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Zuckerberg won’t censor Trump, but don’t mistake Facebook for a bastion of free speech

By Helen Buyniski | RT | June 2, 2020

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken heat over refusing to hide a post from US President Donald Trump that Twitter claimed “glorified violence.” But his reasons are more about placating power than defending free speech.

Zuckerberg’s decision to leave up a Trump post condemning the riots in Minneapolis that warned “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” upset Facebook employees, a few of whom even threatened to appeal to the company’s newly-appointed oversight board – notoriously larded with anti-Trump voices.

But the CEO’s reasoning – “people should be able to see this for themselves, because ultimately accountability for those in positions of power can only happen when their speech is scrutinized out in the open” – had little in common with the fiery rhetoric of free speech activism. In fact, it was so mind-numbingly obvious it would likely have gone unremarked-upon in any other era. How, indeed, are Americans supposed to hold their leaders accountable if they don’t know what those leaders are saying?

It’s not clear if anyone would even have expected Facebook to take action on Trump’s post, had Twitter not already done so, hiding the message behind a warning that it violated the platform’s rules about “glorifying violence.” And it’s unlikely that Twitter would have taken action on that particular message had the president not been needling the platform for weeks with envelope-pushing tweets, starting with accusing MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of murdering an intern nearly 20 years ago.

While Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski demanded Trump be kicked off Twitter for the smears, it was a post about mail-in voting that finally brought down Twitter’s fact-check hammer. Still, that was enough of a rationale for Trump to unveil an executive order proposing to strip social media platforms of their cherished Section 230 immunity, which protects them from lawsuits based on user-generated content but also forbids them from selectively curating that content. Checkmate?

Silicon Valley is hurtling into a future whose ever-shrinking boundaries are dictated by censorship algorithms and all rough edges are sanded off (literally, in Twitter’s case) lest any comment wound another user’s feelings. Facebook is as guilty of this as anyone, alerting Instagram users when they’re about to post a “bullying” comment and banning “sexual” emojis. Even as social media styles itself the “new public square,” platforms find themselves in the surreal position of trying to outdo each other in silencing their users: if Facebook exiles conservative performance artist Alex Jones, declaring him a “dangerous individual,” Youtube and Twitter follow suit.

However, while Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has attempted to apply the platform’s increasingly absurd restrictions across the board, subjecting even the president of the US to Kafkaesque limitations that seem to shift from day to day, Zuckerberg knows on which side his bread is buttered. While his competitors in Silicon Valley wore their anti-Trump politics on their sleeves, the Facebook founder met with Republican congressmen and took care to include Breitbart in the rollout of Facebook News, triggering howls of outrage from liberals.

While Dorsey exiled political advertising from his platform completely earlier this year, Zuckerberg has clung to his promise not to fact-check the speech of politicians – ensuring a steady flow of advertising dollars from both parties’ campaigns, even as Democratic politicians condemn Facebook’s hands-off approach.

This doesn’t make Zuckerberg a free speech hero, or Facebook a bastion of political enlightenment. “Regular” users will still find themselves shadow-banned or exiled entirely if they post too much “wrongthink,” as even popular pages like PragerU have discovered recently. The Facebook CEO’s equal-opportunity pandering merely makes him a competent businessman, and means he’ll almost certainly survive whatever Section 230-related crackdown is coming.

It also makes it vanishingly unlikely Zuckerberg’s platform will face anything like a takeover bid from formidable Republican “vulture capitalist” and rabidly pro-Israel Trump donor Paul Singer. The notorious hedge-funder reportedly sought to oust Dorsey from Twitter earlier this year when the CEO suggested he’d be stepping back from full-time management of the company to spend six months of the year in Africa. While Singer was apparently rebuffed with the help of loyal Twitter employees and fellow billionaire Elon Musk, he still has four directors on the company’s board and may still be circling overhead looking for signs of weakness.

Twitter has fallen a long way from the days when it referred to itself as “the free speech wing of the free speech party” and now competes with Facebook and YouTube for the title of Silicon Valley’s Ministry of Truth. The future of social media looks bleak indeed when Zuckerberg is cast as the defender of free speech. But ordinary Facebook users shouldn’t mistake his indulgence of Trump for standing on principle. His legendarily low opinion of the platform’s users – “dumb f***s” – is more pertinent now than ever.

Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23

June 3, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’: Israel’s China Strategy in Peril

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 3, 2020

Israel’s balancing act that allowed it to reap America’s unconditional and, often, blind support, while slowly benefiting from China’s growing economic influence and political prestige, is already floundering.

Thanks to the heated cold war between the US and Chinese economic superpowers, the Israeli strategy of playing both sides is unlikely to pay dividends in the long run.

Soon enough, Tel Aviv might find itself having to make a stark choice between Washington and Beijing.  When US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, visited Israel on May 13, two items topped his agenda: Israel’s imminent illegal annexation of Palestinian land and the growing Israeli-Chinese economic ties.

Pompeo communicated his country’s stand on both issues, reflecting Washington’s long-standing policies regarding Palestine and China. In the case of Palestine, as with the rest of the Middle East, Washington seems to adhere to Tel Aviv’s agenda, often to the letter. China is a different story.

Two significant historical examples come to mind: one, is Israel’s attempt to sell China Israeli-made Phalcon airborne radar system, which relied heavily on American technology in the 1990s; a similar event transpired in 2005, this time concerning Israel’s Harpy anti-radar missile. On both occasions, Israel succumbed to American pressure and canceled both deals.

For the Chinese, Israel matters for two different reasons. One, Israel is a strategic stop in China’s Belt and Road initiative, China’s most significant economic project to date, ultimately aimed at turning Beijing into a center of global trade and financial activities. Two, China is hoping to fight the US on its own political turf in the Middle East – partly in response to the American ‘pivot to Asia’ strategy, which was initiated by the Barack Obama administration.

But the world – in terms of political and economic balances of power – after the coronavirus pandemic is likely to prove a different one when compared with previous years. China’s rise has been in the making for many years and the US political retreat and declining global outreach has been quite evident for some time. The isolationist policies of the Donald Trump Administration, coupled with Washington’s many China-related tantrums in recent years, are all indicators of the vastly changing political realities of a once-unipolar world.

A few years ago, Beijing had the time, patience, and resources to play a long-drawn geopolitical game in order for it to challenge the US’s global influence, whether in South America, Africa, or Israel.

The visit by China’s Vice President, Wang Qishan, to Israel in 2018, to “boost business ties”, was part of this Chinese strategy. That visit followed the signing, one year earlier, of the China-Israel Innovative Comprehensive Partnership. As of 2018, China-Israel trade has jumped to $14 billion and has grown exponentially ever since.

China would have been happy to carry on with that strategy for many years to come. Israel, too, would have played along, considering the lucrative financial returns from its China partnership.

Indeed, despite Washington’s warnings against and, at times, explicit demands on Israel to refrain from giving Chinese companies access to fifth-generation infrastructure (5G) projects in the country, Israel labored to make China feel welcomed.

However, the global response to the coronavirus pandemic is likely to change this, as it has already accelerated the cold war between the US and China, pushing the latter to adopt a more aggressive form of diplomacy and pour massive sums into other countries’ economies to help them in their desperate fight against the COVID-19 disease.

The Chinese strategy is predicated on two main pillars: fortifying existing ties and solidarity with China’s allies or potential allies anywhere in the world, while pushing back against China’s foes, especially those who are participating in Washington’s anti-Beijing campaign.

The latter phenomenon is known as ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’. The ‘wolf warriors’ are Chinese diplomats who have, for months, pushed back with unprecedented ferocity against what they perceive to be US and Western propaganda.

“We never pick a fight or bully others,” China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, told reporters in Beijing on May 24, while explaining China’s novel approach to diplomacy. “We will push back against any deliberate insult, resolutely defend our national honor and dignity, and we will refute all groundless slander with facts,” the top Chinese official said firmly.

China’s new aggressive diplomacy, especially if it continues to define the country’s approach to foreign policy in the coming years, is unlikely to permit Israel to maintain its balancing act for much longer.

China’s ambassador to Israel, Du Wei, who was entrusted with implementing Beijing’s soft-diplomacy with Tel Aviv, died in his home only a few days following Pompeo’s visit to the country. Although Wei’s death was not – at least publicly – perceived to be the result of foul play, his absence, especially in the age of coronavirus and ‘wolf warriors’, might signal a shift in China’s approach to its economic and political interests in Israel.

On May 26, under American pressure, the Israeli Finance Ministry denied China a massive $1.5 billion desalination plant contract, awarding it to an Israeli company, instead.

This is the first time that the US has used its political and economic sway over Israel to curb Chinese influence in the country. China must be anxiously watching events unfold, to see if US pressure on Israel will continue to undermine Beijing’s long-term strategy.

The world’s quickly shifting balance of power and the US-Chinese unmistakable fight for dominance is likely to, eventually, force countries like Israel to make a choice, of wholly joining the American or the Chinese sphere of influence. It is all reminiscent of the American-Soviet Cold War, where much of the globe was divided into zones of influence operated by proxy from Washington or Moscow.

Balancing acts in politics only work if all parties are willing to play or, at least, tolerate the game. While this form of politics suited Israel’s interests in the past and was played, quite successfully for years by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s balancing act is, possibly, over.

Between Washington’s precise demands to Israel to keep Beijing at bay, and the latter’s aggressive ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy, Israel is facing a stark choice: remaining loyal to a fading superpower or diving into the uncharted waters of an emerging one.

June 3, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Tony Blair: Ties between Gulf and Israel are ‘game changer’

MEMO | June 3, 2020

Tony Blair has cast doubt over the chance of a Palestinian state ever emerging in an interview with a Rabbi from the United Synagogue, a union of British Orthodox Jewish synagogues, representing the central Orthodox movement in Judaism.

During the online interview reported in the Jewish Chronicle the former British prime minister spoke gushingly about relations between Israel and the Gulf states. “That is the single biggest game-changer for the Middle East”, Blair is reported saying while describing the relationship as ”the biggest reason for hope in the Middle East.”

His optimistic reading of the region’s future however did not extend to the Palestinians. Blair, who was appointed special envoy of the Quartet – a foursome of nations and international and supranational entities involved in mediating the Israeli-Palestinian peace process – all but gave up on any hope of a Palestinian state emerging with Israel’s ongoing annexation.

”It was very difficult to see how a Palestinian state survives that,” said Blair in reference to Israel’s planned annexation of the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley in contravention of international law.

During the interview Blair said that he had spent the last few years working on strengthening ties between Israel and the Gulf states, which he said was not purely a “security relationship”.

“Yes it’s true they both have security interests in common.  They are both worried about Iran,” said Blair before explaining a new, emerging leadership in the region found common alliance with Israel. “That is the single biggest game-changer for the Middle East,” Blair argued.

Blair’s term as the Middle East envoy has been heavily criticised, and this latest remark is likely to be further confirmation that the former prime minister, who many consider to be a war criminal over his role in the invasion of Iraq, was never interested in seeking justice for the Palestinians.

Critics accuse Blair of constantly pandering to the wishes of Israel. In one instance Palestinian officials said: “Tony Blair shouldn’t take it personally, but he should pack up his desk at the Office of the Quartet Representative in Jerusalem and go home,” adding his job, and the body he represents, are “useless, useless, useless”.

June 3, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Annexation, War, Liberation

By Taxi | Plato’s Guns | June 3, 2020

Nothing sends chills down the spine of Israel more than the mere mention of the name ‘Hezbollah’. Nothing, no superpower nor hurtling supernova petrifies Israel more than the existence of Hezbollah’s muscle and missile at its doorstep.  Israel does not fear Egypt; it does not fear Jordan or Syria or even faraway Iran, but, it is indeed absolutely and positively petrified of little Lebanon with its uncontested resistance army: the Hezbollah. And this deep-seated pathological fear has found much gory and exuberant expression since the Israeli military was soundly defeated by Hezbollah back in 2006. Every single Israeli military project right across the Middle East since 2006 has been about defeating Hezbollah and stopping the spread of its popular resistor-culture. And evidently, every Israeli attempt to achieve this for the past decade and a half has flatly failed.

Unable to best Hezbollah’s spectacular performance on the battlefield, unable to also access any consequential Intel on Hezbollah’s brains and brawn, and moreover, unable to ignite a sectarian civil war in Lebanon after numerous attempts over the years, a humiliated Israel resorted to engineering, through American hands and influence, the unleashing of an army of  terrorist Takfiris on Syria: Damascus being the main artery of support from Tehran to Hezbollah in Lebanon. One could say that Syria was attacked by an army of head-choppers because Hezbophobic Israel could not directly retaliate against a victorious Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Israeli master plan here was to cut off Hezbollah from Syria, thereby from its Iranian sponsor, and to flood both Levantean nations with Takfiri terrorists, thus specifically busying Hezbollah’s hands while the Israeli military “attacked it from the back”. Yet, alas for the Israelis, this diabolical plan to defeat or weaken the Hezbollah has only produced the opposite results for Tel Aviv. Syria, though severely damaged, still stands and remains a main artery of Iranian support to Hezbollah, and Hezbollah itself has increased its wholesale military and geopolitical powers even further. Now Hezbollah possesses an even larger stockpile of sophisticated missiles pointing at Tel Aviv and at everywhere else of vital value in Israel proper. Presently, there is not a single inch of Israel that’s not in Hezbollah’s cross-hairs. The Israeli military’s top brass know only too well that Hezbollah will most certainly use these missiles on Israel if provoked, or, indeed when a wider regional war is ignited. And this is precisely what is causing an incurable insomnia to both Israel’s military architects, as well as to all its Judeo-centric allies in the West: all flaccidly scrambling to find ways to assist a geopolitically cornered Israel.

But, dear reader, there is also another issue that Israel equally fears and loses much sleep over. A fear that has rattled Israel’s shadowy bones since the Palestinian Nakba back in 1948. An old, old fear. A terrorizing fear that Tel Aviv has somewhat succeeded at camouflaging and suppressing from the public eye and ear with the help of its propaganda arm in Western media.

This primordial Israeli fear, this mortifying bugaboo is known as the Palestinian ‘Right of Return’.

If Israel were to describe its perpetual nightmare, it would be one where Palestinian refugees are at the three land borders of the Holy land and pouring back into their ancestral territory in their millions.

This is your standard Israeli tableau of horror.

This is the very scenario that Israel fears the most. This, and of course, Hezbollah’s missiles raining on Tel Aviv and Haifa and Eilat and Dimona and every single illegal Israeli settlement and post.

Realistically, it is impossible to imagine Palestinian refugees returning to their homelands without Resistance missiles first clearing the path for them. And this, dear reader, this very combination of missiles raining and refugees returning is THE absolute and ultimate Israeli tableau of horror.

Presently finding itself in an intractable geopolitical pit of despair, and with all its plans against its Resistor enemies having thus failed since 2006, all that Israel can now achieve is easy land-grabs and annexations inside of occupied Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in the Jordan Valley: all areas already under Israeli control. Considered criminal and illegal by International Law, these imminent annexation maneuvers are justified by Tel Aviv as part and parcel of the dictates and content of the Deal of the Century: a unilateral Israeli-centric deal that not a single Palestinian the world over has accepted – not one!  In fact, it appears to be the case that the rejection of the Deal of the Century is the only issue that all Palestinians agree on. This is because fundamentally, the Deal demands the total cancellation of the Right of Return of Palestinian war refugees back to their ancestral villages and lands. No Palestinian would ever accept this condition.

Moreover, the Palestinians see an existential threat that’s writ in invisible ink between the lines of the Deal.  They see Tel Aviv’s nefarious second stage of the Deal: they see the illegal mass transfer of all Palestinians out of Historic Palestine, including the eviction of the Palestinian ’48-ers who hold Israeli passports, should the Palestinians break out into a Third Intifada and physically rebel against the Deal when it’s actually being implemented on the ground. Presently, the visible parts of the Deal of the Century are being promoted by Israel and her global media agents and politicians. The invisible part of the Deal will undoubtedly follow because the Israelis already know that the Deal will be rejected by the Palestinians and they have already prepared for this rebellion: mass and total ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Historic Palestine. The big move. The breathtaking move. The wettest dream for the terrorist invader Jews currently occupying Historic Palestine. The ruling Ashkenazim Jews of Europe have long been dreaming of this – nay they have orchestrated numerous wars including WWI, WWII, the Bolshevik Revolution and numerous wars against the Arabs just to realize this blood-splattered Jewish dream. Engineered the mass murder of some 170 million non-Jews just to enable them entrance into Historic Palestine, which they achieved in 1948. And since then, Israel’s Jews have been on the final leg of their grand mission of taking over the whole of Historic Palestine: using inhumane and incessant brutality, periodical mass murder and expulsion of the native Palestinians.  In effect, a full-on genocide committed sneakily and incrementally for some 72 years now.

In other words, the Deal of the Century is but a massive land-grab facilitator and the prelude to Israel’s ‘Final Solution’ to their Palestinian problem: atrocious mass murders and absolute ethnic cleansing right across the board.

We all already know that Palestinians are not waiting on Abbas to rescue them from the lethal Deal, despite him recently cancelling Oslo as well as all security cooperation with the Jewish state. Palestinians are not waiting on any specific Arab state either, or on the international community to rescue them and their rich heritage and history. But Palestinians presently are indeed en mass looking to the Axis of Resistance for salvage and liberation.

So what can the Axis of Resistance do for them? How will it react to the Deal? What does it have planned to counter the implementation of the Deal that Netanyahu has promised to begin applying on July 1st, 2020?

The answer to this must be the closest held secret in the universe. But, let us, however, look at their options – and they do have several options, bar one: surrender. There will be no surrender to the Deal of the Century.

Obviously, non-surrender implies war. And so it is. The only question remaining therefore is ‘when’. Who controls the timing of an imminent war? Here, consider if you may, that the side that’s positively ready for war and sacrifice is not concerned with who fires the first bullet and at what hour of day, but how to go to war and win it with least casualties to their side. With this firmly in mind, let us then look at the options available to the Axis of Resistance and their assured response to Israel’s imminent annexation plans.

Option one: Upon Israel’s implementation of the first stage of annexation, the Resistance could conceivably go into immediate war with the state of Israel and its allies. A war where Israel will have to simultaneously defend itself on multiple fronts. Defend itself within against Palestinians in Gaza AND the West Bank: both sectors now fully armed by Iran and trained by Hezbollah. And defend itself without against its closest neighbors of Syria and Lebanon – and very plausibly against an incensed-by-Israel Jordan and Egypt too – as well as with Israel’s faraway regional enemies of Iran, Iraq and Yemen (including hundreds of thousands of trained volunteer fighters from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Malaysia). This means a regional war which the USA, UK and France (possibly other NATO nations too) will all jump into, either directly or indirectly, thus dragging Russia and China, either directly or indirectly, into a massive Mideastern power-grab confrontation: the eastern rising giants of China and Russia here geostrategically compelled and obliged to assist their mega assets-hosting nations of Syria and Iran. This option is a turbulent and bloody one that would lead to untold human and material losses, as well as needing much time and conferencing to negotiate a post-war disentanglement between a multitude of nations, all gridlocked in a foreign territory. Yet, despite the hectic burdens of this option, the Axis of Resistance’s sacrifices will still lead to victory for the Resistance as they have all the needed weapons to completely destroy a tiny Israel in a handful of days, and this despite the destructive hits they may suffer from Tel Aviv and its powerful allies. It’s a brutal ‘sooner than later’ liberation of Palestine and the eviction of Israeli and Western colonialists projects in the region. In this regard, we could say that the price for ‘instant liberation’ is the highest.

Option two:  Wait for the Israelis to commit their usual and predictable atrocities against the rebelling Palestinian civilians – wait for massive global outrage then enter into warfare while riding the moral high ground and the coattails of massive global support for justice for the Palestinians. This option probably has the best optics: a war to save six million long-suffering Palestinian civilians from a rabidly racist, sadistic and genocidal occupier. A righteous war that aims to bring justice and freedom to the archetypal victim. The global masses will resonate with such an emotive narrative, and Western nations under the spell of Zionism would be hindered here from giving full or prolonged support to Israel on account of public opinion at home being massively against it. This option is costly on both civilian and armed Resistor, but not as costly as the first one.

Option three: Knowing that Israel is a coward who tiptoes hunchbacked in the shadows; knowing too that Israel would not dare implement ALL its annexation plans at once and overnight, but instead, it will implement them incrementally and with unsteady hands: knowing all this, the Axis of Resistance may very well decide to hold back on any immediate explosive reaction to the annexation; let time pass and remain coiled and ready: hold back and just wait for the US Empire to weaken even further before entering into a direct liberation war with Israel. The equation here being a weakened US equals a severely, nay fatally handicapped Israel. And let us all be very clear here that it is the United States’ military protection of Israel that puts oxygen into Israel’s lungs. Without America’s military support to Israel, the Resistance could easily take on the Israeli army and defeat it and liberate the whole of Palestine today: right this very second, in fact. This is not bravado, but sourced information. It is only American military power and this alone that stands in the way of liberating Palestine. Simply, Israel is currently incapable of defending itself against the Axis of Resistance, despite its stockpile of illegal nukes and its hi-tech American defensive weaponry, gifted to Tel Aviv through the corrupt fleecing of the American taxpayer by DC politicians. This option will cost less lives than the two above.

Option four: Post-annexation, allow for Jewish Apartheid to massively flourish for several years, thus allowing for Israeli society itself to further disintegrate its democracy internally and become an abhorrent and much hated racist, rogue nation in the eyes of the globe, with barely any support for it possible even by its traditional European allies. This method is known as ‘forcing the snake to eat its own tail’, thus eventually, through a self-defeating Apartheid system, swallowing up its own deflated shekel and body politik: eventually strangling itself with its own masticating mouth; leading thus to its political disintegration a-la the South African model in the 1980’s – a model that saw the natives overnight reclaiming their rightful territories without having to resort to mass bloodshed and all out war with the tyrannical ruling colonialists. This option will cost less lives for Resistance fighters but needs much civilian sacrifice, as indeed, the punitive Jewish occupiers will in the meantime unleash horrendous levels of violence against the increasingly restless native civilians.

Option five: Now, this here is an interesting option, an option that Hassan Nasrallah spoke of only last week. In a two and a half hour interview he gave to Al-Nour Radio, Nasrallah parsed various war issues and suggested for the first time ever the plausibility that Israelis, upon realizing in the near future that their American Empire protector is too weakened internally and externally and therefore unable to war any further on their behalf, and Tel Aviv also already knowing that an existential war with the Axis of Resistance would lead to a mass death of Jews and the utter destruction of Tel Aviv: these two sobering realizations will force it into radical withdrawal from the holy land altogether. In other words, facing sure material devastation and mass loss of Jewish life in the coming war, Israeli state architects would have no other smart option but to pack up suitcases and simply leave the holy land in peace before a lethal war is imposed on them by the Resistance. Indeed, the Axis of Resistance would most certainly take full advantage of America’s incapacitation and inability to protect Tel Aviv and activate thus their Liberation War. Just up and leave sans war is what Nasrallah is suggesting here. An astonishing yet plausible scenario. A scenario that is suddenly made more plausible by the rapid and palpable decline of American hegemony around the world, as well as the current disintegration of America’s society that we’ve all recently witnessed on the streets of half the existing American states: violent protests that the belligerent American security apparatus will find impossible to contain and control 100% and indefinitely, regardless of who is president.  Protests that will keep waxing and waning till either the corrupt bi-partisan Status Quo itself surrenders and a new and more humane and equitable one takes its place, or, all out civil war breaks out in the United States of America: thus bringing with it proof positive that the American Empire has indeed fallen and its Republic now drowns in blood and chaos. That aside, the devastating affects of COVID-19 on the American military cannot be understated here either. Many of its bases are under COVID-19 restraints and presently, the US Navy has 26 of its navy warships under Covid-19 quarantine, thus leaving only two war-ready ships in the Middle East. And this, dear reader, is the major reason why the US did not, in fact could not challenge the Iranian vessels transporting fuel to Venezuela, despite an aggressive naval blockade against Caracas. This ‘suitcase’ option that Nasrallah spoke of is, of course, the most desired by the Axis of Resistance as it will be the least costly to its civilians and fighters. Of course, the death of an Empire does not occur overnight and this option requires extreme vigilance and exceptional patience on behalf of the Axis of Resistance. Two attributes that fortunately the Axis of Resistance is well-practiced in. And by the gauge of recent headlines on America’s speedy decline internally and externally, it would seem to be the case that the Empire’s fall will not occur in faraway decades, but in the near to medium future, meaning: inside of half a decade.

Dear reader, any of the above options will work to liberate Palestine and the region from all foreign control and abuse. There is not even the slightest glimmer of doubt about this in the minds of the Resistance strategists whatsoever. It is the cost of various options and paths to liberation that the leaders of the Resistance currently pontificate upon, not their military readiness or capability. This is the current status of the Axis of Resistance. And the option that will eventually be chosen will be dependent on the challenges that the US and Israel will throw at it in the meantime. Not forgetting here of course that the Masada-ists in Israel may very well panic in the meantime and reflexively and foolishly play a wild card out of dire, pathological fright: out of profound morbid fear of Resistance missiles clearing the way for the Right of Return.  Their desperate fear and terror may very well drive them to miscalculate and choose a fight-to-death ‘today instead of tomorrow’, knowing that tomorrow Israel will be weaker than today. This would be the worst option for Israel as this will guarantee massive loss of life for them.

Whichever way the future wind blows in the Levant, all options and wild cards will lead to the liberation of Palestine. This we can be certain of: the death of Israel. Death at the heels of the fall of the American Empire.

The world will be forever changed with the coming momentous victory for the Axis of Resistance. And the countdown to victory begins… with Israel’s intended annexation on the 1st July, 2020.

June 3, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bigoted Cops and the Drug War

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | June 3, 2020

If Americans want to diminish racial bigotry in police departments across the country, the best way to start is by legalizing drugs, all of them. That would bring an end to the legal opportunity that bigoted cops have in the enforcement of drug laws against blacks.

I’m not saying that all cops are racial bigots. We all know that they’re not. But we also know that some of them are. And the drug war permits them to exercise their racial bigotry to their heart’s content — and even get praised and thanked for their service while doing so.

After all, let’s face it: there are racial bigots in society, and there will always be racial bigots in society. Anyone who thinks he is going to wipe out racial bigotry through “education” and “enlightenment” is living in la la land.

When someone engages in racial bigotry on a private level, he is subject to private and peaceful retaliatory measures, such as loss of sales if he is a business owner or the loss of a job if he is an employee. He is also subject to criticism and social ostracism. The free society makes the bigot bear an economic and social penalty for his bigotry, which might well nudge, not force, him into better behavior.

It’s totally different with drug laws. They have converted police departments into magnets for racial bigots. With the drug war, cops are empowered to stop blacks arbitrarily and subject them to abusive interrogations and intrusive, demeaning, and oftentimes violent searches and seizures of their persons, automobiles, and homes.

As long as they are “searching for drugs,” it’s all okay. No loss of sales. No loss of job. No public criticism. No social ostracism. Hey, they are helping cleanse our society of illegal drugs! They’re considered heroes! People praise them for their courage and thank them for their service.

That includes many judges, some of whom do not hesitate to mete out extraordinarily long jail sentences to blacks. A good example is a black man in North Carolina named Michael Holmes who has now served some 30 years of a 200-year jail sentence for a non-violent drug offense. There are thousands more like him.

The drug war also provides bigoted cops with the perfect opportunity to frame blacks for drug offenses by planting drugs on them or by simply lying about drug transactions. As prosecutors ask jurors, “Who are you going to believe — this upstanding (white) police officer who is simply trying to keep drugs from reaching your children or this (black) defendant who obviously has a motive to lie?” The false and fraudulent arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and harsh jail sentences meted out to dozens of innocent blacks in Tulia, Texas, several years ago is just one example of this phenomenon.

The noted academician Michelle Alexander rightly calls the drug war the new Jim Crow. It gives bigoted cops a license to do what bigoted cops did during the days of racial segregation. In fact, the drug war is without a doubt the most racially bigoted government program since segregation.

The legalization of drugs would, of course, not end racial bigotry in society. But it would end the opportunity that drug laws have given cops to legally exercise racial bigotry. Unable to exercise their bigotry legally through the enforcement of the drug war, police departments would no longer serve as a magnet for racial bigots. Those who are already cops would begin drifting back into the private sector where they would be nudged toward more appropriate behavior with such things as boycotts, criticism, and social ostracism rather than praised and thanked for their bigoted enforcement of the drug war.

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics.

June 3, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | Leave a comment

America masterminded ‘color revolutions’ around the world. Now the very same techniques are being used at home

By Nebojsa Malic | RT | June 2, 2020

Peaceful protests degenerating into riots and arson, followed by violence, clashes with police and political demands for regime change: today’s America, or what happened in Ukraine, North Africa and Serbia – or both?

How Americans view the events of the past week greatly depends on their political persuasion, media preferences and to large extent even ethnic identity. This is hardly the first death of an African-American man at the hands of police, nor the first time a peaceful protest turned violent and resulted in a city on fire. It is, however, the first Black Lives Matter protest that spread all over – and quickly gained an openly political, partisan dimension.

That ought to be baffling. The four officers involved in George Floyd’s death were fired almost immediately, rather than suspended with pay pending investigation. One of them was charged with murder just days later. Conservatives and liberals alike agreed that Floyd was murdered and that the men responsible should face justice. Yet the riots started, and spread, anyway.

The brief moment of unity in outrage could have resulted in healing the racial fault lines in the US. Instead, the already polarized political climate became divided more sharply than ever, with Republicans criticizing President Donald Trump for not cracking down on the riots fast and hard enough, while Democrats denounced him for responding at all, claiming that there were no riots really and Trump was just “declaring war on the American people.”

Could the clues to why this is happening lie beyond America’s borders? In December 2010, a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire and died after tax police confiscated his unlicensed stall. Within days, there were demonstrations. Within a month, the country’s president of 23 years was overthrown and exiled. Similar rebellions broke out in Libya, Egypt, Syria… It was dubbed the “Arab Spring.”

In November 2013, thousands of demonstrators gathered on Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) in Kiev, Ukraine, protesting the government’s decision to reject a trade deal with the European Union. Attempts by police to clear them out resulted in clashes with armed protesters, and eventually a firefight – where snipers allegedly loyal to the government opened fire on the crowd. Finally, in January 2014, violent protesters stormed the government offices and declared themselves in charge.

The 2014 “Euromaidan” – fully endorsed by the US – was a far more violent iteration of the “Orange Revolution” from ten years earlier, when sympathizers of an opposition coalition refused to accept the results of an election and forced the government to hold another one.

“US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,” proclaimed a Guardian headline from November 26, 2004. “The operation – engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience – is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people’s elections,” the article beneath it said, adding it was “first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000.”

While the Western media painted the events in Serbia as a spontaneous revolt against a hated dictator, they also revealed that the protesters were funded by “suitcases of cash” smuggled across the border by US diplomats and NGOs, and that the entire thing was led by a handful of activists, trained by the National Endowment for Democracy in neighboring Hungary, using a manual written by Gene Sharp, a US scholar.

Claiming the government had stolen an election, the “revolutionaries” first seized the national TV station, then set the parliament on fire –  conveniently destroying any evidence that could disprove their claim they had won – and appealed to police and the military to join them. With security forces unwilling to engage in bloodshed, President Slobodan Milosevic stepped down.

The whole operation was accompanied by a slick marketing campaign, featuring graffiti, t-shirts, posters and banners, all emblazoned with a stenciled fist. The fist would become an all-too familiar sight over the next two decades, and the formula packaged as “color revolution” and taken on the road by US-trained activists.

Most recently, the scenario played itself out in Bolivia (successfully), Venezuela (not) and Hong Kong, where “pro-democracy” protests against an extradition bill lasted long after it was withdrawn.

Interestingly, the Hong Kong protests were embraced by the progressive firebrands such as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her ‘Squad,’ calling for something similar at home, against Trump.

“Marginalized” communities have “no choice but to riot,” Ocasio-Cortez said on a radio program in July 2019, adding that she meant “communities of poverty” in the US, as well as around the world. That was long before Covid-19 killed more than 100,000 Americans and lockdowns imposed to stop it cost 40 million Americans their jobs. Long before George Floyd.

It’s hardly surprising that Trump is now getting blamed for Floyd, even though Minneapolis and Minnesota are both run by Democrats. He was also blamed for the coronavirus, by the very Democrat governors that insisted on harsh lockdowns, and congressional Democrats who held aid hostage. The people doing the blaming insisted for years that ‘Russiagate’ was real, too. Now they blame Trump for responding to the riots – sorry, “peaceful protests” – by sending in the military. Hence the shock when rioters in Atlanta went after the CNN headquarters.

Meanwhile, as cities across America burn, it’s a fundraising windfall for Democrats – says the New York Times, of all outlets.

The thing about color revolutions is that they follow a script. Find a legitimate grievance and piggyback onto it. Ask the police and the military to join the protests. If they don’t, escalate into riots to provoke a forceful response to create martyrs. Optics are key; everything useful to the cause has to be captured on camera, and anything inconvenient memory-holed. Media are the most important ally. The endgame is not reform, or fairness, or justice, but regime change – physical removal of the “tyrannical dictator violating human rights” from office.

“A color revolution can’t happen in America, because there’s no US embassy there,” went the grim joke in Serbia after disappointment with the astroturf revolt of October 5, 2000 set in. Well, guess that settles it, then. Any similarities between the current situation in the US and dozens of other countries over the past 20 years must be purely coincidental and not at all relevant or significant in any way.

Nothing to see here, move along – and make sure you don’t step on the broken glass on your way home for the curfew. Remember to wear your mask to protect from the coronavirus as well as smoke and tear gas. Everything’s fine. It really can’t happen here…

Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Twitter @NebojsaMalic

June 3, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Israelis Trained the Minnesota Cop How to Kill

By Paul Craig Roberts | Institute For Political Economy | June 2, 2020

Precisely as I reported Minnesota police received Israeli training. The knee-on-neck is an Israeli restraint hold that Israeli forces use for breaking Palestinian necks. I doubt the Minneapolis cop intended to kill Floyd. He probably thought he was just using a restraint technique. In so many of the cases of police-inflicted death and injury there is no need for restraint. People are not resisting. Maybe the cops just want to practice their training.

Another main cause of police-inflicted death and injury are the middle of the night home invasions, sanctioned by courts and local authorities. There is absolutely no reason for these invasions. They are nothing but murder weapons.

The real murderers of George Floyd were the Israelis who taught the Minnesota cops the knee-on-neck restraint technique. The irresponsible court rulings that permit unannounced home invasions have also killed a lot of people. The police have been turned into killers by their absurd and inappropriate training. The cop will pay the price for his wrongful training just as did George Floyd.

It is pure idiocy to let those responsible for these practices off the hook and to run around shouting “racism.” Knee-on-neck is a restraint technique taught to the police. It is not racism. The technique should not have been taught to American police, and people who are not resisting should not be restrained. George Floyd died because of wrongful police training, not because of racism.

June 3, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Minnesota cops ‘trained by Israeli forces in restraint techniques’

Israeli police officers detain a Palestinian protestor on March 12, 2019.
By Jon Collins  – Morning Star– June 1, 2020

Officers from the US police force responsible for the killing of George Floyd received training in restraint techniques and anti-terror tactics from Israeli law-enforcement officers.

Mr Floyd’s death in custody last Monday, the latest in a succession of police killings of African Americans, has sparked continuing protests and rioting in US cities.

At least 100 Minnesota police officers attended a 2012 conference* hosted by the Israeli consulate in Chicago, the second time such an event had been held.

There they learned the violent techniques used by Israeli forces as they terrorise the occupied Palestinian territories under the guise of security operations.

The so-called counterterrorism training conference in Minneapolis was jointly hosted by the FBI.

Israeli deputy consul Shahar Arieli claimed that the half-day session brought “top-notch professionals from the Israeli police” to share knowledge with their US counterparts.

It is unclear whether any of the officers involved in the incident in which Mr Floyd was killed attended the conference.

Israeli forces broke necks

But in a chilling testimony, a Palestinian rights activist said that when she saw the image of Derek Chauvin kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck, she was reminded of the Israeli forces’ policing of the occupied territories.

Neta Golan, the co-founder of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) said: “When I saw the picture of killer cop Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd by leaning in on his neck with his knee as he cried for help and other cops watched, I remembered noticing when many Israeli soldiers began using this technique of leaning in on our chest and necks when we were protesting in the West Bank sometime in 2006.

“They started twisting and breaking fingers in a particular way around the same time. It was clear they had undergone training for this. They continue to use these tactics — two of my friends have had their necks broken but luckily survived — and it is clear that they [Israel] share these methods when they train police forces abroad in ‘crowd control’ in the US and other countries including Sudan and Brazil.”

Israeli training of US police is widespread

The training of US police officials by Israeli forces is widespread.

Even Amnesty was compelled to report that hundreds of police from Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington state and Washington DC had been flown to Israeli for training.

Thousands more have been trained by Israeli forces who have come to the US to host similar events to the one held in Minneapolis. According to the somewhat selective rights organisation, many of these trips are taxpayer-funded, while others are privately funded.

Since 2002 the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs have paid for police chiefs, assistant chiefs and captains to train in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), it said.

The Minneapolis Police Department was contacted for comment.

*(embedded links added by If Americans Knew)

[IAK notes: Anoka County (north Minneapolis region) Sheriff James Stuart traveled to Israel last December for a similar training.]

June 2, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Are we about to see a Colour Revolution in the United States?

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | June 2, 2020

It started with peaceful protests. It always does. Oppressed, poor or otherwise desperate people take to the streets because they don’t know what else to do. Because their neighbours are doing it. Because the world is unfair to so many people. Because attention should be paid.

The reasons don’t matter. The peacefulness does.

Nobody who is marching for justice and change really wants to burn down a bakery or steal some trainers from a Nike store.

But then it starts happening.

Windows are broken. Bricks are thrown. Civilians are sprayed with mace. Bystanders are caught up in the throng. People get hurt.

It doesn’t need to happen, but it does.

Sometimes police panic in the face of intimidating crowds. Sometimes protesters let their anger boil over. A small minority of people just enjoy violence and chaos. Others stand to benefit from it, they stoke conflict and spread blame.

Then the molotov cocktails are flying and the snipers are shooting people on both sides. There’s blood in the streets and barricades are going up and the whole thing has its own momentum.

And, through all this, the media is churning out the noise. Partisan and dehumanising. “criminals” on one side “Fascists” on the other. Both sides are called thugs. Fox News and CNN tell the same stories with reversed points of view, slashing society down the centre.

And the chaos builds. The President has to do something, so he calls in the army.

Now the press are calling him a fascist and a dictator. They say he’s violated his office and he has to resign or be removed or be arrested.

I’m not talking about the United States.

I’m talking about Ukraine in 2014. Or Egypt and Syria in 2011. Or Libya in 2010. Or Bolivia just last winter. Or Venezuela every year for decades.

If the events currently unfolding in cities across the United States were happening in any other country in the world, a lot of us would already have said that the US Deep State was behind it. All the hallmarks are there.

The constructed narratives. The handy props. The agents provocateur. The hysterical media. The stench of agenda.

Consider, for a moment, that what is happening in Minneapolis and New York and Los Angeles has been happening in Paris and a host of other French cities for nearly two years.

The Guardian never called Macron a fascist. CNN never had a live stream about that.

Compare the coverage of the Gilets Jaunes to Black Lives Matter, and then to the Maidan protests.

The rubber bullets and tear gas are the same. The headlines are not.

CNN has one host calling Trump a “thug” who’s “hiding in his bunker”, and another saying “Trump declared war on Americans”. Robert Reich, writing in the Guardian, says:

[Trump] is no longer president. The sooner we stop treating him as if he were, the better.

The Washington Post has an op-ed headlined:

Trump must be removed. So must his congressional enablers.

Slate magazine:

Remove Trump Now

The corporations are all on board. Every one of them releasing statements of solidarity and heartfelt Instagram posts and sending money to all the right places. Nike had their famous ad.

Because the same companies paying slave-wages to 10-year-old Indonesian kids in vast sweatshops just hate racism and inequality, honest.

We’ve seen this before, haven’t we? Doesn’t this look like a play for an exchange of power? A colour revolution in the offing?

I suppose we should ask “why now?” Trump is up for re-election in just five months after all. Biden doesn’t really stand a chance, but they could have him suffer “ill health” and pull out, replace him with a Harris or a Warren or Michelle Obama. Hell, they could just rig it. They’ve done it before.

But then maybe it’s not about Trump per se, maybe it’s about the process of elections and the office of President in general. Maybe it’s about getting martial law in place well before the Covid19 backlash kicks in. Maybe there’s something else coming down the pipe that will make it clearer.

Supposing the plan is to get rid of Trump, what happens next?

Well, maybe one of a few things.

Firstly, it’s possible it all just dies down. But if 2020 has taught us anything it’s that the Deep State doesn’t fold a bad hand, they just up the ante and hope to bluff it out.

Second, there’s the possibility Trump introduces full-on martial law and becomes a quasi-dictator. While I’m sure he has no moral compunctions about that, it’s hard to see he would have the (vital) support of the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies in that endeavour. They’ve shown their colours throughout the last four years. However useful Trump has been, he is not an insider and he is entirely disposable.

Third, and final, Trump goes. Whether there’s an impeachment or a trial or an early election or a civil war… I don’t know. But it’s hard to see Trump weathering this storm.

If I had to guess, I’d say the protests and pressures mount until Trump does something stupid. If he makes any Yanukovych-style attempts at appeasement (he probably won’t), they will be ignored or minimised or the goalposts will be moved (we already saw that, when the arrest of Derek Chauvin went almost totally unnoticed).

If soldiers fire on civilians – whether Trump orders it or not, or whether mercenaries frame the army (like in Ukraine) – that will be it. The military will resign en masse, turn on Trump and he will be ousted.

From there could emerge an appointed “temporary” President, a middle-of-the-road type with support from both parties, whose job is to “unify the country” and “heal the divides”.

The emergence of a totally unelected President will, of course, be called something like “a triumph of the democratic spirit” in The Guardian.

The riots will be blamed for a constructed “second wave” of Covid19. Just in time for one of the new POTUS’ first announcements to be that “America will start taking Covid19 seriously”. Stronger lockdown rules, mandatory track-and-trace… the full Monty.

This will naturally earn him/her good-boy points all across the mainstream media, with the (totally accidental) bonus that anyone who dares protest the coup will be breaking the law, being selfish and risking lives (and probably a racist).

This is all just my supposition. I could be wrong, I hope I’m wrong. But I can see it heading in that direction. And the idea should worry everyone. Not out of any latent concern for Donald Trump, obviously. Just for the stability of the world. Coups or impeachments or other non-democratic power-changes are not good. They don’t end well.

They don’t end well for the leaders being removed, who almost universally end up exiled or hanged or poisoned or shot. Sometimes worse.

More importantly, they don’t end well for the ordinary people, who always suffer when the Deep State turns society on its head.

And, in this instance, it may not end well for the world, which suddenly has a nuclear-armed superpower in a severe state of flux to worry about.

We should all be concerned.

There’s an old joke:

Q: Why has there never been a military coup in the United States?

A: Because there’s no American Embassy there.

It looks like maybe that no longer applies.

June 2, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

GCHQ propagandizing kids as young as four in secretive school ‘educational’ programs aimed at recruitment

RT | June 2, 2020

Britain’s GCHQ spy agency is running secretive “educational” programs in dozens of schools and disseminating propaganda to children as young as four years old, without the knowledge of parents, it’s been revealed.

The intelligence agency is running the programs in at least 40 schools with access to 22,000 children who are potentially being spied on, according to an investigation by Declassified UK.

According to the investigative website, GCHQ officers themselves are operating in at least one of the schools and parents of the pupils involved have not been made aware of the extent of the spy agency’s role in the so-called Cyber Schools Hub (CSH) programs also known as ‘CyberFirst’.

GCHQ publicly describes the programs as giving children between the ages of 11 and 17 the chance to experience “new ways of learning” in an “innovative cyber environment” and aims to use the school activities to help recruit kids for the cyber security industry.

Yet, Declassified revealed that the efforts have now expanded into primary schools where GCHQ has access to children as young as four years old – and that while the program literature states it is operational in 23 schools, it is actually running in nearly double that number – 10 of which are primary schools.

One of the primary school level “code clubs” is in fact staffed “entirely” by officers from GCHQ. The agency gains access to schools by offering to provide technology to local libraries and “recruitment teams” field enquiries from schools interested in being part of the program, the website said.

More disturbingly, the investigation revealed, local police worked with GCHQ on a “joint tag team event” to gain access to a student who had been reported to authorities as “very talented” by teachers who were worried he may be about to “cross the line” with his cyber activities – though there was no evidence that the child had done anything wrong.

The revelations about GCHQ’s activities in British schools are unsurprising considering US whistleblower Edward Snowden had previously revealed that one of the spy agency’s “top objectives” was to target children and create a “reporting service on radicalisation.”

Children are told that GCHQ, which conducts unlawful mass surveillance, according to the European Court of Human Rights, is the “heart of the nation’s security” system and has “saved countless lives.”

Asked what information was given to parents about the taxpayer-funded program, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) told Declassified it had “no contact with parents” and that what teachers share with parents is up to them.

Declassified UK was rebuffed by both GCHQ and the schools themselves when trying to glean more information about the projects, with both citing “national security exemptions” in order to block freedom of information requests.

The spy agency is attempting to “drip-feed” children with messages aimed at recruiting them for the field over time, Jen Persson, director of Defend Digital Me, told Declassified.

“There is regulation in other areas to protect [children] from undue adult influence, like online advertising – yet it sounds like spies can walk into schools whenever they want with no transparency or independent oversight,” Persson said.

GCHQ has posted “comments” from children on social media apparently praising the program as “the best thing EVER,” “fabulous” and “masses of fun” – but some of these quotes are seemingly made up.

A newsletter on an event for girls includes an alleged quote from Ella and Chloe in Year 8 (12-13 years old) expressing the need for “diversity in perspectives, leadership and experience.” Aside from “sounding more like language used by GCHQ media relations,” Declassified found that the same quote is attributed to 13-year-old Evie in another CSH blog post. Asked about this curious detail, NCSC told the website that teachers provide the quotes from students.

During an unannounced visit to a GCHQ “hub school,” one principal told Declassified that the program has brought his school no investment or new facilities but has simply made the school put more of a focus on cyber security.

Following a “successful” pilot phase in England, the government is now planning to expand the GCHQ program across the whole UK.

June 2, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

‘Wanton thuggery’: Outraged Australia to probe US police attack on its journalists covering White House protest

Police aim at Reuters TV cameraman during unrest in Minneapolis. © Reuters / Julio Cesar-Chavez
RT | June 2, 2020

The Australian embassy in Washington, DC will investigate an apparent assault by the US police against two Aussie journalists. The pair were roughed up live on air while covering a protest outside the White House.

A crew working for the outlet 7News was targeted on Tuesday while reporting from a demonstration in the US capital against police brutality. Correspondent Amelia Brace and cameraman Tim Myers were battered as the police cleared a protesting crowd, footage of the incident showed. Brace was hit with a baton, while Myers was attacked with a riot shield.

“We have asked the Australian embassy in Washington, DC to investigate this incident,” Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Tuesday, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded an investigation into the alleged assault. “I want to get further advice on how we would go about registering Australia’s strong concerns with the responsible local authorities in Washington,” she added.

Craig McPherson, Seven Network’s Director of News and Public Affairs, in turn, said, it was “nothing short of wanton thuggery.”

“They weren’t in anyone’s way – just doing their job,” McPherson said, adding that the company will file its own complaints against the police’s behavior, calling the incident “abhorrent.”

Brace, who returned to cover the news after the attack, said the officers’ actions were indiscriminate and they simply didn’t care that he and Myers were members of the media.

What happened to the Australian crew is one of many instances of journalists reporting from protests in the US being caught up in violence and targeted by police officers. Russia has demanded an investigation into an attack by Minneapolis police on a group of reporters, which included a Russian correspondent who was pepper-sprayed.

The US is currently experiencing nationwide protests and rioting over the death of an African American man, George Floyd. He was arrested by Minneapolis police and pinned to the ground, with one officer putting his knee on the man’s neck. An independent autopsy confirmed that Floyd died as a result of being unable to breathe due to their actions.

June 2, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Will Italy be the next country to leave EU?

By Paul Antonopoulos | June 2, 2020

On May 27, the political movement Italia Libera submitted a constitutional bill to the Supreme Court of Cassation demanding a referendum for Italy to leave the EU. After years of discussions, the foundation stone was laid for Italians to debate whether they want to remain in the EU or follow the United Kingdom out of the bloc. The draft bill presented by Italia Libera to the Supreme Court of Cassation is entitled “Call for a referendum on the withdrawal of the state from the European Union.”

Effectively, Italia Libera has demonstrated that it is possible to follow an institutional path to allow citizens to decide whether they want to remain in the EU or not – and for those who want to leave, now is the best time considering the massive decline in popularity for the bloc after their abandonment of Italy when it was at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Gian Luca Proietti Toppi, a lawyer involved in the bill, said that it is necessary to reach ordinary Italians and “open their eyes to the harmful effects of participating in a Union without a soul and based only on finance. It is clear that with the filing of the 50,000 signatures necessary to start the parliamentary process of the proposal, a broad debate will open on the opportunity to exit the cage of the EU and the Euro.”

He continued to explain that “the effects of liberating the old continent from this bureaucratic and oppressive superstructure will certainly be complex to manage. However, Italia Libera, who is the first promoter of the Committee that collected the signatures needed, has already put experts and academics to work to draw up a plan that will secure the savings of Italians and from the debt.”

Although he did not mention the EU’s abandonment of Italy during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, he did emphasize how the bloc financially exploits Italy, just as it does to all of Mediterranean Europe with the exception of France.

There are many positive aspects to the EU, most notably the free movement of people and a coordinated effort to fight crime through Europol, but these multilateral agreements can exist without a European Parliament and domineering institutions based in Brussels and Strasbourg. As Toppi explained, Italy imagined the EU to be “a community of peoples and not of bankers.” It is for this reason that they announced the bill on the same day an unprecedented European Union Recovery Fund became official. This fund was only established because of the backlash received due to the bloc’s initial disinterest in assisting already struggling economies of the EU that were being further devastated financially by the pandemic.

With widespread southern European dissatisfaction with how the EU abandoned its supposed liberal ideals, particularly Germany, in favour of serving inward self-interests, bloc leaders are now playing catch up. President of the European Commission and Angela Merkel’s right-hand man in previous German governments, Ursula Von Der Leyen, and the President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, who was also a former member of the Troika of bankers, announced the unprecedented measures to assist Europe through its financial woes. This time they promised real aid that would not completely decimate state structures and entire economies like what happened to Greece, Spain, Portugal, and to a lesser extent Italy, for the entirety of the 2010’s. The Governor of the Bank of Italy expects a 13% drop in GDP in 2020, and for this reason Toppi emphasized that Italy does not need any further indebtedness which will increasingly put Italy in the hands of international speculators.

However, Italians remember that Lagarde announced on March 13, just as coronavirus was truly beginning to overwhelm hospitals, that the pandemic was an Italian problem only. This was the catalyst that saw ordinary Italians begin to remove EU flags from public display and replace them with Russian and Chinese flags in gratitude to the significant assistance that these two countries gave to Italy when it was abandoned by Brussels and Berlin.

An “Italexit” would be a bigger blow to the prestige of the EU then Brexit. Italy, as a G20 country, uses the Eurodollar unlike Britain which maintained currency sovereignty and continued to use the pound. Therefore, to prevent the strong possibility that Italy in the coming years could leave the EU, Brussels and Berlin must take note of its political failures and work to design a new community that has respect for national sovereignty and identity, and on the basis of reciprocity. It is not acceptable that Germany remains the dominant country of the EU and effectively rules over the European Commission, the European Central Banks, the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament.

A Europe free of unscrupulous bankers, self-referential bureaucrats and inadequate politicians is at the forefront of those pushing for their respective countries to exit the EU or call for its reformation. However, for this to be achieved, a major state must lead the charge, and it appears that Italy will take on this mantle and could very well be the first Eurodollar state to leave the EU if drastic reformations are not made. And Italian exit will surely have a domino effect felt all across Europe.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

June 2, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , | Leave a comment

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