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MoA – No, Iran Is Not Rushing To Build A Nuclear Weapon

Posted by M. C. on July 4, 2019

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/07/no-iran-is-not-rushing-to-build-a-nuclear-weapon.html

John Mearsheimer is a political science scholar who adheres to the realist school of thought. He developed a theory of offensive realism that at times produces valid predictions of the behavior of some states. But his theory does not account for cultural factors and its predictions fail when these predominate in a state’s decisions.

His ridiculous op-ed in today’s New York Times is proof for that.

Mearsheimer may not be responsible for that fakenews headline. The NYT is generally anti-Iran and some of its editors are the worst warmongers.  But even as the claims made in the headline are false, they are not far from what Mearsheimer writes.

For the record: No, Iran is not rushing to build a nuclear weapon. And if it would do such Trump could stop it.

Mearsheimer starts:

President Trump says he wants to make sure Iran never acquires nuclear weapons. His policy, however, is having the opposite effect: It is giving Tehran a powerful incentive to go nuclear, while at the same time making it increasingly difficult for the United States to prevent that. On Monday the official Iranian news agency announced that the country had breached the limits for enriched uranium imposed on it by the 2015 international agreements.Indeed, American policy toward Iran over the past year makes it clear that Iranian leaders were foolish not to develop a nuclear deterrent in the early 2000s.
…
The Iranians had good reason to acquire nuclear weapons long before the present crisis, and there is substantial evidence they were doing just that in the early 2000s. The case for going nuclear is much more compelling today. After all, Iran now faces an existential threat from the United States, and a nuclear arsenal will go a long way toward eliminating it.

The current “existential threat” against Iran, says Mearsheimer, is the economic war and blockade the U.S. wages against it.

But where is the evidence that nuclear weapons would prevent the economic war and blockade? North Korea, which has nuclear weapons and even the ability to strike the United States with them, is under similar measures. In sight of that how does this make the case to go nuclear more compelling for Iran?

Before 2003 Iran likely had a nuclear research program to find out what it would take to make a nuclear weapon. But the reason to pursue that was not the threat from the United States. The threat to Iran was a potentially nuclear Iraq, a country which had already used weapons of mass destruction against its cities. When the U.S. invaded Iraq that threat went away and Iran’s nuclear weapon research program was canceled.

Iran has a much better weapon than nuclear devices to deter the U.S. from threatening its existence. It can block the flow of oil from the Gulf to the global economy. It is a relatively cheap capability and nothing but a full fledged invasion of Iran can take it away.

Mearsheimer believes that Iran would need nukes to do that:

[I]f its survival was at stake, Iran could credibly threaten to use a few nuclear weapons to completely shut down the flow of oil in the Persian Gulf.It might seem hard to imagine Iran using nuclear weapons first in a crisis, but history tells us that desperate states are sometimes willing to pursue exceedingly risky strategies […] The Trump administration would surely be aware of the dangers of provoking a nuclear-armed Iran. In short, nuclear weapons would profoundly alter Iran’s strategic situation for the better.

If Iran destroys the loading stations for oil along the western Persian Gulf coast with conventional ballistic missiles it would slow the flow of oil to a trickle. Additional attacks on tankers would bring it to effectively zero. There are no nukes needed to achieve either.

By not pursuing nuclear weapons and by adhering to the framework of the nuclear agreement, Iran has kept the Europeans on its site. If it goes nuclear Iran will bring the world into a united position against it. UN Security Council sanction would immediately be back. Other Persian Gulf states would soon try to also acquire nukes. Iran would be confronted by a large coalition of states whereas today only the U.S., Israel and some of their Gulf minions are hostile to it. Which is the better strategic situation for Iran?

There is absolutely no need for Iran to go nuclear and there would be no strategic advantage for it in possessing nukes…

The first one is the spending that is necessary to build a military advantage over other states. What are the marginal returns for investing more money into military might? The population of a state may well prefer peaceful consumption over an increase of its hegemony.

The second point is even more cultural. States have characters. While some are aggressive others are not.

Iran is an Islamic Republic led by jurists of Shia believe. Its leader issued a religious verdict against making and possessing nukes. Under Shia doctrine outward Jihad, religiously justified war, is only legitimate in defense, not as aggression. During the last 300 years Iran behaved  non-aggressive. Despite having the financial means and population size to fight its smaller neighbors, it did not initiate any war. Its military posture and doctrine is defensive.

Mearsheimer ignores these facts. Most likely because they contradict his political theory.

Iran will not go nuclear and it will not start a war. It is Israel that is threatening to do that over Iran’s slightly increased stockpile of low enriched Uranium…

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U.S. firm facing allegations of bribery and war ...

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The Govt. Wants to OUTLAW Encrypted Messaging – The Organic Prepper

Posted by M. C. on July 4, 2019

And…you know… maybe what you’re talking about is nobody else’s business…

https://www.theorganicprepper.com/outlaw-encrypted-messaging/

by Daisy Luther

If you ever use the encrypted messaging options on programs like iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, Wickr, Telegram, or any other service, your time to discuss things privately over the phone may be running out. The US government doesn’t like for anything to get in the way of their ability to spy on investigate even the most mundane of conversations.

Instead of seeing privacy as a right, they see it as suspicious. Your devices are already being searched at quadruple the previous rate in airports. And the attack on free speech is now going as far as our private messages to our friends and family.

Because the only reason we’d want privacy is that we’re criminals

This was the topic of a National Security meeting last week.

The encryption challenge, which the government calls “going dark,” was the focus of a National Security Council meeting Wednesday morning that included the No. 2 officials from several key agencies, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Senior officials debated whether to ask Congress to effectively outlaw end-to-end encryption, which scrambles data so that only its sender and recipient can read it, these people told POLITICO. Tech companies like Apple, Google and Facebook have increasingly built end-to-end encryption into their products and software in recent years — billing it as a privacy and security feature but frustrating authorities investigating terrorism, drug trafficking and child pornography. (source)

So, which government agencies are hot to make encrypted messages illegal?

The DOJ and the FBI argue that catching criminals and terrorists should be the top priority, even if watered-down encryption creates hacking risks. The Commerce and State Departments disagree, pointing to the economic, security and diplomatic consequences of mandating encryption “backdoors.”

DHS is internally divided. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency knows the importance of encrypting sensitive data, especially in critical infrastructure operations, but ICE and the Secret Service regularly run into encryption roadblocks during their investigations. (source)

It looks like the simpler answer is the few who understand there are reasonable, non-criminal uses.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons we might want to encrypt our conversations.

Of course, we know there are dozens of reasons we might want to use the encryption function on our favorite messaging apps. For example, when I was recently traveling in Europe, I needed to give my daughter credit card information to pay a bill for me. I used the encryption function on Telegram to send it because who wants that out there floating around?

Indeed, there are many legitimate reasons to use end-to-end encryption.

A ban on end-to-end-encryption would make it easier for law enforcement and intelligence agents to access suspects’ data. But such a measure would also make it easier for hackers and spies to steal Americans’ private data, by creating loopholes in encryption that are designed for the government but accessible to anyone who reverse-engineers them. Watering down encryption would also endanger people who rely on scrambled communications to hide from stalkers and abusive ex-spouses. (source)

And…you know… maybe what you’re talking about is nobody else’s business… Read the rest of this entry »

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Democrats and the Long Game – by Robert Ringer

Posted by M. C. on July 4, 2019

The question that no open-borders advocate has ever answered is, How many illegals should be allowed into the United States?  100 million?  500 million?  One billion?  Where does it end? 

So long as millions of information-challenged men and women have the right to vote, we are going to move ever closer to that one election that will make America’s fundamental transformation permanent. The only hope is to find a way to educate the walking dead among us.

https://robertringer.com/democrats-and-the-long-game/

by Robert Ringer

Most pundits believe that when every Democratic candidate raised his/her hand when asked if they would support healthcare for illegal immigrants, it was the death knell for the Dirty Dems’ chances in 2020.  And they’re probably right.  Even so, from what we’ve witnessed to date, there are certain to be many more excellent reasons not to vote for a Democrat in 2020.

Time to celebrate?  Not so fast.  The sad irony is that the Democrats have already won the illegal immigration battle.  Sure, they’re virtually certain to lose big in 2020, but a foundational strategy of the Marxist movement is to play the long game.  To the Dirty Dems, losing today is nothing more than a speed bump along the way to long-term success.

It’s been nearly 175 years since Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto, but even after experiencing one socialist/communist failure after another, the Radical Left continues to move relentlessly forward.  How different the world might be if conservatives possessed such grit and determination.

The ongoing debate over illegal immigration is just one good example of how the Dirty Dems play the long game.  It begins with a false premise, namely, that Congressmen and women were elected to do everything possible to improve the lives of those who come to the United States illegally.  That’s right, to listen to the swamp creatures talk (yes, Republicans included), one would be led to believe that you and I want our representatives to focus not on making our lives better, but on making the lives of illegals better.

While there’s no question that the hateful Democratic presidential hopefuls truly believe this to be their mandate, it’s safe to say that at least 63 million voters do not.  In my October 26, 2018 article, “Fake Caravans and Decision Time for America,” I alluded to what I believe tens of millions of voters really do want, to wit:  Any undocumented person arriving at any border of the United States, regardless of age, sex, or country of origin, should be refused entry into the country, no questions asked.  No debate.  No court rulings.  End of discussion.

Plain and simple, the reason we call them illegals is because they are — Duh! — here illegally!   Meaning they are in violation of U.S. law.  It has nothing to do with age.  Whether someone is seventy or seven, whether they are labeled “DACA” or some other catchy acronym, it doesn’t change the fact that they are in the United States illegally.  If you buy into the argument that children who are here illegally should not be held responsible because it was their parents who brought them here, you are unthinkingly agreeing to open borders.

Think about it.  If you’re allowed to stay in the United States just because someone else brought you here, what it really does is assure an endless flow of illegal immigrants.  It gives too much of an incentive for parents to take whatever risks necessary to get their children onto U.S. soil.

The question that no open-borders advocate has ever answered is, How many illegals should be allowed into the United States?  100 million?  500 million?  One billion?  Where does it end?  When the United States finally becomes one of the most undesirable countries in the world to live in?…

And guess who has bought into this manufactured crisis?  If you guessed unprincipled, weak-kneed Republicans, you’re right.  This is the long game Democrats play in order to get Republicans to give in to what they really want:  Divert attention from the real problem by getting Republicans to accept a false premise — that helping illegals to have better lives is a top priority for most of Americans — then keep moving the goal posts.

The bottom line is that swamp creatures don’t care about the wants and needs of Americans.  For them, the big question is, What can we do to ease the pain of those flouting our immigration laws?  More bedding?  You got it.  Healthier food?  You got it.  More comfortable holding facilities?  You got it.

The need to treat illegals better than Americans, to give them more of everything, to apologize for America’s privilege, knows no bounds.  Because we are a flawed people, there is no limit to what we should be willing to do to atone for our sins.

Thus, the $4.5 billion emergency border-aid bill passed by the House is not intended to make your life better.  Nor is it to stop illegal immigration.  It is to ease the pain of those who are already here illegally and those who continue to come to the United States illegally every day.  It’s for mattresses, diapers, food — whatever our uninvited guests require…

A rational person might say that if voters are that ignorant, they deserve the government they get. Which is true. But what about the millions of Americans like you and me who believe in liberty and reject the politics of division and hate? Do we deserve the government low-information voters elect?

That said, I’m not concerned about the buffoons on the Democratic debate stage. I find it hard to believe that any of them can win the Democratic nomination anyway. What I am concerned about is the millions of Americans who are so uninformed, or misinformed, that they wouldn’t be able to pass the LeBron Literacy Test even if they were allowed to cheat.

So long as millions of information-challenged men and women have the right to vote, we are going to move ever closer to that one election that will make America’s fundamental transformation permanent. The only hope is to find a way to educate the walking dead among us…

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EVIL CAPITALISM TUR POIN FAIR SOCIALISM | Meme on ME.ME

 

 

 

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The Western Leftwing Preaches Hatred of the Working Class – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on July 4, 2019

Oxford University, formerly a member of the world’s best, has announced a policy of lowering its standards so that unqualified students can pass, thus advancing equality.

A leftwing that lives in such myths is totally useless. 

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/07/03/the-western-leftwing-preaches-hatred-of-the-working-class/

Paul Craig Roberts

Considering the American rightwing’s adsorption in war and hatred of Muslims, worship of capitalism whose operatives have sent American middle class jobs abroad, and blind support of Israel, a racist country, Americans desperately need a real leftwing.  All we have is a fake leftwing.

I sometimes think the last American leftist was British born Alex Cockburn, whose mother was a British aristocrat and whose father was a muckraking journalist.  I knew Alex.  He was a gentleman leftist, but more or less a real leftist.

Today’s leftists are into hate, not the hate of the capitalist exploiter, who most likely has bought them off, but the hate of white people, especially straight white males.  The American left is into Identity Politics and Antifa.  Identity Politics damns the working class as the “Trump deplorables.”  The working class is no longer a favored victim group.  Indeed, it is a victimizer. The official victim groups are “racial minorities,” who actually are huge majorities in the world, females, homosexuals and lesbians, and the “transgendered.”  Anyone can become transgendered simply by declaring themselves to be the opposite gender from what they are.

The working class is under attack for being “white supremacists.”  This is the way to shut them up, while sympathy is directed to the poor male who has declared himself transgendered into a woman and just won a woman’s sport event.  Normal people (soon a crime) have criticized letting a man win a women’s sport contest, and the leftwing comes down on these normal people for being ‘transgender phobic.”

Alex Cockburn’s creation, CounterPunch, with his death has become a forum for Laura Carlsen and other such haters of white males to demonize the endangered core populations of the Western world. According to Laura, we face the “threat of rightwing terrorism.”

Laura goes on to define “white nationalist” as “Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, racist skinhead, and Christian Identity.” The ignorance Laura displays in these associations is astounding, but ignorance is the leading characteristic of America’s fake left

Laura goes on to define “White” as “the racism directed at all non-white peoples and nations.”  Nationalism “refers to the territorial aspirations of the movement and the goal of a nation or homeland.”  Is Laura talking about Israel?  She wouldn’t dare…

Universities, like corporations and media, are working to “correct an implicit gender bias.”  In the UK “only 41% of scientists and engineers are women.” In Germany only 33% are women. Therefore, reverse discrimination is employed to correct a fabricated gender bias in order to make the female the family provider. The fabricated attack on males ignores that the natural function of women is to raise the next generation.

In the UK and the US, and little doubt elsewhere in the Western world, universities, once centers of learning, are being destroyed in order to abide by “political correctness” and gender and racial balance. For example, the University of Nottingham had a philosophy department that had a world rank.The value of the degree to graduates was destroyed when the university put in office a chairman who drove off the white males whose scholarship had made the university notable. In the place of scholars, the department hired “quota hires,” the correct gender and race, but absent the scholarship.  Consequently, the University of Nottingham  Ph.D. in Philosophy lost its ranking, and the degree declined in value.  All recent graduates with the degree are harmed. But women have the positions of the men who were jettisoned by the university.  In the British university system, this constitutes progress.

Oxford University, formerly a member of the world’s best, has announced a policy of lowering its standards so that unqualified students can pass, thus advancing equality.

There is no way to avoid the fact that in the Western world the white male is portrayed as the enemy that must be demonized and defeated. Here is Laura’s wrap-up description of white nationalists: “toxic blend of totalitarianism, white male violence driven by collective entitlement and frustration, and manifestations of extreme racism, sexism, xenophobia and homicidal gun-adoration.”

Imagine the uproar  if a white male spoke this way about a preferred minority.

Obviously, a socially dominant class could not be spoken of in this way.  Yet Laura presents the white male as an absolute ruler that must be overthrown.  How come only the allegedly “socially dominant” can be demonized and mistreated with hurtful words?  Why isn’t the “socially dominant” class protected by hate speech prohibitions?  Why do the allegedly “victim groups” have all the rights?

A leftwing that lives in such myths is totally useless.

“Beyond White Nationalism (militarist, racist, patriarchal, capitalist)” by Laura Carlsen, CounterPunch, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2019.

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Antifa BTFO as police allow violence at FMI event ...

How Antifa protests violence.

 

 

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Moon of Alabama – On Eve Of 4th Of July Parade U.S. Attempts To Lure Iran Into Shooting Down Another U.S. Plane

Posted by M. C. on July 3, 2019

 A million troops is the only way we can defeat Iran in a shooting war. But…

Nuclear war is winnable. Washington says so.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/

Today a manned U.S. reconnaissance plane entered Iranian airspace in a clear attempt to provoke Iran into shooting it down. Such an incident would have created an occasion for Trump to give the American people a special 4th of July fireworks.

On July 3 1988 the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes shot down the civil Iranian Flight 655 with 290 people on board. The U.S. claimed that the plane’s transponder was signaling an Iranian military identification code, that it was seemingly attacking the Vincennes, that the ship warned the plane 12 times, and that the ship was in international waters when the incident happened.

The crew of the Vincennes received medals for killing the Iranian civilians.

Investigations showed (pdf) that all the above claims were false. The shoot down was intentional. Iran sued the US in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over it. The case was settled in 1996 when the U.S. agreed to apologize and to pay $61.8 million to the families of the victims.

On June 20 a large U.S. reconnaissance drone, accompanied by a manned U.S. military airplane, flew into Iranian air space east of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran shot the drone down. The U.S. threatened to strike Iran over the incident but Trump did not follow through.

There were reports that some people in the White House doubted that the U.S. Central Command, the U.S. military command for the Middle East, told it the full truth about the incident. Two days before the drone incident happened Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director, had unusual talks with the U.S. Central Command. This led to speculations that the incident was designed to provoke Iran into a shoot down and to push Trump into a war on Iran.

The case today is not in doubt. The U.S. military definitely tried to provoke Iran into shooting down another one of its planes.


bigger

Manu Gómez @GDarkconrad – 9:17 UTC – 3 Jul 2019USAF Rivet Joint tracking over The #PersianGulf, spoof Hex Cod 730000 C/S IRI00061

The US Airforce RC-135V Rivet Joint are signal intelligence planes that snoop on other countries.


biggerThe plane flew over the islands Abu Musa and Sirri in the Persian Gulf which are Iranian territory and Iranian airspace. It falsely signaled that it was an Iranian plane…

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A nuclear blast from the past -- FCW

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Happy 4th of July

Posted by M. C. on July 3, 2019

steel helmet

The Steel Helmet

Molon Labe, too.

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IMF’s Christine Lagarde Wins EU Support to Lead European Central Bank

Posted by M. C. on July 3, 2019

In 2016, a French court found her guilty of committing negligence in 2008 when she was finance minister in the cabinet of former President Nicolas Sarkozy. The judge didn’t hand down a punishment, saying the ruling took into context the role Ms. Lagarde played in crafting France’s response to the global financial crisis. The IMF backed her, as did the French government.

Pro inflation and fiat money. Her middle name is ‘one world government’.

Her other face looks like George Soros.

The status quo will be safe. Don’t know about the citizenry that pays the bills.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/imfs-christine-lagarde-wins-eu-support-to-lead-european-central-bank-11562087529

By

Valentina Pop and
Brian Blackstone

BRUSSELS—International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde is likely to become the first woman to run the European Central Bank, putting an experienced crisis fighter in charge and paving the way for a continuation of easy-money policies.

Ms. Lagarde also would be the institution’s first president without a pedigree in central banking. That has raised doubts about whether she would command the same credibility in financial markets as current chief Mario Draghi, who emerged as a dominant figure in the global economy during his nearly eight years at the ECB.

Her nomination comes as central bankers face challenges on a number of fronts. Inflation has weakened below target in many developed economies including the eurozone, while trade conflicts have crimped economic growth. But central bank rates are already super low or—in the case of Europe and Japan—negative, which spurs lending by reducing borrowing costs and making it unattractive to hold deposits…

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mark of the beast

The Mark of the Beast

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It’s Time To Admit That The US Is Signing The Checks For Greater Israel

Posted by M. C. on July 3, 2019

I am tired of the pandering to Israel and the fake news about them or anyone else caring about a two state solution.

Ain’t happenin’

https://outline.com/yaj4D3

The Forward ›
Saeb Erekat

As part of their alleged plan for the Middle East, the Trump administration held what they called an economic “workshop” in Manama. It was an utter failure.

The plan presented was nothing more than a real-estate brochure, and its revelation in Bahrain a poorly attended affair. What Trump’s team, led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, referred to as the “opportunity of the century” was nothing more than a plan to normalize the occupation of Palestine.

 

For peace to prevail and prosperity to thrive, Israel must end its occupation and stop obstructing the national, political and human rights of the people of Palestine, including freedom and sovereign control over our own economy. This very message was repeatedly echoed, even by many of the participants in Manama.

But Manama was not about supporting the economy of a thriving, free and independent Palestinian State. It was about the perpetuation of Israel’s occupation and colonial-settlement enterprise…

Kushner, along with Ambassador David Friedman — himself a supporter of the settler movement — and Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt have exposed a clear goal of eliminating the Palestinian national project, to the benefit of those who advocate for “Greater Israel.”

No wonder Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised his voters that he would annex more of the occupied territory of Palestine during the previous election cycle.

Now that this plot, which has been clear to us Palestinians all along, has been so clearly exposed to the rest of the world, the question is: What are you going to do about it? Those who attended Manama have an opportunity and a responsibility to make clear that their presence at the summit did not amount to supporting Kushner’s efforts to propagate Israel’s expansionist enterprise and desired apartheid in a Greater Israel in which Palestinians have no rights…

Our allies must speak up. A new political reality requires world leaders to act firmly, starting with the recognition of the State of Palestine on the 1967 border, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This will at least serve as a diplomatic barrier against US and Israeli attempts to erase the political rights of the Palestinian people.

It’s equally urgent to take action against the Israeli occupation. The international community must ban Israeli settlement products, divest from companies involved in the systematic violation of international law in Palestine, set guidelines to prevent international involvement with the occupation, and prevent Israeli settlements and settlers from benefiting from agreements signed with Israel…

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aipac

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The Only Thing Worse Than the World Dying – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on July 3, 2019

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/07/no_author/the-only-thing-worse-than-the-world-dying-would-be-if-it-died-unseen-and-unappreciated/

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

ABC News put an article out the other day titled “Was Tulsi Gabbard’s nuclear war warning during Democratic debate hyperbole, or all too real?“, which makes a surprisingly reasonable appraisal of just how close we all are to losing everything all at once.

It’s a mainstream media piece, so of course it ends with a couple of think tank denizens claiming that Gabbard’s dire warnings during the debate are hysterical nonsense, but the first half of the article quotes authorities on nuclear disarmament confirming that we may very well be as close to nuclear annihilation as we were at the height of the last cold war.

Gabbard’s claim during the Democratic debate that we are at greater risk of nuclear war than at any time in history is entirely reasonable given the relentless escalations against Russia that this administration has been mounting, and is a perspective shared by experts like leading US-Russia relations authority Stephen Cohen.

In the face of mounting escalations, continuing US military expansionism, and flirtation with the possibility of hot war around the world, the possibility of a nuclear warhead being deployed by either side in the chaos and confusion due to malfunction or miscommunication grows ever greater. The increasingly desperate flailings of a weakening empire could set everything off in an instant. It is entirely possible that, when all is said and done, getting this very real danger into mainstream attention will end up having been Gabbard’s single most important contribution to the American political conversation.

Very few people have actually, deeply considered the very real possibility that we may be on the precipice of watching our entire world die as a result of nuclear war. They have not opted out of this consideration due to facts or scientific data, but solely due to intellectual cowardice. It is so much more comforting to hold onto the narrative that the risk of nuclear armageddon is a distant memory left in the dust of the early 1960s, and that since the fall of the Berlin Wall it has remained only a remote possibility held at bay by mountains of redundant safeguards. 

If we somehow avoid nuclear annihilation, the looming threat of climate collapse remains. Taking all the data into consideration, without the overlay of cognitive filters needed to maintain the belief that rugged individualism will save us all, leaves little room for doubt that humanity’s current relationship with its ecosystem is completely unsustainable and will set off a chain of cataclysmic events in the near future if we don’t wildly change our behavior.

We may very well be sitting on the verge of the apocalypse. The end could easily come within a few decades or a few years. With this fact comes a tremendous responsibility.

The only thing worse than this world slipping away forever would be for it to slip away without having been fully seen and appreciated by as many people as possible. If we all spent our time obsessing over our own petty personal dramas with our eyes fixed on glowing screens in between now and when the shit hits the fan. That would be as close a thing to true sacrilege as can happen in the real world. I believe it is our responsibility as human beings to do everything we can to keep it from happening.

By all means, please do keep fighting to wake people up so that we can rise up against the sociopaths who are driving us into disaster. But for the love of all you consider holy please don’t fail to appreciate your time here while you’re doing it. Please don’t fail to take in the beauty and majesty of this remarkable blue planet as often and as much as you possibly can. Because you don’t know how long this will all be here.

Humans have been given the gift of consciousness. As humans we are not only able to absorb and react to sensory input, but also to have a relationship with that information. Our brain creates a stream of thoughts from this sensory information and we observe them. People make the mistake of believing that they are those thoughts, but we’re not, we’re the observer, and in knowing that we have a very powerful tool at our disposal. Once you realize you’re the observer of your thoughts and not the sum of them, then you also realize that you have the ability to change where you place your attention. This might be the only decision you can make outside of the patterns that create your thoughts, but it’s a game changer. 

Let the stream of your thoughts babble on in the background like a radio in another room, and put your attention to what’s really here, beyond the labelling mind. How long has it been since you marvelled at the steam rising from your morning coffee? The play of dew on a flower. The sound and feel of gravel crunching under your feet. The thrum of traffic in the distance, the floofy little monster that roams around your house looking for warm keyboards to sit on, the fact you have hands. You have hands! Check that out. How weird are hands?? So much goes unnoticed.

Lift the veil. We spend so much time staring at a screen, and the rest staring at the screen of our mind. By placing your attention on what’s really here in any given moment, you’re developing a relationship with reality. And reality really craves that. She’s been right here this whole time putting on the performance of her life and we’ve been staring at her sightlessly consumed by the drama of our thoughts on our mind-screens. Let her dance for you a little. Let her show off. Ancient civilizations used to sing to the earth convinced that it enjoyed the attention. Pay her some attention, man. She gives you so much.

___________________

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The Tulsi Effect: Forcing War Onto the Democratic Agenda | The American Conservative

Posted by M. C. on July 3, 2019

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-tulsi-effect-forcing-war-onto-the-democratic-agenda/

By Danny Sjursen

Democrats, liberals, progressives—call them what you will—don’t really do foreign policy. Sure, if cornered, they’ll spout a few choice talking points, and probably find a way to make them all about bashing President Donald Trump—ignoring the uncomfortable fact that their very own Barack Obama led and expanded America’s countless wars for eight long years.

This was ever so apparent in the first two nights of Democratic primary debates this week. Foreign policy hardly registered for these candidates with one noteworthy exception: Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard—herself an (anti-war) combat veteran and army officer.

Now primary debates are more show than substance; this has long been the case. Still, to watch the first night’s Democratic primary debates, it was possible to forget that the United States remains mired in several air and ground wars from West Africa to Central Asia. In a two-hour long debate, with 10 would-be nominees plus the moderators, the word Afghanistan was uttered just nine times—you know, once for every two years American troops have been killing and dying there. Iraq was uttered just twice—both times by Gabbard. Syria, where Americans have died and still fight, was mentioned not once. Yemen, the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, courtesy of a U.S.-supported Saudi terror campaign didn’t get mentioned a single time, either.

Night two was mostly worse! Afghanistan was uttered just three times, and there was no question specifically related to the war. Biden did say, in passing, that he doesn’t think there should be “combat troops” in Afghanistan—but notice the qualifier “combat.” That’s a cop-out that allows him to keep advisers and “support” troops in the country indefinitely. These are the games most Democrats play. And by the way, all those supposedly non-combat troops, well, they can and do get killed too.

Reminding the audience of the recent troop deaths in the country, Maddow asked Ryan, “Why isn’t [the Afghanistan war] over? Why can’t presidents of very different parties and very different temperaments get us out of there? And how could you?” Ryan had a ready, if wholly conventional and obtuse, answer: “The lesson” of these many years of wars is clear, he opined; the United States must stay “engaged,” “completely engaged,” in fact, even if “no one likes” it and it’s “tedious.” I heard this, vomited a bit into my mouth, and thought “spare me!”…

Gabbard pounced, and delivered the finest foreign policy screed of the night. And more power to her. Interrupting Ryan, she poignantly asked:

Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable. We have to bring our troops home from Afghanistan…We have spent so much money. Money that’s coming out of every one of our pockets…We are no better off in Afghanistan today than we were when this war began. This is why it is so important to have a president — commander in chief who knows the cost of war and is ready to do the job on day one.

In a few tight sentences, Gabbard distilled decades’ worth of antiwar critique and summarized what I’ve been writing for years—only I’ve killed many trees composing more than 20,000 words on the topic. The brevity of her terse comment, coupled with her unique platform as a veteran, only added to its power. Bravo, Tulsi, bravo!

Ryan was visibly shaken and felt compelled to retort with a standard series of worn out tropes. And Gabbard was ready for each one, almost as though she’d heard them all before (and probably has). The U.S. military has to stay, Ryan pleaded, because: “if the United States isn’t engaged the Taliban will grow and they will have bigger, bolder terrorist acts.” Gabbard cut him right off. “The Taliban was there long before we came in. They’ll be there long [after] we leave,” she thundered…

Ryan couldn’t possibly open his mind to such complexity, nuance, and, ultimately, realism. He clearly worships at the temple of war inertia; his worldview hostage to the absurd notion that the U.S. military has little choice but to fight everywhere, anywhere, because, well, that’s what it’s always done. Which leads us to what should be an obvious conclusion: Ryan, and all who think like him, should be immediately disqualified by true progressives and libertarians alike. His time has past. Ryan and his ilk have left a scorched region and a shaken American republic for the rest of us…

Be seeing you

Tell Congress: No Endless War in Syria | CREDO Action

 

 

 

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