JOHN RACHEL—The difference is that neither China or Russia are trying to build some colossal offensive war machine. The major thrust of the defense spending for both of those countries is to DEFEND AGAINST a war of aggression. That’s where they put their money. And it takes a lot less money to defend a homeland, than to prepare to attack another country. Or to police an empire that stretches across the entire planet. A lot less!
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Supreme irony: War Criminals in High Office Commemorate the End of World War I
MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY—In defiance of Nuremberg, the US and its allies have invoked the conduct of “humanitarian wars” and “counter-terrorism” operations, with a view to installing “democracy” in targeted countries. And the Western media applauds. War is now routinely heralded in news reports as a peacemaking undertaking. War becomes peace. Realities are turned upside down. These lies and fabrications are part of of war propaganda, which also constitutes a criminal undertaking under Nuremberg. The US-NATO led war applied Worlwide is a criminal endeavor under the disguise of “responsibility to protect” and counter-terrorism. It violates the Nuremberg Charter, the US constitution and the UN charter.
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Fact-Checking the Establishment’s “Fact-Checkers” : How the “fake news” story is fake news
MAX PARRY—In her memoir, Hillary Clinton made it clear what constitutes fake news — the release of her emails and transcripts of speeches revealing her corruption and subservience to Wall Street. WikiLeaks’ reporting was never impugned, however, therefore what constitutes “fake news” is actually real news or anything that threatens those in power. Instead of encouraging media literacy, the working class is regarded with utter disdain by the establishment who have made clear they must control what the public is allowed to see because they can no longer be trusted to make the correct decision, i.e. vote for the candidate favored by the military-intelligence apparatus.
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The Meaning of a Multi-Polar World
ERIC ZUESSE—In other words: a mono-polar world is a world in which one nation stands above international law, and that nation’s participation in an invasion immunizes also each of its allies who join in the invasion, protecting it too from prosecution, so that a mono-polar world is one in which the United Nations can’t even possibly impose international law impartially, but can impose it only against nations that aren’t allied with the mono-polar power, which in this case is the United States.
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THE GRAY ZONE: THE FASCISTIC DREAM WORLD IN WHICH IDEOLOGIES ARE DEAD
GAITHER STEWART—The stability of that world was nonetheless shaky. The West was engaged in more serious matters than democracy: capitalism searched desperately for new markets for its survival. America’s expansion however was hampered by the nuclear-armed evil empire behind that wall in Berlin. The USA ousted from Southeast Asia, the British Empire out of India, the French out of North Africa. The whole globe whirled. Where it would stop nobody knew. Neither the US government, nor the CIA, nor European Communists even imagined a traitorous Gorbachev coming to power in Russia. No one suspected that the dissolution of the USSR was just around the corner. No one would seem more surprised (and I sometimes believe disappointed) than the CIA.
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Khashoggi, Ben Barka & PressTV’s Serena Shim: A 4-part series
RAMIN MAZAHERI—Both Shim and Ben Barka combine to disprove many unstated claims of the West: that they care about all journalists equally, that they care about Western journalists regardless of their political persuasion, that their presses are free, and that their leadership respects a free press more than in other nations.
Ben Barka was the son of a policeman and a math teacher before he got involved in politics. Serena Shim had chosen a career in journalism, but hardly a ladder-climbing one – working for Iranian government media would only land you a job in a top Western media if you then turned around and denounced Iran.
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TEXAS: POLITICS AND RELIGION, GOOD AND EVIL IN THE WORLD TODAY
RUSSELL BENTLEY—Scott Peck, the brilliant psychiatrist and theologian, wrote a book, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, in which he gave several excellent definitions of what evil really is. The first and most concise is simply “militant ignorance”. Think about that for a moment, let it sink in. And ask yourself if there is a better, more all encompassing description than that for the USA in the 21st Century. It is the definition of evil.
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Yemen is Another US Dirty War
DAVID PEAR—In a Houthi-led uprising the people of Yemen forced Hadi out of office. Hadi resigned as president and then fled from the capital city of Sana’a and went to the southern port city of Aden. In Aden Hadi rescinded his resignation and tried to reconstitute his moribund government. When that failed, he fled to Riyad, Saudi Arabia.
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The “Resistance” Struggles To Justify Support For Trump’s Prosecution Of Assange
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—And indeed this is exactly what has been happening. Check out the joyous celebrations in online comments sections from when the news broke that the Trump administration has brought sealed charges upon Assange (here, here, or here for example) for a taste of where the “blue wave” zeitgeist is at right now. Their hatred for Assange has overpowered not only their hatred for Trump, but the most important ways in which they are meant to be resisting him.
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China-Africa, A New Accord
LEO ZHAO—For 500 years, without exception, foreign agency in the land of Africa has been exclusively self serving and brutally exploitative. Thus it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine the possibility of any other kind of relationship between outsiders and Africans. But today, at such a crucial time of global transformation, for many reasons including the future for entire populations and the world, it is vitally important to not only imagine, but to observe and support, based on concrete facts, the building of exactly a different kind of relationship.
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Thanking vets for their “service” – why?
THE SAKER—Nope! These are all excellent reasons to feel compassion and sympathy for veterans, yes. But not gratitude. There is a huge difference here. Everybody, every human, and I strongly believe every creature deserves compassion and sympathy. But it is one thing to say “I feel compassion for you” and quite another to say “thank you for what you did” because that implies that the deed was a moral, good, ethical deed, and that is entirely false.
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