Why the Dems Can’t Have Nice Things (Like the White House)
By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | October 10, 2020
Here’s why the Democrats can’t have nice things. Like the White House.
Though by now the media has awarded Biden all 270 electoral votes and taped a transcript of his debate performance on the national refrigerator door, it is unclear Joe Biden really wants to be president. He barely campaigns and usually ends his working day at noon. Since mid-August Biden logged 22 days where he either didn’t make a public campaign appearance (during the same period Trump visited 19 states.) Biden has slept at home every night of the campaign. He has no signature policy initiative. He often appears overwhelmed. He simply presents his waxy self as the embodiment of the empty and depressing strategy of I’m the Lesser of Two Evils and marks off the days until it will all be over.
The Democratic party itself seems to feel much the same way. After four years of complaining Trump is an old white draft dodging man linked to corruption, the best the Dem process could cough up was an even older white draft dodging man linked to corruption. On a rare Biden visit outside his own yard to Charlotte, North Carolina, local organizers only turned out 16 people to meet the candidate. The chairwoman of the African American caucus only learned of the event from TV. Meanwhile, the party insists on its own demographic illusion. Latinos, key in crucial states like Arizona and Florida, have shown less support for Biden than for past Democratic nominees, resistant to a campaign defining them as “people of color.” Some 98 percent of Latinos don’t want to be called “Latinx” even as the Democrats continue to do so pandering to the two percent. Ideology over reality, though it may not matter: 38 percent of Hispanic voters Dem imagine they control in battleground states are ambivalent about voting at all. A Telemundo poll shows 68.7 percent believe Trump won the first presidential debate.
The Dems ignore other demographic bad news. In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin net Democratic registrations are down by 38 percent from 2016. More to the point, registration among whites without college degrees is up 46 percent while registration by people of color is up only four percent. Turnout looks to be in trouble as well; in Wisconsin while 79 percent of black voters participated in the 2012 general election, in 2016 it was down to 47 percent. The risk of low turnout is even greater when one factors in age. About 78 percent of blacks age 60+ are likely to vote, compared to only 29 percent for blacks age 18-29.
Meanwhile, in this final stretch when they should be clawing for every vote, Dems are sending out scattered messages on in-person voting (“You might die of COVID but it’s so important you guys!!!! LOL”) and planning on relying on a 19th century mail in system run by local yokels that works poorly under the best of circumstances. Plan B is to claim the system they told everyone to use didn’t work and the president needs to be selected by Netflix users.
If Democrats really wanted to win some swing states they should have found a way to fix the water in Flint. They might have persuaded Mike Bloomberg instead of buying felons’ votes in Florida to have created the equivalent in new jobs in Ohio. Dems never talked to the voters they needed the most. In fact, quite the opposite. They stomped their feet and held their breath in a four year tantrum and called them racists and haters when unmasked Midwesterners never got appropriately offended by Trump. These people worked hard for what they have only to hear that dismissed as privilege. Dems attack people as much for who they are as what they believe and still expect a vote for Biden. The NYT calls them “the worst of us.” Call them the missing whites on election day.
Democrats also believe their own self-illusion. Instead of understanding social media as a winnowed, mob-enforced minority of confirmational people, Dem strategists believe it all makes a difference. They came to think listening to podcasts, wearing cute #Resistance gear, retweeting and liking, holding Pink Hat marches and flash mobs, making $25 donations to GoFundMes, signing online petitions before going on Etsy to buy snarky t-shirts about vaginas, forwarding propaganda videos from the Lincoln Project, all while talking about NPR in line at Trader Joe’s, matter. All the devices don’t add up to a single vote. It isn’t a barometer, it’s a mirror.
Voting Dem may just be too much of an ask for thinking people. Review the near-endless emotional hemophilia, hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance, and fake news kudzu a Dem voter is asked to ignore. For example, a Trump rally, or a wedding, is a deadly super-spreader event but a BLM rally is not. Schools and businesses are open or closed at the discretion of governors and mayors but Trump is to blame. Demonstrations which devolve into riots are acceptable but a couple of rednecks open carrying at a statehouse is a precursor to civil war. BLM when the killer is a cop, a lot less so when the killer is a black gang member. The new Supreme Court will limit our rights, except if they extend our 2A rights and then more rights are bad. Kids in cages means Nazism but Biden bringing back the Obama national security advisors who created millions of refugees flowing out of Syria and Libya is no matter. Choosing a Supreme “too close” to an election is the end of democracy but Dems promising revenge by adding states, deep-sixing the Electoral College, and packing the court to jam through their own one party eternal majority is not. A Muslim woman in Congress is revered for her adherence to sexist Islamic doctrine but a Catholic woman who honors her spouse is Handmaid’s Tale in Biblical proportions. #BelieveWomen applies to accusers of Republicans but not Democrats. We must have more women in government, except if they’re Republicans. Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, claims he will block any FDA-approved COVID vaccine from his state until his own scientists check it out, fearing a dangerous chemical will be released so that Trump can win the election. We must reawaken our democracy but if you vote for a third party you are working for Putin.
More?
When the stock market was soaring it didn’t matter because most people did not own stock yet when it fell during COVID it was the end of the economy but when it recovered it no longer mattered. None of the desperate warnings of war — Iran, China, North Korea, Venezuela, civil war in America — came to be. No one did anything bad after the embassy moved to Jerusalem or the Iranian agreement ended. All the things which were to disappear — the ACA, Roe, LGBT rights, same sex marriage — did not. Martial law was not declared, though the MSM signaled numerous times they would be OK with a military coup to depose Trump. Puerto Rico did not descend into genocide. Trump did not launch nuclear weapons in a fit of psychosis. The Democrats over and over made insta-heroes of miserable people who then had to be disowned like Michael Avenatti, Michael Cohen, Robert Mueller, James Comey, and every former general who was going to flip and tell all but didn’t. I honestly have no idea anymore if Dr. Fauci is seen as a good guy or a bad guy by Dems. The Democratic party claimed insubordination by government officials is to be honored if it is called #Resistance. We needed to see Trump’s taxes bad enough that it was OK someone stole them and even then the NYT won’t let anyone see the actual documents. Pee tape anyone? And in the final months before the election, the principle Democratic strategy is to claim if Trump wins it was all unfair. Update: the Reichstag is still standing.
How can a thinking person look at all that and conclude “these are the people I want running the country.”
Too many readers will see this article as pro-Trump. Where does it praise Trump? And that’s the last point here. Democrats and the MSM (let’s call it MSDNC) have divorced themselves from earth gravity. The rules of their home planet are any criticism of the party means you love Trump, are a hater, racist, Nazi, Russian or a bot. Inquiry is not allowed, so you must accept the Dossier, Russiagate, Ukraine, whatever crazy story is “reported” by “sources” and vote Biden or else.
Maybe if a little introspection had been allowed amid demands for conformity of thought the Democrat party would not be imploring voters to believe the end justifies the means. Maybe they would not have cried wolf again and again until only the true crazies are still listening. Maybe they would have foregone the public humiliation of the Mueller report and the failed impeachment. Maybe they’d be running a candidate that represented, well, something to vote for. Maybe they would not be so worried their voters will stay home on November 3.
If Trump wins again, it will be safe to say Dems lost this election in 2016 when they failed to see the change the nation wanted, pushed Bernie aside, and demanded we coronate Hillary. That gave Trump his first term. But rather than learn anything in the cold morning and seek redemption, the Dems basically did the same thing in 2020, albeit with the more likeable Joe Biden. But Biden carries most of the same old school baggage, inherits the same wounds of the Obama years, and has that lasting taint of corruption after 47 years in government.
Yes, Joe’ll win the popular vote, the Electoral College are racist cheaters, Mrs. Jones’ ballot was lost in Raleigh, PutinPutinPutin, all a rich gumbo but whenever the end of the day comes, Trump will likely have his second term. More because the Democrats lost than because he won.
Increased Police Killings Linked to Departments Acquiring Pentagon Equipment – Report
By Evan Craighead . Sputnik . 10.10.2020
US police departments taking advantage of the ability to acquire Washington’s surplus military equipment could very well be contributing to unrest and violence in the same communities they are sworn to protect, according to a new analysis.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed on Thursday that data from the US military and police departments nationwide presented a disturbing relationship between police killings and the US Department of Defense’s 1033 program – an initiative that allows everyday law enforcement to acquire surplus equipment designed for war.
“The results paint a troubling picture: The more equipment a department receives, the more people are shot and killed, even after accounting for violent crime, race, income, drug use and population,” wrote AJC’s Chris Joyner and Nick Thieme.
For example, AJC found that in the US state of Georgia, a mere 7% of law enforcement agencies received the free 1033 gear over a 10-year period. At the same time, 17% of the 261 individuals shot and killed by authorities in that time were traced back to those 1033-equipped departments.
“The statistical correlation doesn’t prove that 1033 gear in a police department causes more fatal police shootings, or that those shootings were unjustified, only that there is a strong relationship between the two,” Joyner and Thieme detailed. “The analysis also doesn’t suggest that every department in the 1033 program displays a strong relationship between the number of people killed and the amount of 1033 funding accepted.”
“The cost that we are dealing with now is a highly militarized police force that is no longer looking like police but [is] looking like they are patrolling a hostile foreign nation,” remarked Wayne McElrath, a senior investigative adviser for the Project on Government Oversight in Washington, DC.
McElrath, experienced in both US law enforcement and the US military, argued that government initiatives such as the 1033 program propagate toxic policing practices that are rooted in war-fighting, rather than public safety.
“They are changing the culture,” he said. “But we are beginning to accept that it is the norm.”Similar research was carried out in 2018 by University of South Carolina professor Edward Lawson and published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Political Research Quarterly.
Lawson, who also serves as a data consultant with the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, examined two years’ worth of nationwide data and found the same relationship between 1033 equipment and police killings.
The professor told AJC that department culture, leadership and related factors add a psychological element to the equation.
“You’re not just police officers, you’re soldiers and you’re fighting this war on drugs, war on crime, and eventually the war on terror,” he expressed. “If all of your leaders are telling you that you’re fighting this war, and you’re on the front lines of it, that has to have a psychological effect.”
“Drawing a direct connection from equipment to killings doesn’t make sense, in part because most officers never get to use any of that stuff anyway,” Lawson argued. “But if the agency as a whole is more psychologically militarized, that agency will pursue more military equipment and will also kill more civilians.”
Two Types of Terror in Michigan
By James Bovard | American Institute for Economic Research | October 9, 2020
#StopTrumpsTerror is one of the hottest trending topics on Twitter, with more than 90,000 tweets. Yesterday, the FBI announced the arrest of six people in a plot (perhaps government-hatched) to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and put her on trial for treason for destroying the state’s economy with the lockdowns she imposed. Seven other individuals were arrested and charged with violating Michigan’s anti-terrorism law.
Trump had no connection to the plot, and at least one of the alleged plotters denounced Trump as a “tyrant” and “the enemy.” But Trump’s condemnations of lockdowns was enough for Gov. Whitmer to denounce Trump yesterday as “complicit” with the plotters. She derided Trump for spending “the past 7 months denying science, ignoring his own health experts, stoking distrust, fomenting anger and giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division.” Former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi told MSNBC that Donald Trump should be investigated for “aiding and abetting” the Michigan plot.
Whitmer, one of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s favorite governors, enraged many Michiganders by locking down the state after the outbreak of Covid-19. Whitmer placed almost the entire state under house arrest, dictating a $1,000 fine for anyone who left their home to visit family or friends. Business owners faced up to three years in prison for refusing to close their operations. Whitmer severely restricted what stores could sell and prohibited purchasing seeds for spring planting after she decreed that a “nonessential” activity. (Purchasing state lottery tickets was still an “essential” activity.) Though Covid infections were concentrated in the Detroit metropolitan area, Whitmer shut down the entire state — including northern counties with few cases, boosting unemployment to 24 percent statewide. In a tweet yesterday, Trump said Whitmer “has done a terrible job. She locked down her state for everyone, except her husband’s boating activities.”
Whitmer’s actions infuriated many Michiganders and no informants were necessary to spur much of the anti-government rhetoric recited in the federal indictment yesterday. Plenty of hotheads say things online or in allegedly encrypted messages that look menacing or idiotic in cold print afterwards. Threatening violence against government officials – or anyone else – is reprehensible. But how far did those guys move to actually carrying out their plot? Last month, some of the conspirators “drove to the area surrounding the [Whitmer vacation] residence and discussed detonating explosives to divert police — even checking the underside of a bridge for spots to place a charge,” as the Washington Post summarized the indictment.
The FBI admits that it paid one informant $8,600, and there may be other payments that are revealed in the coming days or weeks. FBI agents have been taught that subjects of FBI investigations “have forfeited their right to the truth,” which helps explain the vast increase in federal entrapment operations in recent decades. Trevor Aaronson, author of The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism, estimated that only about 1% of the 500 people charged with international terrorism offenses in the decade after 9/11 were bona fide threats. Thirty times as many were induced by the FBI to behave in ways that prompted their arrest. The bureau’s informant program extends far beyond Muslims. It bankrolled an extremist right-wing New Jersey blogger and radio host for five years before his 2009 arrest for threatening federal judges. A long-term FBI informant organized the Ku Klux Klan rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in July 2017.
The alleged Michigan plot is almost too idiotic to believe. The alleged conspirators purportedly planned to kidnap Gov. Whitmer and take her to Wisconsin for a private trial. This is on par with the 2006 FBI-fabricated terror plot of the Liberty City Seven, where an informant swayed a bunch of dimwits to babble about blowing up government buildings. That group was so knuckle-headed that they asked the informant for military uniforms and wanted to conduct a parade.
The Michigan conspirators are receiving vastly more coverage than a recent Michigan Supreme Court decision, which effectively labeled Whitmer a lawless dictator who had extended a “state of emergency” far beyond what an unconstitutional state law allowed. Instead of obeying the ruling of the highest state court, Whitmer responded by having the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services issue “new COVID-19 emergency orders that are nearly identical to her invalidated emergency orders,” as the Mackinac Center noted.
Four months earlier, the Michigan Court of Claims condemned Whitmer for contorting a Michigan workplace safety law to unjustifiably inflict additional penalties on businesses and individuals who failed to submit to her pandemic commands.
But, according to the media, locking down Michigan isn’t tyranny – it is public service.
Anyone who protests or heartily condemns lockdowns will also be presumed collectively guilty with the Michigan plotters. The same media moral framework will likely be used to exonerate new lockdowns that may be imposed in the name of curbing Covid-19. Earlier this week, many pundits denounced Trump as a would-be Mussolini for his statement on the White House balcony after he returned from Walter Reed Hospital. Commentators were horrified that Trump, who was standing outside not close to anyone, removed his facemask.
If Biden is elected president and fulfills his promise to impose a national facemask mandate or dictates a national shutdown of the economy, such actions will be portrayed as benevolence at its best, rather than the most foolhardy federal interventions since the 55 mile per hour speed limit.
Will the Michigan plot be touted by the media to valorize every government official who placed any American under house arrest in response to the pandemic? It is possible to heartily condemn both nitwit conspirators and oppressive politicians. Unfortunately, the media will likely pay far more attention to the bluster of boneheads than to actual devastation produced by unjustified shutdowns.
James Bovard is the author of ten books, including Public Policy Hooligan, Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, and Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader’s Digest, and many other publications. He is a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors, a frequent contributor to The Hill, and a contributing editor for American
When Will the Truth About the Bidens’ Ukraine Deals & Financial Bonanza Come Out?
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 10.10.2020
Despite the US mainstream media and the FBI appearing uninterested in the latest GOP study concerning Hunter Biden’s financial transactions and occupations during his father’s vice presidency, the investigation may go full throttle if Joe Biden is defeated in the 2020 campaign, suggests US investigative journalist George Eliason.
The FBI has refused to either confirm or deny the existence of any ongoing investigations concerning Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, The Federalist reported on 8 October, citing an exclusively obtained bureau letter written in response to a 24 September request by Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee.
Why FBI Unlikely to React Before the Election
On 24 September, Jordan sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking what investigative steps – if any – the intelligence agency had taken in response to the GOP report detailing misconduct and suspicious financial transactions involving Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates.
Nevertheless, the FBI has yet to respond to Jordan’s questions concerning potential inquiries into:
· Hunter Biden receiving millions of dollars from foreign nationals with questionable background and funding individuals “involved in human trafficking and organised prostitution”;
· Hunter’s Chinese transactions “involv[ing] potential criminal activity”;
· a bribe allegedly paid by Ukrainian gas firm Burisma’s owner to the country’s officials to stop investigations against him while Hunter served on the company’s board.
Although Republican congressmen are urging the FBI to look into the Bidens’ potential misconduct, there is little if any chance of the Senate pressuring Wray into launching a formal investigation before the November election, believes George Eliason, a Donbass-based American investigative journalist.
“The last thing the Senate will do is make any move that looks partisan or trying to influence the election”, Eliason stresses. “After the election it is possible, if Biden loses. On the chance of a Biden win, the investigation will be mute”.GOP Report Sheds Light on Hunter Biden’s Gains
The GOP report indicates that Hunter Biden’s financial gains from foreign sources substantially increased during his father’s tenure as US vice president and after, citing a potential conflict of interest.
Referring to Treasury records, the document also alleges “potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals”.
Several days before the release of the committee’s findings, Just the News reported that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the US Treasury Department, had “flagged several foreign transactions to Hunter Biden-connected businesses as ‘suspicious’ during the end of the Obama administration and the beginning of the Trump administration”. These findings were highlighted in the agency’s Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) which, according to the media outlet, “is [per se] not evidence of wrongdoing, but it is usually a starting point for investigation”.
In addition to receiving $4 million in “questionable financial transactions” with foreign financiers, Hunter Biden was spotted sending funds to individuals “linked to what ‘appears to be an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring'”, the GOP report reads.
Republican investigators specifically turned the spotlight on Hunter Biden’s role in the Ukrainian gas firm Burisma when his father served as the Obama administration’s “public face” of its policy towards the Eastern European state. In May 2014, Hunter joined the firm’s board of directors, despite having no experience in energy, and was paid as much as $50,000 per month.
“The Bidens were in the front seat [of the Obama administration’s Ukraine politics] the entire time”, Eliason recollects. “Joe Biden’s support for the Ukrainian diaspora and fulfilling their wants in Ukraine has been unwavering. The fact that Ukraine became a cash cow for his family that early makes it very clear”.
Thus, in December 2014, the owner of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, reportedly gave a $7 million bribe to Ukrainian officials to have the case against him closed and his $23-million assets in the UK unfrozen while Hunter Biden was on Burisma’s board. According to the GOP document, the case was reported to the FBI by a DOJ official at the US Embassy in Kiev in 2015, but no action seemingly followed. While US State Department officials considered Zlochevsky “corrupt” at the time, then Vice President Biden avoided denouncing the Ukrainian oligarch, the document says.
More Facts May Emerge After 2020 Campaign
While the FBI keeps silent, the US left-leaning mainstream media have downplayed the study, saying that it does not show whether Hunter Biden’s actions influenced US government policy in any way.
CBS News, in particular, has drawn attention to the fact that “the report does not assert that the former vice president pushed for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor in order to protect Burisma, a central claim made by President Trump and his allies”. For its part, the Biden campaign denounced the GOP research as a political attack amid the 2020 presidential campaign.
“The MSM has been firmly behind Biden and has to step back further than is now possible with credibility”, says Eliason referring to the mainstream media’s previous efforts to bury the anti-Biden sexual harassment allegations put forward by Tara Reade, a former staff assistant in Biden’s US Senate office. “As far as not affecting US policy, it’s a fogging ploy to relieve Biden from any culpability in crimes the evidence is very strong pointing to his involvement”.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian probe into the alleged Biden-Poroshenko tapes, concerning the ouster of then Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin – who was investigating Burisma Holdings – in exchange for a $1 billion loan, is still ongoing, the journalist emphasises.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova confirmed in mid-September that the tapes are being examined: “We are waiting for the results of the research. We will react only where it is prescribed by law … Ukraine does not interfere in the affairs of other states. We remain in the field of criminal justice”, she stated on Savik Shuster’s YouTube podcast on 12 September.
Eliason believes that more facts concerning the Bidens may surface when the presidential campaign is over, as it will no longer be seen as an attempt to interfere in the elections. Furthermore, in case Biden loses and Trump retains office, the situation “would be cut and dry”, which would help US investigators to eventually sort things out.
More on the Anti-Semitism Scam: Jewish Students Get Protected Status
By Philip Giraldi | American Herald Tribune | October 10, 2020
In both the United States and Europe there has been an increase in the passage of laws that are intended to protect Jews. Indeed, one might say that one of the few growth industries in Donald Trump’s United States has been the protection of Jewish citizens and their property from a largely contrived wave of anti-Semitism that is allegedly sweeping the nation. Even while potentially catastrophic developments both in the Middle East and the United States continue to unfold, the threat of anti-Semitism continues to find its way into much of the news cycle in the mainstream media.
A survey conducted last month in all fifty states was released with the headline “First-Ever 50-State Survey On Holocaust Knowledge Of American Millennials And Gen Z Reveals Shocking Results. Disturbing Findings Reveal Significant Number Of Millennials And Gen Z Can’t Name A Single Concentration Camp Or Ghetto, Believe That Two Million Or Fewer Jews Were Killed And A Concerning Percentage Believe That Jews Caused The Holocaust.”
The survey is based on the premise that detailed knowledge of the so-called holocaust should be an essential part of everyone’s education. Currently, 12 states already require holocaust instruction in their public school curricula, though that includes five of the six biggest states, and recently passed federal legislation will eventually fund holocaust education everywhere in the U.S. But, of course, the real back story that one must not mention is that the standard holocaust narrative is at least as much fiction as fact and it is employed regularly to create special benefits and protections for both Jews in general and also for the State of Israel. That is why the usual sources in the media become outraged whenever it seems that the propaganda is not effective.
The ignorance of the holocaust story inevitably received wide play in the mainstream media but there are a number of things that all Americans should know about the anti-Semitism hysteria that drives the process. First of all, the extent to which there is actual anti-Semitism and the background to many of the incidents has been deliberately distorted or even ignored by the press and by the government at all levels. Anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews for either their religion or their ethnicity, but many of the so-called anti-Semitic incidents are actually related to the policies advanced by the state of Israel. Organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which have a vested interest in keeping the number of anti-Semitic incidents high, deliberately conflate the two issues in their reports.
In its 2018 report, ADL reported “1,879 acts,” in the United States during the course of the year. It is not a particularly large number given the size and population of the U.S. and also with respect to what is included. There were certainly some physical attacks, including two shooting incidents at synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, but most of the incidents were much less kinetic, including shouting and name calling on university campuses between groups supportive of and opposed to Israel’s repression of the Palestinians.
Europe is way ahead of the game when it comes to punishing so-called holocaust denial or anti-Semitism, which now includes any criticism of Jews and/or of Israel. As one critic put it, Europeans generally can exercise something like free speech, but the speech is limited by certain rules that must be observed. Three weeks ago, the French nationalist writer and critic of Jewish power Hervé Ryssen was jailed for the fifth time for the crime of “hate speech.” He faces up to 17 months in prison for having been found guilty of “…insult, provocation, and public defamation due to origin, ethnicity, nationality, race, or religion.” In 2016 he was imprisoned for 5 months, in 2017 for 6 months and in 2018 for one year on similar charges. He also had to pay a 2000 Euros fine to the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism. In January 2020, Ryssen was found guilty of “contesting the existence of crimes against humanity,” i.e. questioning the so-called holocaust which labels him as a négationniste, a “holocaust denier.”
Ryssen has written numerous books on Jewish power in Europe and on Israel. His scholarship has rarely been questioned, but his willingness to speak out sometimes boldly on issues that are forbidden has put him in prison more often than not. Curiously, the French law against vilifying ethnic groups and religions has de facto only rarely been applied to protecting either Christians or Muslims. Satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo continues to “blaspheme” against both religions without any intervention from the authorities, but it is careful not to make fun of Jews.
The United States is clearly moving in the direction of France, at least insofar as the Jewish community and Israel are concerned. But it is also refreshing to note that a revived progressive wing of the Democratic Party is engaging in a bit of pushback. Three weeks ago, 162 Democratic congressmen plus one Republican and one independent actually voted against an amendment intended to “Protect Jewish Students from Antisemitism at School.”
The vote took place on Sept. 16th, and was over a Republican proposed amendment to the Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act (H.R.2574). The amendment designated anti-Semitism to be a form of discrimination included in the bill and would allow private citizens to file lawsuits claiming damages under the Civil Rights Act’s Title VI, focusing particularly on education programs. In spite of the considerable level of opposition, unfortunately the amendment still passed by a vote of 255 to 164.
According to the Concerned Women for America (CWA), a group that lobbied for the added language, “The amendment ensures that recipients of federal education funding act against anti-Semitism in our communities. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) on college campuses is one of the ways such discrimination is being displayed.” The bill allows suits directed against any program receiving federal money if it can be claimed that one is the victim of discriminatory practices that negatively affect a protected class more than another class. Previously, the protected classes were identified as “race, color, or national origin,” but Jews and, by extension, Israel are now also protected. The specific additional language that was inserted was: “In carrying out the responsibilities of the recipient under this title, the employee or employees designated under this section shall consider antisemitism to be discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin as prohibited by this title.”
In practice, the new legislation will mean that Jewish students or their families or proxies can use Civil Rights legislation to sue educational institutions if they are made uncomfortable by the presence of critics of Israel. The real targets are groups like BDS, which have obtained some traction on university campuses and have been targeted by both the Israeli government and domestic Israel Lobby organizations. But, of course, the real danger is that once protected status is granted to one chosen group that promotes the interests of a foreign government there is no control over how “hate speech” will be defined and the consequences for American fundamental liberties will be catastrophic, moving far closer to the European model of freedom limited by “rules.”
Britain Ready to Supply Lethal Arms to Ukraine, Country’s Presidential Aide Says
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 09.10.2020
Using foreign military hardware is nothing new for the Ukrainian Army, where US-made weaponry, including patrol vehicles, fast boats, and Javelin anti-tank missiles are currently in service.
Senior Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak said on Friday that the UK had expressed readiness to provide the country with a hefty lethal weapons contract, in addition to a £1 billion ($1.2 billion) loan to the Ukrainian Navy.
The statement came as President Volodymyr Zelensky met UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London to sign a spate of bilateral cooperation agreements.
Yermak claimed that recent mass protests in neighbouring Belarus pose a possible threat to Ukraine, which he said is seeking assurances from the EU and the UK about their willingness to help Kiev maintain national security.In this vein, he also referred to a simmering military conflict in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region, touting the current truce as “a huge achievement”.
Ukraine Conflict
Kiev launched a special military operation in southeastern Ukraine in April 2014, after local residents refused to recognise the new central authorities, who had come to power as a result of a coup. This was preceded by the residents voting for the creation of the independent Donetsk (DNR) and Lugansk (LNR) People’s Republics.
In February 2015, the two sides reached a peace agreement after talks brokered by the leaders of Russia, France, Germany, and Ukraine — the so-called Normandy Four — in the Belarusian capital Minsk.
The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in Donbass, as well as constitutional reforms that would give a special status to the DNR and the LNR.
The ceasefire regime has repeatedly been violated, with both sides accusing each other of multiple breaches, undermining the terms of the accord.
Yermak’s remarks come after the Pentagon reportedly signed off on an additional $125 million in its lethal military aid to Ukraine. The latter had earlier received batches of US military hardware, including patrol vehicles, fast boats, radar systems, and Javelin anti-tank missiles.
The aid is part of a $250 million package appropriated by Congress in its 2020 National Defence Authorisation Act, legislation that committed a whopping $738 billion to American defence spending, including tens of billions for US operations overseas.
Russia has repeatedly warned the global community against supplying weapons to Ukraine, saying that such actions will escalate the military conflict in the Donbass region.
NATO refuses to commit to withdrawal from Afghanistan
Press TV – October 9, 2020
NATO has dismissed US President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement to pull out all of US forces from Afghanistan by the end of the year, saying that members of the military alliance will decide together on when to withdraw forces from the war-ravaged country.
Trump announced on Twitter on Wednesday that he was going to bring all US troops home from Afghanistan by Christmas.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reacted to the president’s remarks on Thursday, saying that the military alliance will end its mission in Afghanistan only when conditions on the ground permit.
“We decided to go into Afghanistan together, we will make decisions on future adjustments together, and when the time is right, we will leave together,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference.
NATO deployed forces to Afghanistan following the 2001 US-led invasion to topple the Taliban-run government, on the pretext of fighting terrorism following the September 11 attacks in New York.
Afghanistan has been gripped by insecurity since the US and its allies invaded the country as part of Washington’s so-called ‘war on terror’ 19 years ago. Many parts of the country remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of US-led foreign troops.
American forces have since remained bogged down in the country through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and now, Donald Trump.
In an interview on Thursday Trump also said that US forces are “down to 4,000 troops in Afghanistan. I’ll have them home by the end of the year. They’re coming home, you know, as we speak. Nineteen years is enough.”
Analysts say Trump, trailing in polls just weeks ahead of the November 3 presidential election, made the withdrawal announcement to show he is making good on his 2016 promise to end “endless wars.”
Stoltenberg, however, said NATO would only leave Afghanistan when it could do so without the risk of the country once again becoming a haven for militants.
“We will make decisions based on the conditions on the ground, because we think it is extremely important to continue to be committed to the future of Afghanistan, because it is in our interest to preserve the long-term security of Afghanistan,” he added.
Trump’s announcement was, however, welcomed by the Afghan Taliban militant group on Thursday.
A spokesman for the group, Mohammad Naeem, described Trump’s announcement as “a positive step towards the implementation of [the] Doha agreement.”
In a deal reached between the US and the Taliban earlier this year in the Qatari capital, Doha, the United States promised to pull out all its troops by mid-2021 in return for the Taliban to stop their attacks on US-led occupation foreign forces in Afghanistan.
Some 4,500 American troops are currently on the ground in Afghanistan, reduced from over 12,000 when the deal was signed in February.
The Taliban also agreed to negotiate a permanent ceasefire and a power-sharing formula with the Afghan government.
The Afghan government and Taliban last month opened peace talks in Qatar, even as key differences, including over a ceasefire, remain between the two sides.
NATO’s recent refusal to commit to withdrawal, according to observers, puts the complicated peace negotiations in jeopardy at a time when Afghanistan continues to suffer from a series of attacks — claimed either by the Taliban or the Daesh terrorist group — which took dozens of civilians’ lives.
In the meantime, Daesh has also been securing a foothold in Afghanistan.
The US has been largely blamed for relocating remnants of the terrorist group to Afghanistan following their defeat in Iraq and Syria.
The US-led military alliance and NATO are also blamed for turning Afghanistan into one of the world’s main opium producers over the last two decades, as opium has become a source for terrorist financing in the war-ravaged country.
According to the United Nations, more than 80 percent of the world’s opium is produced in Afghanistan and that the bulk of narcotics produced in the country is destined for European states.
A high-ranking Iranian official said earlier this year that the production of narcotic drugs has seen a fifty-fold increase over a span of 17 years in Afghanistan.
Director general of the Iran Drug Control Headquarters, Eskandar Momeni, said American planes as well as those belonging to the US-led military alliance and NATO are engaged in transporting illicit drugs.
Iran, located at the crossroad of international drug smuggling from Afghanistan, has long been fighting armed drug smugglers in its eastern and southeastern borders. Thousands of Iranian security forces have lost their lives in the clashes.
Analysts believe Washington, which has repeatedly named Iran, Russia and China as its enemies, intends to create insecurity and trouble on the borders of these countries through Afghanistan.
Battlefield Social Media: The West’s Growing Censorship
By Ulson Gunnar – New Eastern Outlook – 08.10.2020
Censorship in the West flourishes as tech giants turn social media back into traditional programmed media.
The United States, United Kingdom and the European Union are fond of passing judgement on nations around the globe regarding “free speech.”
While it is increasingly clear to a growing number of people that this “concern” is disingenuous and aimed at merely defending agitators funded and directed by Western special interests in these targeted nations, the West still likes to fashion itself as a sort of champion of free speech.
Yet back home the Internet has been taken over by social media and tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter.
Their platforms clearly serve as online public squares where everything is discussed and even election campaigns play out. Yet these companies have, over the years, begun to eliminate voices of dissent against a notion known as “consensus.”
If you are speaking out against “consensus” you are in real danger of disappearing from these platforms. Some of these platforms, like Google-owned YouTube, serve as the livelihood to people who have for years built up their audiences, produced hundreds of videos and when their accounts are deleted for speaking out against the “consensus,” they have their livelihoods destroyed.
In the wake of these incremental “purges” is a chilling effect with content creators self-censoring or even withdrawing entirely from Western social media.
It is the sort of very real censorship the West has crusaded against in fiction around the globe for decades.
Consensus or Else
A more recent example is Google’s decision to ban ad revenue for those going against the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) “consensus.”
CNBC in their story “Google will ban ads from running on stories spreading debunked coronavirus conspiracy theories,” would claim:
Google next month will ban publishers from using its ad platform to show advertisements next to content that promotes conspiracy theories about COVID-19. It will also ban ads that promote those theories. In cases where a particular site publishes a certain threshold of material that violates these policies, it will ban the entire site from using its ad platforms.
Those “conspiracy theories” might include questioning the official death rates of COVID-19. Yet even the British government itself has been recently forced to investigate its statistics regarding death rates, vindicating the very sort of people who would have been either forced into silence or forced to give up ad revenue.
The London Guardian in its article, “Matt Hancock orders urgent review of PHE Covid-19 death figures,” would admit:
The UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, is ordering an urgent review of the daily COVID-19 death statistics produced by Public Health England, after it emerged that they may include recovered former sufferers who could have died of other causes.
False reporting over deaths to hype COVID-19, induce greater public panic and pave the way for billions in government handouts to pharmaceutical giants is at the very core of many of these so-called “conspiracy theories” Google seeks to silence through its campaign of financial coercion.
Imagine if this chilling effect was achieved sooner. Would the British government have even bothered investigating its faulty statistics if there weren’t people suspicious of them?
The chilling effect this has over openly discussing something as serious as COVID-19 considering its socioeconomic impact is truly alarming and much more so because it is happening in the so-called “free world” overseen by its self-appointed arbitrators in the US, UK and EU.
A similar campaign was carried out to purge Google, Twitter and Facebook of anyone allegedly connected with “Russia” who also so happened to be anti-war and anti-NATO for waging those wars.
Entire lists are compiled by Western government-funded organizations which are then submitted to these tech giants for purging. The Western media writes accompanying articles announcing, justifying and spinning the purges… but also sending a warning to those left about what is and isn’t going to be tolerated on these platforms.
Social Media Transforming Back into Programmed Media
Content creators are faced with two decisions; to either self-censor themselves to protect their work, their audiences and their livelihood, or to accept the possibility they will eventually be “purged” (censored) and need to rebuild their audiences from scratch on platforms with far fewer potential readers, viewers and patrons.
Social media, of course, is no longer social media in this sort of environment, but more akin to the sort of programmed media giant Western special interests built their power on over the course of the 20th and early 21st century.
Private Public Squares?
Of course the defense is that Google, Facebook and Twitter are “private companies”and can do as they please with their platforms. In reality, these companies work in tandem with Western governments whether it is fomenting political destabilization abroad or creating “concensus” at home.
The notion that censorship is “OK” because the US, UK and EU governments launder it through private companies ignores the close relationship these companies have with the government and how their platforms have been transformed into de facto public squares and critical channels of public communication and participation.
The West’s growing overt censorship leaves it with a choice; to either accept that it is in reality as guilty of censorship and manipulating the public as it has claimed its opponents are, or continue pretending it isn’t but at the continued cost of its legitimacy upon the global stage.
There is a very good reason the West is in decline around the globe and why its attempts to leverage notions like “human rights” and “free speech” against nations like China or Russia are increasingly impotent. That reason can be found, at least in part, among the growing number of purge lists, censorship campaigns and calls for “consensus” across Western social media.
Finally, the increasingly overt nature of censorship and controlled narratives promoted by tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter should have them facing restrictions and bans around the globe. Why should any nation host a “public square” where discourse is entirely controlled by interests oceans away? Why shouldn’t a local alternative be created instead where the revenue is kept locally and if narratives are to be controlled, controlled in a way that best suits people locally?
It is ironic that, China for example, is condemned for not allowing Google, Facebook and Twitter to operate freely within their information space because it is a violation of “free speech,” even as Google, Facebook and Twitter cudgel free speech on their own respective platforms.
How much longer will the world tolerate these double standards? How long until individuals, organizations and even entire nations begin creating alternatives to Google, Facebook and Twitter to at the very least balance out the lopsided power and influence they have collectively accrued and abused?
Opposition parties seize power in Kyrgyzstan amid growing geopolitical rivalry in the region
By Jason Melanovski and Clara Weiss | wsws | October 7, 2020
Opposition forces claim to have seized power over much of Kyrgyzstan’s key government agencies and buildings in the capital of Bishkek on Tuesday after protests broke out in the Central Asian country following parliamentary elections on Sunday.
Over 600 were injured and one protester was killed in protests that have seem to have resulted in the removal of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.
Jeenbekov, who was first elected in 2017, suggested in a phone interview with BBC that he was prepared to step down and “ready to give the responsibility to strong leaders,” but did not specify to which specific figures or forces he was referring to.
Jeenbekov has fled his government offices and accused opposition forces of “trying to illegally seize power” in a brief video statement released Tuesday. His whereabouts remain unknown. On Wednesday, the parliament initiated impeachment procedures against him.
Sixteen political parties took part in the country’s parliamentary elections held on Sunday. Official results suggested that the majority of votes went to the Birimdik party of President Jeenbekov’s younger brother, Asylbek Jeenbekov, and the Mekenim Kyrgyzstan party led by the powerful Matraimov family which has accrued its fortune through its control of Kyrgyzstan’s customs service. Both parties are considered allies of President Jeenbekov and favor close relations with Russia.
Jeenbekov and his allied political parties are also viewed by the opposition as favoring the country’s agrarian south over the more developed and urban north of the country. The parliamentary elections resulted in giving 100 of the 120 seats to representatives from the south who are aligned with Jeenbekov.
A coalition of 12 political parties refused to accept the results, accusing the government of vote-buying.
Despite accusations of electoral fraud, according to preliminary reports from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the “voting process was generally efficient, well-organized and peaceful.” Following the protests on Tuesday, the country’s Central Election Commission announced it had invalidated the election’s results and that new elections would be held.
Having quickly seized power, the opposition announced it had set up its own coordination council and was beginning to negotiate among themselves who would fill the country’s key government positions.
The opposition also released several jailed political figures including former President Almazbek Atambayev, who had been imprisoned on an 11-year sentence for corruption involving a deal with a Chinese company. Sadyr Japarov, who was also released by opposition forces from prison, was named the country’s acting prime minister in an emergency parliamentary session on Tuesday.
The US and EU as well as Russia and China have called for a peaceful resolution of the crisis. The US and Chinese governments have urged non-interference from foreign powers. James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, noted that the warnings from China and the US were above all meant for each other.
Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic of 6 million people, has been the site of increased geopolitical rivalry over the past two decades. It borders China and is close to Russia and Afghanistan, which was invaded by the United States in 2001.
Prior to the current seizure of power, Kyrgyzstan had seen two of its previous presidents overthrown since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2005, the US staged a “color revolution” in the country, one of several in the former Soviet Union that were aimed at containing the influence of Russia.
The American press used to tout the country as the United States’ closest ally in Central Asia. For many years, Kyrgyzstan even hosted the United States’ only Central Asian airbase in Manas. The airbase served as the first and last stop for American soldiers entering and leaving Afghanistan. Approximately 5.6 million foreign soldiers passed through the base while it was in operation.
The base was closed in 2014 following the election of former President Atambayev in 2011. Atambayev favored realigning the country with Russia and increasing economic ties to its neighbor, China, which has become Kyrgyzstan’s biggest economic investor and trading partner.
According to Chinese government statistics, bilateral trade amounted to $6.35 billion in 2019. China holds $4 billion of the country’s national debt. Kyrgyzstan only has a GDP of a little over $8 billion. The country is also a central component of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Despite the significant economic ties to China, anti-Chinese sentiments in Kyrgyzstan are running high. In 2019, Bishkek became the site of large anti-Chinese protests demanding, among other things, a ban on Kyrgyz-Chinese marriages, and calling for restrictions on the economic influence of China.
The predominantly Muslim country also shares a border with China’s Xinjiang region, which is home to China’s large Muslim minority of the Uygur.
Many Uygurs are ethnic Kyrgyz and have been imprisoned in concentration camps, a situation that has been exploited by the bogus US-led imperialist campaign over human rights abuses against China. In turn, there is a significant Uygur minority in Kyrgyzstan, which is routinely subject to discrimination.
Following the closure of the US Manas airbase in 2014, Kyrgyzstan joined both the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union and the post-Soviet military alliance of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Russia also opened its own military airbase within the country, forgiving $500 million in Kyrgyz debt. The US viewed this as further undermining its geostrategic interests in the region as the war in neighboring Afghanistan has been raging on.
Jeenbekov continued for the most part the close relations with China while seeking to make the Kremlin “the main strategic partner” of the country. By contrast, several of the opposition parties that stormed the parliament have been critical of the country’s ties to Russia, claiming they infringed on Kyrgyzstan’s “independence.”
Reports also surfaced on Tuesday that opposition forces had burned down a Russian-operated factory at Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest gold deposit, Jeruy, causing the site’s owners to suspend operations.
Following the factory burning, Russia put its military base on high-alert and called on “all political forces at this critical moment for the republic to show wisdom and responsibility in order to preserve internal stability and security.”
In addition to the ongoing civil war in Eastern Ukraine, the crisis in Belarus, and the outbreak of actual war between a Russian-allied Armenia and a Turkish-backed Azerbaijan, the crisis in Kyrgyzstan represents yet another major challenge to the Kremlin’s geopolitical position in the former Soviet region. … Full article
US Southern Command Chief Admits Plans Against Venezuela
teleSUR- October 7, 2020
Venezuela’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza Monday denounced that the U.S. Southern Command Admiral Craig Faller openly admitted his country’s plans to violently overthrow President Nicolas Maduro.
On Monday, Faller commented at an online meeting organized by the business forum Council of the Americas that the international attempts to bring down Venezuela’s government have worked, although not quickly enough for the Venezuelan people.
He not only said that such efforts have not worked quick enough but also that it took an entire generation to get to this point and that it will take a while to unblock Venezuela’s democratic framework.
The Admiral also attributed certain external factors such as the help of Cuba, Russia, China and Iran to the alleged slow change within Venezuela.
Arreaza pointed out that this arrogant position of the members of the White House is unacceptable as they insist on violating the Charter of the United Nations and the most basic principles of international law through threats and blockades.
This statement shows Washington’s systematic and widespread attacks on Venezuela, which constitutes a crime against humanity.
Venezuela’s government will add Faller’s confessions to the criminal complaint it filed against the U.S. government on Feb. 13 before the Hague’s International Criminal Court.
In this complaint, President Maduro requests the White House to lift all coercive measures against his country since the U.S. government prevents Venezuela from acquiring food and medicines and from negotiating freely on the international market.
Guaidó creates a parallel consulate in Brazil
By Lucas Leiroz | October 8, 2020
A “parallel” Venezuelan Consulate in Brazil was condemned in a recent statement by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza. In late September, supporters of the Venezuelan opposition leader, the self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó, announced that they would form a new consulate in Brazil. Basically, the objective is to create a parallel Venezuelan diplomatic representation, which meets the interests of the opposition – which is supported by the Brazilian government. The decision has received strong criticism from the Venezuelan government, which considers it illegal. However, despite the criticism, the consulate is starting its operations this week in the Brazilian state of Roraima – a region strategically chosen because it borders Venezuela.
Jorge Arreaza, head of the Bolivarian government’s foreign relations, reinforced his criticism and published an official statement warning the international community against the activities of the opposition, which he classified as fraudulent. According to Arreaza, there is an attempt to usurp the legitimate consular power of the Venezuelan government – which, in legal terms, is correct, considering that Guaidó is not actually the president of Venezuela.
Guaidó’s initiative in Brazil continues a series of clashes between the government of Jair Bolsonaro and representatives of Nicolás Maduro. Last month, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared Venezuelan diplomats as “persona non grata” after setting a deadline in April for them to leave the country – which did not happen due to a later decision by the Supreme Court. Now, with the appointment of new “diplomats” by Juan Guaidó, the situation between both countries is even more tense, since the Brazilian government will publicly recognize the role of the opposition’s parallel diplomatic service, while denying maintaining relations with the Venezuelan official diplomacy.
No specific date has been set for the opening of the parallel consulate, and it has just been announced that from this week on the agency would be fully operational. In fact, Guaidó’s “diplomats” are already acting freely in Brazil and even distributing documents to Venezuelan citizens in Brazilian territory. The Maduro government has already stated that such documents have no validity, but the Brazilian government recognizes the actions and cooperates with the oppositionist Consulate. It is also important to emphasize that the employees of the parallel consulate have no diplomatic training, being political militants chosen by Guaidó to represent his interests in Brazil.
Brazil is making a serious mistake in accepting the formation of an illegal consulate in its territory. This represents a total violation of good customs in international relations. Although Brazil is directly opposed to the Venezuelan government, recognizing the legitimacy of an illegal “consulate” and allowing parallel diplomats to act in its territory sets an undesirable precedent in bilateral relations between these states. According to the Montevideo Convention, a State is constituted by the presence of territory, government and diplomatic relations. Therefore, when recognizing a new diplomacy, Brazil is, in practice, recognizing the existence of a Venezuelan State parallel to the Bolivarian Republic. The Venezuelan case, moreover, illustrates an absolutely inappropriate international behavior among the nations that oppose Maduro. To recognize a deputy as president for the simple fact that there was political opposition to the legitimate government had already been a serious violation of international customs. Now, with the creation of parallel consulates, the situation is likely to get even worse, mainly due to the fact that Brazil may not be the only country to receive “Guaidó’s diplomats”.
Interestingly, the inauguration of the parallel Consulate in Brazil takes place a few weeks after the visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to four countries in South America. The head of American diplomacy met with Brazilians including Brazil’s minister of foreign affairs Ernesto Araújo and Venezuelan immigrants precisely in the state of Roraima. The secret talks between Pompeo and Araújo still remain obscure. When called by the Senate to clarify the content of the meeting, Araújo gave no details and mentioned only generic aspects of the conversations he had with Pompeo. The other countries visited by Pompeo were Colombia, Guyana and Suriname – countries strategically chosen to form a siege against Venezuela. Considering that Pompeo’s visit to Brazil was most likely decisive for the Brazilian government to agree to cooperate with Guaidó’s parallel diplomacy, it is possible to foresee that sometime soon some of the other countries visited by Pompeo will also announce a similar decision, receiving “diplomatic missions” coming from the self-proclaimed and illegitimate government of Juan Guaidó.
It remains to be seen what the consequences of these acts will be going forward. The parallel consulate is already acting freely in Brazil, consolidating an historic act of violation of Venezuelan state sovereignty perpetrated by the Brazilian government. However, the US – the world power that promotes the crusade against Maduro – has not yet made such a bold decision and does not publicly have “diplomats” in the service of Guaidó. In fact, Brazil is acting as the laboratory of a great experiment, where the limits of the violation of Venezuelan sovereignty are being tested. Depending on the reaction of Caracas and its allies, other countries will receive – or not – such “diplomats”.
Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
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From the Archives
Examples of hate speech by Israel against Palestine
1. “There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001
2. “The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post, August 30, 2000
3. ” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
4. “The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
5. “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
6. “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.” Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.
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