Is Indivisible The Invisible Hand Of The Ukraine War Thought Police?

Much of the narrative control in my area around the Ukraine war has been taken up by liberal Democrats, many affiliated with the so-called grassroots group Indivisible.

When I blogged about being the turd in the punchbowl at an alleged peace demonstration that was actually a pro-NATO, anti-Russia event in California I had not yet figured this out. I was just surprised to find myself at a rally for Ukrainian nationalism where people couldn't figure out why I was carrying this sign:

A former ally in the mascot retirement battle took great issue with my stating that George Soros was the money behind the color revolutions movement in Europe. She accused me of antisemitism (I had not at the time realized that Soros was Jewish but I do now) and of consuming and sharing antisemitic tropes from the dregs of the right-wing internet (something I never do because I try to practice mental hygiene while still following the news of the day). At the time I removed Soros' name due to her objections and because it was an aside in a post about the pressure to abandon anti-imperialist analysis of the war in Ukraine.

She was wrong. 

Soros is deeply involved in Ukraine present and past. 

This is clear now that I've had more time to read up on this aspect of the current war.

Indivisible is an organization with deep ties to the Open Society Foundations founded by Soros. It sprang up as a sort of Tea Party wannabe during the heyday of the demagogue with bad hair who became our 45th president. Indivisible is currently infiltrating and pushing aside peace organizations in Maine. Narrative control is their trademark and is accomplished sometimes by online shouting matches and sometimes by overwhelming numbers of Ukraine flag wavers at well-established vigils for peace.

I began to notice that the talking points of Indivisible members in New England were curiously alike.

Not just the perjoratives routinely assigned to the Russian Federation's president, but the recurring theme that dissenting voices have no right to speak up. And if they dare to speak up anyway, they are routinely accused of being aligned with Putin, or 45, or white supremacists, etc.

Then a friend mentioned that ads for an Indivisible leader in Maine who is running for District Attorney ended with rapid fine print narration that included funding from...Soros. I reached out to Jackie Sartoris' campaign to ask if I had misheard this and got a prompt response from the campaign manager explaining that those are PAC ads and not within the control or purview of the candidate. Also that Indivisible Brunswick was a "grassroots" group operating independently of the national organization.

So I shared with the campaign manager some of what I'd found:

"Of Indivisible’s 2017 revenue, 35 percent was raised through small dollar donations, and 65 percent was received through major gifts and foundation grants." source: https://www.indivisibleannualreport.org/financials/

"Angel Padilla, Indivisible Project’s policy director, previously worked as an analyst with the National Immigration Law Center (an organization funded by grants from Soros’ Open Society Foundations).." source: https://indivisible.org/staff.

Today I had already decided to peek behind the curtain that obscures the workings of narrative management around the U.S./NATO proxy war with Russia in Ukraine only to discover that, by coincidence, I was suspended yesterday from posting in the VFP Discussion Group on Facebook. The group is run by moderators that might as well work for the Pentagon and they like to note that it's a private group not affiiliated with VFP (odd choice for a name in that case). They decide what are acceptable and unacceptable news sources -- with guidance from the same government that is silencing and shadow banning dissenters on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Google search.

I wonder, does that fact that Veterans for Peace (VFP) national has been in dire financial straits the last couple of years have anything to do with the shift in narrative to defend U.S. government warmongering policies under a Democrat? Or to silence dissenters? It's impossible to say for sure but these are questions worth asking. The Russia Working Group of VFP recently reported having a heated discussion that included a fellow calling various people "communists." Research on Ben Schrader turned up his claim of a visiting professorship at Central European University, sometimes called "George Soros University" because it was created with an endowment from Soros and because, as board chair, he would confer diplomas.

Also sad is observing the Democracy Now! media organization become more and more aligned with the Democratic Party, probably due to accepting support from the Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and the like. DN! touted the faux humanitarian White Helmets of Syria and has done some serious flag waving for Ukraine. Is it worth mentioning that DN! is strapped for cash, too?

Source: Caitlin Johnstone

A final note on the subject of narrative control: I see that the neo-Nazi Azov battalion that the U.S. taxpayer has been arming has revised its logo. Having the Buffalo mass shooter targeting Black grocery shoppers wear the same design as the background for the Azov logo was...inconvenient. So Azov removed it. 

I'll bet they wish they could scrub the internet of evidence of past usage, but that would be difficult. Keep sharing!

Live By The AR-15, Die By The AR-15

Unarmed Black victims of police violence (may their families know peace), L-R from the top: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Eric Garner, Rekia Boyd, Michael Brown
Image source: trauma doc Dr. Andre Campbell on Twitter

 

Live By The AR-15, Die By The AR-15

For AR-15 in that sentence, you could substitute drone, missile, or nuclear bomb.

That the U.S. leads the world in mass shootings, especially at schools, is a fact no one disputes. Regular people see a clear connection between a Pentagon budget that gobbles up more than half of annual expenditures by Congress. Regular people also see the pretense of elected officials who take millions in campaign contributions from weapons manufacturers and pro-weapon lobbying groups like the NRA and then tweet "thoughts and prayers" when the inevitable next mass shooting occurs.

Why then is social media is full of people blaming one of the two corporate parties for the massacre?

With the Ukraine war party in power right now controlling the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives why is our federal government still failing to enact gun control? Fund universal mental health care? Rescue from poverty the 20%+ children without housing or food security?

“All we have to do is elect more Democrats and we can stop these mass shootings” pic.twitter.com/QgP2RSp59B

— Revolutionary Blackout Network🥋 (@SocialistMMA) May 25, 2022

Who is falling for using the deaths of children to further the false dichotomy our corporate rulers think will deliver civil war (we're well on our way) rather than the revolution we need?

Though I do support stringent gun control I don't think that alone will reduce mass shootings. Other countries that are overrun with guns do not see 18 year olds cutting their own faces, shooting their own grandma, and then massacring little kids while local cops let them proceed. 

Did you know that in other countries, people with schizophrenia have auditory hallucinations that may be benign or even loving? In the U.S., people with schizophrenia hear voices urging them to violence.

Of course other nations weren't built on genocide of indigenous people (not all nations, anyway) and enslavement of kidnapped laborers.

We are a traumatized nation. And trauma begets trauma. 

The vast majority of mass shooters are men, around 98%. Men and boys have no more access to guns and ammunition than women and girls do, so what’s the explanation?

It could be something most analysts overlook: adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs.

Back in 2019, researchers studied every mass school shooting from 1966-2018.  “The vast majority of mass shooters in our study experienced early childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age. The nature of their exposure included parental suicide, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and/or severe bullying,” wrote criminal justice professors Jillian Peterson and James Densley for the Los Angeles Times.

The ACEs questionnaire and scale were developed to quantify and name the cause that creates such devastating effects: high levels of stress are toxic for our nervous system as humans. If experienced in childhood, they can lead to actual changes in the structure and function of the brain. And researchers say the effects of stress on male brains is different.

Additionally, if high levels of stress lead to acting out behavior, this can often trigger additional stress as authority figures respond violently to the behavior. Ask any teacher if they’ve seen this in their school.

Forensic ACEs reveal that the vast majority of violent criminals have a high ACEs score. Poverty results in ACEs e.g. children experiencing eviction, hunger, or lack of medical care for themselves and their caregivers. Being targeted for one’s race or ethnic identity also raises the ACEs score.

Nearly 1 in 6 people in the U.S. reported four or more ACEs  as adults in a study by the CDC with Kaiser Permanente which found, “ACEs can have lasting, negative effects on health, well-being, as well as life opportunities such as education and job potential. These experiences can increase the risks of injury, sexually transmitted infections, maternal and child health problems (including teen pregnancy, pregnancy complications, and fetal death), involvement in sex trafficking, and a wide range of chronic diseases and leading causes of death such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and suicide.”

One a national level, our ACEs are through the roof. Using nuclear bombs on Japan after letting the Holocaust proceed, producing a zillion big budget films glorifying this and other violence, police murdering Black, brown, and indigenous people with impunity, illegal invasions that killed millions and which the pepetrators later laugh about in public...

I could go on but it would fill volumes.

Live by the sword, die by the sword is an old idea found in the New Testament (an account of radical truth-telling in the face of the brutal occupation of Palestine by the Roman Empire). One translation reads "all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."

The U.S. Empire has some very bad karma. And it's breaking our hearts that children pay the price.

But as long as violent patriarchy is the organizing principle of our culture, nothing will change.

Bank Says Remove Women's History Panel, Arts Council Says All Or Nothing & Replaces Mural

Detail of Gordon Carlisle mural - Image source: screenshot from video of the installation shared below

The controversy over removing a labor history mural because it was demanded by Skowhegan Savings Bank doesn't involve me personally, but I care about it for many reasons. 

It's partly because I'm working on a novel about the sexual exploitation of girls in poverty. The offending panel of a triptych that the bank originally asked be removed depicts young women mill workers on strike in 1907, an historic event in that it was the first successful strike of the IWW, Industrial Workers of the World. The catalyst? Sexual assault by a boss on 17 year old Mamie Bilodeau, followed by retaliation for reporting. A union organizer, Bilodeau was fired but in the end got her job back along with a raise and provisions for a union-elected grievance committee.

With union organizing enjoying a surge right now, I would have loved for the young fast food and convenience store workers in my area to see an example of their great-great-great (-great?) grandmothers standing up for their rights by withholding their labor. (Full disclosure: I was a union organizer for teachers.) 

And, with the right to be free of sexual harrassment in the workplace top of mind right now, a victory in this regard is worth depicting. Sexual assault survivors often suffer in silence for fear of retaliation. I think they deserve to know about Mamie Bilodeau and the power of collective action.

Why would the bank that guards the wealth of old Skowhegan feel threatened by that?

Another reason I care is that I was a history major and taught history in public schools. I also taught the bill of rights with its 1st Amendment protecting speech and a free press. Since none of the corporate news outlets who carry advertising for the bank cared to cover the controversy, I'm doing so here. (RIP, D.H.) Cue the chorus: "The bank owns the building, they can suppress all the speech they want." It's true that money buys access to speech under late stage capitalism. But that's not a good thing and, predictably, has brought us to the point where we only have the best "free" speech money can buy.

Mural as originally installed. Image source: AFL-CIO newsletter article by Andy O'Brien

Another reason I care is my deep and abiding love of art. Gordon Carlisle's mural was aesthetically excellent. He has a national reputation as an accomplished muralist with good reason. 

Carlisle's mural was designed for the site, painted to be seen by thousands of passing motorists heading south on Route 201, the major highway in central Maine. The artist and the sponsoring organization, the Wesserunsett Arts Council, were originally asked to remove only the panel with the women on it. That bank managers are philistines who think removing one panel from a triptych is a "solution" doesn't surprise me in the least. Kudos to WesArts and Carlisle for refusing to do that.

The replacement mural by Iver Lofving on the bank's highly visible wall also depicts the IWW strike, but only in the sense that a Where's Waldo? book depicts Waldo: it's there, but you're really going to have to look closely to find it. Lovfing has said that he's disappointed his mural won't be installed on a side street park with a deck so people can examine it up close. He also wote, "I said that they're replacing a nationally famous muralist with an unknown artist."

Public art often gets people upset, especially when it includes political content. 

Credit: Courtesy of Museo Frida Kahlo

Diego Rivera famously refused to remove parts of his frescoed mural in the Rockefeller Center in 1937, and the patrons had the whole mural destroyed. 

A former governor of Maine who term limited out and is now running again made headlines nationally in 2011 when he removed and hid a history mural from the labor department's offices because he claimed that business owners found it offensive. 

Judy Taylor labor mural - Image source: Redtree

Detail, Judy Taylor mural - Image source: Yankee Magazine

That story has a happier ending in that Taylor's mural is now displayed in the foyer of the building that houses the state library, archives, and museum. I was happy to see school children on a field trip viewing it there with their teachers.

Image source: Maine Public

Fact is, the wooden Bernard Langlois sculpture referred to locally as "the big Indian" has long been controversial, and Penobscot Nation members I know would love to see it removed. The statue figured prominently in the controversy over changing the last Native-themed school mascot for sports teams as it served as a rallying point for those who objected to the change. They received national news coverage for holding an event there on what used to be the holiday honoring the genocidal maniac from Europe who ushered in colonialism on this continent. A partial happy ending: Maine now celebrates Indigenous People's Day, and the school teams are the Riverhawks -- while the statue remains.

Those interested in seeing all the murals commissioned by the Wesserunsett Arts Council can attend the opening ceremony in Skowhegan on June 4. 

Image source: Wesserunsett Arts Council

Azov Neo-Nazi Symbol On Armor Worn By White Mass Murderer Of Black Elders In Buffalo

Source: all over Twitter

At least ten Black people were killed and several more were injured by an 18 year old white supremacist who traveled to Buffalo, New York to shoot up a grocery store in a predominately Black zip code. Many of the victims were elders known for supporting the needs of their communities.

The image above on the left is allegedly the home page of Buffalo shooter displaying "black sun" logo which can also be seen as background on a patch worn by uniformed Azov Batallion neo-Nazis in Ukraine today. You can see it here on a Ukranian magazine called "Black Sun" from 2015.

Source: Global Thinker on Twitter

It's the same symbol used by the mosque shooter who shot up Muslim congregations killing 50+ in Christchurch, New Zealand three years ago, displayed on his manifesto and backpack (see left image below).

Source: Fake Believe on Twitter

Why would it matter what designs or logos mass shooters use when targeting Black or Muslim people? 

The "black sun" logo links directly to a powerful far-right militia being armed as part of the billions from U.S. taxpayers flowing to Ukraine.

Provision in the obscene military spending bills was not made for keeping money out of the hands of far-right militias that the Ukranian government is allied with and uses for military projection. An amendment with that provision was defeated in the U.S. Congress, a body which primarily represents weapons manufacturers at this point in history. 

As we gallop toward the risks of a nuclear WW3 by waging proxy war on Russia via Ukraine. many who get their information from mainstream, lockstep media ask: But how could President Zelensky, who is of Jewish ancestry, be allied with Nazis?

Maybe, like the rest of us, Zelensky just wants to live another day.

War On Palestine Requires War On Truth, Death To Journalists

Women in Jordan mourn Shireen Abu Akleh  photo source: Haaretz

With sadness I awoke to the news that Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh was shot in the head by Israeli forces (IDF) in the West Bank region of occupied Palestine. 

The journalist was wearing body armor with PRESS in bold letters on her flak vest; presumably a sniper aimed for her head?

Here's the last known photo of Abu Akleh, doing her job:

Photo source: Arwa Ibrahim on Twitter

Israel has been violently evicting families in the West Bank while bombing Gaza and Damascus in recent days. Abu Akleh was covering an IDF raid on the Jenin refugee camp when she was murdered.

Rapper Lowkey took the Associated Press to task in a tweet about their reporting of the incident.

She was killed by the same army that bombed your offices in Gaza. Say it. https://t.co/EKjLME5iRH

— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) May 11, 2022

https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1524289928405921794

All the terror is not on one side. For the second Ramadan in a row the IDF targetted worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, wounding some and arresting others, while Palestinians repelled IDF soldiers by throwing rocks and petrol bombs. And an unusual event inside Israel this week resulted in three deaths by stabbing in a knife and ax attack near Tel Aviv. The two assailants were believed to be Palestinian young men from Jenin.

Also hard to see as coincidental was an act of terrorism (i.e. instilling fear) on a flight from Israel's Ben Gurion Airport where passengers were sent photos of various airline crashes while waiting to fly to Turkey. Twitter eerily reported these two news events consecutively in their "What's Happening" section this morning.

A search of the Committee to Protect Journalists database revealed 17 other journalists killed by the IDF in either occupied Palestine or Israel itself:

War on journalists is not new but has ramped up in recent years especially as the poster boy for press freedom, Julian Assange, languishes in Belmarsh Prison awaiting word of his possible extradition to the U.S. to be charged as a spy. Assange is an Australian citizen whose wikileaks website published evidence of U.S. and Israeli war crimes, and he has been publicly tortured for practicing journalism in the years since.

RIP Shireen Abu Akleh and all who dare to report truth amid the fog of wars.

What Goes Around Comes Around: Whipping Progressive Warmongering 2.0

President Obama, VP Biden, & Hunter Biden in 2014, the year Ukraine's elected government was toppled by a CIA-sponsored coup and Hunter got a lucrative job in the Ukranian energy sector. Image source: Getty Images via DK.com

There are many roots apparent in weaponizing Ukraine as a cat's paw to fight Russia.

The most significant but least visible is the goal of weakening China's ally before proceeding to attack them. One of the more visible roots is that our current president was VP during the Obama years when wars became ok with liberals because they were promoted by a handsome, articulate Black man. 

Image source:  Shutterstock via Institute for Policy Studies

The culture wars we have are meant to replace the revolution we need. 

We are led to believe there is a fundamental difference between wars waged by Democrats vs. wars waged by Republicans. There isn't, because their corporate sponsors in the weapons industry are the exactly the same and because many in Congress own stock in those corporations. So while Ukranians die, they profit.

My good friend Bruce Gagnon stumbled on an old report back from a "progressive" phone call designed to whip up support for Obama's surge in Afghanistan. It is of interest primarily because the mechanisms of manufacturing consent are so visible. I'm reposting it here so we have it handy as we reflect on why the U.S. government is galloping toward WW3 and possible nuclear confrontation while suspending women's reproductive rights, presiding over crushing inflation and runaway climate change, failing to deliver healthcare, and literally looking away as the pandemic death toll reached 1,000,000. Daily assaults on independent voices attempt to silence dissent: Abby Martin, Lee Camp, Chris Hedges, Alice Walker, Consortium News, MintPress News -- a long list, and growing. The Department of Homeland Security, which was created -- like the war in Afghanistan -- after the unfortunate events of 9/11, now has a Disinformation Governance Board. 

When you've lost the consent of the governed, narrative management is largely futile. Cue the next disaster!

First posted Dec 2, 2009 at space4peace.blogspot.com

DECEPTIVE PROGRESSIVES CALL FOR SUPPORT OF OBAMA'S WAR

This morning I got an email from a friend who tipped me off to a conference call for "progressives" to discuss Obama's Afghanistan speech last night.

The call announcement included this: "The narrative so far is that the left is against sending more troops and the right is for it,” said Jim Arkedis, Director of the National Security Project at the Progressive Policy Institute. “But that’s not the reality of the situation. There are reasons for progressives to take heart from much of the President’s new strategy, as well as reasons to tread carefully. We want to make sure all those voices are heard.”

This made me quite interested so I dialed in. The call began with everyone in the audience on mute as the following people make opening statements.

* Rachel Kleinfeld, CEO, Truman National Security Project
* Jim Arkedis, Director of the National Security Project, Progressive Policy
Institute
* Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), Senior Adviser, National Security Network
* Andy Johnson, Director, Third Way National Security Program
* Lorelei Kelly, Director, New Strategic Security Initiative
* Brian Katulis, Center for American Progress
* Frankie Sturm, Communications Director, Truman National Security Project (Moderator)

Frankly I had never heard of any of these people before and I've been working in the "progressive movement" for the past 30 years. A couple of the organizations they work for I had heard a bit about - they are DC-based "think tanks" that usually are heavily funded by corporations to project their message.

Here is a bit of what some of them said in the opening:

Rachel Kleinfeld: "Thrilled by last night's speech....it's a realistic goal we have been given...dismayed that progressives don't see that his will reduce the violence of this war."

Jim Arkedis: Described himself as a former counter-terrorism analyst at the Pentagon....."Think of the US like an NFL defense....by adopting this counter-insurgency strategy it essentially takes the other sides offense off the field.....this is about peace and stability." He slammed Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) who was on the news this morning criticizing the plan as being from the "far left."

Lorelei Kelly: "Progressives need to abandon the old talking points from Iraq and Vietnam....progressives need to get inside this debate, President Obama is trying to create a new way....these policies need support....The American military is probably the most progressive agency we have today."

One of them brought up CodePink's recent visit to Afghanistan and subsequent statements made by Media[sic] Benjamin to say that some peace groups understand that we need to stay there and stabilize the country. Another called Obama's plan the "full spectrum approach" that progressives must support - we "need the military" to get to a positive conclusion.

Finally they unmuted the listeners and then opened it up for "questions". I didn't ask a question but instead read a quote from the Robert Scheer article which came from former Marine captain Matthew Hoh where he said, “In the course of my five months of service in Afghanistan … I have lost understanding and confidence in the strategic purpose of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. … I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.”

A woman listener from West Virginia (CodePink) said she had family killed in these wars and they need to stop. A woman from Georgia said we need to end the wars. A man from upstate New York said they were organizing protests and that Obama had betrayed us.

Next they put us on mute again and told us that we could only ask questions and that we'd better be good. When they unmuted I accused them of trying to silence the voices of the people as it was clear that they only wanted us on the call to listen to the talking points put out by the White House.

I know this is true because last spring I did a couple blogs about the Obama administration daily sending out talking points to groups like these that today hosted this "conference call". You can see one such story about this by Jermey[sic] Scahill here

One of the groups mentioned by Scahill in his article is the Center for American Progress which was represented on the call today as one of the "expert" speakers.

While on the call I quickly did an Internet search on the Truman National Security Project just to see what I could learn about them. Their advisory board stands out like a sore thumb:

Advisory Board
Madeleine K. Albright
Principal, The Albright Group LLC

Leslie H. Gelb
President Emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations

William Marshall
President, Progressive Policy Institute

William J. Perry (former Clinton Secretary of Defense)
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institute

John D. Podesta (former Clinton operative)
President and CEO, Center for American Progress

Wendy R. Sherman
Principal, The Albright Group LLC

First chance I got I read the list off and commented that it was now abundantly clear to me that this call was intended to deliver Obama team talking points to us and that they were not in the least interested in what we had to say.....these folks organizing this call came from the right-wing of the Democratic Party I said...... earlier I had strongly challenged one of them who stated that the peace movement should stop protesting and support Obama's plan!

 

They couldn't wait to finish the call and I am happy to say that it did not go as well as they had hoped. I thank Mark Roman for tipping me off and I want to warn everyone to be on the lookout for these "pseudo progressives" who will now be coming out of the woodwork to tell the public and the media that only the far-left is against Obama's war in Afghanistan. Good "progressives" they will say are going to support Obama's war surge.

 

In the old days they used to call these folks "Scoop Jackson Democrats" after the senator from Washington state who was a pro-war leader. They have wised up and now call themselves progressives and will steal the rug out from under our feet if we are not watching closely.

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

You no longer need to look for such pro-war progressives. They are shouting at you from every corner that Ukraine must be defended, and that your dissent is not only unwelcome but downright seditious. Trained to hate the Russian Federation's president and assign blame for Ukranian suffering solely to him, their diatribes have a signature: use of the same nasty and insulting terms for that person. 

Trained to love Ukraine's president, whose background as an entertainer has proved almost as convenient as his Jewish heritage, used constantly to deny the truth that it is actual Nazis we are arming. 

Some in Congress would even have us declare war and send troops (rather than just trainers and mercenaries) to fight by their side. How much would your congressperson and senators stand to profit if the U.S. openly declares war on Russia?

How much more dangerous would it be than bullying an impoverished country like Afghanistan?

What use will money be if humans and their works are reduced to ashes and radioactive rubble by nuclear war?