THE MEDIA YAWNS AT THE ISRAELI ARMY'S DEATH SQUADS

 By Gideon Levy

August 02, 2021"Information Clearing House" - "Haaretz" Israeli terror is at it again. The Israel Defense Forces’ death squads chalked up another successful week: four bodies of innocent Palestinians piled up between the two Fridays. There doesn’t seem to be a connection between the four incidents in which four sons were killed, but the link cannot be broken. And the killing goes on , 8 now in less than a month.

In all these cases, soldiers chose shooting to kill as the preferred option. In all four cases another way could have been chosen: Arrest them, aim for the legs, don’t do anything or simply don’t be there at all. But the soldiers chose to kill. It’s probably easier for them that way.

They come from different branches of the army with different backgrounds, but they share the incredible ease with which they kill, whether they have to or not.

They kill because they can. They kill because they’re convinced that this is how they’re expected to act. They kill because they know that nothing is cheaper than the life of a Palestinian. They kill because they know that the Israeli media will yawn and not report a thing. They kill because they know that no harm will come to them, so why not? Why not kill a Palestinian when possible?

They killed a 12-years old boy and a 41 year-old plumber. They killed a 17 years old youth and a 20 years old young man attending a funeral, all in one week. An Israeli slogan during the 1948 war went "To arms, every good man," Leading later to the concept of the IDF's "Purity of arms." four in one week, for no reason, with no terrorist facing them. Four executions of young men with dreams, families, plans and loves. 

None of the four endangered the soldiers, certainly not in a way that justified lethal fire. Thirteen bullets at a car driving by innocently, carrying a father and his three small children. Shooting a plumber holding a wrench and claiming that he was “moving rapidly toward the soldiers.” Three bullets at the stomach of a 17-year-old who was on his way to take his brother home.

All this can be called terror; there is no other definition. All this can be called the actions of death squads; there is no other description. It sounds horrible, but it really is horrific.

It could be less horrific if the Israeli media bothered to report on it, possibly shocking Israelis. It could be much less horrific if IDF commanders took the necessary steps given their army’s murderous recklessness. But most of the media believed that the killing of a child interests no one or is unimportant, or both, so this shocking incident wasn’t reported on.

If the soldiers had shot a dog – also a shocking act, of course – it would have attracted more attention. But a dead Palestinian child? What happened? Why should it interest anyone, why is it important?

 “Are you working for the Arabs?” journalist Yinon Magal maliciously tweeted, addressing Haaretz’s Hagar Shezaf, virtually the only journalist who covered the boy’s funeral. This is the new journalistic ethos: Reporting the truth is tantamount to working for the Arabs.

Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. Mr. Levy writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Levy has won prizes for his articles on human rights in the Israeli-occupied territories.

Unfortunately these same acts, are still in force on almost daily basis, with no impunity or review by the authorities or the judicial system, of course not the media, whether local or international, this is simply a way of life for both the Palestinians and the Israelis in their own homeland.....  In Lebanon crimes are on the rise because people are hungry and many don't have enough to feed their children, in Palestine the killing is mostly ideological and part of the army's training, becoming a real part of daily life for all, in the U.S. killing people is in good part because owning machine guns and heavy armament is a fun hobby that many cherish and adore, exercising the killing is a different story..... 

This article was published and  copied from world News Daily, Information Clearing House. With all due respect.        Thanking all my good readers.

A MESSAGE FROM GAZA.......

 

“Can we testify to repeated crimes? »

Can we describe a crime in the ruins? Or rather, can we survive under such a deluge of fire in Gaza? As a Palestinian citizen of Gaza, I am accustomed to witnessing the atrocities of the occupation. However, a week after the ceasefire, it is a difficult task to describe the darkness of these three dark days and the degree of devastation that befell civilians during this umpteenth Israeli military aggression in early August 2022.

A large-scale military assault from August 5-7, 2022, with airstrikes and artillery fire against residential homes, farmland and civilian infrastructure. As a result, 49 Palestinians, including 17 children and 4 women were murdered, and 360 others were injured.

Our calamity has known causes, but the international community lets it grow and drink the blood of women and children plunged into darkness for three days. Let everyone know that our resistance for our survival and our desire to take back the reins of our freedom confirm our devotion to this magical and beautiful land, which the lies of Israel and certain foreign media complicit in crimes cannot shake.

Distressing, terrifying these three days of deluge of fire on women and children  ! Their blood would not be enough to write the slow agony of a civilian population in its survival. Despite the ceasefire, this population remains traumatized, the psychological shock of the deafening noise of the bombardments is etched in our memories, how is this possible?  ? It was a real carnage, no one was safe, everyone was waiting under this deluge of Israeli fire for death to come and snatch them.

Personally, I did not expect this surge of bombs. But, for the Israeli apartheid regime, nothing is sacred. These criminals stalk the Gaza Strip with force and violence at all times.

During this aggression, the Israeli occupation army has sown chaos, terror and horror in a region which has already suffered an inhuman and illegal blockade for more than fifteen years, and which is surviving in an unprecedented economic crisis. The real Israeli objective was to break the remarkable will of this civilian population which, despite the blockade, four previous offensives and the humanitarian crisis, continues to resist and to exist.

Like all the population, I lived in anguish under the fire of bombardments every three to four minutes, deprived of electricity 20 hours a day, with a minimum of water to survive, few medicines and food products. Despite the lack of means, overwhelmed and under pressure, I gave priority to my duty to write a daily report of the assessment of the aggression, which I sent every day, via the Internet and social networks, to all the solidarity in the world and to associations supporting Palestine.  

A very difficult task in these times of blitzkrieg , due to the permanent power cuts. I testified every day, even every hour, thanks to a generator that provides some electricity. I intervened on several radio and television channels, in newspapers and on various French-speaking sites which solicited me unceasingly, without counting the daily telephone calls coming from French-speaking countries.

I can say that, during this aggression, I was filled with joy at each return of the electric current, if only for two hours a day, to send the balance sheets and to charge the batteries which gave me two or three hours of current in more.

The transmission abroad of the daily assessment of the Israeli aggression was for me essential, because I am very keen on popular solidarity towards our cause, in particular to reveal the extreme brutality of the Israeli bombardments and the silences of the complicit countries.

As soon as the power returned to my house, at any time of the day or night, it was the commotion at home. I decreed a “ state of emergency ”, with a formal ban on speaking to me or asking me anything .

I am convinced of the importance of this international solidarity. I wanted to inform of the sacrifice of all my obligations as father and husband, I had to inform the foreign media of the daily toll of the killing of women and children with total impunity by the Israeli army. By taking maximum advantage of the electric current, I gathered information from several local sites, photos and medical sources, to transmit them abroad.

During the three days of Israeli bombardment, I managed to send my daily report to thousands of people. And even though I didn't have time to read and respond to all the messages they sent to me, oh how!, I was comforted by all the support of the peace and justice activists who spoke tirelessly for the Palestinian cause all over the world.

My daily life during this attack was very trying. Just shopping at the market every day to feed my family, or visiting neighbors to check on them, carried major risks of dying. No matter where you were in the Gaza Strip, death hung in the sky. The rest of the time, I remained locked up at home to follow the information of the foreign media, which discovered that the Palestinian people were martyred, whereas this has been going on for 73 year !

As soon as the electric current came back, I applied myself to doing my duty as a Palestinian citizen in front of my computer by my reports, to counteract the disinformation of certain French-speaking media with great listening. I did my duty to inform, so that the sacrifice of our martyrs, men, women and children, would not be stifled by the media echo chambers in the pay of the occupation. I was doing my duty to inform for Palestine martyred by an army of criminals, which has defiled our land to its roots. I was doing my duty to inform, because information is part of the Palestinian struggle and resistance.

However, like my people during this attack, I was overwhelmed by several feelings: pride, confidence, strength, courage, fear, anger, indignation, concern and relief. Despite the blood, the tears and the pain, I gained a great number of new friends, I discovered extraordinary people from several countries with whom I keep in touch, united people who want to support Gaza and Palestine.

Defenders of the Palestinian cause who have been deeply concerned about the evil fate that this occupation and its complicit allies have been inflicting on Palestine, and Gaza in particular, for several decades. I had the chance to speak live at several demonstrations in French-speaking countries during and after the Israeli aggression. Their slogans (“Palestine will live, Palestine will conquer”) overwhelm us with courage and resistance, because we know that behind us there are millions of people in the world who express their anger against the despicable crimes committed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip.

I am proud of the volunteer team of the French-speaking channel "Gaza La Vie", and the site "Gaza en français", these motivated young people who, at the risk of their lives, informed the French-speaking world to denounce the horrors of Israeli aggression, by posting videos and photos on their social networks.

Two days after the ceasefire, I accompanied these young people to organize animation and psychological support activities to reassure deeply traumatized children. It is imperative, during these dark hours, to bring love and humanity to these little angels, who were already deprived of everything before this new carnage.

Despite these three days of terror during which Gaza endured the unbearable, the two elements that reassure me are, on the one hand, the prodigious will and the exemplary patience of our civilian population despite the scale of the genocide, and, on the other hand, international mobilization and popular support all over the world. Our population appreciated this solidarity which helped to put pressure on the governments.

To bend civil society in Gaza, the Israeli apartheid regime relied on three objectives :

– military objective by bombardments without distinction of targets ;

– psychological objective by sowing terror ;

– economic objective with the reinforcement of the closure of the sea, land and air crossings of Gaza, which has been under blockade for more than fifteen years, in order to deprive civilians of food and medicine ;

But the Gaza Strip has never yielded and it will not yield if the Israeli army attacks it again, because this army of criminals has never respected the human rights of the Palestinians. Especially since ten days after the interruption of this new aggression, nothing has changed in Gaza, which is still suffering from the inhuman blockade imposed by this apartheid regime.

Fundamental questions remain : occupation, colonization, blockade, and apartheid. So that as long as the Israeli crimes are not judged and as long as the impunity of this colonial regime lasts, a new genocide is preparing.

The strong mobilization for Gaza all over the world, during and after the recent Israeli aggression, is highly appreciated by our people. It must be continued because, before and after this attack, the situation is still marked by the absence of prospects.

Despite the appalling human losses and massive destruction, despite these three days of terror, I am more than ever determined to continue the resistance through writing, information, education and work with young people for an opening on the world, with the unwavering support of sympathizers abroad who campaign tirelessly for a Palestine of freedom and lasting peace, a peace that will come first and foremost through justice.

I'm sorry as I couldn't find the author's name or proper address, but I'm sure it's authentic,  as always my profound thanks to all my good readers, stay safe and well. 

UNITING PROPAGANDA MACHINES .........

  

Putin’s Propaganda Machine Is What America’s Right Wants

“National security leaders“ must fight it at home

Kevin Baron

March 11, 2022

Take a good look at the propaganda machine. The total control of information and messages from the airwaves to the internet, the fawning over the infallible leader—it’s all quite impressive.I’m not talking about Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. I’m talking about America’s right-wing media, on display at two conferences in Orlando last week, and every night on cable TV. 

It’s hard to watch Russia's version of journalism and not think of the American right-wing version of it. Indeed, the connections are both direct and philosophical—and of import to national security leaders. But there’s a deeper connection as well. America’s right-wing partisans wish they had what Putin has: control of the information and messages that flow to the body politic. That’s not an accusation; it is their goal. 

In the past few months, we’ve seen just how closely related the two are, Putin’s propaganda and our own. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, America’s right-wing denied the looming threat as a wag-the-dog conspiracy concocted by deep-state Democrats and centrist Republicans, or tried to blame Joe Biden. Russian propaganda outlets gleefully put those clips into heavy rotation. 

Two weeks into the invasion, far-right leaders continue to sow doubt on war reporting, claiming or implying there is an elite conspiracy to keep Americans uninformed, and often parroting Russian propagandists’ distortions and lies. “We have to question everything we’re told,” said a recent chryon on Tucker Carlson’s Fox show. Steve Bannon, who ran Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign, declared on his own show that Americans should not support U.S. aid for Ukraine “until we get a full briefing of what is going on, with facts.”

So, while commentators and security legends by now have called the Ukraine war a wake-up call to Americans for many reasons, allow me to add one more: If you look upon Russia’s loyalist media with horror, then it’s time to wake up with equal concern toward America’s own rising partisan propaganda machines. There have already been calls for security professionals to add America’s right-wing extremism to their portfolios. It’s time to do the same for domestic right propaganda. 

Even Bad Propaganda Can Work

These Russian media messages are resonating with the American right-wing, whose media personalities are happily carrying Moscow’s water. On Wednesday, for example, former Trump campaign spokeswoman A.J. Delgado, said the news that Russian bombs have targeted civilians was “probably bullshit.”The American right, is trying to undermine public trust in institutions and sources that challenge their power, so it has turned its sights on the world’s journalists.The American right-wing also has tried to put a leash on social media platforms.

A disheartening number of Russians are cheering on Putin’s war. The painted letter “Z” symbol on Russia’s military hardware in Ukraine has fast become a nationalist virtue signal. Others compare the “Z” to the Nazi swastika, but to us it has echoes of the “Punisher” logo that has become a totem of right-wing militia who thought they’d overthrow the U.S. government with the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

To be sure, plenty of Americans are confused already. On Monday, Tucker Carlson used a clip of a mixed-martial-arts fighter to deliver a dose of his contention that Republicans who support Biden’s decision to help Ukraine fight off Putin’s invasion are guilty of “lunacy.”

“You know, here’s my first thought: I’m not going nowhere to fight none of these wars for these politicians,” Bryce Mitchell says in the clip. “I’m staying at home and when the war comes to Arkansas, I will dig my boots into the ground and I will die for everything I love and I will not retreat.” He added, “I don’t know what’s going on, to be honest, brother. I really don’t. There’s been so much stuff, and I don’t think anyone knows…” before drifting off into a tirade about Hunter Biden, tax dollars to “bribe” Ukraine, and homeless veterans.

The Fox host put words into the fighter’s mouth to say that Mitchell’s folksy opposition to Biden’s intervention in Ukraine is correct because the U.S. military is supposed to “defend” only America. “That’s why we call it the Defense Department. It is not called the Department of Nation-Building or the Bureau of Trans-Evangelism,” Carlson said, throwing in another far-right culture war non sequitur.

Carlson is the right’s most popular messenger, watched by an average of 15 million American each night, which is sometimes twenty times as many as, say CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “Tucker Carlson is the only person on TV talking any sense about Russia / Ukraine. Our leaders ignore him at their (and our) peril,” tweeted one rightist pundit who used to work for Carlson’s Daily Caller.

Yet national security elites seem determined to do so. Search some of the top U.S. think tanks websites: Carlson is mentioned just seven times by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, nowhere by the Center for a New American Security, but 85 times by the conservative American Enterprise Institute. At the Council on Foreign Relations’s website, he is mentioned 42 times—but only eight since 2020. It’s almost as if some never learned their lesson from 2015, when the "national security establishment" hoped they could make Trump go away by ignoring him.

Or when everyone ignored the right’s openly-stated plans for the Jan. 6 insurrection, perhaps the most troubling national security incident on American soil since the 9/11 attacks. That day was made possible by 40 years’ worth of right-wing, anti-government propaganda.

State media watch

How can Putin think he can get away with blatant propaganda, in today’s world? It wasn’t long ago that Trump thought he could. By installing loyalists to run Voice of America and its sister overseas news services, Trump briefly turned the United States’ information organizations into his own personal PR shop. One Trump-era broadcast into Cuba called George Soros “a nonbelieving Jew of flexible morals.” 

Fearing that Trump would order these organizations to target Americans with propaganda, security experts at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice urged lawmakers to act. Congress failed to do so. The only thing that stopped Trump was losing re-election. If he hadn’t, would VOA and Radio Free Europe now be partnered up with Putin’s TASS? 

The First Amendment limits what the U.S. government can do to the free press. U.S. troops are not going to invade 30 Rockefeller Center and take over NBC News. But they don’t have to as long as the rightist propaganda machine is able to chip away at trust in American journalism—and as long as Americans fall for it, and elect politicians who love to do it.

When rightist freshman congressman and media darling Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina won his seat in November, he boasted that he was focused on rhetorical bomb-throwing, not governing: “I have built my staff around comms rather than legislation.” Cawthorn was elected while trumpeting false claims about election fraud, predicting “bloodshed”  and envisioning “having to pick up arms against a fellow American.” Last weekend, he was caught on tape calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug” whose government “has been pushing woke ideologies.” 

Real fake news

While politicians come and go, the lasting damage is in the lingering popularity of Soviet-style agitprop propaganda from loyalist right-wing media operations. These outlets are de facto paid actors, directors, and scriptwriters of a carefully crafted fiction that would make the Kremlin proud. They are reporters that operate in pretend newsrooms like Steve Bannon’s Breitbart, Carlson’s Daily Caller, Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, and upstarts like One America News Network and Newsmax. They are different from older conservative magazines like the National Review and Weekly Standard, whose writers did not try to impersonate straight newsrooms. 

The new wave of rightist newsrooms is so blatantly troubling that some have questioned whether it crosses legal boundaries for broadcast news. In December, however, Gigi Sohn, Biden’s controversial nominee to head the FCC, promised Congress she would not heed liberal calls to revoke the broadcast licenses of conservative outlets, even though she advocated considering it as a private citizen and has called Fox “state-sponsored propaganda.” FCC rules say it is “illegal for broadcasters to intentionally distort the news.” Newsmax and OANN backed Sohn, who awaits confirmation. (It’s not a new idea. In 2017, Trump suggested  the FCC revoke the broadcast license of NBC News over a news segment he disliked. The FCC commissioner at the time said he did not have that authority.) 

Fox, the cable TV network may have smelled an opportunity to throw caution to the wind. The nation’s most popular network fell off with Trump loyalists but has won many back by shifting even further to the right. Out went several of Fox’s true journalists, notably Chris Wallace, who had seen enough. In came more firebrands and personality hosts, like Jesse Watters. This is how extreme Fox’s rightward shift is. 

Right-wing media is clear about where it’s heading. Two weeks ago, Fox and several of its competitors set up shop on the Orlando expo floor of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. Why should national security leaders care? Because they influence Americans. As CPAC leader Matt Schlapp said, “There is no other conference like this in the world. We’re the largest annual conservative conference in the world on politics, and now we do two in this country, and we’re doing them overseas.” 

It was the weekend before Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At CPAC, where Trump once hugged the American flag—keynote speakers hammered Biden’s foreign policy as “weak,” many declining to criticize Russia or Putin. Across town, at the even-farther-right’s America First conference, they chanted, “Putin! Putin!” A subsequent poll found Trump voters had a better opinion of Putin than Biden.

What is to be doneThe tricky question is, in a society built on free speech, what can be done?

The 1948 Smith-Mundt Act forbids the U.S. government to use propaganda on Americans at home. But it shouldn’t have to. The answer to bad speech is, as ever, more speech—but focused speech. Defense and national security leaders can use time-tested methods to marginalize extremist messaging. Five years ago, two legal scholars drew upon Cold War lessons to lay out three steps for fighting Russian disinformation: First, the national security community must respond to partisan propaganda with a collective, and preferably nonpartisan voice. Second, it must organize its leading voices to flood the zone with messages that marginalize disinformation. Finally, credible leaders must actively respond to propaganda, countering the lies and calling out those who spew them. These sure sound like they could help at home.

The good news is, this thinking already exists in the U.S. government. The recommendations paraphrased above were written by co-authors Ashley Deeks, a University of Virginia law professor now serving as a White House associate counsel and deputy legal counsel on Biden’s National Security Council, and Sabrina McCubbin, a UVA student who is now a lawyer at the Pentagon. And that’s just one idea. 

 A longer than usual article, depicting a very true and factual situation here in America and the world, intensifying and making full use of the propaganda machines through fake news and very biased systematic brain washing of millions upon millions who show some willingness to listen and be convinced. My many thanks for following . 

A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF INFLATION .....

Why the White House

Robert Reich  Feb 19

The Biden White House has decided to stop tying inflation to corporate power. That’s a big mistake. I’ll get to the reason for the White House’s shift in a moment, and why it’s a mistake. First, I want to be clear about the relationship between inflation and corporate power.

Corporate power and rising prices

While most of the price increases now affecting the US and global economy have been the result of global supply chain problems, this doesn’t explain why big and hugely-profitable corporations are passing these cost increases on to their customers in the form of higher prices. They don’t need to do so: With corporate profits are at near record levels, they could easily absorb the cost increases. They’re raising prices because they can, and they can because they don’t face meaningful competition. As the White House’s National Economic Council put it in a December report:

Businesses that face meaningful competition can’t do that, because they would lose business to a        competitor that did not hike its margins.

Starbucks is raising its prices to consumers, blaming the rising costs of supplies. But Starbucks is so profitable it could easily absorb these costs (it just reported a 31 percent increase in yearly profits). Why didn’t it just swallow the cost increases?

McDonald’s and Chipotle have increased their prices, also blaming higher food and labor costs. But McDonald’s revenues hit a five-year high in 2021 and Chipotle’s revenues increased by over a third from two years before. Why didn’t they absorb the cost increases?

Procter & Gamble is charging more for consumer staples, citing “rising costs for raw materials, such as resin and pulp, and higher expenses to transport goods.” But P&G continues to rake in record profits. It’s even been spending billions buying back its own stock. Why didn’t it just absorb the cost increases?

And on it goes. America’s largest and most profitable retailers -- Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, Costco, and Target -- say they must raise their prices because the products they’re selling cost more. But these retailers are so profitable they could absorb much of the cost increases and be profitable with smaller markups. Why didn’t they?

The answer in all these cases is they didn’t absorb the costs — and instead passed them on to consumers in the form of higher prices — because they face so little competition. Market power allows them to keep high profit margins even in the face of rising costs. As Chipotle’s chief financial officer said, “our ultimate goal … is to fully protect our margins.”

Some economists argue that corporate power can’t be driving inflation because any corporation with the market power to raise prices would already have done so. (This reasoning is roughly analogous to the old story about two economists who were walking along a street when one says “look! There’s a ten dollar bill!” and the other says “don’t be silly. If there were a ten dollar bill, someone would have picked it up by now.”) Corporations are raising prices now because their costs are increasing now. They’re using their market power to pass on these rising costs to their customers.

That’s not all. Inflation has given some big corporations cover to increase their prices well above their rising costs

On a recent survey, almost 60 percent of large retailers say inflation has given them the ability to raise prices beyond what’s required to offset higher costs.

Meat prices are soaring because the four giant meat processing corporations that dominate the industry are “using their market power to extract bigger and bigger profit margins for themselves,” according to a recent report from the White House’s National Economic Council (emphasis added).

Not incidentally, that report was dated December 10. Now, the White House is pulling its punches.

So why has the White House stopped explaining this to the public?

According to Thursday’s Washington Post, when the prepared congressional testimony of a senior administration official (Janet Yellen? The President?) was recently circulated inside the White House, it included a passage tying inflation to corporate consolidation and monopoly power. But that language was deleted from the remarks before they were delivered.

According to two people aware of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity, members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers raised objections. I don’t know what their objections were but as I've said, some economists argue that since corporations with market power wouldn’t need to wait until the current inflation to raise prices, corporate power can’t be contributing to inflation. This argument ignores the ease by which powerful corporations can pass on their own cost increases to customers in higher prices or use inflation to disguise even higher price increases.

The Council of Economic Advisers is likely being influenced by two Democratic economists from a previous administration. According to the Post, former Democratic treasury secretary Larry Summers and Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration, have been critical of attempts to link corporate market power to inflation.

“Business bashing is terrible economics and not very good politics in my view,” Summers said in an interview. Wrong. Showing the connections between corporate power and inflation is not “business bashing.” It’s holding powerful corporations accountable.

Whether through antitrust enforcement (or the threat of it), a windfall profits tax, or price controls, or all three, it’s important for the administration and Congress to do what they can to prevent hugely-profitable monopolistic corporations from raising their prices. Otherwise, responsibility for controlling inflation falls entirely to the Federal Reserve, which has only one weapon at its disposal — higher interest rates. Higher interest rates will slow the economy and likely cause millions of lower-wage workers to lose their jobs and forfeit long-overdue wage increases.

Robert Reich, is one of the most prominent political thinkers and activist in America nowadays, a great intellectual mind. his articles are very valuable. Again my thanks to all my good readers, stay safe and well. 

THE NOT SO UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ....

 

D.S.A. or divided States of America, is efficiently replacing U.S.A. it is becoming clearer and more factual, more visible to any observer living within or outside the country since the American civil war and the mid 19th century crisis. The causes are almost the same, the naming and picturing are a bit different. Racism white male supremacy, religious intolerance and literalism, extreme conservatism are all existing and well maintained in all of what we call nowadays "Red States", less so to different degrees and levels in "Blue States". Even economic theories and applications are affected by degrees of redness or blueness of a State rendering them generally poorer or better off. 

Until now most if not all still believe in the power of unity and the Union, and its benefits, plus the fact that each individual State big or small, rich or poor still believe that it could win, influence and impose its ways all over, even on the entire country. Both camps believe and cherish their own models of thinking, behaving and governing.  

Regional alliances are often de facto on the ground, as in the southern and the north-eastern cases, the Biblical belt, the Pacific States, or the Mid-Eastern center right States. But all these are becoming more vulnerable, as the new political, socio economical and religious fervors are all accelerating the divide, the idea of a cessation or some type of separation is playing more loudly than ever in many corners, Texas and Florida are leaders that could initiate something of the sort and drag a few others with them. California could be seen doing something as well from the other political side.

Many other States and their populations believe that should things happen along these lines, they would be better off alone than united. No thinking nor any consideration of how weaker and more vulnerable they would end up being. How dangerous any conflict or dispute among the various new semi independent entities. Some would prefer alliances with foreign countries, rather than internal cooperation between different ideologies among once unified States. Consider who might prefer an alliance with Canada, or Mexico rather than the Southern belt with the Western Pacific States. 

Can the United States avoid its own unravelling and disentangle ?? Can it learn to better compromise and listen to the other, to look at progress as a necessity and not always cling to a past traditional way, or are we doomed to apply internally what for decades and centuries we applied internationally, just a one sided look, a one sided greed and selfishness, a one sided supremacy and obstinacy, unfortunately this time it could turn bad and very detrimental to the country and its people as a whole. 

All futuristic elements of the once vibrant American society, leading and giving examples to the entire world, are now crumbling, collapsing, and being deliberately destroyed. To end it all note; "Americans have finally started killing each other over mayonnaise", with all of what's happening in the country, maybe it is inevitable and irreversible ..... 

What is taking place here can not be said to be purely ideological, it is both much more and much less than ideology, it is the production of effective instruments, working systematically for long years for the formation, accumulation and monopolization of wealth and power, using religion narrowness, white male supremacy, racism, and a false pseudo conservatism, plus some old inherited 18 and 19th century colonialism. 

my thanks to all, as always stay safe and well.                           

   

The true meaning of patriotism, Why America is in trouble - Robert Reich Jul 4, 2022

It is not the meaning propounded by the “America First” crowd, who define it as securing our borders. For most of its existence America has been open to people from the rest of the world fleeing tyranny and violence. Nor is the meaning of patriotism found in the ravings of those who want America to be a white Christian nation. America's moral mission has been to widen inclusion -- providing equal rights to women, Black people, Native American, Latinx, LGBTQ, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, agnostic.

True patriots don't fuel racist, religious, or ethnic divisions. Patriots aren't homophobic or sexist. Patriots seek to confirm and strengthen and celebrate the "we" in "we the people of the United States." Nor are patriots blind to social injustices. They don’t ban books or prevent teaching about the sins of our past. They combine a loving devotion to America with a demand for justice.

This land is your land, this land is my land, sang Woody Guthrie.

Langston Hughes pleaded:

Let America be America again,

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—.

Nor is the meaning of patriotism is found in symbolic displays of loyalty like standing for the national anthem and waving the American flag.

Patriotism’s true meaning lies in taking a fair share of the burdens of keeping the nation going — sacrificing for the common good. Paying taxes in full rather than lobbying for lower taxes or seeking tax loopholes or squirreling away money abroad. Refraining from political contributions that corrupt our politics. Blowing the whistle on abuses of power even at the risk of losing one's job. Volunteering time and energy to improving the community and country.

Real patriotism involves strengthening our democracy—defending the right to vote and ensuring more Americans are heard. Not claiming without evidence that millions of people voted fraudulently. Not pushing for laws that make it harder for people to vote based on this Big Lie. Not running for office on the Big Lie.

True patriots don’t put loyalty to their political party above their love of America. True patriots don’t support an attempted coup. They expose it — even when it was enabled by people they once worked for or engineered by a president who headed their own party.

When serving in public office, true patriots don’t try to hold on to power after voters have chosen not to reelect them. They don’t make money off their offices. When serving as judges, they recuse themselves from cases where they may appear to have a conflict of interest. When serving in the Senate, they don’t use the filibuster to stop all legislation they disagree with. When serving in state legislatures, they don’t try to suppress the votes of people unlikely to support them. When serving on the Supreme Court, they don’t disregard precedent to impose their own ideology.

Patriots understand that when they serve the public, one of their major responsibilities is to maintain and build public trust in the offices and institutions they occupy.  

America is in trouble. But that’s not because too many foreigners are crossing our borders, or we’re losing our whiteness or our dominant religion, or we’re not standing for the national anthem or celebrating our history. We’re not in trouble because of voter fraud. We’re in trouble because we are losing the true understanding of what patriotism requires from all of us. 

As always, my gratitude for your time and participation, stay safe and well. 

AMERICAN POLITICS ....

 

Practically most serious polls in America, indicate and demonstrate that a comfortable majority of American voters overwhelmingly support Democrats in their social agendas, and align with the values of the Democratic party. When asked about their priority issues for president Biden and Congress, American voters prioritize climate change, advancing renewable energy, saving voting rights, jobs creation, better wealth distribution and equality, plus the economy in general. The vast majority of Americans support abortion access, eliminating the filibuster, better gun controls, universal health care and most approve and support the president's job creation, and his handling of the Ukrainian war.

Many surveys continue to demonstrate that Americans in all their different ethnic and gender, color or back ground, middle classes or poor, they in their majority continue to support Democrats and the president's agenda. They are increasingly strongly opposed to Republican political mumbo jumbo and exotic tactics in Congress, as well as the new GOP leadership blindly following the ex-president in all decisions concerning America and the world. Lately even a hidden approval and appreciation of Putin and his barbaric invasion of Ukraine. 

It also demonstrates how the American voters in augmenting numbers are deeply concerned about attacks on the country's democracy. They oppose Republican-led voter suppression laws, and hold Trump and the GOP responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection and the fascist armed militias mushrooming all over, trying to force a way of life and governance, toping it all, the latest very conservative Supreme Court mini coup, reversing the wright to abortion and leaving it to individual states to regulate or ban. Plus further weakening regulations about gun control, climate change and state and church separation.  

While these polls show continued support for Democrats and intense opposition to the Republican political machinery, it also emphasizes the important work ahead of America, as it approaches the 2022 midterm elections that will decide the control of the Senate if not both chambers of Congress, a very important step in deciding the next 2 years of the Biden administration' progress in the White House. 

Democrats will win in the midterm if American voters get out in force and vote consistently with their values and their declared convictions, without fear from a very demagogical right wing machine blaming all American present illnesses on this administration. Putting aside the same propagandist different brain washing machines of a well trained professional extreme right, white supremacist with certain very specific religious affiliations. 

And of course the very big money back up of major conglomerates, corporations, all through very powerful political and industrial lobbying agencies, as well as some very rich individuals, all benefitting big time from the Trump and Republican agenda. Even news networks and social media platforms are playing a major role in the propaganda machine of the extreme right and the Trump campaign. Take for instance how many platforms banned mostly Republican politicians even Trump himself several times for fake news and deliberate lies, Fox news TV and their presenters are not news broadcasters anymore, they are clearly turning fully into a right-wing propaganda network, Representing Trump, Americans in their majority see that. 

Another phenomena on the American political scene is ; politicians adopting Trumpism without Trump. It's becoming a set tactic for many Republicans, ultra right-wing, extreme conservatives, and some religious white supremacist, for now they are gaining ground and are forging themselves a strong footage within the Republican election and funding machine.  

As Voltaire once said, "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." As always my thanks to all, stay safe and well.