This guide explores U.S. imperialism, war economics, and religious land conflicts while examining how Australia can use its monetary sovereignty to lead by example, promoting a peaceful and ethical global future.
Category: America
The mass arrests occurred at a protest outside the Israeli consulate. Earlier arrests left protesters hospitalized and without access to lawyers.
More Than 70 DNC Protesters Arrested, Including Several Journalists
The speech that referred to Palestinian suffering was a journey into a universe of political guile from a president who had just approved sending $20 billion more weapons to Israel, writes Norman Solomon.
The Bridge to nowhere
“We’ll keep working, to bring hostages home, and end the war in Gaza, and bring peace and security to the Middle East,” Biden told the cheering delegates. “As you know, I wrote a peace treaty for Gaza. A few days ago I put forward a proposal that brought us closer to doing that than we’ve done since October 7th.”
Biden’s Cruel & Orwellian Remarks on Gaza at the DNC
August 20, 2024
Today, American troops are on the ground in Ukraine showing Ukrainian forces how to use American weapons to kill Russian troops and in Israel showing the Israeli Defense Forces how to kill civilians in Gaza.
This was done by secret presidential orders that have never been publicly acknowledged. Russian troops and Gazan civilians pose no threat whatsoever to life, liberty or property in America.
Why do American presidents kill? Because they can get away with it.
Ultimate show of respect
Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade won gold this week, and her American competitors won hearts with their sweet show of respect on the first all-black gymnastic podium.
Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles, who won silver and gold respectively, spontaneously bowed down to Andrade.
Biles later said, “She’s so amazing. She’s queen.”
“And first, it was an all-black podium, so that was super exciting for us.
“But then Jordan was like, ‘Should we bow to her?’ And I was like, ‘Absolutely.’ So we’re like, ‘Are we gonna do it now?’ And then, that’s why we did it.”
No Israeli military goal requires the total destruction of Gaza. Killing 40,000 Palestinians – a death toll that could reach 186,000 per some estimates – and injuring many more serves no clear strategic purpose. Nor does the systematic and wholesale destruction of Gazan universities, schools, hospitals and neighbourhoods. If Israel wants to occupy and annex Gaza, presumably it would want to inherit something more than a blast zone.
Gone is the rhetoric of “peaceful coexistence” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises instead “total victory”.
History can give a clue as to what he might mean by that phrase. It is eerily similar to the German word Endsieg, which literally translates to “final victory” and described the full realisation of the Nazi regime’s genocidal ambitions. The parallels are chilling.
UAVs continually kill civilians, but the U.S. military wants to expand its arsenal with an army of new, mass-produced kamikaze AI drones.
Source: Future of Warfare: Pentagon Building Kamikaze AI Drones
AIPAC, The Lobby, Billionaires & Money. But the flow of that money will have been laundered and not revealed until 2025
In numerous races across the country this year, Palestine is a key issue for voters. Popular opinion is on the side of a Gaza cease-fire, but pro-Israel billionaires are spending big to overcome that antiwar will.
Source: Palestine Is on the Ballot
The headline should have read that Mrudoch’s fundamental principles have been adoptd by the Heritage Foundation
“Many of us have long known that there was a serious problem with a taxpayer-funded programming system that ignored half the country,” he wrote. “They thought they could take money from everyone, but only reflect, and respect, the thinking of a woke minority.”
Even the 2.5% of the global oil and gas industry’s capital spending currently investing in renewable energy is resented by shareholders. BP was threatened by a hedge fund for depressing its share price by this “irrational” spending.
Lacking any moral framework, this shareholder model demands government regulation to behave responsibly.
It is likely that a Trump victory at the end of this year will leave one of the world’s largest economies expanding its fossil fuel sector, cutting back every limit on carbon energy and stripping incentives promoting clean energy. Any regulation mitigating the immorality of shareholder capitalism will be stripped away. It is possible that China or India might step into a gap left on the global stage by America, but the damage to international cooperation will be extensive.
The world’s fate might rest on this election.
Before our government moves full speed ahead expanding the weapons industry and further militarizing geopolitical challenges posed by China and Russia, we should reflect on America’s disastrous performance in the costly, prolonged wars already waged in this century. After all, they did enormous damage, made the world a far more dangerous place, and only increased the significance of those weapons makers. Throwing another trillion dollars-plus at the Pentagon won’t change that.
Source: Spending Unlimited – ScheerPost
Conservatives do not act conservatively in this country. What they really want is a form of anarchy, an expression of the attitude that government’s only role is to pave roads, protect the border, and then get the hell out of the way. We are supposed to rely on our own “rugged independence” to succeed, a concept whose notional value is utterly worthless. Nobody really makes it on their own.
Accepting responsibility is not a part of who we have become in this country. Our disfunction will lead to our end, if not corrected. The party out of power refuses to cooperate with the party in power and fires accusations of blame for every crisis. When the public finally listens, there is a new party in the majority and the displaced officeholders have no reason to cooperate with those who lied them out of office. Little in the way of governance is achieved.
Source: A Broken Land – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Many well-intentioned Americans are laboring to convince themselves and their neighbors that Biden-Trump 2.0 is something more than a depressing rerun: It’s also, yet again — and for perhaps the third time — a decisive showdown between fascism and democracy. Both things may be true, and there’s no doubt that this election could have dramatic real-world consequences. But to the rest of the world, it looks more like a dismal sideshow, and the notion that it will determine the planet’s future looks like another narcissistic Yank delusion: Our blind, bumbling Colossus will continue its decline, no matter which of the old guys wins.
Source: America in 2024: Blind, blundering Colossus on a downward slide | Salon.com
Let’s Fact Check Grandiose Claims
Last week the Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet released a brief press release about Mr. Albanese’s forthcoming trip to Washington from the 23rd to the 26th of October which will be his first such visit since becoming Prime Minister. The enthusiasm of the members of Albanese’s staff seems to have run away with them. They declared that ‘the Australian-United States relationship is unique in scale, scope and significance reflecting more than 100 years of partnership between our nations’. They are very large claims but are they true?
Australia needs a YES vote to truly become a WE Society. And a NO vote to remaining a Colonist nation. While America has the greatest number of Trillion and Billionaires, but “trickle down” as promised.
Our job now, if we want America to become the “we society” that represents the highest outcome of democratic governance, is to get a large enough progressive majority in Congress that in 2025 we can actually pull it off.
Source: Can America Move from a “Me Society” to a “We Society?” | The Smirking Chimp
![TOPSHOT - Niger's National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane (2nd R) is greeted by supporters upon his arrival at the Stade General Seyni Kountche in Niamey on August 6, 2023. Thousands of supporters of the military coup in Niger gathered at a Niamey stadium Sunday, when a deadline set by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS to return the deposed President Mohamed Bazoum to power is set to expire, according to AFP journalists. A delegation of members of the ruling National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) arrived at the 30,000-seat stadium to cheers from supporters, many of whom were drapped in Russian flags and portraits of CNSP leaders. (Photo by AFP) / "The erroneous mention[s] appearing in the metadata of this photo by - has been modified in AFP systems in the following manner: [Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane] instead of [Colonel-Major Amadou Adramane]. Please immediately remove the erroneous mention[s] from all your online services and delete it (them) from your servers. If you have been authorized by AFP to distribute it (them) to third parties, please ensure that the same actions are carried out by them. Failure to promptly comply with these instructions will entail liability on your part for any continued or post notification usage. Therefore we thank you very much for all your attention and prompt action. We are sorry for the inconvenience this notification may cause and remain at your disposal for any further information you may require." (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)](https://olddogthoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/gettyimages-1581236163.jpg)
![TOPSHOT - Niger's National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane (2nd R) is greeted by supporters upon his arrival at the Stade General Seyni Kountche in Niamey on August 6, 2023. Thousands of supporters of the military coup in Niger gathered at a Niamey stadium Sunday, when a deadline set by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS to return the deposed President Mohamed Bazoum to power is set to expire, according to AFP journalists. A delegation of members of the ruling National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) arrived at the 30,000-seat stadium to cheers from supporters, many of whom were drapped in Russian flags and portraits of CNSP leaders. (Photo by AFP) / "The erroneous mention[s] appearing in the metadata of this photo by - has been modified in AFP systems in the following manner: [Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane] instead of [Colonel-Major Amadou Adramane]. Please immediately remove the erroneous mention[s] from all your online services and delete it (them) from your servers. If you have been authorized by AFP to distribute it (them) to third parties, please ensure that the same actions are carried out by them. Failure to promptly comply with these instructions will entail liability on your part for any continued or post notification usage. Therefore we thank you very much for all your attention and prompt action. We are sorry for the inconvenience this notification may cause and remain at your disposal for any further information you may require." (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)](https://theintercept.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GettyImages-1581236163.jpg?w=1024)
The Pentagon refuses to call the overthrow of Niger’s president a coup — a move that could affect military assistance and a U.S. drone base.
IIn his message to the troops prior to the July 4th weekend, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin offered high praise indeed. “We have the greatest fighting force in human history,” he tweeted, connecting that claim to the U.S. having patriots of all colors, creeds, and backgrounds “who bravely volunteer to defend our country and our values.”
…… yes, the U.S. military is indeed exceptional and being so, being #1 (or claiming you are anyway) means never having to say you’re sorry, no matter how many innocents you kill or maim, how many lives you disrupt and destroy, how many lies you tell.
With only 25% of the devastated area searched by rescue teams, developers and realtors are already swooping in to try to buy land from displaced locals—a callous incarnation of our current social order.
The struggle now is the one that punctuates all moments of crisis: the forces of disaster capitalism versus the people attempting to build a paradise out of hell.
Source: Opinion | Empire and Capital Set Maui Ablaze | Common Dreams
“Holding Trump accountable for his crimes pulls our democracy back from the precipice and prevents his criminal attempt to overturn an election from being forgotten or normalized,” said one watchdog leader.
Source: ‘Most Significant Charges Yet’: Trump Indicted for Trying to Overturn 2020 Election
The single dumbest thing the U.S. empire asks us to believe nowadays is that surrounding its two biggest foes with war machinery is a defensive action, rather than an act of extreme aggression.
Source: Caitlin Johnstone: Biden Lies About ‘Not Surrounding’ China
Before Trump and MAGA America was Great there was only cooperation and accommodation between America and China, the world’s largest economies. But along came Trump who turned domestic politics on its head. He promoted Russia and Nth Korea while transforming China, Mexico, and Latin America into the enemy. With the help of Murdoch Media, the transformation was relatively quick as he needed blue-collar America to back him.
Will Americans see through the contradictions of China-bashing to prevent war, seek mutual accommodation, and thereby rebuild a new version of the joint prosperity that existed before Trump and Biden?
Source: American China-Bashing Is Dripping With Contradictions | The Smirking Chimp
The Great American Experiment has been “corrupted” from the top down
“I think that what we are seeing is just how hellbent the Supreme Court is on ensuring that the U.S. assumes the form that the Republican Party wants it to assume.”
The Conversation reached out to three legal scholars to explain what the decision means for students, colleges and universities, and ultimately the nation’s future.
The military is not the only place where the court has noted that security interests can justify use of race. The court also cited a 2005 ruling, Johnson v. California, where the justices held that prison officials could temporarily segregate prisoners by race to prevent violence.
It seems that the court is willing to uphold use of race when government power is at stake – as with the military and law enforcement. But it will not do so for the education of America’s citizenry.
American Regression
The Supreme Court had the chance to preserve two tools that could offer a path forward on this persistent problem, and a greater chance to equalize educational opportunity and financial security for all. Instead, the court’s conservatives chose neither—opting, instead, to uphold the myth that society is already equal enough.
Source: The Supreme Court Made It Even Harder to Close the Racial Wealth Gap – Mother Jones
Conservatives in the United States have a stealth function of supporting white supremacy, even if they deny it. Maybe some do not even realize that is what they are doing. People focus on process and not outcomes when thinking of fairness, but what they think of as fair processes don’t guarantee fair outcomes. Nothing is more threatening to white supremacy than affirmative action, which holds that the government and social institutions can reshape American society toward greater racial equality. Hence, the Federalist Society’s corrupt SCOTUS struck down affirmative action in college and university admissions nationwide.
The Supreme Court ruled today in a 6-3 decision that the use of race in college admissions violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and thus is unconstitutional, dealing a serious blow to affirmative action measures used by colleges to create diverse student bodies and remedy past discrimination against minorities.
Source: Supreme Court Strikes Down Universities’ Affirmative Action Programs – Mother Jones
“At the end of the day, either the Communists destroy America, or we destroy the Communists.” ( Trump )
And here are more of Dönitz’s words:
“It is my first task to save the German people from destruction by the Bolsheviks.” (Hitler )
Source: Trump’s “Final Battle”
Americans are singing
… Clowns to the left of meJokers to the rightHere I am stuck in the middle with you
Voices of America in recent times. First there was Trump then Giuliani and along came George Santos
Source: Giuliani Now Claims Witness With Evidence On Biden Has Died | Crooks and Liars
Here’s one for Grisham
Donald Trump is struggling to find a lawyer…again. According to reports from the Washington Post, the ex-president, who’s facing 37 charges related to allegations of mishandling classified documents, spent most of the day before his arraignment searching for an advocate to take his case. Several high-profile Florida attorneys have declined the task, after two lawyers—Jim Trusty and John Rowley, who played until recently had played critical roles in Trump’s defense—unexpectedly resigned last week. Trusty and Rowley are the two latest departures from a rotating cast of Trump attorneys who have, over the years, often been entangled in nearly as much controversy as their infamous client.
Source: Nobody Wants to Be Trump’s Lawyer…Again – Mother Jones
The Separation of Powers in a Democracy has the Justice System determine whether actions are treasonous or not, not politicians or politically motivated individuals. Unfortunately in America, it seems that that separation is tenuous in that judges and judicial system is made up of party political appointees. So Rhodes who claims to be a proud American is simply stating the obvious. All prisoners in the US are political and some on a bipartisan basis.
However, not all those incarcerated committed a treasonous act when breaking American laws. Rhodes is no Cool Hand Luke neither a victim or a hero. He and his band of Oaf Keepers are simply treasonous thugs who stood by and were ready. waiting for the call of the greater Oaf Trump who was President and believed he should be for life. Trump had brown-eyed Democracy and wanted to remain in the job as king “America’s Shame” is their court system not separate from politics and one also slow to judge those with a degree of status and heaps of money from the wealthy and corporate donors. Wealth allowed Trump to play with the courts and remain free for 78 years. American prisons reflect that very class system within which US citizens live and by which they’re threatened
Source: Stewart Rhodes Says He’s a Political Prisoner. Are Republicans Listening?
This sounds like Trump’s description and cry for MAGA
America is not a bulletproof republic. It is the dying salesman of its own tragedy. It may have passed the point of no return. It is angrily adrift abroad in a seething multipolar world. It is beset at home by accelerating crises of climate, infrastructure, economy, society, culture, and, frankly, common decency.
what of the peoples of secondary status on the periphery of the empire? Like Australia. While the unhappiness of America reveals itself to the world, this outer reach of the empire could choose its own way, like some middle powers not suborned to America. But the haunting question remains: Is Australia as a nation-state capable of responding in a coherent and long-term fashion to disarm the vengeance of an unhappy American empire?
Source: The crooked timber of an unhappy, dangerous American Empire – Pearls and Irritations
A country that can’t abide by the truth of it’s own mistakes
A report published this week featuring previously unreleased drawings by Abu Zubaydah—a 52-year-old Saudi who has been imprisoned by the United States for more than 20 years at CIA “black sites” and Guantánamo Bay—offers new insight into torture suffered by a man caught up in a case of mistaken identity.
Source: Drawings by Guantánamo ‘Forever Prisoner’ Abu Zubaydah Expose Details of US Torture
It is difficult to imagine a scenario for next year’s Presidential elections which does not increase the already bitter polarisation of American society. The level of irrationality and violence in the United States means that in the coming decades it may well veer between bellicosity and isolationism. In the face of an uncertain American polity, tying ourselves yet closer to the American alliance seems a foolhardy enterprise.
Source: Bitter polarisation of American society undermines case for US alliance – Pearls and Irritations
However, between 2021 and 2022, life expectancy in the U.S. declined from 77.0 to 76.1 years and the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reports that this is the lowest level since 1996; for 2022, it increased to 79.05 years. In 2021, life expectancy for males was 73.2 years and for females 79.9 years, and by 2022, male life expectancy reached 73.9 and for females 79.5.
Source: Americans Are Dying and Dying … and Dying – CounterPunch.org
The United States is interested in safeguarding the profits of monopoly capital, which carries politicians in Washington around in its pockets like loose change, writes Roger McKenzie.
For all we hear from conservatives about liberals’ censoriousness, data newly released by the American Library Association is a reminder that the overwhelming majority of book-banning campaigns come from the Right.
Source: Conservatives Are Banning Books in America, Not Liberals
Reagan promised us if we’d just deregulate our media and abandon local ownership requirements for newspapers, radio stations, and TV outlets that we’d end up with a flourishing, diverse, and edifying media sector. He kicked it off by ending enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and Bill Clinton carried it forward with the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Instead, a small handful of billionaires and rightwing companies own virtually every consequential radio and TV station in the country; most of our local newspapers are bankrupt; more than half of the ones left are owned by a couple of New York-based hedge funds; and hate, lies, and disinformation have proven more effective at driving profits than honest information or concern for the public good so they’ve become an unscrupulous business model on the right.
Source: Have You Noticed America Is Looking Like a Third World Nation? | The Smirking Chimp
It keeps getting worse. And surprise, surprise: There’s always a God-fearing, out of touch, stark raving mad, fascist-in-the-making Republican at the root of it.
Here are a handful of news items over the last couple of weeks that a perfect examples of fascism on the march.
Source: One step away from total fascism – » The Australian Independent Media Network
So, would it be too extreme to suggest that Aussies be banned from entering this country? If a single amoral Australian rat, with a little help from family and friends, can do so much damage to this nation, wouldn’t it be prudent to keep the descendants of British criminals and low lifes from Down Under from coming here? And though we can assume that “some of them may be good people,” as Trump once said about Mexicans, do we really want to take such an obvious risk to our security after what Australians have put us through.
Make America Great Again? Keep the Aussies Out!!!
Source: A Modest Proposal for Banning Australians from Entering this Country | The Smirking Chimp
Australia’s American Ambassador Kevin Rudd is being quoted
“Murdoch is not just a news organisation. Murdoch operates as a political party, acting in pursuit of clearly defined commercial interests, in addition to his far-right ideological world view.”
Source: Why is Rupert Murdoch’s Lie Machine Poisoning American Democracy? | The Smirking Chimp
In the United States government has been privatized by the Citizens United ruling of the SCOTUS. Government is now really up for sale and auctioned off to the highest campaign contributors.
Source: End the “Citizens United” Ruling with a “Democracy for All Amendment”
Brockovich’s Friday night Town Hall filled the auditorium and also two overflow rooms at East Palestine High School
Source: Activist Erin Brockovich Leads East Palestine Residents in Town Hall Meeting
Trump inherited the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. In his first two years in office, there were 4.5 million new jobs created, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“We have created a record 12 million new jobs — more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years,” Biden said.
So despite Trump’s strong start, Biden created more than two-and-a-half times the number of jobs as Trump in their first two years in office.
Source: Biden vs. Trump: Who Created More Jobs In Their First Two Years In Office?
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