Went 2 the Bridge: April 2023

Sunday, April 23, 2023

Imperial Truth Decay

I'm devouring the new Orhan Pamuk book Nights of Plague, an historical novel about an imaginary island where plague management challenges the decaying Ottoman Empire. He's one of my favorite authors on the power of ideas in contradiction to facts on the ground, and he always makes me laugh as when the nonstop spying of the island's mythical Department of Scrutinia is headed by a Chief Scrutineer.

Just yesterday I read that a big hospital in the SF Bay Area reinstated a mask mandate due to a surge of covid cases there, and that an average of ten people are still dying of covid in California every day.

Cue the chorus of covid is a hoax, people masking are sheep easily led, more people were injured by the covid vax than saved by it, and so on. The divisiveness of the U.S. empire's response to this pandemic is a subject I've written about before. Originating in a lab, it's not the first but only the most novel of pathogens weaponized by those who would wield power over restive populations. It turns out that the purpose is murky: smear China via its Wuhan lab? Divide and conquer the U.S. masses seething for change that never comes? Or hasten the information control that kicked off with the post 9/11 Patriot Act and may be cemented into place by claiming free speech can be "weaponized" against the ruling class?

Pamuk writes:

Anyone who joined the Empire's 65 year old quarantine establishment would quickly realize that their first and most important duty to the Sultan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not so much to stop outbreaks of cholera, as to stop the news of those outbreaks from spreading.

Which reminds me that I was busy with family and did not manage an Earth Day post bemoaning the deadly assault of the empire of capitalism on climate and life. Politically motivated information management abounds in this arena, too, where a billionaire's rocket uses taxpayer funding to crash and burn on liftoff, allegedly because key safety equipment was deemed too costly by the billionaire himself. Even if Starship had not exploded over the Gulf of Mexico its effect on both climate and coastal environs would have been terrible. All rocket launches, now proliferating rapidly, are terrible for the environment. So space is constantly sold to kids as hooray for science, technology, engineering and math.

Pentagon Planet by Anthony Freda

Meanwhile, liberal rags like Common Dreams provide sophisticated information management around military harm to the environment, well-documented but largely unaddressed as the U.S. military budget continues to metastasize (Space Force requested a 100% increase in its annual budget to pollute and militarize outer space). I noticed and disliked the subtle bias of CD's Earth Day article with the ironic headline: "Can you fight for climate justice without being antiwar?" No, you cannot -- as some of us have been pointing out for years.

But the author used tried and true grammatical sleight of hand to shield some culprits while vilifying others. The U.S. and NATO conspired over the biggest release of methane, the worst of the greenhouse gases, into the Baltic Sea off Denmark, but that act of war on the environment just happened in the passive voice: "the sabotage of the underwater Nord Stream pipelines." Ditto "the shelling of Ukraine's nuclear power plants, particularly the Zaporizhzhia plant" as if the shelling had mysterious origins rather than emanating from Ukraine.

The U.S. public has been told in both cases via its subservient corporate press that "Russia did it." That is, destroy its own newly completed gas pipeline and attempt to blow up a nuclear power plant its military had captured quickly. These lies are easily refuted, but you won't read about it in Common Dreams or the New York Times.

What you will read or hear in every imperial media "news" channel is the active voice when it comes to their current favorite villain. Common Dreams again: "Russia's invasion of Ukraine has mutated the global fuel market."

See the difference? Grammar matters.

Truth, however, is merely an inconvenience to our imperial rulers. If evidence of the president's deep involvement in corrupt energy schemes in Ukraine might threaten his election, the press stampedes to suppress it and silence those who don't go along.

Similarly, if the national conversation is about how best to respond to a deadly pathogen, social media platforms obediently silence dissenting voices at the behest of the federal government. The Twitter files are largely, though not exclusively, about sharing evidence of this.

When Pamuk has an Ottoman public health doctor say, "Quarantine is the art of educating the public in spite of itself, and of teaching it the skill of self-preservation," he might also be thinking about empires and their strategies for preserving their reign.

Nowadays you can be silenced for pointing out enforcement of the preferred narrative, or just for not agreeing with the imperial version of their destructive, expensive wars.

Prior to Earth Day the FBI and DOJ collaborated on the indictment of four members of the African People’s Socialist Party for allegedly colluding with Russia to affect the outcome of an election. Hmm...

According to HandsOffUhuru.com:

On April 18, 2023, indictments were issued by the U.S. Department of Justice against African People’s Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Solidarity Committee Chair Penny Hess and Uhuru Solidarity Movement Chair Jesse Nevel.
Donate to our legal fund at HandsOffUhuru.org/Donate.

“I ain’t ever worked for a Russian. Never ever ever ever,” said Omali Yeshitela. “Their problem is, I’ve never worked for them.”

Pamuk is a writer from the last bit of the once powerful Ottoman Empire who knows: not working for the imperial forces is the ultimate crime.

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Mainers Turn Out On Tax Day To Say NO $$ For Ukraine War

About 50 people and 2 dogs turned out April 15, 2023 (not all stayed for our group photo)

A slew of new people, many of them young and many of them first-time protesters, came to our tax day protest yesterday in Topsham, Maine.

One told me they have family in Germany who see the Ukraine war as a reenactment of WWI with its trench warfare stalemate dragging on indefinitely.

One told me they drove almost two hours to join us after seeing me the previous evening on the Jimmy Dore Show promoting the event.

One told me they'd been reading my blog and looking for the next opportunity to get out and protest.

One told me how excited they were to be joined by fellow members of the UU Church.

And a group from the Party of Socialism & Liberation brought cool signs, a megaphone, and indicated they plan on returning each time we do this.

Hooray!!

What I learned yesterday: there is a LOT of pent-up desire to resist supporting the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine. And many people don't know where or how to express it.

In some cases, this is because the groups they belong to don't object to this war in particular, or imperial wars in general (for example, Peace Action Maine is siding with NATO in the overture to WW3).

In some cases, they're individuals who engage on social media but for the first time came out on the pavement to communicate with the thousands of people who drove through the intersection.

Several people who may not be the expected audience for the Ric Tyler George Hale show listened to my interview there Friday morning, and felt motivated to join us.

It was great to see so many Veterans for Peace out with us yesterday, stalwarts of the resistance to imperial wars for decades now.

One lovely person I've been standing with for years observed that passing around the megaphone at our closing circle was a smart idea. They said,

"Some shaky voices spoke up for the first time. Today was a gust of fresh air!"

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Can You Support Nazis Over There But Fight Them Over Here?

Video source: NewsCenterMaine

Portland, Maine's largest city, is in turmoil about the lack of response from the city and its police force to a neo Nazi group attacking counter protestors on April 1. This occurred on the steps of City Hall and was amply documented and reported in mainstream media here, here, and here.

The police showed up but allowed the masked group to maintain their anonymity and to disperse without being questioned or having charges filed.

I should explain that Portland is not my home but it's where several people I love call home. Some of them are little kids who attend the public schools alongside students of many ethnicities and races. They tell me they don't like people "being mean" to (i.e. threatening the physical safety of) the Black city councilor who represents their part of Portland. So, I have a stake in the safety of Portland.

My husband and I at an anti-racist rally in February. Source: Southern Maine for Racial Justice tweet

The safety of people of color, along with LGBTQ+ people and people of the Jewish and Muslim faiths, are at risk when neo Nazis show up shouting the racist N word, the homophobic F word, and knocking to the pavement people holding a gay pride banner.

From coverage by the Portland Phoenix:

..Leo Hilton, a Portland resident who said he was one of four people who were attacked by Neo-Nazis outside City Hall on April 1.
As Hilton and others at the event described, police officers let the bad actors go without even asking for identification. A spokesperson for the police department said that none of the members of the group were identified on scene, and “none have officially been identified at this point.”..
According to Hilton, the assault occurred on April 1 when he and three others held up a pride flag, and the protesters — who were all masked — tried to tear the flag out of their hands. One member of Hilton’s group was then punched, and Hilton was thrown to the ground.
“They knew they could hit us and get away with it,” Hilton said.

I host a monthly community tv show with Portland City Councilors Victoria Pelletier and Roberto Rodriguez. How the institutions of local government uphold white supremacy is a topic we've addressed a few times, most recently in February which show you can view here or listen to as a podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Since that show, recruiting for neo Nazi and other white rights groups has popped up all over town. Several public demonstrations about white victimhood have been organized, drawing their own counter demonstrations. And Monday night's city council meeting drew at least a hundred protesters demanding that the city and the police walk the walk rather than just talk the talk of making Portland safe for everyone.

(I've been trying to listen to the whole meeting as a zoom recording but the playback is so choppy I gave up. Any readers with tech hints on how I can solve this problem, please post in the comments. Here's a link to the page listing the recording of the April 10 city council meeting with two hours of testimony from the public.)

I'm starting to think that my most useful contribution to political conversations is examining the conundrum of false dichotomy thinking.

The inherent contradiction of U.S.ians who want to fight neo Nazis over here but support neo Nazis over there is emerging in the state I call home.

To have this discussion we need to address the question: How could Ukraine be run by neo Nazis if its president is Jewish? Investigative journalist Aaron Maté (also Jewish, for what it's worth) addressed this when he wrote last year about the threats and intimidation President Zelensky received to prevent his implementing the peace platform he ran on.

The U.S. government has forced taxpayers to send over $100 billion to Ukraine's neo Nazi aligned government and for the most part both Democrats and Republicans have supported this. But Democrats would be the first to denounce hate crimes like attacking people for being openly gay.

Then there are the fragile white rights folks in Maine who say they oppose the war but also say they oppose the city providing services to Black asylum seekers rather than services to white homeless people. They also publicly oppose the notion that Black Lives Matter, countering it with the message "It's OK to be white." Councilor Pelletier drew threats of violence back in February when she responded on social media, "When has it not been ok to be white in this country?"

One of the white rights activists posted this mini-manifesto to explain:

This same activist retweets videos glorifying violence, for example, hitting "commies" in the head with a frying pan.

All the false dichotomy ideologies aside, there are economic facts. White people own the vast majority of the wealth in the U.S. by any measure, while neo Nazis in Ukraine become wealthy on hundred of billions provided with no accountability for how it is spent.

The reason that Democrats in the U.S. have become so confused at this point in history is that they fell for the falsehood that the Russia's President Putin is "Hitler." This was a natural outgrowth of their conflation of our 45th president and his outspoken white supremacist beliefs with Putin, a descendant of those who literally defeated Hitler in WWII. Many Dems still cling the belief that Russia interfered in 2016 to get Trump elected, even though this has by now been thoroughly debunked by investigative journalists. And when Democrats stay in the echo chamber of corporate media that serves government interests, they don't have enough real information to draw useful conclusions.

If you agree with me that neo Nazis cross a legal line shouting insults that are followed by assault, it may be time to abandon false dichotomy thinking. I've criticized Democrats here, but that doesn't make me a Republican. I've also criticized Ukraine here, but that doesn't make me a spokesperson for Putin despite being accused of this almost constantly over the past year.

Protest organized by a statewide coalition on March 18 in Westbrook that drew 50 people (photo credit: Mary Beth Sullivan)

I'll be out again this Saturday April 15, "tax day." People from many political parties and tendencies will be with me in Topsham at the corner of Routes 196 and 201 from 1:30pm. Join us to uphold our coalition demands:

Peace in Ukraine - No weapons, no money for the Ukraine War
Abolish NATO – End U.S. militarism & sanctions!
Fund people’s needs, not the war machine!
No war with China!
Protect Earth's environment from the deadly insult of war!
End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel!
Fight racism & bigotry not war!
U.S. hands off Haiti!
End AFRICOM!

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Why Is The UN So Subservient To The U.S.?

Here we see the EU being subservient, but that's another blog post.

Why is the United Nations so subservient to the United States? asks a reader. Like most writers, I appreciate feedback about content readers would like to see.

So, let's brainstorm!

Proximity

The UN is located in New York City and its international officers and staff are dependent on the U.S. for visas.

Intimidation

The member nations of the UN mostly kowtow to the U.S. for the same reason that blogger Caitlin Johnstone identified to explain why her country kowtows to the U.S.: "Australia is not arming itself against China to protect itself from China. Australia is arming itself against China to protect itself from the United States."

Examples of actions the U.S. has taken against nations that didn't do its bidding:

regime change, via soft coups, lawfare, or just outright military takeovers
economic sanctions
military attacks including the use of depleted uranium
biowarfare
possibly even earthquakes?

Purpose

The UN was created to be a fig leaf for U.S. imperial ambitions, and not actually to prevent "the scourge of war" as its charter claims.

Discretion

Nations are disinclined to use the UN to publicly challenge U.S. hegemony and would prefer to make back channel diplomatic deals with emerging powers like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Credibility

Nations have long seen how ineffectual the UN is at enforcing international law when the U.S. invades and occupies nations to steal their oil, or freezes the assets of other nations that are held in Western financial institutions. Allison Bronowski on the blog Pearls & Irritations wrote about the UN's institutional role in the preparation of a legal case for Australia to wage war over a "non-sovereign" nation, i.e. Taiwan:

The UN Charter which our governments signed in 1945, contained a cop-out, Article 98. It allowed member states to make ‘reservations and declarations’ exempting themselves from some of its obligations and interpretations.
Of 193 nations, some 110, mainly from the global south, have signed Article 98 agreements with the US, undertaking not to surrender American service people for investigation by the International Criminal Court.
The US made its own reservations and declarations under Article 98, stating that:
The US reserves the right to decide whether to comply with Security Council decisions in accordance with its constitutional processes
The US reserves the right to use military force in response to an armed attack on a member state without first seeking authorisation from the Security Council
The US reserves the right to veto any decision by the Security Council it believes to be against its national interest
The US reserves the right to make its own decisions about the use of military force in situations it perceives as a threat to its national security
The US is not bound by the decisions of the International Court of Justice if it involves domestic matters [eg Guantanamo Bay or other US military prisons].

These are long term trends, but a more recent development under the Biden administration may explain some things, too. Per investigative journalist Seymour Hersh's article out today, "Trading With The Enemy":

Another divisive issue, I have been repeatedly told in my recent reporting, is the strident ideology and lack of political skill shown by Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. The president and his two main foreign policy advisers “live in different worlds” than the experienced diplomats and military and intelligence officers assigned to the White House;. “They have no experience, judgment, and moral integrity. They just tell lies, make up stories."

In other words, with these clowns in charge what is to be gained from working within the international structure for diplomacy that the UN was supposed to offer?

Finally, in case you're wondering what my friend and I see as UN subservience to the U.S., two recent items:

The UN Security Council refused to set up an independent investigation of the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines.
The UN Security Council blocked the usual broadcast of a hearing, boycotted by the U.S. and UK, to consider allegations by the International Criminal Court (not a UN affiliated body, by the way) that Russia kidnapped thousands of children from Ukraine.

Sometimes the UN as a whole stands up, though. Back in 2016 by a vote of 131-3 it condemned the glorification of Nazism.

The U.S. and Ukraine abstained. 'Nuff said.

Saturday, April 8, 2023

Truth, Or I Dare You To Call It Propaganda

Photo of a paper document alleged to be Pentagon briefing slides on the Ukraine war.

You can have truth, or you can have propaganda, but you can't have both. Which will it be?

Investors who are clients of Bank of America were upset recently when a conference to listen to experts on current events heard several presenters who sounded like they were reciting Putin's talking points!

For example, from the prepared remarks Nicolai Petro, a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island who is alleged to have once worked at the State Department, (obtained by Financial Times which I'm quoting here):

“Under any scenario, Ukraine would be the overwhelming loser” in the war. Its industrial capacity would be “devastated”, partly by its economic policy of becoming an agricultural superpower “as recommended by the EU and the United States” and its population would continue to shrink as people left to look for employment abroad.
“If this is what Russia meant by removing Ukraine’s capacity to wage war against Russia, then it will arguably have won,” he said.
He said the US government had no interest in a ceasefire because it had the most to gain from a prolonged conflict through a “dramatic increase in EU energy and military dependence on the US”.

According to FT, a BofA client complained, "The whole event was overwhelmingly pro-Russian.”

This is what happens to people's brains after long marination in false dichotomy.

The truth about what has happened and will happen in Ukraine is murky, contested, and sometimes confusing. But it's not partisan.

The truth doesn't care who wins in Ukraine.

The U.S. and its banksters, on the other hand, are presently caught between a rock and a hard place. Face the truth and use that knowledge to make some rational decisions about investments among other things? Or promote the patriotic narrative that Putin is all bad, all the time, and Zelensky is a hero -- and make decisions based on that?

Because you can have intel or you can have propaganda, but you can't have both.

There are hundred of documents similar to this one. If a hoax, somebody put a lot of time into this.

Which leads us to the fascinating trove of alleged Pentagon-sourced documents on Ukraine, China, and the Middle East. Are they real? Were they leaked or "leaked" or maybe hacked?

Some of the facts seem credible, for instance, that four Ukrainian troops have died for every one Russian troop. It's the kind of data it's almost impossible to be certain about, but it is congruent with the tragedy we've seen unfolding for the people of Ukraine, like the long battle for Bakhmut which they just lost, and their ongoing conscription challenges.

If leaked, these documents appear to have come from someone pretty far inside -- either at the Pentagon or as a high ranking official of another allied nation.

Were they leaked by a European ally in retaliation for the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline?

By a pro-Russian infiltrator in one of those spaces?

Or maybe a gamer stumbled onto the trove in the output tray of a printer at their office, snagged it, and shared it with their buddies? Mostly the documents seem to have come out in channels like 4chan or in Minecraft chat rooms. What's that about?

Julian Assange has now been tortured almost to death for leaking truths about the Iraq War, the dirty dealings of the ultra wealthy, and the like. That the U.S. is behind his extrajudicial punishment makes for some spectacular hypocrisy as in the case of a Wall Street Journal reporter just arrested in Russia for trying to obtain classified information about military production.

Did Evan Gershkovich in fact do that or was he just an innocent reporter doing his job, as U.S. Secretary of State Blinken would have us believe?

More than one person has suggested that Gershkovich was nabbed in order to be exchanged for a prisoner the Russians want back, in the way Brittney Griner appears to have been used.

If Russia offered to release Gershkovich in exchange for Assange's freedom, it would be on par with offering Edward Snowden asylum in Moscow: a blow for truths our government doesn't want us to know.

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Satire Is Dead, So Here's Another Geography Quiz

Source: US invites authoritarian far right regimes to 'Summit for Democracy' by Ben Norton

Stuff like this makes me miss the MAD Magazine of my youth. I flash back to how MAD's writers in the 1960's would have satirized this line up. Nowadays, satire is difficult when we're looking through mirrors (darkly) at concocted truths so outlandish they approach self-parody.

Imagine thinking: Let's personify the concept of democracy in 2023 with a video call montage of the heads of state of these nations.

Why didn't they just call it "summit of nations still willing to sort-of support the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine against Russia"?

Their scripted statements remind me of the Cold War-era Spy vs. Spy comic in MAD which often used the theme of how much empires need their enemies.

The inane pronouncements of self-proclaimed "good guys" against alleged "bad guys" make me nostalgic for Rocky and Bullwinkle's Natasha and Boris Badonov characters.

Because "Get Moose and Squirrel" is about as deep as our imperial spin doctors go in their grasp of current events beyond their control.

In further developments almost impossible to satirize, Twitter today replaced its universally recognized bird logo, one of the strongest brand identifiers on the planet, with a dog.

Maybe it's an April Fool's Day joke delayed three days by, um, streamlined staffing at Twitter.

Maybe it's an attempt to get the cybercurrency Doge, whose logo is this specific dog, to drop its lawsuit against Twitter owner Elon Musk for manipulating the value of Doge.

Maybe it's just a replay of the situation I used to see in schools all the time: a rich guy comes in and throws a bunch of money around, and suddenly he's an expert on education. In other words, the final farce of late stage capitalism.

In any case, it's hard to satirize something that appears to be self-parody.

My recent geography quiz post was such a hit that here's one I created based on the heads of state image.

Enjoy!

Map A - A nation soon to host U.S. nuclear weapons!

Map B - This nation has its first far-right PM since the guy who coined the term "corporatism" to better describe fascism.

Map C - Apartheid nation claiming to be the only "democracy" in the region.

Map D - Invented white supremacy and currently has leader proud of pogroms and Hitler worship.

Map E - Difficult to find a blank map of this nation that is current after three of its eastern regions voted overwhelmingly to join a neighboring country.

Map F - Convener, nation that leads the world in racially motivated incarceration and treats money as protected political speech -- in any dialect.

Answer Key:

1. President Joe Biden

2. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

3. President Andrzej Duda

4. Prime Minister Narendra Modi

5. President Volodymyr Zelensky

6. Prime Minister Georgia Meloni