Elliott Erwitt New York City, USA 1955
CNN Ukraine
This is a CNN report from 2014.
The people of Donestk were being brutalized & murdered by the Ukrainian government even back then under Poreshenko until the US govt swapped him out for zelenskyy to continue the slaughter. pic.twitter.com/oJNzMZD8Ki— The opinionated Black woman ~ Aunty (@Theblackfemini3) February 26, 2023
Russia rebuilt Mariupol in just months. Yesterday, Ukraine started shelling it again.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1627038075967705088
Sticks and stones
Discover the untold story about the War in Ukraine in this eye-opening documentary. Are you ready to challenge what you know?
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
― Albert Einstein pic.twitter.com/gx9Vs4mmZP
— kanekoa.substack.com (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 28, 2023
Schrödinger’s garbage
The Jabbed
— David Wolfe (@DavidWolfe) February 28, 2023
Everyone should download, read, and share this excellent academic paper on the full-scale fraud of the so-called ‘Covid global pandemic’. It may be your first step to liberation from this widespread criminal enterprise…https://t.co/acD1EWgmb0
— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) February 27, 2023
They have until fall. This is how the west will try to leave while saving face: we gave them everything they needed, but they screwed up!
“Should the counter-offensive fail, the pressure on Kiev to negotiate with the Kremlin will increase..”
• West Considers ‘Ultimatum’ For Ukraine (RT)
Ukraine’s Western backers are considering the imposition of an ultimatum on Kiev in relation to potential talks with Moscow, German tabloid Bild reported on Monday, citing anonymous government sources in Washington and Berlin. With new arms supplies, the US and its allies want to provide Kiev with an “incentive” to try and recapture territories seized by the Russian forces, Bild claimed, adding that the West wants to see results in this respect by the fall. “Should the counter-offensive fail, the pressure on Kiev to negotiate with the Kremlin will increase,” the paper reported. Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that the UK, France and Germany had allegedly offered Kiev weapons and security commitments under a plan aimed at pushing Kiev to negotiate with Moscow.
The US media outlet claimed last week that London, Berlin and Paris were supposedly ready to offer security guarantees just short of NATO membership. According to Bild, however, the conditions were not that generous. “The Europeans and the US cannot and do not want to provide Ukraine with hard security guarantees such as NATO membership at the moment,” German MP Norbert Roettgen, who previously headed the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told the tabloid. The German Chancellor’s Office also said on Sunday that potential NATO security guarantees played “no role at all” in the discussions between the three bloc members. Berlin neither outright denied nor confirmed the existence of the negotiations plan, Bild added.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also encouraged Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to engage in talks with Moscow earlier in February, according to the media reports. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg previously admitted that Moscow was winning the logistical war of attrition. He also said it was unclear how much the bloc could spend on further military support for Kiev. Last week, the Russian Foreign Ministry set out its conditions for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. The list included the West halting military aid for Kiev, as well as Ukraine returning to its neutral status after being “demilitarized” and “denazified.” Zelensky rejected any negotiations with Moscow by saying there was “nothing to talk about” and “nobody” to talk with.
They’re not going to move a inch on that.
• Crimea Integral Part Of Russia, Cannot Return To Ukraine – Peskov (TASS)
Crimea is an integral part of Russia and its return to Ukraine is impossible, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. When asked if Moscow could imagine a situation where Crimea would become part of Ukraine again, he answered in the negative. “It is an integral part of the Russian Federation,” the presidential spokesman stressed. US President Joe Biden assumed earlier that potential agreements on the Ukraine issue could include a provision on Kiev taking control of Crimea and some other territories in the future. After the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, the Crimean authorities held a referendum on reuniting with Russia. Most voters supported the idea (96.7% in Crimea and 95.6% in the city of Sevastopol), with turnout reaching 80%. In March 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty on Crimea’s reunification with Russia on March 18, 2014, which was ratified by the Federal Assembly on March 21, 2014.
That about sums it up.
• Musk: Diplomats Want War, Warriors Want Peace (Celente)
Elon Musk, the Tesla billionaire, accurately tweeted Monday about the Ukraine War and the U.S.’s continued effort to keep the conflict going, posting: “The diplomats want war and the warriors want peace.” His response was to another Twitter user who posted a New York Times article about how Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, once said, “Ukraine was unlikely to make substantially greater battlefield gains and should move to the bargaining table.” The Times said the White House “quickly squelched such talk.” Milley sent a shockwave through Washington in November when he said Ukraine may want to consider peace negotiations because the Ukraine War would keep dragging on. He later changed his tune and said Russia already lost.
“They’ve lost strategically, they’ve lost operationally and, I repeat, they’ve lost tactically,” he said. “What they’ve tried to do, they’ve failed at. The strategic reframing of their objectives, of their illegal invasion, have all failed, every single one of them.” Milley spoke with the Financial Times earlier this month and said that it would be “almost impossible for the Russians to achieve their political objectives by military means” and said it is exceedingly unlikely that its military will be able to “overrun” the country, he said. “It’s just not going to happen,” he said. He also said that it will be “very, very difficult for Ukraine this year to kick the Russians out of every inch” of the country it now controls.
Milley continues to sell the political line out of Washington. Col. Douglas MacGregor, who The Trends Journal has interviewed, has criticized these kinds of comments from Washington and said they hurt the administration’s credibility. “General Milley has made it very clear that he’s aligned with the left, he is part of this administration, he’s going to say whatever they want him to say,” MacGregor said, according to RT. Milley seems to be forgetting that Russia never said it had any intention of running over the entire country. The Kremlin has insisted since the start of the operation that it will achieve its goals, which include deNazification and demilitarizing the country. Russian forces now control about 20 percent of Ukraine since their invasion. Moscow also wants assurances that Ukraine will remain neutral and not join NATO.
Musk, in the meantime, has faced unfair attacks by the Presstitutes for calling for peace in Ukraine. The New York Times, in an unflattering report on Musk, called him a “geopolitical chaos agent” because he laid out a peace plan for Ukraine and suggested that tensions between Washington and Beijing can be resolved if China takes partial control. Musk took to Twitter in October to lay out what seemed like sensible steps to achieve peace. He said the referendums in the newly annexed regions could be done over, with UN supervision. Russia would leave if it is the will of the people. He noted that Crimea would be formally recognized as part of Russia, “as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).”
“There would have been very complex, positional, sometimes irreconcilable talks, but they would have been under way. But they refused.”
• NATO Is De Facto At War With Russia – Kremlin (RT)
The US-led collective West must change their approach to global security and finally take Moscow’s concerns into consideration, before talks on the New START nuclear agreement can be renewed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Speaking to the Izvestia newspaper for an interview published on Tuesday, Peskov said relations with the United States and Europe have “changed radically” since President Vladimir Putin formulated draft security treaties that were sent to Washington, Brussels and Vienna in late 2021, only to hear that “they were not ready to talk about anything with us.” “If they wanted, they could have sat down at the negotiating table [back then, before the decision to launch a military operation in Ukraine],” he said. “There would have been very complex, positional, sometimes irreconcilable talks, but they would have been under way. But they refused.”
With the failed attempt at dialogue, tensions continued to soar between Moscow and the West in the lead up to the conflict in Ukraine. Peskov argued that NATO is now fully involved in the hostilities, noting “their intelligence is working against us 24 hours a day, their weapons… are supplied to Ukraine for free to shoot at our military, not to mention that they shoot at Ukrainian citizens.” “The moment when NATO de facto became a participant in the conflict in Ukraine, the situation changed,” the spokesman continued. “In fact, the NATO bloc is no longer acting as our conditional opponent, but as our enemy.” “President Putin was and remains open to any contacts that can help Russia achieve its goals in one way or another,” Peskov continued. “Preferably peacefully, at the negotiations table, but when this is not possible, also by military means, as we are seeing now.”
Peskov touched on the New START treaty, a US-Russian accord intended to limit both nations’ nuclear stockpiles and allow them to monitor each other’s military facilities to confirm compliance. Amid the conflict in Ukraine, however, Moscow and Washington have accused each other of failing to facilitate such inspections. Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow intended to formally suspend its obligations under the pact, with Peskov explaining “the conditions must somehow change.” During the New START negotiations, the nuclear arsenals of France and Great Britain were left out of the equation, even though they are “significant enough for the entire system of European strategic security,” he said.
“These countries – France, Britain, the United States – are members of an organization which is de facto at war with us… you need to call a spade a spade,” Peskov added, noting how Western states nevertheless keep “repeating like a mantra that they do not want to be participants in the conflict.” Putin has also accused NATO specialists of helping Kiev to launch drone attacks against Russian airfields hosting long-range bombers, which are part of Moscow’s system of nuclear deterrence. He blamed Washington and NATO’s proxy war against Russia for destroying the foundation of trust on which the treaty was initially built.
“Just listing the names of these states already shows the failure of attempts [of the West] to isolate our country,,”
• Russia No Longer At Mercy Of Global Elite – Lavrov (RT)
Western political leaders will no longer have the power to dictate terms to Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. Speaking with the heads of the ministry’s regional offices, the diplomat stressed that Russia will now determine its own needs for development. “Until recently, a couple of years ago, the external conditions that we needed for development were determined not by us, but by the Western minority,” said Lavrov. He added that all the foreign policy initiatives promoted by the so-called “golden billion” group serve the sole purpose of making sure that the world lives by rules that allow Western elites to continue their colonial policies and live at the expense of others.
“Therefore, we will no longer rely on someone when it comes to creating the external conditions for the development that we need,” Lavrov stressed, also pledging that Russia will not follow in the footsteps of the “selfish” West, and will take into account the interests of other independent states. According to the diplomat, Moscow aims to create external conditions that are as favorable as possible for the development of the country, but stressed that these conditions must also reflect “the consensus of all independent states” and fully comply with the principles of the UN Charter, which have been “repeatedly violated by our former Western colleagues.”
During the meeting, Lavrov also noted that the number of countries wishing to join BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) economic blocs had increased to almost two dozen by the end of 2022. The diplomat noted that the countries wishing to join the alliances, such as Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Indonesia, Argentina, Mexico and several African nations, “play a very prominent role in their regions.”“Just listing the names of these states already shows the failure of attempts [of the West] to isolate our country,” Lavrov observed, adding that the opposite has happened, with independent countries now uniting with other like-minded states.
It turned east,
• How Russia Managed To Survive Western Sanctions (RT)
The Russian economy has managed to hold up against the massive sanctions imposed by Western countries and their allies over Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby admitted on Friday. As the conflict enters its second year, Washington revealed more anti-Russia penalties, targeting dozens of companies and individuals linked to the country, and raising tariffs on Russian goods whose imports were still allowed. Meanwhile, the EU approved its tenth package of sanctions against Russia, which includes export limitations on dual-use items and technology, measures against so-called Russian disinformation, and new restrictions against individuals and entities for their alleged support of the Russian military. Western allies Britain, Switzerland, Australia, Japan and New Zealand joined the measures.
Russia’s economy is “showing some resilience,” according to Kirby, who added, however, that it’s not clear whether this “can be sustained for the long haul.” “He has had to take some drastic measures to prop up his economy, to prop up his currency, including playing pretty aggressively with interest rates, for instance,” Kirby said, commenting on steps approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian statistics service Rosstat reported that GDP of the sanctions-hit nation contracted by just 2.1% in 2022, much less than the 10-15% some had predicted after sanctions hit last March. The Russian economy is actually forecast to increase by 0.3% during the current year, according to the IMF.
The strength of the Russian economy has been partially attributed to global prices for oil and gas, which saw a dramatic surge shortly after one of the world’s biggest exporters of the two commodities was targeted by Western sanctions. The growth of energy prices has reportedly compensated for the drop in the volume of the country’s exports. At the same time, Russia managed to re-orient some of its exports, including energy sales, eastwards after Western buyers opted to shun direct shipments under the sanctions pressure. The Russian national currency, the ruble, has also managed to stay afloat after bouncing back following a dramatic decline seen shortly after the sanctions were imposed last March. This has been attributed to strict capital controls, a dramatic interest-rate hike by the Russian central bank, and the country’s move to trade transactions with allied countries in domestic currencies.
The share of the ruble in Russia’s international settlements has doubled compared with December 2021. Last week, President Putin said that Moscow would continue to work with partners to form a stable and secure global payment system independent of the US dollar and of other Western currencies. President Putin has also attributed Russia’s economic resilience to the country’s strong agricultural sector. According to the latest data provided by Russia’s statistics service, the harvest amounted to 153.8 million tons, a 26.7% increase year-on-year against 2021. “By the end of the agricultural year, that is, by June 30, 2023, we will be able to bring the total volume of grain exports to 55-60 million tonnes,” he said last week during his annual address to the Federal Assembly.
Meanwhile, parallel imports of non-sanctioned products and flourishing trade with countries that refrained from punishing Moscow had also contributed to the economic resilience. In addition, Russia has been successful in moving a lot of products to Asian markets such as India and China, and to Türkiye. Additionally, Russia also had several years to prepare for sanctions following its reunification with Crimea in 2014. Moscow succeeded in developing an alternative to SWIFT, the messaging network that underpins global financial transactions. This came in response to Western threats to cut the country off from the international banking system.
“Crimea was purchased by Catherine the Great as it was a gateway for a strategic, warm-water 12 month port.”
• Pushback: The Folly Of Ukraine (Denninger)
Ukraine has always been an ungovernable cesspool; there are roughly four ethnic groups, all of whom hate each other, and one of them is essentially Russian. The land itself is a trade crossroads that has served as such for over a thousand years, so that this occurred is not really a surprise. The USSR delegated nearly all operating authority to the territory for this reason; Moscow simply didn’t have the desire to try to tame that which was always trying to bite from one direction or another, as they understood the only real way to make that happen would be to kill 3/4 of the population there or enslave all of them.
Crimea was purchased by Catherine the Great as it was a gateway for a strategic, warm-water 12 month port. Without it Russia was at risk of a pincer on said port at any time, and this was unacceptable. Therefore rather than take it, she bought it. This is historical fact and no amount of revisionism will ever change it, any more than you can un-do the fact that the United States purchased Alaska; even though it is non-contiguous with the rest of our land, it serves as a buffer between North America and the Russo/Asian landmass. It’s ours; we bought it through legitimate consensual negotiation, just as Russia bought Crimea through the same process.
The Turkish mess with NATO (since when are they in the North Atlantic?) and that part of the Cuban mess ought to be obvious, but that’s in the rearview mirror and we managed to avoid blowing each other up, even though we provoked it — and were in the wrong. Well, now we have a problem. You see, over the last three decades or so we’ve offshored huge parts of our supply chain to China. We did it out of idiocy, but that’s in the rear view mirror too. Its done and while we could reverse course we can’t do it tomorrow, and whether we like it or not it takes five to ten years to build a fab and get it online for chips and such, never mind other areas of manufacturing.
China doesn’t like our point of view when it comes to the Russia/Ukraine dust-up. In fact they’re thinking that if we can send weapons, ammunition and such to Ukraine, they can send them to Russia. Oh, by the way, they share a border so its quite-convenient and unlike our shipments, which can be blown up the minute they go into Ukraine, that’s a much-more dicey proposition for Chinese shipments into Russia. This is a problem and one we have no good answer to. Our government has threatened, including our Treasury Secretary (Yellen) that there will be “serious consequences” for China if they do this. Oh really? What consequences would those be? Are you going to shoot or sanction? Good luck with either; shooting leads to WWIII and sanctioning is an empty threat when you need the supply pipeline to operate or you can’t make, well…… just about anything.
“..what the Left actually thinks is exactly what Woody’s movie script implied: believe everything that the government, the news media, and the drug companies tell you, and act accordingly, and destroy anyone who says otherwise.”
• It’s Coming (James Howard Kunstler)
“It’s Coming.” That’s what Elon Musk said a while back apropos of the Twitter files that show all the US government suppression of Covid-19 information mis-labeled as “misinformation.” Think of whatever the truth is as mis-misinformation. Get it? You might have to read that sentence more than once to comprehend what went wrong with the American consensus the past three years. And then you’ll begin to understand why the operation is called mind-fuckery. “It” comes out in weird ways now. For instance, Woody Harrelson’s little prank on Saturday Night Live. The A-List actor opened the show acting stoned, talking about how much he likes weed and getting stoned, and, at the very end of his routine, spoke of a “movie script” that spun out in his stoned head:
“The biggest drug cartels in the world get together, and buy up all the media and all the politicians… and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes… and people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drug… and keep taking them over and over. I threw the script away. I mean, who’s gonna believe that crazy idea?“ One can also imagine the NBC lawyers’ iPhones lighting up and emitting a cacophony of ring-tones in the late-night hours following Woody’s little gaucherie. After all, this is the TV network that still employs the likes of Rachel Maddow, Misinformation-Informer-in-Chief of the whole USA who, for years, has performed as the icon representing how the political Left thinks of itself, and what it thinks. What the Left thinks of itself, of course, is that it’s collectively the smartest person in the world. And what the Left actually thinks is exactly what Woody’s movie script implied: believe everything that the government, the news media, and the drug companies tell you, and act accordingly, and destroy anyone who says otherwise.
Woody’s gag offended the news media hugely and instantly, said media being scaffolded on the Internet. The response was wildly censorious. Vanity Fair’s insta-bulletin said, “Uncle Woody… taking the stage to float conspiracy theories disguised as provocative humor is both intellectually dishonest and tedious.” Tedious? As if you’ve heard that come out of A-list actors’ mouths a thousand times? I doubt it. Who is being “intellectually dishonest” exactly? Rolling Stone, likewise headlined: “Woody Harrelson Spreads Anti-Vax Conspiracies During SNL Monologue.” (Just how anti-anti-establishment now is the old counter-culture rag I once worked for?) The Daily Beast, The Left’s house organ, echoed that: “Woody Harrelson Spews Anti-Vax Conspiracies in Rambling SNL Monologue.” Notice, “spews,” as in the most vile and disgusting bodily function imaginable, you revolting piece of filth….
They will have to frame a reply. It won’t go away.
• Hungary Demands UN Investigation Into “Scandalous” Attack on Nord Stream (SN)
Hungary has called for a UN investigation into the “scandalous” attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, which journalist Seymour Hersh asserted were destroyed by the United States. Three of the four natural gas pipelines connecting Russia to Germany were sabotaged in September last year, an attack that must have been carried out by a state actor. The attack left Germany and other European countries dependent on US energy, prompting them to support escalation of the war in Ukraine. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Hersh published an article earlier this month in which he asserted that the pipelines were destroyed by the US as part of a covert operation.
According to Hersh’s sources, the explosives were planted in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise and were detonated three months later with a remote signal sent by a sonar buoy. One source told Hersh that the plotters knew the covert operation was an “act of war,” with some in the CIA and State Department warning, “Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.” After China demanded that the United States “explain itself to the world” over the claims, Hungary has now added its voice to the call for a full and proper investigation. “This is basically the first time when such a major European critical infrastructure was attacked. By whoever – but it was attacked,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told RIA Novosti.
Szijjarto added that the sabotage was a “scandalous” act of terrorism and the truth as to finding out who was responsible should be of the utmost international importance. Budapest wants know “who committed it and why,” asking for a “comprehensive, deep, structured and detailed” probe conducted under the auspices of the UN. “I think the UN should give a framework for such kind of an investigation,” said Szijjarto, adding that the international body should act as a “platform for countries to talk to each other, who even consider each other as enemies.”
“He also pointed out that Biden, unlike his predecessor, Donald Trump, had not taken a cognitive test and argued that the sitting president’s “ability to think and reason is gone”..”
• Ex-White House Doctor Warns Of Biden Danger (RT)
Former White House physician and Republican Representative Ronny Jackson has hit out against US President Joe Biden, arguing that his declining mental state poses a danger to the entire country. “It’s TERRIFYING for our country that Biden is our commander-in-chief,” Jackson wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “He doesn’t know where he’s at half the time and every day he brings us closer to an all-out war with Russia and China. His cognitive decline is going to get people KILLED!!” Jackson, who served as the White House Physician to the President under Barack Obama and Donald Trump until 2018, has previously criticized the current US administration for failing to disclose the truth about Joe Biden’s mental health.
Earlier this month, the White House issued a summary on the status of Biden’s health based on a medical history review and a “detailed physical examination,” which found that the president was a “healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male” who was fit to execute his duties. Replying to the president’s health report, Jackson stated that the medical exam was a “joke” and a “cover up.” He also pointed out that Biden, unlike his predecessor, Donald Trump, had not taken a cognitive test and argued that the sitting president’s “ability to think and reason is gone” and that he should not be in office.
According to a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll conducted earlier this month, some 57% of Americans have doubts about Biden’s mental fitness, with 67% thinking he seems to be too old to lead the country. Speculations about the president’s cognitive abilities have only continued to grow due to his numerous recurring gaffes, the latest of which was him proclaiming that “more than half the women in my administration are women.”
“..they claim he made it all up – which means, according to them, that he did not publish classified information. Therefore he cannot be guilty of any crime.”
• Why is Assange in Jail and Not Seymour Hersh? (Steve Brown)
On February 7, Seymour Hersh – arguably the most credible investigative journalist of our era – published a bombshell exposé revealing that the United States was guilty of blowing up the Nord Stream II undersea pipeline that was supposed to deliver natural gas from Russia to the Federal Republic of Germany. Hersh’s revelations were based entirely on classified information leaked to him by a member of the government with first-hand knowledge of the planning and implementation of the attack on the pipeline – a member of the government who clearly broke the law by violating his fiduciary duty not to reveal classified information to an unauthorized source.
Like Chelsea Manning, who had revealed classified information to Julian Assange, for which she was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison, Hersh’s source, if identified, would surely also be convicted and sentenced to similar long-term imprisonment. But Hersh’s source has not been identified. However – Hersh himself has. According to the same logic under which Assange was indicted for publishing classified information, and now faces up to 175 years in prison, Hersh, too, should be indicted and face comparable long-term imprisonment. So why is Sy Hersh still free? Hersh broke the same laws that the U.S. government accuses Julian Assange of breaking. But unlike Assange, a foreigner whom the U.S. has unsuccessfully been trying to extradite from England for years, Hersh is an American citizen living right here in the United States – easy to find, cuff, indict, convict and throw in prison for the rest of his life.
So why is Sy Hersh still free? Surely the classified information that Hersh has revealed is even more dangerous to the safety of the U.S. than what Assange revealed. Hersh showed that the U.S. had committed an unprovoked act of war against Russia. This gives Russia an absolute legal right to retaliate under Chapter VII, Article 51, of the United Nations Charter, which cites self-defense as an exception to the prohibition against the use of force. Since Russia happens to be a nuclear power, its potential retaliation could trigger World War III and wipe out not just the U.S. but the entire human race. Therefore, in any comparison of who has placed the U.S. in greater danger – Julian Assange is a piker compared to Sy Hersh.
So why is Sy Hersh still free? The answer is this. Although President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland would love to throw Sy Hersh into a maximum security prison for the rest of his life, as punishment for revealing their complicity in blowing up the Nord Stream II pipelines – they don’t dare to. If they did, it would be tantamount to admitting that … what Hersh published is true. Which would be embarrassing, to say the least, because Biden and Company have spent every day since February 7 denying that Hersh’s revelations are true. In other words, they claim he made it all up – which means, according to them, that he did not publish classified information. Therefore he cannot be guilty of any crime.
I stay away from the stench that is UK politics, but what ails Labour is not Corbyn or anti-semitism, it’s that Blair and Starmer have enough right wing voters inside the party to have taken over.
• Starmer Is Paving The Way For The Triumph Of Dark Politics (Cook)
There is a reason – and not the one given – why Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has announced that he is banning his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, from standing as a candidate for the party at the next general election. Corbyn has been sitting as an independent since Starmer exiled him from the Labour benches in late 2020 – after Corbyn observed that it was for “political reasons” he faced years of evidence-free accusations the Labour Party was beset by antisemitism on his watch. He called the accusation “dramatically overstated”. The official grounds for Corbyn being permanently barred from returning to the parliamentary party are that he has refused to apologise for his comment.
Announcing Corbyn’s exclusion as a candidate, Starmer said Labour would “never again be brought to its knees by racism or bigotry. If you don’t like that, if you don’t like the changes we have made, I say the door is open and you can leave”. The establishment media – from right to supposed left – are trying to bolster Starmer’s claims about Corbyn and his supporters by continuing to weave a web of misrepresentations about the former leader being depraved and unhinged. Antisemitism in Labour is apparently being kept at bay only because of Starmer’s vigilance, in contrast to Corbyn’s supposed indulgence. And, were Corbyn to be serving as prime minister today, we are warned, he would be taking “cranky” foreign policy decisions, like encouraging a diplomatic process to end the bloodshed in Ukraine.
No other political leader, not even Tony Blair, has haunted the thoughts of his successor – or the airwaves and pages of the billionaire-owned media – in quite the way Corbyn continues to do so. Even a disastrous, if brief, prime minister like Liz Truss quickly faded from memory. Boris Johnson stays in the British public’s imagination only because the scandals and dramas he presided over are still playing out, and because in the crisis-plagued Conservative Party, he might yet manage to claw his way back into Downing Street. So why the perennial concern about Corbyn, even as he languishes on the backbenches, outside the two-party chokehold on British politics, with no evident path back to power? Why does his shadow loom so large?
The reason has nothing to do with antisemitism or Corbyn’s criticisms of the West’s response to the Ukraine war – or rather, not in the sense Starmer and commentators would have you believe. Like the media, Starmer wants not just the solitary figure of Corbyn gone from British politics. He wants to eradicate something far more dangerous to the establishment: Corbynism, the ideas of a fairer, more equal society the former Labour leader gave life to, as well as the potential grassroots movement he represents.
Nick
This is Nick. If you won't maintain a healthy work-life balance, he'll do it for you. 12/10 pic.twitter.com/LvAoBwjjAA
— WeRateDogs® (@dog_rates) February 27, 2023
Warka
Warka Water structures consist of a bamboo frame supporting a mesh polyester material. Through rain and condensation they can collect 100 liters of clean drinking water a day for communities in the developing world
[read more: https://t.co/wxmiQTI9Y7]pic.twitter.com/d1MVJ6FDuG
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 27, 2023
Lumpsucker
https://twitter.com/i/status/1630466684241825793
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