Thanks for all you do B. I hope all is well now.

Posted by: Miss Lacy | May 23 2021 14:58 utc | 1

Does anyone have any information on the terms of the Israeli/Palestinian ceasefire?

Posted by: Peltast | May 23 2021 15:27 utc | 2

Full Text: Tibet Since 1951: Liberation, Development and Prosperity

There's a cool chart for those of you who don't like to read.

--//--

Storm in a teacup:

‘Our American studies are too weak’: Chinese scholars warn of knowledge gap with US peers

The sources of the the journalist who wrote this are all quoted outside their due context. They were also heavily distorted and edited. Those were academics from a specific area talking to their peers about the state-of-the-art of their area.

The reason China's social sciences is weak is very simple: when you have Karl Marx, you don't need sociology. Marx is worth more than the entire field.

--//--

No, you can't:

Editorial Board: The developing world desperately needs vaccines — and the U.S. can supply them

--//--

Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications

Wait a minute. Wasn't it exclusively a Chinese problem some weeks ago?

That's why you don't fall for Media propaganda. Critical thinking and erudition (raw accumulated knowledge) are essential if you want to be a true free individual.

--//--

Opinion: George Floyd Died a Year Ago. The Third Reconstruction Is Underway

You know what they say about empires that start to bring up the glories of the past too much in order to solve their problems of the present. As the old sayin' goes: Felicitor Augusto, melior Traiano

--//--

NYT: Russia ‘steals a march on the US’ on military presence in Arctic

Confirms my take that Russia is going to secure the Arctic all things remaining equal.

However, look at this:

"Though the Russian military has little in common with liberal Western politicians or environmental groups like Greenpeace, it does share a view that the ice is indeed vanishing. That has allowed it to steal a march on the United States," The New York Times noted.

What the fuck is this paragraph? Does the NYT editors think this is journalism? Does the NYT journalist think he/she's doing journalism with those kind of paragraphs?

The Red Army doesn't need to believe the Arctic ice is "indeed vanishing". It can know that for a fact by measuring it. State the damn facts, "journalist".

--//--

Western ideologue mourns the inevitable failure of the Myanmar color revolution; invents bogus reasons why:

Why Myanmar’s civil war won’t be like Syria’s

Either way, he confirms my take on the Myanmar situation: Myanmar will hardly be another Syria.

--//--

The The Hill piece linked in the week in review here confirms our suspicions Ukraine has become a financial black hole for the West, and the USA is trying to get rid of it by throwing it to the EU's arms:

Instead of expending diplomatic capital on a campaign to stop Nord Stream 2, the Biden administration should work with its European partners to prepare Ukraine to withstand the pipeline’s completion. The deadline for action is 2024, when Kyiv’s current gas contract and President Biden’s term effectively end. By that time, Washington and Brussels should formulate and implement an economic package that, first and foremost, covers Ukraine’s inevitable budget shortfall from the loss of transit fees to keep the Ukrainian state running. This package should, however, also invest in the country’s sustainable growth. That would entail material and technical support for Kyiv’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign, whose success is a prerequisite for attracting long-term investment. One idea worth considering is a loan to cover revenue shortfalls, whose repayment would be incrementally forgiven in exchange for concrete progress on reforms by Kyiv.

That won't happen. The easiest way you can infer that is that the USA and Germany don't even have the resources to invest in green energy in their own territories, let alone on third-parties' territories. Hell, the USA doesn't even have the resources to rebuild Puerto Rico.

This is not the 1950s. The American Empire's bottomless pocket is no more.

Posted by: vk | May 23 2021 15:36 utc | 3

I posted about it in a previous post but I think it deserves repeating.

From the official account of the authorities of Peel Region in Canada

“ Please note info around the consent for vaccination has been updated. Youth aged 12+ can consent to immunization on their own behalf provided they understand the benefits and risks of vaccination. As with any other medical appointment, we encourage family discussion.”

https://twitter.com/regionofpeel/status/1395364782694404097

This is disquieting ...

Posted by: DG | May 23 2021 15:37 utc | 4

Missed you b, but hoping you and your loved ones are safe and doing well. Thanks again for all your hard work to keep us informed!

Posted by: RMY | May 23 2021 15:44 utc | 5

How can one ignore all the noise in the media to focus on the crux of the situation, implications, and the future outcomes?

One can only understand the impact of events better and envision the future by exploring plausible scenarios and identifying signals which over time will enable one to size up the probabilities of outcomes.

INTERNATIONAL – MONETARY IMPERIALISM
Geopolitical relationships are frosty & flammable. All the narratives can be summed up into a few SCENARIOS:

A– COMPETITION. Aggressive competition between China/Russia (Sovereignties) & U$A/UK (Five Eyes - suzerainties). EU?
B– DECOUPLING. Two spheres of influence & supply chains. China & Russia led and the Five Eyes led. Germany/EU?
C– WAR. The dollar empire launching a war against China &/or Russia. Iran?

The probabilities of these scenarios will be defined by the following SIGNALS:
– NS2. Is Nord Stream 2 completed by September? If yes, a major geopolitical victory for Russia. If the U$A can thwart this project then it still has the power and will to shape Europe. If, on the other hand, Germany & Russia resists U$A’s pressure and complete the pipeline to operate, that would be an act of defiance unprecedented in postwar history. This is the biggest clash between Russia and the United States since the end of World War II. Let’s see if European countries are less subservient to Washington.
– De-DOLLARIZATION. China, Russia and other nations moving away from the US$ and trading in their respective national currencies.
– SANCTIONS. More sanctions from the dollar empire against China, Russia, Iran, Germany... Counter sanctions, retaliations... impact on the global economy...
– JCPOA deal and ME developments.
– FROZEN CONFLICT developments: Ukraine, Syria, Belarus, Venezuela
– Afghanistan withdrawal by September?
– U$A economic & dollar developments.

Any new scenarios & signals? What probabilities would one assign to various scenarios? What will be the construct of scenarios and signals at the national level?

The Dollar Empire likes to initiate a conflict during Olympics when they are held in its adversaries:
– 2008, Georgia conflict
– 2014, Ukraine conflict
– 2022, ?

Posted by: Max | May 23 2021 15:45 utc | 6

The Kilimnik link is a good, interesting read. Thanks.

Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | May 23 2021 15:46 utc | 7

Now I have seen everything, the NYT published a reasonable article about Russia, "In the Russian Arctic, the First Stirrings of a Very Cold War" (dnyuz republished from NYT)

Saying that a warming arctic is a strategic nightmare for the Russians because their long coastline is no longer inaccessible. GASP!!! someone actually looking at the world from a POV other than the melomaniac U.S. belief that we must control every coast.

I checked the source of the article because it shocked me so much. Was the NYT hacked?

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | May 23 2021 15:54 utc | 8

thanks b.. i much appreciate your work and the community of people here that offer so many great insights..

@ john... you probably know about this, but my friend was telling about it just a few days ago - Review: Frank Zappa, “The Hot Rats Sessions”
i wish i could hear these 5 or 6 cds.. i am quite curious! have you heard them??

aaron mate is doing great work.. he did an interview with norman finkelstein - 44 minute video..
Finkelstein: Gaza assault a disaster for Israel, while Palestine solidarity is revived

he challenges this question 'does israel have the right to defend itself?' by asking doing the guards of a concentration camp have the right to defend themselves?" gaza is the largest concentration camp ever, as quoted from some israeli-jewish scholar from 2003.. it has only gotten much, much worse since... 2 million people approx, half under the age of 18th.... a disaster for israel is right...

Posted by: james | May 23 2021 15:55 utc | 9

American media are now attacking the "progressive left" for supporting the Palestinians.

They are pushing this Big Lie: The progressive left hates Netanyahu because he embraced Trump.

'Back story' bullcrap: Netanyahu is solely responsible for the recent hostilities. Netanyahu is offered as a pinata for critics.

Seems clear that media want to avoid any discussion of Zionism and/or Empire while demonizing critics.

!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 23 2021 16:00 utc | 10

U.S. Censoring New Eastern Outlook - journal-neo.org ? ? ?

This site hast been down for 3 days ... "Account disabled by server administrator."
Is this for real or part of the U.S. govt censorship? Please let me know if any of you CAN reach this site: https://journal-neo.org/

The really smart way to censor a site would be to filter access to a website so that the people running it do not know they are being censored.

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | May 23 2021 16:01 utc | 11

Fighting socialism... with one gangster at a time:

US companies lobby South Korea to free jailed Samsung boss

The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea is lobbying President Moon Jae-in of South Korea to release Samsung chair Lee Jae-yong from prison, arguing that the billionaire executive could boost Joe Biden’s efforts to shake off American dependence on computer chips produced in foreign countries. Moon meets Biden this weekend in Washington.

Samsung is weighing multibillion-dollar investments in semiconductor facilities in the US, with the Seoul-based group considering sites in Austin, where it already has one chipmaking factory, as well as Phoenix and New York. Lee, meanwhile, is serving 18 months behind bars for bribery.

Posted by: vk | May 23 2021 16:04 utc | 12

Cryptocurrencies are a momentum play, not an inflation play. At some point the reversion to the mean is coming, and it may be a rough ride. They’re just numbers on a computer like numbers on the paper bills. Bitcoin is a speculative instrument for a financialized pyramid scheme. Bubble-Coins...

Every bubble requires two essential inputs to fuel its rise:
1. a compelling story
2. ample credit

What is the story? The market is the Fed.

Posted by: Max | May 23 2021 16:09 utc | 13

vk | May 23 2021 15:36 utc | 4

"Felicitor Augusto, melior Traiano". To be happy in August, we have planned better trains?

Posted by: Stonebird | May 23 2021 16:16 utc | 14

"we shall sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth, to see the ashes of our fires turn grey and cold." end of "Hard Times."

it's just so exciting to see the Rooskies rape the Arctic and not the capitalist pig US. undoubtedly VK will be telling us shortly they are Marxists, so then it's ok.

it was the Soviet workers' state who built Chernobyl, so the radiation must be commie nucleotides that are just fine and денди.

gonna be hard for people to admit that the earth doesn't run on your ideology and your fascination w/what you can do w/your technological doodads. bright lights, dumb city.

Posted by: jason | May 23 2021 16:21 utc | 15

Posted by: Stonebird | May 23 2021 16:16 utc | 15

"Felicitor Augusto, melior Traiano". To be happy in August, we have planned better trains?

How dare you!

"Be more fortunate than Emperor Augustus and better than Emperor Traiano".

Posted by: Arch Bungle | May 23 2021 16:27 utc | 16

Scientists in the UK working as advisors for the government have expressed regret for using what they now admit to be “unethical” and “totalitarian” methods of instilling fear in the population in order to control behaviour during the pandemic, according to a report.

The London Telegraph reports the comments made by Members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B), a sub-committee of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) the government’s chief scientific advisory group.

The report quotes a briefing from March 2020, as the first lockdown was decreed, that stated the government should drastically increase “the perceived level of personal threat” that the virus poses because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”.

One scientist with the SPI-B admits that “In March [2020] the Government was very worried about compliance and they thought people wouldn’t want to be locked down. There were discussions about fear being needed to encourage compliance, and decisions were made about how to ramp up the fear.”

The unnamed scientist adds that “The way we have used fear is dystopian.”

The scientist further confessed that “The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable. It’s been like a weird experiment. Ultimately, it backfired because people became too scared.”

Another separate scientist on the subcommittee professed “You could call psychology ‘mind control’. That’s what we do… clearly we try and go about it in a positive way, but it has been used nefariously in the past.”

Another scientist warned that “We have to be very careful about the authoritarianism that is creeping in,” adding “people use the pandemic to grab power and drive through things that wouldn’t happen otherwise.”

According to the report, another researcher with the group acknowledged that “Without a vaccine, psychology is your main weapon,” adding that “Psychology has had a really good epidemic, actually.”

Yet another scientist on the subcommittee stated that they have been “stunned by the weaponisation of behavioural psychology” over the past year, and warned that “psychologists didn’t seem to notice when it stopped being altruistic and became manipulative.”

“They have too much power and it intoxicates them”, the scientist further warned.

Report: Government Scientific Advisors Admit They Used ‘Totalitarian’ Fear Tactics To Control People During Pandemic

It’s what I’ve said from the beginning of this pandemic. They’re using it to force through social and economic changes they otherwise would not have been able too.

Posted by: Down South | May 23 2021 16:33 utc | 17

A thought:

I can't help noticing the coincidence in time between the Colonial pipeline hack and the *reduction* of NS2 sanctions by the US.

The Colonial pipeline hack seems to be somewhat out of the ordinary, as does the draw down of NS2 sanctions.

Two extraordinary, related events within the same short time span ...

Could it be that the Colonial Pipeline hack is something of a warning ahead of the NS2 completion ?

"You Break My Pipelines. I Break Yours ..."

Posted by: Arch Bungle | May 23 2021 16:35 utc | 18

Max | May 23 2021 15:45 utc | 7

You missed one, rampant inflation. Followed by "Buddy, can you spare a dime" unemployment.

Talking yesterday to someone who is in the Civil administration in a City in Switzerland; He told me that they are already have many problems of supply, and even the Companies who have tendered for contracts are also having problems to access materials, further down their supply lines.

This may be partly due to the Suez canal jam, but it also means the supply chains have been screwed up. Remember "Just in time" spare parts?

This will translate into higher prices all round (incuding taxes). Then more population "unrest" and "Police control".

Posted by: Stonebird | May 23 2021 16:35 utc | 19

the country that makes Boeing and Elon Musk is the country that makes Trump and then produces Credit Card Joe as some kind of Messiah to redeem us with his demented spittle. these people aren't playing 11th dimensional chess. no operation needed to do an end run around the "plans" of someone who is a complete idiot w/zero self control. if you want to hear some great news about the US, it's that it's would be Maximum Leader was listening to this while his troops were not able to accomplish anything even when much of the state security apparatus was standing down.

this is a real nation of doers and achievers.

Posted by: jason | May 23 2021 16:40 utc | 20

Posted by: Peltast | May 23 2021 15:27 utc | 3

Does anyone have any information on the terms of the Israeli/Palestinian ceasefire?

There are no terms (that have been publicly stated).

An israeli spokespam (with a south african accent) on Al Jazeera stated that it is a unilateral ceasefire by israel. Therefore that excludes terms.

(Unless you count "Hamas must stop firing" as "terms")

The Hamas terms have not been granted, i.e : Cessation of evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and the IDF to stop acting like douchebags on the temple mount.

To be frank, this looks very much like a "traditional" ceasefire: i.e an ammunition reloading break.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | May 23 2021 16:42 utc | 21

Plate tectonics

« Tectonic plates are composed of the oceanic lithosphere and the thicker continental lithosphere, each topped by its own kind of crust. Along convergent boundaries, the process of subduction, or one plate moving under another, carries the edge of the lower one down into the mantle. »

But only sensitive when Earth quake.
As 1988 "USSR Armenian" earthquake, also known as the Spitak earthquake

18 months ago, the last big "peace" demonstration in Tel-Aviv was more like a burial of all hope for the Palestinians.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-march-in-tel-aviv-against-trump-plan/ Everyone took the Trump Plan and the annexations for granted.

In December 2020, Haaretz wrote an editorial:
Meretz has no right to exist as an independent political entity

Meretz has been shrinking for years, threatened with extinction. Meretz has stubbornly clung to a one-dimensional discourse on the Palestinian issue, even when reality has dealt a blow to the party and to anyone who believes in a two-state solution, following the recent peace and normalization agreements with four Arab countries. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-left-wing-meretz-party-has-ended-its-role-in-israeli-politics-1. 9415357

Last week, a week of "intellectual quivering" and Friday : hangover effect.And another day of intellectual collapse on Zionist MSM reported by "Times of Israel" https://www.timesofisrael.com/until-we-meet-again-what-the-press-is-saying-about-the-gaza-ceasefire/

Saturday night Haaretz and al. headlines on demonstration of several thousand Israeli citizens. Jerusalem Post try with a misleading title « Thousands of Jews and Arabs march in Tel Aviv for peace, coexistence »

Protesters also voiced support for the recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect early Friday, calling on the government to take immediate action to end Israeli occupation in the West Bank and to reach peace with the Palestinians. [...] "I hear politicians and security officials speak about another round of fighting in a few months or years, while being blind to the 7 million Palestinians living between the [Jordan] river and the [Mediterranean] sea," Odeh said. "There are two peoples living here and both deserve the right for self-determination."
Author David Grossman told the crowd in Habima Square, "We Israelis still refuse to realize that the time has passed when our power can impose a reality that suits us and only us, our needs and our interests." [...]
https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/thousands-of-jews-and-arabs-march-in-tel-aviv-for-peace-coexistence-668852

Self-determination of 7 million Palestinians living between the river and the see is not exactly the so-called coexistence with and "2 states solution".

Gilad Atzmon notes the extent of the damage and its root cause

In the last seven decades Israel has worked relentlessly to divide the Palestinians in an attempt to dismantle their ability to resist as one people. This project had been so successful in the eyes of the Israelis that many of them started to believe that the Palestinian cause had evaporated into thin air. But then, completely out of the blue (as far as the Israelis are concerned), Hamas managed to unite the Palestinians into a unified fist of resistance: on Tuesday every Palestinian between the River and the Sea joined a strike called by Hamas. Such a collective, multi-sectorial strike didn’t happen in Palestine since 1936.
[… ]Hamas’ military objectives are simple and modest. Hamas has vowed to keep the resistance alive. It fulfills its promise.
[...]
But there is a deeper reasoning behind Israel’s hopeless situation. Israeli decision makers (both within the political realm and in the military) subscribe to the power of deterrence. For Israelis, the power of deterrence means punishing the Arabs so heavily that their will to fight would practically stop existing. For one reason or another, the Israelis manage to clumsily zigzag through their troubling history in the region in an attempt to validate this doctrine.
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2021/05/22/the-image-of-victory

is Sunday, a Day of Subduction?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/breaking-silence-bennett-rages-at-govt-signals-openness-to-change-coalition/

Posted by: Մասիս | May 23 2021 16:42 utc | 22

Don't see any Covid posts. Are they banned?

Read something yesterday that drew my attention: "India is the diabetes capital of the world".

We have been seeing all the scare headlines for the last several weeks
regarding the India Covid Variant.

Is 1 + 1 equal to 2?

Diabetes is a known risk factor for severe outcomes from covid infection.
https://www.massgeneral.org/news/coronavirus/diabetes-and-covid-19

Are the claimed high death rates from the India variant due to the high diabetics population in India?

Note that my search found China and India #1 and #2 in diabetes populations in the world.

Per this link, Brazil is #6 and good ole US of A is #3.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/diabetes-rates-by-country

Posted by: librul | May 23 2021 16:47 utc | 23

John Helmer takes a look at the general Russian view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

Since the fighting began at the start of May, the mainstream Russian media report no public demonstrations anywhere in the country in support of either the Palestinians or the Israelis. The domestic media have not sent reporters to the areas of fighting; their news bulletins have been perfunctory and compiled from non-Russian sources.

Military media such as Colonel Cassad and Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) have reported little. Vzglyad, reflecting Russian intelligence agency thinking, has published one hostile piece against the Palestinians, one neutral situation report, and one technical military assessment of the drones which Hamas has been using at sea, off the Israeli coast, and against land targets, as well as the start of Iranian drone firing from Syria.*

The Russian Orthodox Church which has long maintained pilgrimage sites, churches and monasteries in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, said through its press spokesman Vladimir Legoida that it has issued no press release on the conflict or official statement from the Patriarch himself; Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the department for external church relation; or the Church’s organs in Jerusalem.

The Palestine state ambassador to Moscow, Abdel Hafiz Nofal, was reported by Tass on Tuesday (May 18) as calling for direct talks between Palestine and Israel in Moscow “at any time…even tomorrow because we are confident in Russia.” The next day he was asked how he explains the lack of public support for the Palestinians in Russia. He refuses to say.

The domestic media blackout on the fighting in Palestine is bound to reinforce the reluctance of Russians to express sympathy for one side or the other – or at least the appearance of reluctance, lack of information, or indifference. The blackout – itself unreported in Russian and Arab media — may mask growing sympathy for the Palestinians and hostility towards Israel.

WHITE NOISE, WHITE SILENCE — RUSSIA & PALESTINE

Posted by: Down South | May 23 2021 16:50 utc | 24

@ 24 librul... get your eyes checked.. see @ 5 DG..

i was reminded of why i enjoy reading glenn greenwald in that link b provided... a quote from it "Anyone who launders CIA lies and does the work of the FBI -- such as helping the FBI find “domestic extremists” by trolling through their personal data -- has no business accusing others of having “moved to the right.” some great articles that b has shared.. thanks..

Posted by: james | May 23 2021 16:55 utc | 25

According to Helmer, the Russian government is leaning towards the Israelis in this conflict

There are a few kilometres of flat country between the Golan border of Palestine, occupied by Israel, and Damascus, capital of Syria – perfect visibility, no cover, optimum for Israeli air and artillery attack, and also for Syrian and Iranian drone counterattack.

Between the occupying Israelis and the occupied Palestinians on the Israel side of the line, the Kremlin and the Russian General Staff, victors in the Syria War, say they are unable to see daylight; that’s to say, they can’t distinguish between attacker and defender.

For Russians at daily war themselves defending against the encroaching attacks of the NATO allies not to see this, but instead to accuse the Palestinian defenders of provoking their victimisation and losses, as well as to deny the Palestinians their rights of state sovereignty and national liberation with whatever forces they have – this is the contradiction of President Vladimir Putin.

“EQUIVALENCE” – RUSSIA TILTS TOWARDS ISRAEL, AGAINST PALESTINE

Posted by: Down South | May 23 2021 16:56 utc | 26

Posted by: Down South | May 23 2021 16:50 utc | 25

I can't recall Russians protesting for any reason this century other than for CIA funded anti-Putin and pro-Navalny (or whichever oligarch is the current designated political messiah) reasons.

It is in character.

Posted by: Arch Bungle | May 23 2021 16:56 utc | 27

Reliable Reuters

Reuters doesn't ask how to solve the Palestinian/Zioracist conflict. No, it is concerned with how to make Palestinians defenseless,
while keeping oppression up to internationally acceptable levels.

[side note: was Reuters trying to take advantage of a memory trigger (Saddam's aluminum tubes) with their headline:
Israel's Gaza challenge: stopping metal tubes turning into rockets]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-gaza-challenge-stopping-metal-tubes-turning-into-rockets-2021-05-23/ (emphasis added by me)

The low cost of such arms and the need to rebuild Gaza leaves Israel and the international community with a quandary of how to meet Gazans' basic needs yet keep ordinary items such as pipes, sugar and concrete from being put to military uses.

Couldn't help but see the irony in reading that the scrap metal left from Zisraeli missiles landing on Palestine are
cycled back to Zioracist terrortory.

"They're extremely simple to fabricate and they use metal tubing, metal pipes. They often, believe it or not, will use detritus from Israeli missiles," said Daniel Benjamin, a former U.S. State Department coordinator for counterterrorism.

Posted by: librul | May 23 2021 17:07 utc | 28

clothing doesn't make itself. that's women's work. it's men's work to steal that labor and drape it over wolves, as is the case with the Patriarch of Russian Orthodoxy and Putin. it's just great to see that in Russia, as in the US et al, "civil society" orgs, esp churches, are 1000% tools of the state. do Russian churches get tax breaks so they can run "helping" groups that do nothing, nothing, but blame individual behaviors for social problems like alcoholism?

are such groups paid to feed homeless people twinkies and call it "help"? well, they are capitalists, so i'd bet the farm and future on that. I don't know if rabid Zionism is preached in every church in Russia as in the US, but silentium est consentium. the gospel of nationalism is their asset. and their busy, busy, busy heroic self-martyrdom achieving zippo.

Posted by: jason | May 23 2021 17:15 utc | 29

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/placards-with-anti-jewish-hatred-mar-protests-by-tens-of-thousands-hvnqg5njm

How is the placard message, "stop doing what Hitler did to you" an example of anti-Jewish hate?

Posted by: Eighthman | May 23 2021 17:25 utc | 30

Stonebird | May 23 2021 16:35 utc | 20

Thanks. I was thinking of accounting for the inflation at a national level. However, one can include them at the international level too. Inflation is mainly a monetary phenomena and has been high consistently, but not according to the Fed or central banks.

There are problems with the supply lines, including the shipping cost going up. The supply lines are being restored slowly. Ones the Covid situation is resolved, it will hopefully get back to normal. However, many unknown exists.

What is certain is that the signals are not pointing to relaxation, but ...?

Posted by: Max | May 23 2021 17:27 utc | 31

this awesome song and these troops, Soviet troops not Russian...and then the ending. the US couldn't find ten soldiers who can dance like that. even here in this video, capitalists can't hide what motivates them: ENVY. these soldiers clearly don't need taco bell or cars or cellphones or our designer stretch and sweat wear. they sure seem to be happy without Bill Gates shoving shit in their face 24/7/365.

and they could be happy again today (as under Stalin?) if it weren't for Satan himself, Rasputin's wicked seed, bad Vlad. vomit.

Posted by: jason | May 23 2021 17:34 utc | 32

For those of us watching, this demands vigilance:

"With lingering uncertainty over the global economic recovery from COVID-19 and spillover effects from US monetary and fiscal policies, China needs to be aware of financial risks amid concerns over surging US inflation, according to an annual financial policy report released on Sunday that also said there wouldn't be a 'sharp U-turn' in China's monetary policy this year."

Us watchers know the Outlaw US Empire grossly distorts its economic figures, but how "aware" are others has always been an excellent question. For example, I greatly disagree with the following assumption made by one of the report's author's:

"According to Ju, the US financial markets so far remain the strongest in the world."

I do agree that when the Fed finally decides to counteract the great amount of inflation it's caused that a crisis will ensue, but I disagree in its spatial impact due to the ongoing effort by nations to de-dollarize and the greatly altered structure of global markets. And unlike the past, the world's able to predict and react to popped Outlaw US Empire asset bubbles.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 23 2021 17:38 utc | 33

eighth @ 31

Hitler is the Holocaust. The word holocaust is trademarked, like the word antisemitism to shape the narrative of a 'jewish people.' To equate the holy state of Israel with that of Evil, which genocide surely is, and the 'holocaust' represents, and to also equate the 'cockroach' Arabs with the 'chosen people' of Israel is just head-exploding in certain quarters. On the other hand the term 'zio-nazi' is very much in vogue, which, with complete justification, is what the protest sign evokes.

Posted by: gottlieb | May 23 2021 17:42 utc | 34

The biggest story of the week was the Palestinian Victory. This needs a lot more analysis. It is of world-historical significance.

To begin, everyone MUST read this three-part assessment on Twitter by Ibn Riad:

Part 1: Gaza Won, Palestine Won
https://twitter.com/IbnRiad/status/1395851365990100992

Part 2: The Ethos of Resistance
https://twitter.com/IbnRiad/status/1396127955366076419

Part 3: The Operational Victory
https://twitter.com/IbnRiad/status/1396295160569470977

Parts 4 an 5 are yet to be published.

Posted by: Prof | May 23 2021 17:48 utc | 35

james @ 10

Thanks for that. I've heard about it, but not it. Likewise, very curious. Of course I'm intimately familiar with the Hot Rats album. It was a cool period, when jazz and rock were really feeling each other up...

In that vein, I recently acquired Henry Kaiser's latest project, A Love Supreme Electric, a fascinating revisiting of John Coltrane's masterpiece. I think you might dig it too. Here's a taste.

Posted by: john | May 23 2021 17:48 utc | 36

i wish i could hear these 5 or 6 cds.. i am quite curious! have you heard them??

Posted by: james | May 23 2021 15:55 utc | 10

Spotify has The Hot Rats Sessions. The original version is my 2nd fave Zappa, after One Size Fits All...

Posted by: farm ecologist | May 23 2021 17:53 utc | 37

Lithuania has decided to foreclose its economic future to forward the idiotic and false Outlaw US Empire policy against China. What will it do now that it's alienated all its neighbors? The editor provides China's outlook:

"Lithuania's performance this year fits well with the Chinese idiom: 'contemptible scoundrel.' But we don't need to be angry at it. Lithuania is a small country, whose population is less than a district of one of China's first-tier cities. All of its narratives against China are only symbolic. They are temporary echoes of the US strategy against China. If Lithuania respects itself, we will respect it. If it is blindly arrogant, and even intends to provoke China, we will neglect it."

Removing itself from the China-CEEC cooperation mechanism does nothing to harm it and will actually improve its performance. Poodles are reputed to be smart dogs, but there are always exceptions.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 23 2021 17:53 utc | 38

Batka Luka is at it again, a plane landed and the head of Nexta detained. I used to take a look at their Telegram channel once in a while and they were a bit extreme, like posting in public places police addresses and phone numbers. There will be noise, but b is ahead of the game and published the link to something similar but way more serious, the landing of President Evo Morales plane, by no other than the Spanish government itself, shameful treatment of whom Spain should support, language solidarity at least. Uncle Sam did it to us back in 1898 and our bought and paid for politicians love him for that.

Posted by: Paco | May 23 2021 18:06 utc | 39

Excellent Patrick Armstrong article assessing the current way of war as shown in the recent battle over Occupied Palestine:

"Because they cannot attack the two assumptions of air superiority and communications, they must therefore attack the third assumption of invulnerability. Not the enemy’s strength but his weakness....

"We see, today, the proof of concept. In May Gaza fired hundreds of simple, cheap rockets at Israel. The Israeli air defence system, Iron Dome, was reasonably effective but it will run out of missiles long before Gaza, to say nothing of Hezbollah, will. Iron Dome suffers from the weakness that it is far more expensive than the simple rockets Hamas is using. Debris rained down on Israeli cities, the odd rocket got through (probably more than we were told). The air raid sirens were continuous and Israelis were in bomb shelters. It’s true that Israel’s air force obliterated buildings in Gaza but that’s not the point: everyone knew they could do that, it’s the continuous rockets that are new. This went on for eleven days with no diminution of fire from Gaza. A piece in the NYT, not a noticeably Israel-hostile outlet, quotes an estimate of 30,000 rockets in Gaza; only about ten percent were fired. Hezbollah has at least four times as many. The myth of Israel’s invincibility has been broken: gravely diminished in 2006 on land, its skies are no longer safe. Fight the enemy’s weakness (its home morale – how many dual citizens are already packing their suitcases?) and use weapons it does not have." [My Emphasis]

Martyanov is 100% correct; the Outlaw US Empire's military doctrine is now trash.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 23 2021 18:13 utc | 40

Isn’t LEVERAGE a big risk factor than inflation? Downward leverage spirals are believed to be one of the main triggers of the 1929 U$A stock market crash. What was Lehman’s leverage ratio? What caused the blowup of Archegos (levered at anywhere from 5 to 8 times)?

“Leverage creates buying pressure and drives up prices. As prices rise, the collateral can be leveraged up further, and leverage builds with rising asset prices. And then when prices decline, the leveraged bets are sold to pay down the debt, and the selling triggers more price declines, and forced selling sets in. This is when Archegos blew up.”

How many have purchased bitcoins and cryptos using leverage? An individual who sold his bitcoins was offered a loan, so he won’t have to pay taxes and get money. He cashed out.

Posted by: Max | May 23 2021 18:19 utc | 41

"we don't do body counts." the US national motto. neither do India, Brazil, Canada, Britain, France, Israel...

the people who bomb Gaza run everything in the US. the schools, the soup kitchens, the HVAC, the logging, unemployment benefits, medicine, entertainment, etc.,etc. and of course the news.

they run our language. so when you sign up for auto insurance, you don't realize that all state apparatus available exist to force you, the "consumer", to honor every letter of the contract. But the insurance co. makes its money by doing everything it can to avoid paying one cent on its obligations.

there is nothing, nothing public anyway, in the US that runs on anything other than sheer lying. the public, stated goal of all activity is money making. but people don't make money by honoring their contracts or delivering promised products or services. We make money by doing as little as possible to honor any contract we have.

and so everything in the US is garbage. w/ no exceptions. except some of the music.

Posted by: jason | May 23 2021 18:19 utc | 42

thank you, karlof1, your take on events, geopolitic or economic, are always much appreciated. i trust your vacation was needed & restorative. it must've been somewhat difficult observing the ukraine chaos from afar, although perhaps it afforded the luxury of hindsight & perspective.

Posted by: emersonreturn | May 23 2021 18:21 utc | 43

Was this a deliberate ploy?:

"Gaza Health Officials Fear Covid-19 Surge as Tens of Thousands Emerge From Crowded Bomb Shelters."

Unmentioned is that it applies to both sides, not just Gazans.

Max @42--

Yes, leverage is a huge problem in the form of derivatives, and is often discussed here and by Hudson and others.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 23 2021 18:24 utc | 44

Oops. An error in the @ Max 42 link. Here is the fix for the n’t LEVERAGE link.

Posted by: Max | May 23 2021 18:25 utc | 45

emersonreturn @44--

Thanks for your reply. Won't be home till Wednesday, but have been able to keep abreast of a few events!

Posted by: karlof1 | May 23 2021 18:27 utc | 46

Wonder how much the limits of reserve ammo for the Iron Dome figured into the calculation of the Zioracist "truce".

If Zisrael only had so much ammo for their Iron Dome then they could become even more vulnerable to
an attack by Hezbollah missiles which are far more powerful had they kept on with their murderous
assault upon Gaza.

Posted by: librul | May 23 2021 18:28 utc | 47

So why would Lukashenko want to provoke in international incident by hijacking an EU plane just to arrest a journalist nobody has heard of? With some conversations now taking place between the US and Russia, this is not helpful and the timing could not be much worse.

Posted by: Keith | May 23 2021 18:30 utc | 48

- Review: Frank Zappa, “The Hot Rats Sessions”

Saw Zappa perform once-- by accident
Pasadena

Posted by: Duncan Idaho | May 23 2021 18:34 utc | 49

@Posted by: librul | May 23 2021 18:28 utc | 48

Meant to add this to comment @48

Biden promises to replenish Israel's Iron Dome supply, help rebuild Gaza

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/biden-us-will-replenish-iron-dome-amid-ceasefire-668721

Posted by: librul | May 23 2021 18:36 utc | 50

@Posted by: Keith | May 23 2021 18:30 utc | 49

Maybe he imagines he can get the word out that the West had tried to assassinate him.
Not likely, as the West is after all the home of the Free Press. (/S)

Posted by: librul | May 23 2021 18:39 utc | 51

@ Grieved, Paul, Gruff and others

The Godfree Roberts article on covid 19

Whilst I agree with most of the individual points made in the article, and with the consensus that the US had covid 19 before China, the article has numerous fatal flaws.

Firstly, it is crystal clear that the official covid statistics for most or all Western countries are nothing but lies - that is most especially true of the US and the UK. To get any meaningful ststistics you have to use more reliable measures such as excess deaths (which have their own problems, because excess deaths include deaths resulting from failure to treat heart disease, etc etc - one Lancet paper claims only 1/3rd of excess deaths in the UK are caused by covid). Therefore extrapolating back from fabricated official statistics claiming a doubling of deaths every 139 days is pure nonesense.

Secondly, statistical studies have found that the RATE OF INCREASE in the daily deathrate in all countries and US states they studied "fell from a wide range of initially high levels to levels close to zero within 20-30 days after each region experienced 25 cumulative deaths." The principle weakness of this set of studies (in particular Atkeson Kopecky and Zha, Four Stylised Facts About Covid-19) is that the study was published in August 2020 using data up to July 2020, and does not take account of subsequent "second waves" (or alleged second waves, as the case may be. Nevertheless it clearly shows that the linear doubling of deaths Godfree Roberts relies on is nonsense.

Thirdly, if the virus was so widely spread in the US long before December 2019, and was so highly infectious, how can it be that it was not carried to China very much earlier, by Americans travelling to China, or by Chinese students or tourists returning to China from the USA (or Italy, etc)? I personally very much believe in the thesis that covid-19 was circulating in the USA (and later in Italy, France, Spain and other countries; most probably following release from Fort Detrick) many months before it was found in Wuhan. Nevertheless I suspect the actual numbers of infected may have been rather limited. In addition, there were certainly genomic differences between these early versions of the virus and the version that appeared or was inserted in Wuhan - whether due to mutations or due to different versions having been manufactured in Fort Detrick. In the first few weeks after its first appearance in Wuhan the genome quickly mutated and became better adapted to the Chinese ACE cells - i.e. more infectious and less deadly. Issues such as this clearly might be involved - the version introduced to Wuhan was specifically adapted to Chinese (Asian) ACE cells, and in my view was specifically developed to attack Chinese people (and separate Iranian and Russian versions may have been specifically developed to attack Persians and Slavs). It may be that the early versions circulating in the US were designed to be largely harmless, and to target specifically caucasian ACE cells, and that they were unable to infect Chinese ACE cells (these versions might, perhaps, have been intended to try to innoculate caucasians against the more deadly version planned for subsequent release in Wuhan, as I have earlier suggested). In any event the genomes of covid infections in China in the early stages of the saga are very highly studied, and those early "pro American" versions of the virus simply did not exist in China at that time (subsequently, of course, the situation has become many orders of magnitude more complicated).

I agree with Godfree Roberts that covid-19 is overwhelmingly non-fatal, and that it reached Western countries before China, but beyond that he needs to address the fatal flaws in his arguments.

Posted by: BM | May 23 2021 18:39 utc | 52

Reply to 36

Gaza reminds me of 'maxi -max' prison concepts. They take away every privilege or minimal nicety from prisoners and end up with violent encounters and excrement thrown because they have nothing to lose.

Mossad gets praised to the heights but can't somebody look at South Africa and insist, 'get these Palestinians out into their own state, now!' ??? Other than that, one could hypothesize that an empowered international commission could impose a fair settlement (especially since Israel can't govern itself apparently). I still wonder if a coalition of Arab Joint List, leftists and the 'Torah Bum' UltraOrthodox could come together eventually.

Posted by: Eighthman | May 23 2021 18:40 utc | 53

Posted by: Keith | May 23 2021 18:30 utc | 49

Probably you did not hear about NEXTA, but it was the director of street protests against Lukashenko, safely based in Poland while cheering the Rubes to protest and with very questionable methods.

Some analysts think that it is a big signal to the west, the times when any Russian programmer or supposed arms dealer were detained in just about any country in the world seems to be a good tactic, and now it is applied by Lukashenko, just like the west does, times have changed...

Bloggers and grant hunters have been warned, we do dirty tricks too, so what...

Posted by: Paco | May 23 2021 18:44 utc | 54

@Posted by: librul | May 23 2021 18:36 utc | 51

...also, would the assault of the Zioracists upon Gaza
have been much shorter had the Zioracists not known all along
that they could count on the US of MIC to replenish their Iron Dome.
That is, is the US of MIC responsible for the length of the Zioracist assault?

Posted by: librul | May 23 2021 18:46 utc | 55

Hello everyone. Just wanted to notify that the website has been blocked in India. The only way I could access it is with a VPN or a foreign proxy.

Posted by: Frozen | May 23 2021 18:48 utc | 56

I should like to humbly salute the shinning memory of the late Mr. Professor Yuan, Long-Ping.

He put food on the tables of hundreds of millions souls, dignifying their lives.

East is Red!

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/23/world/asia/yuan-longping-dead.html

Posted by: Fyi | May 23 2021 19:01 utc | 57

LUKASHENKO'S REVENGE (Best served cold)

Last summer Ukraine's security service SBU tried to play dirty trick on Lukashenko. Russian volunteers, who had fought on the Novorossiyan side in the Ukrainian civil war were made a fake job offer, "security" work on Syrian oil fields. The Wagnerites (as private military contractors are called in Russia) were to gather in Minsk. A Turkish airways flight would then take them to Syria.

SBU's secret plan was to intercept the Turkish plane while in Ukrainian airspace, force it to land and arrest the "terrorists". Something went wrong. Plan B was to claim the mercenaries had been sent by Russia and Putin to stage a coup against Lukashenko. The Belarusians in fact believed this lie for a week.

Moon of Alabama reported on the events here:

The 'Russian Coup' Plot In Belarus Was Faked By Ukraine

Also remember, that the plane of Bolivian president Evo Morales was forced to land in Austria in July 2013, after France, Spain, Portugal and Italy had closed their airspace on American orders.

Now read this:

‘Hijacked’: President uses fighter jet to force Ryanair flight to land in Belarus – Sidney Morning Herald

Moscow: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday personally ordered a fighter jet to intercept a Ryanair flight carrying a young opposition blogger, forcing it to redirect and land in Belarus.

The Boeing aircraft, flying from the Greek capital Athens to Vilnius, had almost reached Lithuania when it changed direction and was escorted to the Belarusian capital of Minsk.

On arrival, police detained activist Roman Protasevich, 26, who had been on a wanted list after last year’s mass street protests in the wake of an election in which Lukashenko claimed a landslide but disputed victory.

..or this:

BELARUS has been accused of "hijacking" a Ryanair flight with a fake bomb alert and forcing it to land in order to arrest an exiled editor. – The Sun

European countries have reacted angrily to the news today with Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki describing it as "state terrorism"

It is thought the threats may have been to get the aircraft to land so journalist Roman Protasevich could be detained.

The 26-year-old, who was arrested when the plane touched down, is said to be an enemy of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.

An official Belarus Telegram channel claimed they saved Europe from a terrorist incident, in bringing down the Ryanair plane bound for the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

For some reason RFE/RL was ready to condemn the incident before other media had even reported on it:

EU, NATO Demand Belarus Explain 'Unprecedented' Diversion Of Passenger Plane, Detention Of Journalist

European Union governments are demanding an immediate explanation from Belarus about the diversion of a Lithuanian-bound flight to Minsk, where authorities arrested one of its passengers, opposition activist and journalist Raman Pratasevich.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said the scheduled commercial flight from Athens to Vilnius was directed to land "by force," while Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the event a "reprehensible act of state terrorism."

Nauseda slammed the arrest of Pratasevich and said the international community “must take immediate steps that this does not repeat."

Posted by: Petri Krohn | May 23 2021 19:13 utc | 58

Wish you and all yours well.
Stay strong, you're a good one.

Posted by: Giovanni | May 23 2021 19:31 utc | 59

Zionists SUCCESSFULLY ATTACK AP's CREDIBILITY

This article summarizes the timeline of the Israel destroys Media building, takes heat for not providing evidence of Hamas military use, and then trots out long term accusation that AP is a compromised Hamas source (blame the victim)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/05/21/how-an-israeli-attack-in-gaza-led-to-the-firing-of-an-ap-reporter/

I just wanted to add that even if Matti Friedman's claims were true, AP's actions would have been reasonable as long as they published a generalized of what they saw because you always respect the security forces of the host country.
1. shutting off cameras when fighters are brought to the hospital - AP definitely reported that fighters were killed.

2. Not showing when / where rockets were being fired, Israel / U.S. wouldn't tolerate compromising footage, but as long as AP reported that rockets were fired from civilian areas (or not), I would consider the reporting ethical.

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | May 23 2021 19:57 utc | 60

The memes are almost instant, who was it? well who else, Petroff&Boshiroff did it to por Protasievich, Next-a will be singing about those nice grants by the NED and Radio Svoboda.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2EptewWQAU2XLs?format=jpg&

Posted by: Paco | May 23 2021 20:00 utc | 61

Despite an amazing amount of agitprop nonsense from MSM and the pro-lockdown crowd - the JAMA is saying what has been talked about extensively for some time: murders (homicides), overdoses, car accidents and suicides all increased during COVID lockdowns (March to August 2020) JAMA review of mortality during COVID lockdowns

Now for the next leg: what about effects of foregone medical care in the same period?

Posted by: c1ue | May 23 2021 20:14 utc | 62

Petri Krohn | May 23 2021 19:13 utc | 59

If "you" can do it, so can I?

The "alternative" world has changed tactics from hunkering down under western sanctions and an MSM onslaught, => to reprisals and reactions. The EU (Borell) is already "scandalised" by sanctions on EU Parlimentarians. He must be getting his knickers in a twist about it all.

This could be the start of something new (as the song goes).

******

Knickers; Victorian equivalent of Navalny's underwear. Uncomfortable when twisted or Novichooked by a passing agent.

Posted by: Stonebird | May 23 2021 20:16 utc | 63

Just got off the phone with my 35 yr old daughter. ....weshare blog sites....i tell her “Moa for the best analysis, best comentors “. Thanks B.

Posted by: James j radrider | May 23 2021 20:35 utc | 64

BM @ 53

ACE2 is not a cell, it is an enzyme. Enzymes are without racial characteristics. A racist virus is a longtime dream for those who would engineer bioweapons. That this is impossible, and that the fools fixate on that goal regardless, is one of the few protections we have.

Posted by: Oldhippie | May 23 2021 20:47 utc | 65

U.S. getting ready to leave forward outposts in Syria where oil extraction was taking place.

Good sign? Bad sign?

Perhaps a little oil off the top was an agreement btw Syria, Russia, and the U.S. to not support the Zio-Jihadist attempt at control of Syria. With Uncle Sambo leaving the area, perhaps they are getting ready for another tomahawking? Israel stops bloodying the Palestinians if Uncle Creepy-Joe gets with the program to take Assad out.

Just guessing. Hope that isn't the case. But the U.S., the cornered-animal it being right now, deserves no trust that a withdrawal actually signifies good will and not a precursor for something else.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 23 2021 20:47 utc | 66

karlof1 @ 34. Agree

‘ I do agree that when the Fed finally decides to counteract the great amount of inflation it's caused that a crisis will ensue, but I disagree in its spatial impact due to the ongoing effort by nations to de-dollarize and the greatly altered structure of global markets. And unlike the past, the world's able to predict and react to popped Outlaw US Empire asset bubbles’

Agree that the main inflation is in assets, real estate and the stock market and that this will mostly effect the elite. Not the homeless, unemployed, people living in poverty etc

Posted by: financial matters | May 23 2021 20:49 utc | 67

C1UE wrote

the JAMA is saying what has been talked about extensively for some time: murders (homicides), overdoses, car accidents and suicides all increased during COVID lockdowns
______________________________________________

The study only goes from April to August last year.
It reports in that period that there were 256K excess deaths.
174K of those were deaths attributed to Covid (62%)
About 18K excess deaths were attributed to the causes you listed (7%)
The summary does not say the causes of the other 31% of excess deaths.

Posted by: jinn | May 23 2021 20:58 utc | 68

@Posted by: Oldhippie | May 23 2021 20:47 utc | 66

Your comment triggered some lateral thinking on my part.

https://www.dw.com/en/dogs-can-sniff-out-covid-19/a-53582252

"Dogs can sniff out COVID-19"

We are not there yet (I don't think)...fictitious scenario:
Dogs are stationed at the entrance to vital installations and sniff out
Russians based upon the vaccines they were given or not given.

That is, use the future booster vaccines to mark people with certain scents
to flag them as friendlies or not. Can you spell Dyestopia?

Posted by: librul | May 23 2021 21:01 utc | 69

Russian news outlet just reported:

On the eve of the presidential elections in Syria, the White Helmets and their puppeteers are once again preparing a provocation with the use of chemical weapons to discredit the SAR government and its supporting Russia. Information about the preparation of a new provocation is confirmed by the information available to the Russian military. It was established that the representatives of the White Helmets transported six barrels of chlorine from the settlement of Jisr al-Shugur. The HTS terrorists ensured the safety of the delivery of the poisonous substance.

Posted by: alaff | May 23 2021 21:11 utc | 70

I just got a mail

Dear Haaretz readers,

I am writing to update you on a new initiative by Haaretz, which has become critical these days not only for us as journalists - but also as citizens.

A few months ago, we embarked on a first of its kind experimental journey, with the establishment of the Haaretz21. An organizational effort aimed at amplifying underrepresented voices and stories of Arab and Palestinian communities within Israel.

The idea was to recruit, train and publish new Arab writers, in the form of a journalistic incubator that would accompany their integration with individual and group support. This was based on the understanding that in order to overcome visible and transparent barriers, a more proactive approach was needed.

When we recruited this group a few months ago, we did not know that they would have to dive so quickly into the deepest waters, with coverage of an acute historical crisis in Jewish-Arab relations.

But nonetheless, they stood on the frontlines of developing stories and dealt with many complexities and dilemmas with courage, boldness and grace. They added to Haaretz and its readers unique angles and a direct look at the roots and depths of the storm.

Support them and the project by reading their stories.

With hope for better days, yours,

Noa Landau from Haaretz21

Seem not behind pay wall

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-jaffa-s-new-normal-checkpoints-stun-grenades-and-undercover-policing-1.9826483?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=haaretz-news&utm_content=59223adb75

https://haaretz.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d3bceadb340d6af4daf1de00d&id=c8093d7305&e=61c874b3ea

https://haaretz.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=d3bceadb340d6af4daf1de00d&id=d84214968c&e=61c874b3ea

https://www.haaretz.com/life/.premium-a-jew-and-an-arab-confront-israeli-prejudice-in-i-m-not-racist-reimagining-1.9828711?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=haaretz-news&utm_content=59223adb75

Posted by: Մասիս | May 23 2021 21:15 utc | 71

RE: NYT/Ellsberg say US First Strike Considered 1958

Ummm, near as I can tell from the inadequate writing and editing of this story, the US was, in 1958, considering full fledged war on China, including using nuclear weapons, to defend QUEMOY and MATSU? It isn't like the PRC ever could have invaded Taiwan proper, on account of the blatant impossibility of sending enough ships or airplanes across the Taiwan Straits in the face of US and KMT opposition.

If the USA was considering starting a nuclear war to keep and control two absolutely insignificant pieces of rock like Quemoy and Matsu, then our US military and political leaders back then were quite genuinely deranged. We the American people need to keep this in mind about our leaders then, and realize that there's no evidence out there that our leaders now are likely any smarter today about issues of war and peace. And why the hell did Ellsberg sit on this story for so long?

Posted by: Daniel N. White | May 23 2021 21:26 utc | 72

RE: The Hill article on making Nordstream 2 a Win for Ukraine

Jesus, I just finished writing about how stupid political leaders were in 1958 and now read this. The authors, thinktank wonks in DC, tell us that because Russia will likely renegotiate (downward, of course) transit fees to the Ukranian government once Nordstream 2 goes online, we and the EU should/are obligated to turn this loss of income into a 'win' for the Ukraine by sending them lots of money for a 'green energy revolution', paid for by our tax dollars for the Ukraine's benefit.

The authors are energy and economics illiterates. There is no such thing as 'green energy'; their pushing hydrogen is both a technological and economic impossibility. Throwing our tax dollars at a country like the Ukraine which is totally undeserving of them is mad. Their assertions that this totally corrupt society will of course reform its longstanding thievery once we give them lots of money for their new green future (this is providing of course, that we keep on funding their so far entirely ineffective anticorruption task forces), shows their complete contempt for anyone reading the article's intelligence.

In 1958 our political elites were hankering to start a nuclear war over Quemoy and Matsu. In 2021, they think it a capital idea to give tax dollars to 'green energy' industries for technological and economic impossibilities, but first want to route this money through a totally corrupt (bad)puppet state in order that their leaders can steal their share. Jesus.

Posted by: Daniel N. White | May 23 2021 21:59 utc | 73

Posted by: Down South | May 23 2021 16:50 utc | 25

>>John Helmer takes a look at the general Russian view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict

Since the fighting began at the start of May, the mainstream Russian media report no public demonstrations anywhere in the country in support of either the Palestinians or the Israelis. The domestic media have not sent reporters to the areas of fighting; their news bulletins have been perfunctory and compiled from non-Russian sources.

Military media such as Colonel Cassad and Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) have reported little. Vzglyad, reflecting Russian intelligence agency thinking, has published one hostile piece against the Palestinians, one neutral situation report, and one technical military assessment of the drones which Hamas has been using at sea, off the Israeli coast, and against land targets, as well as the start of Iranian drone firing from Syria.*

===================================================================

Colonel Cassad has reported widely on the Israeli - Palestinian conflict, and it symphatetic to Palestinians/Axis of resistance vies.

So did South Front, which according to the americans themselves is run by russian intelligence.

I check both of those places and i can certainly say that there is not much pro-israeli stuff or silence on the conflict.

Posted by: Passer by | May 23 2021 22:06 utc | 74

@72 Daniel M. White

"If the USA was considering starting a nuclear war to keep and control two absolutely insignificant pieces of rock like Quemoy and Matsu, then our US military and political leaders back then were quite genuinely deranged. We the American people need to keep this in mind about our leaders then, and realize that there's no evidence out there that our leaders now are likely any smarter today about issues of war and peace. And why the hell did Ellsberg sit on this story for so long?"

The US elites were quite deranged:

“The Russian bear has always been eager to stick his paw in Latin American waters … Now we’ve got him in a trap, let’s take his leg off right up to his testicles. On second thought, let’s take off his testicles, too.”
(Air Force General Curtis LeMay’s advice to President Kennedy during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, quoted in Joshua Rothman, Waiting For World War III, The New Yorker Oct. 16th, 2012)

Posted by: Roger | May 23 2021 22:17 utc | 75

@Posted by: Daniel N. White | May 23 2021 21:26 utc | 72

JFK was assassinated because he didn't support nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
He didn't want to go down in history as the greatest mass murderer in history.

The Soviets had been manufacturing nuclear ICBM "like sausages" - was the bluff Khrushchev
believed would keep the US at bay. We had a well placed spy and knew this was a bluff.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted the Soviets to
cross the line we had drawn for their ships headed to Cuba. Khrushchev didn't know his
bluff was an empty bluff.

Khrushchev didn't know we knew, which was the real danger. I strongly suspect that
Khrushchev was warned off by JFK via a trusted messenger during the Crisis.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted the war then and now. The well placed spy had warned
that the Soviets could be turning out the ICBM in as little as three years time.

The well placed spy was arrested *during* the Cuban Missile Crisis. Did JFK out the spy
to avert WWIII?

The JFK assassination was designed to look like it had been done by the Cubans.
A retaliation strike against Cuba for the assassination was to be the planned trigger for WWIII.
LBJ double-crossed his co-conspirators, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and didn't permit the
retaliation strike.

Posted by: librul | May 23 2021 22:20 utc | 76

Arch Bungle #19

"You Break My Pipelines. I Break Yours ..."

Well said and thank you.

In the basket of probabilities, that is one of the top considerations. Extortion and poor engineering share the space.

It is the only language a thug will understand and give pause for reconsideration.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 23 2021 22:26 utc | 77

Conspiracy of silence...the NYT article on Ellsberg's leak and the Espionage Act doesn't even mention Assange.

Posted by: Dave | May 23 2021 22:33 utc | 78

Another big lie? (*): US-Iran on verge of agreement in Vienna.

Iran Blocks Inspectors From Accessing Nuclear Site Images As Vienna Deal Looms

It appears that Iran may be applying some last-minute leverage just ahead of the final round of nuclear talks in Vienna, and at a moment it's being widely reported that the main parties, including the US, are on the cusp of agreeing on a deal ...

Yet further down the page, we learn that the ending of video access a legal requirement that was announced months ago and Iran has effectively delayed implementation for three months to provide time for an agreement to be reached:

Iran’s hard-line parliament in December approved a bill that would suspend part of U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities if European signatories did not provide relief from oil and banking sanctions by February. The IAEA struck a three-month deal with Iran to have it hold the surveillance images, with Tehran threatening to delete them afterward if no deal had been reached.

Is the West preparing to blame Iran for failed peace talks?

<> <> <> <> <>

See the 'Big Lie' described @11

!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 23 2021 22:53 utc | 79

Fake News/Alternative facts.

Has anyone else noticed that, whilst the ink was drying on the Is-Pal ceasefire agreement, the Jew-controlled MSM in the West began nattering about a cable-car accident in Italy, a volcano in Africa and 21 dead Marathon runners in China?

11 days of Jew-instigated murder, vandalism & displacement in Gaza ends on Friday.
"Hey, look over here, here and here!" MSM deflection begins 2 days later...

Peace talk repudiation, much?

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 23 2021 23:06 utc | 80

librul @May23 22:20 #76

JFK was assassinated because he didn't support nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

And he disagreed with Israel's building a nuclear reactor.

One magic bullet or multiple snipers? Where would those other snipers have come from?

One can imagine the conversation with Israel: want your reactor? ... you just gotta help us with a little problem ...

USA allowed dual citizenship four years later (1967) (Zionist Jews had lobbied for this because America Jews were reluctant to give up their US citizenship).

MIC+Israel in the drivers seat to this day.

!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 23 2021 23:07 utc | 81

The Communists of China already knew, since the end of WWII, that the USA was planning to use its atomic weapons against them. Mao himself talked about it in a series of interviews with Anna Louise Strong, when she was in Yenan (Yan'an). You can read it in her book The Chinese Conquer China. In one of those ironies of History, people today remember this part of his interview by his metaphor, not by the information he gave: the famous "paper tiger" quotation.

The CPC also knew the plan of the USA in the Korean War was to advance further north and destroy China's entire east coast with atomic bombs. MacArthur still fed delusions he could still restore the KMT to full power in China and eradicate the communists quickly. They had the intelligence and knew for certain it would happen should future North Korea That's why the Chinese intervened on the Korean War - and not because of some communist comradely sentiment, as most people in the West state nowadays.

During the beginning of the 1950s, it was a fetish of some high office Americans that the atomic bomb could be some kind of Deus ex Machina that would eliminate communism like a magic trick. If you read Mao's interview, you'll see that he already knew it wasn't, and that the Americans probably wouldn't use them against Communist China. But that's what happens when a minor character and intellectual midget (Douglas MacArthur) spares against a titan of History (Mao Zedong).

The USA always projected the atomic bomb as a weapon to be used against the communists and the communists only. It was only by a serendipity of destiny that WWII happened the way it happened and it had to use them against the Japanese Empire. Like the Nazis once said: "capitalist against capitalist is proper sport; capitalist against communist is annihilation".

Posted by: vk | May 23 2021 23:23 utc | 82

CPC telling all of those libertarian fanatics they'll never see the light of day:

Why China cracked down on Bitcoin

Posted by: vk | May 23 2021 23:31 utc | 83

B, you omitted the forcing down of an EgyptAir Boeing 737 by U.S. Navy F-14 fighters in October 1985 following the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | May 23 2021 23:32 utc | 84

Christian @12

I'm in Australia, a NEO website has not been opening on my mobile for months that wheel goes around and around, today it says, Attention account disabled by server.

Posted by: DebzH | May 23 2021 23:33 utc | 85

Posted by: Petri Krohn | May 23 2021 19:13 utc | 59

President Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday personally ordered a fighter jet to intercept a Ryanair flight carrying a young opposition blogger, forcing it to redirect and land in Belarus...

I am starting to think the "forced landing" was a hoax and the whole incident just another Western provocation. Belarusians claim that the decision to diver to Minsk was made by the Ryan Air captain, after he somehow received information about a bomb threat. Sending a fighter jet to escort a hijacked plane or one with a bomb onboard is standard operating procedure after 9/11.

It is Roman Protasevich, who claims he is facing a death penalty in Belarus. Unless he was supposed to be the hit man in the plot to assassinate Lukashenko, the claim is unlikely to be true. Maybe he was ready to spend a few years in prison "for the cause", just like Navalny was.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | May 23 2021 23:41 utc | 86

China's Zhurong rover on Mars:

It is, of course, a terrific achievement. China did in one mission what it took Amerikastan 30 years, and multiple failures, to accomplish: that is, to successfully launch and deploy a Mars orbiter, lander, and rover, all in the very first attempt. It's a moment that makes all well wishers of the People's Republic proud.

The media reaction has been rather interesting, to say the least. The Brutish Bulldung Crapaganda spent half its article on the lander talking about Amerikastani missions. On zerohedge - the sewer pit of all things anti Chinese - the comment section is split down the middle. One lot avers that it must be a fake, the Chinese are putting up false images as those from Mars". The other faction contends that maybe China got to Mars, but it must be stolen Amerikastani technology anyway. You can see the heartburn. Other articles keep including the myth of the "dangerous and uncontrolled descent" of the Chinese rocket parts.

Modi media here in India reacted by trying to ignore the rover leaving the landing module for well over a day before reluctantly posting articles acknowledging it. Even then their headlines, with predictable uniformity, went something like this: "China says its rover left the lander". Since most people don't read articles, the intention is perfectly clear.

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | May 23 2021 23:47 utc | 87

@vk 82

Russell Spurr wrote, in his pop history book "Enter The Dragon: China At War In Korea" that Mao told Peng Dehuai when making the reluctant decision to intervene that "if the lips are cut away the teeth feel cold".

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | May 23 2021 23:51 utc | 88

@36 Prof

Many thanks for the tweet stream from Ibn Riad. His analysis is completely correct. Palestine won an earth-shaking victory.

The cease fire - initiated by Israel without conditions - occurred because Israel had to stop the daily display that its IDF couldn't fight the Resistance. The Resistance warned Israel that if it dishonored the cease fire, Gaza would rain missiles down on all of Israel.

Israel has been shown to the whole world with eyes to see that it cannot fight Palestine. It has been as thwarted now by Palestine as it was in Lebanon in 2006 by Hezbollah.

This was truly a massive event - all Palestinians, inside or outside of Palestine, acted in unity, striking and fighting. All Palestinians are now united, and the Resistance is their leader.

Perhaps 2 or 3 more battles to go - determinate battles like this - and Palestine will be free.

~~

As we surmised here recently, the larger Resistance, of the entire region, can only be supremely proud of Palestine - as are we all, we of good heart - and joyous to have her be the sharp point of the fight to drive the Zionists out of the Middle East.

Prof, you don't post much but I have valued every comment of yours I've seen.

Again, many thanks for this. I look forward to parts 4 and 5.

Posted by: Grieved | May 23 2021 23:54 utc | 89

@ librul #76 JFK was assassinated because he didn't support nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
That is no doubt true, but more true is that JFK went further and stopped nuclear testing, sought nuclear disarmament, and promoted a detente with the USSR. JFK speech, American University June 10, 1963 here. He was assassinated 5+ months later, November 22, 1963.

Posted by: Don Bacon | May 23 2021 23:59 utc | 90

US war planning in 1950s/60s called for a nuclear attack on China in event of any war, even if initially between USA-USSR.

The KMT had been designated by USA/UK as "China's government" for postwar order at the Cairo Conference in late 1943.

Posted by: jayc | May 24 2021 0:28 utc | 91

A GT treble to finish the day:

-----

Captain Obvious:

Japan incapable of leading Asia-Pacific countries against China

--

Some things in History are simply inevitable:

China-Russia interaction increasingly frequent amid US pressure with upcoming strategic security talks

--

A true Communist hero passed away:

Top hybrid rice scientist lifts hundreds of millions out of hunger globally

Posted by: vk | May 24 2021 0:43 utc | 92

karlof1 #34

"According to Ju, the US financial markets so far remain the strongest in the world."

Thank you karlof1, I lack the 'professional' words to respond in jargon here but the metaphor that immediately sprang to mind on reading this quote was that of a hydropower turbine being driven by forced air compared to it being driven by water. The USA currency forces a large volume of hot air that is constantly in production by the fed. The Chinese economy runs on a solid stream of water. It has a legitimate basis of energy and is certain in its productivity.

I do agree that when the Fed finally decides to counteract the great amount of inflation it's caused that a crisis will ensue, but I disagree in its spatial impact due to the ongoing effort by nations to de-dollarize and the greatly altered structure of global markets. And unlike the past, the world's able to predict and react to popped Outlaw US Empire asset bubbles.

I see the recent China move to nullify bitcoin as being a hugely strategic act. Elon Musk and his brigands must now build/operate the China Tesla plant using tangible currency as opposed to fiddling with fake currency. This could be a shakedown or it could be a smart move to hedge one's currency and export income from the shenanigans of fakers and BS artists like Musk. Equally, popping the bitcoin bubble is yet another counter move by China toward the USA phantom currency supremacists.

Not sure what the global ramifications will be but should Rus and Iran etc follow suit and crush this bitcoin grub then I suspect the west will be left holding the carcass.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 24 2021 0:48 utc | 93

Mr. librul | May 23 2021 22:20 utc | 76

The late John F. Kennedy was an unstable drug-addict.

The man to whose judgement we all owe our lives was the late Nikita Khrushchev.

Posted by: Fyi | May 24 2021 0:53 utc | 94

Mr. Daniel N. White | May 23 2021 21:59 utc | 73

The plebs want to live hurt-free lives: Green Revolution is both bread and circus to them.

Posted by: Fyi | May 24 2021 0:57 utc | 95

Daniel N. White #73

Jesus, I just finished writing about how stupid political leaders were in 1958 and now read this. The authors, thinktank wonks in DC, tell us that because Russia will likely renegotiate (downward, of course) transit fees to the Ukranian government once Nordstream 2 goes online, we and the EU should/are obligated to turn this loss of income into a 'win' for the Ukraine by sending them lots of money for a 'green energy revolution', paid for by our tax dollars for the Ukraine's benefit.

The authors are energy and economics illiterates. There is no such thing as 'green energy'; their pushing hydrogen is both a technological and economic impossibility. Throwing our tax dollars at a country like the Ukraine which is totally undeserving of them is mad. Their assertions that this totally corrupt society will of course reform its longstanding thievery once we give them lots of money for their new green future (this is providing of course, that we keep on funding their so far entirely ineffective anticorruption task forces), shows their complete contempt for anyone reading the article's intelligence.

Christ, for a minute I thought you were talking about Israel!

Can the USA afford another? Ukraine is well placed, has the vital ingredients already in place PLUS it has genuine Nazis with intergenerational festering.

I guess the USAi can do it if they can implement the post bitcoin pyramid scam and hastily stampede the herd to invest in it.

I suggest Covidcoin might have some cache or better still Vaxcoin.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 24 2021 0:59 utc | 96

re my #96 ~ apologies for screwing up the blockquotes :(

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 24 2021 1:00 utc | 97

"The man to whose judgement we all owe our lives was the late Nikita Khrushchev."

Bertrand Russel was equally a champion and wrote extensively to NK during this time of crisis and his contribution did have an immense impact on both politicians. He also wrote to JFK.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 24 2021 1:04 utc | 98

Biswapriya Purkayast #87

China's Zhurong rover on Mars:

Agreed, the achievement is extraordinary. The sheer momentum of the China rise must be giving the USAians a total brainf#ck.

Energy will be their next leap. If the Australian company LAVO is up to making hydrogen batteries of this form and versatility, then China will be mighty close to the same solution with an immense roll out advantage.

Just Have a Think ~ hydrogen power for home. Note that LAVO has just extended its operation to Germany. The Hydrogen fuel cells have come of age.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 24 2021 1:19 utc | 99

"condemn the first plane incident while forgetting about the second and third"

If you kidnap (Maher Arar) or murder (Soleimani) in airports is it legally or morally different?

Posted by: Keith McClary | May 24 2021 1:19 utc | 100