John Day
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Gilbert Doctorow updates the Russian Informed Media and Governmental views of the Ukraine war. This jumps out as important:
The soldiers remarked that the U.S. built Bradley is poorly suited to its present use in Ukraine. It might be fine perhaps for the desert, where it saw action in Iraq, but it does not allow for the clearances of a crew wearing bulky winter dress. They have little room inside and they have difficulty getting in and out of the hatches. Moreover, the hatches are hydraulically operated, meaning that if you strike the electronics the crew is trapped in what quickly becomes an incinerator. The updates to modernize the Bradley, the active defense elements that were installed after the initial production runs, were deemed to be unimpressive and inadequate to the challenges of today’s kamikaze drones.
These critical remarks on what the United States and its NATO allies have considered to be technological wonder weapons have to be put in the context of what the Russians themselves are now deploying on the battlefield. The Russian soldiers appear to be delighted with the hardware they are receiving from their military industrial complex, both state factories and entrepreneurial firms such as the producers of the now celebrated tank-killing Lancets. Most important, the Russian factories are in daily contact with the soldiers in the field to discuss what improvements should be made and are sending new upgrades straight to the field where their own repair and reconditioning teams make the changeovers under field conditions.
https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/ukrainian-general-the-russians-areRepublican Senators Unswayed As Zelensky Pleads Case On Capitol Hill: “If We Lose, Putin Wins”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/if-we-lose-putin-wins-republican-senators-unswayed-zelensky-pleads-case-capitol-hillWhat the Republicans want fixed: I Put My Camera On A Pole And Filmed The Border Situation Up High In Lukeville, Arizona—Apocalyptic
It’s end of the world stuff down here , Jeff Rainforth
https://jeffrainforth.substack.com/p/i-put-my-camera-on-a-pole-and-filmed?r=avynxRussia donates ambulance fleet to African country, An agreement was signed with Angola to send medical vehicles, as well as provide spare parts and maintenance training
https://www.rt.com/africa/588875-angola-russia-ambulances-gazelle/ Gazans say hunger is causing social breakdown, fueling fears of exodus into Egypt
The narrow coastal strip has been under a full Israeli blockade since the start of the conflict more than two months ago and the border with Egypt is the only other way out.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes and residents say it is impossible to find refuge, or increasingly food, in the densely populated enclave, with around 18,000 people already killed and conflict intensifying.
Gazans said people forced to flee repeatedly were dying of hunger and cold as well as bombardment, describing desperate attacks on aid trucks and sky high prices.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2423691/middle-east Does Netanyahu need an exit strategy this month? Are Israeli military losses and public opinion getting to the flash-point for Bibi? Is Bibi getting replaced by Israeli elites?
In a sudden about-face, President Biden in a speech on Tuesday began aggressively criticizing Israel and the Netanyahu government for the first time since the Oct.7 Hamas terror attacks.
Calling the Israeli prime minister a “good friend” – Biden said “I believe he has to change” as the government in Israel and the ongoing military campaign which has killed many is “making it very difficult for the world.”
“This is the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” Biden said, adding that the Israeli government “doesn’t want a two-state solution.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-sudden-about-face-israel-losing-support-due-indiscriminate-bombing US-Made Munitions Used In Israel’s White Phosphorous Attacks On Lebanon; WaPo (The Washington Post is a CIA mouthpiece. Has the deep state had enough?)
A Washington Post journalist came across the remnants of three 155-millimeter artillery shells near the border. Production codes found on the shells indicate that they were made by ammunition depots in Louisiana and Arkansas in 1989 and 1992.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-made-munitions-used-israels-white-phosphorous-attacks-lebanonIsrael has been bluffing about attacking Beirut if Lebanon doesn’t make Hezbollah back off (which it can’t).
John Helmer , ISRAEL’S LITANI ULTIMATUM – RUSSIAN REACTION IS THAT IT’S BLUFFISRAEL’S LITANI ULTIMATUM – RUSSIAN REACTION IS THAT IT’S BLUFF
Israel now seeks to draw the US into that Lebanese-border conflict zone.
Israel Open To Truce Deal With Hezbollah, Wants US Troops Deployed As Peacekeepers
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/israel-open-truce-deal-hezbollah-wants-us-troops-deployed-peacekeepers It has taken the USA a long time to become as dissipated economically as it has done, since being the world’s factory from the depression through the Vietnam years.
The Honest Sorcerer looks at “Inflation” here, which means “retail price inflation” in US government statistics, which are manipulated to look-less-bad, as we know.
Inflation – A Misnomer , How you get poorer and poorer in an economy “doing great” https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/inflation-a-misnomer
The money supply keeps growing, based upon exponentially growing debt as the basis of money, and that would be “inflationary” if the quantity of goods and services remained the same. However, the supply of many goods and of the stocks to make those goods are declining, which causes a price inflation of decreased supply, as well.
My comment:
“Inflation” is also “where you measure it”. Consumer-statistics measure “inflation” as a basket of goods and services at street level, which means that the massive asset-price-inflation for QE and subsequent interventions was not measured as “inflation”.
This asset-price-inflation has been a payoff for continued participation of the top 5-10% of global wealth which invests in financial assets. This has kept this cohort onboard with the western dollar/eurodollar financial system, getting real-returns-on-investments. Since the real-economy has not expanded, losses of actual-wealth to the bottom 90% have resulted, and have been pushed to where the populations have had the least political power.
What is often missed is that the inflection point for diveregence of physical economy and nominal “wealth” took place in 1980-1981 when Fed Chairman Paul Volcker raised interest rates to over 20% to support the “value” (price, really) of the $US, at the cost of the real US economy, which was crushed. Also, the return-on-investment support for the $US had to keep being extracted from the productive economy. Volcker was privately targeting wages of construction workers as his personal metric, as revealed at private meetings. He “crushed” those wages.
There is no more crushing-of-wages which can be done to support rent-extraction to “investors”, which has supported the price of the $US for so long, while bleeding the real productive US economy, and funding wars to maintain $US system dominance (maintaining global oil and other markets in $US).
At the point where the $US is no longer price-supported by global investors, it will need to be value-supported by American trade goods and services, which include oil, natural gas, airplanes, wheat, corn and soybeans. This will involve massive debt-default, perhaps by devaluing the $US against gold, and certainly through the crash of asset-prices.
“Smart money” has been repositioning out of risk-assets and into real-estate and other real assets since about 2016, by my personal estimation. That seemed more pervasive after 2018, including rural housing after that. These are large global firms buying up property.
The really big systemic-risk question is that of enforcement of ownership-rights in the future, after a systemic collapse/reset. Will global corporate landowners be forced to sell to locals?
Will all such corporate assets be taken over by governments, with some kind of payout to pensioners and pension-funds to maintain social stability? Will the funding for wars finally decrease, or will it consume everything?
We are parties to these moves of society, not just observers, but how might we meaningfully and constructively engage in these solutions to the problems at hand?Subject To Change https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/subject-to-change
Charles Hugh Smith asks,”Could America Have a French-Style Revolution?” (Charles draws on Peter Turchin’s analysis that an excess of political elites over political-elite positions in society leads to the formation of alternative-elite groups which contest the status-quo elites. This would be precipitated by economic/political shocks.)
In the past, I reckoned the odds of America experiencing a revolution akin to France 1789 were low due to the different political, economic and cultural conditions present then and now, but recently I’ve considered the possibility that America’s extremes of wealth, income and power inequality are a powder keg awaiting ignition.
By French-Style Revolution I don’t mean a violent overthrow of the ruling elite as much as a tumultuous reset of how resources and power are distributed. Systems become vulnerable to such resets when they become highly asymmetrical in how they distribute resources and power, and rigid in their defense of the extreme inequality of the distribution.
The fundamental source of democracy’s stability is the dynamic competition of various interests and the dynamic equilibrium of the three branches of the state each balancing the others by restraining the dominance of any one branch or interest.
But extremes of inequality undermine this stability, as the wealthiest elites now bring such a preponderance of wealth to bear that each of the three branches of the state are now beholden to the interests of the few, leaving little recourse to the many...
..The power elite are incapable of demanding sacrifices of the wealthy as the prime directive of the status quo is to defend the current asymmetry of wealth and power. This undermines the collective consensus needed to take the collective action needed to reset the system.
https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/could-america-have-a-french-styleIn any political revolution the bottom 90% has to provide most of the suffering and blood. The competing elite factions need to “offer” the rest of us a more equitable arrangement to gain our consent and cooperative efforts.
Many Americans Are Unable to Afford Food, Even as Unemployment Remains Low
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231210/many-americans-are-unable-to-afford-food-even-as-unemployment-remains-low-1115515039.htmlHouses Are Now Less Affordable Than At Any Other Time In U.S. History.
Bidenomics: Houses Are Now Less Affordable Than At Any Other Time In U.S. History.
SuperCore CPI Jumps Back Above 4.00%; Used-Cars & Shelter Dominate Price-Rises
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/core-cpi-hotter-expected-used-car-price-rise-offsets-energy-dropWhere will the energy come from to support industrial society after this decade? Will the South let North Koreans immigrate? They are accustomed to living with much less.
South Korea may be about to embrace mass migration, with the country’s Justice Minister claiming it faces a “demographic catastrophe” otherwise.
Han Dong-hoon told a parliamentary meeting in Seoul, “When it comes to immigration policies, we have passed the stage of deliberating whether to implement them or not. Because if we don’t, we cannot escape the fate of extinction due to the demographic catastrophe.”
Current trends show that South Korea faces a population decline similar to how the Black Death impacted Europe in the 14th century if fertility levels don’t rapidly improve.
“Deaths have surpassed births for more than three years in South Korea amid a steady decline in the country’s total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime.” …
..Han’s desire to see South Korea imitate how Europe has opened the floodgates for vast numbers of migrants over the last 20 years somehow isn’t tempered by the reality of what that has done to crime levels, social cohesion and the complete obliteration of national identity in many major cities across the continent.
Although Japan is in a similar situation to South Korea, they have so far refused to compromise their homogeneity for mass migration, presumably enjoying the fact that Tokyo is the safest city in the world, followed by Singapore and Osaka.
https://modernity.news/2023/12/09/south-korea-set-to-embrace-mass-migration-to-avoid-extinction/Arizona’s Democrat Governor Demands $512 Million Reimbursement From Biden For Border Security ‘Failure’
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/arizonas-democrat-governor-demands-512-million-reimbursement-biden-border-security Petrodollar Endgame Moves Even Closer
He also talked about the importance of Saudi Arabia’s role when asked about Putin’s recent trip to visit MBS: “In recent years, Saudi Arabia, the cornerstone of the dollar hegemony, has joined the exponentially expanding Belt Road Initiative alongside all the other OPEC members. The Saudi’s have also joined the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which is the largest regional financial and military organization in the world, and the BRICS New Development Bank.”
“The west is receiving a very clear message from this progression,” Andy told me. “But if that wasn’t clear enough, Saudi Arabia’s finance minister made it quite apparent at the 2023 World Economic Forum in January that the Kingdom is open to dealing in currencies other than the US dollar for the first time in 48 years.”
When I asked him about the UAE no longer taking dollars for oil, he told me: “While it may not be as quite as dramatic as Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC doing the same thing, don’t kid yourself, this is a hugely significant event. The ramifications become far more concerning when viewed in the light of the growing progression of global de-dollarization and large number of unilateral trade deals usurping the dollar and the SWIFT system.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/petrodollar-endgame-moves-even-closerWilliam Makis MD , Turbo Cancer: Leukemia Diagnosis to Death in Hours, Days or Weeks
32 Tragic Cases of the most aggressive COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Induced Turbo Cancer (occurs after Pfizer or Moderna mRNA injection)Turbo Cancer: Leukemia Diagnosis to Death in Hours, Days or Weeks
The US/NATO is already failing to supply the Ukrainian army, is supplying Israel, and says they can supply Taiwan against the global manufacturing powerhouse, China.
At an Atlantic Council event held days ago Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady said that the Pentagon stands ready to handle missions connected to three potential proxy wars in defense if its interests if it comes to that.
Grady described that the US Navy in particular is capable of waging battle against Russia in Ukraine, against China in Taiwan, and is ready to assist the Israelis in Gaza if called upon. This could be done simultaneously, he described, while admitting this would stretch naval forces thin.
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/top-defense-official-us-can-handle-middle-east-russia-china-operations-all-once Father of American journalist jailed in Ukraine blames Biden
Gonzalo Lira Sr. has claimed that Washington was complicit in the detention of his son for criticizing Kiev
Gonzalo Lira Sr. has called his son a political prisoner and has argued that his case illustrates the absurdity of US claims that the world must defend “freedom and democracy” in Ukraine.
https://swentr.site/news/588814-father-of-jailed-american-in-ukraine-blames-biden/Musk Asks Zelensky About Imprisoned American Journalist After Tucker Carlson Sounds Alarm
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/musk-asks-zelensky-about-imprisoned-american-journalist-after-tucker-carlson-sounds“People Have Spoken”: Elon Musk Restores X Account Of Alex Jones After User Poll
“Reinstate Alex Jones on this platform?” Musk asked. Nearly two million X users voted, with more than 70% voting in favor of Jones’ return.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/people-have-spoken-elon-musk-restores-x-account-alex-jones-after-user-pollHow the Federal-Private Speech Police Operated in Election 2020: With Radar Highly Attuned to the Right
https://realclearwire.com/articles/2023/12/08/how_the_federal-private_speech_police_operated_in_election_2020_with_radar_highly_attuned_to_the_right_997726.htmlIsrael trying to force Gazans into Egypt – UN official
Refugee agency chief Philippe Lazzarini has accused West Jerusalem of seeking to drive Palestinians out of their homeland
https://swentr.site/news/588849-un-official-says-israel-trying-to-force-gazans-into-egypt/Egypt Warns Israel Ties Could ‘Rupture’ If Masses Of Refugees Pushed Into Sinai
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/egypt-warns-israel-ties-could-rupture-if-masses-refugees-pushed-sinai Recent weeks have seen a flurry of media reports and remarks by officials on possible peace talks aimed at ending the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine. But the trust deficit between Moscow and Washington appears to be simply be too great after the West’s thirty-year “continuum of deception,” says Russian foreign policy strategist Dmitry Suslov.
“There must be ironclad guarantees and a reality that Ukraine can no longer be able to pose a military threat to Russia with Western help. Russia is not afraid of Ukraine as Ukraine, Russia is afraid of Ukraine being a Western bulwark on Russia’s borders. So there must be such a reality in which the US, the West, simply will not be able to use Ukraine as an instrument, as a bulwark against Russia. And I think that the special military operation will continue up until that moment,” the observer summed up.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231209/russia-wont-agree-to-minsk-30-deal-on-ukraine-heres-why-1115498952.html Russia won’t allow existence of ‘Nazi state’ on its border – Moscow
“From the very beginning of the hostilities, the [Ukrainian] neo-Nazis have been cynically using the civilian population as ‘human shields’ and brutally treating Russian prisoners of war. Their main goal in this conflict is to kill as many Russians as possible,” Zakharova explained.
We will not allow the existence on our borders of an aggressive Nazi state from whose territory there is a danger for Russia and its neighbors.
Asked about prospects of somehow settling the conflict, Zakharova said that the only way to reach a “lasting peace” was, effectively, meeting all Russia’s demands. “It is necessary to confirm the neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-free status of Ukraine, carry out its demilitarization and denazification, acknowledge new territorial realities, and ensure the rights of Russian-speaking citizens and national minorities living in this country,” she explained.
https://www.azerbaycan24.com/en/russia-won-t-allow-existence-of-nazi-state-on-its-border-moscow/Transnistria is technically a part of Moldova, but remains Russian and refused to withdraw from the USSR. It remains a target for NATO and Ukraine.
Moldovan municipalities controlled by “anti-European” forces will be deprived of funds provided by the EU, the country’s President Maia Sandu has said.
The president issued the threat on Saturday while speaking at a forum in Chisinau that brought together some 500 mayors, although the gathering was boycotted by certain opposition parties.
https://www.rt.com/russia/588793-sandu-moldova-eu-funding/ US wants to fast-track approval of 45k Merkava shells to ‘Israel’
The US State Department is pushing Congress to approve the $500 million sale requested by President Biden earlier this week for “Israel” for its ongoing war on Gaza.
While public statements between Biden and other senior officials of his administration, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, call for Israelis to “minimize civilian casualties” as much as possible, the ongoing supply of offensive weapons and munitions and destructive bombs signals the complete opposite.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-wants-to-fast-track-approval-of-45k-merkava-shells-to–is IOF snipers target, kill pregnant women
The Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson says snipers nested around Al-Awda Hospital have killed and injured several pregnant women on their way to the hospital to give birth.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/gaza-martyrs-toll-hits-17-700–iof-snipers-target–kill-preg ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 65: U.S. rushes arms to Israel as Palestinians announce over 250,000 homes destroyed in Gaza
The Biden administration bypasses congressional approval to rush an emergency arms sale to Israel as the WHO warns Gaza’s health system is collapsing and the PA announces 25 percent of Gaza’s urban space has been destroyed. More than 5,000 Palestinians have become disabled since 7 October due to Israel’s ongoing attacks on the Gaza Strip, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor and the Disabilities Representative Persons Network (DRPN) said in a joint statement issued Thursday... Over 40,000 Gaza Strip residents have been injured during Israel’s attacks. The human rights group noted that at least 5,000 of these individuals have disabilities that put their lives in danger because of the dire lack of access to medical care and the collapse of the health system.
Significantly, prior to 7 October, over 130,000 people in the Gaza Strip were already disabled. The majority of these people suffered their disabling injuries during one or more of the frequent Israeli military operations on the Strip, which began more than 20 years ago.
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6013/New-catastrophic-plight-in-Gaza:-Israel%E2%80%99s-attacks-leave-more-than-5,000-Palestinians-disabled Israeli politician calls for captured Palestinians to be ‘buried alive’
Far-right deputy mayor of Jerusalem describes arrested Palestinians in Gaza as ‘subhuman’ and invokes biblical reference
The deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Aryeh Yitzhak King, has called for the Israeli army to bury alive hundreds of Palestinian civilians captured in Gaza.
In a post on X on Friday, King, a far-right politician, said the Israeli army was eliminating “Muslim Nazis” in Gaza and suggested it needed to pick up the pace.
The post made specific reference to footage published by the Israeli army showing captured Palestinians stripped to their underwear, kneeling on the ground and being guarded by Israeli soldiers.
King, in his post that has since been deleted for violating rules on X, said: “If it were up to me, I would have dispatched D-9 bulldozers and put them behind the mounds of dirt and would have given the order to cover all these hundreds of ants, while they’re still alive.”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-politician-calls-civilians-buried-alive Israel’s onslaught drags U.S. Jewish life into the abyss , PHILIP WEISS
The Jewish establishment has been consigned to the support of genocide, and it has accepted that role eagerly. The effect on Judaism of this moral collapse is unfathomable. The Yemeni Armed Forces announce that all ships bound to the occupation entity are prohibited from passing through the seas regardless of their nationality until sufficient food and medicine aid enters Gaza.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/yemen-prevents–israel–bound-ships-from-passing-via-arabian IRAN PRESIDENT RAISI ASKS PRESIDENT PUTIN TO SUPPORT GAZA ACTION – PUTIN IS EVASIVE FOR THE MOMENT , John Helmer
An Iranian-Russian initiative on the Gaza War was tabled when Iranian President Sayyid Ebrahim Raisi met with President Vladimir Putin for several hours on Thursday. For the time being the Kremlin is doing its best to hide it.
According to Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, speaking after Raisi had returned home, “a significant part of the negotiations focused on the Palestinian issue and Russia is thinking about an initiative on Gaza. The two sides stressed the need for an immediate cessation of the war and genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, he said, noting that the presidents of Iran and Russia also called for stopping the forced migration of Gazans and the immediate opening of the Rafah border to deliver massive humanitarian aid to Gazan people.”
There was a one-on-one session between Raisi and Putin at the commencement of the talks; a session of the two presidents with brief public statements; and then closed delegation presentations and a supper. Altogether, the talks lasted five hours. There were no press briefings at the conclusion.
There has been a blackout on the talks by Russian Defense Ministry, the military bloggers, and Moscow media like Vzglyad which has been taking a pro-Israel line. No Russian official will clarify what Abdollahian meant by his claim that “Russia is thinking about an initiative on Gaza” – except to point out that Abdollahian’s wording does not mean that the “initiative” at this stage was initiated by the Russian side...
The Fars news agency has also announced that participating in the Iranian delegation, but not in the front row of the “narrow format” session, there were Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazrpash; head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami; and the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Mohammad-Reza Farzin.
Farzin’s role, together with that of Russian Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina, is to devise counter-measures for US and European sanctions, and to implement “a road map [to] be drawn up by States to reduce the dependency of international trade on national currencies that are prone to being used to implement unilateral coercive measures or to sustain a particular State’s monetary hegemony over the global economy.” This is one of the sixteen points of agreement which Abdollahian signed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on December 5, two days before Raisi’s arrival. Read the full economic counter warfare plan here: https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1919257/
Moscow analysts note that while Putin may be keeping his distance from the Iranian rhetoric against Israel, at the working group level the collaboration of the two states in military, financial and strategic operations means much more. There is also discreet evidence that the Chinese are active in the planning of a major humanitarian operation for Gaza.
“On the battlefield Russians are very fast learners from their mistakes,” a veteran Moscow analyst says. “But in Russian politics and business they are slow to accept that the US and Israel have always been enemies to Russian interests, and will remain so. What the Americans and Israelis don’t realise is that Putin was the slowest to change his mind towards them. The Ukraine war and now the Gaza War have changed all that.”IRAN PRESIDENT RAISI ASKS PRESIDENT PUTIN TO SUPPORT GAZA ACTION – PUTIN IS EVASIVE FOR THE MOMENT
More from John Helmer, “ONE WAR, ONE ELECTION AT A TIME” – ONE STEP FORWARD FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION, TWO STEPS BACK
Two hours after Putin put down the phone with el-Sisi, he picked it up again to call Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Kremlin communiqué has omitted to report what Netanyahu said.
Instead, Putin gave the Israeli his personal assurance there will be no Russian participation in a Gaza blockade-busting plan to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians by sea, or across the Egyptian land border. Nor will the Russian military intervene to threaten Israeli aircraft if they commence bombing Beirut and southern Lebanese targets in the war against Hezbollah...
..A veteran of NATO military operations in Afghanistan observes: “The Ukrainian lines are breaking up all along the front. The push is on and that’s where Putin will put his effort to keep his credibility at home. If [Chief of the General Staff General Valery] Gerasimov can keep destroying the fascists riding NATO junk at the current rate of a battalion per day and gain ground doing it, everyone is happy — for now. As for the Arabs, no one in the region will directly take Israel on. The Lebanese Government is petrified of Israel — and they know better than to ask for Russian help. Sisi, with the most capable military, is a coward. The rest will make noise while clandestinely helping the Palestinian resistance, and causing trouble for the US in the neighbourhood. The Iranians know how to fight and won’t stop. The Israelis should and do see them as threat number-one.”
“The only way I see a direct intervention is if China takes the lead on, or announces support for, one. But [President] Xi [Jinping] has some trouble at home, and nothing I’m reading shows Chinese popular support for intervening. If anything, they’re indifferent.”
In wars for national liberation and in civil wars, the terrorism label is one side’s propaganda against the other – this is the consensus of the Russian sources, unspoken and unpublished for the time being. Russian public policy has yet to resolve the contradiction between Russian support for Palestine’s national liberation and opposition to Hamas’s “terrorism” – this can’t happen, the sources say, before the presidential election in March, and the success of the Russian military offensive in the Ukraine by then too.
“There’s nothing new here. Putin is following the old Soviet line on exercising ‘the greatest possible caution’ towards the ‘frightful collisions’ which Stalin’s famous speech on revolution and tactics spelled out a century ago.”
A Russian source on military strategy believes the Russian objective is to protract the Palestine war on all fronts simultaneously, and exhaust the US and Israel by threatening Israeli ports and shipping, Israel’s offshore gas supplies, and the economy’s principal sources of income. Exhausting the US in the Middle East helps exhaust the US and NATO in the Ukraine, the source adds.“ONE WAR, ONE ELECTION AT A TIME” – ONE STEP FORWARD FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION, TWO STEPS BACK
US uses veto power, blocks UNSC resolution calling for Gaza ceasefire
Failure to pass the resolution comes although 13 countries voted in favor of it, while the UK abstained.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-uses-veto-power–blocks-unsc-resolution-calling-for-gaza66% of Americans Want a Ceasefire!
WHO confirms more than 449 attacks on health services in Gaza, West Bank since Oct. 7
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231210-who-confirms-more-than-449-attacks-on-health-services-in-gaza-west-bank-since-oct-7/ The Israeli army opened fire on six ambulances of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, escorted by UN vehicles, carrying 11 patients with critical injuries, including amputations and head wounds, in Gaza, the Red Crescent said on Sunday, adding that one of the injured died before receiving any treatment, Anadolu Agency reports.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231210-israeli-army-fires-on-6-palestinian-red-crescent-ambulances-escorted-by-un-vehicles/ Video reportedly shows Israeli forces directing unarmed Gazan civilians to stage gun surrender
A video reportedly shows Israeli soldiers instructing unarmed Palestinian civilians to simulate the surrender of firearms. In the footage, an Israeli soldier is heard giving directions in Arabic: ‘Grab the gun I gave you, but don’t shoot it, we don’t want trouble, walk slowly and leave it on the ground on the other side.’ The man identified in the video is Moin Qeshta Al-Masry, owner of an aluminium workshop in Gaza. Al-Masry was among those who sought refuge in Al-Khalifa school in Beit Lahia and was reportedly taken along with others.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231210-video-reportedly-shows-israeli-forces-directing-unarmed-gazan-civilians-to-stage-gun-surrender/Bad Seeds https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/bad-seeds
Chris Hedges , The Evil Israel Does is the Evil Israel Gets [Presented as a meditation to know this part of ourselves without ”becoming our enemies”.]
Israel’s genocide in Gaza is rearing a new generation of enraged, traumatized and dispossessed Palestinians who have lost family members, friends, homes, communities and any hope of living ordinary lives. They, too, will seek retribution. Their small acts of terrorism will counter Israel’s ongoing state terror. They will hate as they have been hated. This lust for vengeance is universal. After World War Two, a clandestine unit of Jews who served in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, called “Gmul,” – Hebrew for “Recompense” – hunted down former Nazis and executed them.
“I and the public know/What all schoolchildren learn,” W.H. Auden wrote. “Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return.” Chaim Engel, who took part in the uprising at the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp in Poland, described how, armed with a knife, he attacked a guard in the camp.
“It’s not a decision,” Engel said. “You just react, instinctively you react to that, and I figured, ‘Let us to do, and go and do it.’ And I went. I went with the man in the office, and we killed this German. With every jab, I said, ‘That is for my father, for my mother, for all these people, all the Jews you killed.’”
What Engel did to the Nazi guard was no less savage than what Hamas fighters did to Israelis on Oct. 7, after escaping their own prison. Taken out of context, it is inexplicable. But set against the backdrop of the extermination camp, or the 17 years trapped in Gaza’s concentration camp, it makes sense. This is not to excuse it. To understand is not to condone. But we must understand if this cycle of violence is to be stopped. No one is immune to the thirst for vengeance. Israel and the U.S. are foolishly orchestrating yet another chapter in this nightmare. J. Glenn Gray, a combat officer in World War Two, wrote about the peculiar nature of vengeance in “The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle:”When the soldier has lost a comrade to this enemy or possibly had his family destroyed by them through bombings or through political atrocities, so frequently the case in World War II, his anger and resentment deepen into hatred. Then the war for him takes on the character of a vendetta. Until he has himself destroyed as many of the enemy as possible, his lust for vengeance can hardly be appeased. I have known soldiers who were avid to exterminate every last one of the enemy, so fierce was their hatred. Such soldiers took great delight in hearing or reading of mass destruction through bombings. Anyone who has known or been a soldier of this kind is aware of how hatred penetrates every fiber of his being. His reason for living is to seek revenge; not an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but a tenfold retaliation.
To the brutalized, numb with trauma, convulsed by rage, those who relentlessly attack and humiliate them are not human beings. They are representations of evil. The lust for vengeance, for tenfold retaliation, spawns rivers of blood. The Palestinian attacks of Oct. 7, which left some 1,200 Israelis dead, feeds this lust within Israel, just as Israel’s obliteration of Gaza feeds this lust among Palestinians. Israel’s blue and white national flag with the Star of David adorns homes and cars. Crowds gather to support families whose members are among the hostages in Gaza. Israelis hand out food at road junctions to soldiers headed to fight in Gaza. Banners with slogans such as “Israel at war” and “Together we will win” punctuate television broadcasts and media sites. There is little discussion in Israeli media of the slaughter in Gaza or the suffering of Palestinians – 1.7 million of whom have been driven from their homes – but a constant repetition of the stories of suffering, death and heroism that took place on the Oct. 7 attack. Only our victims matter.
“Few of us ever know how far fear and violence can transform us into creatures at bay, ready with tooth and claw,” Gray wrote. “If the war taught me anything at all, it convinced me that people are not what they seem or even think themselves to be.”
Marguerite Duras in her book “The War: A Memoir” writes of how she and other members of the French Resistance tortured a 50-year-old Frenchman accused of collaborating with the Nazis. Two men who were tortured in Montluc prison in Lyon strip the alleged informer. They beat him as the group shouts: “Bastard. Traitor. Scum.” Blood and mucus soon run from his nose. His eye is damaged. He moans, “Ow, ow, oh, oh. …” He crumples in a heap on the floor. Duras writes that he had “become someone without anything in common with other men. And with every minute the difference grows bigger and more established.” She watches the beating passively. “The more they hit and the more he bleeds, the more it’s clear that hitting is necessary, right, just.” She goes on: “You have to strike. There will never be any justice in the world unless you – yourself are justice now. Judges, paneled courtrooms play-acting, not justice.” She notes,“Every blow rings out in the silent room. They’re hitting at all the traitors, at the women who left, at all those who didn’t like what they saw from behind the shutters.”
Israel has abused, humiliated, impoverished and wantonly killed Palestinians, provoking inevitable counter violence. It is the engine behind a century of bloodshed. The genocide in Gaza outdoes even the worst excesses of the Nakba, or catastrophe, which saw 750,000 Palestinians driven from their land in 1948 and 8,000 to 15,000 murdered in massacres by Zionist terrorist militias such as Irgun and Lehi.
https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/08/chris-hedges-the-evil-israel-does-is-the-evil-israel-gets/ Hamas Plan: Israel Knew It for Over a Year (Establishing blame to drive slaughter and genocidal objectives. 7-hour military stand-down helped it happen.)
“Israel has known Hamas’ attack plan for over a year,” reveals the New York Times. A 40-page document code-named by Israeli intelligence as “Walls of Jericho” proves it. Without specifying the date, it outlines point by point exactly the attack carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The plan has circulated widely for over a year before October 7, 2023, among Israeli military and intelligence leaders. Still, they concluded that “an attack of this magnitude is beyond the capabilities of Hamas.”
Last July, just three months before the attack, a veteran analyst from Unit 8200 Israel’s intelligence agency warned that Hamas had conducted an intense exercise similar to the one described in the plan. But an intelligence agency colonel trashed her report. On October 7, 2023, Hamas executed the attack plan with “astonishing precision”: a barrage of rockets, drones to disable security cameras and automatic machine guns along the barrier surrounding Gaza, armed men entering Israeli territory from gaps opened with bulldozers in the barrier. Exactly as it was written in the plan called the “Walls of Jericho” by Israeli intelligence. More than 5,000 Israeli soldiers have been wounded in fighting in Gaza since 7 October, while Israeli officials are warning of a looming mental health crisis, an Israeli newspaper reported on Saturday. [Only the complete eradication of Palestinians can heal these wounds, right?]
“We have never faced something like this,” Luria said, adding that 5,000 soldiers had been wounded since the start of the fighting. “Who will help them shower or get around the house? Most of the victims suffered serious injuries, and the state needs to understand that there is an arena here that requires a new distribution of injuries.”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-thousands-soldiers-wounded-disabled-gaza-fighting@WES: Farming communes don’t work, as you observe. That experiment of taking the farmland away from Russian peasant-farmers, concentrating farming into big enterprises, owned and run by the state (for the benefit of the state) has been tried and always fails. The margins are really very thin in farming, and the work is hard, but it activates a certain pattern within humans when they are the boss of the farm and it feeds them. What financial capitalists discovered long ago is that the game for them to play is to bleed the farmer year after year, while always holding the option of taking the farm at an opportune moment. Bankers can’t farm, though.
I really think that nobody (practically speaking) can farm who did not grow up farming. It is just too much work for too little pay-out and you actually have to be smart and completely dedicated. It helps if you went to school with the other farmers in your area, too.Free markets are good, like Craigslist, but free markets are not “capitalism”.
“Capitalism” is a system where financial elites “own the means of production”, and the workers are paid some wage, and have no right to the things they produce, which are “owned” by the “capitalists”.
Who enforces “ownership”? That is a big cost. A constant concentration-gradient needs to be created where people need stuff they don’t “own”, and they have to work or trade/sell what they do “own” to obtain it.
This can be set up, as Henry Ford did, where the workers at his factories were paid “well”, about 3X what the workers at other factories got paid by Scrooge-“capitalists”. These Scrooge-capitalists hated Henry Ford, and predicted he would fail, but somehow his 3X-pay workers lowered his ratio of production-cost to product value, and he thrived, and his workers bought Ford cars.
“Fordist capitalism” accomplishes something through synergy of humans working together willingly, and cooperatively, and sharing a common goal to succeed, to make things good, make things better. Well paid workers also provide a “market” for products. Fordist capitalism works fine in synergy with state ownership of “natural monopolies”, like water, electric and gas utilities, trash pick-up, education and medical care.
Marx (Born 5/5/1818) came to adulthood as Europe was in the turmoil of feudalism changing over to industrialism, run by capitalists who owned factories, not lords who owned farmland. Workers were sick and starving a lot, and there were lots of wars in Europe as the old-masters jealously held power, rather than give some up to the new industrial-capitalist masters, and nobody fed the help, but kicked them off the farms.
Marx was good at economic analysis, and he saw the industrial capitalists as bringing change to the inhumane feudal system. Indeed, they were having to find ways to keep their workers healthy, instead of dying in their 20s, as was common.
Marx saw the agents of change creating “socialism” to provide for healthy workers at the least expense, and it was happening, which is how he got the idea. Bismarck, Germany’s “iron chancellor” accomplished most of what Marx had in mind in 1848, by the late 1880s.
“Socialism” was going well with industrial capitalism. The dominant form of economics was “Classical Economic”, where the goal was to minimize “rent”, which is the extraction of “value” from the economy, leaving more value to be spent improving industry, improving worker well-being, and improving infrastructure like roads, sewage systems and electric systems.
‘”Neoclassical economics” counts rent-extraction” as being just as valuable as industrial production, instead of subtracting extracted-rent from the productive-economy.
“Neoclassical economics” is a “lie” as pertains to how it engages human-understanding of processes deceptively.
Marxian analysis is consistent with classical economics. There is nothing wrong with it. Marx could not and did not describe how to do “socialism”, but rather saw it happening.
Marx was much impressed with the state bureaucracy of France, and later of Bismarck’s Germany, as they were able to accomplish big changes like providing for the needs of their societies at scale.
A certain class of financial elites used Marx’s doctrines to insert themselves into bureaucracy, just like today.
The Russian revolution was funded by powerful bankers in New York and also Germany, to destroy the Tsar, which it did. Again, a wealthy and powerful class sought to bring down the Russian state system, with an eye to looting Russia, which is happening again with “global financial capitalism”, which is far from the industrial capitalism Marx saw developing, and far from the Fordist-capitalism which was such a healthy model in the US.
The Japanese and later Chinese have copied aspects of the synergy between state and industry, to improve the well-being of workers, and improve state infrastructure to support farms, factories, roads, railways and ports. Cooperation between state and “Productive Capital” is healthy for the state, economy and workers, but the state is now controlled by “parasitic-capital”, rent-extracting-capital.
This obviously bleeds the productive economy, fails to maintain infrastructure, and worsens the well-being of workers, even sending the factories overseas, because Scrooge-capitalists can get circuit-boards made burning cheap coal for electricity, spilling pollution into pits, and paying workers starvation-wages, just like they always want to do out of selfishness.
Rentier-capitalists are blinded by greedy impulse, even though the Fordist-capitalist model does work well, especially with state sponsorship of roads, electric grids, communications infrastructure, pollution, fair-regulations, and criminal justice.
What we have in the US is crony-rentier-capitalism-with-regulatory-capture, which is like metastatic cancer, and I don’t mean that as an insult, just an analogy. This warning may imply what will happen if the US commits troops to the Ukraine war.
Russian intel chief warns US of ‘second Vietnam’ , Western attempts to exhaust Russia in the Ukraine conflict could backfire, Sergey Naryshkin has said
https://swentr.site/russia/588674-russia-us-ukraine-second-vietnam/ I personally read the implication here as being that Russia would conquer “Ukraine” and let each region vote on whether it wanted to join Russia or be part of “Ukraine”.
“Nuclear” bomb from Russia: “We will decide with a referendum the annexation of the whole of Ukraine” – Will the “New Russia” Army continue the war?
“The “annexation of the whole of Ukraine can be decided by a referendum!
“It is the people of Ukraine who could make such a choice, as the people of Crimea and other Russian regions have expressed their will to join Russia” , said Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee Yuri Shvytkin.
For the chairman of the Defense Committee of the State Duma to express this opinion means that there are “big plans” in the Kremlin…
His comment, which upset the US, came in response to US Senator Chris Murphy’s recent statement that Ukraine could return to the control of the Russian Federation.
”It’s a shame that an American senator decides on Ukraine.
https://warnews247-gr.translate.goog/pyriniki-vomva-apo-rosia-tha-apofasisoume-me-dimopsifisma-tin-prosartisi-olokliris-tis-oukranias-o-stratos-tis-neas-rosias-tha-synechisei-ton-polemo-mechri-kievo/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wappSteve Kirsch , Health New Zealand: Where is your analysis of your data? Why aren’t you publishing it?
As my friend Robert “St. Augustine” Malone has wisely said, “Truth is like a lion: Let it loose and it will defend itself.” The truth has now been set free. Why aren’t you showing us your analysis?
When Health New Zealand’s (HNZ) Oracle DB administrator, Barry Young, sent the entire leadership team of HNZ an email to notify them of a huge safety signal in their own database, they didn’t ask any questions: they fired him immediately.
So Barry released the anonymized data which would expose the truth about what the New Zealand public health records contain without violating anyone’s privacy. 4M of the 12M records.
HNZ then decided to try to stop the truth from getting out. So they contacted Wasabi and MEGA and had them nuke my account and Kevin McKernan’s account even though neither of us had done anything wrong. Kevin lost years of work that cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars to create. This is work relied on by other researchers all over the world.
HNZ failed to stop the distribution of the truth.
https://kirschsubstack.com/p/health-new-zealand-where-is-your Bibi’s way out; Biden’s CYA… US criticizes Israel on Gaza civilian toll as UN to hear ceasefire demand
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his strongest public criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war on Hamas in south Gaza, said there was a gap between the government’s declared intentions to protect civilians and the casualties.
“As we stand here almost a week into this campaign into the south… it remains imperative that Israel put a premium on civilian protection,” Blinken told a press conference after meeting British Foreign Secretary David Cameron in Washington on Thursday.
“And there does remain a gap between… the intent to protect civilians and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”
Israel says it must wipe out the Hamas militant group after its attack on Israel two months ago and is doing everything possible to get civilians out of harm’s way, including warnings about military operations.
US President Joe Biden spoke separately by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah on Thursday. Biden “emphasized the critical need to protect civilians and to separate the civilian population from Hamas including through corridors that allow people to move safely from defined areas of hostilities,” the White House said.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2422131/middle-east This drone imagery data might feed directly into the Israeli “Gospel” targeting computer. Whaddaya think? US resumes drone flights over Gaza after truce suspension
‘In support of hostage recovery efforts, the U.S. has resumed unarmed UAV flights over Gaza,’ Pentagon says
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/us-resumes-drone-flights-over-gaza-after-truce-suspension/3076414Look, an Iranian Squirrel! US claims Iran involved in Yemeni Red Sea operations against ‘Israel’
On another note, White House’s John Kirby claimed that Yemeni attacks are “a threat to global trade”, but their “responsibility falls on Iran, which supplies them with resources.”
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-claims-iran-involved-in-yemeni-red-sea-operations-against Pentagon threatening Americans over Ukraine – Tucker Carlson , Fund Kiev or your children will have to fight Russia, X host claims Congress was told
According to Carlson, Austin spoke at a classified briefing for members of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, and at one point told them that “we’ll send your uncles, cousins and sons to fight Russia” unless Kiev gets the $60 billion in aid requested by the White House.
https://swentr.site/news/588708-tucker-carlson-pentagon-ukraine-threat/ Simplicius has this: Establishment Alarmism in Overdrive as Raytheon Lloyd Threatens Congress with War
I’ll mention some points he makes.
“Russia would be afraid to fight in Ukraine if Ukraine joined NATO, but Russia will invade NATO as soon as it gets done with Ukraine. So Send Money/Weapons NOW!”
Biden openly says that American troops will have to fight Russian troops if Ukraine is not shored up immediately… Kirby and Blinken stepped up the fearmongering as well, evoking spilled “American blood”…
..Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Congress on Tuesday during a private briefing that if they do not pass more aid to Ukraine, it would “very likely” lead to U.S. troops fighting a war in Europe.
“If [Vladimir] Putin takes over Ukraine, he’ll get Moldova, Georgia, then maybe the Baltics,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) told The Messenger, after Austin and other senior Biden administration officials briefed House lawmakers on their request for more aid for Ukraine.
“And then the idea that we’ll have to put troops on the ground in Secretary Austin’s word was very likely,” McCaul added. “That’s what we’re trying to avoid.”
Recall in the last report I cited Moldova as precisely the next vector, given the sensitivity of the PMR pressure point for Russia.
Most notable is his express use of the qualifier “very likely” to describe U.S. troops fighting on the ground. In fact, the U.S. has been preparing for this grand European war for a while now. Reports have continued to come out this year about NATO attempting to remold the eastern flank’s infrastructure to properly prepare it logistically for a war:
️The EC calls for a 1435 mm European gauge railway to be built in the Baltics by 2030. But there is no certainty that Rail Baltica will be built in time…
..Add the above to recent reports of the NATO ‘military Schengen’ which I recently covered, and we get a clear picture of the slow attempt to move Europe onto a war footing, with the attendant infrastructural revampments...
..So, according to them, even if the funding were to have processed this month, they wouldn’t get the first major deliveries until March and April. So now imagine what happens if it’s true that the funding is dead for this year. Congress won’t come back from recess until January and their docket will be full. They won’t have opportunity to begin even attempting to vote on Ukraine again until well into Jan or even February.
If they happen to reach some agreement, major equipment may not arrive until April, May, or even later...
..Lloyd Austin, Biden, and co., have dialed up the fearporn precisely because they see the above projection and know what it entails. So they’ve resorted to trying to scare the pants off the GOP congressmen to ram through that aid, but it seems the cheap tactic didn’t work.
That’s not to mention the fact that Russia is now advancing on every single front, with breakthroughs everywhere...
..Our sources said that the President’s Office banned the General Staff from conducting active mobilization in Kiev, so as not to set up residents of the capital against Zelensky. On Bankova Street, they are afraid that Kiev residents will become the vanguard of Maidan-3, which is why the capital is the most protected city in Ukraine, and there are almost no military commissars on the streets.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/establishment-alarmism-in-overdrive Just Like 9/11? Suspicious Israeli Stock Market Activity Hints at Foreknowledge of October 7 Attack
A new academic study has made a shocking and highly controversial finding. Suspicious Israeli stock market activity in the days preceding Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7 indicates that a particular party had foreknowledge of the impending attack and used that information to directly profit from the panic that ensued…
..The paper notes numerous historical precedents for such activity, which “occurs in gaps in U.S. and international enforcement of legal prohibitions on informed trading.” Research on “profitable trading on the basis of information about coming military conflict” is an underdeveloped academic field...
..The author of this article makes no comment on theories that Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was actively permitted to go ahead by Tel Aviv to secure a pretext for executing the horrific genocide currently unfolding in Gaza. The attack’s success may well be attributable to Israel’s complacency and a genuine “intelligence failure” of epic proportions.
However, countless indications that so many knew something was brewing for so long – including foreign governments and intelligence agencies – raises the prospect that someone, or some individuals with prior knowledge of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, sought to capitalize accordingly.
https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/07/just-like-9-11-suspicious-israeli-stock-market-activity-hints-at-foreknowledge-of-october-7-attack/”No, No, No, It Didn’t Happen!” Criticism mounts of professors’ controversial Hamas short-selling claims (Can they determine who profited? will they?)
Israeli Securities Authority publicly said that it looked into any suspicious trading in Israel ahead of the attacks and found nothing abnormal that required further investigation.
Separately, officials from Israel’s Tel Aviv Stock Exchange pointed out that the potential profits to some TASE trades that the paper spotlighted were magnified by an order of 100 due to an error related to the denomination of stocks. (Stocks in Israel are priced in agorot — basically, pennies — rather than shekels.)
The authors acknowledged the error and revised the paper.
Yes, but: The authors say the core findings — that there were large, unusual short positions taken in the U.S.-listed MSCI Israel ETF ahead of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 — were not altered by TASE’s concerns.
Their key finding is that shorts surged to nearly 100% of all trading volume on Oct. 2, just days ahead of the attack.
“The ISA’s investigation did not address the short selling in the Israel ETF or short-dated options described in our paper. We hope regulators in Israel and around the world will continue to examine these troubling trading patterns,” wrote Joshua Mitts, a Columbia Law School professor and co-author of the paper, to Axios.
Meanwhile: Skeptics are also picking away at the assertion that the large short positions were even anomalous at all.
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/07/hamas-short-selling-paper Egypt warns of strained relations with ‘Israel’ over Gaza depopulation
Egypt is seeking assurances that any wounded Palestinians allowed to leave Gaza for medical treatment will be permitted to return.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/egypt-warns-of-strained-relations-with–israel–over-gaza-deAbu Obeida: Al-Qassam fighters destroyed or damaged 135 military vehicles in Gaza during 72 hours [Why Bibi needs Biden to ask him to get out of Gaza?]
Dec. 08(YPA) – The military spokesperson for the Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, confirmed that, over the past 72 hours, Al-Qassam fighters managed to destroy 135 military vehicles entirely or partially in all combat zones in the Gaza Strip.
They inflicted casualties on dozens of Zionist soldiers, causing deaths and injuries by exploding several tunnel openings and booby-trapped houses near enemy soldiers, Abu Obeida said in a statement on Thursday evening.
“They targeted invading Zionist forces in their positions and engagements with anti-fortification shells, projectiles, and anti-personnel devices, engaging them at point-blank range.”
https://en.ypagency.net/312793 Israeli military forcing hospitals to cover losses: Israeli media
Several Israeli hospitals revealed that the Israeli army spokesperson demanded that they match their public reports of cases received to his daily statement updating the war’s toll. https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israeli-military-forcing-hospitals-to-cover-losses–israeli2017 video explains the advantages of autonomous micro-drone killing machines with facial recognition software.
Five years ago this short film was made to show the dangers of weaponizing A.I. The end includes a stark warning from a professor who’s spent 30 years studying A.I. and his words seem more relevant today than ever before.
https://twitter.com/TexasLindsay_/status/1732569528817607133 Is Truth Becoming Valueless? Paul Craig Roberts
In America and its Western puppet states, there is today no greater crime than to be a truth-teller. Despite habeas corpus and due process enshrined in British law and the US Constitution, Julian Assange has been illegally detained for a decade for telling the truth. Reiner Fuellmich, the Germany attorney, who was about to file charges against the pharmaceutical companies for deaths and injuries from the Covid “vaccine,” was kidnapped in Mexico by the German government and placed in solitary confinement in Germany on obviously false charges in order to prevent the lawsuit. Barry Young, the New Zealand Covid database administrator who released the official data showing that the alleged “vaccine” was a deadly killer, has been arrested for revealing the truth.
Be sure you understand what I am telling you. Those who tell you the truth are being arrested and treated worst than mass murderers. Murder is not a threat to the corrupt ruling establishment, but Truth is.
All truth-tellers have a target on their backs, including me. For reporting accurately on Putin’s hopes for reconciliation with Washington, I was labeled a “Putin agent/dupe.”
This was just the beginning. George Soros, who Elon Musk said “appears to want nothing less than the destruction of Western civilization,” finances “fact checkers” and “verification” sites, the purpose of which is to discredit those who tell the truth. The State Department, the FBI, CIA, Mossad, and any number of government agencies and official organizations in the West work overtime to discredit truth-tellers…
..Every corrupt, evil, material interest has money to demonize the truth. NewsGuard is one of their operatives. These are people devoid of integrity, but these sorts of sites are plentiful online, and given the insouciance of the American people, these sites might have more influence than truth-tellers.
It raises the questions: can truth prevail when endless money can shout truth down? Can truth survive when people show scant interest in supporting truth and those who tell it? Israel-Palestine war: Most US-based Middle East scholars self-censoring speech critical of Israel, survey finds
Eighty-one percent of academics polled say they have self-censored criticism of Israel amid the war in Gaza
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-most-us-based-middle-east-scholars-polled-self-censoring-speech-critical The Los Angeles Times (LAT) has banned 38 journalists from covering Gaza for at least three months after they signed an open letter criticizing Western newsrooms for their biased reporting on Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.
“The urgency of this moment cannot be overstated. It is imperative that we change course,” the open letter says.
LAT management claimed that signing the open letter violated the paper’s ethics policy, but the policy contains no explicit prohibition against open letters.LA Times Reporters Who Demanded Unbiased Reporting Banned From Covering Gaza
Gaza hospitals overwhelmed with wounded — enclave’s health ministry
https://tass.com/world/1717733WHO ‘extremely concerned’ about thousands of patients, health care workers in Gaza , ‘The only way to protect them is a ceasefire. NOW,’ says WHO chief
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/who-extremely-concerned-about-thousands-of-patients-health-care-workers-in-gaza/3076603 Hundreds of Palestinian boys and men over the age of 15 are being rounded up by occupation forces in northern Gaza, stripped of their clothes and taken away.
Shocking images and video footage circulating online show the boys and men stripped to their underwear and left sitting on the ground in the cold winter temperatures in Gaza. They can be seen surrounded by heavily armed Israeli occupation soldiers who are screaming orders at them.
Further images show an army people carrier filled with the men being driven away.
It is not clear how many boys and men were disappeared, but some reports have put the figure as high as 700. They are said to have been taken from shelter schools in northern Gaza where thousands of displaced civilians were forced to take shelter as a result of the bombing and destruction of their neighbourhoods and homes.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231207-israel-rounding-up-hundreds-of-palestinian-boys-men-and-disappearing-them/Gaza: Starving Palestinians to Death. Restrictions on Humanitarian Aid Brings Palestinians to a Single Meal a Day
WATCH (or don’t watch): Israeli Soldiers Sing “I’m Coming to Occupy Gaza” and “Wipe off the Seed of Amalek”
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64166Truth Gets Out https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/truth-gets-out
Scandal-stained Israeli ‘rescue’ group fuels October 7 fabrications , Max Blumenthal Thanks Eleni.
Founded by a serial rapist known as the “Haredi Jeffrey Epstein,” Israeli ultra-Orthodox rescue group ZAKA is responsible for some of the most obscene post-October 7 atrocity fabrications, from beheaded babies to “mass rape” to a fetus cut from its mother.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken and President Joseph Biden have each echoed demonstrably false ZAKA testimonies about Hamas atrocities.
Marred by allegations of financial fraud, ZAKA is leveraging October 7 publicity to raise unprecedented sums of cash.
Its rival, United Hatzalah, has spun out bogus tales of babies baked in ovens as it closes in on a $50 million fundraising goal.
During an October 31 Senate hearing on Israel’s war in Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered his rationale for rejecting a ceasefire. Summoning as much emotion as a dour Democratic Party operative could muster, Blinken conjured up a gruesome scene intended to illustrate the savagery of Hamas, and the impossibility of negotiations with such an organization:
“A young boy and girl, 6 and 8 years old, and their parents around the breakfast table. The father’s eye gouged out in front of his kids. The mother’s breast cut off, the girl’s foot amputated, the boy’s fingers cut off before they were executed.” The Secretary of State concluded, “That is what this [Israeli] society is dealing with.”
Though Blinken did not state the source of his disturbing claim – and was not prompted to do so by any senator – it matched testimony delivered by Yossi Landau, the head of operations for the southern Israel region of a religious “disaster victim identification” organization called ZAKA. Indeed, Landau has rehashed various forms of the story Blinken referenced since October 12, detailing how Hamas militants viciously mutilated and killed a 6 and 8 year-old child and their parents in Kibbutz Beeri before dining in their home.
Despite the presence of multiple potential witnesses inside Beeri before ZAKA arrived to collect dead bodies, independent testimony corroborating Landau’s claim has yet to surface. Further, there are no recorded deaths of siblings around the age of 6 to 8 in Beeri on October 7. Any record of a young child killed in the manner Landau described is similarly nonexistent, as are photos of the murdered family he described. In fact, the only siblings anywhere close to this age range who died in the community on that day — 12-year-old twins Liel and Yanai Hetrzroni — were killed by Israeli tank shelling.
https://www.sott.net/article/486697-Scandal-stained-Israeli-rescue-group-fuels-October-7-fabrications We Blew Up Israeli Houses on 7 October, Says Israeli Colonel
Speaking in Hebrew about the airstrikes, Colonel Nof Erez told a Haaretz podcast in November, that “the Hannibal Directive was apparently applied” and that 7 October “was a mass Hannibal.”
https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/07/we-blew-up-israeli-houses-on-7-october-says-israeli-colonel/Behind enemy bars: Palestinian and Israeli prisoners
The fair treatment of Israeli captives by Hamas has become part of the information war between Palestinians and Tel Aviv. Left unsaid is that there remain thousands of Palestinians in captivity who barely survive their Israeli detention…
“We were sitting in the tunnels and we were terribly afraid not that Hamas but Israel would kill us, and then they would say – Hamas killed you.”
Another former Israeli captive went further in expressing disdain for the Israeli government’s responses on and after the events of 7 October:
“The feeling we had there was that no one was doing anything for us. The fact is that I was in a hiding place that was shelled and we had to be smuggled out and were wounded. Not including the helicopter that shot at us on the way to Gaza. You claim that there is intelligence, but the fact is that we are being shelled. My husband was separated from us three days before we returned to Israel and taken to the tunnels. And you are talking about washing the tunnels with sea water? You are shelling the route of tunnels in the exact area where they are.” …
..Unlike the Israeli detainees, freed Palestinian political prisoners have spoken directly to the international media and provided horrifying accounts of physical abuse, including torture, beatings, and even rape. According to a number of Palestinian women and children who were freed in the latest exchanges, they were threatened by Israelis not to speak out about their treatment in detention.
“There are no laws. Everything is permitted,” Lama Khater, a freed Palestinian captive, told the media. “I was led to the investigation handcuffed and blindfolded, I was threatened with being burned, I was explicitly threatened with rape and with deportation to the Gaza Strip,” she added.
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/behind-enemy-bars-palestinian-and-israeli-prisoners Israel-Palestine war: In war, words matter. Palestinian ‘prisoners’ are hostages, too
Palestinian captives arrested, or rather captured by the Israeli army in the West Bank or police in occupied East Jerusalem, are hostages. Under Israeli law, any Palestinian of any age can be seized at any time of the day or night with no warrant, no charges, and held for days, months or years under “administrative detention”.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-war-palestinian-prisoners-hostages-too@DBS: I don’t basically disagree, but I think you jumped the gun.
“There’s a lot of ruin left” in the western empire, still…
;-(Are the Tribe “white”? Asking for a friend.
https://palexander.substack.com/p/no-white-faculty-allowed-at-the-university
Dr. Paul Alexander , ‘No White Faculty Allowed; At the University of Washington, civil rights laws have not stopped blatant racial discrimination in faculty hiring’; why would U of Washington discriminate against white
people, faculty? IMO, righting wrongs (redressing) of slavery & abuse of past should not be done on the backs on white people who had zero to do with it! Note, white people were slaves too! BARBARY“Love This”: Ben Shapiro Celebrates Palantir Announcing Affirmative Action Hiring Quota For Jews
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64165tboc wrote (and bade me pay attention):
“Another of the happiest days of my life was when i read, “he that knows enough is enough will always have enough”. That line comes twenty three verses after perhaps the most important discovery of my young adult life. I do not believe there is any end point or plan to that which we are experiencing. Concurrent to the seed of your path it was noted, the greatest sin is desire. Who have you worked with that put any limit on the advancement of their career? What is being done is simply being done because it can be done, it is desired. I am yet to find a soothing tone or word selection to smooth over the brutality of our culture.”We exist (in Buddhist cosmology) as one of the 6 levels of the Desire realm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_realm
The six domains of the desire realm are as follows:
the deity (Sanskrit, Pali: deva) domain
the jealous god / titan (S., P.: asura) domain
the human (S. manuṣya, P. manussa) domain
the animal (S. tiryagyoni, P. tiracchānayoni) domain
the hungry ghost (S. preta, P. petta) domain
the hell (S: naraka, P. niraya) domain“What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.” –Thomas Paine
So it may be that it is actually the WORK which is satisfying, and not the stuff alone. I meditate on a 90 minute bike ride (safe 3 mile loop in neighborhood X 6) and I work a lot in the gardens, and get excess of various vegetables, and give them away, and that is more satisfying than having more vegetables than I can eat. (And I was raised to feel shame at wasting food.)
Is desire satisfied this way?That may not have helped.
Work yourself tired and sleep better?
😮 39-year-old Canadian Pilot Dan Boken (Training to Become Boeing 737 Captain at Canadian North) Was Killed by COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates
20 Pilot Injuries and Deaths in 2022
June 23, 2022 – I unplugged my 39-year-old husband, Dan Boken, from life support. It was the worst day of my life.
We were a happy family of four, torn into a thousand pieces in an instant. The nine long months leading up to that night felt like I was in an abyss…
..I waited patiently for 14 months after, for his final autopsy report. Once received, I noticed that they had changed his cause of death from a brain bleed, to COVID-19. His vaccination status wasn’t even mentioned in the report, despite that fact that the injury was officially reported by two separate doctors to Ottawa Public Health.
I was suspicious, and that led me to get a second opinion from an experienced Pathologist. I knew something was off. He reviewed Dan’s entire medical history as well as the autopsy and confirmed what I already knew. The vaccine was a contraindication to Dan’s Crohn’s disease, and was the reason he initially became so ill.
I’ve struggled to talk about this because I knew it would be censored. I didn’t want to be attacked or ridiculed for sharing the truth about what happened because it might go against the beliefs of others. I’m at the point now where I don’t care what people say. I know what happened and the truth must come out. For Dan’s sake.Momentum Builds Against WHO’s Pandemic Treaty Power Grab [Don’t take your eyes off of this one-world-government scheme.]
Meryl Nass MD , Controversies regarding the legal regime that underpins the WHO’s power grab are good. There seem to be many.
They undermine the authority the WHO is trying to usurp. For example, see Article 62 of the 2005 IHR
Furthermore, on Nov 28 a group of MPs gave Tedros 2 days to show the proof that the full World Health Assembly did vote on the 2022 amendments. He failed to provide such proof. Thus, the vote, errr, consent procedure within a subcommittee was probably invalid, and the MPs have so deemed it NULL and VOID.
https://merylnass.substack.com/p/controversies-regarding-the-legal The Polish central bank has bought roughly 300 tonnes of gold in recent years to bring its gold to GDP ratio in line with the average in the eurozone. For medium and large economies in the eurozone, to which Poland might be included in the future, an equal monetary gold to GDP ratio is a covert requirement for nations to be prepared for a shift to a new gold standard. Based on these requirements I expect Poland to buy an additional 130 tonnes of gold.
https://www.gainesvillecoins.com/blog/polish-central-bank-buys-gold-according-to-secret-eu-plan Ukrainian central bank gold supposedly got airlifted out (somewhere) during the 2014 coup. This is from July, 2022:
Ukraine central bank has sold over $12 billion of its gold reserves during the war, its deputy head says
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-cbank-has-sold-over-12-bln-its-gold-reserves-during-war-deputy-head-2022-07-17/ “A Marketplace For Predators”: New Mexico Sues Meta, Mark Zuckerberg Over Child Exploitation Following Investigation
The state of New Mexico has sued social media giant Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg for “knowingly” exposing children to ‘sexual exploitation and mental health harm.’ In a Tuesday court filing, New Mexico’s Attorney General’s (NMAG) Office revealed that it had conducted an undercover investigation, creating fake accounts of minors which were then used to fish for offending content, according to a press release reported by the Daily Caller.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/marketplace-predators-new-mexico-sues-meta-mark-zuckerberg-over-child-exploitation “Why No Advertiser Boycott?” Musk Nails Disney’s Iger After Facebook Child Sexual Abuse Bombshell
Elon Musk took another shot at Disney CEO Bob Iger Thursday, after the state of New Mexico sued Meta for allegedly enabling child sexual abuse and trafficking – yet Disney and other woke advertisers, who paused advertising on X in a kneejerk reaction to claims of antisemitism – apparently have no problem when it comes to the sexual exploitation of minors…
..New Mexico’s Attorney General’s (NMAG) Office: “Meta and its CEO tell the public that Meta’s social media platforms are safe and good for kids,” reads the lawsuit. “The reality is far different. Meta knowingly exposes children to the twin dangers of sexual exploitation and mental health harm. Meta’s conduct has turned New Mexico children who are on its platforms into victims. Meta’s motive for doing so is profit.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why-no-advertiser-boycott-musk-nails-disneys-iger-after-facebook-child-sexual-abuse “$24 Million From Foreign Nationals”: House GOP Formalizes Biden Impeachment Inquiry, Releases Resolution Ahead Of Planned Vote
Ahead of next week’s vote to formally move forward with the Biden impeachment inquiry, Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) has released a 14-page resolution that would authorize the investigation.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/24-million-foreign-nationals-house-gop-formalizes-biden-impeachment-inquiry-releasesIs it time for a “baby bear” war for the US? Could this be it, or would it be like invading Cuba, which John Kennedy recoiled from?
Blinken Conveys ‘Unwavering Support’ For Guyana After Venezuela’s Maduro Proclaims “Esequibo Is Ours”, Gives Energy Companies 3 Mos To Exit
Neighboring Venezuela now considers around three-quarters of the oil-rich nation theirs – with President Nicolás Maduro presenting a map on television that shows Guyana’s Esequibo region as under the jurisdiction of Caracas.
Maduro vowed to create a Venezuelan state known as Guyana Esequibo, for which he will grant Venezuelan citizenship to Guyanese residents there.
Maduro will has granted licenses and ordered state oil company PDVSA and state metal conglomerate CVG to drill for oil in the area.
A special military unit will be created for the territory.
Energy companies in the Esequibo region such as Exxon Mobil will “have three months to withdraw.”
Guyanese President Irfaan Ali said he would report the matter to the UN Security Council, saying in a late-night televised address “The Guyana Defense Force is on high alert,” adding “Venezuela has clearly declared itself an outlaw nation.”
The UN Security Council will hold a closed-door meeting on the issue Friday.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/blinken-conveys-unwavering-support-guyana-after-venezuelas-maduro-proclaims-esequibo Iran’s Raisi says ‘genocide’ unfolding in Gaza as he meets Russia’s Putin
Putin has cast the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as a failure of US diplomacy and suggested Moscow could be a mediator in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Greeting Raisi at the Kremlin, Putin said it was important to discuss the situation in the Middle East, especially in the Palestinian territories.
Raisi responded via a translator: “What is happening in Palestine and Gaza is, of course, genocide and a crime against humanity.”
“It’s not just a regional issue, it’s an issue for the entire humankind,” he told Putin, adding that “it’s necessary to find a quick solution.”…
..The US has voiced strong concern about the growing military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran and warned that Iran may be preparing to provide Russia with advanced ballistic missiles for use in the war in Ukraine.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/7/irans-raisi-says-genocide-under-way-in-gaza-as-he-meets-russias-putinUpcoming days to be ‘frightening’ for ‘Israel’, Iran FM vows [Could you please be more specific about what you mean, Sir?]
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian talks to his Qatari counterpart and stresses that the upcoming days would be terrifying for the Israeli occupation.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/upcoming-days-to-be–frightening–for–israel—iran-fm-vows John Helmer sees the global diamond trade, currently in a sharp downturn, dividing into 2 blocs, similar to what happened with the Russian oil embargo. Will that really happen? Russian diamonds currently go to India for cutting, and are sold-on from there. Might Russian diamonds be smuggled to Tel Aviv and Amsterdam as easily as Russian oil is now smuggled to China and India?
Meeting together last month in Zimbabwe in what is called the Kimberley Process (KP), the 57-member states refused to agree to the US and European Union (EU) attempt to exclude Russia, producer of half the diamonds in global trade. To camouflage the outcome of the fight, the KP delegates decided not to issue a communiqué…
..Russian diamond expert Sergei Goryainov warns that Rapaport and the Israelis are miscalculating if they expect the new sanctions to raise diamond prices and their profits to grow. The reverse will happen, according to Goryainov. “Due to sanctions on the largest producer, 30% of the diamond market is going to enter the ‘gray zone’. You can also figure that Alrosa will be forced to dump, because only by introducing dumping prices can you compensate for the risks which customers who cooperate with a company listed in the SDN-list fall under.”
Other Moscow sources agree that dumping will be a Russian tactic for the very short term, as it has been in the Russian oil export trade. In that case, the discounts have gradually dwindled as the ineffectiveness of the sanctions became obvious and demand has pushed the commodity price upward. Celia Farber includes an address you can use to write Reiner a paper letter for him to read in prison, and also means to provide financial gifts to him and his wife.
Reiner Fuellmich’s Wife Inka Tearfully Reveals Harsh Conditions in Prison: No Warm Clothes, Nothing To Do, No Private Phone Time, No Freedom To Discuss His Case: “They Will Never Break Him.” She Says He Is Very Strong, And So Grateful For All The Letters. People Are Writing To Tell Him How He Saved Their Lives With His Work In The Dark Years Off Covid
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/reiner-fuellmichs-wife-inka-tearfully Matt Taibbi , Sue the Bastards: Federalist, Daily Wire Take the State Department to Court
Bookending the historic Consortium News suit, conservative news outlets take on the Global Engagement Center for funding “censorship enterprises” and blacklisting
In late October, the liberal anti-establishment investigative site Consortium News filed a historic suit against the United States of America and Newsguard,* describing a state-funded effort to label, defame, and stigmatize “media organizations that oppose or dissent from American foreign and defense policy.”
Now, a pair of conservative media outlets, The Federalist and The Daily Wire, have filed a bookend suit to match the Consortium News action. This time the defendant is the Global Engagement Center, the State Department organization ostensibly dedicated to countering “foreign state and non-state propaganda.” Much as Consortium News alleged the Pentagon funded Newsguard to censor its critics, the Federalist/Daily Wire action alleges the State Department sponsored Newsguard and the U.K.-based Global Disinformation Index as “censorship enterprises” targeting domestic speech, in direct violation of its charter.
https://www.racket.news/p/sue-the-bastards-federalist-daily Russian Emergencies Ministry’s plane delivers 27.5 tons of humanitarian aid for Gaza (How can it get through, though?)
The ministry reported earlier in the day that the cargo includes matrasses, blankets, personal hygiene items, and food products
https://tass.com/politics/1716783 Ukrainian Military Slaughters Own Soldiers for Attempting to Surrender
“They got in touch with us along frequency 149.200, and said they wanted to stay alive and see their families. We established contact and pinpointed them a location where they needed to go to surrender. Apparently, the Kiev regime found this to be detrimental, so they eradicated their own servicemen,” the officer said. He added that Ukrainians killed their own soldiers with an artillery strike.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231205/ukrainian-military-slaughters-own-soldiers-for-attempting-to-surrender–1115386047.html ‘Great Risk’ Ukraine Could Lose, US Can’t Afford Such a Scenario – White House
Kirby further warned that if Congress did not back the White House’s supplementary funding request for Ukraine, the effect on the ability of US allies to back Ukraine could be “disastrous.”
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231206/theres-great-risk-ukraine-could-lose-us-cant-afford-that—white-house-1115431164.html Austin: GIs might have to fight Russians in Europe , Republican senators walk out of secret briefing on Ukraine with defense secretary
Pitching Congress with a proposal for more aid for Ukraine, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin conjured up a threat from Russia.
Austin said that if Congress does not appropriate $61 billion in aid for Ukraine it is “very likely” US troops on the ground in Europe will be fighting Russia. Gilbert Doctorow updates on Russian TV news and other insights.
Russian news sources highlighted the fact that during the entire flight from Moscow to Abu Dhabi the Russian president’s equivalent to Air Force One was accompanied by a number of SU35S air defense fighter jets in close formation, said to be just a few meters from one another. The unstated logic is that this was done to protect Putin from any ground to air missile that ‘you know who’ might have been thinking of firing on his plane to accomplish the long sought regime change in Russia. The skills of the Russian pilots and of their equipment was said to have produced an appropriate positive impression on emirate officials, which is entirely in keeping with one of the objectives of Putin’s visit: to promote Russia as a ‘security provider,’ meaning seller of latest generation military hardware that has proven its merits in the ongoing Ukraine war...
..Putin used his time in the public introductory remarks before the parties went into closed meetings to say that the UAE is Russia’s largest trading partner in the Arab world, with trading volumes that rose 67% in 2022 to reach 9 billion dollars and which continue to rise apace in 2023… There are ongoing talks between the parties about possible purchase of Russian small scale nuclear reactors. There are joint investments, particularly by the UAE in Russian infrastructure projects such as the latest world class Russian intercity federal highways.
The UAE dirham is now used by Moscow in some international trades. We may assume that this vector will continue to develop given the presence in Putin’s delegation of Russian Central Bank president Elvira Nabiulina. Nabiulina almost never travels with the President, so there must have been some very important business to do in the area of her competence...
..There was an exchange of information about the ongoing Gaza war and the Ukraine war. There was surely also talk about what the agenda topics will be for BRICS, which the United Arab Emirates joins as a full member in January. Russia will be the host nation and the sessions will be held in Kazan, one of Russia’s main oil-producing regions and the de facto capital of Russia’s Muslim population…
..Russian news has been more sparing in the coverage of Putin’s visit to Saudi Arabia, though the video showing Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seeing Putin off in his Aurus limousine following their meeting, with the Crown Prince putting his hand to his heart as a farewell gesture spoke volumes. Here, the continued joint management of OPEC+ production levels would have figured high in the talks, and for this purpose the presence of Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak, long time Russian Minister of Energy, would have been useful. Otherwise, the talks surely addressed security issues in the region and possible common action on the Gaza war. In addition, there would surely be discussion of the objectives for BRICS in 2024...
..I was asked about the significance of the vote in the U.S. Senate blocking the bill introduced by the Biden Administration to appropriate more than 100 billion dollars in financial and military aid to Ukraine and Israel.
The program hosts put on air a segment from President Biden’s speech calling upon Congress to approve the bill, lest the Ukrainian war efforts be allowed to fail and the road be opened for Putin to move on to Europe and continue his aggression into NATO countries. This and the related question posed to me provided an excellent opportunity to put forward a contrary view of what the Administration is now up to, namely that Biden has intentionally allowed the Senate to veto his bill by holding back the concession that could have given him the approval of funding for Ukraine that he says he wants. The obstacle was the Senate Republicans’ demand that appropriate funding be included in the bill to strengthen U.S. border defense against illegal immigration across the Mexican border. Biden did nothing, which suggests that what we are seeing already is the start of the blame game over who lost Ukraine, the Republicans in Congress or the Democratic Administration.Two months of ‘death, displacement and hunger’ for the people of Gaza
Israeli air strikes have devastated the besieged Gaza Strip, with more than 17,000 people killed, most of them women and children
https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/israel-palestine-war-gaza-truce-hamas-live ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 62: UN Chief invokes Article 99, warning Israel’s war on Gaza threatens ‘international peace and security’
Israel continues massacring Palestinians in Gazan, approves provocative Israeli march through Al-Aqsa Mosque and kills a Palestinian child in the West Bank. Israel channeling Gazans to Rafah crossing in forced exodus — Palestinian MFA
It is reported that Israel “is turning the Gaza Strip into uninhabitable ruins and is sparing no effort to force the population out”
https://tass.com/world/1716837 Google removes Israel boycott app
By 29 November, the app had been downloaded over 100,000 times on Google Play. Earlier today, the developer said emails had now been circulated calling for him to be sacked from his internship for trying to harm “businesses run by Jews”, according to the author of the email.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231205-google-removes-israel-boycott-app/ Two dangerous bills in Congress take aim at Palestine solidarity
In a dangerous precedent, the House of Representatives passed a controversial bill equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Pro-Israel lawmakers quickly followed with a bill to establish a congressional commission aimed at Palestine solidarity.Two dangerous bills in Congress take aim at Palestine solidarity
‘Silence is complicity:’ UNICEF spokesperson denounces Israeli massacre, calls for world attention
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2420731/media Israel Revokes UN Humanitarian Coordinator’s Visa for ‘Not Condemning Hamas’
Tel Aviv has consistently taken aim at the UN for its alleged ‘anti-Israel’ stance, citing comments against the ethnic cleansing campaign unfolding in the Gaza StripIsrael Revokes UN Humanitarian Coordinator’s Visa for ‘Not Condemning Hamas’
Israel-Palestine war: Israel shut down NGO for reporting rape of teenager, ex-US official says
NGO Defense for Children International’s offices were raided after they reported the sexual assault of a 15-year-old by an interrogator while in Israeli custody
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-ngo-shut-down-reporting-sexual-assault-ex-us The Biden administration has been drafting a multi-phase post-war plan for administering the Gaza Strip that culminates in the Palestinian Authority assuming control of the territory, media reported, citing two US officials, including one from the State Department.
They see the Palestinian Authority as the most viable of only bad options, recognizing that it has “significant legitimacy and capability challenges,” the State official said.
They plan for an international force in the immediate aftermath of the war, followed by a “revamped” Palestinian Authority taking over administration of Gaza in the long term.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20231205/biden-administration-plans-for-palestinian-authority-to-head-post-war-gaza–reports-1115407409.htmlZionist occupation demolishes Palestinian homes in Quds, Hebron in West Bank
https://en.ypagency.net/312698Meaning Of Words https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/meaning-of-words
I saw this yesterday, and really wondered about what it might mean: “Biden Tells Israel To Wrap Up War By January As An Estimated 80% Of Gazans Displaced”
It is clearly “public relations”, not any kind of ultimatum. As US public opinion swings away from Israeli genocide, Biden gets to pretend to say something that goes along with that, but with a month of delay, and no teeth at all, just words. In a month’s time, Bibi Netanyahu can decide to take this option proffered by Biden, or to refuse it, based upon his political needs at that moment. They might run out of bunker buster bombs about then, anyway. Also, little advertised, the Israeli army is taking a lot of armored-equipment losses in Gaza, and troops are getting killed and injured, too. The IDF/IOF is not dominating. Scott Ritter thinks that is why they took the 6 day rest to exchange hostages in a ceasefire.
So Biden gave Netanyahu a 1 month option to call off the dogs of war with the face-saving excuse of the US forcing him to stop.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-tells-israel-wrap-war-january-estimated-80-gazans-displaced Despite the soaring civilian deaths in Gaza, the Biden administration is not considering using any of the leverage it has over Israel to get the Israeli military to change its tactics, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
US officials say they’re expressing concern privately and claim Israel is listening, but the current campaign in south Gaza, where there are millions of displaced civilians, is no less brutal than Israeli operations in the north.US Not Considering Leveraging Aid to Israel to Limit Civilian Casualties
UN chief Guterres calls on Security Council to declare ceasefire in Gaza
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2421476/middle-east Washington confirms its opposition to ceasefire in Gaza Strip
“We do not support a ceasefire at this time,” Kirby said. “We support the continuation of the ceasefire in specific areas and for specific purposes.” He added that “these humanitarian vigils must be implemented in order to release the hostages.”
https://en.ypagency.net/312732@tboc: Sorry about the “No” on the bardominium project.
;-(@Oroboros: Yes, the cancerous growth model dominates under certain conditions of growth into a large substrate of resources, then it collapses when that is inadequate to feed its exponentially-growing requirements. It is specialized to the 250 years just passed…
tboc wrote: “i have clients who want a barndominium, a modeling i shall go”
R-19, Brother, R-19 insulation everywhere, unless you just can’t get it into the walls, then R-13 there, and double-paned glass windows in the right places, with an eye to flow-through when the electricity goes out…
Anyway, you know all that…“the man with the multicolored mirrors on his hobnail boots, lying with his eyes, while his hands are busy working over-time…”
@Dr. D: Thanks for contemplating the premise that “Capitalism can only turn into autocracy”.
Communism got there pretty quickly, as did national socialism. Monarchies reside there, of course.
All roads lead to autocracy as growth ends and economies strain to provide basic needs, and generous profits to the elites simultaneously, right?
“Free” markets are an essential function in any system which seeks efficiency, but we keep seeing that they are generally not free, but rigged and manipulated, more so as time goes on and regulatory systems are captured by power/financial elites.A bicycle, a library and a garden in an uncrowded locale, where the weather does not try to kill humans, and maintaining one’s health and perspective, seem like “good investments”.
Corporations are abominations, in that they “live forever”, gaining power over time, capturing governments and regulators, and shielding the evil from consequences.
;-(What means this?
Biden Tells Israel To Wrap Up War By January As An Estimated 80% Of Gazans Displaced
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-tells-israel-wrap-war-january-estimated-80-gazans-displaced Don’t Let Government Get Away With Poisoning Americans
For decades, the federal government poisoned an untold number of its citizens through our atomic program. It happened everywhere, impacting uranium mine workers in Texas, Native Americans living downwind from nuclear tests in the Mountain West, and communities exposed to Manhattan Project waste in Missouri. And that’s just a small sample. Thousands more were poisoned, sickened, and died. Lives were broken – all because our government was careless, and then covered it up.
Now, the law that delivers some justice and compensation to these victims is about to expire. Congress must include a reauthorization of this life-changing program as part of the annual defense bill. It’s our chance to give justice to victims who have been silenced and forgotten for years.
https://realclearwire.com/articles/2023/12/04/dont_let_government_get_away_with_poisoning_americans_150144.html Zero Public EV Chargers Built Since Congress Approved $7.5 Billion To Expand Network
President Joe Biden’s 2021 infrastructure bill boasts a $7.5 billion investment in electric vehicle (EV) chargers, and his administration insists the country is “on track” to install over a million public chargers by the end of the decade—but reports indicate that so far not a single one has actually been built.
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/zero-public-ev-chargers-built-congress-approved-75-billion-expand-network Thanks Red , Capitalism Cannot Turn Into Anything But Autocracy…only to disintegrate altogether soon after
Capitalism has come about as a natural response to technology use and a temporary abundance of raw materials. It was simply the most effective way of plundering the planet, and thus won hands down every time it was contested. Even its much ballyhooed challengers were built upon its core principles. They way how returns are distributed or who makes owns the productive assets, of course, can be greatly different, resulting in a lower or higher inequality in society. Irrespective of wealth distribution and questions of ownership, however, the essence of every large scale industrial system remained inherently autocratic. As long as the resources for building technological devices (be it sailboats, steam engines, solar panels or Bitcoin) must be expropriated and extracted to exhaustion, the system will remain the same.
Since the economy, no matter how we name it, is only interested in making a net return on investment, not in the health or well being of humans and the more than human world, it will eventually turn on its own population as its resource base wanes. As long as everything, from raw material to labor, could have been extracted far away from the “bastions of democracy”, people at home were allowed to be free, but only as far as not to hurt business interests. This gave the illusion of progress, or a better life through technology, together with better health, care for the young and elderly or rights for minorities.
As resources grew thinner and thinner, yielding less and less profits though, the system has started to show its real face: autocracy. Modern democracies across the planet have started to turn into a local variant of a soft or inverted totalitarianism. A political arrangement in which corporations exert a subtle but substantial power over a system that superficially seems democratic. Think: corporate donors writing laws, often against the interests of the voters. A complete take-over of the media and the civic discourse. Shutting down dissent and labeling everything but the mainstream narrative dangerous misinformation. Freedom and democracy proved to be nothing but a brief anomaly in this inherently inhumane system arching back to the emergence of the first empires.
Soon, as the debt based everything bubble bursts, governments around the world will have no other choice than to take complete control over the money system, even if it means banning every other form of exchange (bitcoin, gold, or something as simple as cash). By controlling what money can be spent on (and for how long by giving it an expiry date) central governments will have a chance at managing the economic descent downstream from a steady decline in energy production.
Repossessing homes of people unable to pay their debts and turning them into tenants, for example, seems to be another way how the financial superorganism might try to hold on to profitability. You will own less (and less) and be… “happy”. A modest, low energy, low consumption life will be marketed as “green and sustainable” to somehow take the edge of the situation and make acceptance easier. Make no mistake, I do think that lowering consumption is the only way out, but only if everybody does it in a concerted manner. As John Kenneth Galbraith astutely observed, however:
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right.”
The ruling class is thus not at all interested in creating a more sustainable system. They have a different motive: staying on top, no matter what. Thus they will take every opportunity during this long emergency to concentrate power, to squeeze out political opponents while trying to maintain the flow of profits to an ever smaller round of donors. Again, a system entirely dependent on autocratic technologies cannot evolve into anything else than an Orwellian dystopia...
..Moving towards an ever more digitalized (digital ID, digital currency, digital shopping) world is thus an incredibly short sighted way to maintain power. As the electric grid starts to fail in many places (due to a lack of fossil fuel inputs), these autocratic systems will be harder and harder to maintain…
..At this point the current centralized capitalist system will vanish sooner than one could imagine. Political power will fall back to the lowest level possible (municipalities) and real world skills will once again become respectful means of earning an income. The world will become ever more localized, and people will be forced to rely on manual labor to survive.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/capitalism-cannot-turn-into-anythingTaibbi Discusses ‘Hamilton 68’ Link To Government’s ‘Cyber Threat League’
The punch line of the upcoming #CTIFiles #4 thread is that these documents don’t merely offer instructions in the use of sockpuppets and small-scale trolling operations. They show a through-line to the much larger frauds that spread like wildfire in the legacy news landscape between 2016 and the present, chief among them the Hamilton 68 scam exposed in the Twitter Files.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-live-taibbi-discusses-hamilton-68-link-government-cyber-threat-league Dr. Mike Yeadon’s address to the Members of UK Parliament (4 December 2023)
There is no doubt in my mind, anyone of my caliber, and this is my peers that worked on this, absolutely understood what they were designing and manufacturing. So I think, having heard what I’ve just said, that there was no pandemic and the lie was maintained in order to inject people en masse, I think five and a half billion people with an intentionally dangerous substance, 17 million of whom have died so far. What do you think is happening and what do you think your role as an individual is in stopping this crime? Thank you for listening.
https://twitter.com/_aussie17/status/1731978883069878374 Hero Health Worker Turned Whistleblower Faces Court After He Exposes Shocking Number of Deaths Linked to COVID Vaccine — Shouts “FREEDOM” to Supporters in the Gallery
A 56-year-old employee-turned-whistleblower of Te Whatu Ora, New Zealand’s public health agency, was targeted by police raids.
The whistleblower was arrested Sunday afternoon for his alleged involvement in the “unauthorized disclosure and misuse of data,” according to police reports.
The police disclosed that the whistleblower’s true identity is Barry Young.
Young, responsible for managing New Zealand’s COVID-19 vaccination database, has come forward with alarming data regarding excess deaths that he claims are connected to specific batches of the Pfizer vaccine.
He played a key role in developing a project that established a vaccine payment system for providers, known as the pay-per-dose system. Under this system, providers receive a payment each time a vaccination is administered. As part of his responsibilities, he analyzed the data and noticed inconsistencies...
..“I was involved with building a project and helped with implementing a vaccine payment system for our providers. It’s called a pay-per-dose system. So that means that every time someone gets vaccinated, they get a payment for it as a provider. And I helped build it, I implemented it. And when I was looking at the data, which is part of my job, I noticed some discrepancies with the dates of death, people getting people dying within a week of being vaccinated,” Young said.
“As soon as the system went live, we noticed that people were dying almost straight away after being injected. So, that sort of prompted my curiosity a bit. So, I dug a little deeper,” he added.
“This cannot be a natural event. This is man-made,” Young argued, adding, “If it’s happening here, guarantee it’s happening everywhere, and we need more people like me to stand up and just come out. Don’t be scared, just do it.”Celia Farber , Media Coverage in NZ of Whistleblower Barry Young. They Claim Four Deaths Have Been “Possibly Linked To The Vaccine.”
MD Recites Sudden Death Cases—Including Children, And Including a Couple Who BOTH Died, Leaving Behind Five Orphaned Children
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/media-coverage-in-nz-of-whistleblowerSteve Kirsch warns about the vulnerability of “your” data, if you threaten the control-narratives.
WARNING!!! MEGA and Wasabi can screw you if, in their sole opinion, they think you MIGHT have violated their AUP
These companies shoot first, and ask questions later. Wasabi inactivated my account with ZERO notice and MEGA removed all 1 TB of Kevin McKernan’s data with no chance of recovery.
https://kirschsubstack.com/p/warning-mega-and-wasabi-can-screw
