“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.” - Plato
Seeking Truth in a World of Propaganda. Links do not necessarily indicate agreement with stories or perspectives.
The $4.01 trillion in consumer debt is up 52% from the peak early in the Financial Crisis in Q3 2008. This is not adjusted for inflation. Over the same period, the Consumer Price Index rose 16% and nominal GDP rose 39%. Thus, Americans are sticking to their time-honored plan of out-borrowing both inflation (by a big margin) and economic growth.
https://wolfstreet.com/2019/02/08/the-state-of-the-american-debt-slaves-q4-2018/
Authored by Mark Perry via The American Conservative,
Despite the storm and fury, the Syria withdrawal policy is unambiguous and going forward...
Few other foreign policy decisions of this administration have sparked more criticism than Donald Trump’s announcement that he will remove U.S. troops from Syria. Even as he declared last night during his State of the Union address that “as a candidate for president, I loudly pledged a new approach…. Great nations do not fight endless wars,” he drew a tepid response from Congress. The planned applause line fell discernibly flat.
Perhaps that’s not a surprise, given that the withdrawal has been condemned by leaders from across the political spectrum—including from Trump’s own party. South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham called keeping troops in Syria “vital to our national security interests.” Senator Marco Rubio described the decision as “a major blunder.” Nebraskan Ben Sasse said that Iran, ISIS, and Hezbollah were “high-fiving” the move. Finally, last Thursday, Republican leader Mitch McConnell orchestrated a resolution condemning the withdrawal—which passed the Senate in a lopsided vote.
Graham, Rubio, Sasse, and McConnell have been joined in their condemnation by a host of establishment heavyweights. Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, called the withdrawal “a bad idea” that constituted a “strategic defeat” for the U.S. Neocon penitent and Washington Post columnist Max Boot said the decision was a betrayal of America’s Kurdish allies—comparing it to America’s serial betrayals of “the South Vietnamese in the 1970s, the Afghans in the 1990s, and the Iraqis after 2011.” A bevy of retired military types joined the chorus, including MSNBC regular General Barry McCaffrey and former Army vice chief of staff Jack Keane, not to mention former Marine General James Mattis, who announced his resignation as secretary of defense following the announcement.
Indeed, the reaction to Trump’s decision was so overwhelmingly negative that Washington pundits speculated that it was only a matter of time before Trump “walked back” the decision by slowing the withdrawal—a deferential nod, it was said, to wiser and more seasoned foreign policy veterans.
In fact, that not only hasn’t happened, the president has dug in his heels, issuing eyeball-to-eyeball orders to military commanders that are anything but ambiguous.
The first such order, according to a senior officer of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, came during Trump’s surprise Christmas visit to the al-Asad Airbase in Iraq. There the president (and First Lady Melania Trump) not only joined U.S. soldiers in a high-profile meet-and-greet, but, along with national security adviser John Bolton, huddled with the U.S. high command in a tent set aside for the meeting. Among the team that met with Trump was U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Douglas Silliman and Lieutenant General Paul LaCamera. Of the two, LaCamera was the more important, as he is the commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), the military organization established in October 2014 to “degrade and defeat” ISIS.
After an extended question and answer session with the press on December 26, Trump was privately briefed on the anti-ISIS effort by LaCamera, who told the president that only a few pockets of ISIS militants remained in Syria’s Euphrates Valley. Trump praised the effort, I was told, but then issued his order.
“I want us out of Syria,” the Centcom officer with whom I spoke quoted Trump as saying. “There wasn’t anything ambiguous about it,” the Centcom senior officer added.
“There were no qualifiers, no conditionals, and so far as I know, nothing about that conversation has changed.”
Put another way, while any number of civilian Pentagon officials speculate that the military has been given leeway in implementing the president’s directive, that is not the understanding among senior Centcom officers. “Nothing has changed since that meeting,” I was told. “We’re out.”
Trump’s decision provides a window into what actually constitutes a direct order from a president and how it is implemented—while also separating fact from noise. On December 30, four days after his visit to Iraq, Senator Lindsay Graham told reporters that he would try to persuade Trump to rethink his decision, to “sit down with his generals and reconsider how to do this.” His goal, Graham said, was to “slow this down. Make sure we get it right.” Graham’s effort came the next day, during a lunch meeting with Trump and General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the White House. Graham emerged from the meetingreassured, hinting that his efforts had been successful.
“After discussions with the president and Dunford, I never felt better about where we are headed,” he said triumphantly.
“I think we’re slowing things down in a smart way.”
Triumphant or not, Graham had not, in fact, persuaded Trump of anything, outside of an agreement that the Syria withdrawal would not be immediate but could take at least 90 days to implement. But that was already in the cards—as it takes at least 90 days to withdraw 2,200 troops from anywhere.
“You don’t just back up a truck and throw in some boxes,” retired Colonel Kevin Benson says.
“It’s a huge job."
Benson would know. A West Point graduate and former director of the Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies, Benson developed the plan for the ground invasion of Iraq in 2003, before eyeballing the final U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011. That pullout, which involved extracting the final 50,000 U.S. troops from Iraq, took one year to carry out. Benson adds that it will not only take 90 days to withdraw from Syria, it is likely the withdrawal will include a temporary increase in the number of troops deployed in the country.
“You actually have to add to subtract,” a civilian Pentagon official told me, “which means deploying logistics personnel onsite to implement, catalogue, and coordinate the withdrawal. We’re at 2,200 right now, but as the withdrawal accelerates, we’ll be adding people. It’s the nature of the beast.”
Which is only to say that, while Trump’s Syria withdrawal decision has been derided by a cross-section of the foreign policy establishment, the announcement was greeted with a collective shrug by most senior military officers. A planner at Centcom headquarters in Tampa was puzzled by the controversy over the Trump announcement, saying that the only response he received was from officers “whose immediate reaction was not whether this was a good or bad decision” but how quickly and effectively it could be implemented.
“It was more like, ‘fine, but you know, how many trucks is it going to take? What do we need to do? When do we start? What do we need to move?'”
While military officers are loathe to express an opinion on any president’s decision, Trump’s plan tends to break down along traditional (and predictable) service lines, with the deepest disagreements between senior Army officers and their Air Force counterparts.
“Getting out is not a good option,” a recently retired Army officer who advises his former service (and reflects their views) told me.
“The calculus on this is pretty straightforward, and I would argue that you actually gain more by staying in than by getting out. Staying in yields better outcomes. People say that we should get out because we’re not winning. But not winning is not losing: losing is losing.”
What the U.S. should want, this officer says, is “to keep the worst that could have from actually happening. And when you pull out like this, you increase the chances of that.”
Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Dave Deptula, an outspoken and influential voice on the use of airpower (and the head of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies), disagrees. Deptula argues that the reason it took four years to degrade and defeat ISIS is that the Pentagon “adopted a ground-centric strategy that took four years to implement. It was based on assisting the Iraqis to build up their ground forces first instead of destroying ISIS in Syria first.” Deptula continued:
“In fact, there was actually very little thought given to another option—which would have been to use our real strength, which is airpower. We did that in Iraq in Operation Desert Storm, we did that in Afghanistan after 9/11. And it worked.”
More simply, as Deptula wrote in an influential assessment of Trump’s decision in the pages of Forbes, the Pentagon’s judgment that degrading and defeating ISIS would take time became a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Military leadership with a genuine joint-force perspective and a clear-headed appreciation of the problem at hand,” Deptula wrote, “would have recognized that a focused, intense air campaign against the Islamic State, with all its immediately targetable vulnerabilities, could have far more rapidly decomposed its ability to function.”
Which is simply to note that the continuing cross-partisan condemnation of Trump’s Syria decision (that it’s a kind of “Exhibit A” of his constant bungling) is hardly unanimous. It certainly isn’t in the military, despite the protests of the celebrated General Barry McCaffrey (we must remain in Syria, he argues, “to consolidate our gains”) or the resignation of uber-soldier James Mattis. Indeed, for perhaps the first time in his presidency, Trump has succeeded not only in confusing his critics but (perhaps inadvertently) flushing them out.
In truth, it’s nearly impossible to ignore the obvious: that those who whinge on about Trump “turning Syria over to Iran” or “betraying the Kurds” are the same people who got us into this mess in the first place.
Authored by by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies via AntiWar.com,
In his masterpiece, Killing Hope: US Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II, William Blum, who died in December 2018, wrote chapter-length accounts of 55 US regime change operations against countries around the world, from China (1945-1960s) to Haiti (1986-1994). Noam Chomsky’s blurb on the back of the latest edition says simply, “Far and away the best book on the topic.” We agree. If you have not read it, please do. It will give you a clearer context for what is happening in Venezuela today, and a better understanding of the world you are living in.
Since Killing Hope was published in 1995, the US has conducted at least 13 more regime change operations, several of which are still active: Yugoslavia; Afghanistan; Iraq; the 3rd US invasion of Haiti since WWII; Somalia; Honduras; Libya; Syria; Ukraine; Yemen; Iran; Nicaragua; and now Venezuela.
William Blum noted that the US generally prefers what its planners call “low intensity conflict” over full-scale wars. Only in periods of supreme overconfidence has it launched its most devastating and disastrous wars, from Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq. After its war of mass destruction in Iraq, the US reverted to “low intensity conflict” under Obama’s doctrine of covert and proxy war.
Obama conducted even heavier bombing than Bush II, and deployed US special operations forces to 150 countries all over the world, but he made sure that nearly all the bleeding and dying was done by Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, Somalis, Libyans, Ukrainians, Yemenis and others, not by Americans. What US planners mean by “low intensity conflict” is that it is less intense for Americans.
President Ghani of Afghanistan recently revealed that a staggering 45,000 Afghan security forces have been killed since he took office in 2014, compared with only 72 US and NATO troops. “It shows who has been doing the fighting,” Ghani caustically remarked. This disparity is common to every current US war.
This does not mean that the US is any less committed to trying to overthrowing governments that reject and resist US imperial sovereignty, especially if those countries contain vast oil reserves. It’s no coincidence that two of the main targets of current US regime change operations are Iran and Venezuela, two of the four countries with the largest liquid oil reserves in the world (the others being Saudi Arabia and Iraq).
In practice, “low intensity conflict” involves four tools of regime change: sanctions or economic warfare; propaganda or “information warfare”; covert and proxy war; and aerial bombardment. In Venezuela, the US has used the first and second, with the third and fourth now “on the table” since the first two have created chaos but so far not toppled the government.
The US government has been opposed to Venezuela’s socialist revolution since the time Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998. Unbeknownst to most Americans, Chavez was well loved by poor and working class Venezuelans for his extraordinary array of social programs that lifted millions out of poverty. Between 1996 and 2010, the level of extreme poverty plummeted from 40% to 7%. The government also substantially improved healthcare and education, cutting infant mortality by half, reducing the malnutrition rate from 21% to 5% of the population and eliminating illiteracy. These changes gave Venezuela the lowest level of inequality in the region, based on its Gini coefficient.
Since Chavez’ death in 2013, Venezuela has descended into an economic crisis stemming from a combination of government mismanagement, corruption, sabotage and the precipitous fall in the price of oil. The oil industry provides 95% of Venezuela’s exports, so the first thing Venezuela needed when prices crashed in 2014 was international financing to cover huge shortfalls in the budgets of both the government and the national oil company. The strategic objective of US sanctions is to exacerbate the economic crisis by denying Venezuela access to the US-dominated international financial system to roll over existing debt and obtain new financing.
The blocking of Citgo’s funds in the US also deprives Venezuela of a billion dollars per year in revenue that it previously received from the export, refining and retail sale of gasoline to American drivers. Canadian economist Joe Emersberger has calculated that the new sanctions Trump unleashed in 2017 cost Venezuela $6 billion in just their first year. In sum, US sanctions are designed to “make the economy scream” in Venezuela, exactly as President Nixon described the goal of US sanctions against Chile after its people elected Salvador Allende in 1970.
Alfred De Zayas visited Venezuela as a UN Rapporteur in 2017 and wrote an in-depth report for the UN. He criticized Venezuela’s dependence on oil, poor governance and corruption, but he found that “economic warfare” by the US and its allies were seriously exacerbating the crisis. “Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns,” De Zayas wrote. “Twenty-first century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their knees.” He recommended that the International Criminal Court should investigate US sanctions against Venezuela as crimes against humanity. In a recent interview with the Independent newspaper in the U.K., De Zayas reiterated that US sanctions are killing Venezuelans.
Venezuela’s economy has shrunk by about half since 2014, the greatest contraction of a modern economy in peacetime. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the average Venezuelan lost an incredible 24 lb. in body weight in 2017.
Mr. De Zayas’ successor as UN Rapporteur, Idriss Jazairy, issued a statement on January 31st, in which he condemned “coercion” by outside powers as a “violation of all norms of international law.” “Sanctions which can lead to starvation and medical shortages are not the answer to the crisis in Venezuela,” Mr. Jazairy said, “…precipitating an economic and humanitarian crisis…is not a foundation for the peaceful settlement of disputes.”
While Venezuelans face poverty, preventable diseases, malnutrition and open threats of war by US officials, those same US officials and their corporate sponsors are looking at an almost irresistible gold mine if they can bring Venezuela to its knees: a fire sale of its oil industry to foreign oil companies and the privatization of many other sectors of its economy, from hydroelectric power plants to iron, aluminum and, yes, actual gold mines. This is not speculation. It is what the US’s new puppet, Juan Guaido, has reportedly promised his American backers if they can overthrow Venezuela’s elected government and install him in the presidential palace.
Oil industry sources have reported that Guaido has “plans to introduce a new national hydrocarbons law that establishes flexible fiscal and contractual terms for projects adapted to oil prices and the oil investment cycle… A new hydrocarbons agency would be created to offer bidding rounds for projects in natural gas and conventional, heavy and extra-heavy crude.”
The US government claims to be acting in the best interests of the Venezuelan people, but over 80 percent of Venezuelans, including many who don’t support Maduro, are opposed to the crippling economic sanctions, while 86% oppose US or international military intervention.
This generation of Americans has already seen how our government’s endless sanctions, coups and wars have only left country after country mired in violence, poverty and chaos. As the results of these campaigns have become predictably catastrophic for the people of each country targeted, the American officials promoting and carrying them out have a higher and higher bar to meet as they try to answer the obvious question of an increasingly skeptical US and international public:
“How is Venezuela (or Iran or North Korea) different from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and at least 63 other countries where US regime change operations have led only to long-lasting violence and chaos?”
Mexico, Uruguay, the Vatican and many other countries are committed to diplomacy to help the people of Venezuela resolve their political differences and find a peaceful way forward. The most valuable way that the US can help is to stop making the Venezuelan economy and people scream (on all sides), by lifting its sanctions and abandoning its failed and catastrophic regime change operation in Venezuela. But the only things that will force such a radical change in US policy are public outrage, education and organizing, and international solidarity with the people of Venezuela.
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“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous” – George Orwell
Feminists haven’t been this silent since the Bill Clinton years.
Vanessa Tyson came forward Wednesday to accuse Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexually assaulting her during the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004, saying in a statement that “What began as consensual kissing quickly turned into a sexual assault.”
Tyson, now a politics professor at Scripps College in California, says she had accompanied Fairfax to his hotel room.
“His hand was holding down my neck, and he was much stronger than me,” she recalls, and he forced her to perform a sexual act.
“I cannot believe, given my obvious state of distress, that Mr. Fairfax thought this forced sexual act was consensual,” Tyson, 42, writes in the statement released by her law firm, Katz, Marshall & Banks, the same firm that represented Christine Blasey Ford amid her accusations against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation process.
Fairfax, 39, denies any sexual assault occurred—and has hired the same law firm Kavanaugh used, Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz.
So far, there’s been an eerie silence.
No sexual assault survivors have confronted lawmakers in elevators. No protesters have waited for lawmakers at airports, and, while filming, tried to talk to them about sexual assault. No women have donned the Pilgrim-esque “Handmaid’s Tale” costumes meant to show lack of sexual autonomy and appeared in the Virginia State Capitol. No protests have occurred, and on social media, there’s a notable absence of cries to “believe all women.”
Apparently, if you accuse a Democrat, “believe all women” doesn’t apply.
Of course, Tyson, who calls herself “a proud Democrat,” just released her statement. And one Democrat freshman congresswoman, Rep. Jennifer Wexton of Virginia, has said she believes her.
I believe Dr. Vanessa Tyson.
— Rep. Jennifer Wexton (@RepWexton) February 6, 2019
But even if the “believe all women” crowd does eventually end up supporting Tyson, the pause is telling—because it reveals that the left never really believed in believing all women.
Because if it did, it wouldn’t need time to weigh Tyson’s accusations vs. Fairfax’s denials. (Or more cynically, time to weigh whether believing Tyson is worth the cost of pushing out the pro-abortion, Planned Parenthood-endorsed Fairfax.)
Like many Americans, I was troubled when Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault. I was glad to see the Senate Judiciary Committee took Ford’s allegations seriously, investigated them, and ultimately gave Ford a hearing with questioning on the Republican side done by an experienced sex-crimes prosecutor. I was likewise glad the Senate Judiciary Committee researched two further claims of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh.
It’s absolutely true that when a woman makes a sexual assault allegation, she should be taken seriously, particularly given that she has put her own name and reputation on the line—as well as come forward knowing that she’ll likely face significant political vitriol from supporters of her alleged attacker.
And I would hope that partisans on both sides would do their best to wait for the evidence, and not base their sentiments on whether the alleged attacker is one of their guys or not.
But “take seriously” is a very different standard from “believe all women.”
“Believe all women” reduces every woman to some kind of inane idiot, unable to lie even if she wanted to. It assumes no woman has ever gotten confused or been mistaken about the exact circumstances surrounding a trauma.
And it’s also certainly not a standard the left applied before Christine Blasey Ford, as Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, and others can attest.
Unfortunately, by politicizing the issue of sexual assault, the left has distracted us from the real work that needs to be done.
What can the U.S. do to help ensure any woman who experiences sexual assault is best equipped to get justice against her perpetrator? Can police officers be better trained to help a traumatized woman when she comes to make a report? Are these cases being prosecuted in the best way, consistently?
Are there steps we as a culture can take to help ensure women aren’t put in vulnerable positions? Given the role of hotel rooms in some of the #MeToo scenarios and now allegedly in the Fairfax case as well, can we make it completely socially and professionally inappropriate for any man to ask a female colleague to come up to a hotel room, no matter the pretext? (Of course, no woman who does go up to a hotel room is in any way to blame for her assault—the only person to blame in any sexual assault is the attacker.)
Do we try to put women on a more equal footing with men by encouraging women who are interested to carry a firearm?
Kimberly Corban, who says she was sexually assaulted while in college, now advocates guns as a way for women to protect themselves. “After [the attack], I started taking my Second Amendment rights very seriously because I knew that that was going to be the only equalizer and the one thing I could train and do for myself,” Corban told The Daily Signal in 2016.
“Believe all women” never made sense as a standard. But the left’s inconsistent application of it makes clear that it’s not women liberals care about, it’s the right to abortion.
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This article was republished with permission from The Daily Signal.
[Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0]
For example, nowhere within the 82 minute State of the Union Address was there a single word of the country’s burgeoning $1 trillion budget deficit. Nowhere was there a word of the great $22 trillion national debt default that’s bearing down upon us like a savage hurricane along the Gulf Coast. Nowhere was there mention of the $122 trillion in unfunded liabilities, which includes the sacred cows of social security and Medicare.
What Gives?
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
– Saturn Devouring His Son (image above) is the name given to a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus, who, fearing that he would be overthrown by one of his children, ate each one upon their birth.
Deny it all you want, but the global economy appears to be headed into recession. It became clear the cycle had started to turn once the FAANG stock bubble popped and the U.S. stock market plunged 20% late last year. The optimists among us insist this is merely a growth scare or blip as we saw in 2016, but that scenario looks increasingly unlikely.
As usual, the bond market tends to give us signals before more obvious evidence emerges. As such, I received a lot of insight from the following tweet.
36% of the US yield curve is now inverted across 30-year to overnight rates!
— Otavio (Tavi) Costa (@TaviCosta) February 6, 2019
It is just as high as it was at the start of the tech and housing busts.
This is not another 2016 soft landing scenario. Watch what the credit market is telling us. pic.twitter.com/VCISGvzqDk
Moreover, we’re also starting to see hard evidence of a slowdown. Earlier today, the EU Commission slashed growth forecasts for the region, and bad data emerged from of Germany.
German December export orders fell 11% (YonY), lowest level since Oct, 2008 (just after Lehman crash). Yes,, SoKorea orders drop last year was canary. Now, Germany(&EU falling into RECESSION (along w/China&others), courtesy of @JeffSnider_AIP https://t.co/OO2oc0uZHI pic.twitter.com/fpq6WVi3Me
— Harald Malmgren (@Halsrethink) February 7, 2019
What I find most fascinating about all of this is how the U.S. stock market has gone vertical for the last six weeks based on the idea the Federal Reserve can come in and save the day, yet the Fed hasn’t committed to doing anything at this point. As such, the market seems to be pricing in very little risk of a full-blown recession, an event that seems more likely over the next twelve months than at any point in the past decade.
From what I can tell, nobody wants to actually consider the prospect of a global recession because establishment institutions and the status quo paradigm simply can’t handle one. This is because nothing structurally changed in the aftermath of the last one.
The biggest consequence of central bank and government policy following the financial crisis of ten years ago was that the already rich and powerful became even wealthier and more powerful. As state-sponsored inequality boomed, significant portions of the global population finally realized the whole thing is a rigged sham, and populist movements swept the globe.
As I’ve said time and time again, humanity is currently living in the midst of the largest global debt bubble in human history, and nothing’s improved on that front since the last crisis. In fact, the situation has gotten demonstrably worse.
There has been no deleveraging pic.twitter.com/EWDEnIF5hP
— THE LONG VIEW ⚫️ (@HayekAndKeynes) February 4, 2019
The reason I’ve become so focused on the economic cycle is because we’re already in the middle of a revolutionary/populist political cycle, which began in earnest with the Brexit vote in mid-2016 and the election of Donald Trump later that year. More recently, we’ve seen populists win in Italy and the blossoming of an impressively sustained and very determined Yellow Vests movement in France.
All of this political energy is a direct consequence of central bank policy, entrenched oligarchy and government corruption. We’re now at the point where significant percentages of the population in countries around the world want to metaphorically burn the whole thing down. Once the economic cycle kicks in and joins the political cycle already underway, then you’ll see the real fireworks.
The other night my wife and I watched the late, great Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown visit to Pittsburgh. In describing the motivations behind pro-Trump voters in the region, the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania said a local explained the prevailing sentiment to him in the following way:
“If the economy’s not gonna work for me, then I don’t want it to work for anybody.”
That perfectly sums up the situation in many regions of the U.S., and it’s also why the Fed can’t do what it did the last time around. While many Americans were against the bailouts a decade ago, we now have tens years of evidence to examine how it all played out — and the results aren’t pretty.
Most troubling is we have an entire generation of young people saddled with massive piles of student loan debt who can’t buy homes or start families due to financial circumstances. Meanwhile, American life expectancy has been dropping for three years in a row, and birth rates are at a thirty year low. This does not paint the picture of a prosperous, healthy, and functioning society.
An entrenched system hangs on until you get revolution, collapse or both.
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) February 7, 2019
Welcome to the next 5 years.
When it comes to “the system” as it pertains to the U.S., I can think of several key things I expect to change radically by 2025:
U.S. dominance of the global financial system and the USD as sole and indispensable global reserve currency will end.
Unipolar geopolitical world order through which the U.S. empire and its military beats all non-client states into submission one way or the other will end. Multi-polar world order to emerge.
Death of the neocon and neoliberal political consensus, both domestically and in the realm of foreign policy.
Peak Corporatism — Populist politics on both the right and left will unite around the idea that corporations are too powerful and harm competition. Tech giants, banks, etc, will finally be put in their place one way or the other.
Massive Spending — Populism + recession = massive government spending. Everyone will talk about how we have unlimited funds to bailout banks and start wars, but no money to actually help people and improve infrastructure. This will resonate with most people.
These are just a few of the very big picture changes I foresee, and they can happen a lot faster than people realize, particularly once the economy tanks. I think many expect the status quo to survive the next downturn and consolidate power and wealth even more, like they did the last time around. On this point I strongly take the other side. The status quo and its institutions will not survive the next turn of the cycle. Beyond that, it’s still anyone’s guess as to what emerges on the other side.
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As John Authers recently pointed out, “For much of the last decade, companies buying their own shares have accounted for all net purchases. The total amount of stock bought back by companies since the 2008 crisis even exceeds the Federal Reserve’s spending on buying bonds over the same period as part of quantitative easing. Both pushed up asset prices.” Let me rephrase that: there have been essentially no other buyers of equities over the past decade besides the companies themselves and they’ve spent over $4 trillion at it, even as liquidity has fallen to record lows.
My eight-year-old daughter and I recently read about the Salem witch trials. She had heard about Salem from a friend who visited the nearby town during its popular Halloween festivities, and she was curious about the witches. We went to the library to get some books on the topic of how 20 innocent people were put to death for “witchcraft” in 1692, with scores more accused and jailed.
What struck me most about revisiting the Salem Witch Trials with my children was the fact that these English Puritans who had recently settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony had no presumption of innocence. Those accused of a crime at the time, both in the New World and elsewhere, were guilty until proven innocent. The presumption of innocence in trials, with court defenders and impartial juries, would take centuries to catch on. The phrase “innocent until proven guilty” was coined by an English lawyer in 1791, but even then it took a long while to become the legal precedent we all now take for granted.
Subjecting all homeschooling families to regulation and oversight because of fears of a few is a blatant example of state intrusion.
Of course, this legal designation is still imperfectly applied, particularly in cases of fear and bias against certain groups. The US PATRIOT Act, for instance, allows law enforcement agencies the authority to conduct surveillance on individuals and groups by monitoring personal phone calls, emails, and financial documents without a court order. First passed in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and reauthorized since, it is intended to root out the evils of terrorism but does so by violating individual liberty and presuming guilt over innocence.
We see this pattern of privacy invasion by the state and presumed guilt in other areas, as well. In the United Kingdom, for example, there has been such a dramatic rise in the number of homeschoolers that the state believes it must regulate and monitor the practice. Estimates suggest that the number of homeschoolers in the UK increased 40 percent in just three years, and it is thought to be the fastest-growing education option in the UK, with approximately 60,000 homeschooled children in 2018.
The rapid growth of parents taking back control of their children’s education has led to calls by government officials to create a “compulsory register” of homeschooled children and to monitor their education. The UK’s Department of Education told the BBC through a spokesperson this week:
Where children are being home educated, we know that in the vast majority of cases parents are doing an excellent job. We also know, however, that in a very small minority of cases children are not receiving the standard of education they should be.
The idea that all homeschooling families in the UK must now be presumed guilty of neglect because a “very small minority” might be is not a legitimate reason to violate the privacy and personal freedom of law-abiding citizens. There are already laws to protect children from abuse and neglect in the UK and elsewhere, and those laws should be duly enforced; but subjecting all homeschooling families to regulation and oversight because of fears of a few is a blatant example of state intrusion.
Families often choose the homeschooling option because they are especially attentive to their child’s well-being. As The Guardian reported last fall:
Many parents who opt to homeschool their children say they are avoiding bullying, exam pressure and stress. Others have concerns about special educational needs, not getting a place at the school of their choice, or the school environment.
In other words, most of these homeschooling parents are going above and beyond to provide the best education for their children and should not have their decisions questioned and educational approaches monitored.
Supporters of homeschooling regulation, both in the United States and abroad, frequently say that it’s really no big deal. If you’re one of the vigilant homeschooling families then you shouldn’t mind state oversight. But that’s like saying if I have nothing to hide, it’s okay for the government to search my house and read my emails—without a warrant. It presumes guilt over innocence.
Innocent people are suspected of guilt and must prove themselves worthy. It’s antithetical to the values of a free society.Intentions may be good. The Salem Puritans wanted to root out witchcraft and what they saw as the work of the devil. The PATRIOT Act aimed to prevent terrorism through government surveillance. Monitoring homeschooling families is presented as protecting children. But in all cases, innocent people are suspected of guilt and must prove themselves worthy. It’s antithetical to the values of a free society.
I wanted to tell my daughter that we’re so much better now than those Puritans, that “innocent until proven guilty” now prevails. But I’m honestly not so sure.
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This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
[Image Credit: Pixabay]
I have been actively tracking this data for 19 years. I must tell you that I have not been impressed with the quality of the BLS headline numbers that the Wall Street media dutifully spins to the public. With Twain in mind, forgive me if I refer to the BLS as the Bureau of Liar Statistics.
https://suremoneyinvestor.com/2019/02/lies-damned-lies-and-bls-statistics/
Authored by Rusty Guinn via EpsilonTheory.com,
‘There must be some way out of here’
All Along the Watchtower, by Bob Dylan (1967)
Said the joker to the thief
‘There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth’
‘No reason to get excited’, the thief he kindly spoke
‘ There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late’
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl
Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes?
But who will watch the watchmen?
Satires, by Juvenal (2nd Century)
We haven’t published an update on our Fiat News Index for a little while, but it is for a good reason. We are working on an improved version that does more to handle gradations, nuance and context in affective language. If the concept of fiat news is new to you, Ben’s original piece here offers the best explanation. In short, it is news which broadly cheapens the credibility of media by presenting opinion as fact. It debases information in the same way that a capricious sovereign might debase a currency. It tells you how to think.
But there is a certain type of fiat news which is the most pernicious, most in need of calling out where it rears its head. It seeks, like all fiat news, to present subjective judgments and opinions as fact. This type of news also elects itself as arbiter, responsible for determining the accuracy of the statements made by others. It’s not an unworthy goal. But in the hands of actors who wish to tell you how to think about a topic and not just inform you, it can do more to debase confidence in information and news than any other kind of media activity.
Yep. I’m talking about Fact Check Journalism.
Sure, there are examples of Fact Check Journalism doing good. And then there’s the NPR Fact Check of the 2019 State of the Union Address.
It’s a long read. I recommend it. If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself agreeing with most of the commentary. If you’re not, then maybe you won’t. But whether you agree with the commentary or not isn’t the point. Ignore whether you agreed or disagreed with its sentiments. Read it again and ask yourself: Is this really a fact check? Or is this person trying to shape how I think by presenting his or her opinions as a fact check? As it happens, I think you’ll find that there are actual fact checks in the article, mostly in the well-researched responses to the immigration and border wall questions, other responses to foreign policy and national security questions, and in many of Jim Zarroli’s checks on economic statements.
But with those exceptions, NPR’s Fact Check is an analysis, commentary and opinion piece. There’s nothing wrong with that on its own. That’s an important role of the press. But publishing a piece like this as a ‘fact check’ is not just fiat news. It is fraud, a fraud of the kind that will kill confidence in the media stone dead unless others of influence recognize it and disavow it.
What am I talking about? Let’s take a look.
Source: NPR
This ‘Fact Check’ is of a kind you might call the Benchmark Switch. It isn’t a fact check so much of a statement against reality, but against what the author believes should have been said. The intention of this kind of fact check is to establish common knowledge about what is conventional and acceptable, to frame your interpretation of the remainder of the speech. We are to begin by understanding that the speaker being evaluated is beginning his speech well outside the norm. Definitional, textbook fiat news.
Source: NPR
This ‘Fact Check’ has a two-fer – Anecdotal Rebuttals and Emotionally Curated language. The author has elected to fact check an expressed desire, which is not entirely inappropriate. Although it is difficult to know in any absolute way if someone really wants to ‘binds wounds of division’, it is reasonable enough to assess whether their actions line up with that expressed desire. Yet the author simply lists a couple of examples and plays to the crowd with a ‘reading lines from a teleprompter’ bit. It’s a shame, because with as much as we write about the Widening Gyre, you won’t be surprised to learn that I completelyagree with Tamara. But this isn’t fact-checking. This is an opinion the author wished to express, and found a ‘fact check’ to use as scaffolding for that opinion.
Source: NPR
This starts with a fact check, but then transitions into Necessary Context, the selective provision of additional facts to tell you the context in which the original fact should be interpreted. The author doesn’t trust you to know what to do with certain bits of information that imply that the economy has been doing well. You need to know his opinion about whether it has been influenced by certain policies, and he also wants you to know that he and ‘forecasters’ believe that it won’t be sustained, which is a fact check on…oh, nothing really. We just thought you should know, because reasons.
Source: NPR
This one starts out looking like a fact check, but ends up offering the reader a lovely combination of Benchmark Switching and Necessary Context. The author wishes the speaker had compared unemployment levels between two demographics, and fact checks against what she wishes had been said. She then wants to make sure that you know how to think about this data in context of the president’s achievements, even though no such claim about responsibility had been made.
Source: NPR
Again, I largely agree with Jim on the point, and most of what Jim had to say in the piece was squarely in the true fact check camp. But consider a rule of thumb: If a fact check includes the terms, “what matters”, it is not a fact check. It is an opinion, and when it is presented as a fact or fact check, it is someone telling you how to think.
Source: NPR
The legal challenges facing the eliminated regulations are a feature of a legitimate fact check, since they could bring the accuracy of the original statement into question. You’ve got a little bit of Necessary Context here, of course. The author wants to make sure you know that you should think about this policy as a bad thing. What’s the surest tell for this? Look for the word ‘including’, and see what follows. If the list is a bunch of things selectively curated to trigger a particular emotional response, be aware that our thinking is being curated, too. And not by us.
Source: NPR
More Necessary Context. Lots of ‘buts,’ which in any kind of fact check is a sign that the author wants to guide how we think about and interpret the fact presented in the first clause.
Source: NPR
More Necessary Context. No fact checks here, just an author who wants to give you some additional context so that you can think about the issue in the way he wishes to frame it.
Source: NPR
Necessary Context. Note the structure of each paragraph as well. ‘Bad things’ up front, and ‘grudging admissions’ at the back. This is not a fact check. It is another interpretation check, making sure that you interpret the facts ‘correctly.’ Vanilla fiat news.
Source: NPR
In response to a simple (and completely accurate) statement celebrating the record number of women in Congress, the author wants you to know all sorts of Necessary Context. The author has all sorts of opinions about this topic, and wants to present them to you in the context of a fact check. No fact has actually been checked in the drafting of this statement.
Source: NPR
Larry has all sorts of Necessary Context for you. No fact checks, really, but zealous attempts at purporting the existence of common knowledge – what everyone knows that everyone knows – about the issue. And if you didn’t know how to think about all these facts and context, Larry gives you an Emotionally Curated fact as a kicker at the end, just to be sure.
You will find more of these if you read the piece, and you’ll find more of them in any such piece, because many news organizations have allowed their so-called fact checking apparatuses to become melded with their editorial, commentary and analysis practices. And that, friends, is the problem. Our trust in media is under attack. Our confidence in its value being debased from without and within. From without, we are being told that the media are the enemy of the people. From within, we are presented with opinions and commentary that purport to be facts. Both serve to debase this critical social institution.
The widening gyre will guide you to concern yourself with one of these, to be offended at the two being conflated. It will make you recoil, since one of them is clearly a ‘bigger problem’ or ‘more outrageous.’ Resist that impulse. We must resist and defeat both of these threats. Someone must watch for riders. And someone must watch the watchmen.
A historic interfaith covenant was signed in the Middle East on Monday, and the mainstream media in the United States has been almost entirely silent about it. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb is considered to be the most important imam in Sunni Islam, and he arrived at the signing ceremony in Abu Dhabi with Pope Francis “hand-in-hand in a symbol of interfaith brotherhood”. But this wasn’t just a ceremony for Catholics and Muslims. According to a British news source, the signing of this covenant was done “in front of a global audience of religious leaders from Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other faiths”…
The pope and the grand imam of al-Azhar have signed a historic declaration of fraternity, calling for peace between nations, religions and races, in front of a global audience of religious leaders from Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other faiths.
Pope Francis, the leader of the world’s Catholics, and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of Sunni Islam’s most prestigious seat of learning, arrived at the ceremony in Abu Dhabi hand-in-hand in a symbol of interfaith brotherhood.
In other words, there was a concerted effort to make sure that all of the religions of the world were represented at this gathering.
According to the official Vatican website, a tremendous amount of preparation went in to the drafting of this document, and it encourages believers from all religions “to shake hands, embrace one another, kiss one another, and even pray” with one another…
The document, signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, was prepared “with much reflection and prayer”, the Pope said. The one great danger at this moment, he continued, is “destruction, war, hatred between us.” “If we believers are not able to shake hands, embrace one another, kiss one another, and even pray, our faith will be defeated”, he said. The Pope explained that the document “is born of faith in God who is the Father of all and the Father of peace; it condemns all destruction, all terrorism, from the first terrorism in history, that of Cain.”
There is a lot of language about peace in this document, but it goes way beyond just advocating for peace.
Over and over again, the word “God” is used to simultaneously identify Allah and the God of Christianity. Here is just one example…
We, who believe in God and in the final meeting with Him and His judgment, on the basis of our religious and moral responsibility, and through this Document, call upon ourselves, upon the leaders of the world as well as the architects of international policy and world economy, to work strenuously to spread the culture of tolerance and of living together in peace; to intervene at the earliest opportunity to stop the shedding of innocent blood and bring an end to wars, conflicts, environmental decay and the moral and cultural decline that the world is presently experiencing.
On top of that, the document also boldly declares that “the diversity of religions” that we see in the world was “willed by God”…
Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives. Therefore, the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain religion or culture must be rejected, as too the imposition of a cultural way of life that others do not accept;
In essence, this is saying that it is the will of God that there are hundreds of different religions in the world and that they are all acceptable in His sight.
We know that the elite want a one world religion, but to see the most important clerics from both Catholicism and Islam make such a dramatic public push for it is absolutely stunning.
You can find the full text of the covenant that they signed on the official Vatican website. I have also reproduced the entire document below…
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INTRODUCTION
Faith leads a believer to see in the other a brother or sister to be supported and loved. Through faith in God, who has created the universe, creatures and all human beings (equal on account of his mercy), believers are called to express this human fraternity by safeguarding creation and the entire universe and supporting all persons, especially the poorest and those most in need.
This transcendental value served as the starting point for several meetings characterized by a friendly and fraternal atmosphere where we shared the joys, sorrows and problems of our contemporary world. We did this by considering scientific and technical progress, therapeutic achievements, the digital era, the mass media and communications. We reflected also on the level of poverty, conflict and suffering of so many brothers and sisters in different parts of the world as a consequence of the arms race, social injustice, corruption, inequality, moral decline, terrorism, discrimination, extremism and many other causes.
From our fraternal and open discussions, and from the meeting that expressed profound hope in a bright future for all human beings, the idea of this Document on Human Fraternity was conceived. It is a text that has been given honest and serious thought so as to be a joint declaration of good and heartfelt aspirations. It is a document that invites all persons who have faith in God and faith in human fraternity to unite and work together so that it may serve as a guide for future generations to advance a culture of mutual respect in the awareness of the great divine grace that makes all human beings brothers and sisters.
DOCUMENT
In the name of God who has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and who has called them to live together as brothers and sisters, to fill the earth and make known the values of goodness, love and peace;
In the name of innocent human life that God has forbidden to kill, affirming that whoever kills a person is like one who kills the whole of humanity, and that whoever saves a person is like one who saves the whole of humanity;
In the name of the poor, the destitute, the marginalized and those most in need whom God has commanded us to help as a duty required of all persons, especially the wealthy and of means;
In the name of orphans, widows, refugees and those exiled from their homes and their countries; in the name of all victims of wars, persecution and injustice; in the name of the weak, those who live in fear, prisoners of war and those tortured in any part of the world, without distinction;
In the name of peoples who have lost their security, peace, and the possibility of living together, becoming victims of destruction, calamity and war;
In the name of human fraternity that embraces all human beings, unites them and renders them equal;
In the name of this fraternity torn apart by policies of extremism and division, by systems of unrestrained profit or by hateful ideological tendencies that manipulate the actions and the future of men and women;
In the name of freedom, that God has given to all human beings creating them free and distinguishing them by this gift;
In the name of justice and mercy, the foundations of prosperity and the cornerstone of faith;
In the name of all persons of good will present in every part of the world;
In the name of God and of everything stated thus far; Al-Azhar al-Sharif and the Muslims of the East and West, together with the Catholic Church and the Catholics of the East and West, declare the adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard.
We, who believe in God and in the final meeting with Him and His judgment, on the basis of our religious and moral responsibility, and through this Document, call upon ourselves, upon the leaders of the world as well as the architects of international policy and world economy, to work strenuously to spread the culture of tolerance and of living together in peace; to intervene at the earliest opportunity to stop the shedding of innocent blood and bring an end to wars, conflicts, environmental decay and the moral and cultural decline that the world is presently experiencing.
We call upon intellectuals, philosophers, religious figures, artists, media professionals and men and women of culture in every part of the world, to rediscover the values of peace, justice, goodness, beauty, human fraternity and coexistence in order to confirm the importance of these values as anchors of salvation for all, and to promote them everywhere.
This Declaration, setting out from a profound consideration of our contemporary reality, valuing its successes and in solidarity with its suffering, disasters and calamities, believes firmly that among the most important causes of the crises of the modern world are a desensitized human conscience, a distancing from religious values and a prevailing individualism accompanied by materialistic philosophies that deify the human person and introduce worldly and material values in place of supreme and transcendental principles.
While recognizing the positive steps taken by our modern civilization in the fields of science, technology, medicine, industry and welfare, especially in developed countries, we wish to emphasize that, associated with such historic advancements, great and valued as they are, there exists both a moral deterioration that influences international action and a weakening of spiritual values and responsibility. All this contributes to a general feeling of frustration, isolation and desperation leading many to fall either into a vortex of atheistic, agnostic or religious extremism, or into blind and fanatic extremism, which ultimately encourage forms of dependency and individual or collective self-destruction.
History shows that religious extremism, national extremism and also intolerance have produced in the world, be it in the East or West, what might be referred to as signs of a “third world war being fought piecemeal”. In several parts of the world and in many tragic circumstances these signs have begun to be painfully apparent, as in those situations where the precise number of victims, widows and orphans is unknown. We see, in addition, other regions preparing to become theatres of new conflicts, with outbreaks of tension and a build-up of arms and ammunition, and all this in a global context overshadowed by uncertainty, disillusionment, fear of the future, and controlled by narrow-minded economic interests.
We likewise affirm that major political crises, situations of injustice and lack of equitable distribution of natural resources – which only a rich minority benefit from, to the detriment of the majority of the peoples of the earth – have generated, and continue to generate, vast numbers of poor, infirm and deceased persons. This leads to catastrophic crises that various countries have fallen victim to despite their natural resources and the resourcefulness of young people which characterize these nations. In the face of such crises that result in the deaths of millions of children – wasted away from poverty and hunger – there is an unacceptable silence on the international level.
It is clear in this context how the family as the fundamental nucleus of society and humanity is essential in bringing children into the world, raising them, educating them, and providing them with solid moral formation and domestic security. To attack the institution of the family, to regard it with contempt or to doubt its important role, is one of the most threatening evils of our era.
We affirm also the importance of awakening religious awareness and the need to revive this awareness in the hearts of new generations through sound education and an adherence to moral values and upright religious teachings. In this way we can confront tendencies that are individualistic, selfish, conflicting, and also address radicalism and blind extremism in all its forms and expressions.
The first and most important aim of religions is to believe in God, to honour Him and to invite all men and women to believe that this universe depends on a God who governs it. He is the Creator who has formed us with His divine wisdom and has granted us the gift of life to protect it. It is a gift that no one has the right to take away, threaten or manipulate to suit oneself. Indeed, everyone must safeguard this gift of life from its beginning up to its natural end. We therefore condemn all those practices that are a threat to life such as genocide, acts of terrorism, forced displacement, human trafficking, abortion and euthanasia. We likewise condemn the policies that promote these practices.
Moreover, we resolutely declare that religions must never incite war, hateful attitudes, hostility and extremism, nor must they incite violence or the shedding of blood. These tragic realities are the consequence of a deviation from religious teachings. They result from a political manipulation of religions and from interpretations made by religious groups who, in the course of history, have taken advantage of the power of religious sentiment in the hearts of men and women in order to make them act in a way that has nothing to do with the truth of religion. This is done for the purpose of achieving objectives that are political, economic, worldly and short-sighted. We thus call upon all concerned to stop using religions to incite hatred, violence, extremism and blind fanaticism, and to refrain from using the name of God to justify acts of murder, exile, terrorism and oppression. We ask this on the basis of our common belief in God who did not create men and women to be killed or to fight one another, nor to be tortured or humiliated in their lives and circumstances. God, the Almighty, has no need to be defended by anyone and does not want His name to be used to terrorize people.
This Document, in accordance with previous International Documents that have emphasized the importance of the role of religions in the construction of world peace, upholds the following:
– The firm conviction that authentic teachings of religions invite us to remain rooted in the values of peace; to defend the values of mutual understanding, human fraternity and harmonious coexistence; to re-establish wisdom, justice and love; and to reawaken religious awareness among young people so that future generations may be protected from the realm of materialistic thinking and from dangerous policies of unbridled greed and indifference that are based on the law of force and not on the force of law;
– Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives. Therefore, the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain religion or culture must be rejected, as too the imposition of a cultural way of life that others do not accept;
– Justice based on mercy is the path to follow in order to achieve a dignified life to which every human being has a right;
– Dialogue, understanding and the widespread promotion of a culture of tolerance, acceptance of others and of living together peacefully would contribute significantly to reducing many economic, social, political and environmental problems that weigh so heavily on a large part of humanity;
– Dialogue among believers means coming together in the vast space of spiritual, human and shared social values and, from here, transmitting the highest moral virtues that religions aim for. It also means avoiding unproductive discussions;
– The protection of places of worship – synagogues, churches and mosques – is a duty guaranteed by religions, human values, laws and international agreements. Every attempt to attack places of worship or threaten them by violent assaults, bombings or destruction, is a deviation from the teachings of religions as well as a clear violation of international law;
– Terrorism is deplorable and threatens the security of people, be they in the East or the West, the North or the South, and disseminates panic, terror and pessimism, but this is not due to religion, even when terrorists instrumentalize it. It is due, rather, to an accumulation of incorrect interpretations of religious texts and to policies linked to hunger, poverty, injustice, oppression and pride. This is why it is so necessary to stop supporting terrorist movements fuelled by financing, the provision of weapons and strategy, and by attempts to justify these movements even using the media. All these must be regarded as international crimes that threaten security and world peace. Such terrorism must be condemned in all its forms and expressions;
– The concept of citizenship is based on the equality of rights and duties, under which all enjoy justice. It is therefore crucial to establish in our societies the concept of full citizenship and reject the discriminatory use of the term minorities which engenders feelings of isolation and inferiority. Its misuse paves the way for hostility and discord; it undoes any successes and takes away the religious and civil rights of some citizens who are thus discriminated against;
– Good relations between East and West are indisputably necessary for both. They must not be neglected, so that each can be enriched by the other’s culture through fruitful exchange and dialogue. The West can discover in the East remedies for those spiritual and religious maladies that are caused by a prevailing materialism. And the East can find in the West many elements that can help free it from weakness, division, conflict and scientific, technical and cultural decline. It is important to pay attention to religious, cultural and historical differences that are a vital component in shaping the character, culture and civilization of the East. It is likewise important to reinforce the bond of fundamental human rights in order to help ensure a dignified life for all the men and women of East and West, avoiding the politics of double standards;
– It is an essential requirement to recognize the right of women to education and employment, and to recognize their freedom to exercise their own political rights. Moreover, efforts must be made to free women from historical and social conditioning that runs contrary to the principles of their faith and dignity. It is also necessary to protect women from sexual exploitation and from being treated as merchandise or objects of pleasure or financial gain. Accordingly, an end must be brought to all those inhuman and vulgar practices that denigrate the dignity of women. Efforts must be made to modify those laws that prevent women from fully enjoying their rights;
– The protection of the fundamental rights of children to grow up in a family environment, to receive nutrition, education and support, are duties of the family and society. Such duties must be guaranteed and protected so that they are not overlooked or denied to any child in any part of the world. All those practices that violate the dignity and rights of children must be denounced. It is equally important to be vigilant against the dangers that they are exposed to, particularly in the digital world, and to consider as a crime the trafficking of their innocence and all violations of their youth;
– The protection of the rights of the elderly, the weak, the disabled, and the oppressed is a religious and social obligation that must be guaranteed and defended through strict legislation and the implementation of the relevant international agreements.
To this end, by mutual cooperation, the Catholic Church and Al-Azhar announce and pledge to convey this Document to authorities, influential leaders, persons of religion all over the world, appropriate regional and international organizations, organizations within civil society, religious institutions and leading thinkers. They further pledge to make known the principles contained in this Declaration at all regional and international levels, while requesting that these principles be translated into policies, decisions, legislative texts, courses of study and materials to be circulated.
Al-Azhar and the Catholic Church ask that this Document become the object of research and reflection in all schools, universities and institutes of formation, thus helping to educate new generations to bring goodness and peace to others, and to be defenders everywhere of the rights of the oppressed and of the least of our brothers and sisters.
In conclusion, our aspiration is that:
this Declaration may constitute an invitation to reconciliation and fraternity among all believers, indeed among believers and non-believers, and among all people of good will;
this Declaration may be an appeal to every upright conscience that rejects deplorable violence and blind extremism; an appeal to those who cherish the values of tolerance and fraternity that are promoted and encouraged by religions;
this Declaration may be a witness to the greatness of faith in God that unites divided hearts and elevates the human soul;
this Declaration may be a sign of the closeness between East and West, between North and South, and between all who believe that God has created us to understand one another, cooperate with one another and live as brothers and sisters who love one another.
This is what we hope and seek to achieve with the aim of finding a universal peace that all can enjoy in this life.
Abu Dhabi, 4 february 2019
| His Holiness Pope Francis |
The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyeb |
The post The Pope And Islam’s Most Important Imam Just Signed A Covenant That Pushes Us Much Closer To A One World Religion appeared first on The Most Important News.
When Tulsi Gabbard announced her plans to run in the 2020 presidential election, I predicted that it would disrupt war propaganda narratives and force a much-needed conversation about US interventionism, but I didn’t realize that it would happen so quickly, so ubiquitously, and so explosively. Gabbard officially began her campaign for president a mere three days ago, and already she’s become the front line upon which the debate about US warmongering is happening. Even if you oppose Gabbard’s run for the presidency, this should be self-evident to you by now.
This dynamic became more apparent than ever today in Gabbard’s appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, hosted by spouses Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. It should here be noted since we’re talking about war propaganda that in 2009 Scarborough turned down an easy run for the US Senate because he decided that he could have more influence on public policy as the host of Morning Joe than he could as one of 100 US senators, which tells you everything you need to know about why I focus more on US mass media propaganda than I do on US politics. It should also be noted that Brzezinski is the daughter of the late Carter administration cold warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose influential ideas about US world domination, arming extremist factions to advance US interests, and hawkish agendas against Russia continue to infect US foreign policy to this day. Mika is part of a political dynasty, with both brothers being US political insiders as well.
So if you’ve ever wondered how outlets like MSNBC keep everyone on message and fully in alignment with the US war machine’s agendas, there’s a good insight into how. Combine that with the way they stock their punditry lineup with US intelligence community insiders and fire any pundit who refuses to toe the military-industrial complex line, and it’s not hard to see how they’ve developed such a tight echo chamber of hostility toward any resistance to US interventionism. Which explains what we’re about to discuss next.
The journalist interrogating Tulsi seems to believe that US forces in Syria are fighting Assad. Tulsi corrects her, says those troops were deployed there to fight ISIS. These people don't even know what's happening in the places they want the US to occupy https://t.co/YWIbSVqePA
Morning Joe’s pile-on against Gabbard began when the subject of Syria came up, and panelist Kasie Hunt instantly began losing her shit.
“Do you think Assad is our enemy?” Hunt interrupted during Gabbard’s response to a question about her meeting with Syria’s president in 2017, her voice and face both strained with emotion.
“Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States,” Gabbard replied.
“What do you say to Democratic voters who watched you go over there, and what do you say to military members who have been deployed repeatedly in Syria pushing back against Assad?” Hunt replied, somehow believing that US soldiers are in Syria fighting against the Syrian government, which would probably come as a shock to the troops who’ve been told that they are there to defeat ISIS.
Journalist Rania Khalek summed up this insanity perfectly, tweeting, “The journalist interrogating Tulsi seems to believe that US forces in Syria are fighting Assad. Tulsi corrects her, says those troops were deployed there to fight ISIS. These people don’t even know what’s happening in the places they want the US to occupy.”
“This is such an embarrassing look at the state of corporate American regime media,” tweeted journalist Max Blumenthal. “@kasie doesn’t know the most basic facts about Syria and along with the smug co-hosts, doesn’t care to learn.”
This is such an embarrassing look at the state of corporate American regime media. @kasie doesn't know the most basic facts about Syria and along with the smug co-hosts, doesn't care to learn. https://t.co/dEfJbVEcaD
And it didn’t get any better from there. After Gabbard took some time to explain to a professional cable news reporter the basic fundamentals of the US military’s official involvement in Syria, Scarborough interjected to ask if Assad isn’t an enemy, would Gabbard at least concede that he is “an adversary of the United States.”
Whatever the fuck that means. What Assad is is the leader of a sovereign nation which has nothing to do with the United States and isn’t taking anything from or harming the United States in any way.
Scarborough and Gabbard went back and forth about this stupid, nonsensical question before Brzezinski interjected to ask “So what would you say he is to the United States? If you cannot say that he’s an adversary or an enemy, what is Assad to the U.S.? What is the word?”
“You can describe it however you want to describe it,” Gabbard responded, explaining that whether a nation is adversarial or not comes down to whether or not they are working against US interests.
“Are Assad’s interests aligned with ours?” asked Hunt.
“What are Assad’s interests?” Gabbard countered.
“Assad seems interested primarily in the slaughter of his own people,” Hunt replied with a straight face.
“Survival,” Scarborough interjected, trying to save his colleague some embarrassment with a less insane response to the question of Assad’s interests.
Other bat shit crazy questions Gabbard was asked during her appearance include the following:
“You know there are people who will watch this have heard your previous comments who will wonder, what’s going on here? Why you met with Assad, why it looks like you were very cozy with Assad and why you’ve sort of taken his side in this argument. What would you say to that?”
“Do you think that Assad is a good person?”
“Your hometown paper said that you should focus on your job and talked about your presidential campaign being in disarray. How would you respond to your hometown paper?”
“Any idea why David Duke came out and supported you?”
“There have been reports that that Russian apparatus that interfered in 2016 is potentially trying to help your campaign. Why do you think that is?”
“Have you met with any Russians over the past several years?”
Here is @NBCNews' excellent reporting on the Russian machine that now appears to be boosting Tulsi Gabbard https://t.co/QuJRuEQHOm
— @kasie
Gabbard shoved back against the various accusations of alignment with Trump, Putin and Assad, asserting correctly that those lines are only being used to smear anyone who voices an objection to endless war and insane nuclear escalations. She pushed back particularly hard on Kasie Hunt’s reference to the obscene NBC smear piece which cited the discredited narrative control firm New Knowledge to paint Gabbard as a favorite of the Kremlin, claiming that the article has been thoroughly debunked (and it has).
After the show, still unable to contain herself, Hunt jumped onto Twitter to share the discredited NBC smear piece, writing, “Here is @NBCNews’ excellent reporting on the Russian machine that now appears to be boosting Tulsi Gabbard.”
Hunt then followed up with a link to an RT article which she captioned with an outright lie: “Here is the ‘debunking’ of the NBC News report from RT, the Russian state media. You tell me which you think is more credible.”
I say that Hunt is lying because the RT article that she shared to falsely claim that the only objection to NBC’s smear piece came from Russia explicitly names an Intercept article by American journalist Glenn Greenwald, upon which the RT article is based and which does indeed thoroughly discredit the NBC smear piece. If Hunt had read the article that she shared, she necessarily would have know that, so she was either lying about the nature of the article she shared or lying about knowing what was in it.
MSNBC defended @nbcnews fraudulent "report" which was based on a "discredited cyber security firm recently kicked off Facebook for unethical MEDDLING of a state election." Shameful "journalism." https://t.co/YjGSKKE6oR
So that was nuts. We can expect to see a whole, whole lot more of this as the plutocratic media works overtime to undermine Gabbard’s message in order to keep her from disrupting establishment war narratives, and I’m pleased as punch to see Gabbard firing back and calling them out for the sleazy war propagandists that they are. Her presidential campaign is shaking the foundations of the establishment narrative control matrix more than anything else that’s going on right now, so it looks like writing about these embarrassing mass media debacles she’s been provoking may be a big part of my job in the coming months.
Military interventionism is by far the most depraved and destructive aspect of the US-centralized power establishment, and it is also the most lucrative and strategically crucial, which is why so much energy is poured into ensuring that the American people don’t use the power of their numbers to force that interventionism to end. Anyone who throws a monkey wrench in the works of this propaganda machine is going to be subjected to a tremendous amount of smears, and I’m glad to see Gabbard fighting back against those smears. From personal experience I know that smear campaigns must be fought against ferociously, because the only alternative is to allow your detractors to control the narrative about you, which as far as your message goes is the same as allowing them to control you. It’s not fun, it’s not clean, but it’s necessary.
The narrative control war keeps getting hotter and hotter, ladies and gentlemen. Buckle up.
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