News
London Review of Books Cites INET as Important and Influential in Understanding Markets and Capitalism
“Liberal ideology has tended to duck the problem of capitalism altogether, opting instead to imagine that ‘economic life’ (i.e. competitive egalitarian markets) still rules the roost. This myopia is manifest in the economics curricula of major universities, which despite the best efforts of various campaigns and the Soros-funded Institute for New Economic Thinking have continued to exclude theories which emphasise power, uncertainty, monopoly and instability, and clung to an orthodoxy in which economic activity is chiefly determined by prices and incentives. Politicians, meanwhile, cleave to liberal fairy tales about making work pay, social mobility and ownership for all, which are increasingly divorced from a reality of in-work poverty, unearned wealth and spiralling rents. And financial services masquerade as just another ‘sector’ among many, selling their wares in a marketplace like humble shopkeepers.”
In Gaza The Sniper Drones Are Crying Like Babies
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/6253d993dc77cb18808a5e43dd03c8b6/href
They’re hunting civilians with armed quadcopters in Gaza.
The drones play recordings of crying babies and women screaming in distress in order to lure people out into the open, and then shoot them.
This is reportedly happening at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, where people live in total darkness at night and have no connection to the outside world.
Other times the drones play the sounds of explosions and gunshots and rolling tanks, and sometimes songs in Hebrew or Arabic, all to terrorize these refugees hiding in the darkness afraid for their lives.
This is the sort of report that a critical thinker would normally dismiss as absurd atrocity propaganda if it was being made about any other military power, but this is the IDF we’re talking about, and this specific allegation is pretty well-supported now.
Ryan Grim on Twitter: "Also @Hind_Gaza confirmed this is happening: the IDF has quadcopters luring people to them with recordings of the sound of women and children screaming, then firing on them https://t.co/1ANe4myWLx / Twitter"
Also @Hind_Gaza confirmed this is happening: the IDF has quadcopters luring people to them with recordings of the sound of women and children screaming, then firing on them https://t.co/1ANe4myWLx
When the destruction of Gaza first began I used to read the jarring claims about the horrific things the IDF were doing and often think, “No, no way. That can’t be the whole story. It’s too cartoonishly evil. There must be some information missing.” Then a few days or weeks later confirmation would come out, showing it’s even worse than I thought before.
I don’t experience that kind of dubiousness when reading such stories anymore. There are only so many atrocities you can see documented, so many videos of IDF troops recording themselves gleefully behaving like monsters, so many hospitals you can see attacked, so many journalists you can see assassinated, before you read a new report about new unfathomable acts of depravity and find yourself saying “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
This baby-crying-sniper-drone story is something else, though. It’s like something out of a weird post-apocalyptic horror movie or something. It’s the kind of information that makes you sort of re-evaluate your previous assumptions about humanity, the world, and the kind of reality we’re experiencing here.
It is really astonishing, how cruel people can be. How cruel a whole nation of people can be made to be, if they’re indoctrinated just right. You spend your whole childhood being indoctrinated into the belief that one group of people are inferior to your own and don’t deserve the same rights and treatment your group receives, and before you know it you’re blockading aid trucks from bringing that group food, and playing recordings of crying babies on an assassination drone in order to murder civilians at a refugee camp.
That’s how Nazi Germany happened, it’s how the genocidal apartheid state of Israel has happened, and it’s how the murderous US-centralized empire has happened. It turns out it’s not all that hard to manipulate a population into supporting shocking abuses at mass scale with modern propaganda and indoctrination from early childhood. It turns out the human mind is a lot more hackable than we’d like to believe it is, and that this can be used to unleash living nightmares upon our world a lot more easily than we’re comfortable acknowledging.
This is how the entire western world has been manipulated into accepting nonstop war, militarism, nuclear brinkmanship, imperialism and exploitation as fine and normal, and into assuming that a better world isn’t possible. As long as the powerful are able to manipulate the way a sufficiently large percentage of the population thinks, speaks, acts and votes, we’re going to be stuck in this horrifying dystopia where the sky rains fire upon the innocent, where war profiteers reap vast fortunes from machines which rip apart human bodies, and where sniper drones cry like babies.
We can help weaken the empire’s propaganda machine by spreading awareness of what it’s doing and how it operates, because propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening to you. Help people to see the ways in which the mass media are deceiving them, point out all the signs that we live under an empire of lies, and help spread awareness of what’s really true and what’s really possible.
All positive changes in human behavior of any scale are always preceded by an expansion of consciousness. Spreading awareness is the first step toward a healthy world, and we can each do that in our own small way every single day.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
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The US Doesn’t Support A Two-State Solution, It Just Supports Saying It Does
Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/ada69c6dd6a99762dda3e374c9c1bf5f/href
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The US doesn’t support a two-state solution, the US only supports saying the US supports a two-state solution. We know this because the US just vetoed Palestine’s bid to become a full UN member state, after lobbying other countries to vote against the resolution — despite continually saying it supports the foundation of a Palestinian state. Washington’s words say one thing, but its actions say the opposite.
This is because if the US admitted its actual position, it would greatly damage its reputation on the world stage. What the US actually wants is the same thing the Israelis want: for the Palestinians to go away, or lie down and submit completely, or otherwise stop being an inconvenience until they’re a forgotten footnote in the dustbin of history. But the US can’t come right out and say this, so it pretends to support a two-state solution that Israel has spent years doing everything it can to ensure never happens. It’s a completely fictional resolution to a very real problem, but the alternative to supporting it is to admit you support continued apartheid, oppression, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
So the US maintains this ridiculous charade where it keeps pretending to support this fake non-solution, even while taking concrete actions which make it clear that it does not. Immediately after vetoing the Palestinian bid for UN membership, Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood declared, “The United States continues to strongly support a two-state solution. This vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood,” saying the emergence of a Palestinian state can only come about through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. We can see right now how things are going on that front.
Hamza M Syed on Twitter: "U.S. at the UN: what we just voted no on is something that we strongly support pic.twitter.com/9psBUIzcP7 / Twitter"
U.S. at the UN: what we just voted no on is something that we strongly support pic.twitter.com/9psBUIzcP7
As always, the only way to understand the US-centralized global power structure is to ignore what its officials say and watch what they actually do instead. This is good advice for understanding geopolitics and government dynamics in general, and it’s good advice for sorting out fact from fiction when dealing with any manipulator in your personal life. Ignore their words, and watch their actions.
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The Washington Post put out a good investigative report on the IDF’s murder of six year-old Hind Rajab along with her family in Gaza earlier this year, showing that evidence points to Israeli forces being behind the attack. Washington Post editors immediately shitcoated this report by giving it the obnoxious headline “Palestinian paramedics said Israel gave them safe passage to save a 6-year-old girl in Gaza. They were all killed.”
This headline is carefully crafted to suggest that Israel kindly granted safe passage to Palestinian healthcare workers, who were then killed by some unknown assailant. Imagine going through all the work of putting out a hard investigative report, and then having your editor slap this shit on it. Disgusting.
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A senior US Air Force leader and whistleblower has informed Congress that the US is refusing to pull its military forces from Niger despite being told to do so by the new Nigerien government, and that refusing to withdraw troops from a nation where they aren’t wanted is putting them at risk. Which means we’ve got yet another illegal US military occupation on our hands.
https://medium.com/media/f438fa834e604b78304966d69bbd0689/href
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It’s so stupid how everyone’s felt the need to keep pretending to believe the Gaza death toll has legitimately hovered around thirty thousand for months now just because Israel supporters have even been calling the official death count a Hamas-driven exaggeration.
We all know the Gaza health ministry hasn’t had the infrastructure or ability to count all the dead throughout the Gaza Strip for months and that the official number doesn’t include people killed by starvation and disease due to the Israeli blockade, but because Israel supporters (including the US president) threw shade on the health ministry’s numbers from the beginning they succeeded in dragging the Overton window all the way down to this ridiculously conservative estimate just through sheer vitriol and denialism — even though we know the killing never stopped.
Ralph Nader wrote in early March that the real number is probably more like 200,000. There’s no good reason to discount this. It’s certainly more likely than the number just continuing to sit around thirty thousand for no reason.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
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Escalation With Iran Seemingly Over; Now We Have To Worry About Rafah
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/38fe97418d49cfe988ef563a14d32733/href
The imperial media are reporting that Israel launched a missile attack against Iran early Friday morning, with explosions also seen in Syria and Iraq. Tehran is denying there was any missile attack on Iran at all, with Iranian media reporting that the blasts were actually from drones that were successfully shot down over Iran. It doesn’t appear that any nuclear sites were struck.
A senior Iranian official has reportedly told Reuters that Iran has no plans for any immediate response to Israel, which is good because Tehran has previously stated that if Israel makes another “mistake” it will result in immediate retaliation. Israel’s extremist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted a word in Hebrew which roughly translates to “feeble” in an apparent reference to the Israeli attack, signaling his disapproval at Israel’s failure to ignite World War Three.
So as things stand right now it looks like the cycle of escalation between Iran and Israel has thankfully ended or at least paused, which means now all we have to worry about is a horrific massacre in southern Gaza. The Times of Israel reports that Washington has agreed to go along with Israel’s planned assault on the city of Rafah so long as Israel doesn’t launch a large attack against Iran in response to its unprecedented retaliatory drone and missile attack on Saturday, according to an Egyptian source speaking to a Qatari outlet. A White House spokesperson has denied this, but you’d expect them to.
Matthew Petti on Twitter: "Egyptian sources to The New Arab: "the US has accepted Israel's plan for an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, in return for not carrying out a large strike in Iran in response to Tehran's unprecedented missile and drone attack." https://t.co/PA5A7EWixI / Twitter"
Egyptian sources to The New Arab: "the US has accepted Israel's plan for an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, in return for not carrying out a large strike in Iran in response to Tehran's unprecedented missile and drone attack." https://t.co/PA5A7EWixI
Israel had reportedly notified the US earlier on Thursday that an attack on Iran was coming, and that nuclear sites would not be damaged. If all Israel did was launch a small attack on Iran that did no significant damage, that would certainly fit the bill for the kind of strike that was alleged by the aforementioned Egyptian source.
As Dr Assal Rad said on Twitter regarding this report, “If this is true, Biden is green lighting a massacre so that Israel doesn’t start a wider war with Iran.”
Iran’s retaliatory strike for Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus reportedly delayed Israel’s planned assault on Rafah, where according to CNN the IDF was ready to begin dropping leaflets on Monday. Israel has spent the last six months kettling the population of the Gaza Strip southward into Rafah, so now it’s extremely densely populated and a full-on attack could be deadlier than anything we’ve seen in Gaza so far.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
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“Rules-Based Order” Means Rules For Thee But Not For We
Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/20449f47f45858b291f5050b8bc2786a/href
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Israel’s allowed to bomb an Iranian consulate, but Iran’s not allowed to strike back. The US is allowed to surround China with war machinery, but it would be World War Three if China ever tried to militarily encircle the US. NATO is allowed to expand to Russia’s doorstep and amass proxy forces on its border, but the last time Moscow placed a credible military threat anywhere near the United States, the US responded so aggressively that the world almost ended.
The “rules-based international order” that the US-centralized power structure purports to uphold just means an order in which the US makes up the rules and nations had better obey them. It means rules for thee but not for me.
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Democrats are currently committing genocide, pushing through terrifying NSA surveillance powers, and working to imprison a journalist for life for telling the truth about US war crimes, but it’s very important to support Biden because if Trump wins, fascism might come to America.
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The Assange extradition case is like if the mafia was demanding a snitch be extradited to Italy and multiple nations collaborated with them to help make this happen, except in this case the snitch is a journalist who told the truth, and the mob happens to run a global superpower.
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The imperial media are once again trotting out John Bolton to help sell the idea of war with Iran. This monster belongs in a cage, not on camera. The fact that the mainstream western press keep having this completely discredited bloodthirsty psychopath on their shows to advocate every possible US war proves that our entire civilization is diseased.
John Bolton on Twitter: "To call on Israel not to act in self-defense is reprehensible. By saying that Israel had a "win" simply because no one died encourages belligerent dictatorships like Iran to strike again. I'd like to hear from one politician who would call for restraint if hundreds of missiles... pic.twitter.com/ze0teJTnDe / Twitter"
To call on Israel not to act in self-defense is reprehensible. By saying that Israel had a "win" simply because no one died encourages belligerent dictatorships like Iran to strike again. I'd like to hear from one politician who would call for restraint if hundreds of missiles... pic.twitter.com/ze0teJTnDe
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Israel’s actions over the last six months have made it abundantly clear that Biden’s stated goal of preventing the outbreak of more war in the middle east and his stated “ironclad” support for Israel are two mutually exclusive positions. You can do one or the other, but not both.
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Outside the mainstream press the news about Ukraine is a nonstop deluge of stories about how badly things are going for them.
Here are some recent articles from Antiwar.com:
“Ukraine’s Top General Says Situation on the Battlefield Has ‘Significantly Worsened’” discusses Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi’s acknowledgement that Russia is making steady gains and that the frontlines in Ukraine are at risk of collapsing wherever Russia focuses its offensive.
“US General Says Russia’s Military Is Bigger Than Before Ukraine Invasion” quotes General Christopher Cavoli saying “The army is actually now larger — by 15% — than it was when it invaded Ukraine,” an acknowledgement that Washington’s stated goal of using this proxy war to “weaken” Russia has failed.
“Russia Quickly Restores Oil Refinery Capability Hurt By Ukrainian Attacks” discusses how badly Russia is damaging Ukraine’s energy infrastructure compared to the damage Ukraine has been able to deal to Russia’s.
Here are a couple more from The Libertarian Institute:
“US Official Admits Ukraine Proxy War Failing to Weaken Russia” features an acknowledgement from Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell that Russia has reconstituted nearly all of its military losses in Ukraine.
“Ukraine Tightens Rules on Military Service, Angering Soldiers” reports on how “Ukraine’s legislature advanced multiple new laws that tighten rules on conscription and extend military services for those already in uniform.”
It’s absolutely criminal how the west pushed this country into sacrificing a generation to a war they always knew was unwinnable.
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Caitlin Johnstone on Twitter: "1. Deny bombing the consulate2. Say the consulate wasn't really a consulate3. Say Iran better not retaliate against you for that time you bombed the consulate4. Say you had no idea that Iran would make such a big deal about you bombing their consulate https://t.co/86cA0QK453 / Twitter"
1. Deny bombing the consulate2. Say the consulate wasn't really a consulate3. Say Iran better not retaliate against you for that time you bombed the consulate4. Say you had no idea that Iran would make such a big deal about you bombing their consulate https://t.co/86cA0QK453
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So much suffering and loss has been caused by the way people decided a long time ago that killing one person is murder and therefore immoral but killing thousands of people is “war” and therefore fine. The actual act is the same; only the narrative and the scale are different.
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Around the mid-1800s humanity began to notice it doesn’t make sense for a small group of rich people to own everything and for everyone else to continually give that group labor, rent and expenses just to stay alive, and ever since then the media, the mainstream culture and the foreign policy of the ruling class have been intensely devoted to aggressively erasing this realization from humanity’s memory.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
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Assange Extradition Case Moves Forward While The CIA Covers Its Tracks
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/8d572432e8f27bc3c5db22c0e53e896a/href
So they’re really doing it. The Biden administration is really ignoring Australia’s request to end the case against Julian Assange, and they’re proceeding with their campaign to extradite a journalist for telling the truth about US war crimes.
In order to move the extradition case forward, per a British high court ruling US prosecutors needed to provide “assurances” that the US would not seek the death penalty and would not deprive Assange of his human right to free speech because of his nationality. The US provided the assurance against the death penalty (which they’d previously opposed doing), and for the free speech assurance they said only that Assange will be able to “raise and seek to rely upon” US First Amendment rights, adding, “A decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the U.S. Courts.”
Which is basically just saying “I mean, you’re welcome to TRY to have free speech protections?”
Consortium News on Twitter: "US Issues Assurances on Assange https://t.co/6a7osJoc82 UPDATED WITH TEXT OF DIPLOMATIC NOTE: The U.S. Tuesday filed assurances on the death penalty and the 1st Amendment, the latter of which Stella Assange called a "non-assurance." pic.twitter.com/KQNNeIQNYD / Twitter"
US Issues Assurances on Assange https://t.co/6a7osJoc82 UPDATED WITH TEXT OF DIPLOMATIC NOTE: The U.S. Tuesday filed assurances on the death penalty and the 1st Amendment, the latter of which Stella Assange called a "non-assurance." pic.twitter.com/KQNNeIQNYD
At the same time, CIA Director William Burns has filed a State Secrets Privilege demand to withhold information in a lawsuit against the agency by four American journalists and attorneys who were spied on during their visits to Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. State secrets privilege is a US evidentiary rule designed to prevent courts from revealing state secrets during civil litigation; the CIA began invoking it with the Assange lawsuit earlier this year.
Burns argues:
“I am asserting the state secrets and statutory privileges in this case as I have determined that either admitting or denying that CIA has information implicated by the remaining allegations in the Amended Complaint reasonably could be expected to cause serious — and in some cases, exceptionally grave — damage to the national security of the United States. After deliberation and personal consideration, I have determined that the complete factual bases for my privilege assertions cannot be set forth on the public record without confirming or denying whether CIA has information relating to this matter and therefore risking the very harm to U.S. national security that I seek to protect.”
Which is obviously a load of horse shit. As Assange himself tweeted in 2017, “The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security.” Burns isn’t worried about damaging “the national security of the United States,” he’s worried about the potential political fallout from information about the CIA spying on American lawyers and journalists while visiting a journalist who was being actively targeted by the legal arm of the US government.
Caitlin Johnstone on Twitter: "https://t.co/n1yfRuA8xy pic.twitter.com/COz405MbrJ / Twitter"
https://t.co/n1yfRuA8xy pic.twitter.com/COz405MbrJ
Political security is also why the US is working to punish Julian Assange for publishing inconvenient facts about US war crimes. The Pentagon already acknowledged years ago that the Chelsea Manning leaks for which Assange is being prosecuted didn’t get anyone killed and had no strategic impact on US war efforts, so plainly this isn’t about national security. It’s just politically damaging for the criminality of the US government to be made public for all to see.
They’re just squeezing and squeezing this man as hard as they can for as long as they can get away with to keep him silent and make an example of him to show what happens when journalists reveal unauthorized information about the empire. Just like Gaza, the persecution of Julian Assange makes a lie of everything the US and its western allies claim to stand for, and reveals the cruel face of tyranny beneath the mask of liberal democracy.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
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Dutton Likens Media Misunderstanding His Port Arthur Comparison With The Death Of JFK
Opposition leader (for now), Peter Dutton, has lashed out at what he calls left-wing media who didn’t understand his speech that compared a non-violent protest at the Sydney opera house with the death of 35 people at the Port Arthur massacre.
”Can’t a man make a comparison between two events, one of which was a massacre, without the bloody left-wing media reporting it as some sort or PR disaster,” ranted the Opposition leader. ”I mean come on, it’s time we drained this swamp.”
”Reporters need to know their role and that role is to make me look good.
When asked why he seemingly called everyone who disagreed with him a leftie-loser, the Opposition leader said: ”Cause they are.”
”This country’s journalists could do worse than to take a leaf out of Ray Hadley’s book.”
”You sit down with Ray and he makes you feel good, whether it be by constantly agreeing with you or stroking you, err, your ego.”
”Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a trying day so I’m off to strangle a puppy or two to relax.”
Mark Williamson
@MWChatShow
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Israel’s Latest Lie Is That It Has ‘No Choice’ But To Attack Iran
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/7d211184966559667a062dac16ffab4f/href
In an article titled “Israel vows to retaliate against Iran for missile attacks,” Axios reports that the Israeli defense minister has informed his American counterpart that Israel “has no choice” but to attack Iran for the retaliatory strike it launched in response to Israel’s deadly attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus.
“Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Sunday that Israel has no choice but to respond to the unprecedented missile and drone attack launched by Iran over the weekend,” reports Axios, citing an anonymous US official and another unnamed source.
The state of Israel has been churning out massive lies on a daily basis for the last six months, but this whopper could wind up being the most consequential.
Antiwar.com on Twitter: "Report: Israel Tells US It Has No Choice But To Respond to IranIsraeli TV reports that Israel's War Cabinet has decided it will attack Iran, but it's unclear how or whenby Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Israel #Iran #Gaza https://t.co/bcs6DQgDsb pic.twitter.com/x3C51NQcse / Twitter"
Report: Israel Tells US It Has No Choice But To Respond to IranIsraeli TV reports that Israel's War Cabinet has decided it will attack Iran, but it's unclear how or whenby Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Israel #Iran #Gaza https://t.co/bcs6DQgDsb pic.twitter.com/x3C51NQcse
Obviously Israel has a choice as to whether it continues to escalate a conflict it initiated with an extreme act of aggression. This fraudulent apartheid ethnostate is so accustomed to crying victim every minute of every day that it will even pretend to be the victim of its own conscious decisions.
As professor Jason Hickel put it on Twitter, “People need to understand that Israel *does not* need to retaliate. Iran’s action was a telegraphed response to Israel’s bombing of its consulate, which killed 16 people and violated the Vienna Convention. Iran says they now consider the matter closed. Israel must de-escalate.”
Iran’s deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri has made it clear that if Israel launches another attack against Iran, this time Iran’s response will be instantaneous instead of a twelve-day grace period with Tehran giving neighboring countries and the United States a 72-hour advance warning to ensure minimal damage to Israel.
Abas Aslani on Twitter: "Iranian DepFM Ali Bagheri says that #Iran will respond to a new mistake by #Israel "in seconds, not in days or hours". He said, "This time, they will not have 12 days". https://t.co/nKzXZncz4P / Twitter"
Iranian DepFM Ali Bagheri says that #Iran will respond to a new mistake by #Israel "in seconds, not in days or hours". He said, "This time, they will not have 12 days". https://t.co/nKzXZncz4P
Predictably, the Biden administration is doing its usual phony schtick where it pretends to be a passive witness to all this, with National Security spokesman John Kirby telling the press that the White House plans to just “wait and see what the Israelis decide to do.”
But as foreign policy analyst Tariq Kenney-Shawa noted of Kirby’s statement, “Israel will be using US-supplied weapons, will have to coordinate with US forces throughout the region, and will depend on the US for missile defense when Iran responds.” So the fact that the US won’t be actively planning the attack with Israel doesn’t mean the US won’t be involved in it on a fundamental level.
If Israel’s escalatory attack happens, it will be because Washington allowed it to. If the US informed Israel that it will instantly lose its pricey US weapons supplies and Pentagon support if it attacks Iran, Israel would discover very quickly that it does in fact have a choice as to whether or not to proceed.
https://medium.com/media/497752da3cdc952f5ad9f7a4ea87bfea/href
In an article for Foreign Policy titled “Netanyahu Wants War With Iran. Biden Can Prevent It.”, Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi argues that while Biden’s unconditional support for Israel is often described as a continuation of longstanding US policy, it has actually been a rather dramatic break from the norm. Presidents like Reagan, both Bushes, and Obama have not hesitated to give Israel’s arm a twist whenever they found it necessary to advance US interests in the region; this new policy of just letting Tel Aviv do whatever it wants while providing unconditional support is actually without precedent in the White House.
Both Israel and the US are pretending to be powerless in this situation, when in reality they’re both anything but. They’re like two muggers getting ready to mug someone and saying “If only there was something we could do to stop this terrible mugging!”
Israel absolutely can choose not to accelerate toward a terrifying war between extremely powerful militaries, and the US absolutely can choose to pump the brakes. The fact that neither of them are doing so is just what it looks like when you live under a globe-spanning empire that is fueled by human blood.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
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FRIBIS Lecture Series – Can a Basic Income Grant Reduce Violence?
“Event Title: FRIBIS Lecture Series – Can a Basic Income Grant Reduce Violence? Evidence from Namibia, Kenya, and Uganda Date & Time: April 23, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM Format: Online Event Organizers: FRIBIS in cooperation with the BIP & WEF_FABI teams Zoom Link: https://uni-freiburg.zoom.us/j/67974655698?pwd=Mk4rY3BaM3VkK2ptYmpVUVFXc... Contact: Geoff Harris, geoffreyh@dut.ac.za Event Summary: Youth in Africa are in search of wage employment and expect their governments to provide such opportunities. […]
FRIBIS Lecture Series – Can a Basic Income Grant Reduce Violence?
Basic income as a necessary component of a socio-ecological transformation
“The dominant economic model is destabilizing societies. And the planet. It is time for change It is time for a basic income, too. A memorandum signed worldwide by 39 renowned scientists and activists for basic income and 35 basic income organisations and networks from almost all continents points out the connection between basic income and […]
Basic income as a necessary component of a socio-ecological transformation