#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Sooo....besides death, famine, destruction, of entire countries, depleted uranium in ground cause of defected babies n cancer in Iraq, Afg, Syria, Libya, Som.. gifts of USA n NATO .. here's one more...SLAVERY AUCTIONS https://t.co/vpLZlDtCUG
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Unbelievable! ". growth of Afghanistan’s opium production from a mere 185 tons when the U.S. invaded in October 2001 to a still-unequalled yield of 8,200 tons in 2008, a harvest that provided an unprecedented 53% of the... https://t.co/WbY39gISyc
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli And out comes the "anti-Semitic" card with dramatic flourish fm Soros's deep money-lined pocket. Tell me something new, this is so boringly old hat. https://t.co/eYEjzgCfxd
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli "London’s Daily Mail in a 2013 article confirmed the existence of an Anglo-American project endorsed by the White House (with the assistance of Qatar) to wage a chemical weapons attack on Syria andplace the blame on Bashar Al Assad...https://t.co/3dJvMo5j22
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Trudeau's sins "The elevation of Chrystia Freeland to Foreign Affairs and the sidelining of Stephane Dion – a much more balanced and nuanced peace seeking minister- demonstrates the domestic requirements of Canada supporting Ukraine..https://t.co/nq8Jubdm7m
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli "But, Canadian soldiers have only fought in one morally justifiable war: World War II. Ignored in the Remembrance Day style commemoration are the Afghans or Libyans killed by Canadians in recent years or the Serbian and Iraqis .... https://t.co/haSlSQUX1h
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli What's going on?! Both NYT n BBC r suddenly coming out declaring USA sins in Iraq and Syria. NYT on Iraq and a few days back, the BBC on Raqqa,Syria. "The Uncounted" https://t.co/RaAxK0F8ZT
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli "The primary investors and supporters of blockchain technology and cypto have turned out to be the international banks themselves. Globalist pillars like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are working fervently to push varying..... https://t.co/4PQNGByE8d
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli "Moscow brands US presence in Syria as ‘close to occupation’.... " Yes, Moscow is right! The American leeches live on blood sucked from other nations, especially nations far away from its soil. https://t.co/u3QUMdcnSx
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli The peaceful part of Planet Earth watches helplessly while the dying empire still continues to bully n invade lands it has no legality 2b in. "Pentagon To Admit To 2,000 Troops In Syria; Number Likely Far Higher... https://t.co/h9XjX4Zf4T
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Just one of the major consequences of following orders from chief warmonger the USA. Canada should have insisted onremaining a Peacekeeper Nation n not let missile dropper neighbor twist it around its little finger into wars. https://t.co/10iSAzc39c
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli "..Incredibly, a federal appeals court actually ruled unanimously in 2014 that acne scars and driving with a stiff upright posture are reasonable grounds for being pulled over. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that driving... https://t.co/EmKV4Crw5O
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Of course! US military. filled 2the brim w all those poor illegals n Puerto Ricans who join only cuz no other jobs on offer or cuz of promises of early citizenship, r fodder 4 the MidEast warmongers' wars, all on US taxpayers' $shttps://t.co/uchtzSoZfz
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Netanyahu's puppet. He says what each n every US congress member beholden 2 Israel (almost all of them) think privately but being better actors than Trump they don't expose themselves,.. "Trump Shares Inflammatory Anti-Muslim... https://t.co/bTzvk21Bk1
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Make no mistake, if they admit to killing 800, it's cuz the actual figure must be more than 10 times that. "US-led coalition acknowledges killing 800 civilians in Iraq & Syria airstrikes https://t.co/57i9QvsVst
The power of foreign policy nationalism is immense. Even the primary victims of the Canadian state have been drawn into this country’s mythology.
Dispossessed of 99% of their land, Indigenous people have been made wards of the state, had their movement restricted and religious/cultural ceremonies banned. Notwithstanding their antagonistic relationship to the Canadian state, indigenous leaders have often backed Ottawa’s international policies.
At a National Aboriginal Veterans Day ceremony last week Grand Chief of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Stewart Phillip said Indigenous soldiers were “fighting for the common good” and were “on the right side of history.” But, Canadian soldiers have only fought in one morally justifiable war: World War II. Ignored in the Remembrance Day style commemoration are the Afghans or Libyans killed by Canadians in recent years or the Serbians and Iraqis killed two decades ago or the Koreans killed in the 1950s or the Russians, South Africans, Sudanese and others killed before that.
While Phillip’s comments reinforces the sense that Canada’s cause is righteous, he’s not a sycophant of power on most issues. Phillip refused to attend a “reconciliation” event with Prince William, called for “acts of civil disobedience” against pipelines and said “the State of Canada and the Church committed acts of genocide as defined by the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”
Philip was but one of many indigenous voices applauding Canadian militarism during National Aboriginal Veterans Day/Remembrance Day activities. CBC Indigenous reported on a reading in Mi’kmaq of the pro-World War I poem “In Flanders Fields” and quoted the editor of Courageous Warriors of Kahkewistahaw First Nation, Ted Whitecalf, saying: “It’s all for freedom that the people served willingly and voluntarily.”
Outside of war commemorations, Indigenous representatives occasionally echo broader foreign policy myths. Alongside Minister of International Development Marie-Claude Bibeau, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde was a keynote speaker at the Canadian Council for International Co-operation’s “Come Celebrate Canada’s International Contributions!!” event in May. Part of Canada’s 150th anniversary the Global Impact Soirée included a Global Affairs Canada exhibit titled “25 Years of Excellence in International Development Photography” and “Recognize Canada’s 15 international contributions”........
Now that the USA has elected a president the BBC is not in love with, out comes its claws all of a sudden to show the world something of what's happening in the dying empire. All this was prevalent the last so many decades, but BBC, like most of the MSM, had a lid on anything that showed America in a bad light..until now. BBC betrayal?
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli 2) I cannot recall the BBC showing anything anti USA during Obama's reign. Were there no child brides or women dying in childbirth then dear @BBCNews? Your bias is showing!https://t.co/UWJOPw52mv
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli 3) BBC was wholly in Obama n Hillary camp while education standards in USA were just as bad as they r now. But surprise, surprise, BBC now finds its long lost tongue on stuff anti USA as present prez not liked by BBC's PTB https://t.co/MwtyBjH6nI
What else did you expect from a colonial power that still holds sway over Mali and many other areas of Africa by aiding and abetting in the electing of France's chosen ones in the "ex" colonies?
France’s invitation to beleaguered Lebanese premier Saad Hariri for him and his family to spend “a few days in Paris” has been viewed as French President Emmanuel Macron stepping in with deft soft power to resolve tensions between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
Less charitably, what Macron is really doing is giving cynical cover to the Saudi rulers for their extraordinary acts of aggression towards Lebanon and their violation of that country’s sovereignty.
Two of Hariri’s children were left in Saudi capital Riyadh while he visited France over the weekend. Were they being used as hostages by the Saudis to ensure that Hariri maintains the Saudi spin on events? Certainly, the arrangement raises suspicions, but the French president sought instead to affect a “normal” nothing-is-unusual appearance.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun last week publicly accused Saudi Arabia of holding Hariri in Riyadh against his will. Aoun said the Saudi rulers were violating international law by detaining Hariri and forcing his resignation as prime minister of Lebanon. Such acts were tantamount to aggression, said President Aoun.
Yet Macron has said nothing about Saudi interference. He has instead turned reality on its head by censuring Iran for regional “aggression” and thereby backing Saudi claims that Iran is supplying ballistic missiles to Yemen. Iran swiftly condemned Macron for “stoking regional tensions”.
Credit goes to President Aoun for speaking out plainly, telling it like it is and expressing what many Lebanese citizens and many other observers around the world have concluded. The whole debacle is an outrageous affront to Lebanon and international law by the Saudi rulers, when it is taken into consideration Hariri’s hasty summoning to Saudi capital Riyadh earlier this month, his subsequent televised resignation speech on Saudi TV, and his long-delayed sojourn in that country. What is even more despicable is that the Saudi interference in the sovereign affairs of Lebanon is threatening to re-ignite a civil war within the small Mediterranean country, and, possibly worse, a war across the region with Iran....
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Meanwhile, in the midst of dropping bombs on Yemeni civilians, torturing detainees, planning dropping of bombs on Lebanon, recruiting more jihadis n PR firms 2hide sins ...#Trump's n Israel's "moderate Islam country" does this. https://t.co/kP7hv1k6DV
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli TheRealNews' Aaron Mate talks to Max Blumenthal on how Mossad trained spies continue playing dirty tricks here, there, everywhere. B careful of those befriending u. U just never know if they r Israeli spies! https://t.co/zqWky1rtZc
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli How wonderful r the plans of the new Empire! Man is able to think progressively only when he is not rampaging like a serial killer. Good for China! Long may the new Empire exist. "2045: A Space Odyssey’ revealed in Chinese ... https://t.co/SVV53iPHrm
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli SHAME on China n Russia if they let NK b destroyed "The Russian-China veto prevented an attack by the UN on Syria, but Russia and China are not vetoing these vicious sanctions on North Korea, and permitting this incredibly... https://t.co/YH2K0vj1aV
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Too late the hero! The BBC, premier warmonger, now trying 2make amends 4the umpteen lies it spread about the war in Syria. But, how can u bring back 10s of 1000s dead? "BBC uncovers a secret deal that let hundreds of IS fighters...https://t.co/sN8uCQSgZh
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Redacted Tonight speaks to Anya Parampil about the historical context of current U.S. aggression against North Korea, which the military industrial complex and its politicians don’t want you to know. https://t.co/9u2VtP2mr8
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli "The names of the 33,000 people who died trying to reach Europe have been published for the first time" All due to unwanted and unnecessary wars!https://t.co/Pj6Os9VTir
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli "What the Priti Patel Scandal tells us about the Dark Operations of UK’s Powerful Israel Lobby" However, the UK one is like a pebble compared to the Mount Everest-like one in the USA. https://t.co/ecovmdJkQp
#cdnpoli#TOpoli#tcot I don't agree w this opinion cuz IMO a person having dual citizenship, especially a lawmaker, is serving two masters and can't be considered 2b really n truly patriotic to either. Think polygamy. https://t.co/iccmuQYy4U
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Make no mistake ... this is happening to Yemenis only cuz USA n UK r hand-in-glove w KSA's war crime. 'Only God can save us': Yemeni children starve as aid is held at border https://t.co/wBGVuFpYTr
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Soo... I for one am glad many killers fled 2 EU as EU is also responsible 4wars in MidEast. Karma awaits the EU"The Speicher killing field was gruesomely staged – and filmed – by Daesh only a few days after the fall of Mosul." https://t.co/nXYFLwmKl3
#cdnpoli#topoli$TOpoli "Saad Hariri: Kidnapped, Coerced and Is Being Used by KSA to Incite Lebanese Internal Conflicts" ".. transferring this confrontation to the United Nations is necessary. It will represent a testament to the blatant Saudi.. https://t.co/04P3nEGk6Z
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Quite sure some1 will know what happened to her after her arrival in New York. Canadian journalist Florence Harper among few women to cover Russian Revolution but nothing much is known about her. https://t.co/uBgAvFjaWx
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli "On June 4, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 11110 ... US Treasury to issue paper currency that could be redeemed for silver held by the treasury.. $2 n $5 notes had on em “United States Note” not “Federal...https://t.co/EtFPDQy4wZ
On the campaign trail last year, Donald Trump derided the Transportation Security Administration as a “total disaster.” But his administration is making TSA more intrusive and abusive while its 42,000 screeners remain as incompetent as ever. New TSA screening guidelines will likely make Thanksgiving travel a disaster for legions of Americans — and the worst is yet to come. Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, TSA announced more "comprehensive" pat-down procedures which the Denver airport suggested might involve “more intimate contact than before.” TSA preemptively notified local police to expect potential complaints, and plenty of travelers are howling:
*Jenna McFarlane, a 56-year old teacher and graphic designer, was traveling out of Charlotte, N.C., in April when a TSA agent repeatedly told her “to spread my legs wider” and proceeded to “touch my vagina four times with the side of her hand,” as she complained to TSA afterwards. She was selected for a vigorous patdown after an unreliable TSA test gave a false explosive alert for her carry-on baggage.
*Hollywood reporter and author Sharon Waxman complained this summer about an aggressive female TSA agent who “placed both hands around my legs and slowly — very slowly — rubbed up and down. The touching went all the way up to my groin. My private parts were touched by the edge of her hand, twice.” The TSA agent rested her hands on Waxman’s chest much longer than necessary to check for weapons. Waxman groused: “The TSA screening felt like nothing less than physical assault. If anyone other than a government officer had done anything of the kind, I would have reported it as a crime.”
*David Stavropolous complained that a TSA agent doing a search at Chicago O’Hare airport jammed his hand into Stavropolous' groin so hard that it caused bleeding and will require surgery to correct, according to Chicago's NBC station and his lawsuit against TSA.
But there is a ray of hope: TSA’s screeners may soon lose the legal immunity that has shielded all their abuses. Federal judge James Cacheris okayed a lawsuit by Captain James Linlor, an airline pilot, who complained that a TSA agent at Washington Dulles International Airport “rammed his hands into (his) genitals ... and subsequently laughed.”
TSA asked the court to dismiss Linlor’s case because, instead of suing, he could have phoned in his complaint to the TSA Contact Center. TSA also insisted that its screener deserved legal immunity even if he did pummel Linlor’s private parts. The judge scoffed at the government’s inference that “a reasonable federal officer would be surprised to learn that gratuitously striking an individual in the groin while searching them violates the Fourth Amendment.” The case is proceeding.
Federal groping-on-steroids is not making flying safer. In June, KMSP-TV in Minneapolis reported that a TSA Headquarters Evaluation Team succeeded 95% of the time in smuggling weapons and mock bombs past airport screeners. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general notified Congress that TSA screeners and equipment had recently failed to detect mock threats "in the ballpark" of 80% of the time, ABC News reported this month. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., declared that TSA is “broken badly.”
TSA has never bothered examining whether its tactics actually protect the public. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in September that “TSA does not measure deterrence (impact) for any of its aviation security countermeasures.” Instead, the agency imposes burden after burden upon American travelers based on hunches.
Other Trump policies could soon blight millions of Americans’ travel plans. Starting Jan. 22, TSA may reject drivers’ licenses from many states that fail to comply with the REAL ID Act of 2005 (formerly one of the Tea Party’s most hated edicts). Travelers without passports from New York, Michigan, Illinois and other states could be barred from flying domestically, according to information on a DHS website......
.....The real job, the hard job, for all of us male bystanders, isn’t to rescue women, but to rescue other men from their own worst behavior and so prevent abuse in the first place, be it by a heroic and possibly dangerous personal intervention or the more difficult political mission of, say, passing an Equal Rights Amendment. One of the crises of contemporary manhood and contemporary bystanderdom, perhaps the very reason for our passivity, our cowardice, is the realization that most of the time we can’t even protect ourselves from the men who intimidate us, who take pleasure in treating us like "girls."
No wonder we, too, derive some pleasure from the precipitous falls of Harvey Weinstein, Leon Wieseltier, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Mark Halperin, and the other celebs, politicians, and male eminences going down at the present moment. We sense with satisfaction that they’re finally paying for whatever they did or tried to do to women (or young men) sexually, for reducing them to powerless objects, just as they’ve always done, even if far less directly, to men like us, like me.
Women are finally rising up, spreading the net, pulling it tight. Maybe, at last, it’s our turn as well. So applaud #metoo, then raise #ustoo, where men can begin to be as courageous as the women who brought down the pigs. We have a lot of catching up to do.
We need to keep expanding the “Harvey effect” into all the corrupt and abusive pockets of politics, entertainment, and business, as perilous as that can sometimes be. It’s time, too, to begin bucking the trend of rewarding aggressive men.
And count on it, there will be a bro-lash. There are too many underdogs in the pack who think their fates are entwined with those of the alpha dogs, including those generals like White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in Washington, too many producers and actors in Hollywood, too many hedge-fund vice presidents in New York, too many engineers in Silicon Valley. But there are also millions of us dudes ready to become ex-bystanders, including old guys like me, who need to redeem ourselves from our histories with the Crazy Ronnies, Docs, and Shads, and young guys who need to be woken to the thrilling power of standing up to such bullies.......
The U.S. Treasury has organized an assault via U.S. banks withholding notes of credit U.S. oil refineries need to be able to pay for Venezuela’s crude oil.
The U.S. Treasury Department has threatened holders of Venezuelan bonds that it would be problematic for them to deal with Venezuela’s executive Vice President Tareck El Aissami and the country’s Economy Minister Simon Zerpa, also head of finance for Venezuela’s State oil company PDVSA. El Aissami and Zerpa are Venezuela’s main financial negotiators and the U.S. government applied sanctions against the two fo them this year.
The development followed President Nicolas Maduro invitation to Venezuela’s creditors last week to meet in Caracas on Nov. 13 for talks on restructuring payment of US$60 billion of Venezuela’s bonds.
A financial terror campaign on steroids Venezuela’s debt payments this year anticipate projections for payment of around US$8 billion in 2018 which will now be restructured. Even though creditors are not forbidden under General License 3 of President Donald Trump’s Aug. 3 decree from participating in talks on Venezuela’s bonds, the U.S. Treasury has now said that any deal with El Aissami and Zerpa, both on the U.S. Treasury’s list of Specially Designated Persons, could be problematic, without referring directly to negotiations as such or to whether a possible agreement might break U.S. law. The U.S. Treasury went on to note that possible penalties for U.S. citizens could mean up to 30 years in prison or fines of up to US$5 million. In the case of financial institutions, the fines could go up to US$10 million.
In coordination with the U.S. Treasury pronouncements, Venezuela’s opposition media have supplemented the U.S. threats with “anonymous statements” supposedly implying that creditors are not planning to participate in the Nov. 13 meeting in Caracas allegedly on account of lack of comfortable facilities for the investors and fears about violence in Venezuela’s capital.
Along with news of this latest U.S. threat against Venezuela, international financial media also reported that on Nov. 8 a creditor of PDVSA’s 2017 bonds asked the International Swaps and Derivatives Association to determine whether the oil company had fallen into non-payment which would activate insurance payouts for credit non-compliance.
The Venezuelan authorities announced on Nov. 3 the start of the procedure to pay US$1.1 billion in capital and interest on the 2017 bond that expired on Nov. 2......
Frustrated students seek tuition refunds as government tries to open classrooms by Monday Frustrated and financially burdened students affected by the Ontario colleges strike are turning to the courts to try to get some cash back.
A class action was commenced on Tuesday that seeks to recover tuition money on behalf of the thousands of students at 24 colleges who have been out of class since mid-October.
Going down the lawsuit road could be a long and ultimately unsuccessful journey, but there could still be some benefits to it in the short term, say class action experts.
"Bringing that lawsuit has got the plight of the students some more press and that is inherently pressure, political or otherwise, potentially economic, on the colleges at least, maybe the union," said Jason Squire, head of the class action group at Lerners LLP in Toronto.
Pressure on the Ontario government to step in and force an end to the strike, now in its fifth week, ramped up Thursday when the latest contract offer from the College Employer Council was rejected by striking faculty, represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
Premier Kathleen Wynne met with representatives from both sides on Thursday afternoon, and several hours later her government announced it would introduce legislation to force them into binding arbitration and end the strike. The premier said she wants to see students back in class by Monday morning......
and chances are these same headchoppers will do plenty of damage in the near future in the countries who paid them to destroy Syria. Patiently waiting for Karma to come along and do the needful like only Karma can.
The BBC has uncovered details of a secret deal that let hundreds of IS fighters and their families escape from Raqqa, under the gaze of the US and British-led coalition and Kurdish-led forces who control the city. A convoy included some of IS’s most notorious members and – despite reassurances – dozens of foreign fighters. Some of those have spread out across Syria, even making it as far as Turkey. Lorry driver Abu Fawzi thought it was going to be just another job.
He drives an 18-wheeler across some of the most dangerous territory in northern Syria. Bombed-out bridges, deep desert sand, even government forces and so-called Islamic State fighters don’t stand in the way of a delivery.
But this time, his load was to be human cargo. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters opposed to IS, wanted him to lead a convoy that would take hundreds of families displaced by fighting from the town of Tabqa on the Euphrates river to a camp further north.
The job would take six hours, maximum – or at least that's what he was told.
But when he and his fellow drivers assembled their convoy early on 12 October, they realised they had been lied to.
Instead, it would take three days of hard driving, carrying a deadly cargo - hundreds of IS fighters, their families and tonnes of weapons and ammunition.............
If you are not loving the upheaval going on in the wahhabi cavemen world of Saudi Arabia, then you must be a caveman yourself.
David Hearst at MiddleEastEye EXCLUSIVE: Senior Saudi figures tortured and beaten in purge Several detainees taken to hospital with torture injuries, while sources tell MEE scale of crackdown is bigger than authorities have revealed Some senior figures detained in last Saturday's purge in Saudi Arabia were beaten and tortured so badly during their arrest or subsequent interrogations that they required hospital treatment, Middle East Eye can reveal.
People inside the royal court also told MEE that the scale of the crackdown, which has brought new arrests each day, is much bigger than Saudi authorities have admitted, with more than 500 people detained and double that number questioned.
Members of the royal family, government ministers and business tycoons were caught up in the sudden wave of arrests orchestrated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, under the banner of an anti-corruption drive.
Some, but not all, of the top figures arrested were singled out for the most brutal treatment, suffering wounds to the body sustained by classic torture methods. There are no wounds to their faces, so they will show no physical signs of their ordeal when they next appear in public.
Some detainees were tortured to reveal details of their bank accounts. MEE is unable to report specific details about the abuse they suffered in order to protect the anonymity of its sources.
The purge, which follows an earlier roundup of Muslim clerics, writers, economists and public figures, is creating panic in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, particularly among those associated with the old regime of King Abdullah, who died in 2015, with power then passing to his half-brother, King Salman.
Many fear the primary purpose of the crackdown is a move by MBS to knock out all rivals both inside and outside the House of Saud before he replaces his 81-year-old father.
On Wednesday night, seven princes were released from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, where they had been held since Saturday. The top royals have been moved to the king’s palace, sources told MEE.
The crown prince’s cousin, Mohammed bin Nayef, who continues be under house arrest, has had his assets frozen, the Reuters news agency reported. Sons of Sultan bin Abdulaziz have also been arrested and had their assets frozen.........
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli Watch this n b very afraid. U just don't know who might hypnotize u. I often wonder how many politicians n "terrorists" r under hypnotism. https://t.co/PuBfCeWRbK
#cdnpoli#tcot#TOpoli I m willing 2bet half+ lawmakers got "free" holiday in Israel came back hypnotized..in more ways than1! The best ever hypnotist I met was an Israeli woman. https://t.co/xLbH46qqMw
`Take up the white man’s burden’ Rudyard Kipling, poet laureate of British imperialism
The British Empire, which at the end of the 19th century ruled one quarter of the earth’s land surface, is long gone. But its robust successor and heir, the United States, has set about enlarging it.
As I sought to explain in my last book ‘American Raj – How the US Rules the Muslim World,’ the US imperium exerts its power by controlling tame, compliant regimes around the world and their economies. They are called ‘allies’ but, in fact, should be more accurately termed satrapies or vassal states. Many states are happy to be prosperous US vassals, others less so.
The US power system has successfully dominated much of the world, except of course for great powers China, Russia and India. Germany and much of Western Europe remains in thrall to post WWII US power. The same applies to Canada, Latin America, Australia, and parts of SE Asia.
There is one part of the globe that has remained free from heavy US influence since 1945, sub-Saharan Africa. But this fact is clearly changing as the US military expands its operations the width and breadth of the Dark Continent.
We are seeing a rerun of the fine old 1930’s film, ‘Beau Geste’ which was taken from a cracking good 1924 Victorian novel by C. Percival Wren. Set in French North Africa, Wren’s dashing French Legionnaires end up defending a remote fort against masses of hostile Arab and Berber tribesman.
The novel and film negatively shaped western attitudes to the Arab world and its peoples but glorified the French Foreign Legion. Wren claimed to have been a member of the Legion which was the primary enforcement arm of France’s African colonial empire...........
#cdnpoli#TOpoli#tcot if u watch the interview and was puzzled like me by her "hezbollah slipped out of resistance axis" ... Narwani has corrected her slip at YouTube comments. She meant to say "hamas" not "hezbollah" https://t.co/eM24fDouWE
the USA is hell-bent on preventing that peaceful outcome. The reason being, the USA's lucrative war business which includes the stationing of thousands of US troops in South Korea and the offloading of billions of dollars worth of weapons on an unwilling South Korea held hostage by the mafia bully. Guess what will happen to South Korea if they as much as beg, even on bended knees, that the US troops on their soil, be reduced by even a few hundred.
The only reason USA remains afloat today is due to wars which bring death and destruction in every corner of Planet Earth.
Tim Shorrock and Seth Ackerman at GlobalResearch South Korea’s Sunshine Policy: 80 Percent of South Koreans Support Peace and North-South Engagement For South Koreans, the biggest threat to peace isn't North Korea but the United States.
With Donald Trump scheduled to address the South Korean parliament today, Jacobin’s Seth Ackerman spoke to Tim Shorrock, a veteran journalist who’s covered the Koreas for decades.
Shorrock describes how a vibrant South Korean left with roots in the labor and democracy movements of the 1980s is coping with the latest security threat in the White House. Despite a conservative military establishment with deep ties to the US security state, South Koreans are seeking dialogue with the North.
Seth Ackerman: Everyone focuses on Trump’s bluster on North Korea, but less attention is paid to how things are seen south of the demilitarized zone. What’s the mood in South Korea these days?
Tim Shorrock: According to one poll, 80 percent of South Koreans support South-North engagement: direct negotiations, talks on military issues, and family visitations. There’s enormous support for the kinds of cultural and economic exchanges that existed during the years of the “sunshine policy” of 1998 to 2008. They want peace with North Korea. That was the platform that Moon Jae-in, the current president, was elected on this spring.
South Koreans are more afraid of what Trump might do than what Kim Jong-un will do. They’re worried about a war between the US and North Korea that would spill over into South Korea.
For example, there were reports over the summer that Trump was considering a unilateral preemptive strike to take out two or three dozen missile sites in North Korea. That was very alarming to Moon Jae-in’s government.
The night that story came out, Moon’s national security advisor asked for a meeting with H. R. McMaster, his counterpart in the White House. They put out a statement the next day that the US will not act unilaterally and will consult closely with South Korea on any action. That was a sign of how much concern there is within the South Korean government.
A similar pledge was made just before Trump arrived in Seoul for his state visit.
SA: What’s Moon’s background?
TS: Moon was an activist who came out of the progressive democratic movement — a labor lawyer in Busan who was arrested at least twice during the period of military dictatorship. His political roots are in the democratic and opposition movement from the period before democratization..........
British journalist travels through the "whitest" part of the USA to the "darkest" reaches of it .... in more ways than one. He gets to meet the racist Spencer as you can see from the vid embedded below.
This summer, Gary Younge took a trip from Maine to Mississippi to find out what has brought the US to this point. From the forgotten poor to desperate addicts, their whiteness is all some of them have left – and that makes fertile ground for the far right
Jeff Baxter’s enduring memory, from childhood, is the glow. Coming down over the hill overlooking the coke plant in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the molten iron would make itself known – both as a vision and an aspiration. “It’s like the sun landed there,” says Baxter, a burly, bearded retiree, who achieved his boyhood dream of becoming a steelworker.
Today, the plant, like the one Baxter worked in for 30 years, stands derelict – a shell that represents a hollowing out not just of the local economy but of culture and hope – as though someone extinguished Baxter’s sun and left the place in darkness. Buildings in the centre of town that were once testament to the industrial wealth produced here stand abandoned. More than 40% of the population now live below the poverty line; 9.1% are unemployed.
Cambria County, where Johnstown sits, was once a swing county. Al Gore won it in 2000; George W Bush took it in 2004; it went to Barack Obama in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 – each time by fairly narrow margins. Last year, Donald Trump won it in a landslide.
Baxter, who once backed Obama, voted for Trump, the first time he had ever voted Republican. “I liked [Obama’s] message of hope, but he didn’t bring any jobs in … Trump said he was going to make America great. And I figured: ‘That’s what we need. We need somebody like that to change it.’”
Over at the century-old Coney Island Lunch, this once-bustling institution famous for its chilli dogs and sundowners is virtually empty. “A lot of people have left town,” explains Peggy, who has been serving at the diner for nine years. “There are no jobs. If you’re going to have a life or a steady income, you know, you need to get out of here, because there’s nothing here. I expect a lot of towns go this way. You know, when the steel mills died and the coal died. It’s sad, it’s very sad.”.....
In the flurry of career-ending sexual assault claims coming out of Hollywood, it may seem natural for the media to overlook a little awkward groping from an aging former president. But there’s something unnerving about the assumptions surrounding the non-coverage of the Bush Sr. “Cop-a-Feel” story. On their own, the facts are simple enough. Five women have accused President George H.W. Bush of grabbing their behinds and making lewd jokes during staged photo ops over the past few years. In each woman’s account, the former president said something along the lines of, “Do you know who my favorite magician is? David Cop-a-Feel!” while squeezing their rear ends in a sexual way.
After the second accusation came out, the Bush team released a brief fauxpology to anyone who he may have “offended”:
At age 93, President Bush has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures. To try to put people at ease, the president routinely tells the same joke — and on occasion, he has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner. Some have seen it as innocent; others clearly view it as inappropriate. To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologizes most sincerely.
The media dutifully reported this canned response, and most outlets took it at face value. None noted that when the press release uses the term “people,” it’s not actually referring to all people. It’s referring to women.
If the 41st president’s arm had fallen “on the lower waist” of a man during a picture, the story would have been told differently. If he had joked about “copping a feel” while cupping a man’s glute, few reporters would entertain the idea that the man was being put “at ease.”.....
Many American liberals who once denounced McCarthyism as evil are now learning to love the ugly tactic when it can be used to advance the Russia-gate “scandal” and silence dissent.
The New York Times has finally detected some modern-day McCarthyism, but not in the anti-Russia hysteria that the newspaper has fueled for several years amid the smearing of American skeptics as “useful idiots” and the like. No, the Times editors are accusing a Long Island Republican of McCarthyism for linking his Democratic rival to “New York City special interest groups.” As the Times laments, “It’s the old guilt by association.” Yet, the Times sees no McCarthyism in the frenzy of Russia-bashing and guilt by association for any American who can be linked even indirectly to any Russian who might have some ill-defined links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Monday, in the same edition that expressed editorial outrage over that Long Island political ad’s McCarthyism, the Times ran two front-page articles under the headline: “A Complex Paper Trail: Blurring Kremlin’s Ties to Key U.S. Businesses.”
The two subheads read: “Shipping Firm Links Commerce Chief to Putin ‘Cronies’” and “Millions in Facebook Shares Rooted in Russian Cash.” The latter story, which meshes nicely with the current U.S. political pressure on Facebook and Twitter to get in line behind the New Cold War against Russia, cites investments by Russian Yuri Milner that date back to the start of the decade.
Buried in the story’s “jump” is the acknowledgement that Milner’s “companies sold those holdings several years ago.” But such is the anti-Russia madness gripping the Establishment of Washington and New York that any contact with any Russian constitutes a scandal worthy of front-page coverage. On Monday, The Washington Post published a page-one article entitled, “9 in Trump’s orbit had contacts with Russians.”
The anti-Russian madness has reached such extremes that even when you say something that’s obviously true – but that RT, the Russian television network, also reported – you are attacked for spreading “Russian propaganda.”.........
