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France and the Delusions of Nuclear Deterrence

Macron’s Offer

Emmanuel Macron[/caption]The singular antics of US President Donald Trump, notably towards supposed allies, has stirred the pot regarding national security in various capitals. From Canberra to Brussels, there is concern that such assumed, if unverifiable notions as extended nuclear deterrence from Washington are valid anymore. America First interests certainly bring that into question, as well it should. If the imperium is in self-introspective retreat, this is to the good. But the internationalists beg to differ, wishing to see the United States as imperial guarantor.

In Europe, the fear at the retreat of Washington’s nuclear umbrella, and the inflation of the …

Whose Dog Was Being Wagged During Showtime Between Trump and Zelensky?

Art requires the use of imagination, but so does political and social analysis. But imagination is just a first step; it proves nothing.

Evidence is required. But imagination rules out nothing from the start. If one cannot imagine an hypothesis or a scene – no matter how seemingly implausible – to be possibly true, one will leave it unexamined or unwritten.  As Graeme MacQueen, the author of the crucial book, The 2001 Anthrax Deception, and much else, put it:

Suppose our imaginations can embrace …

“Biased” UN Report on Nicaragua Ignores Victims of US-backed Opposition Violence

A new UN report relies on a US government-funded operative, Felix Maradiaga, who helped instigate the violent 2018 coup to remove President Daniel Ortega in 2018.  Yet UN “experts” have refused to interview the many Nicaraguans kidnapped and tortured by the opposition.

One of scores of violent barricades, or tranques, created around Nicaragua during the 2018 coup attempt

MASAYA, NICARAGUA – Reynaldo Urbina rides his motorbike around the streets …

AI as God

What is this new religion going to be called?

The Deep State’s War on Truth

Waged with Doublespeak, Delusion and Propaganda

The Deep State’s war on truth is being waged with doubletalk, delusion and propaganda.

Through deliberate manipulation of language—what George Orwell called “doublespeak”—Donald Trump has provided cover for the Deep State’s continued grip on power.

While promising to drain the swamp, his administration has instead relied on contradictory policies, misinformation, and propaganda to further entrench the very system he claims to oppose. Although the Trump administration is merely the latest frontman for the Deep State’s efforts to maintain its stranglehold on power, we are approaching a tipping point beyond which there may be …

Why America, the EU, and Ukraine, Should Lose to Russia in Ukraine’s War

The war in Ukraine is, but in reverse, the same situation that America’s President JFK had faced with regard to the Soviet Union in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. would have invaded Cuba if Khrushchev wouldn’t agree to a mutually acceptable settlement — which he did, and so WW3 was averted on that occasion. But whereas Khrushchev was reasonable; Obama, Biden, and Trump, are not; and, so, we again stand at the brink of a WW3, but this time with a truly evil head-of-state (Obama, then Biden, and now Trump), who might even be willing to go …

The Money Government


Pink Floyd had it right on with their 1973 song “Money”:

Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and you’re okay
Money, it’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four-star daydream
Think I’ll buy me a football team

Money, get back
I’m alright, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it’s a hit
Don’t give me that do-goody-good bullshit
I’m in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet

Money, it’s a crime
Share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie
Money, so …

Donald Trump and Depression Economics

Arrival of the New World Monarch

Somewhere in the universe is a man known as Donald Trump. He has residences in New York, Palm Beach, Florida, and a white columned house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. From these well-furnished bungalows, where supplicants meet to greet, monarch butterfly Trump governs his territory ─ planet earth. When the monarch desires a change in scenery and craves another mansion, he sends his henchman to the selected area, has them arrange an offer that cannot be refused, and gives the area the glitz his personality favors. Donald Trump imagines he …

Sovereignty

With Trump’s recent tongue-lashing of Zelensky at their meeting in Washington DC, social media is now flooded with anguished cries about Ukraine’s sovereignty and how the U.S. must stand up to Russia’s empire-building invasion. The “consensus” claims Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty cannot be tolerated and must be punished.

Respect for sovereignty? Are these well-intentioned but completely misguided folks incapable of remembering the not so distant past?

Did America respect Korea’s sovereignty when it canceled free and open elections there in 1950, instigating an unnecessary, brutal war? Over 2 million Koreans were killed.

Did …

Cell

“When a strange signal pulsates through all cell phone networks worldwide, it starts a murderous epidemic of epic proportions when users become bloodthirsty creatures, and a group of people in New England are among the survivors to deal with the ensuing chaos after.” — “Cell,” TV Guide

Well Being: Measles – Truth Versus Fiction

and why we will continue to have outbreaks

Measles was declared eliminated from the United States in 2000 due to a lack of continuous disease spread for more than 12 months (CDC). This was considered an outstanding achievement, and the CDC credited a highly effective vaccination program, with improved measles control in the Americas region. The truth is that almost as soon as measles was “eliminated” from the USA, once again outbreaks began to occur.

Measles will most likely never be eradicated or eliminated in the USA …

The Five Excuses for Genocide

On Monday I interviewed a member of the Executive Committee of AIPAC. I asked him how he could defend and promote apartheid and genocide. He was not a legal witness; I could not order him not to change the subject. Still, he provided pretty clear (if very weak) excuses for genocide, which I think can be broken up into five types.

Others have done it.

The U.S. killed Native Americans, he pointed out. …

Why Class Matters

After the last election, Democratic Party functionaries were puzzled that voters — usually attuned closely to the economy — failed to show proper appreciation for the Biden economic miracle. They cited the billions in federal money flowing toward economic growth; they repeated aggregate growth figures more robust than other advanced economies; they showed that consumer spending continued to show surprising vigor; they noted that aggregate incomes grew faster than inflation; and they reminded us of the often-mentioned markers of rising stock market and housing values.

Baffled by the voters who shunned Bidenomics and complained about the economy, Democratic Party pundits …

Only the US Defense Department’s Budget Will NOT be Cut

All U.S. federal Departments except the Defense Department will have their budgets reduced this year.

60% of U.S. military expenses get paid out from the Defense Department (the Pentagon), which is the only U.S. federal Department that has never passed an audit — never been audited — and is also the only federal Department that pays America’s military-weapons manufacturers, such as Lockheed Martin — the companies that depend mainly or even entirely on purchases by the federal Government. The Trump Administration has decided not to cut that Department’s budget, and might even …

How about the US Becoming the 11th Province?

While living in the Middle East, a Palestinian friend taught me about Arabic culture, which he said was still preserved in Yemen. Arabic etiquette, he told me, was that a guest was to be protected, housed, and otherwise looked after.

White House etiquette is something else. I was quite taken aback by viewing how Donald Trump and JD Vance ganged up on their Ukrainian guest Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This is not to side with Zelenskyy who is a disagreeable personage to me; by refusing a security agreement, he set the stage for an unwinnable war against Russia which has condemned hundreds …

Yes, Trump is Vulgar. But the US Global Shakedown is the Same One as Ever

The US president looked like a gangster as he roughed up Zelensky. But he wasn’t the one who stoked a war that’s killed huge numbers of Ukrainians and Russians

[First published by Middle East Eye]

If there is one thing we can thank US President Donald Trump for, it is this: he has decisively stripped away the ridiculous notion, long cultivated by western media, that the United States is a benign global policeman enforcing a “rules-based order”.

Washington is better understood as the head of a gangster empire, embracing 800 military bases around the world. Since the end of …

Trump’s Détente with Venezuela

Trump’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine – “speak loudly AND carry a big stick” – has not been applied full force on Venezuela… as of yet. Instead, the new administration appears to be testing a more nuanced approach. In his first administration, he succeeded in crashing the Venezuelan economy and creating misery among the populace but not in the goal of changing the “regime.”

Back in 2019, the Bolivarian Revolution, initiated by Hugo Chávez and carried forward by his successor, current Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was teetering on collapse under Trump’s “maximum pressure” offensive. The economy had tanked, inflation was out …

Britain and France Propose “Coalition of the Willing” to Extend the Killing

British PM Starmer and French President Macron have proposed a ‘coalition of the willing’ with “boots on the ground and planes in the air.” Starmer, from a country where 25 percent of children are below the poverty level, said that “It’s time to act, not talk, to defend the West.” President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen added that Europe needs “to rearm” and we should turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine that’s indigestible for potential invaders.”

Behind the headlines and all the public huffing and puffing we find several caveats; other countries doing the “heavy lifting” are not …

The Eurocentric U.S. “Left” Carries Water for Neoliberal Right, Again

The supporters of the Ukraine Solidarity Network (USN) inhabit the same contradictory moral and political space as the European leaders who met with Volodymyr Zelensky, their frontman from Ukraine, to reaffirm their collective commitment to the proxy war in Ukraine. The language of self-determination and rights easily flowed from their lips but not one of them had a word to say about the self-determination of Palestinians who are now facing another illegal siege by Israel in occupied Gaza.

This is the terrain of white privilege that must be confronted. The power to define who is human and who has …

Reality Scripted

Same bat time, same bat channel

Same bat time, same bat channel.

Europe’s Ukrainian Predicament

Righteous, Confused and Unwilling

There is something deeply moving about the ignorance and scatty nature of politicians.  At points, it can even be endearing.  In the apparently wide wake left by the mauling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in front of the press at the Oval Office on February 28, backers of Kyiv’s war effort were wondering: What next?  How do we prevent Ukrainian defeat at the hands of Russia?  Having irresponsibly cuddled, coddled and insisted that Ukraine was in with more than a sporting chance to bloody and beat the clumsy Russian Bear that shows no signs of stepping down and hibernating, …

A Very Short History of Our Species

Our story as humans—Homo sapiens—began about 200,000 years ago. And for over 99% of our time on earth we were foragers (hunter-gatherers). Because of that lengthy period as foragers, we became “designed” for that way of life (see this, p. 43). This book from 1988 discusses many aspects of that design. It neglects, however, to discuss the most important part of our design—the fact that we became designed to be a small-group species.1
Our lives began to change in significant ways about 12,000 years ago, when the Neolithic Revolution

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If so, Dejected Associates is ready to work with you. Our team of employees were emotionally abused by their fathers, bullied in childhood, and ready to take their anger out on your employees. We’ll use a chainsaw, not a scalpel, feeding their hopes for the future into our wood chipper. Best of all, we’ll do it en masse so they’ll all be competing for new jobs elsewhere at the …

Normalizing the Abnormal

From day one, we humans have reacted to the extraordinary with awe and dread. Unprecedented phenomena evoke acute anxiety – even when not immediately threatening – because they are inexplicable. They sow fear because their nature, and whatever mysterious realm they emerge from, are beyond our comprehension. Thus, the compulsion to fit them into some ordered frame of reference. That entailed populating the earth and the sky with spirits, demons, gods and a host of related forces. In the imagination of more literate societies, they were composed into entire families of the supernatural – endowed with human attributes so as …

Zelensky: Victim of Colosseum Politics

There was a revolting tabloid quality to the Oval Office reception given to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28, but then again, President Donald Trump is a tabloid brute, a man incarnated from the nastiest, shallowest precepts of yellow press clippings and, ultimately, the reality television empire that gave him a crown and forever enshrined him in the culture of brash Americana.  From the foamy cable television rot of the republic, Trump’s progress was inexorable.

With such ingredients, the White House has become a studio, with the statesmanship of the bullying show paramount.  The electors are to be entertained …

Herd Mentality

Consensus ad Populum: A logical fallacy whereby humans tend to conform to what others believe.

When it Comes to Fascism, We Are All in the Prisoner’s Dilemma

Not only do we have to do the right thing, in little and big ways, regardless of the consequences, visibly and invisibly, but we all have to do it at the same time, alone, yet together in solidarity with people we do not know.

In order for it to be safe for me to stand up, you have to stand up, and in order for you to stand up, I have to stand up, and both of us want to stand up, but we fear retaliation, and neither of us knows if we will be standing alone or not until we …

Remembering Nuclear Victims 71 Years after the Castle Bravo Test

Pushing for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons and War

March 1 marks 71 years since the U.S. used its biggest ever nuclear weapon—on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The bomb was 15 megatons, 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Between 1946 and 1958 the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands. The blasts vaporized whole islands, carved craters into the shallow lagoons, and exiled hundreds of people from their homes. The Castle Bravo blast was the largest of all, sending particulate and gaseous fallout around the entire planet. We published this article on the 70th anniversary last year in …

Ho Hum at Sea: Anti-China Hysteria Down Under

The conduct of live-fire exercises by the People’s Liberation Army Navy Surface Force (the Chinese “communists”, as they are called by the analytically strained) has recently caused much murmur and consternation in Australia. It’s the season for federal elections, and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, thinks he’s in with more than a fighting chance. Whether that chance is deserved or not is another matter.

The exercise, conducted in international waters by a cruiser, frigate and replenishment ship, involved what is said to have been poor notice given to Australian authorities on February 21. But the matter has rapidly burgeoned …

The History of Regime Change in Ukraine and the IMF’s Bitter “Economic Medicine”

We must understand the history of the U.S.-sponsored February 2014 Coup d’Etat which paved the wave for the adoption of IMF-World Bank shock treatment, namely the imposition of devastating macro-economic reforms coupled with conditionalities.