How the Media Walked us into Autocracy (w/ Ralph Nader) | The Chris Hedges Report

They’re abusing them for the profits they want to make from advertising, which of course begins to replace journalists and editors who want to do the right thing with journalists and editors who got their finger to the wind and are worried about the money before reporting the truth in an equitable fashion. It even gets worse. The Times created Trump. They kept giving him more and more publicity. They created JD Vance. Whoever heard of JD Vance? They kept writing about his book.

By Chris Hedges / The Chris Hedges Report, 9 Mar 25

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

The American corporate coup d’état is almost complete as the first weeks of the Trump administration exemplify. If there has been one person who saw this coming, and has taken courageous action over the years to prevent it, it would be Ralph Nader. The former presidential candidate, consumer advocate and corporate critic joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to chronicle his life’s work battling the corporate takeover of the country and how Americans can still fight back today despite the growing repression from the White House.

“The sign of a decaying democracy is that when the forces of plutocracy, oligarchy, multinational corporations increase their power, in all sectors of our society, the resistance gets weaker,” Nader tells Hedges.

Nader asks people to look around them and witness the decay through the ordinary parts of their lives. “If you just look at the countervailing forces that hold up a society—civilized norms, due process of law and democratic traditions—they’re all either AWOL [absent without official leave] or collapsing,” he said. Civic groups are outnumbered by corporate lobbyists, the media barely pays attention to any grassroots organizing and the protests that do occur, such as the encampments at universities, are brutally suppressed.

It’s not an impossible task, Nader says, recalling the precedent of organizing in the U.S. He says the fundamental basics are supported by a majority of people regardless of their political labels.

Chris Hedges

The New York Times published a lead column on January 18th, 2025, titled, “Are We Sleepwalking Into Autocracy?” The columnist’s answer is yes, unless, and I quote, “defenders of democracy have to stay united, focusing on ensuring that checks and balances remain intact and that crucial democratic watchdog institutions elude capture.” What is absent from the Times article is the complicity of the media, and especially the New York Times, in shutting down coverage of the fight by unions, grassroots movements, whistleblowers, and civic organizations, often led by the consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, to placate their advertisers. This decision, made by newspapers such as the New York Times four decades ago, essentially erased these popular initiatives from public consciousness.

This erasure—done to placate wealthy corporations and oligarchs and boost revenue—bolstered the power of corporations and the government to dominate and shape public discourse and in the process saw them become ever more secretive and ever more autocratic. As Ralph Nader notes, the regular reporting about what activists were doing in the 1960s and 1970s made possible the consumer, environmental, labor, and freedom of information laws. Similar efforts now cannot gather momentum with media invisibility. Legislative hearings, prosecutions, and regulatory actions cannot get jump-started just by the people insistent on a just and democratic society. How often do you see op-eds from civic labor advocates, Ralph asks. How often do you read reviews of their books? How often do you see profiles of them?

How often have the groundbreaking studies by Public Citizen, Common Cause, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Veterans for Peace, Union of Concerned Scientists, etc. received coverage? This erasure stands in stark contrast to the coverage given over to those on the far right and corporations. Figures like Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Elon Musk get plenty of press. The media landscape is siloed. Media outlets, both the legacy media and the digital media, cater to well-defined demographics. But the power of the legacy media, should it decide to use its power, is to help set the agenda through its reporting. Most digital sites feed off of the reporting of the establishment media spinning it left or right. And what it does not cover often does not get covered. Legions of reporters, 500 full-time reporters cover the Congress, hundreds more sit at the feet of the titans of commerce and Wall Street, spit back to the public official communiques, and fawning interviews with the powerful, the famous, and the rich. Unless they are deployed outside the halls of Congress and the centers of power, what is left of our democracy, and not much of it is left, will wither and die.

Joining me to discuss our march towards tyranny, the complicity of institutions such as the media and the liberal class, including the Democratic Party, and what we must do to wrest back power is Ralph Nader, who has been fighting corporate power longer more effectively and with more integrity than any other American. Ralph, let’s go back to where we were because where we are now is a reaction to what you, you were at the epicenter of it, built. We can begin with your groundbreaking book, “Unsafe at Any Speed,” which should be taught in every journalism school. It is a masterful piece of investigative reporting. But let’s go back to what we had and then how they organized to take it away.

Ralph Nader

Yeah, thank you, Chris. It’s very well documented, the whole history of it. When I wrote the book, “Unsafe at Any Speed,” a reporter for Science Magazine picked it up and then the New York Times picked it up off of Science Magazine and it made page one. And so that was a good start.

Chris Hedges

Ralph, just want to interrupt for people who don’t know, these were cars made by GM that were not safe…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Chris Hedges

Let me just stop you because Ralph, let’s not bypass the fact that GM mounted a pretty intense and dirty campaign against you.

Ralph Nader

Yes, they hired a private detective with several former FBI people. That’s what happened to a lot of FBI agents when they retired, they go to work for these large corporations to follow me around the country, try to get dirt on me, to discredit my testimony before Congress. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………….. Ralph Nader

Yes, and at the same time the companies hired a firm called Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering and Lloyd Cutler would go and have meetings with editors of the New York Times and Post and saying, what are you guys doing giving this guy so much print? Don’t you know he’s bad for business? And the inference was that they were going to lose advertising if they didn’t shut us out. Once the Times started scaling down, then the Washington Post took note because they were of the same mindset and both of them were about to go public and sell stock on the stock exchange, which gave them even more vulnerability to suppression. And then that dried up more and more of the evening news. We used to get on the network news.

It’s almost impossible to get on the network evening news now. And the same with radio. At the same time, there emerged public radio and public broadcasting, and they were scared from the get-go that the companies would go after their funding on Capitol Hill and crimp their style. And so they covered us very little as well.

……………………………………………………….the cycle starts again against the whole set of new injustices. But all these forces I’ve just mentioned started shutting us down. We were saved for a short period by the Jimmy Carter administration. He appointed very good people to the regulatory agencies, the auto safety agency, the job safety agency, the EPA, and so on. But that was just a four-year reprieve and they were still counter-attacking. More lobbyists, more political action committees, more indignant calls to reporters and editors and publishers to shut us down. So, you know, that was their golden age, the mass media, what we call now the corporate media. And it’s completely changed now. And I say to reporters or editors, or publishers that I can manage to reach. It’s not easy. What are you ashamed of your golden age for? Look what you did for the country, just exercising your duty and professional responsibilities for newsworthiness. And now you don’t do it.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. we’re paying the price now in wars of empire, in the domination of corporate supremacists over everything.

They’re raising our children with that iPhone five, seven hours a day, undermining parental authority, separating these children from family, community, nature, harming their health with junk food and sedentary living, with very little kids playing outside anymore. There isn’t anything that corporate commercialism now has not invaded. They’ve commercialized the churches. They’ve commercialized the academic world. They’ve commercialized almost everything outside the marketplace they see as a profit center. So they want to corporatize the post office. They want to take over public drinking water departments and corporatize them. They want to corporatize the public school system. One way or another, they want to corporatize the public lands or take the public lands. And they’ve never been more aggressive, never been more successful. And the civic community, which used to be relied on to resist, can’t get any media. And we have tried. Last year, we made a major effort to turn Labor Day into a real workers day with events all over the country. We got the unions behind us……………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………….. . So basically when you shut out the civic community, Chris, you shut down democracy. And I placed the responsibility not just on the Democratic Party, but first and foremost on the mass media.

…………………………………………… the independent press is not such a hot shot either. The magazines like In These Times, Washington Monthly, Progressive Magazine, The Nation, they don’t cover civic community activities. They just pontificate. They do have some good articles, and they have their columnists, many of whom are getting very tired and repetitive. They don’t cover what Public Citizen, Common Cause, Pension Rights Center, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Union of Concerned Scientists, Veterans for Peace especially gets completely blacked out regardless of their demonstrations and non-violent civil disobedience all over the country against the military machine, the empire, the weaponization of the genocide in Gaza. They haven’t had a single article, they had to put out all kinds of great material people go to veteransforpeace.org and see for yourself.

These are veterans who’ve known wars and they can’t even get any coverage. And you can’t get any coverage of the lack of coverage. You can’t get the journalism publications to do any coverage of the censorship. So this is the ultimate censorship, the shutdown of the First Amendment. When the press, which is given a cachet in the First Amendment, there’s no other industry mentioned by name in the Constitution, are abusing their privileges for a mess of prodigies.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Ralph Nader

In a broader sense, all it comes down to are two things. Trump will self-destruct because he knows no boundaries. So his greatest enemy is Trump. And you will see the unraveling of Trump in the succeeding weeks. I would not be surprised that if he continues his bull in the China shop, illegal, wild, flailing, affecting tens of millions of people in terms of their dire necessities of life in favor of his corporate supremacist, that he will be impeached and convicted in the U.S. Senate. His own party will turn against him because when they see the polls, which are already dropping since January 20th, by the way, when they see the polls and they realize it’s either them or Trump, they will always take their own political survival.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://scheerpost.com/2025/03/08/how-the-media-walked-us-into-autocracy-w-ralph-nader-the-chris-hedges-report/

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Trump plans to make Ukraine a US economic colony, exploiting its critical minerals

COMMENT. The USA has played Zelensky for a sucker, all along. Now Ukraine is faced with trying to make the least worst deal to end the war. That is still better than annihilation and the very grave gamble with nuclear war.

Former US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated clearly that Washington was using Ukraine to “weaken” Russia.

Trump also revealed that the United States plans to use Ukraine’s critical minerals to create “weaponry that we’re going to use in many locations”.

GeoPolitical Economy, By Ben Norton, 2 Mar 2025

Donald Trump’s fight with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House reflected how the US treats Ukraine as a colony. Trump demands control of the country’s rare earths and critical minerals, to weaken China, re-industrialize, and build tech products. Trump wants to be paid $350 billion, roughly twice Ukraine’s GDP.

The fight that broke out in the White House between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, on February 28 was a stark symbol of the colonial relationship between the two countries.

“You’re in no position to dictate”, Trump yelled at Zelensky in the Oval Office. “You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards”.

The Trump administration has sought to impose an exploitative deal that will “make Ukraine a US economic colony”, in the words of the conservative British newspaper The Telegraph.

Trump is demanding control over Ukraine’s minerals, and plans to use revenue from the sale of its natural resources to pay the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, equivalent to roughly twice Ukraine’s GDP.

The US government believes that Ukraine could have trillions of dollars worth of rare earth elements and other critical minerals, which are needed for advanced technologies.

Trump wants to re-industrialize the United States, and he is offering corporations access to Ukraine’s resources to make their products.

This is part of Washington’s attempt to remove China from the supply chain for critical minerals, which has been a top priority of the Pentagon and the US House select committee on the Communist Party of China.

The Telegraph reported that Ukraine’s resources could be worth $15 trillion, writing that its “minerals offer a tantalising promise: the ability for the US to break its dependence on Chinese supplies of critical minerals that go into everything from wind turbines to iPhones and stealth fighter jets”.

Trump has stated that he wants to “un-unite” Russia and China, and his efforts to end the war in Ukraine also aim at splitting Moscow from Beijing.

Trump demands Ukraine pay the US twice its GDP

The US government pushed Ukraine into war with Russia, after expanding NATO up to Russia’s borders and backing a coup d’etat that overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected, geopolitically neutral government in 2014. This set off a violent conflict that escalated into a massive proxy war between NATO and Russia in 2022.

Former US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated clearly that Washington was using Ukraine to “weaken” Russia.

At different times, Trump has falsely claimed that the United States gave Ukraine $350 billion or $500 billion in aid. This is not true.

Independent analysts have calculated that the United States spent $119.7 billion on Ukraine-related “aid” since 2022.

According to the US Department of Defense, $182.8 billion was appropriated for military operations related to Ukraine from the end of 2021 to the end of 2024. The BBC noted that this figure includes military training in Europe and US weapons supplies.

Much of this “aid” consisted of US government contracts with private, for-profit weapons corporations, which produced the arms and ammunition that were sent to Ukraine.

In other words, the US military-industrial complex made a killing off of Ukraine “aid”.

Regardless, Trump is demanding that Ukraine pay the United States at least $350 billion, which is nearly two times the size of the country’s entire economy.

Ukraine’s GDP in 2024 was reported by the IMF to be $184.1 billion — although this figure is questionable, given the war.

The US wants Ukraine’s critical minerals

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, has repeatedly said that the United States wants to exploit Ukraine’s critical minerals.

In a June 2024 interview on CBS, Graham stated:

What did Trump do to get the weapons flowing [to Ukraine during his first term]? He created a loan system.

They’re sitting on $10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. I don’t want to give that money and those assets to Putin, to share with China.

If we help Ukraine now, they can become the best business partner we ever dreamed of. That $10 to $12 trillion of critical mineral assets could be used by Ukraine and the West, not given to Putin and China. This is a very big deal, how Ukraine ends.

In an interview on Fox News, just two weeks after Trump won the presidential election in November 2024, Graham argued that “the war is about money”, and he promised that Trump would impose a deal to “enrich ourselves with rare earth minerals”:………………

It is not known if Ukraine actually has these large reserves of rare earths. This claim has been called into question.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration believes there could be trillions of dollars worth of untapped minerals, and it wants to carry out exploration operations.

In the disastrous White House press conference with Zelensky on February 28, Trump was asked if his plan would provide security for Ukraine, and he replied: “We have security in a different form. We’ll have workers there, digging, digging, digging, taking the raw earth [sic], so that we can create a lot of great product in this country”.

Trump also revealed that the United States plans to use Ukraine’s critical minerals to create “weaponry that we’re going to use in many locations”.

“This is an incredible agreement for Ukraine, because we have a big investment in their country now”, he said in the meeting with Zelensky. “And what they have, very few people have. And we’re able to really go forward with very, very high-tech things, and many other things, including weaponry — weaponry that we’re going to use in many locations, but that we need for our country”.

Throughout the press conference, Trump repeatedly referred to rare earth elements as “raw earth”.

A journalist asked Trump how exactly Ukraine will benefit from his one-sided deal. Trump responded by enthusiastically explaining how it will help the United States. The following is a partial transcript:

REPORTER: How does this provide long-term security for Ukraine?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, we don’t know exactly how much, because we’re going to be putting some money in a fund, that we’re going to get from the raw earth, that we’re going to be taking, and sharing, in terms of revenue. So it’s going to be a lot of money will be made from the sale, and from the use of raw earth……………………………………………….

Trump’s remarks criticizing US environmentalists over their opposition to the mining of rare earths was an implicit acknowledgment that the process is toxic.

In a peer-reviewed article published in 2024, scientific experts warned that the “long-term, large-scale mining and utilization of rare earths has caused serious environmental pollution and constitutes a global health issue, which has raised concerns regarding the safety of human health”.

The US government has apparently made the assessment that it would be better to pollute Ukraine by exploiting rare earths there, where Americans won’t suffer from the environmental impact.

Trump boasts of arming Ukraine

Trump’s discourse on Ukraine has been utterly contradictory. He has alternated between blaming Democratic Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama for the war, while simultaneously boasting of supplying Kiev with weapons that Obama had initially refused to send.

Trump has repeatedly demanded credit for, during his first term, arming Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missile systems, which were used to fight against Russian-backed forces in the eastern Donbas region.

In a press conference at the White House on February 25, a journalist asked Trump about the minerals deal. The following is a transcript of his response:

REPORTER: What does Ukraine get in return, Mr. President?

DONALD TRUMP: Uhh, $350 billion, and lots of equipment, and military equipment, and the right to fight on, and, originally, the right to fight.

Look, Ukraine, I will say, they’re very brave, and they’re good soldiers, but without the United States, and its money, and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short period of time.

In fact, I was the one that gave the Javelins. You remember the famous Javelins? That was me. That wasn’t Obama; it wasn’t Biden; it wasn’t anybody else; it was me. And they wiped out a lot of tanks with those Javelins.

And the expression was that Obama gave sheets, and I gave the Javelins. That was a big deal, at the time. It wiped out — that was the beginning, when people said, “Wow, that’s something”.

Well, that was American equipment. Without American equipment, this war would have been over very quickly. And American money, too. I mean, a lot of money.

During his fight with Zelensky on February 28, the US president made similar comments.

Trump blamed the Ukraine war on Biden, whom he called “stupid”. At the same time, however, although he denied responsibility for the war, Trump could not help but brag about sending weapons to Ukraine during his first term, which exacerbated the war that was already ongoing at the time, before it massively escalated in 2022.

“We gave you military equipment, and your men are brave, but they had to use our military equipment”, Trump yelled at Zelensky. “If you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks”.

USA will control Ukraine’s reconstruction fund

The text of the agreement that Trump has sought to impose on Ukraine has not been publicly released.

The conservative British newspaper The Telegraph obtained the early draft of the deal, which the media outlet said would “amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity”.

This draft stated that the United States would get control over Ukraine’s “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure (as agreed)”. It is based not on Ukrainian law, but rather New York law.

The Telegraph wrote:

The US will take 50pc of recurring revenues received by Ukraine from extraction of resources, and 50pc of the financial value of “all new licences issued to third parties” for the future monetisation of resources. There will be “a lien on such revenues” in favour of the US. “That clause means ‘pay us first, and then feed your children’,” said one source close to the negotiations.

It states that “for all future licences, the US will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals”. Washington will have sovereign immunity and acquire near total control over most of Ukraine’s commodity and resource economy. The fund “shall have the exclusive right to establish the method, selection criteria, terms, and conditions” of all future licences and projects. And so forth, in this vein. It seems to have been written by private lawyers, not the US departments of state or commerce.

This leaked draft caused international outrage, given how explicitly colonial it was.

To try to save face, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent published an op-ed in the Financial Times on February 22 explaining the Trump administration’s plans for Ukraine.

Bessent is a billionaire hedge fund manager who previously worked for the billionaire oligarch George Soros, who is ironically a bugbear of Western conservatives.

Bessent traveled to Ukraine in February to negotiate the agreement with Zelensky.

In his FT article, Bessent explained that, under the deal, the United States will oversee a joint fund with the Ukrainian government. He wrote:

The terms of our partnership propose that revenue received by the government of Ukraine from natural resources, infrastructure and other assets is allocated to a fund focused on the long-term reconstruction and development of Ukraine where the US will have economic and governance rights in those future investments.

The Treasury secretary strongly implied that US corporations will benefit from these investments, writing, “When I was in Kyiv, I met with many American companies that have been on the ground in Ukraine for years”.

Bessent stressed that the “terms of this partnership will mobilise American talent, capital, and high standards”.

In a separate, accompanying article, the Financial Times noted that, in his op-ed, Bessent had conveniently left out how much of Ukraine’s export revenue will be paid to the US.

A draft of the deal obtained by the FT stated that Ukraine’s fund will be set up “with the encumbrance (legal claim) of such revenues in favour of the United States”. The text made it clear that Washington will be given power over reconstruction projects in Ukraine.

This framework is reminiscent of the colonial arrangement that the United States imposed on Iraq, after invading the country in an illegal war of aggression in 2003 and overthrowing its government. The US central bank, the Federal Reserve, administers the money that Iraq receives from selling its crude oil.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated that his country had agreed to Trump’s mineral deal, two days before Zelensky’s meeting at the White House. It is unclear if the fight changed the status of the agreement.

The other major revelation in Bessent’s FT article was that Zelensky himself had visited Trump Tower in September, just a few weeks before the presidential election. There, in Bessent’s words, “Zelenskyy proposed giving the US a stake in Ukraine’s rare earths elements and critical minerals”.

This was the biggest irony of all: Zelensky had long showed himself to be an obedient vassal of the United States, and he offered Trump some of Ukraine’s natural resources as an incentive to continue arms shipments.

Trump apparently loved the idea, but he wanted total control, not just a little. Now, Trump is demanding to be paid roughly twice the GDP of the country.

The colonial deal that the Trump administration is imposing on Ukraine recalls an infamous quote from the late US imperial strategist Henry Kissinger, who said in the context of Washington’s puppet regime in South Vietnam, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal”.

The people of Ukraine have learned this lesson the hard way. https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/03/02/trump-ukraine-us-economic-colony-minerals/

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

American companies profit from Canada’s radioactive waste

https://share.sender.net/campaigns/aggx/bulletin-number–num%C3%A9ro-15-american-companies-profit-from-canadas-radioactive-waste–les-entreprises-am%C3%A9ricaines-profitent-des-d%C3%A9chets-radioactifs-du-canada 7 Mar 25

Toxic radioactive waste is expensive to clean up. Canada’s contract to clean up itslegacy waste is worth billions for a three-company consortium: Canada’s AtkinsRéalisand Texas-based Fluor and Jacobs. The two American companies run nuclear weaponsfacilities in the U.S. and U.K. in addition to their Canadian nuclear interests.

Parliament’s payment to the consortium last year was $1.3 billion. The annual payments have risen each year of the 10-year contract that will end in September 2025.

The consortium operates “Canadian Nuclear Laboratories” (CNL) in a “Government-owned, Contractor-operated” (GoCo) arrangement with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL).

The U.K. abandoned GoCo contracts because of exorbitant costs and poor value for money. Under Canada’s GoCo contract, AECL owns lands, buildings, and radioactive waste, and the three-company consortium operates AECL’s sites.

When the Harper government issued the 10-year GoCo contract during the 2015 federal election period, they said AECL lacked the ability to clean up Canada’s multi-billion radioactive waste liability dating to World War II and needed “private sector rigour. From their billion-dollar annual payout, the three partner corporations take $237 million for “contractual expenses.” The salaries of 44 senior CNL managers, mostly Americans, average over $500,000 each.

Canada’s liability includes radioactive contamination in Port Hope, Ontario where uranium was refined for the U.S. nuclear weapons industry, radioactive contamination at the Chalk River nuclear laboratory site from producing plutonium for U.S. nuclear weapons, and radioactive contamination from AECL’s shutdown “prototype” CANDU reactors and its Whiteshell research lab in Manitoba.

The radioactive clean-up cost has grown each contract year, as have the consortium’s ambitions. The focus has shifted to “revitalizing” the Chalk River facility, where Parliament has allocated additional funds to build an “Advanced Nuclear Materials Research Centre.”

The Centre will conduct SMR research including research on plutonium fuels. Both American companies have interests in SMRs. The new Centre did not undergo a licensing process or environmental assessment under the Canadian Nuclear Safety.

AECL is expected to soon announce the awarding of a new 10-year Go-Co contract. Before the contract is signed, MPs should consider whether the arrangement benefits Canada, and whether these billions should be in the hands of American managers and corporations.

Commission.

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Europe’s Face-Saving Theater on Ukraine

Could they have been as corrupted as Antony Blinken, who insisted to the end of his time as U.S. secretary of state that Ukraine lower the conscription age to 18, even though he knew these youth would be sent to certain death? Have Western leaders not understood that the only chance Ukraine had to win the war was with NATO’S direct participation, risking a nuclear holocaust ?

Britain’s prime minister called an “emergency” summit in London following the Oval Office Fiasco to try to convince the world it will not be Europe’s fault, but America’s (Read: Donald Trump’s) when Ukraine collapses, writes Joe Lauria.

By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/05/europes-facing-saving-theater-on-ukraine/

Then Starmer added: but only if the United States joins us.

He said:

“We will go further to develop a ‘coalition of the willing’ to defend a deal in Ukraine…

And to guarantee the peace.

Not every nation will feel able to contribute.

But that can’t mean we sit back.

Instead, those willing will intensify planning now – with real urgency.

The UK is prepared to back this…

With boots on the ground, and planes in the air…

Together with others.

Europe must do the heavy lifting…

But to support peace on our continent.

And to succeed, this effort must have strong US backing.

We’re working with the US on this point, after my meeting with President Trump last week.”

Donald Trump has made it clear he is not going to commit U.S. troops to Ukraine, however. And Russia has said it would never accept Western troops there.

What Starmer is really saying is: Europe stands ready to fight and die as peacekeepers to save Ukraine if necessary, but only with the Americans. So when they refuse to come and the disastrous Project Ukraine at last comes crashing on our heads, don’t blame us, blame the U.S.A.

Trump will become even easier to blame now that he has cut off military aid and intelligence to Ukraine.

[The theater continued on Thursday at another European summit in Brussels, dubbed a “War Summit” by Politico, in which French President Emmanuel Macron, and still German Foreign Minister Alena Baerbock said Europe needed to get ready for war with Russia.]

The theater piece directed by Starmer at Lancaster House with an assembly of 15 European heads of government (and Justin Trudeau of Canada) was not really choreographed to try to convince Trump to reverse course, which appears unlikely, but as an elaborate presentation to save the hides of politicians who invested so much of their own political capital and wasted so much of their citizens’ money in the inevitable and humiliating defeat of Ukraine.

The summit was called by Starmer within two days of what he and the other Europeans saw transpire in the Oval Office on Friday. [See: Trump, Vance School Zelinsky on Reality of His War]. That occured at the end of a week in which both Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron had paid a visit to the same Oval Office where they learned first hand Trump’s determination to end the war even if it means Ukraine’s defeat.

That Ukraine would lose was obvious two years ago to Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz when they both gently broke that news to Zelensky privately in Paris in February 2023.

The private remarks clashed with public statements from European leaders who had routinely said then, and still say today, that they will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes to achieve victory on the battlefield. That was Joe Biden’s line too.

The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the private remarks to Zelenksy two years ago, wrote:

“The public rhetoric masks deepening private doubts among politicians in the U.K., France and Germany that Ukraine will be able to expel the Russians from eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014, and a belief that the West can only help sustain the war effort for so long, especially if the conflict settles into a stalemate, officials from the three countries say.

‘We keep repeating that Russia mustn’t win, but what does that mean? If the war goes on for long enough with this intensity, Ukraine’s losses will become unbearable,’ a senior French official said. ‘And no one believes they will be able to retrieve Crimea.’”

Indeed Ukraine’s losses have become unbearable. Macron and Scholz tried to tell Zelensky at that Élysée Palace dinner in February 2023 that he must consider peace talks with Moscow, the Journal reported.

According to its source, the newspaper quoted Macron as telling Zelensky that “even mortal enemies like France and Germany had to make peace after World War II.”

Macron told Zelensky “he had been a great war leader, but that he would eventually have to shift into political statesmanship and make difficult decisions,” the newspaper reported.

One wonders then why Scholz and Macron and the rest of Europe have persisted in fueling a lost cause that has since chewed up tens of thousands of additional Ukrainian lives. Could they be so corrupt that the survival of their political careers was worth the carnage of another nation’s men?

Could they have been as corrupted as Antony Blinken, who insisted to the end of his time as U.S. secretary of state that Ukraine lower the conscription age to 18, even though he knew these youth would be sent to certain death? Have Western leaders not understood that the only chance Ukraine had to win the war was with NATO’S direct participation, risking a nuclear holocaust ?

It seems that U.S. and European leaders kept an unwinnable war going until now to save their own careers. They could never admit defeat. But it did not save Biden or Harris or Blinken or Scholz or Trudeau, and Macron is in trouble too as voters saw through them all.

They’d all staked too much on the outcome of the war. They allowed their economies to fall. They pushed government censorship of social and alternative media to hide criticism that they were allowing men to die so that they would not be accused of “losing Ukraine.”

It’s been a cornerstone of history from ancient emperors to Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in Vietnam, and now Biden and Starmer in Ukraine: Let them die so that we may stay in office.

With defeat staring them in the face, who better to blame it on than the ogre, Donald Trump, who has dared to inject realism into the twisted dream of using Ukraine to weaken and defeat Russia.

It’s a failed policy that the European and Ukrainian leaders desperately need to keep going. One way to attempt this, as Chicago University professor John Mearsheimer said, is for the British, French and Ukrainians to “trap” the United States into giving a “security guarantee” to Ukraine.

Language in the mineral deal Zelensky had gone to the U.S. on Friday to sign calls for “common protection of critical resources.” Mearsheimer told a TV network in India that that is “the way they are trying to trap Trump and Co., and Trump won’t be trapped.”

This became evident in the Oval Office dust up last Friday when Trump angrily rejected Zelensky’s insistence on a U.S. “security guarantee” before he’d agree to a ceasefire and sign the mineral agreement. [See: Trump, Vance School Zelensky on Reality of His War]

The only way to keep their war going is to cajole Trump into getting the U.S. deeper into the morass, rather than wisely pulling out and pushing for a deal to end it.

As much as they might despise Trump, Starmer’s Sunday performance was designed to suck up to him. And an ungrateful Zelensky, reconsidering his public feud with Trump, is trying to make up with a man that seems susceptible to flattery.

In his address to the U.S. Congress Tuesday night, Trump said:

“Earlier today I received an important letter from President Zelensky of Ukraine. The letter reads: ‘Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.’

‘Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians,’ he said. ‘My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. … We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine, maintain its sovereignty and independence. … Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time.’

That is convenient for you. I appreciate that he sent this letter. I just got it a little while ago. Simultaneously we’ve had serious discussions with Russia. Then I’ve received strong signals that they are ready for peace. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Wouldn’t that be beautiful?

Wouldn’t that be beautiful?

It’s time to stop this madness. It’s time to halt the killing. It’s time to end the senseless war. If you want to end wars, you have to talk to both sides.”

Desperate Europeans and Ukrainians need Trump to keep their war and thus their careers going, perhaps none more so than Zelensky.

Will Trump stand firm, or will he succumb to a trap?

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Changing nuclear policy would make ‘SNP as bad as Tories’, MSP warns

By Xander Elliards Content Editor, 9th March

CHANGING the SNP’s policy on nuclear weapons would be a “panic measure” demonstrating the same lack of principles as the Tories or Labour, an MSP has warned.

Bill Kidd, who is also co-president of the
global group Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and
Disarmament, issued a warning to his party after its long-standing policy
on nuclear weapons came under fire on multiple fronts – including from
within.

As the fear of Russia rises in Europe, Labour have chosen nuclear
weapons as an issue on which to attack the SNP. Just this week, Prime
Minister Keir Starmer took aim at the party’s stance on nuclear weapons
in the Commons – followed by Labour MP Joani Reid and Scottish Secretary
Ian Murray doing the same two days later. Then, Ian Blackford, the SNP’s
former Westminster leader, joined the calls for the SNP to change tack on
nuclear weaponry – saying the party should support multilateral
disarmament instead of unilateral disarmament.

The question being asked is
simple: will the SNP stick with their support for the removal of nuclear
weapons from Scotland on day one of independence? Or, will they change tack
and say nukes can stay on the Clyde indefinitely (which, in practice, is
what waiting for multilateral disarmament means)?

For Kidd, who spoke to
the Sunday National from a UN summit on the Treaty on the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the answer is clear. “There may be increasing
pressure from the UK, from the UK political parties – and in fact I
expect that there will be – but that is another example of why the SNP
should stand firmly as an anti-nuclear [party],” he said.

The National 9th March 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/24992541.changing-nuclear-policy-make-snp-bad-tories-msp-warns/

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Britain’s nuclear submarines bill spirals by £5bn

The MoD blames inflation as the cost of replacing the UK’s at-sea deterrent hits £37bn

Szu Ping Chan Economics Editor. Matt Oliver Industry Editor

The cost of replacing the submarines carrying Britain’s nuclear deterrent
has ballooned by more than £5bn in just three years, according to official
documents. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has raised its estimate for the
lifetime cost of manufacturing and maintaining four new ballistic missile
submarines to £36.7bn as of March last year, up from an estimate of
£31.5bn in 2020-21. It is also £2.5bn more than projected in March 2023.

Telegraph 9th March 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/09/cost-for-britains-new-nuclear-submarines-spirals-by-5bn/

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US support to maintain UK’s nuclear arsenal is in doubt, experts say.

Guardian 8th March 2025,

Malcolm Rifkind joins diplomats and analysts urging focus on European cooperation to replace Trident.

Britain’s ability to rely on the US to maintain the UK’s nuclear arsenal is now in doubt, experts have warned, but working with European states to replace it will be costly and take time.

An existing debate about the future of Trident – Britain’s ageing submarine-launched nuclear missile system – has taken a dramatic new turn in recent weeks amid fears Donald Trump could pull out of Nato.

A range of concerns had already loomed over the £3bn-a-year programme, not least around its efficiency and effectiveness after a second embarrassing failed test launch last year.

Costs have also been a longstanding challenge but replacing Vanguard submarines on time has been prioritised over coming in under budget.

Downing Street sought to play down concerns earlier this week after diplomatic figures including the former British ambassador to the US Sir David Manning floated the scenario of an end to Anglo-US nuclear cooperation.

However, calls for Britain to make alternative plans have been joined by the former UK foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who initiated talks in the 90s between the UK and France on nuclear weapons cooperation.

“It really is necessary for Britain and France to work more closely together because if American reliability ever came into question, then Europe could be defenceless in the face of Russian aggression,” he said.

“The contribution by America must now be to some degree in doubt, not today or tomorrow, but over the next few years and certainly as long as Trump and people like him are in control in Washington.”………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/08/us-support-uk-nuclear-arsenal-in-doubt-trident-france

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Russians aren’t coming, the Russians aren’t coming.

The US should continue to work with Russia to end the war, reestablish normal diplomatic relations and reinstate the 3 nuclear agreements America dumped with Russia this century The survival of peoplekind depends on this détente

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 9 Mar 25

The US pause of all weapons and intelligence to Ukraine has got some Western European countries in uproar.

French President Emmanuel Macron is scrambling to make up the slack by pledging massive military aid to Ukraine by France and whichever neighbors he can con into squandering their treasure to sustain Ukraine’s lost cause against Russia. Macron may as well be shouting the ‘The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.’ when he blurted out “Russia has become a threat to France and Europe for years to come. I want to believe that the United States will remain by our side, but we need to be ready if that were no longer the case. The future of Europe should not be decided in Washington or in Moscow.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned, “We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times.” German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz recently declared that Europe had “five minutes to midnight.”

For 76 years Europe NATO members have been dependent on Uncle Sam to save their bacon from an imaginary enemy. The aforementioned leaders are now pledging to make up for America’s pullback from their own economies already weakened by three years of aid to the lost war in Ukraine.They are calling for EU member states to take on additional debt and ramp up military spending by $840 billion over four years, some of which will continue weaponizing the war in Ukraine till the last Ukrainian soldier is dead.

Macron recklessly went further stating that French troops could be sent to Ukraine. “Our forces will be there if necessary to guarantee peace, not before a peace agreement is signed. We will continue to meet with allies to move toward the signing of such an agreement. The only thing French and other European troops in Ukraine will guarantee is being attacked by Russia and possibly triggering nuclear war.

While a daunting task, if those objectives can be achieved the US should further encourage Europe to provide for their own defense by withdrawing from NATO which became obsolete 34 years ago when the Soviet Union went poof. With a GDP ten times Russia’s, that should be snap.

If America does withdraw from Europe, the hardliners in France, Germany and the EU, might come to their senses that…the Russians aren’t coming, the Russians aren’t coming.

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Britain’s nuclear weapons fiasco is a nightmare for Rachel Reeves

Overhauling the UK’s ageing defence has left the Chancellor facing a fresh battle to balance the books

Sir Keir Starmer was the first Labour leader in three decades to visit the
Barrow shipyard where Britain’s next generation of nuclear submarines are
being assembled. The Prime Minister, on the opposition benches at the time,
was unflinching in his support for the UK’s submarines-based nuclear
deterrent – a continuous at-sea presence that the Royal Navy has
maintained since 1969.

But while keeping Britain safe may be priceless,
being ready for war doesn’t come cheap. Trident, Britain’s nuclear
deterrent, gobbles up a significant share of our defence budget, leaving
the share devoted to troops and guns far below the 2pc Nato baseline. While
the Treasury said in October that its commitment to the UK’s nuclear
deterrent was “absolute”, many have warned that costs are spiralling
out of control, piling more pressure on a Chancellor who is already
struggling to balance the books.

Telegraph 8th March 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/08/britains-nuclear-weapons-fiasco-nightmare-rachel-reeves/

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Radioactive pollution is increasing at Britain’s nuclear bases

7 Mar 25 https://cnduk.org/radioactive-pollution-is-increasing-at-britains-nuclear-bases/

Radioactive air emissions have been increasing year-on-year at Coulport one of Britain’s nuclear submarine bases in Scotland. This development is of some concern as it would lead to increased health risks wherever the emissions were inhaled.

Investigations by The Ferret and The National newspaper found that emissions of radioactive tritiated water vapour had doubled at the Royal Navy’s nuclear weapons storage depot at Coulport on Loch Long between 2018 and 2023. According to the Scottish Pollution Release Inventory, tritiated water vapour emissions at Coulport were 1.7 billion becquerels (units of radioactivity) in 2018, rising steadily to 4.2 billion units in 2023. Tritiated water vapour is harmful when inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin as its radiation causes cancer and cardiovascular diseases including strokes.

The investigation also found that eight miles from Coulport at Faslane, where Britain’s nuclear submarines are based, tritiated water containing over 50 billion units of radioactivity had been dumped into the Gareloch. The level of dumping peaked in 2020, when 16.6 billion units were discharged.

The Ferret noted that in 2019, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) “changed the rules to allow certain tritium-contaminated effluents from nuclear submarines at Faslane to be discharged into the Gareloch.” Both SEPA and the MoD claim these emissions are within official safety limits.

However Dr Ian Fairlie, CND’s science advisor, states that these limits are unreliable, as official estimated doses from tritium contain “large uncertainties.”

CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:

“From faulty nuclear-armed subs on dangerously extended patrols to crumbling nuclear waste sites, Britain’s nuclear industry is putting us all at great risk. Instead of enforcing the highest levels of environmental standards, the government is just redefining what ‘acceptable risk’ means. All so it can allow the dumping of radioactive water, putting local people at greater risk of cancer. This is beyond reckless. It’s time to scrap Trident and its replacement, and decommission the nuclear industry.”

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, UK | Leave a comment

Ripping up the rules on nuclear power heightens the risk to us all

CND, Labour Outlook 7th March 2025 https://labouroutlook.org/2025/03/07/ripping-up-the-rules-on-nuclear-power-heightens-the-risk-to-us-al

“Ripping up the rules for nuclear greatly exacerbates the risk of accidents, will contaminate more of our environment with radioactive waste, and above all, raise the spectre of nuclear conflict.”

Sam Mason, convenor of CND’s Trade Union Advisory Group explains why the government’s new rules for expanding nuclear power production must be opposed.

The government’s announcement that it is going to ‘rip up the rules to fire-up nuclear power’ may be music to the ears of nuclear proponents but for CND, it is something we must vehemently oppose.

Part of wider planning law reforms to put ‘builders not blockers’ first and ‘build baby, build’, the proposal is to extend beyond the eight sites identified for nuclear power plants in 2009, and to include small or advanced modular reactors. This means nuclear sites could be constructed anywhere across England and Wales, and anyone opposing them on legitimate grounds of safety or the environment for example dismissed as NIMBYs.

According to the government, nuclear is needed for energy security and to satisfy high demand from ‘local users such as data centres, gigafactories, hydrogen and synthetic fuel production and/or industrial clusters’. It also includes using nuclear for district heat networks, being placed closer to centres of population, and in proximity to military activities.

A further driver for the government’s plans is the creation of good jobs, to drive growth and support climate action. With the impacts of climate change accelerating across the globe there is an urgent need to decarbonise our energy system, but nuclear power is not the answer on any of these levels.

The government’s laudable aim to decarbonise electric power by 2030 includes 4.5 gigawatts of nuclear power. For reference, the long over budget and delivery of Hinckley Point C in Somerset is due to generate 3.2gw of power.

Assurances about maintaining high standards of regulation do little to assuage fears of this nuclear proliferation. The addition of a new Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce to speed up delivery will cover both civilian and defence nuclear. Reporting directly to the Prime Minister, it serves to further emphasise we cannot decouple civilian nuclear from the weapons system.

Much is made about the low level of risk from nuclear, including new technologies such as SMRs. However, as we mark the 14th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster on 11 March, it should serve as a stark reminder of the impact of nuclear, and its legacy to current and future generations.

Ripping up the rules for nuclear greatly exacerbates the risk of accidents, will contaminate more of our environment with radioactive waste, and above all, raise the spectre of nuclear conflict. We must do all we can to oppose these plans.

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Air Force Activates Key Unit for Nuclear Modernization at VSFB

COMMENT. Well, they conned a woman into this killer industry, coddled and “educated” her into this top military job.

The nuclear lobby made keen to promote their pretence that nuclear weapons are good for women!

Most women would not like being part of this.

March 7, 2025, By Jennifer Green-Lanchoney

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. —

In a ceremony marking a new chapter in America’s nuclear deterrence strategy, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Suzanne Lamar assumed command of the newly activated Site Activation Task Force (SATAF) Detachment 9 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, March 6.

The activation of SATAF Detachment 9 represents a crucial step in modernizing the nation’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) capabilities, as the Air Force prepares to replace the aging Minuteman III system with the new LGM-35A Sentinel.

Vandenberg SFB’s Western Range serves as the primary testing ground for the Air Force Global Strike Command’s ICBM deterrent architecture. The Sentinel program represents a significant update to U.S. nuclear deterrent capabilities.

“Space superiority and nuclear deterrence start here at Vandenberg,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Lutton, Air Force Global Strike Command deputy commander. “Seventy years ago, Vandenberg hosted the dawn of ICBM testing, and we carry that forward here as we bring this new capability to the joint force.”……………………………….

The SATAF detachments, including Detachment 9 at Vandenberg, are crucial components of AFGSC’s strategy to maintain a “continuously viable, secure, and effective land-based nuclear deterrent.” Similar detachments are scheduled for activation at F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming (April 3); Malmstrom AFB, Montana (April 4); and Minot AFB, North Dakota (summer 2025)……………………………………………………… https://www.afgsc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4112894/air-force-activates-key-unit-for-nuclear-modernization-at-vsfb/

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

University of Suffolk co-opted by the nuclear industry.

Ipswich jobs fair showcases Sizewell C opportunities

The University of Suffolk hosted a jobs fair showcasing Sizewell C
opportunities. More than 200 people attended the event, organised by the
Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and Sizewell C. The fair provided
information on the thousands of jobs, apprenticeships, and training
opportunities available at the nuclear power plant. Attendees had the
chance to connect with local companies in the Sizewell C supply chain, as
well as colleges and charities.

Ipswich Star 7th March 2025 https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/24986367.ipswich-jobs-fair-showcases-sizewell-c-opportunities/

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Education, UK | Leave a comment

Does the Deep State really exist, and if so, is it being dismantled?

March 9, 2025, https://theaimn.net/does-the-deep-state-really-exist-and-if-so-is-it-being-dismantled/ .

What is the Deep State? Does it really exist?

These questions are hard to answer. I had heard the term Deep State over many years, and I connected it with all sorts of conspiracies – not just about U.S. politics and intelligence systems, but with wild ideas about satanism, reptilian shapeshifters, the antichrist, child-trafficking, blood harvesting – and all connected with extreme right-wing and pro- Trump propaganda. So I just dismissed and ignored them – there was no such thing as the Deep State !

It is not that simple.

Indeed, it is very complex.

If you start delving, the term Deep State takes you back to Turkey, over 100 years ago, where the concept of a “shadow government” a “secret state within the state” was a real thing. In more modern times the Deep State is defined as:

“The deep state conspiracy theory in the United States is an American political conspiracy theory that posits the existence of the deep state, a clandestine network of members of the federal government (especially within the FBI and CIA). The theory argues that there exist networks of collaborators within the leadership of the high-level financial and industrial entities, which exercise power alongside or within the elected United States government” – Wikipedia

So, OK it’s still just a theory – a conspiracy theory pushed by Donald Trump’s supporters in order to discredit USA’s Biden Democrat administration? And various extreme religious and other wacky groups tacked the more sinister stuff onto it.

The trouble is, as with many problems, there is some truth in it. Over the decades since World War 2, successive U.S. Presidents have turned to secret discussions with unelected officials from the CIA in particular, but also from other agencies and business circles, relying on their advice to make decisions. The decisions were then pretty much rubber-stamped by a complacent and oblivious Congress.

The following (annoying advertisement-afflicted) video from early 2024, is unmistakably a propaganda piece for the Trump campaign. But it does contain some telling information. Even from its first example, we see that J.F. Kennedy, in the Cuban missile crisis, went not to his advisors, but to a social group of very secret members of the CIA to decide what to do. The development of the very powerful, very secretive CIA, in partnership with military leaders, rocket scientists from Germany, media and business leaders, produced an information network on which Presidents relied for decision-making. The CIA’s spying powers that were appropriate in war against the enemy are now directed also against the American public, even in peacetime. Huge well-funded resources went to secret activities that included misinformation and disinformation against civil rights and peace activists. Congress accepts these secret programmes in the name of security.

That video – however pro-Trump it might be, does not mention satanism, etc. If you separate that wacky stuff from the Deep State story – it is all remarkably convincing. To an American public, fed up with the secrecy, the endless expensive pointless wars – Vietnam, Iraq Afghanistan …, Donald Trump’s promise of change, and of dismantling the Deep State sounded attractive.

And hey – presto ! Trump is doing it! He’s sacking those unelected officials, thousands and thousands of them. He’s purging law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and plans to cut 70 percent of staff from various government agencies — freezing of billions of dollars in funding,

Ain’t that great!

Actually, no.

We might welcome the disruption of a Deep State system based on militarism, with the USA forever fomenting trouble overseas, and spending unknown $squillions on military gimmickry. A phrase springs to mind – “Throwing the baby out with the bath-water” . That’s a very corny metaphor. But what is really happening is this:

Trump’s aim is nothing to do with the “Deep State” . Trump’s goal and methodology was set out, detailed in Project 2025, the Center for Renewing America and the America First Policy Institute. The goal is the destruction of democracy – removing or rendering useless the laws, regulations, protocols and rules that prevent autocratic power. No more compromise, limited power, checks and balances and accountability. He made a good start in getting control over the Supreme Court

And I don’t know if everybody noticed two salient points in Trump’s “defeat of the Deep State”

the power and unaccountable funding of the Pentagon will continue.
Trump’s getting rid of “unelected officials” – but apparently taking orders from unelected Elon Musk.

The end goal is the dictatorship of Donald Trump. It would be funny if it were not so deadly serious. The first step – the “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day Holiday Establishment Act” gives a clue as to what will follow.

The President Trump phenomenon will end eventually, for sure in chaos. Western World leadership is in the hands of a powerful, but unhinged , dictator, who is taking the advice of another powerful unelected unhinged billionaire, Elon Musk.

The whole process is far too much to pay for the destruction of the Deep State. Yes, it is welcome that the secretive decision-making by unelected officials and business leaders – taking the USA into endless wars – has been stopped. But its replacement is a terrifying fascism.

And at the end of it all, after the chaos, what will emerge? If we’re lucky enough to avoid catastrophes of global heating, and war, will we again get a government of men that are happy to have decisions made by macho men in bureaucracy and industry, who are itching for war – another Deep State in the name of “security”?

March 9, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Jeffrey Sachs: Negotiating a Lasting Peace in Ukraine

The time has arrived for diplomacy that brings collective security to Europe, Ukraine, and Russia.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Mar 06, 2025Common Dreams

There should be little doubt about how a lasting peace can be established in Ukraine. In April 2022, Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of signing a peace agreement in Istanbul, with the Turkish Government acting as mediator. The U.S. and U.K. talked Ukraine out of signing the agreement, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have since died or been seriously injured. Yet the framework of the Istanbul Process still provides the basis of peace today.

The draft peace agreement (dated April 15, 2022) and the Istanbul Communique (dated March 29, 2022) on which it was based, offered a sensible and straightforward way to end the conflict. It’s true that three years after Ukraine broke off the negotiations, during which time Ukraine has incurred major losses, Ukraine will eventually cede more territory than it would have in April 2022 — yet it will gain the essentials: sovereignty, international security arrangements, and peace.

In the 2022 negotiations, the agreed issues were Ukraine’s permanent neutrality and international security guarantees for Ukraine. The final disposition of the contested territories was to be decided over time, based on negotiations between the parties, during which both sides committed to refrain from using force to change boundaries. Given the current realities, Ukraine will cede Crimea and parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, reflecting the battlefield outcomes of the past three years.

Such an agreement can be signed almost immediately and in fact is likely to be signed in the coming months. As the U.S. is no longer going to underwrite the war, in which Ukraine would suffer yet more casualties, destruction, and loss of territory, Zelensky is recognizing that it’s time to negotiate. In his address to Congress, President Donald Trump quoted Zelensky as saying “Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.”

The pending issues in April 2022 involved the specifics of security guarantees for Ukraine and the revised boundaries of Ukraine and Russia. The main issue regarding the guarantees involved the role of Russia as a co-guarantor of the agreement. Ukraine insisted that the Western co-guarantors should be able to act with or without Russia’s assent, so as not to give Russia a veto over the Ukraine’s security. Russia sought to avoid a situation where Ukraine and its Western co-guarantors would manipulate the agreement to justify renewed force against Russia. Both sides have a point.

The best resolution, in my view, is to put the security guarantees under the authority of the UN Security Council. This means that the U.S., China, Russia, U.K., and France would all be co-guarantors, together with the rest of the UN Security Council. This would subject the security guarantees to global scrutiny. Yes, Russia could veto a subsequent UN Security Council resolution regarding Ukraine, but it would then face China’s opprobrium and the world’s if Russia were to act arbitrarily in defiance of the will of the rest of the UN.

Regarding the final disposition of borders, some background is very important. Before the violent overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, Russia did not make any territorial demands vis-à-vis Ukraine. Yanukovych favored neutrality for Ukraine, opposed NATO membership, and peacefully negotiated with Russia a 20-year lease for Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol, Crimea, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since 1783. After Yanukovych was toppled and replaced by a U.S.-backed, pro-NATO government, Russia moved quickly to retake Crimea, to prevent the naval base from falling into NATO hands. During 2014 to 2021, Russia did not push for annexing any other Ukrainian territory. Russia called for the political autonomy of the ethnic Russian regions of eastern Ukraine (Donetsk and Luhansk) that broke away from Kyiv immediately after Yanukovych was toppled.

The Minsk II agreement was to implement autonomy. The Minsk framework was inspired in part by the autonomy of the ethnic Germany region of South Tyrol in Italy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel knew the South Tyrol experience and viewed it as a precedent for similar autonomy in the Donbas. Unfortunately, Ukraine strongly resisted autonomy for the Donbas, and the U.S. backed Ukraine in rejecting autonomy. Germany and France, which ostensibly were guarantors of Minsk II, stood by silently as the agreement was thrown aside by Ukraine and the United States.

Following six years in which Minsk II was not implemented, during which the U.S.-armed Ukrainian military continued to shell the Donbas in an attempt to subdue and recover the breakaway provinces, Russia recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states on February 21, 2022. The status of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Istanbul process was still to be finalized. Perhaps a return to Minsk II and its actual implementation by Ukraine (recognizing the autonomy of the two regions in the Ukrainian constitution) could have been ultimately agreed. When Ukraine walked away from the negotiating table, alas, the issue was moot. A few months later, on September 30, 2022, Russia annexed the two oblasts as well as two others, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The sad lesson is this. Ukraine’s loss of territory would have been averted entirely but for the violent coup that toppled Yanukovych and brought in a U.S.-backed regime intent on NATO membership. The loss of territory in eastern Ukraine could have been averted had the U.S. pushed Ukraine to implement the UN Security Council-backed Minsk II agreement. The loss of territory in eastern Ukraine could probably have been averted as late as April 2022 in the Istanbul Process, but the U.S. blocked the peace agreement. Now, after 11 years of war since the overthrow of Yanukovych, and as a result of Ukraine’s losses on the battlefield, Ukraine will cede Crimea and other territories of eastern and southern Ukraine in the coming negotiations.

Europe has other interests that it should be negotiating with Russia, notably security for the Baltic States and for European-Russian security arrangements more generally. The Baltic States feel very vulnerable to Russia, understandably so given their history, but they are also gravely and unnecessarily adding to their vulnerability by a stream of repressive measures taken against their ethnic Russian citizenry, including measures to repress the use of the Russian language and measures to cut their citizens’ ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. Baltic state leaders are also provocatively engaging in remarkable Russophobic rhetoric. Ethnic Russians are about 25% of the population of both Estonia and Latvia, and around 5% in Lithuania. Security for the Baltic States should be achieved through security-enhancing measures taken on both sides, including the respect for minority rights of the ethnic Russian populations, and by refraining from vitriolic rhetoric.

The time has arrived for diplomacy that brings collective security to Europe, Ukraine, and Russia. Europe should open direct talks with Russia and should urge Russia and Ukraine to sign a peace agreement based on the March 29 Istanbul Communique and the April 15, 2022 draft peace agreement. Peace in Ukraine should by followed by the creation of a new system of collective security for all of Europe, stretching from Britain to the Urals, and indeed beyond.

March 9, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

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