Mainers Gather In Rain On Day Of Alleged Coup To Say: No $$ For War In Ukraine

Yesterday was a strange day to be holding a "No War With Russia" banner rather than glued to my news feed. Sixteen of us gathered in Lewiston which is a smaller group than usual; I'm sure the rain was a factor and also perhaps the fact that I have never been to or seen any anti-war activity in a small Maine city dominated by labor and immigration issues. 

The Democratic Party long since owned those movements, and this is their proxy war with Russia. 

Co-sponsor the Communist Party of Maine had a strong showing making up 1/3 of our group yesterday, many of them younger than most of us old anti-war horses.

We stood at the edge of Veterans Memorial Park which is filled with tanks and warplanes from days gone by. This made our protest even more surreal, at least for me. (And an Army recruiting sign may or may not have gone missing from the busy street where we stood.)

Public reaction was mixed and, as always, interesting. A young African man said "We agree!" from a passing car, while older white ladies nodded and gave thumbs up. A pedestrian who stopped to converse with us said NATO was designed to be the world's policeman and that U.S. is the only superpower with both Russia and China very weak at this time. Curious about where they were getting their information, I offered to send them a link to my blog.

By the time we had returned home following a friendly but somewhat soggy picnic lunch with some of the protesters, the fizzled coup or perhaps maskirovka psyop (or whatever it was) had concluded.

My recap:

Wagner Private Military Company is a group of mercenaries that fought really well in Ukraine. But they can't fight on Russian soil and their leader is a loony guy close to Putin (was his chef, trusted not to poison him) who isn't even military. He, Prigozhin, apparently became angry when the generals weren't sending him as much ammo as he wanted. Then, apparently, further infuriated by the directive to sign contracts with the regular Russian military by July 1 or be disbanded (mercenaries and conscripts are barred under Russia's constitution from fighting on Russian soil, which Donbas is now considered). So he apparently took over a military command center in Rostov and then allegedly marched on Moscow, tricking his troops into participating by claiming they were on a mission ordered by the generals. 

Since the whole crisis was averted quickly with the tricked soldiers laying down their arms and Lukashenko of Belarus swooping in to negotiate and lead Prigozhin into exile there, many are seeing this as a fake coup staged to find out who the traitors are.

Others think Westerners like NATO, CIA, etc. had chosen Prigozhin as the next Zelensky and urged him to stage a "Moscow Maidan." If so, they got very little bang for their buck -- but you wouldn't know that from the gushing headlines in the corporate press claiming civil war in Russia was on. Some who have this opinion think Prigozhin will now destabilize Russia's ally Belarus from within.

Scott Ritter shared his thoughts mid-coup here; he has just returned from Russia and his views are worth considering.

Really, one needs to return to the infamous 2019 RAND report at times like these. RAND being the think tank for the Pentagon that outlined plans for "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia" five years after the U.S./NATO successful coup in Kyiv. The problem so far is that NATO, not Russia, has been overextended in Ukraine. And yesterday's unbalancing attempt failed. 

But don't think the U.S./NATO won't keep trying.

We'll keep protesting, too. Here's our summer schedule:

Sat August 19 1:30pm

Ellsworth, Maine

Sat September 23 1:30pm

Unity, Maine

October date tbd

Skowhegan

Could Titan Failure Be Let Them Eat Cake Moment For The Uber Wealthy?

Instantly iconic, one of various memes juxtaposing images of two recent sea disasters. A massive effort underway to rescue five billionaires versus nothing for hundreds of migrants, including about 100 children, who were on a boat that capsized in the Mediterranean.

Responses on social media suggest the OceanGate submarine folly is being seen as a "let them eat cake" moment where the uber wealthy thumb their noses at the rest of humanity.

If the current trajectory of planetary ruin for the profits of the few plays out without massive popular uprisings, I will be surprised.

Here's some of what I've seen.

Taxpayer money is being spent to rescue five wealthy fools because of course it is. The military contractors who operate the U.S. government are so wealthy they're said to be the 1% of the 1%, and the OceanGate guys are their own.

The astounding parallels between the Titanic shipwreck -- where the wealthy survived and the workers, by and large, did not -- keep coming. Chief among them is hubris. Both the massive ocean liner and the makeshift submarine looking for its wreckage were described by their creators as "unsinkable." But ramming into an iceberg quickly took out one while running a deep sea operation from an outdated game control device appears to have doomed the other.

Now we learn that the CEO of OceanGate is married to a descendent of two of the wealthy passengers on the Titanic. (Who was the pilot in the Titan with the four other men he doomed.)

One of the things that makes me wonder if we're at the "let them eat cake" moment is the way that orcas  -- who have already been teaching each other to attack yachts by deliberately destroying the rudders -- quickly became heroes.

So, it was a short step from knowing orcas are attacking yachts to imagining orcas attacking the submarine. 

This tweet refers to banging sounds that were detected yesterday during the search for Titan.

(I also saw the abovementioned image on Twitter but I neglected to take a screenshot at the time.)

Maybe class warfare will supplant culture wars even in the heavily propagandized West?

 Oops, maybe not.

End note: for those who find it unseemly to joke about the self-inflicted death of billionaires, you could use the search term Blink-182 (the name of a band) to see how one of their family members has been consoling himself during the search. 

Pivot To Asia, Round Two

I've been hoping to find a digest of reliable information and analysis about U.S./NATO war plans aimed at China. Here is my second attempt, an imitation of my friend JK's valiant efforts on Ukraine news (her mini-digest "contains information you are not likely to read/hear in the Western/U.S. media." If you want to get on her list, message me.) 

A lot has happened since my first attempt back in February; but, since I don't read or speak either dialect of Chinese (or Japanese or Korean), I feel ill-qualified to edit news from China. Maybe someone among the readers here will consider taking this on?

Item #1

BLINKEN IN CHINA: Did it accomplish anything?   (9:41)

Andy Boreham, Reports on China, June 20, 2023

Excerpt:

"The common interests of the two countries should be valued, and their respective success is an opportunity instead of a threat to each other." Chinese President Xi Jinping

Item #2

Corporate media slanders China, Cuba: a lie so blatant even the Pentagon must deny it

by Sara Flounders, Worker's World, June 16, 2023

Excerpt: 

Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío Domínguez, called the [Wall Street Journal] reports “totally mendacious and unfounded… Cuba rejects all foreign military presence in Latin America, including the many U.S. bases and troops” and the U.S. occupation of Guantanamo. 

(Note from LS: Touché)

Item #3

NATO opening an office in Japan

Bruce Gagnon, Organizing Notes, June 17, 2023

Excerpt:

NATO is planning to open a liaison office in Japan (likely hosted at Yokota Air Base), the first of its kind in Asia. The station will allow the military alliance to conduct periodic consultations with Japan and key partners in the region such as South Korea, Australia and New Zealand as China emerges as ‘a new challenge’

Item #4

Strategies of Denial

by Gray Anderson, New Left Review, June 15, 2023

Excerpt: 

passage of the Inflation Reduction and CHIPS Acts made tangible the ‘deep integration of domestic policy and foreign policy’. Restrictions on the export of crucial AI and semiconductor components to China.. confirmed the drive to monopolize ‘chokepoint’ or ‘stranglehold’ technologies, a veritable declaration of economic war. ‘These actions’, a CSIS analysis concluded, ‘demonstrate an unprecedented degree of US government intervention to not only preserve chokepoint control but also begin a new US policy of actively strangling large segments of the Chinese technology industry – strangling with an intent to kill.’ 

Item #5

What's behind U.S.-driven reforms coming to the World Bank?

Conor Gallagher, Naked Capitalism (link is to Popular Resistance share), June 14, 2023

Excerpt:

Change is coming to the World Bank.. It’s difficult to predict exactly how the new mission will play out, but one thing is clear: the efforts are being driven by the desire to counter/thwart Beijing’s expanding global influence.. And it looks like the reforms will go hand in hand with pushing the debunked narrative that Chinese lending is a debt trap while also trying to relegate China to the backseat in the growing number of distressed countries.

(Note from LS: Since China kicked butt on accomplishing the "eradicate poverty" goal previously expressed as the World Bank's mission, PR spin is sorely needed.)

Item #6

The Hegemon Will Go Full Hybrid War Against BRICS+

Pepe Escobar, Strategic Culture, June 12, 2023

Excerpt:

U.S. Think Tank Land – inebriated by their self-created aura of power – always telegraphs in advance what they’re up to. That was the case with Project 9/11 (“We need a new Pearl Harbor”). That was the case with the RAND report on over-extending and unbalancing Russia. And now that’s the case with the incoming American War on BRICS as outlined by the chairman of the New York-based Eurasia Group.

Item #7

U.S. Navy preparing for war with China - COI #432 (51:51)

Kyle Anzalone & Connor Freeman, Conflicts of Interest, June 10, 2023

China portion begins around 11:40

Excerpt (from Antiwar.com post describing the contents of the video):

..details a top US admiral – the head of INDOPACOM – saying he’s been tasked by the president and the Pentagon chief to win direct a war with China over Taiwan

Item #8

Taiwan Says It's in Talks on Being Brought Under US Nuclear Umbrella

Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, May 28, 2023

Excerpt:

Taiwan’s foreign minister said last week that the US and Taiwan are in talks on the possibility of the island being brought under Washington’s nuclear umbrella, a step that would make a catastrophic war between the US and China much more likely.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu made the comments before Taiwan’s parliament

Item #9

Psy-ops warriors: Tiananmen Square and the media-pack

Gregory Clark, Pearls & Irritations, June 12, 2023

Item #10

Fixing an American Mess: China, Iran, and Pakistan link up to secure Afghanistan

F.M. Shakil, The Cradle, June 13, 2023

Excerpt:

As part of their strategic partnership agreement for 2021, China reportedly pledged a $400 billion investment in Iran over the next 25 years, while Pakistan hosts the flagship project of the BRI, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It is in this complex security context that the first-ever trilateral anti-terrorist parley between China, Iran, and Pakistan took place last week.

Item #11

The generational divide in Australian politics is widening

Alan Patience, Pearls & Irritations, June 17, 2023

Excerpt:

AUKUS is becoming a rallying point for those who are fed up with the old politics. Local [Australian Labor Party] branches.. are rising up to condemn the Albanese government’s morally flawed commitment to the project. Indeed that commitment is likely to become counterproductive for the government at the next election. 

(Note from LS: AUKUS is a military alliance to threaten China -- Australia's largest trading partner -- and its provision to station nuclear submarines in Australia is a violation of that nation's constitution.)

Item #12

Fukushima plan a nuclear threat to Asia-Pacific

Shaun Burnie, China Daily, June 13, 2023

Excerpt:

There is no scientific, legal or moral justification for Japan to deliberately contaminate our shared and common marine environment. And concerned citizens, scientists, maritime lawyers, the fishing communities across the Asia-Pacific and the world's leading oceanography universities and institutes have spread public awareness about the nuclear dangers, something that has rarely been done before.

Item #13 (mainstream media source)

Space race: how the U.S. and China are locked in a battle to become superior in space

Rachel Shilke, Breaking News Reporter, Washington Examiner, June 20, 2023

Excerpt:

China launched its Tiangong space station in 2022, working as the sole operator and user. Tiangong was created after China was excluded from the [International Space Station], largely because of the U.S.'s reservations over Chinese space programs and their ties to the [People's Liberation Army].

(Note from LS: "Breaking news" from mainstream media alleges U.S. is "locked in battle" with China for space dominance, but "U.S. remains superior." Delusional thinking by the declining empire.)

---

Want to know more about how space figures into plans for war on China? 

More details and link to register for a July 15 Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space webinar here. (Note that the NY time should read EDT not EST.)

Peacewashing The War In Ukraine

It's hard to argue with the view that NATO is a lot better at winning narrative competitions than it is at winning wars. From "How Nato seduced the European Left" by Lily Lynch on Unherd:

Previously, in the Nordic countries, Atlanticists have had to sell war and militarism to largely pacifist publics. This was achieved in part by presenting Nato not as a rapacious, pro-war military alliance, but as an enlightened, "progressive" peace alliance.

Fast forward to last week when a self-styled "peace summit" in Vienna produced the absurd statement shared above, eliciting the following statement from participant Magyar Békekör:

From the final text of the declaration issued by the International Peace Bureau, which emerged from obscurity, even the passage in the original draft, which mentioned NATO’s “co-responsibility”, was omitted.

In their closing statement, the organizers of the conference demand an immediate ceasefire and negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Civilian diplomatic intervention is envisaged at their countries’ embassies, including the Russian one, while condemning Russia.

The group organizing the peace conference did not demand the opinion of the participants in approving the final declaration, nor did they initiate an open discussion about it. At the end of the “peace summit” it was read aloud, as if meeting with everyone’s agreement. [emphasis mine]

Manufacturing consent for an ongoing war of choice by the U.S./NATO in Ukraine is not peace work, despite window dressing provided by the presence of luminaries of the Democratic Party-aligned "peace" movement in the U.S. like Joseph Gerson and Medea Benjamin.

Lynch, like many, sees the NATO war on the former Yugoslavia as a turning point.

Kosovo changed everything. In 1999 — the 50th anniversary of Nato’s founding — the alliance began what academic Merje Kuus has called a “discursive metamorphosis”. From the mere defensive alliance it was during the Cold War, it was becoming an active military compact concerned with spreading and defending values such as human rights, democracy, peace, and freedom well beyond the borders of its member states. The 78-day Nato bombing of what remained of Yugoslavia, ostensibly to halt war crimes committed by Serbian security forces in Kosovo, would forever transform the German Greens.

I remember a principal from a military family urging me to read a tome on "Responsibility to Protect" when he was my supervisor and I was teaching about genocides, around 2005. I thought the notion absurd at the time and quite possibly dangerous. 

Events in the decades since have shown my fear was not misplaced.

As some have argued persuasively, NATO's purpose is not to win wars but to generate profits for uber wealthy military-industrial titans that own and operate the U.S. government.

So what looks like failure to the general public e.g.

Documented equipment losses from Ukraine's spring offensive

looks like success to them e.g.

Peek into the stock portfolios of Congress or the Supreme Court and you'll see a built in incentive to keep pushing wars and never mind about winning, or even ending, them.

It gets worse. Lynch on new strategies to prey on younger people:

In February, Nato held its first ever gaming event. A young employee of the alliance joined popular Twitch streamer ZeRoyalViking to play Among Us and casually chat about the danger disinformation poses to democracy.* With them was a mountaineer influencer and environmental activist named Caroline Gleich. As their astronaut avatars navigated a cartoon spaceship, they spoke about Nato in glowing terms. By the event’s end, the stream had turned into a recruitment effort: the alliance employee talked about the perks of his job and encouraged viewers to check the Nato website for employment opportunities in fields such as graphic design and video editing.

I've written before about the hollowing out of major "peace" organizations here in the U.S., and about the role of major "environmental" organizations in maintaining consent for the Pentagon's climate crimes. 

This is the result of designating wars as Republican or Democratic Party projects: liberals hate the former while cheerleading for the latter. 

I'm part of a small group opposed to all of the U.S./NATO's many wars -- no matter what letter happens to be after the name of the person currently in the White House.

--

*My note: The "dangers of disinformation" is a signature trope of the DNC-social media-corporate media-narrative- management complex, which others have covered in depth here and here.

Greenwashing The War In Ukraine

Now in its second year, the war in Ukraine has already produced two ecological disasters: the largest methane release in history from the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, and an enormous flood of agricultural lands from the breach in the Nova Kakhova dam on the Dnieper River.

Both have been blamed on Russia, but thinking people aren't buying it. In both cases, Russia could have simply shut off the flow of gas or opened the floodgates without bombing anything. 

Enter luminaries of the climate movement to defend the empire's run up to WW3.

Greta Thunberg: 

This ecocide as a continuation of Russia's unprovoked[emphasis mine] full-scale invasion of Ukraine is yet another atrocity which leaves the world lost for words. 

Bill McKibben:

It’s amazing to watch people across the planet rallying to the defense of brave Ukraine—choirs singing outside Russian embassies, soccer teams refusing to play Russian teams. And it’s wonderful to watch governments rise to the occasion: shutting off airspace to Russian airplanes, or kicking them off international banking protocols.

Annalena Baerbock, German Green and German Foreign Minister:

Howie Hawkins, U.S. Green and 2020 candidate for president:

What's going on?

It's not like these folks don't know the outsize role that militarism plays in driving climate crisis.

The notion that fighting wars for access to fossil fuels requires a lot of fossil fuels has been both well-documented and, in recent years, widely shared. So how is it that Greens and other environmental advocates are suddenly cheerleaders for NATO's war on Russia?

It's not sudden, in fact. The leading national organizations focused on climate crisis in the U.S. have long since been infiltrated and hollowed out by the Democratic Party, and disinclined to criticize woke militarism. One of the DNC's many false dichotomies is Republicans bad for environment, Democrats good. This flies in the face of facts on the ground, both in the Biden administration and the Obama administration.

But the DNC strategy is really very clever: find movements with traction and then slowly control them from within while leaving their facades in place.

This is why environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, 35o.org et al. have consistently failed to oppose soaring Pentagon budgets, hundreds of military bases around the globe, air shows that burn highly polluting jet fuel for entertainment, and increasingly common rocket launches that damage shoreline breeding grounds.

Here in Maine a coalition effort to block construction of a rocket launch site just offshore from Acadia National Park drew zero support from any of the state branches of the organizations named above. The "orange man bad" hysteria promoted the false dichotomy belief that anything Democrats was, by contrast, good. But Dems serve the same corporations that Republicans do, and their immense failures to steward our crumbling ecosystem are right there for those with eyes to see them.

It's not strictly an environmental organization, but the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has also thrown down on the NATO side of the war in Ukraine.

My reply:

I do not "like" your tweet bashing Russia. Your pro-NATO stance is hurting your credibility with me. According your own account of who's spending on nukes, the U.S. is way out in front at $43.7 billion or $83,143 per minute (an interesting metric).

With its NATO allies UK & France, $56.1 billion vs. Russia's $9.6 billion. Which of these countries have used nuclear weapons? Depleted uranium? ICAN's mission of a nuclear ban has not & will not be realized if you continue to support U.S./NATO imperialism.

Hastening the likelihood of nuclear weapons use by provoking war with Russia -- and, incidentally, China -- is a crime against life on our planet. And there's nothing green about it.

Peace Education: Samantha Smith

Memorial Day 2023 Topsham, Maine

Part of building a future of peace for our children is providing them with an education in peacemaking. This can take different forms, occurring both inside and outside of school. It becomes especially important in times of hot wars in an age when peace conferences are canceled because they're...calling for peace.

A unique event in Maine last week gave me an opportunity to bring a child who is a little too young to walk in a long parade. School-age Samantha Smith was being remembered for her role in bringing about dialogue over preventing nuclear war between the U.S. and the USSR. Some of us know of her work because we've taught about it or we're aware of the Samantha Smith Challenge run by Americans Who Tell The Truth. Now, Maine has named a road after her in the hope that young people will continue to find out what she did and why: she talked to and even visited the "enemy"! 

My friend Regis Tremblay, a former Mainer who now lives in Yalta, has told me how widely known and popular Samantha Smith still is, many decades later, in Russia. So when I told him I'd gone to the road dedication ceremony, he wanted to talk to me about it. Here's the video he made:

(If you're boycotting YouTube for destroying thousands of videos Regis and other activists have previously shared there, you can also see this interview on Rumble or Bitchute.)

Local tv coverage of the road dedication can be viewed here and here.

Rogue's Gallery Smiling While Lying You Into World War

See that smile? That is the shit eating grin of a man who has become wealthy peddling weapons to the U.S. taxpayer. Does going from the board of Raytheon to heading up the Pentagon's decisions to purchase Raytheon products seem like a conflict of interest? Lloyd Austin says it's not. (Cue the soundtrack playing in my head since I saw this photo.)

In Austin's extensive and lucrative catalog of lies we also find that the U.S. envisions a "free, open and secure Indo-Pacific." He won't say but we know the U.S. will accomplish this via ongoing coercion and bullying of the Philippines, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand...there are more, but you get the idea. 

China's so-called "aggression" toward Taiwan, one of its provinces that the fading U.S. empire has decided to use as the proxy to make war on its biggest economic competitor, is trumpeted by corporate press lackeys like AP constantly now. This collusion between the liars in office and the liars in media means the general public hears such false messages repeatedly and almost nothing to counter them. 

I don't know how much David Rising of the AP gets paid to help pull the wool over your eyes, but he's earning it by simply repeating nonsense like this from Lloyd Austin: the war in Ukraine "serves to underline how dangerous the world would be if big countries were able to 'just invade their peaceful neighbors with impunity.'"

Would be? How about is? Big country U.S. has invaded 800+ spots around the globe with their military bases, and has further attacked and occupied scores of nations.

Here's one way to look at it.

This graph shows the number of ongoing U.S. military interventions (air, ground, naval) since 1898. We used a 100 person-year threshold for ground interventions and similar for air & naval. The U.S. has been consistently involved in ~15 interventions at a time since WW2. 2/7 pic.twitter.com/HQBMBSoHjF

— Jennifer Kavanagh (@jekavanagh) June 18, 2022

Here's another:

#Biden : "Who in the Lord's name does #Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries?"
The World: What about the #Embargo to #Cuba not to mention all the U.S. Invasions all over the world since WW2 in the name of democracy! Awkward! #UkraineRussiaCrisis pic.twitter.com/cdlBRvvCHl

— Alex! (@xsemperfidelis) February 23, 2022

Cut to today when someone has blown up the Nova Kakhova dam controlling the water supply to Crimea. Previously the U.S. and Norway  destroyed a Russian gas pipeline to Europe and Ukraine bombed a major bridge from Russia to Crimea. The Western press rightly considers these to be dastardly deeds but hilariously blames them on..Russia.

When people tell you who they are, believe them. pic.twitter.com/dubdV7xwzR

— professional hog groomer (@bidetmarxman) June 6, 2023

Almost everything President Biden has said about Ukraine has turned out not to be true, but he wasn't lying when he said that the Nord Stream 2 would never open. But he's kind of dingy now and as such a much less convincing liar than the architects of World War 3 who he fronts for.

Here's another major player, one whose lies are regularly reported by government stenographer Politico: 

Despite being used to it, I remain absolutely gobsmacked at the lies coming from the American government.

Anyone who pays even remote attention to the subject can see U.S. policy on China and Taiwan has changed dramatically.

For one the core of the policy towards Taiwan was… pic.twitter.com/b8b8bEeoJ8

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) June 5, 2023

 It was difficult to find a picture of Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor, "smiling."

For gender equity, here are a couple of the smiling liars helping make our warmongering machine look woke.

Victoria Nuland straddles many administrations, D and R, and was smiling when she handed out cookies to coup supporters in Ukraine in 2014 -- but I like this picture of her better. Recently she's been "helping" Pakistan during their lawfare soft coup of hugely popular PM Imran Khan, and "helping" Sudan.

Check out this timeline leading up to the current state of Sudan 👀 pic.twitter.com/ckMnJVL71s

— VRosen (@vrosen11) April 24, 2023

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre's entire job is managing lies with a straight, if not smiling, face. Lies like: America is helping Ukraine fight for its democracy. With Ukraine as the most corrupt and arguably least democratic nation in Europe, it takes a lot of poise and keeping one's eye on the ball of future lucrative employment to offer up this gross canard without LOL.

But here's the thing: nobody will be laughing once we've been lied into a nuclear WW3.