LET'S FACE IT .........

 

Let's be courageous and admit the truth, as it's a week of multitude celebrating dates, 75 years to install Israel, the Palestinian Nakba, a year plus and still going strong, the war in east Ukraine, 9 years to the invasion and annexation of Crimea, few words are de rigueur ..... 

Let's face it, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in the name of Russian greatness, and past semi glorious strength and grandeur. The war has done lasting harm to his people, their culture and their armed forces, the entire past strength image has dissipated. 

The Israeli Zionists have revived a concept and a dream, based on mythology and an alleged Devine promise. Ending in doing even greater harm to their people, to their religious beliefs and to the world. Both sides followed individual decisions made in the midst of crisis, but policymakers were not wise enough to realize that in most cases national and humanitarian interests often clash, and even the smartest politician and policymakers cannot be right all the time, and that's tragic indeed. 

In both cases, the Russian and the Israeli, their leaders cannot fully comprehend nor accept that their hard headed, realist adversaries are also motivated by truth, grandiose ideals and rich pasts. Possibly different truths, but it's as moral, just and robust as theirs. Hans Morgan wrote; "To improve the world, one must work with, and not against it." otherwise, it could turn into an unsolvable and very ugly situation. 

But nothing will stand to these noble defenders of the dignity and survival of their people and countries. Like Prometheus, nothing, no threat, no torture or brutality will break their will, and they will stand through the times as that of the great and noble rebel fighter against injustice and the authority of power, blind and savage power. These men and women take consolation and solace from the righteousness of their cause and the romance often attached to it, despite the ferocious efforts of their oppressors at blinding the ugly facts. 

To stand up fiercely and repeatedly in the face of great violence, injustice and brutality, to ignore one side, and only look to the one sided ideals of one side, is as tragic and hypocritical. I believe it was Kissinger who said : Struggle is not only about seeking justice, but about seeking the lesser evil in an intractable world. There are many ways to fail, and some are better than others. 

I believe it was Freud who said: "All societies, large and small, civilized or not are perpetually menaced with disintegration". As well to consider Joseph Conrad in "Under Western eyes" whereby he suggests that human communities have often oscillated tragically between the "Ferocity and imbecility of their autocratic rulers and reigning regimes". 

Again, many armed conflicts around the world are always there, reminding everyone of how primitive and barbaric humans are, even the great 21st century is a stark reminder of what we really are, but in the case of our two conflicts, the Russian versus Ukraine, and more so the Israeli Zionists against the native Palestinian population, we come to conclusions that " Not even barbarians could invent or inflict atrocities like these, not even the Gods and religions can, the answer obviously is, these are crimes of men".     

My, as always, many thanks for your time, stay safe and well.        

A RUSSIAN ANALYSIS OF THE PRESENT SITUATION AND THE FUTURE

 

I think we've now reached a crossroads. We have two possible futures. Two futures for the “50s of the twenty-first century” (2050). This is very interesting. The date is now open, and it is the moment you make a move in one direction or the other. Now, we are hesitant. The global structure hesitates between two possible scenarios. The first scenario for the year 2050 witnesses the complete and irreversible victory of unipolarity and globalization, the installation of a world government, the advent of the posthuman era, the destruction of human species by posthuman species (artificial intelligence, cyber, bioengineering, neogenesis and all kinds of creatures) posthuman and a unified posthuman society. If we, the Russians, lose this war in Ukraine, the West immediately gets the chance to realize the global dreams of George Soros and Klaus Schwab, an open society. And if they win, a unipolar globalized world will be secured from the serious challenges it now faces.

The second future is the one we win, and that changes everything. Russia wins Ukraine, and a multipolar world will be secured. Outside the circle of Western hegemony, two more poles will emerge: Russia and China.

India will emerge as a third pole. A fourth Islamic pole will emerge, a fifth in Latin America, and a sixth in Africa. This is not the automatic solution to all problems, but it does mean the end of the global domination of one system of postmodernism, technical progress, individualism and artificial intelligence. Humanity will separate into islands of civilizations. An archipelago of civilizations, coexisting with each other. Some can be in conflicts, some can be in peace, and we can define some common rules instead of a unilateral system led by America, a new multipolar system, and how to solve problems and conflicts between civilizations. This will come in a new world, where not only one set of values ​​wins, but when we have many sets of values ​​for many civilizations.

For example, Islamic law and traditions will be recognized as the primary source of the political, economic, metaphysical, social and anthropological systems of one part of the population: orthodox Christianity for us, Confucianism and Maoist values ​​for the Chinese and Indian traditions of the Indians, liberal West, LGBT civilization in the West (as a part but not as a whole) . There will be no more major metropolises or capitals of the world. They will all be interruptions. We'll have a western province, a Eurasian province, a Chinese province...without a capital, or some unique kind of set of universal values, as in "Future No. 1". The receivers are now separated, and the two scenarios are now defined.


Alexander Dugin, interview with Al-Mayadeen, April 24, 2023

The text was received originally in Arabic, translated and published as such, an interesting take on the present and the future, by one of the leading Russian thinkers and political analysts.  We rationally can add to it, a defacto alliance between a Persian and Israeli force to redraw the Levant map, eliminate an Arabic/Sunni independent force,  and join emerging world forces under their influence. Rather than an alliance between the dominant west and the sunni world, both enemies of bipolarity and the new powers.    Thanks for your time.  

THE WAY THINGS ARE .....

 After months of steadfast refusal, Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy just announced his ransom demands in exchange for avoiding economic default.

His plan, among other things, would slash funding for the Social Security Administration, leading to closed field offices, shorter hours, and longer wait times for people applying for benefits.

His plan wouldn’t touch the $2 trillion tax giveaway to millionaires and billionaires that Republicans passed under Trump. In fact, it would make it easier for the super-rich to cheat on their taxes by defunding the IRS.

That’s right: McCarthy's plan lets millionaires and billionaires cheat on their taxes and pays for it by making it harder for you to get Social Security.

Bad ideas and lies, coupled with political partizanship can be  informative, but not about the real world, for they have ceased faithfully to reflect that world, but about the subjective state of the person who nourish those ideas. Bad ideas do not just happen, people are responsible for them. They result from carelessness on our part, and selfishness when we cease to pay sufficient attention and care to the relational quality of ideas and their applications, or worse, they are a product of the willful rejection of objective facts. 

Congress is still going through the legislative text, but there are plenty of other cuts to vital programs, from food stamps to student loan relief, to cutting medical insurance from millions of Americans. There’s even a giveaway to oil companies!

McCarthy knows that his unpopular cuts will never pass on their own merits―that’s why he’s threatening to destroy our economy and throw millions out of work if Democrats won’t meet his demands.

Speaker MaCarthy relentless desire to attain his current leadership position, led him to a position where he can no longer control the extreme core Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Green and others. This is the price America end up paying for MaCarthy's political ambitions. 

We have less than two months until default―we must stand united and STOP McCarthy’s scheme!

My usual many thanks to all

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL.....

 

As we go through this period of the year, where there's a jam of religious holidays, for all three monotheistic religions and their various different derivatives and sects, I thought of summarizing it all with these few good and insightful words, written and forwarded by a good friend, a subject discussed in too many different books and high intellectual levels and circles, including me , check my blog "A God called Jesus". April 27 2015. it surely reflects my own personal  understandings and beliefs.....   

Jesus and Christ

We say Jesus Christ as if they were one and the same. But Jesus or Yessu is a real person in history while Christ is an article of faith.

Easter prompts one to read and learn more. One school of thought believes that indeed

historically there was a man called Jesus (see attached), he preached to the poor and the sick in Judea. While he did not directly challenge Rome (Give what is to Caesar to Caesar, and what is to God to God) he was critical of the local Judaic establishment and posed a challenge to their

traditional leaders (The Pharisees).  He developed something of a following but was tolerated

until he decided to come to Jerusalem.....Palm Sunday, thus challenging the Pharisees in the heart

of their seat of power, so they decided to get rid of him. Less than a week later he was executed

by crucifixion which was the common Roman method of execution. That is about Jesus the real

man.

But being Christ, son of God, and all the miracles, immaculate conception, rising from the dead

etc....etc....  that is where myth and faith come in. The stories about Jesus were largely built up and

embellished by St. Paul who was a great spinmeister. Together with James (brother of Jesus) Paul developed the stories about Jesus and added the miracles and made a deity out of the man. Paul was also a gifted activist and organizer, and he set about creating from the followers and stories of Jesus an institution which became the Church. Paul was not from Judea, he was a full Roman citizen born in Tarsus (now in Turkey). While Peter promoted the message of Jesus in Judea,

Paul recognized that Rome was the center of power so he worked and organized very hard in Rome. Thus Christianity as an institutionalized Church was formed.

Paul was not one of the 12 Apostles. In the New Testament, the books of the apostles Mark and Luke were written early on and contain very little of miracles and superlative acts. The books of

Matthew and John were written later and contain considerable embellishment.

As always, my profound thanks to all my good readers and friends, stay safe and well. 

UNSOLVABLE GUN MANIA .......

There have been more mass shootings than days so far this year, for the year 2023 only, the US experienced and lived 128 massacres as a result of horrific mass shootings, data base shows, this older article, one of many, explains and warns of loose regulations adjusting the ownership of lethal guns and assault armaments.....  

By Kara Fox, Krystina Shveda, Natalie Croker and Marco Chacon, CNN Updated November26,2021.

 Ubiquitous gun violence in the United States has left few places unscathed over the decades. Still, many Americans hold their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, as sacrosanct. But critics of the Second Amendment say that right threatens another: The right to life. America's relationship to gun ownership is unique, and its gun culture is a global outlier. As the tally of gun-related deaths continue to grow daily, here's a look at how gun culture in the US compares to the rest of the world.

 How firearm ownership compares globally The United States is the only nation in the world where civilian guns outnumber people. Falkland Islands Rate of civilian firearms per 100 people 120.5 US 62.1 Falkland Islands : 33 Note: Gun ownership rates are estimates as of 2017. Some entries have been combined to calculate rates for Cyprus, United Kingdom and Somalia. Data not available for Christmas Island, Nauru and Vatican City. Source: Small Arms Survey (Civilian Firearm Holdings 2017) There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS). No other nation has more civilian guns than people. The Falkland Islands -- a British territory in the southwest Atlantic Ocean, claimed by Argentina and the subject of a 1982 war -- is home to the world's second-largest stash of civilian guns per capita.

 But with an estimated 62 guns per 100 people, its gun ownership rate is almost half that of the US. Yemen -- a country in the throes of a seven-year conflict -- has the third-highest gun ownership rate at 53 guns per 100 people. While the exact number of civilian-owned firearms is difficult to calculate due to a variety of factors -- including unregistered weapons, the illegal trade and global conflict -- SAS researchers estimate that Americans own 393 million of the 857 million civilian guns available, which is around 46% of the world's civilian gun cache. About 44% of US adults live in a household with a gun, and about one-third own one personally, according to an October 2020 Gallup survey. 

Some nations have high gun ownership due to illegal stocks from past conflicts or lax restrictions on ownership, but the US is one of only three countries in the world where bearing (or keeping) arms is a constitutional right, according to Zachary Elkins, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the Comparative Constitutions Project. Yet the ownership rate in the other two -- Guatemala and Mexico -- is almost a tenth of the United States. The gun debate in those countries is less politicized, Elkins said. In contrast to the US, Guatemala and Mexico's constitutions facilitate regulation, with lawmakers more comfortable restricting guns, especially given concerns around organized crime, he said. In Mexico, there's only one gun store in the entire country -- and it's controlled by the army. In the US, firearm manufacturing is on the rise, with more Americans buying guns.

 In 2018, gun makers produced 9 million firearms in the country -- more than double the amount manufactured in 2008, according to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). More recently, January 2021 marked the biggest annual increase since 2013 in requests for federal background checks necessary for purchasing a gun -- a nearly 60% jump from January 2020. And in March 2021, the FBI reported almost 4.7 million background checks -- the most of any month since the agency started keeping track more than 20 years ago.

 Two million of those checks were for new gun purchases, making it the second highest month on record for firearms sales, according to the National Shooting Sports Federation, the firearms industry trade group that compares FBI background check numbers with actual sales data to determine its sales figures. The US has the highest firearm homicide rate in the developed world In 2019, the number of US deaths from gun violence was about 4 per 100,000 people. That's 18 times the average rate in other developed countries. Multiple studies show access to guns contributes to higher firearm-related homicide rates. Rate of guns owned per 100 people Gun-related homicide rate per 100K people.

 Bulgaria Gun-related homicide rate Rate of guns owned 0.6 8.4 US Gun-related homicide rate Rate of guns owned 4.1 120.5 Note: Developed countries are defined based on the UN classification, which includes 36 countries. Source: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (Global Burden of Disease 2019), Small Arms Survey (Civilian Firearm Holdings 2017) Almost a third of US adults believe there would be less crime if more people owned guns, according to an April 2021 Pew survey. However, multiple studies show that where people have easy access to firearms, gun-related deaths tend to be more frequent, including by suicide, homicide and unintentional injuries. It is then unsurprising that the US has more deaths from gun violence than any other developed country per capita.

 The rate in the US is eight times greater than in Canada, which has the seventh highest rate of gun ownership in the world; 22 times higher than in the European Union and 23 times greater than in Australia, according to Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) data from 2019. The gun-related homicide rate in Washington, DC -- the highest of any US state or district -- is close to levels in Brazil, which ranks sixth highest in the world for gun-related homicides, according to the IHME figures. Globally, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean suffer from the highest rates of firearm homicides, with El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia and Honduras topping the charts. Drug cartel activities and the presence of firearms from old conflicts are both contributing factors, according to the 2018 Global Mortality From Firearms, 1990-2016, study.

 

But gun-related violence in Latin America and the Caribbean is also exacerbated by weapons that come from the US. About 200,000 firearms from America cross Mexico's border every year, according to a February 2021 US government accountability office report, citing the Mexican government. In 2019, about 68% of firearms seized by law enforcement in Mexico and sent to the ATF for identification were traced back to the US. And around half of guns the ATF checked after they've been seized in Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama were manufactured in or officially imported to the US. 

The US was home to 4% of the world's population but accounted for 44% of global suicides by firearm in 2019 The country recorded the largest number of gun-related suicides in the world every year from 1990 to 2019. Afghanistan Gun-related suicides United States 23,365 44% of global suicides by firearm in 2019 Mexico 914 Argentina 1,204 Brazil 1,259 Pakistan 710 India 6,145 France 1,748 Venezuela 702 Russia 1,053 Germany 899 Nigeria 458 Canada 686 Turkey 585 Iraq 428 SouthAfrica 397 Ukraine 525 Italy 507 Colombia 478 China (mainland) 467 DRCongo 395 : Note: American Samoa, Antigua and Barbuda, Brunei, Cook Islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Sao Tome and Principe reported no gun suicides in 2019. Source: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (Global Burden of Disease 2019), UN Population Division While personal safety tops the list of reasons why American gun owners say they own a firearm, 63% of US gun-related deaths are self-inflicted. Over 23,000 Americans died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 2019. That number accounts for 44% of the gun suicides globally and dwarfs suicide totals in any other country in the world. 

At six firearm suicides per 100,000 people, the US rate of suicide is, on average, seven times higher than in other developed nations. Globally, the US rate is only lower than in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory with relatively high gun ownership (22 guns per 100 people). Multiple studies have reported an association between gun ownership and gun-related suicides. One of those studies, conducted by researchers at Stanford University, found that men who owned handguns were almost eight times as likely to die of self-inflicted gunshot wounds as men who didn't own a gun. Women who owned handguns were 35 times as likely to die by firearm suicide, compared to those who didn't, according to the 2020 study, which surveyed 26 million California residents over a more than 11-year period.

 No other developed nation has mass shootings at the same scale or frequency as the US Half of the world's developed countries had at least one public mass shooting between 1998 and 2019.* But no other nation saw more than eight incidents over 22 years, while the United States had over 100 — with almost 2,000 people killed or injured. * Mass shootings are defined as gun-violence incidents in a public locations within a 24-hour period that result in four or more deaths, excluding the perpetrator, with victims chosen at random or for their symbolic value. They exclude incidents involving profit-driven criminal activity, state-sponsored violence and familicide. † The dataset includes casualties from the only three mass shootings involving organized terrorism that occurred in the developed world in the timeframe (May 2014 Jewish Museum of Belgium shooting, January 2015 Île-de-France attacks and November 2015 Paris attacks). Note: Developed countries are defined based on the UN classification and those with no mass shootings are not shown. Source: Jason R. Silva of William Paterson University Regular mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon. The US is the only developed country where mass shootings have happened every single year for the past 20 years, according to Jason R. Silva, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at William Paterson University. 

To compare across countries, Silva uses a conservative definition of a mass shooting: an event that leaves four or more people dead, excluding the shooter, and that excludes profit-driven criminal activity, familicide and state-sponsored violence. Using this approach, 68 people were killed and 91 injured in eight public shootings in the US over the course of 2019 alone. A broader definition of mass shootings reveals an even higher figure. The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit based in Washington, DC and which CNN relies on for its reporting of mass shootings, defines a mass shooting as an incident leaving at least four people dead or injured, excluding the shooter, and does not differentiate victims based upon the circumstances in which they were shot. They counted as many as 417 mass shootings in 2019. And this year, 641 incidents have been recorded. State gun policies also appear to play a role.

 A 2019 study published in the British Medical Journal found that US states with more permissive gun laws and greater gun ownership had higher rates of mass shootings. President Joe Biden's administration has renewed calls for gun reform after mass shootings in Colorado, South Carolina and Texas this year. In March, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would require unlicensed and private sellers, as well as all licensed sellers to do federal background checks before all gun sales -- and to ensure that buyers are fully vetted before making the sale. The bills are now stuck in the Senate where, despite some Democrats' efforts to build bipartisan support, there has been no indication they have the votes to overcome the 60-vote filibuster. 

For decades, political roadblocks have stalled such efforts in the US. And that partisan divide is reflected in the population as well, with 80% of Republicans -- and 19% of Democrats -- saying gun laws in the country are either about right or should be less strict, according to the April Pew survey. Meanwhile, mass shootings continue to drive demand for more guns, experts say, with gun control activists arguing the time for reform is long overdue. Researchers from Washington University at St Louis' Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute presented this argument to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2018, saying that the US government's "failure" to prevent and reduce gun-related violence through "reasonable and effective domestic measures has limited the ability of Americans to enjoy many fundamental freedoms and guarantees protected by international human rights law," including the right to life and bodily integrity.

 UN bodies have also underlined these concerns, pointing to America's "stand your ground" laws, which allow gun owners in at least 25 states to use deadly force in any situation where they believe that they face an imminent threat of harm, without first making any effort to deescalate the situation or retreat. A 2019 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights report said that the law can encourage people to respond to situations with lethal force, rather than use it as a last resort. In a 2020 essay published by the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank, gun control advocate Rukmani Bhatia said that the US gun lobby has seized a rights-based narrative "to justify, dangerously, the right to bear, carry, and use firearms." Stand your ground legislation, she said, "warps people's understanding about their rights to security and, in the worst cases, empowers them to take away another person's right to life."

 

Gun-related deaths reduced after the introduction of stricter laws in these countries Shortly after a mass shooting in Tasmania, Australia banned rapid-fire rifles and shotguns and tightened licensing rules. Over the next decade, gun deaths dropped by 51%. A decade of rising gun deaths in South Africa prompted the government to pass new laws prohibiting certain firearms, mandating background checks and tightening licensing requirements, which capped gun ownership numbers. A mass shooting in 1996 prompted the UK Parliament to further tighten the country's gun laws and ban private gun ownership.* Gun-related deaths fell by a quarter over the decade that followed. Three mass shootings in three years prompted Finland to overhaul its gun laws in 2011. Gun deaths were already falling, yet there was an additional 17% drop between 2011 and 2019. After a 2002 shooting by a 19-year-old. 

 Germany's parliament passed gun restrictions for young people, including banning large-caliber weapon sales and requiring psychological evaluation before purchase. It later mandated gun registration and storage security checkups after another mass shooting. Meanwhile, countries that have introduced laws to reduce gun-related deaths have achieved significant changes. A decade of gun violence, culminating with the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, prompted the Australian government to take action. Less than two weeks after Australia's worst mass shooting, the federal government implemented a new program, banning rapid-fire rifles and shotguns, and unifying gun owner licensing and registrations across the country. In the next 10 years gun deaths in Australia fell by more than 50%. A 2010 study found the government's 1997 buyback program -- part of the overall reform -- led to an average drop in firearm suicide rates of 74% in the five years that followed. 

Other countries are also showing promising results after changing their gun laws. In South Africa, gun-related deaths almost halved over a 10-year-periodafter new gun legislation, the Firearms Control Act of 2000, went into force in July 2004. The new laws made it much more difficult to obtain a firearm. In New Zealand, gun laws were swiftly amended after the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. Just 24 hours after the attack, in which 51 people were killed, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that the law would change. New Zealand's parliament voted almost unanimously to change the country's gun laws less than a month later, banning all military-style semi-automatic weapons.

 Britain tightened its gun laws and banned most private handgun ownership after a mass shooting in 1996, a move that saw gun deaths drop by almost a quarter over a decade. In August 2021, a licensed firearms holder killed five people in Plymouth, England, marking the worst mass shooting since 2010. After the incident, police said the gunman's firearm license had been returned to him just months after it was revoked, due to assault accusations. The British government then asked police to review their licensing practices and said that they would be bringing forward new guidance to improve background procedures, including social media checks. Many countries around the world have been able to tackle gun violence. Yet, despite the thousands of lost lives in the US, only around half of US adults favor stricter gun laws, according to the recent Pew survey, and political reform remains at a standstill. The deadly cycle of violence seems destined to continue. An interesting study by the CNN journalists, it's affecting the entire world, and mostly the U.S and its neighbors. Unfortunately many people still don't realize or don't want to acknowledge the problem. 

My thanks to all my good readers all over, stay safe and well.

TO WARREN OR NOT TO WARREN .........

The billionaire  Warren Buffet wrote in an article to Fortune , few years back : My luck was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted results , though overall it serves the country and its rich well . I've worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on battle fields with a medal , rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes  from parents , but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities  with sums reaching into the billions . In short , fate's distribution of long straws is  .wildly capricious .

No one denies that banks , large and small , and financial institutions , have an essential function in today's capitalistic societies , but the idea that such institutions will solely put peoples savings to its own most productive and accumulative , serving strictly their interests and the interests of their share- holders , while totally ignoring an over all improvement in the general living standards is unfair , and becoming widely unacceptable .

Huge wealth in 21st century America , as in all civilized countries , should be steered more toward serving the social good , and not simply accumulation and compilation , with always the use of better tools as a better and more efficient taxation system for the higher echelons, and not merely relying on donations , charity and philanthropy.

It shouldn't , and cannot be total freedom for bankers , traders and CEOs to go for transactions and schemes that only propels their profits , at the price of periodical catastrophic damages to the economy , leaving millions without their homes , their retirement funds depleted , and workers and young graduates jobless for years . Then be bailed out with taxpayers money , taxpayers left with little choices in the midst of the crises .

We live and cultivate a culture whereby more often than not , it is accepted that the rich and the very rich individuals and institutions , are gradually separating themselves from any and all social practices and institutions , resulting in a sharply divided society , with poorer and ineffective social programs ,  decaying infra-structures and faltering public educational systems , all absolutely needed for the survival of any civilized country , and to all societies aspiring to live by modern enlightened  values .

We are as individuals and as a society becoming obviously ineffective against decline , in all our social duties . We all should not settle for inherited state-of-affair stagnant situations , where some greedy few with their wealth , lobbyists and bought politicians , become the sole sources of legislation , exclusively to benefit and empower themselves and their small world . Falling miserably short of our standards and expectations of how things ought to be for all of society .

We should not allow the greedy few threaten the hard-won gains for decency America has made , even when we acknowledge that the same problems affect many societies all over the world . Let's all hope that such and similar ideas will be of some influence at the upcoming presidential elections .

An old blog of mine, published back in 2015, but with the actual bank crisis and its continuing ramifications, especially lately an Israeli strong connection, which transferred more than 43 billion Dollars to an Israeli bank account, just few days before the Feds froze the operation of two US banks, the transfer took place mostly at the NY Signature bank, and is not allowing this crisis to end nor be properly examined and contained.
MY usual thanks to all my good friends and readers .     

  

THE LATEST REVERBERATING LITTLE COUP......

 

Saudi-Iran Rapprochement: In China's Middle East, Israel Has Little Influence

Haaretz

Zvi Bar'el

Mar 10, 2023

Israel's dream of forming an Arab alliance against Iran was shattered on Friday with the news that Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to restore diplomatic ties within two months.

The dramatic announcement is likely to redraw the regional map of friends and foes, and will have global reverberations.

The agreement provides Iran with much-needed legitimacy in the Arab world, and could lead to further deals with Arab states like Egypt, pave the way to end the war in Yemen, offer a workable solution to the crisis in Lebanon, and even lead to a resumption of negotiations to save the nuclear deal.

The Saudi-Iranian rapprochement will force the United States to reevaluate its standing in the region. After all, it was China – not Washington or Moscow – that was able to reassemble a complex political constellation traditionally under American purview.

The renewal of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been on a slow burn for the past two years. Five rounds of talk were held with Iraqi mediation in Baghdad or under guidance of Oman, who had mediated between Iran and the U.S. in the lead up to the nuclear deal in 2015.

In December, four Saudi fighter jets escorted Chinese President Xi Jinping's plane as he landed on an official, or shall we say royal, visit to the kingdom. This wasn't his first visit, but this time he came to sign a strategic alliance agreement which included trade and investment deals worth tens of billions of dollars, and more importantly, developing nuclear power reactors designated for domestic energy production.

Saudi Arabia has been asking the United States to help it build nuclear reactors for many years. But American demands, including an insistence that the Saudis comply with International Atomic Energy Agency regulations, derailed any cooperation on the issue. In 2020 The Wall Street Journal reported the disconcerting news that China and Saudi Arabia were cooperating to exploit the kingdom's vast uranium deposits, and shortly after that, U.S. intelligence agencies announced they are verifying reports that Saudi Arabia was looking to build a nuclear reactor with Chinese assistance.

Saudi Arabia has found a solution in China, with whom it signed a nuclear reactor construction memorandum in 2017. In any case, the Saudis have presented the U.S. with a serious dilemma: help Saudi Arabia with its civilian nuclear program and potentially gain its support for a deal with Israel, or to let China reap the economic and political rewards.

China has become a major a strategic ally of both Saudi Arabia and Iran, with whom it signed a 400 million dollar economic cooperation agreement over 25 years.

China has entered the fray as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia in order to construct an alliance that serves the interests of all three without needing the services or assurances of the United States.

More importantly, China is taking the United States' place as an economic and strategic power in the region.. A power that Israel has little influence over. 

I've stressed several times in the past, that the U.S. has to look and deal with China in different ways and mentality, not everything is always solved controversially and by force, plus the fact that America cannot easily face an alliance of China and Russia, of course the Chinese are advancing rapidly in Africa, buying a big chunk of western industries and farm lands, thus further expanding their influence, and now surprise surprise, they are adding the most important two powers in the Middle-East and the shattered  Arab world, their influence is surely going to have implications in the region, more so as the U.S. is pulling out systematically from the region, of course it's not a comfortable situation or outcome for the U.S. immediately, but not necessarily bad on the long run or strategically,  but surely not good for Israel, that could try and push some solutions by triggering an adventure of their own, I hope that we won't be dragged again into foolish acts and dangerous wars for the sake of Israeli geopolitics of total supremacy and hegemony......  

As always, my profound many thanks to all my friends and readers....