The fascist trend in America’s politics portends a lasting erosion of the underpinnings of the ties which have bound Australia to its most important ally and provides a powerful reason for us to loosen these ties.
Category: USA
The U.S. just resumed sales of bombs and missiles to the Gulf state, which still owes $15 million for jet fuel from its war on Yemen.
The U.S. Fueled Saudi Jets Bombing Yemen. Now the Saudis Won’t Pay Their Gas Bill.
A MUST-WATCH 29-minute interview in which Jeffrey Sachs tells it like it is and as few others dare to tell it.
American policymakers have regarded command of the Persian Gulf a foreign policy imperative since it emerged as the world’s economic and military power following the Second World War. Because of its location and rich resources, it is, in the words of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-61), the “most strategically important area in the world.”
The U.S. doctrine of dominance that began in the 1940s and has kept the Middle East divided, chaotic and dependent must come to an end so that transformation can begin. Radical and profound change of the region’s social, political and economic order can only come about if the United States departs, Zionism ends and Palestinians return to a free Palestine. Anything less will fail.
Source: Intruder at Large: The United States in the Middle East – CounterPunch.org
the behavior of the empire absolutely is an emergency. The escalations against Russia and China that these freaks are pushing have the world on a trajectory that’s going to get us all killed, and the horrors they are inflicting in Gaza and elsewhere are creating a nightmare on earth right here and now. The empire is only getting crazier and more violent as its planetary domination becomes more challenged, and until people can see it for what it really is, it’s going to be very hard to build up the necessary public opposition against it to use the power of our numbers to force them to stop.
Developments on university campuses and in Congress this week showed that the U.S. government’s top priority is not protecting students or civilian lives in Gaza, but to protect Israel’s ability to continue its unimpeded slaughter.
Source: Enforcing Silence on Genocide
AIPAC ensures there’s no wriggle space available to back away from Israel’s terrorist move to take Palestine
The Democrats and the Republicans are outdoing each other to prove who can get us to World War III fastest. Joe Biden and the Congressional Democrats are making a convincing bid to be the leading warmongers. The Congressional Democrats just voted unanimously in a vote of 210 – 0 to extend the Ukraine War with another $61 Billion to kill more Russians and Ukrainians, and by a lopsided majority of 173-37 for another $14 Billion to extend Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Donald Trump weighed in before the vote that Ukraine’s survival and strength is “important to us”, and that Europe should pay more. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson did his part for warmongering by calling Russia, China, and Iran the updated axis of evil. The slur was just in time for Secretary of State Blinken to fly to China to threaten more US sanctions if China trades with Russia in ways the US disapproves.
Source: War parties, the peace candidate, and the US election – Pearls and Irritations
Kent State University
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY
Source: To Peacefully Petition – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“The fact that the court has now taken this case makes it exceedingly unlikely that [Mr Trump] will be tried for his offences on January 6 before the election,” he told reporters on 24 April.
“Of course the court can decide cases quickly when it has to. It could hear this case tomorrow and could fairly easily produce an opinion one week later. That is not going to happen. The court has all but told us and assured us that that will not happen,” he said. “It was an extraordinary statement by the court to set the argument in this case for two months from the date it granted the case.”
Source: How Supreme Court delays gave Trump what he wants before 2024 elections | The Independent
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Today we’ll look at the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campuses across the United States. In a moment we’ll look at Wednesday’s congressional hearings where the president of Columbia University was grilled for hours about accusations of antisemitism on campus. But we begin with the University of Southern California, which continues to be rocked by controversy after canceling the commencement speech of its valedictorian for what it claimed were “safety” reasons after she became the subject of an online anti-Palestinian hate campaign.
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/18/asna_tabassum_censored?jwsource=cl
by Editor
A panel on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Thursday highlighted the role right-wing misinformation is playing in distorting perceptions about the state of the economy and the rate of inflation, which a majority of Americans incorrectly believe is headed in the wrong direction.
Source: Misinformation has Americans depressed about the economy | Media Matters for America
The question that needs to be asked is AIPAC their focus
Source: FBI Warns Gaza War Will Stoke Domestic Radicalization “For Years to Come” – The Intercept
Instead of abiding by recognised International Laws the US has created a new rule book that no one has ever seen called a “Rules Based Order”. Through this unwritten, undefined system of unknown rules, the USA allows itself to be an aggressor, it allows for its own actions to go unpunished while at the same time, calls for other nations to be held accountable under the International laws it has placed itself above.
Source: A nuclear armed Rogue State is threatening Asian peace and stability – Pearls and Irritations
“Guantánamo has been universally condemned by every human rights, civil liberties, and civil rights group in the world that has expressed an opinion, as well as by the United Nations, and most countries in the world,” writes John Kiriakou.
Source: An Ex-CIA Agent Looks Back at 22 Years of Torture at Guantánamo Bay – ScheerPost
It is the urgent task of the American people to overhaul a foreign policy that is so broken, corrupted, and deceitful that it is burying the government in debt while pushing the world closer to nuclear Armageddon. This overhaul should start in 2024 by rejecting any more funding for the disastrous Ukraine War and Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Peacemaking, and diplomacy, not military spending, is the path to a US foreign policy in the public interest.
Source: US Foreign Policy Is a Scam Built on Corruption – ScheerPost
Biden is a practicing Catholic
It is the urgent task of the American people to overhaul a foreign policy that is so broken, corrupted, and deceitful that it is burying the government in debt while pushing the world closer to nuclear Armageddon. This overhaul should start in 2024 by rejecting any more funding for the disastrous Ukraine War and Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Peacemaking, and diplomacy, not military spending, is the path to a US foreign policy in the public interest.
US Foreign Policy Is a Scam Built on Corruption – Pearls and Irritations
and
Pope Decries Arms Industry Profits for Pulling ‘Puppet Strings of War’
Switching to Russian Rule
Washington: Since beginning his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has said the “termination” of the Constitution would have been justified to overturn the 2020 election; told followers, “I am your retribution”; and vowed to use the Justice Department to prosecute his adversaries – starting with US President Joe Biden and his family.
Beneath these public threats is a series of plans by Trump and his allies that would upend core elements of American governance, democracy, foreign policy and the rule of law if he regained the White House.
Source: US presidential election: How Donald Trump plans to wield power if he wins back White House
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which spans over seven decades, serves as a potent illustration of the persistent failures of Western nations, particularly the United States, to facilitate an equitable and enduring resolution.
We’ve been sliding down this slippery slope toward unaccountable fascism for several decades, and this coming year will stand at the threshold of an entirely new form of American government that could mean the end of the American experiment.
To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice for our democracy to rise or fall will be in our hands.
“It’s important to understand that what’s happened is that the unipolar moment is in the rearview mirror. We are now in a multipolar world”
The US wasted the Unipolar moment fighting regime-change wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan and Somalia, destroying nations all across the Islamic world, generating massive refugee flows that are destabilising Europe, and causing massive hatred of the US within the Islamic world. One of the major US war aims in supporting Ukraine was to achieve regime change in Russia. Both China and Iran know that if that is achieved, they are next on the regime-change agenda, and this has solidified Russian support. And Putin’s popular support in Russia is over 80%, double Biden’s.
Imperial overreach has caused other empires to fall.
When it’s adjusted at the start of 2024, what time will the Doomsday clock show?
Source: John Mearsheimer and the decline of US hegemony – Pearls and Irritations
What is white Christian nationalism? Generally – according to the Southern Poverty Law Center – it “refers to a political ideology and identity that fuses white supremacy, Christianity and American nationalism, and whose proponents claim that the United States is a `Christian Nation.’”
Source: How White Christian Nationalism Threatens U.S. Democracy
How the worm turned in just 50 years when the US drew us into a war with the Communists of Vietnam. We lost to what the majority of the Vietnamese people wanted. Today the US is ready to arm them, friends to prepare them against China.
The Biden administration is in talks with Vietnam over an agreement for the largest arms transfer in history between the ex-Cold War adversaries, according to two people familiar with a deal that could irk China and sideline Russia.
Source: Biden administration in talks with Vietnam for arms deal that could irk China – India Today
The focal shift from Russia in Europe to China in Asia is less a mechanism for coping with defeat than the pathological reaction of a country that, feeling a gnawing sense of diminishing prowess, can manage to do nothing more than try one final fling at proving to itself that it still has the right stuff – since living without that exalted sense of self is intolerable. What is deemed heterodox, and daring, in Washington these days is to argue that we should wrap up the Ukraine affair one way or another so that we might gird our loins for the truly historic contest with Beijing. The disconcerting truth that nobody of consequence in the country’s foreign policy establishment has denounced this hazardous turn toward war supports the proposition that deep emotions rather than reasoned thought are propelling us toward an avoidable, potentially catastrophic conflict.
A society represented by an entire political class that is not sobered by that prospect rightly can be judged as providing prime facie evidence of being collectively unhinged.
Was that the Trump or Biden’s government doing in 2022?
As a result of pandemic relief policies expiring under the Biden administration, Americans faced the largest one-year increase of poverty on record.
Source: Poverty Rose in 2022 as Inflation Surged and Pandemic Aid Was Terminated – scheerpost.com
A “Plea Deal” Julian is required to plead Guilty. Now that’s what America calls a bargain
The United States is considering a plea deal that would allow WikiLeaks founder and whistleblower Julian Assange to return to Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Monday.
U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy told the Morning Herald that there could be a “resolution” to Assange’s now-four-year detention in Britain. Assange, an Australian citizen, has been held in a London prison since 2019 while combating U.S. extradition efforts. He faces 18 criminal charges in the U.S., 17 of which allege violations of the Espionage Act.
Source: U.S. Official Hints at Possible Plea Deal for Julian Assange
Australia must carefully monitor US domestic developments as a barometer of longer term risks to the reliability of our “great and powerful friend”, and to avoid being drawn into a US war against China. But the biggest lesson from the political polarisation in the US is that it is better to have lower overall economic growth but sustain a fairer society, than to go for broke while impoverishing ordinary citizens. The price of failing to do that is the risk of bitter polarisation, political violence, and democratic tensions.
Source: Avoiding the same fate: Political Polarisation in the US – Part 5 – Pearls and Irritations
Can the United States avoid a descent into political violence? Of the 52 cases where countries reached the levels of polarisation which now exist in the US, half had their status as democracies downgraded. The US is the only Western democracy to have sustained such intense polarisation over such an extended period. It really is in uncharted territory.
Source: A descent into violence? Political polarisation in the US – Part 4 – Pearls and Irritations
One of the great claims for representative democracy and federations is that they provide a uniquely successful way of dynamically negotiating, rather than suppressing, social differences and tensions. So, when it appears to be failing to do that in one of the world’s oldest and most successful democracies it is worth asking “why has this happened”?
Source: Political Polarisation in the US – Part 3: Causes – Pearls and Irritations
The US demonstrates the difficulty of changing historically ingrained cultural mindsets passed down generationally
“We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government, everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.” So said Marjorie Taylor Greene in a tweet in February this year. Greene is a Republican Member of Congress and could be running mate for Donald Trump.
Source: The long hand of history: Political Polarisation in the US – Part 2 – Pearls and Irritations
There is no doubt that polarisation between Democrats and Republicans is real and increasing. Not since the 1930s has there been such a bitter divide. Pernicious polarisation has reached levels unseen in democracies in Europe, Asia, Oceania or in Canada since World War 2. This is already having consequences for the “governability” of America, its social cohesion and its ability sustainably to deliver Presidential programs. But the impacts don’t stop there – they also affect the attitudes of allies and competitors and influence views of the value of democracy versus strongman autocracy.
Source: Political polarisation in the US – Part 1: How real is the problem? – Pearls and Irritations
If the Biden administration wants to stop the mass displacement that is leading enormous numbers of Cuban and Venezuelan migrants to the US-Mexico border, it should end the sanctions that have made life in those countries all but impossible for average people.
Source: US Sanctions Are Driving Displacement and Migration From Cuba and Venezuela
Sanctions are a form of collective punishment. Their costs are overwhelmingly borne by innocent people rather than governments. And they are just another form of war, not an alternative to it. The US’s many sanctions across the world need to end.
Source: US Sanctions Are Brutal and Inhumane. And They Don’t Work.
Imagine the uproar if China or Russia—or any other country for that matter—said it aimed to exercise military control over land, sea, air, and space to protect its interests and investments. This amazingly has been the stated United States policy since 1997. Full spectrum dominance, as the doctrine is known, is the reason the United States behaves the way that it does on the international stage.
Source: Home – CounterPunch.org
On March 13th, the Pentagon rolled out its proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The results were — or at least should have been — stunning, even by the standards of a department that’s used to getting what it wants when it wants it.
Source: Congress Has Been Captured by the Arms Industry – CounterPunch.org
At the start of the pandemic, the head of the World Health Organisation, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged the countries of the world to be more collaborative and less confrontational, saying that “this is the time for solidarity, not stigma” and repeating, in the years since, that nations must “work together across ideological divides to find common solutions to common problems.” These wise words must be heeded.
Source: What Follows US Hegemony
On trust in government, we now rank 26th worldwide between Greece and Hungary.
Such findings are ominous, for the very bedrock of democracy is trust—including trust that political and economic rules are fair so that our voices are heard. And it’s hard to imagine many of us feel heard when wealth and income continue gushing to the top, generating economic inequality roughly on par with Haiti’s and more extreme than in 121 countries. Plus, most of us express reluctance to share our views for fear of offending others.
Source: The American Crisis of Trust—Let’s Learn from Leading Democracies | The Smirking Chimp
In what Austin journalist Christopher Hooks has called “one of the stupidest news cycles in living memory,” the entire American political/media class is having an existential meltdown over what the Pentagon claims is a Chinese spy balloon detected in U.S. airspace on Thursday.
The recently leaked US supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade is perhaps the clearest indication of the danger that this trend poses. By removing a fundamental individual right and once again enabling conservatives to impose their own moral views on women’s bodies, the decision – if passed as written – will be seen on the right as a landmark in how the power of the state can be used to discipline a degenerated culture and regulate morality. Further crackdowns are sure to follow. Locked out of power on the supreme court and facing steep challenges to winning power in America’s unbalanced electoral system, defenders of liberalism will struggle to fight back.
As many Americans feared that freeing Kyle Rittenhouse seemed to legitimize political violence, Republicans competed for the honor of offering him a job on Capitol Hill. Robert MackeyRobert Mackey November 20 2021, 11:29 a.m.
Rep. Paul Gosar, the Arizona extremist who helped plan the pro-coup January 6 rally, and shared an animated video fantasy of himself killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, hailed the verdict by tweeting that he and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida “will arm wrestle” to see which of them gets to offer Rittenhouse a Capitol Hill internship.
Source: Republicans Fight Over Who Loves Kyle Rittenhouse the Most
Australian Institutions have been historically actively in persecuting left-wing thinking if it moved too far left for conservatives. The false flag cry today has always been ANTIFA ANTIFA
It’s hard to talk about the threat of right-wing violence without sounding alarmist. After all, America has made it this far without succumbing to fascism—and the creaky institutional guardrails have held during national emergencies, including the Trump years. Even the January 6 insurrectionists didn’t have the look of a competent paramilitary force. It can’t happen here, right? But it’s time to start getting alarmed—and for our institutions to respond accordingly. Right-wing and white supremacist domestic terrorism is at highs not seen since the Jim Crow era. QAnon and Q-adjacent conspiracy theories have metastasized political disagreements and underlying racist and misogynist sentiments in the minds of millions of conservatives, some of whom now believe they are engaging in a battle with cannibal pedophile agents of Satan who steal every election. These wild and unfounded beliefs, in turn, provide them justification for almost any kind of violence in response.
There is no Democracy unless one accepts to lose an election.
Washington’s Capitol halls are abuzz this autumn as President Joe Biden attempts to enact his legislative agenda in the face of a Republican opposition hell-bent on political vandalism and chaos.
The wealthiest 1% of Americans are responsible for more than $160bn of lost tax revenue each year, according to a new report from the US treasury.
White supremacist and hard-right groups aligned with “conservatives” in this country are applauding the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, lauding it as a model for a similar takeover of the United States.
Source: Right Wing Extremists Eye Taliban Takeover As Model For US Civil War | Crooks and Liars
America’s white population declined for the first time while US metro areas were responsible for almost all of the country’s population growth, according to groundbreaking new data released on Thursday by the US census bureau.
Source: US’s white population declines for first time ever, 2020 census finds | Census | The Guardian
A Navy training document asks, “Anarchists, socialists and neo-nazis represent which terrorist ideological category?”
Source: Military Training Document Says Socialists Represent “Terrorist” Ideology
The second way out of Germany’s crisis would be through immigration. The country could throw open its doors to people from all over the world to take unwanted and unfilled jobs, pay taxes, and support the increasingly aging population. That is exactly what Germany did. The government of Angela Merkel, in 2015 and 2016, accepted over a million refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Germany now has the fifth largest population of refugees in the world (after Turkey, Colombia, Pakistan, and Uganda). This headline-grabbing decision, five years later, has been a remarkable success. The million refugees have prospered, reports the Center for Global Development.
Source: For Greying Geriatric Wealthy Countries, Immigrants are the Solution, not a “Crisis”
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