Puppet MastersS


USA

The need for a new political vocabulary

Michael Hudson
michael-hudson.com
Sat, 06 Jul 2024 00:00 UTC
illustrated
© Dee/PixabayIllustrated Man
The July 4 landslide defeat of the neoliberal pro-war British Conservatives by the neoliberal pro-war Labour Party poses the question of just what the media mean when they describe the elections and political alignments throughout Europe in terms of center-right and center-left traditional parties challenged by nationalist neo-fascists.

Political differences between Europe's centrist parties are marginal, all supporting neoliberal cutbacks in social spending in favor of rearmament, fiscal stringency and the deindustrialization that support of U.S.-NATO policy entails. The word "centrist" means not advocating any change in the economy's neoliberalism. Hyphenated-centrist parties are committed to maintaining the pro-U.S. post-2022 status quo.

That means letting U.S. leaders control European politics via NATO and the European Commission, Europe's counterpart to America's Deep State. This passivity is putting its economies onto a war footing, with inflation, trade dependence on the United States and European deficits resulting from U.S.-sponsored trade and financial sanctions against Russia and China. This new status quo has shifted European trade and investment away from the Eurasia to the United States.
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Footprints

Biden will 'never recover' and must drop out - aides to NBC


RT
Thu, 11 Jul 2024 21:31 UTC
PutBid
© Saul Loeb/AFRussian President Vladimir Putin • US President Joe Biden
One of these knows who the other is.
The US president is reportedly facing a mutiny within the campaign.

US President Joe Biden has no way to recover from the debate disaster and needs to drop out of the race, multiple campaign aides have told NBC News. The 81-year-old Democrat has been under increasing public pressure from the media, senior party members, donors, and celebrity sympathizers to step down after a catastrophic performance in the June 27 debate with Republican challenger Donald Trump.

"No one is denying that the debate was a setback," campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a memo to staff, leaked to NBC on Thursday. "But Joe Biden and this campaign have made it through setbacks before."

Others were more blunt."He needs to drop out," one Biden campaign official told NBC, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He will never recover from this."

"No one involved in the effort thinks he has a path," said a second campaign aide.

Another campaign worker described Biden's chances of winning the November election as "zero."

Comment: With the world at stake and the times more complicated than ever, here's what Biden said:
US President Joe Biden has said he has no reason to talk with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, including about the Ukraine conflict. However, he also said he would not refuse to engage with any world leader.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Biden was asked whether he would still be able to "deal" with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in a few years. "I'm ready to deal with them now," he replied, noting that he maintains contact with Xi.

However, when it comes to the Russian leader, Biden said:
"I have no good reason to talk to Putin at the moment. There's not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behavior."
Referring to the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev:
"I'm not ready to talk to Putin unless Putin is ready to change his behavior."
However, Biden then said he was open to engagement with "any leader who wants to talk," including Putin. He recalled that the last time the pair had a direct conversation, they were discussing an arms control agreement relating to nuclear weapons in space. "That didn't go very far," he added.

The last phone call between Biden and Putin took place in late December 2021, several weeks before the start of Russia's campaign in Ukraine, which resulted in bilateral relations plummeting to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month that Russia was ready to hold talks with the US but only if such dialogue is "comprehensive" and includes not only arms control issues but also the Ukraine conflict.
"It is impossible to take out any individual segments from the general complex of accumulated problems. Both sides need to engage to address mounting problems in the global security architecture."
On Thursday, Putin's name was again mentioned by Biden during a joint event in Washington when he confused Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky for the Russian leader, exacerbating concerns about his mental state, which have been mounting since his disastrous debate performance against GOP rival Donald Trump last month.
Perhaps Biden's shun does Putin a favor, given he remembers who Putin is.

See also:

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Bizarro Earth

'World on edge of abyss' - leading political scientist


RT
Thu, 11 Jul 2024 14:01 UTC
Dynkin
© Vladimir Astapkovich/SputnikPresident of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences Aleksandr Dynkin
The loss of global influence during the Ukraine conflict may push the West to take "reckless" steps, leading political scientist Aleksandr Dynkin has warned.

The last time the world came so close to catastrophe was 60 years ago during the Cuban missile crisis, Dynkin, who is the director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told a roundtable in Moscow on Thursday.

Titled 'War and Peace in XXI century', the event was held as part of preparations for the upcoming Leo Tolstoy International Peace Prize award ceremony.

For hundreds of years the global world order was set in Europe, and more recently in the US, Dynkin stated. However, following the conflict in Ukraine, the international architecture will for the first time be shaped with the participation of Russia, China, and India, he argued, adding that the 'political East' will be an equal partner of the 'political West'.

Comment: There never were, nor ever will be 'winners'.

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Clipboard

Mandatory conscription and subway stations as bunkers: Germany outlines wartime plans

Sophie Tanno, Nadine Schmidt
CNN
Sun, 09 Jun 2024 00:00 UTC
German soldier
© Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesA German armed forces solider during the "National Guardian" military exercise • Bundeswehr's tank training grounds • April 18, 2024
For the first time since the Cold War, Germany has updated its plans should conflict erupt in Europe, with ministers citing the threat posed by Russia.

The 67-page document, known as the Framework Directive for Overall Defense and released this week, envisions the complete transformation of daily life for German citizens in the event of war.

It is a further sign of how Germany, which has had a staunchly anti-militaristic stance since World War II, has been forced to adapt its security and military policy in the wake of Moscow's war on Ukraine.

Under wartime conditions, mandatory conscription into the army would be reinstated and skilled laborers aged over 18 could be made to work certain jobs including in bakeries and post offices - as well as being prevented from quitting their jobs. Doctors, psychologists, nurses and vets may also be repurposed in military and civil service roles.

Rationing would also be brought in. In the event of dwindling food supplies, the government would stockpile food to provide citizens with "one hot meal a day" for an undisclosed period of time, according to the document. Federal reserves would include foods like rice, pulses and condensed milk. Other key resources such as petrol and oil could also be rationed with coupons if they become scarce.

Comment: Puppet strings: Instead of mutual exploration for agreement and repair, another door closes based on 'what if'.

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Arrow Down

U.S. pressure against China and Indonesia: The details behind the dismantling of the Brazilian defense industry

Lucas Leiroz
Strategic Culture Foundation
Tue, 09 Jul 2024 00:00 UTC
trucks
© public domaine
The intention to sabotage the defense industrial triangle between Brazil, China and Indonesia would be behind the release of credit for Australia to buy Avibras.

One of the most controversial issues in Brazil today is the possible sale of Avibras (a Brazilian military industry company). The main candidates for acquiring the company are the Australian DefendTex and the Chinese Norinco. Faced with the almost inevitability of the sale of at least half of the company's shares by the Brazilian State, Brasília is left to decide between benefiting an intra-BRICS strategic partner or a pro-Western power that serves as a pivot for American plans against Beijing.

The controversy has been ongoing for months and reached a high point after DefendTex failed to obtain a loan from the Australian government to purchase the Brazilian company. From then on, negotiations between Brazil and China for a supposed sale to Norinco began to advance, generating discussions among sectors of Brazilian society about the possible "risks" of selling Avibras to the Chinese.

Pro-Western lobbyists in Brazil managed to convince the Brazilian government's top brass that selling a defense company to China would generate "diplomatic discomfort" with the U.S. Even though China is Brazil's largest trading partner, responsible for practically single-handedly balancing the Brazilian economy with its massive purchases of commodities, the country continues to be seen as a "controversial" nation due to its geopolitical status of opposition to the U.S. - a power that is seen by some Brazilian public figures as Brazil's "main ally".
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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: NATO war summit prepares direct entry into Ukraine war

Andre Damon
World Socialist Web Site
Wed, 10 Jul 2024 14:18 UTC
Biden NATO
© AP Photo/Evan VucciPresident Joe Biden speaks during the opening session of the NATO Summit, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Washington.
At its summit this week in Washington, the NATO military alliance announced the creation of an office inside Ukraine and the establishment of a NATO command in Germany, led by a three-star general, to oversee the war against Russia.

These actions signify the shift to a new phase in the war, in which the NATO military alliance will openly take charge of arming, funding and directing the Ukrainian military, as a prelude to the deployment of NATO forces in the conflict.

The actions announced at the summit are provocative. The NATO alliance is declaring that it is stationing civilian officers in an active war zone. What will happen if these officers come under fire? Will NATO then invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty to declare war against Russia?


Comment: Russia is well aware that this has already happened, albeit covertly. And it has, where possible, neutralised the threat.

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Popcorn

US' troubled F-35s finally cleared for delivery, with numerous caveats and for training use only

Thomas Newdick
The Warzone
Fri, 12 Jul 2024 14:20 UTC
f-35 jet fighter
After a yearlong hiatus, production F-35 deliveries are resuming, but the long-awaited Block 4 upgrades will have to wait.
A fix of a kind has been found for problems with the F-35's vital Tech Refresh 3 software, or TR-3, which had seen production deliveries suspended for around a year. Deliveries of the stealth fighters will resume "in the near future," clearing a backlog of jets sitting in storage, although the TR-3 is only installed in what's described as a "truncated" form, raising questions about when the F-35 will actually be able to make full use of the long-awaited Block 4 improvements that this software underpins.

The F-35 Joint Program Office announced yesterday that Lt. Gen. Michael J. Schmidt, the F-35 program executive officer, approved the use of the "truncated" TR-3 software on July 3. This means that more than 90 (perhaps as many as 120) F-35s that had been manufactured but then put into storage at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth, Texas, plant can be delivered. These jets are destined for both U.S. and foreign customers.

In the meantime, the TR-3 software remains in flight testing, with the aim of achieving a long-term fix.

Comment: What an unsurprising mess. But it seems that incompetence, inefficiency, and overwhelming corruption, accompany an empire in decline; and perhaps that in itself is a blessing: The following, unconfirmed video is doing the rounds:
US F 35 Lightning II pilot jumped from his plane In Japan

A curious video appeared on the Internet today. On the X social network, the Clash Report account published the video with the comment: "What happened? U.S. F-35 pilot hastily jumping out of his jet following unknown reason at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan." It is not clear when the video was taken and whether it is an incident from today or a few days ago.


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Light Sabers

Trump, Orban, Putin: Why are all the 'dictators' hellbent on peace?

Robert Bridge
RT
Sat, 13 Jul 2024 11:38 UTC
Trump and Orban
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) and former US president Donald Trump
With the Washington and Brussels establishment apparently only interested in more bloodshed, someone has to speak sense

One of the greatest farces of these modern times is that those who scream the loudest about democracy and human rights are the very same people who violate international norms at every opportunity.

In the June issue of The New Republic, a left-leaning US political journal, a scowling Donald Trump was featured on the cover sporting a Hitler moustache above a caption that read: "American fascism, what it would look like."

"We chose the cover image, based on a well-known 1932 Hitler campaign poster, for a precise reason: that anyone transported back to 1932 Germany could very, very easily have explained away Herr Hitler's excesses and been persuaded that his critics were going overboard," the editors explained in a post on X (formerly Twitter). "After all, [Hitler] spent 1932 campaigning, negotiating, doing interviews - being a mostly normal politician. But he and his people vowed all along that they would use the tools of democracy to destroy it, and it was only after he was given power that Germany saw his movement's full face."

Comment: Currently the West is hellbent on war even if it would lead to its total destruction as would likely be the case for Europe.

See also:

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Eye 1

Project total control: Everything is a weapon when totalitarianism is normalized

John & Nisha Whitehead
THe RUtherford Institute
Wed, 10 Jul 2024 08:42 UTC
american totalitarianism
"The biggest mistake I see is people waiting for A Big Sign that'll tell them that things have gone too far. One Big Thing that police or lawmakers or the president/leaders will do that will cross the line. It'll never come because they won't cross it. They'll move the line. That line you think you stand behind is shifting everyday with little actions, bills, legislations... That line will stop moving one day, & it'll be too late... Every day, your sensitivity is being eroded by these willful atrocities. The envelope for what you'll accept is being pushed. One day, all of these things will be your new normal." — Nigerian writer Suyi Davies Okungbowa
The U.S. government is working to re-shape the country in the image of a totalitarian state. This has remained true over the past 50-plus years no matter which political party held office.

This will remain true no matter who wins the 2024 presidential election.

In the midst of the partisan furor over Project 2025, a 920-page roadmap for how to re-fashion the government to favor so-called conservative causes, both the Right and the Left have proven themselves woefully naive about the dangers posed by the power-hungry Deep State.

Yet we must never lose sight of the fact that both the Right and the Left and their various operatives are extensions of the Deep State, which continues to wage psychological warfare on the American people.

Psychological warfare, according to the Rand Corporation, "involves the planned use of propaganda and other psychological operations to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of opposition groups."

For years now, the government has been bombarding the citizenry with propaganda campaigns and psychological operations aimed at keeping us compliant, easily controlled and supportive of the government's various efforts abroad and domestically.

Comment: See also:

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Mr. Potato

West looking for Zelensky replacement - Russian intel


RT
Thu, 11 Jul 2024 08:32 UTC
Vladimir Zelensky in Brussels, Belgium, June 27, 2024
© Getty Images / Pier Marco TaccaVladimir Zelensky in Brussels, Belgium, June 27, 2024.
Kiev's backers are concerned about growing public discontent with Vladimir Zelensky in Ukraine, an SVR agent has claimed

Ukraine's Western backers have stepped up efforts to find a replacement for Vladimir Zelensky, an operative with Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has claimed in a declassified report. The document was published in the latest issue of the SVR's Razvedchik ('Scout') magazine.

According to an operative using the pseudonym 'Stone', the US and EU are "extremely concerned" by "growing discontent" among Ukraine's population over the protracted conflict and the current leadership's inability to end it, especially after the expiration of Zelensky's presidential term last May.

While Western powers will tolerate Zelensky for now since he is "linked to war financing schemes that bring enormous income to both the Kiev regime and Western arms manufacturers," Stone claimed they had stepped up efforts to find a suitable replacement.

Comment: See also:

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