ignoring a $34 trillion deficit, adding another reality-defying $95 billion for “foreign aid,” (war) on top of the nearly one trillion dollars which now goes ANNUALLY to the Pentagon and intelligence agencies to wage, on the national credit card, unrelenting war against countless innocents, while across this land anyone who dares exercise our Constitutionally-guaranteed First Amendment right to speak out in protest on campus, at work, or in the media, is condemned, suspended, expelled, or fired.
Our President and the leaders of foreign nations are in a deadly gandy-dance of denial and mass death, one theatrically begging the other to stop the bombing while providing bombs, not to escalate, while paying for escalation, thus enabling an ever more heartbreaking level of carnage, and collective punishment in open betrayal of our sacred quest for “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of. Happiness.” Our government stands ready to defend almost any country’s borders, but our own.
In our country, Americans are smothered in debt, having difficulty keeping up with inflation, seeing a middle class destroyed while trade agreements drove down wages and benefits, eliminated jobs, putting housing, education and health opportunities increasing out of the reach of more and more Americans, making a mockery of the America Dream.
We must break this deadly fealty to shadow-nations and corrupt and corrupting interest groups whose own leaders have without conscience enacted the worst example of man’s inhumanity to man in dark service of an ethno-religious project which is antithetical to every moral principle articulated in America’s founding documents.
It is urgent that 2024 be the year when we, the American people, make a new beginning.
We must take up our Constitution as a shield and insist upon the Freedoms it guarantees.
We must align with those essentially spiritual values which support life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We must stop licensing and financing genocide.
We must stop funding and fueling wars around the world.
We must stop building up the freedom- extinguising national debt.
We must take care of our own people here at home.
We must begin to pay attention to the one nation whose affairs should matter most to us:
The United States of America.
“Fiscally conservative” Congressman Sean Casten votes to squander $95 billion to further destroy Ukraine, enable genocide in Gaza, provoke military confrontation with China
https://heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com/ WALT ZLOTOW, 22 Apr 24
Rep. Casten votes to squander $95 billion to further destroy Ukraine, enable genocide in Gaza, provoke military confrontation with China.
My pretend peace loving, fiscally conservative Congressman Sean Casten is anything but. Yesterday he voted with almost all House Democrats to print nearly a hundred billion dollars to further America’s decline on the world stage from military adventurism.
Normally, Casten doesn’t support any measure proposed by conservative, Bible thumping House Speaker Mike Johnson. But when Johnson struck a devil’s bargain with House Democrats to goose our economy with endless more Ukrainian and Palestinian blood, Casten jumped right in.
Johnson and House Democratic leaders devised a brilliant plan to split Biden’s gargantuan $95 billion dollar giveaway to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan into 3 separate bills of $61, $26 and $8 billion. That made it more politically expedient for all 3 to pass. The gambit worked as House Democrats, including Casten, cast a total of 590 of their 661 votes for war, war, possible war. The first ensures the destruction of Ukraine. The second ensures the genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The third makes war with China more likely. Casten voted aye on all three.
Congressman Casten knows Ukraine is being systematically destroyed by America’s refusal to negotiate its end. Congressman Casten knows the 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza are being devoured by US enabled Israeli genocide. Congressman Casten knows US provocations in the Far East put America on a collision course to war against China.
For my Congressman Sean Casten, loyalty to the Biden administration war agenda is more important than saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
Israel Is Turning Hospitals Into Mass Graves While The West Fixates On ‘Antisemitism’
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, APR 22, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-is-turning-hospitals-into?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=143854121&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
—
A mass grave created by the IDF has been uncovered at a Gaza hospital, where Palestinian civilians appear to have been the victims of a gruesome massacre.
“Bah, that’s old news Caitlin,” you may be saying. “We already know about the massacre and mass graves which were discovered a few weeks ago at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.”
No no, that’s a different mass grave from a different IDF massacre at a completely different Gaza hospital. The now completely destroyed al-Shifa Hospital was in Gaza City; I’m talking about the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, where some 210 bodies have reportedly been discovered in a mass grave after Israeli forces withdrew from the city earlier this month. Two different massacres, two different hospitals, two different mass graves full of Palestinian civilians.
The IDF are just attacking hospitals and mowing down civilians and trying to bury the evidence of their crimes, so naturally we’re seeing the western political-media class focus very hard on the problem of antisemitism allegations on college campuses.
“Biden denounces antisemitism on college campuses amid Columbia protests,” reads a new headline from The Washington Post.
“As Protests Continue at Columbia, Some Jewish Students Feel Targeted,” The New York Times urgently warns us.
“White House condemns ‘blatantly antisemitic’ protests as agitators engulf Columbia University,” blares Fox News.
“Columbia University faces full-blown crisis as rabbi calls for Jewish students to ‘return home’,” says CNN.
“Columbia University: White House condemns antisemitism at college protests,” the BBC reports.
Getting far less attention than the fact that some Zionist university students are feeling uncomfortable feelings because other students say Palestinians are human beings is the fact that Israel is establishing a pattern of massacring civilians and burying them in mass graves outside hospitals in Gaza, or the fact that the IDF has been butchering children in Rafah, or the fact that the International Criminal Court is reportedly considering charging Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials for war crimes.
Those matters are important, just not nearly as important as how some western Jews feel emotionally upset about pro-Palestine protests. For that, the world must stop spinning on its axis until this extremely egregious problem has been addressed.
All the western spin and distortion around Israel’s mass atrocities in Gaza these last six months have revolved around centering feelings over human lives. How western Jewish Zionists are feeling about pro-Palestine sentiments. How Joe Biden’s feelings secretly feel about Netanyahu. How Israelis feel about October 7.
Wherever there’s an opportunity to focus the narrative on what feelings are being felt by a politically convenient population, the western press fall all over themselves to do so with tumescent enthusiasm. Wherever there’s an opportunity to focus on Israeli atrocities, the western press are nowhere to be found.
If you belong to a group that isn’t supported by the western empire, you can see your entire family murdered right in front of you and the western political-media class still won’t consider you a victim. If you belong to a group that the empire regards as human, then even someone offending your feelings will be viewed as an unforgivable hate crime.
New York Time’s War on Words: Avoid ‘Palestine,’ ‘Genocide,’ ‘Ethnic Cleansing’
JIM NAURECKAS, APRIL 18, 2024, https://fair.org/home/action-alert-nyts-war-on-words-avoid-palestine-genocide-ethnic-cleansing/
A New York Times staffer told the Intercept (4/15/24) that the paper was “basically taking the occupation out of the coverage, which is the actual core of the conflict.”
New York Times editors issued a memo to staffers that warned against the use of “inflammatory language and incendiary accusations on all sides”—but the instructions offered by the memo, which was leaked to the Intercept (4/15/24), seemed designed to dampen criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and to reinforce the Israeli narrative of the conflict.
Among the terms the memo tells Times reporters to avoid: “Palestine” (“except in very rare cases”), “occupied territories” (say “Gaza, the West Bank, etc.”) and “refugee camps” (“refer to them as neighborhoods, or areas”).
These are all standard terms: “Palestine” is the name of a state recognized by the United Nations and 140 of its 193 members. The “occupied territories” are the way Gaza and the West Bank are referred to by the UN as well as the United States. “Refugee camps” are what they are called by the UN agency that administers the eight camps in Gaza.
The memo discourages the use of the terms “genocide” (“We should…set a high bar for allowing others to use it as an accusation”) and “ethnic cleansing” (“another historically charged term”).
Genocide is defined by the Genocide Convention as certain “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” These acts include “killing members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The International Court of Justice ruled in January that it was “plausible” that Israel was in violation of the Genocide Convention (NPR, 1/26/24). A US federal judge has likewise held that “the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law” (Guardian, 2/1/24).
“Ethnic cleansing” does not have a legal definition, but surely the Israeli military campaign that has displaced 85% of Gaza’s population, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises he is “working on” the “voluntary emigration” of that population (Mondoweiss, 12/28/23), qualifies under any reasonable standard.
In contrast to its take on “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing,” the memo contends that “it is accurate to use ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ in describing the attacks of October 7″; the words “fighters” or “militants,” however, are discouraged for participants in those attacks. This is the opposite of the approach taken by outlets like AP (X, formerly Twitter, 1/7/21) and the BBC (10/11/23); John Simpson, world affairs editor for the latter, calls “terrorism” a “loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally.”
Also on the Times‘ list of approved language: “the deadliest attack on Israel in decades.” Reporters are apparently not offered any superlatives to use to describe the Israeli assault on Gaza, such as “among the deadliest and most destructive in history” (AP, 12/21/23), or the most “rapid deterioration into widespread starvation” (Oxfam, 3/18/24), or “the biggest cohort of pediatric amputees in history” (New Yorker, 3/21/24).
“Our goal is to provide clear, accurate information, and heated language can often obscure rather than clarify the fact,” says the memo, written by Times standards editor Susan Wessling and international editor Philip Pan, along with their deputies. “Words like ‘slaughter,’ ‘massacre’ and ‘carnage’ often convey more emotion than information. Think hard before using them in our own voice.” The memo asks, “Can we articulate why we are applying those words to one particular situation and not another?”
As FAIR noted in a new study (4/17/24), the Times does apply “heated language” in a decidedly lopsided manner. When Times articles used the word “brutal” to describe a party in the Gaza conflict, 73% of the time it was used to characterize Palestinians. An analysis by the Intercept (1/9/24) of Gaza crisis coverage in the Times (as well as the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal) found that
highly emotive terms for the killing of civilians like “slaughter,” “massacre” and “horrific” were reserved almost exclusively for Israelis who were killed by Palestinians, rather than the other way around.
“Horrific” was used by reporters and editors nine times as often to describe the killing of Israelis rather than Palestinians; “slaughter” described Israelis deaths 60 times more than Palestinian deaths, and “massacre” more than 60 times.
ACTION:
Please ask the New York Times to revise its guidance on coverage of the Gaza crisis so that it is no longer banning standard descriptions and placing the most accurate characterizations of Israeli actions off limits.
CONTACT:
Letters: letters@nytimes.com
Readers Center: Feedback
Pakistan issues flood alert and warns of heavy loss of life due to glacial melting
A Pakistani province is warning of heavy loss of life due to glacial melting
Riaz Khan Independent 20th April 2024
A Pakistani province has issued a flood alert due to glacial melting and
warned of heavy loss of life, officials said Saturday. The country has
witnessed days of extreme weather, killing scores of people and destroying
property and farmland. Experts say Pakistan is experiencing heavier rains
than normal in April because of climate change. In the mountainous
northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has been hit particularly
hard by the deluges, authorities issued a flood alert because of the
melting of glaciers in several districts.
more https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/pakistan-flooding-climate-change-latest-b2531924.html
U.S. House Passes $95 Billion Foreign War Bills
A measure authorizing $61 billion for Ukraine was opposed by a slim majority of Republicans
by Will Porter April 20, 2024
US lawmakers passed a raft of legislation containing some $95 billion in military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, also approving a bill that will allow Washington to hand Kiev assets seized from Russia and pave the way for a ban on TikTok.
The aid bills passed by a wide margin after separate votes on Saturday afternoon, with the $61 billion Ukraine legislation approved 311-112. Though a thin majority of Republicans opposed that bill – accounting for all 112 ‘no’ votes, while one GOP rep voted ‘present’ – it was ultimately adopted with bipartisan support.
Another measure authorizing $26 billion in military aid for Israel easily sailed through the lower chamber in a 366-58 vote, with just 21 Republicans and 37 Democrats in opposition. An $8 billion aid bill for Taiwan and other US allies in the Indo-Pacific also passed 385-34, including language that allows the White House to divert additional funds to Ukraine.
While the aid was originally packaged together as a single bill by the Senate, House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to introduce the measure unless Democrats agreed to significant immigration reforms. However, after months of gridlock Johnson divided the legislation into three separate aid bills and later added a fourth containing several unrelated provisions, allowing them to advance to the floor. The immigration provisions were left out of the four bills, and the speaker allowed a separate bill on immigration to come forward on a move to suspend the rules. That suspension of the rules quickly failed, so no debate on immigration or the US border occurred.
The latter bill also passed overwhelmingly in a 360-58 vote. Dubbed the “21st Century Peace through Strength Act,” the law will allow the White House to bring new sanctions on Russia and Iran, as well as ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, divests its foreign ownership stakes. The same bill also authorizes the transfer of frozen Russian assets to Kiev, after Washington opted to seize Moscow’s US-based funds in response to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
With all four pieces of legislation passing, they will move on to the Senate as a single bill. The upper chamber previously passed a similar measure, indicating it will face little opposition from senators. https://news.antiwar.com/2024/04/20/house-passes-95-billion-foreign-war-bills/—
Nuclear waste storage facility told to take action after breach
Federica Bedendo,BBC News North East and Cumbria, 20 Apr 24, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c88zjl0l8j9o
A nuclear waste storage facility has been told to take action, after it breached its environmental permit.
The Environment Agency (EA) has written to bosses at the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) in Cumbria with concerns about a delay in securing waste at the site.
Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), which manages LLWR, said the delays did not have an impact on the surrounding area and that they had taken the time to ensure the right solutions were created for the safe disposal of nuclear waste.
The EA said it could not comment on the matter due to impartiality rules during election periods.
The letter, written by the EA in January, and obtained by the BBC through a Freedom of Information request, sets out new conditions that LLWR must comply with.
It comes after LLWR failed to make sufficient progress on operations to secure the radioactive waste – known as capping – meaning it breached the terms of its environmental permit.
Missed deadline
Martin Walkingshaw, chief operating officer at NWS, said: “Placing the engineered cap over the legacy radioactive waste disposal facilities at the UK’s LLWR is a first of its kind activity for the UK.”
He said Nuclear Waste Services were engaged with the Environment Agency on a regular basis about progress.
He added: “Capping is a key part of the disposal, and we are currently implementing the required design by procuring, importing and emplacing thousands of tonnes of capping materials in line with our planning conditions and stringent quality requirements.”
In their letter, the Environment Agency also told LLWR it had failed to meet a deadline for a previously imposed improvement condition, regarding a request for a written plan to protect waste in certain areas, including capping one of them.
While the plan was delivered, there were delays in implementing it.
An initial date of completion of 2028 had been agreed with the EA, but discussions are now under way to extend the deadline as LLWR believes more time is needed.
NWS has blamed delays on issues with the design of the engineered cap.
“Throughout the design phase a number of assumptions were tested, as is common practice. Not all of these assumptions held true, and one in particular, caused a significant change in design.”
Potential for small and micro modular reactors to electrify developing regions
Nature Energy (2024)
Abstract
While small-scale nuclear power is typically thought of for niche markets, recent work has suggested that it could help address the massive gaps in energy access in developing countries. However, nuclear energy has safety, governance and economic considerations that affect its deployment. Here we present a global analysis of regions suitable for nuclear reactor deployment based on physical siting criteria, security, governance and economic competitiveness. We use high-resolution population and satellite night-time light data to identify areas in need of electricity. We show that, technically, reactors in the 1–50 MWe range could serve 70.9% of this population. However, economics alone would make microreactors uncompetitive compared with renewables and energy storage for 87% of this population. Grid extensions and small modular nuclear reactors (with more competitive economics) could electrify these populations, but governance issues could limit deployment for all but 20% of this population. Together, governance and economics eliminate 95% of the potential market for microreactors.…………………………………………………………………more https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01512-y
We are closer to nuclear disaster today than at any point in the Cold War
The great battle of the last century was between ideologies that could understand one another. There is no common ground now
JANET DALEY, 20 April 2024 •
We are closer to nuclear disaster today than at any point in
the Cold War. The great battle of the last century was between ideologies
that could understand one another. There is no common ground now.
Telegraph 20th April 2024
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/20/iran-israel-russia-ukraine-nuclear-war-britain
1 This Month
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
12 February – Webinar The Big Push: New Nuclear Projects in Canada
Thursday, February 12, 7 pm Eastern | 2nd of 4 sessions in the 2026 Nuclear Waste Online webinar series
Join a webinar on the push for new nuclear generation in Canada. Go to Northwatch.org to register or use the registration link https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZfWOf1GITqSRIZX8CB-A9w
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