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  14. <description>a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice</description>
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  23. <title>Japanese Internment &#8212; Topaz Utah, with a Caucasian Family Assisting Farming</title>
  24. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/japanese-internment-topaz-utah-with-a-caucasian-family-assisting-farming/</link>
  26. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Paul Haeder]]></dc:creator>
  27. <pubDate>Sat, 12 Jul 2025 14:50:11 +0000</pubDate>
  28. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  29. <category><![CDATA[Ethnic Cleansing]]></category>
  30. <category><![CDATA[Genocide]]></category>
  31. <category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
  32. <category><![CDATA[Incarceration]]></category>
  33. <category><![CDATA[Propaganda]]></category>
  34. <category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>
  35. <category><![CDATA[Alcatraz Alligator]]></category>
  36. <category><![CDATA[David Suzuki]]></category>
  37. <category><![CDATA[Japanese concentration camps in USA]]></category>
  38. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159797</guid>
  39.  
  40. <description><![CDATA[<p>Spend an hour with me and Earnie Bell, of Newport, Oregon, as we look at his past as his California father was hired to assist this concentration camp feeding itself with vegetables and meat. KYAQ. Ran in March of 2025.   Listen and Eat Your Heart Out &#8212; Earnie is ALL there, man. A heck of [&#8230;]</p>
  41. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/japanese-internment-topaz-utah-with-a-caucasian-family-assisting-farming/">Japanese Internment — Topaz Utah, with a Caucasian Family Assisting Farming</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
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  48. <p><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!P1R5!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff7388133-f8d4-4807-a5d4-b85539f8c56f_1602x491.png" alt="" width="497" height="152" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f7388133-f8d4-4807-a5d4-b85539f8c56f_1602x491.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:446,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:684407,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/168010772?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff7388133-f8d4-4807-a5d4-b85539f8c56f_1602x491.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  49. </div>
  50. </figure>
  51. </div>
  52. <p>Spend an hour with me and Earnie Bell, of Newport, Oregon, as we look at his past as his California father was hired to assist this concentration camp feeding itself with vegetables and meat.</p>
  53. <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-wUMilgyxc46v0dS7Nt-X5VGYxREHhwM/view?usp=drive_link">KYAQ. Ran in March of 2025.   Listen and Eat Your Heart Out &#8212; Earnie is ALL there, man.</a></p>
  54. <p>A heck of an experience, for the Bell kiddos and the parents, and this is the shame, man, the continual criminal enterprise of this country, so when the Democrats complain about Trump and his Billions for ICE CBP Alcatraz Alligator Gulag, well well, just burp up some history, folks, this country of a good Indian is a dead Indian, Chinese Exclusion Act, the whole Nine Yards until today, with legal residents and card holders and someone like me, a fucking US Passport Carrying Citizen born in San Pedro California but raised in Azores and France and UK and Germany, well well, I have ZERO Loyalty to the State of Genocide, and ZERO Loyalty for State of Oregon and the other Fifty States, including especially the 51st state of Israel.</p>
  55. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  56. <figure>
  57. <div class="image2-inset">
  58. <p><img decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="A crowd of people in Manzanar, Calif., in 1942 " src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cQJE!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F19dc42ad-0450-4cef-948b-680534696ea0_2000x1333.jpeg" alt="A crowd of people in Manzanar, Calif., in 1942 " width="488" height="325" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/19dc42ad-0450-4cef-948b-680534696ea0_2000x1333.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:970,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A crowd of people in Manzanar, Calif., in 1942 &quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  59. </div>
  60. </figure>
  61. </div>
  62. <p>I had David Suzuki on my radio show in Spokane, and introduced him for a reading with a poem I wrote him. On my show, he talked about Canadian Concentration Camps, and the one he was put in with his family.</p>
  63. </div>
  64. <p><a href="https://soundcloud.com/paulhaeder/podcasttippingptsdavidsuzuki041509?si=56e3a678cd944cf0a73e3d5747d231b0&amp;utm_source=clipboard&amp;utm_medium=text&amp;utm_campaign=social_sharing">Lucky you:  David Suzuki &#8212; scientist, environmentalist, author and documentary producer interviewed by Paul Haeder, Tipping Points: Voices from the Edge, KYRS-FM, Spokane:</a></p>
  65. <p>In 1989, David Suzuki&#8217;s award-winning radio series It&#8217;s a Matter of Survival sounded an alarm of where the planet was heading. Over 17,000 of his shocked fans sent him letters asking for ways to avert the catastrophe. A group of people urged David Suzuki and Tara Cullis to create a new, solutions-based organization. That November, they hosted a gathering with a dozen thinkers and activists on Pender Island, B.C. By the end of the meeting, something significant was afoot. And after many planning meetings, on Sept. 14, 1990, the David Suzuki Foundation was incorporated.</p>
  66. <p><img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://midgeraymond.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/spokane-300x200.jpg" alt="spokane" /></p>
  67. <div class="body markup" dir="auto">
  68. <p><a href="https://topazmuseum.org/">Background</a> —</p>
  69. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  70. <figure>
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  72. <p><img decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4NWJ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21ee0ea3-884b-4a00-a9c0-d0bf3e3c424d_634x478.png" alt="" width="417" height="315" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/21ee0ea3-884b-4a00-a9c0-d0bf3e3c424d_634x478.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:478,&quot;width&quot;:634,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:305241,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/168010772?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21ee0ea3-884b-4a00-a9c0-d0bf3e3c424d_634x478.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  73. </div>
  74. </figure>
  75. </div>
  76. <p><a href="https://densho.org/catalyst/ten-little-known-stories-about-topaz-concentration-camp/">Manzanar, California, too:</a></p>
  77. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  78. <figure>
  79. <div class="image2-inset">
  80. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="People drag bundles of belongings" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nEsX!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1e5da114-c15d-4b0c-8152-8c6263489156_2000x1520.jpeg" alt="People drag bundles of belongings" width="409" height="311" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/1e5da114-c15d-4b0c-8152-8c6263489156_2000x1520.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1107,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:504,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;People drag bundles of belongings&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  81. </div>
  82. </figure>
  83. </div>
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  85. <figure>
  86. <div class="image2-inset">
  87. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title=" Japanese Americans at Manzanar internment camp" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GYPy!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F833c8c65-a56d-47a0-8e03-859ee9f9c808_2000x1599.jpeg" alt=" Japanese Americans at Manzanar internment camp" width="400" height="320" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/833c8c65-a56d-47a0-8e03-859ee9f9c808_2000x1599.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1164,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot; Japanese Americans at Manzanar internment camp&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  88. </div>
  89. </figure>
  90. </div>
  91. <p><a href="https://densho.org/catalyst/ten-little-known-stories-about-topaz-concentration-camp/"><strong>Source: </strong></a></p>
  92. <p><strong>September 11, 2019</strong></p>
  93. <p>The “Central Utah Relocation Center”—more popularly known as <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Topaz/" rel="">Topaz</a>—was located at a dusty site in the Sevier Desert and had one of the most urban and most homogeneous populations of the camps, with nearly its entire inmate population coming from the San Francisco Bay Area. Topaz is perhaps best known as the site of the <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Homicide%20in%20camp/#James_Hatsuaki_Wakasa" rel="">fatal shooting of an inmate</a> by an overzealous camp sentry in April 1943 and for its art school, which included a faculty roster of notable Issei and Nisei artists. It was also the site of significant protest against the “loyalty questionnaire” in the spring of 1943 and of a variety of labor disputes.</p>
  94. <p>The second least populous of the <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/War%20Relocation%20Authority/" rel="">War Relocation Authority</a> camps (to <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Amache%20(Granada)/" rel="">Amache</a>), Topaz had a peak population of 8,130 inmates. The Topaz Museum, which opened to the public in 2015, is located in nearby Delta, Utah and today owns much of the land on which the camp was once built.</p>
  95. <p>Here are ten little-known stories from Topaz concentration camp:</p>
  96. <p><strong>“Swirling Masses of Sand in the Air”</strong></p>
  97. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  98. <figure>
  99. <div class="image2-inset">
  100. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="An aerial view of Topaz concentration camp, with rows of black military barracks between dirt roads and mountains in the distance. There are swirls of dust visible in the air over the camp." src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!H6FD!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21ae50a1-437b-49b4-a94f-ba0a9d9070c6_1024x645.jpeg" alt="An aerial view of Topaz concentration camp, with rows of black military barracks between dirt roads and mountains in the distance. There are swirls of dust visible in the air over the camp." width="402" height="253" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/21ae50a1-437b-49b4-a94f-ba0a9d9070c6_1024x645.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:645,&quot;width&quot;:1024,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;An aerial view of Topaz concentration camp, with rows of black military barracks between dirt roads and mountains in the distance. There are swirls of dust visible in the air over the camp.&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  101. <div class="image-link-expand">
  102. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset">
  103. <div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"></div>
  104. </div>
  105. </div>
  106. </div><figcaption class="image-caption"><strong>Aerial view of Topaz concentration camp. <a href="http://ddr.densho.org/ddr-manz-4-127/" rel="">Courtesy of Manzanar National Historic Site and the Shinjo Nagatomi Collection.</a></strong></figcaption></figure>
  107. </div>
  108. <p>While dust storms took place at many of the WRA camps and are part of the standard narrative about these sites, they seemed to be particularly bad at Topaz even by WRA standards. Tony O’Brien, the acting project attorney, wrote in a November 1942 memo that the “dust storms are much worse than those encountered at Minidoka. The dust is more powdery in texture and penetrates every crevice on the project,” he wrote.</p>
  109. <p>Maxim Shapiro, a visitor to the camp, wrote of the dust in December 1942 that “no one who has not seen it can imagine its ill effects. It penetrates everything—it fills your mouth, nostrils, the pores of your skin, your clothing—and all efforts to keep yourself or your room clean are just futile efforts…”</p>
  110. <p>“We could barely see one inch ahead of us,” wrote <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Japanese%20American%20Evacuation%20and%20Resettlement%20Study/" rel="">Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study</a> (JERS) fieldworker Doris Hayashi of a dust storm in November 1942. “It swept around us in great thrusting gusts, flinging swirling masses of sand in the air and engulfing us in a thick cloud…,” wrote <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Yoshiko%20Uchida/" rel="">Yoshiko Uchida</a> in her memoir.</p>
  111. <p><strong>The Offal Was Awful</strong></p>
  112. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-alignItems-center pc-position-absolute pc-reset header-anchor-parent">
  113. <div class="pencraft pc-display-contents pc-reset pubTheme-yiXxQA">
  114. <p>In the spring and summer of 1943, the camp was unable to purchase sufficient meat due to outside shortages, and began serving a succession of organ meats—livers, hearts, tripe, etc.—that most inmates found unpalatable. Widespread complaints followed, including appeals to the Spanish Consul and the State Department, and calls for the firing of the chief steward. The situation was eventually resolved when the camp farming operation began to deliver beef and pork to mess halls in August 1943.</p>
  115. <p><strong>The Topaz Music School</strong></p>
  116. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  117. <figure>
  118. <div class="image2-inset">
  119. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="Two girls wearing patterned kimono and playing koto, next to a woman wearing a plain dark kimono and playing a shamisen. All three are seated on a stage, with a curtain in the background and three microphones in the foreground." src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eN0C!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Facc24b50-c467-46d0-9ebb-8bb635aebaec_1024x605.jpeg" alt="Two girls wearing patterned kimono and playing koto, next to a woman wearing a plain dark kimono and playing a shamisen. All three are seated on a stage, with a curtain in the background and three microphones in the foreground." width="413" height="244" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/acc24b50-c467-46d0-9ebb-8bb635aebaec_1024x605.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:605,&quot;width&quot;:1024,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Two girls wearing patterned kimono and playing koto, next to a woman wearing a plain dark kimono and playing a shamisen. All three are seated on a stage, with a curtain in the background and three microphones in the foreground.&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  120. <div class="image-link-expand">
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  122. <div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"></div>
  123. </div>
  124. </div>
  125. </div><figcaption class="image-caption"><strong>A musical recital in Topaz, c.1943-1944. Photo courtesy of the Utah State Historical Society, <a href="https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=483253" rel="">The KUED Topaz (Utah) Residents Photograph Collection</a>.</strong></figcaption></figure>
  126. </div>
  127. <p>While the Topaz Art School is relatively well-known, the equally notable Topaz Music School is much less well documented. “It is very strange because a lot of people didn’t know that there was a music studio except the people who actually went there, and even some of those people can’t remember the details about it,” recalled Kazuko Iwahashi in a 2011 <a href="http://ddr.densho.org/interviews/ddr-densho-1000-337-17/" rel="">Densho interview</a>.</p>
  128. <p>As with the art school, the impetus for its creation came from the relatively large number of artists/musicians among Topaz’s urban population. First organized in the Block 35 Recreation Hall, it later moved to Barrack 6 of Block 1. Teachers and students and their families spent ten days putting up walls, ceilings, and sheet rock prior to the November 1 school opening. The school offered courses in piano, vocal, violin, solfeggio, harmony, history of music, choir, ensemble, orchestra, and noh drama. The peak enrollment at the school was 653, ranging from four-year-olds to a seventy year old choral student. The school put on regular recital programs featuring the students.</p>
  129. <p>As with other education endeavors, supplies and equipment were an issue. In particular, there was the matter of pianos. Though the school had access to seven pianos—many came from individual inmates and Japanese American churches in the Bay Area—this was not sufficient, and piano students were limited to mere minutes of weekly practice time. Violin students had to provide their own instruments. Nonetheless, the music school and its various performance programs provided a welcome diversion for students, teachers, and the community alike.</p>
  130. <p><strong>The Santa Anitans</strong></p>
  131. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-alignItems-center pc-position-absolute pc-reset header-anchor-parent">
  132. <div class="pencraft pc-display-contents pc-reset pubTheme-yiXxQA">Concentration camp life created some unusual groupings, alliances, and, sometimes, out groups. One of the oddest instances of the last was the fate of Santa Anitans at Topaz. Essentially the entire population of Topaz came from the San Francisco Bay Area, and nearly all came through the <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Tanforan%20(detention%20facility)/" rel="">Tanforan Assembly Center</a>. But one of the first groups to be removed from San Francisco in April 1942 was sent to <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Santa%20Anita%20(detention%20facility)/" rel="">Santa Anita</a> instead, since Tanforan had still not been completed. This group spent nearly six months at Santa Anita and was among the last to arrive at Topaz on October 7. Even though this group shared common Bay Area roots with the rest of the Topaz population, it seems their time at Santa Anita had changed them.</p>
  133. <p>Their long incarceration at Santa Anita along with the miserable conditions they faced as late arrivals at Topaz led to their being viewed by other inmates as having “a cocky attitude” and having “a chip on their shoulder.” Community Services Chief Lorne Bell described them as “something of a problem, reflecting to some degree the very unfortunate conditions which must have prevailed at that center [Santa Anita].” Their incarceration with Los Angeles people also seemed to have changed them in the view of the Bay Area people. Fred Hoshiyama, who was working as a JERS field worker, described their arrival with some degree of bewilderment:</p>
  134. <blockquote><p><em>Many of the young nisei boys who were conservative dressers came off of the bus in “zute (sic) suits” and other flashy dress wear. The girls wore their hair in styles different from the Tanforan group ala Hollywood glamour styles—either long like Veronica Lake or short and put up. Their language, their attitudes, their mannerism changed to the extent that It was easily discernible and many of the Tanforan girls and boys expressed surprise as well.</em></p></blockquote>
  135. <p>The Santa Anita group was housed in Blocks 33, 34, and 40 and apparently remained somewhat distinct from the rest of the population.</p>
  136. <h3 class="header-anchor-post"><strong>The Hawaiʻi Group</strong></h3>
  137. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-alignItems-center pc-position-absolute pc-reset header-anchor-parent">
  138. <div class="pencraft pc-display-contents pc-reset pubTheme-yiXxQA">
  139. <p>Topaz was one of two WRA camps to have a sizable contingent who had been shipped from Hawaiʻi. (<a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Jerome/" rel="">Jerome</a> was the other.) The group of 226 arrived in March of 1943 and were housed in Block 1. Most—176—were single men, most of them Kibei. Inmates and WRA staff went through great efforts to welcome them upon their arrival. Many had been interned at <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Sand%20Island%20(detention%20facility)/" rel="">Sand Island</a> previously or were family members of such internees. Most of them eventually ended up going to Tule Lake after <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Segregation/" rel="">segregation</a> and many went on to Japan.</p>
  140. <p><strong>Hostile Reception for Outside Farm Workers</strong></p>
  141. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  142. <figure>
  143. <div class="image2-inset">
  144. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="A Japanese American woman and child sitting inside a tent in a farm labor camp." src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!HzQG!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3579def2-e8f6-42a4-8880-4f6ec67d3a1a_1024x817.jpeg" alt="A Japanese American woman and child sitting inside a tent in a farm labor camp." width="409" height="326" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/3579def2-e8f6-42a4-8880-4f6ec67d3a1a_1024x817.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:817,&quot;width&quot;:1024,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A Japanese American woman and child sitting inside a tent in a farm labor camp.&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  145. <div class="image-link-expand">
  146. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset">
  147. <div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"></div>
  148. </div>
  149. </div>
  150. </div><figcaption class="image-caption"><strong>Harvest tent city near Provo, UT, where Topaz inmates were recruited to do farm labor. During the harvest, local residents fired rifles into the tent city and three inmates were wounded. Photo courtesy of the Utah State Historical Society, <a href="https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=483288" rel="">KUED Topaz (Utah) Residents Photograph Collection</a>.</strong></figcaption></figure>
  151. </div>
  152. <p>As at many camps, inmates were encouraged to go out on short term leave during the harvest season to do agricultural work in states like Utah, Idaho, and Colorado. Because so many workers were moving to the coast to take relatively well-paying war industry jobs, there were serious shortages of agricultural workers, leading to many farmers attempting to recruit incarcerated Japanese Americans. Thousands of Japanese Americans did do this, particularly in the falls of 1942 and 1943. So many left some of the camps in fact, that they created labor shortages in those camps.</p>
  153. <p>While some at Topaz did leave to do such seasonal outside labor, the numbers were fewer for a couple of reasons. One was that the Topaz population was a largely urban one that included relatively few experienced farm workers. Another factor was the poor reception some farm workers received. One of the areas where laborers were most needed was in Utah County, where the WRA set up a housing camp in Provo that could house up to 400 Japanese American workers. Some of the workers reported that stores and restaurants wouldn’t serve them and that locals harassed them on the streets. In October 1943, some local youths even fired shots into the labor camp while the inmates were present. They refused to return to work until their safety could be guaranteed. Armed guards were quickly brought in, and the inmates did go back to work. But such incidents did little to encourage others to go out.</p>
  154. <p><strong>Issei and Nisei Resistance to Registration</strong></p>
  155. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-alignItems-center pc-position-absolute pc-reset header-anchor-parent">
  156. <div class="pencraft pc-display-contents pc-reset pubTheme-yiXxQA">Widespread resistance to registration emerged at Topaz, with Issei and Nisei alike questioning various aspects of the <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Loyalty%20questionnaire/" rel="">“loyalty questionnaire”</a> and the <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/442nd%20Regimental%20Combat%20Team/" rel="">segregated Nisei combat unit</a>, delaying the scheduled February 10, 1943, start of registration a week.</p>
  157. <p>As detailed by Cherston Lyon in her 2011 monograph <em>Prisons and Patriots: Japanese American Wartime Citizenship, Civil Disobedience, and Historical Memory</em>, Issei objected to the wording of question 28 that asked a population that was prohibited by law from becoming U.S. citizens to “forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese Emperor.” They organized a committee of nine to ask that the question be changed and refused to register until the issue was resolved. With similar complaints coming from other camps, the WRA and army agreed to change the wording of the question.</p>
  158. <p>Nisei also organized a Committee of 33 to demand the restoration of their civil rights before they would agree to register. But a hard line response—included threats of prosecution for violating the Espionage Act—by both local and national WRA officials along with counter protests by professed Nisei patriots broke the Nisei protest. Registration began in earnest on February 17 and was completed by February 27. While the initial number of Nisei who volunteered for the army was low, a group of volunteers formed the Resident Council for Japanese American Civil Rights, which spearheaded a propaganda campaign that helped recruit additional volunteers.</p>
  159. <p>A year later, when Nisei eligibility for the draft was restored in early 1944, two groups formed to protest the continued segregation of Nisei in the army, the <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Topaz%20Citizens%20Committee/" rel="">Topaz Citizens Committee</a> and <a href="http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Mothers%20of%20Topaz/" rel="">Mothers of Topaz</a>. Though a faction of the former advocated draft resistance, the majority opted to protest segregation in the army but not to actively resist conscription. The latter sent a petition signed by 1,141 mothers to President Roosevelt and other national leaders objecting to the segregated Nisei military unit and to the fact that Nisei were banned from all branches of the military except the army.</p>
  160. <p><strong>Gambling Boom</strong></p>
  161. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-alignItems-center pc-position-absolute pc-reset header-anchor-parent">
  162. <div class="pencraft pc-display-contents pc-reset pubTheme-yiXxQA">
  163. <p>Gambling became an issue at many of the WRA camps. But whereas gambling problems were mostly fueled by shadowy underground operations at other camps, they took an unusual form at Topaz. By the fall of 1943, many blocks had started bingo games as fundraisers, often for the purchase of athletic equipment. While they were effective in raising money, they had the unwanted side effect of creating bingo addicts, many of whom were children. As reports circulated of children raiding family kitties to fund their addiction, the Topaz Community Council passed an ordinance banning the bingo games, though some previously planned events were allowed to proceed at the end of the year.</p>
  164. <p>To be sure, the other kind of gambling also existed at Topaz. The professional gamblers particularly targeted those who left the camp to pick sugar beets and returned to camp with a lot of cash. “The guys who stayed behind in the gambling place in camp took it all away from them in a short time,” recalled one gambler in a 1944 interview.</p>
  165. <p><strong>The Antelope Springs recreation camp</strong></p>
  166. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-alignItems-center pc-position-absolute pc-reset header-anchor-parent">
  167. <div class="pencraft pc-display-contents pc-reset pubTheme-yiXxQA">A unique aspect of Topaz was the existence of a separate recreation camp for kids. The camp education department made arrangements with the Department of the Interior to use a former CCC camp near Mt. Swasey, about forty miles west of Topaz named Antelope Springs. It served as a campsite mostly for children between the ages of twelve and fourteen, often in groups organized by the Boy Scouts, Girl Reserves or YMCA. About seventy-five kids at a time went out for stays of up to one week, accompanied by adult inmate leaders. The site was at a 7,300 foot elevation, providing a respite from summer heat, and included running mountain water, and level ground for camping.</p>
  168. <p>In her Densho interview, Kazuko Iwahahsi <a href="http://ddr.densho.org/interviews/ddr-densho-1000-337-16/" rel="">recalled</a>, “we slept in pup tents, two of us to a pup tent, and had open dining hall.”</p>
  169. <p>“And boy, June on the lake bed out there at Topaz must have been well over a hundred degrees,” <a href="http://ddr.densho.org/interviews/ddr-manz-1-39-19/" rel="">remembered Kinge Okauchi</a>. “So this [Antelope Springs] was a great sort of respite from the hot summer.” During the summer of 1943, 338 campers went to the Antelope Springs in seven weeks.</p>
  170. <p><strong>An Extensive Library Program</strong></p>
  171. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-alignItems-center pc-position-absolute pc-reset header-anchor-parent">
  172. <div class="pencraft pc-display-contents pc-reset pubTheme-yiXxQA">In perhaps another nod to the urban roots of the Topaz inmate population, Topaz had perhaps the most extensive library system of any of the WRA camps that included a main Topaz Public Library (TPL), a library for Japanese language material, and libraries at the high school and each of the two elementary schools.</p>
  173. <p>The TPL began as essentially a continuation of the library at the Tanforan Assembly Center, with books from that library being shipped to Topaz and two former library workers from there, Ida Shimanouchi and Alice Watanabe, taking the lead in setting up the new library. Work began on the library in Recreation Hall 32 on October 2, 1942. The space was unfinished and unheated, leading to days when work had to be canceled due to the cold. Inmates contributed books and magazines to the Tanforan collection, and the library was able to open to the public with a collection of nearly 7,000 books on December 1. The TPL soon moved to the Block 16 recreation hall, essentially an entire unpartitioned barrack with mess hall tables and benches running down the middle and inmate built shelves lining the walls. The collection grew to include fifty-two periodicals, including major national newspapers as well the Oakland Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle, as well as a rental collection of new books that rented for 5¢ a week.</p>
  174. <p>In January 1943, the TPL was able to rotate in some books from the Salt Lake County Library at Midvale and also initiated interlibrary loan service with college libraries in Utah and the University of California at Berkeley. By the end of March 1943, the collection had grown to over 8,500 books and patronage peaked at nearly 500 a day. It became a popular place for young people to gather to socialize and do homework. Motomu Akashi recalled spending many hours in the library, since “[i]t was much more comfortable than our apartment, especially during the winter.” He called the library “my salvation” that “brought me just that small pleasure needed to overcome my depression.”</p>
  175. <p>To serve the Issei and Kibei population, a Japanese language collection was formed out of donations from inmates. Opening as a part of the regular TPL in February 1943, the Japanese section became so popular that it moved to its own space in Recreation Hall 40 in May, later moving to Recreation Hall 31 in February 1944. The collection began with about 1,000 books and eventually grew to 5,000, with daily attendance of three hundred. The inmates from Hawaiʻi became frequent users of the library and put on a popular exhibition of craft items in Hawaiʻi. Later, the Japanese library hosted exhibitions of artists from the art school.</p>
  176. <p style="text-align: center;">*****</p>
  177. <p>By Brian Niiya, Densho Content Director</p>
  178. <p>The information presented here has been excerpted from Densho’s new and improved Sites of Shame project. Full citations will be included there, but feel free to post questions in the comments or email us at <a href="mailto:&#x69;&#x6e;&#x66;&#x6f;&#x40;&#x64;&#x65;&#x6e;&#x73;&#x68;&#x6f;&#x2e;&#x6f;&#x72;&#x67;" rel=""><span class="oe_textdirection">&#x67;&#x72;&#x6f;&#x2e;&#x6f;&#x68;&#x73;&#x6e;&#x65;&#x64;<span class="oe_displaynone">null</span>&#x40;&#x6f;&#x66;&#x6e;&#x69;</span></a> in the meantime!</p>
  179. <p>[Header image: Japanese American inmates and new arrivals at the Topaz “induction center” in 1942. Photo courtesy of the Utah State Historical Society, <a href="https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=483226" rel="">KUED Topaz (Utah) Residents Photograph Collection</a>.]</p>
  180. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  181. <figure>
  182. <div class="image2-inset">
  183. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="A large group of former students gathered for the 40th Topaz High reunion, holding a colorful banner, in San Francisco, 1983." src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AB1_!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa16c0f74-71a4-4fa3-aec9-76702577c395_700x552.jpeg" alt="A large group of former students gathered for the 40th Topaz High reunion, holding a colorful banner, in San Francisco, 1983." width="409" height="323" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a16c0f74-71a4-4fa3-aec9-76702577c395_700x552.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:552,&quot;width&quot;:700,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A large group of former students gathered for the 40th Topaz High reunion, holding a colorful banner, in San Francisco, 1983.&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  184. </div>
  185. </figure>
  186. </div>
  187. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  188. <figure>
  189. <div class="image2-inset">
  190. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I8hg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa0d1fe19-efcd-4d76-9a17-286590f21d67_558x328.jpeg" alt="" width="418" height="246" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a0d1fe19-efcd-4d76-9a17-286590f21d67_558x328.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:328,&quot;width&quot;:558,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  191. <h3 class="header-anchor-post"><strong>Life Behind Barbed Wire</strong></h3>
  192. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-alignItems-center pc-position-absolute pc-reset header-anchor-parent">
  193. <div class="pencraft pc-display-contents pc-reset pubTheme-yiXxQA">
  194. <p>The single internment camp located in Utah was at Topaz, Utah, sixteen miles west of Delta, Utah. Named for a nearby mountain, Topaz was in the middle of an area charitably described as a &#8220;barren, sand-choked wasteland.&#8221; The first internees were moved into Topaz in September, 1942, and it was closed in October, 1945. At its peak, Topaz held 9,408 people in barracks of tarpaper and wood.</p>
  195. <p><strong>The George G. Murakami Collection</strong></p>
  196. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-alignItems-center pc-position-absolute pc-reset header-anchor-parent">
  197. <div class="pencraft pc-display-contents pc-reset pubTheme-yiXxQA">The items in this exhibit were graciously lent to the University of Utah by George G. Murakami, a young American from Berkeley, California, who was interned in Topaz.</div>
  198. </div>
  199. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  200. <figure>
  201. <div class="image2-inset"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Um2n!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F290aa342-8785-4a15-8a33-3a097a70527e_661x460.jpeg" alt="" width="343" height="239" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/290aa342-8785-4a15-8a33-3a097a70527e_661x460.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:460,&quot;width&quot;:661,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></div>
  202. <div></div>
  203. <div><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://i0.wp.com/kyaq.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/KYAQ-Logo-cropped2-W.jpg?fit=303%2C143&amp;ssl=1" alt="KYAQ Home -" width="150" height="71" /></div>
  204. <div><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-wUMilgyxc46v0dS7Nt-X5VGYxREHhwM/view?usp=drive_link">Listen to my show with Earnie Bell!</a></div>
  205. </figure>
  206. <div>Man oh man, <em>Spokesman Review</em> didn&#8217;t scrub all my stuff:  <a href="https://www.spokesman.com/audio/2010/may/14/david-suzuki/">David Suzuki</a></div>
  207. <div></div>
  208. <div><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://enotice-production.imgix.net/custom-documents%2Fpermalink%2F1968.58aaa-Screenshot_1.jpg" alt="Public Notices | The Spokesman-Review" width="278" height="123" /></div>
  209. <div></div>
  210. <div>David Suzuki is an internationally known environmental activist and scientist. Although he is well known for his radio broadcasts in Canada, he&#8217;s become an international celebrity through the television show <em>The Nature of Things</em>. Suzuki also cofounded the David Suzuki Foundation for the promotion of living in balance with the natural world. He’s got more than 50 books under his name.</div>
  211. </div>
  212. </div>
  213. </div>
  214. </div>
  215. </figure>
  216. </div>
  217. </div>
  218. </div>
  219. </div>
  220. </div>
  221. </div>
  222. </div>
  223. </div>
  224. </div>
  225. </div>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/japanese-internment-topaz-utah-with-a-caucasian-family-assisting-farming/">Japanese Internment — Topaz Utah, with a Caucasian Family Assisting Farming</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  229. </item>
  230. <item>
  231. <title>Al Gore Puts Down &#8220;Climate Realism&#8221;</title>
  232. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/al-gore-puts-down-climate-realism/</link>
  234. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Hunziker]]></dc:creator>
  235. <pubDate>Sat, 12 Jul 2025 14:40:04 +0000</pubDate>
  236. <category><![CDATA[Climate Change]]></category>
  237. <category><![CDATA[CO2 Emissions]]></category>
  238. <category><![CDATA[Paris 2015]]></category>
  239. <category><![CDATA[Renewables]]></category>
  240. <category><![CDATA[Solar Energy]]></category>
  241. <category><![CDATA[Tony Blair]]></category>
  242. <category><![CDATA[carbon capture]]></category>
  243. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159826</guid>
  244.  
  245. <description><![CDATA[<p>Al Gore, speaking in Nairobi, gave a TED speech that set the stage for where the world stands in its search for Net Zero by 2050: “Many of the oil, gas, and coal producers and their financial allies are now advocating a new approach that they call ‘climate realism.”Al Gore, TED speech, Nairobi, Nigeria, June [&#8230;]</p>
  246. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/al-gore-puts-down-climate-realism/">Al Gore Puts Down “Climate Realism”</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  247. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Al Gore, speaking in Nairobi, gave a TED speech that set the stage for where the world stands in its search for Net Zero by 2050: “Many of the oil, gas, and coal producers and their financial allies are now advocating a new approach that they call ‘climate realism.”Al Gore, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztx0Bch3h9s">TED speech</a>, Nairobi, Nigeria, June 2025.)</p>
  248. <p>The fossil fuels industry’s ‘climate realism’ displaces decades of science in the worldwide struggle with two likely outcomes for the climate system by 2050:</p>
  249. <ol type="A">
  250. <li>Net Zero is achieved, resulting in a livable climate system.</li>
  251. <li>Global temperatures ramp up +2-3-4°C pre-industrial, resulting in hothouse Earth, much of the planet unlivable.</li>
  252. </ol>
  253. <p>By all counts, the ‘B’ option has the highest probability because ‘A’ is based upon wishful thinking and a very bumpy record. Whereas ‘B’ is based upon factual data of the current trajectory of climate change, which is well ahead of scientist’s expectations, going in the wrong direction, with some claiming it may already be too late. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry pretends, and hopes for, the ‘A’ option with adaptation measures. This is the genesis of fossil fuel ‘Climate Realism’. In a soft-spoken manner, they claim they can fix what emissions harm.</p>
  254. <p>It’s ten years since Paris ’15 when 195 nations agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to Net Zero by 2050. Yet, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), ten years later (2025) fossil fuels still account for roughly 80% of the world’s energy supply. This is the same percentage as Paris 2015. It also includes ten years of positive renewable energy development throughout the world, but it’s still 80% fossil fuels. Alas, Net Zero paradoxically looks farther away every year. Is it ever attainable?</p>
  255. <p>Moreover, what is ‘climate realism’ in the eyes of the fossil fuel industry, and what’s the likelihood it’ll keep civilization humming along? The oil and gas industry’s ‘climate realism’ inherently provides for abandonment of efforts to deal with the principal cause of the climate crisis, which is burning of fossil fuels. This new genre calls for focusing on “adaptation” whilst burning more fossil fuels. According to their climate realism school of thought, energy transitions have taken place slowly over the past couple hundred years. So, it is simply unrealistic to expect it could change faster now. In fact, according to Al Gore, the new theory claims society has “no right” to expect anything other than a slow transition, or maybe no transition, like what history has shown to be true. But Gore takes issue: “According to ‘climate realism’, it is cheaper and more practical to continue using the sky as an open sewer than to rapidly reduce the principal cause of the climate crisis, or the burning of fossil fuels.”</p>
  256. <p>In that regard, the United States, arguably the economic model for the world since WWII and seen as the fortress of some brand of capitalism, has literally tossed in the towel on fighting the climate crisis, wholeheartedly adopting “climate realism,” informing the world: Deal With It!</p>
  257. <p>But Al Gore, in his TED talk, referencing current scientific research, challenges ‘Climate Realism’ by exposing <i>real </i>climate realism, to wit: (1) at current rates of change, scientists estimate two billion climate refugees by 2050 (2) the past ten years were the hottest ever recorded with recent readings in the Persian Gulf of 126.7°F and Pakistan 122.9°F and summer’s just started (3) already, a couple million climate refugees have prompted a political upheaval of authoritarianism and ultranationalism, what of 2 billion? (4) whole regions of the world are becoming property-uninsurable, especially in the US West and Deep South (5) mainstream sources’ estimates claim world housing could lose $25 trillion in value because of climate change (6) Deloitte claims climate inaction will cost the world economy $178 trillion but over the same time frame climate action would add $43 trillion (7) Greenland is losing 30 million tons of ice every hour, threatening coastal megacity sea levels (8) Antarctica’s acceleration of ice loss threatens sea levels more so than scientific models ever expected, as 450 polar climate scientists recently held an emergency meeting (9) sea level rise has doubled since 1990s satellite monitoring (10) the worst droughts in history have clobbered the Brazilian Amazon rainforest as 90% of Amazon River in Columbia went dry (11) third year in a row of massive apocalyptic scale wildfires in Canada (12) particulate air pollution from burning fossil fuels and petrochemicals kills nine million per year. Gore’s <i>real</i> climate realism list goes on and on, well beyond the items listed above because of the worldwide impact of a raging out of kilter global climate system principally caused by fossil fuels. And everybody knows it. Yes, everybody sees it on nightly news programs.</p>
  258. <p>In China, 200 million Gig Workers are eligible to receive a “heat wave allowance” or danger money when working in extreme heat conditions. (<em>Bloomberg</em> Green Daily) In 2024 China recorded the hottest year on record. According to <em><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S246826672400241X">The Lancet</a></em>, heat-related deaths in China have doubled this century.</p>
  259. <p><b>A Positive Trend Versus Fossil Fuel Emissions</b></p>
  260. <p>Gore’s speech noted positives in the alternatives space. For example, the costs for renewables have plummeted to levels making fossil fuels unproductive in comparison. Exxon’s own predictions that solar capacity would only achieve 850GW by 2040 was dead wrong; as of year-end 2024, it is already at 2,280 GW, nearly triple the Exxon projection for 2040. Solar is now the least expensive source of electricity in human history. Since the Paris Agreement, solar electricity generation has soared by 732%. And electric vehicle sales have increased 34x since 2015.</p>
  261. <p>In April 2025 <a href="https://taiyangnews.info/markets/china-solar-installations-4m-2025">China installed</a> 45 gigawatts of new solar capacity. This is equivalent to 45 brand new giant nuclear reactors installed in one month. (ed. Technocrats in America want to build risky nuclear plants… why?) Regarding intermittence, the cost of utility-scale batteries has dropped a whopping 87%, making solar w. battery-back-up extremely attractive. Who needs expensive, risky nuclear?</p>
  262. <p>Nevertheless, Gore claims: “In spite of this progress, we are still moving too slowly to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. We have got to accelerate it. We have the ability to do so. But the single biggest reason we have not been able to do so is because of ferocious opposition to virtually every policy proposal to speed up this transition and reduce the emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.”</p>
  263. <p>The fossil fuel industry has been using sleight of hand to convince the public that fossil fuels are just great, no problem, e.g., carbon capture and storage and direct air capture and recycling of plastics will handle everything. Oh please! “These things are much better at capturing politicians than they are at capturing emissions!” (Gore)</p>
  264. <p>They are also very adept at using politicians to fool the public, for example: Tony Blair, speaking on behalf of his foundation, which gets massive funding from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Middle East producers, in a speech claimed, “the center of the battle has to be carbon capture and direct air capture.” Gore: “He really should know better.” His foundation discovered a fountain of riches in the battle for how to approach climate change.</p>
  265. <p><b>Carbon Capture – </b>If inefficient, the ‘climate realism’ argument is destroyed.</p>
  266. <p>Al Gore: “Carbon capture is a fraud.” It is like fool’s gold taken to the bank and not worth the costs to get it. Carbon capture cannot physically costs-effectively reduce emissions: &#8220;<a href="https://thebulletin.org/2022/09/plagued-by-failures-carbon-capture-is-no-climate-solution/">Carbon Capture Has a Long History of Failure</a>,&#8221; <em>Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists</em>, Sept. 1, 2022.</p>
  267. <p>&#8220;Carbon Capture Simply Won’t Work to Meet Net-Zero Targets,&#8221; <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/articles/2022/9/carbon-capture-simply-won-t-work-to-meet-net-zero-targets-report-says-71959535"><em>S&amp;P Global</em></a>, Sept. 2, 2022.</p>
  268. <p>&#8220;If you spend $1 on carbon capture instead of on wind, water, and <a href="https://guide.thecooldown.com/actions/install-solar-panels/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">solar</a>, you are increasing CO2, air pollution, energy requirements, energy costs, pipelines, and total social costs.&#8221; &#8220;Researchers (Stanford) Uncover Major Flaw in Technology Used by Top Corporations: It Should be Abandoned,” <a href="https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/nestle-carbon-capture-air-pollution-tech/">TCD</a>, March 20, 2025.</p>
  269. <p>“Why Carbon Capture and Storage is Not the Solution,” <a href="https://ieefa.org/resources/why-carbon-capture-and-storage-not-solution">Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis</a>, July 10, 2024: “Carbon capture and storage (CCS) continues to be hailed as a potential way to reduce emissions, even though it is more likely to increase them.”</p>
  270. <p>If there’s any chance of hitting net zero, forget about carbon capture, instead, it’s imperative that funds be made available for developing countries. They are totally underfinanced and overlooked. For example, the entire continent of Africa has fewer solar panels than Florida. Yet, the continent has 60% of the world’s prime solar resource space. The potential for renewables is huge, but lo and behold, new plans for pipelines to remove fossil fuels from Africa to be shipped to developed countries have tripled as the fossil fuel industry ups the ante in Africa.</p>
  271. <p>In the final analysis, Al Gore believes there is hope with renewables. Of all the new electricity installed in the world in 2024, 93% was renewables, mostly solar. This is a telltale sign of hope but still overpowered by a fossil fuel industry that is fighting for every last dollar by rebranding climate change as “climate realism” with shiny objects (carbon capture) falsely saving the day. Climate realism Newspeak promotes fossil fuel production, and it is winning to the tune of $7 trillion globally per year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in government subsidies such as direct payments, tax breaks, subsidized loans, and the provision of resources at below market rates.</p>
  272. <p>Just imagine $7 trillion per year invested in renewables. Visionary leaders would switch the $7T to renewables. According to Bloomberg NEF, renewable investments in 2024 amounted to 10% of fossil fuel subsidies or $728 billion. But the United States is cutting renewable subsidies at the very moment when record global temperatures and disruptive ecosystems are awakening people throughout the world to Al Gore’s <i>real </i>climate realism. It’s on TV, almost nightly.</p>
  273. <p>Still, the “it’s already too late” core of climate scientists should prompt world leaders to fight back harder than ever and not allow doom and gloom to dictate the future, making US anti-science, anti-renewables policies seem devilishly out of sorts, flashing danger to the world.</p>
  274. <p style="text-align: center;">*****</p>
  275. <p>NB: An excellent 23-min. video that explains in detail the climate issue: “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G96PUbxxR2w">The Ruling Class is Causing Climate Collapse</a>,&#8221; Our Changing Climate (Charlie Kilman &#8211; Creator), May 2025.</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/al-gore-puts-down-climate-realism/">Al Gore Puts Down “Climate Realism”</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  279. </item>
  280. <item>
  281. <title>Maasai Demand Volkswagen Pull out of Carbon Offset Scheme on Their Lands</title>
  282. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/maasai-demand-volkswagen-pull-out-of-carbon-offset-scheme-on-their-lands/</link>
  284. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Survival International]]></dc:creator>
  285. <pubDate>Sat, 12 Jul 2025 14:35:01 +0000</pubDate>
  286. <category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
  287. <category><![CDATA[Corporate Globalization]]></category>
  288. <category><![CDATA[Corporations]]></category>
  289. <category><![CDATA[Original Peoples]]></category>
  290. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159838</guid>
  291.  
  292. <description><![CDATA[<p>Still from a video by Oldonyo Media, showing residents of Engaruka Chini community protesting the carbon offset project. ©Oldonyo Media Maasai Indigenous people in Tanzania have called on Volkswagen (VW) to withdraw from a controversial carbon credits scheme which violates their rights and threatens to wreck their livelihoods. In a statement, the Maasai International Solidarity [&#8230;]</p>
  293. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/maasai-demand-volkswagen-pull-out-of-carbon-offset-scheme-on-their-lands/">Maasai Demand Volkswagen Pull out of Carbon Offset Scheme on Their Lands</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  294. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291442/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291442/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0yEA4EDhxG1VEGyRg_w5VS"><img decoding="async" class="CToWUd" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NZlhLqhuv_noarPiz2-7xIZF1nrdTKM7NU_hd6YryXB9SPOkg2VPIlZiipsaUNuImgrusQVhenVLuCpybXncjuUf_1tCs6IhUmwnZ3KrRGoOiuvmMXJB7L-WCmUYnz3ydM_FN7SPGi8p34A9NrP-xOc0M_-4_kHIoMTVbRSZMQS3GgqjbpEhxUdfEzxpiKDlGac=s0-d-e1-ft#https://aaf1a18515da0e792f78-c27fdabe952dfc357fe25ebf5c8897ee.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/2330/image_processing20250704-2-v8v1dm.jpg" alt="Maasai Protest" width="505" height="auto" data-bit="iit" /></a>Still from a video by Oldonyo Media, showing residents of Engaruka Chini community protesting the carbon offset project. ©Oldonyo Media</p>
  295. <td class="m_2033019119561567770story m_2033019119561567770mobPad" align="left">Maasai Indigenous people in Tanzania have called on Volkswagen (VW) to withdraw from a controversial carbon credits scheme which violates their rights and threatens to wreck their livelihoods.</p>
  296. <p>In a statement, the Maasai International Solidarity Alliance (MISA) <a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291443/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291443/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1Wmrcx8OMJyT0Vyh7WetHk">denounced</a> the “loss of control or use” of vital Maasai grazing grounds, and accused VW of making “false and misleading claims” about Maasai participation in decision making about the project.</p>
  297. <p>Many Maasai pastoralists have already been evicted from large parts of their grazing lands for national parks and game reserves, with highly lucrative tourist businesses operating in them. Now a major new carbon-credit generating project by Volkswagen ClimatePartner (VWCP) and US-based carbon offset company Soils for the Future Tanzania is taking control of large parts of their remaining lands, and threatening livelihoods by upending long-standing Maasai grazing practices.</p>
  298. <p>The Maasai have not given their free, prior and informed consent for the project. They fear it will restrict their access to crucial refuge areas in times of drought, and threaten their food security.</p>
  299. <p><a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291444/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291444/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0SwvP0pKbndH5teIn0VqVx"> <img decoding="async" class="CToWUd" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NaSjUWt0KTGJzTQtVeefKKNgErlJPMHyflnE7ytzeHRYVjJAFm6nKrJFtWls6BwzXkwDxjum9eBL7gbVGXBV7jm6IbEGAG1ch3IWjH2Y3GAzXmkxwx6tX5bYfLMlvP3jGPDyNVeb4QeCTva8dK_mrzNl6tVwD8DbFCExBynkA-zDlGJ=s0-d-e1-ft#https://aaf1a18515da0e792f78-c27fdabe952dfc357fe25ebf5c8897ee.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/2330/Maasai+with+button.png" alt="Maasai man with YouTube button: The people of Eluai have said 'No to carbon'." width="400" height="auto" data-bit="iit" /></a></p>
  300. <td class="m_2033019119561567770story m_2033019119561567770mobPad" align="left">Ngisha Sinyok, a Maasai community member from Eluai village, which is struggling to withdraw from the project, told Survival: “Our livestock is going to be depleted. We will end up not having a single cow.” Asked about VW’s involvement in the project, he replied, “It is not a solution to climate change. It is just a business for people to make money using our environment. It has nothing to do with climate change.”</p>
  301. <p>Another Maasai man, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, said: “They use their money to control us.” A third said: “Maasailand never had a price tag. In Maasailand, there is no privatization. Our land is communal.”</p>
  302. <p>Survival International’s Director of Research and Advocacy, Fiona Watson, said today: “The carbon project that Volkswagen supports violates the Maasai’s rights and will be disastrous for their lives, all so the company can carry on polluting and greenwash its image. It takes away the Maasai’s control over their own lands and relies on the false and colonial assumption that they are destroying their lands — which is not supported by evidence.</p>
  303. <p>“The Maasai have been grazing cattle on the plains of East Africa since time immemorial. They know the land and how to manage it better than carbon project developers seeking to make millions from their lands.”</p>
  304. <p>VW’s investment in the project, whose official name is the <a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291445/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291445/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3IL3sT_u86eSujVkMSFHll">“Longido and Monduli Rangelands Carbon Project”</a>, is believed to run to several million dollars, and has contributed to corruption and tensions in northern Tanzania, according to <a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291446/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291446/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2ewLWYmjQkfwqZjR6sppyF">MISA’s report</a> on the project.</p>
  305. <p>An adjacent project in southern Kenya, also run by Soils for the Future, is beset with similar problems, and has already sparked <a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291447/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291447/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw19S65_7H3xu15mmv-vn624">resistance from local communities</a>.</p>
  306. <p>Survival International’s <a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291448/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291448/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0dBbxCyoxQ3sXrgecDGpc9">Blood Carbon report</a> revealed that the whole basis for these “soil carbon” projects is flawed, and unsupported by evidence. Survival documented similar problems with the highly controversial <a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291449/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291449/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2ydM0eENoeOADQPGdfnYmf">Northern Kenya Grasslands Carbon Project</a>. That project <a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291450/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291450/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3hkiLlQHQ51dKHY5AyYpVD">suffered a blow in a Kenyan court</a> and was <a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291451/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291451/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2m69ABO1va6ZhAnDRHh44P">suspended and put under review</a> by Verra, the carbon credit verification agency, for an unprecedented second time.</p>
  307. <p><strong>Notes</strong>:</p>
  308. <ol>
  309. <li>Further undermining VW’s “green” credentials, there are serious concerns that the company might source nickel for their electric vehicle batteries from the territory of uncontacted Indigenous Hongana Manyawa people in Halmahera, Indonesia.</li>
  310. <li>VW sources batteries from CATL, a joint venture partner in a new battery factory <a href="https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291452/NZSreLMeb" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://act.survivalinternational.org/s/8291452/NZSreLMeb&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752333826402000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3Hz0by98buxS5k1I4d6dkc">inaugurated last month</a> just a few miles from the territory of the uncontacted Hongana Manyawa.</li>
  311. <li>VW has also signed MOUs with Eramet and Tsingshan, which, together with the Indonesian state mining company, own the biggest nickel mine in the world. That mining operation is currently destroying the uncontacted Hongana Manyawa’s territory.</li>
  312. <li>Volkswagen ClimatePartner (VWCP) is a joint venture between the auto maker and ClimatePartner, a controversial German company which provides carbon offsetting services to polluting businesses.</li>
  313. <li>The 1 million hectare (2.5 million acre) project depends on undermining the Maasai’s traditional and long-standing grazing practices, requiring them to change to ‘Rapid Rotational Grazing’, which removes flexibility and causes hardship – particularly in dry seasons.</li>
  314. </ol>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/maasai-demand-volkswagen-pull-out-of-carbon-offset-scheme-on-their-lands/">Maasai Demand Volkswagen Pull out of Carbon Offset Scheme on Their Lands</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  318. </item>
  319. <item>
  320. <title>&#8220;I Think I Hit a Nerve&#8221;</title>
  321. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/i-think-i-hit-a-nerve/</link>
  323. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Middle East Eye]]></dc:creator>
  324. <pubDate>Sat, 12 Jul 2025 14:00:19 +0000</pubDate>
  325. <category><![CDATA[Genocide]]></category>
  326. <category><![CDATA[Israel (part of Mandate Palestine)]]></category>
  327. <category><![CDATA[Palestine]]></category>
  328. <category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>
  329. <category><![CDATA[Video]]></category>
  330. <category><![CDATA[Francesca Albanese]]></category>
  331. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159855</guid>
  332.  
  333. <description><![CDATA[<p>Not only is she an extremely courageous person fighting for THE right cause with THE legal arguments. She is also re-inventing what it means to be a diplomat and anyhow getting said what must be said. And, notice, that the UN S-G has never contacted her in THIS situation where she, more than anybody else, [&#8230;]</p>
  334. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/i-think-i-hit-a-nerve/">“I Think I Hit a Nerve”</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  335. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://substack.com/redirect/e8144f50-3d14-4354-937c-c4362cc185b3?j=eyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/e8144f50-3d14-4354-937c-c4362cc185b3?j%3DeyJ1IjoiM3ppbDAifQ.HCM0t5sQVPS4gzVztALnwoc52H0hG_K6eR1Rjac0B3Y&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752337708011000&amp;usg=AOvVaw19Rle5JKeebciu9red5CJ8"><img decoding="async" class="CToWUd" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/meips/ADKq_NaPIM1M4-ttpykymnIn3uIEJLBznGSuj_3F21BoSL6IEgf5TFK5YpShL5degO3DJXcdPlKAgoxQajGYlk6zbb2HnY-GrIp_GWaR42vG-lnSnbJ83XOHZUFtOHkreE6IvKbzvI811UnPZQ2Oi4zBSqrq=s0-d-e1-ft#https://substackcdn.com/image/youtube/w_728,c_limit/l_youtube_play_qyqt8q,w_120/H2UX5wIb3RE" data-bit="iit" /></a></p>
  336. <p>Not only is she an extremely courageous person fighting for THE right cause with THE legal arguments. She is also re-inventing what it means to be a diplomat and anyhow getting said what must be said.</p>
  337. <p>And, notice, that the UN S-G has never contacted her in THIS situation where she, more than anybody else, embodies the UN norms. How shameful.</p>
  338. <p>Appreciation and safety for Francesca Albanese.</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/i-think-i-hit-a-nerve/">“I Think I Hit a Nerve”</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  342. </item>
  343. <item>
  344. <title>When Fate Knocks at the Door, Take It by the Throat</title>
  345. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/when-fate-knocks-at-the-door-take-it-by-the-throat/</link>
  347. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Edward Curtin]]></dc:creator>
  348. <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2025 15:00:29 +0000</pubDate>
  349. <category><![CDATA[Beliefs]]></category>
  350. <category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>
  351. <category><![CDATA[Right to Life]]></category>
  352. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159814</guid>
  353.  
  354. <description><![CDATA[<p>It is getting harder and harder to breathe. The world grows smaller as storms gather. All night the storm raged furiously, the lightning, thunder, rain, and wind locking us in and away from the world. No one expected it to be this bad. The dogs howled like wolves. At most they said it would hinder [&#8230;]</p>
  355. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/when-fate-knocks-at-the-door-take-it-by-the-throat/">When Fate Knocks at the Door, Take It by the Throat</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  356. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/curtin-lost.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-157881" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/curtin-lost-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/curtin-lost-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/curtin-lost.jpg 275w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></a>It is getting harder and harder to breathe. The world grows smaller as storms gather. All night the storm raged furiously, the lightning, thunder, rain, and wind locking us in and away from the world. No one expected it to be this bad. The dogs howled like wolves.</p>
  357. <p>At most they said it would hinder us, and we, wanting to believe the experts who daily warn of something to fear – overripe bananas, marginal risks of severe weather, squirrel flu, spiders in tight pants, the wrong mascara, fear of falling in loose pants – accepted. Now we are huddled against the onslaught, gasping at the fury that imprisons us.</p>
  358. <p>No one can sleep with the roar and rapping all around. Dawn comes slowly and dark. We huddle around our dinguses to link us to a world we cannot see or hear. They don’t ding. We have lost power. Someone wonders if the satellites are still up, but the sky is too dark for auguries. We listen to the clatter of an eerie silence. Our silence. We are all unknowingly holding our breaths. Another says, I think our phones are wasted, it feels like digital death. The dogs nod.</p>
  359. <p>It is getting harder and harder to hear. Beethoven was so young to become deaf to the world. Someone says this for some unknown reason. She is old. She then says he said, “I will take fate by the throat, it shall not overcome me &#8230; I feel that I am not made for a quiet life.” The kids laugh. The windows and roof shake, the dogs howl, I think how true. For me, at least.</p>
  360. <p>Yesterday the Israelis killed 104 Palestinians in Gaza. Par for the course, a daily occurrence. Many children among them. Did those kids hear the bombs and bullets coming? Were they gasping for breath? They are no longer breathing.</p>
  361. <p>Did they call out to God? Do hundreds call out? Thousands call? Millions? Which God? The slaughterer’s made them dead on prayers to their genocidal God who lives in Tel Aviv.</p>
  362. <p>God help us. How? The phones are wasted. Where is the Good God hiding? How can we call him?</p>
  363. <p>The immigrant grandmother, hiding here from Trump’s masked thugs, says through her tears, do any of you remember how in Columbia 25,000 people, 8,00 children, all innocent, died, none of whom are calling out now, as the survivors did when they asked the great good God, why these savage deaths, after the Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted and stuffed their mouths with mud, courtesy of Vulcan, the God of fire, courtesy of God Almighty.</p>
  364. <p>No one answers her. Her prayers are singed with a cynicism that she hates. We can’t answer. Most don’t remember. Who will tell her why the good God, the good Earth, their mother rose up to bury so many in mud? Who can tell the survivors’ families why Our Lady of Guadalupe rose and drowned their loved ones recently?</p>
  365. <p>Who is this person called Fate who knocks at our doors? Mother Nature? Father Grinning Jackal in suit and tie with blood oozing through his fake teeth, talking casually about nuclear war and slaughtering the innocent?</p>
  366. <p>An old man says, let’s listen, we must defy fate. He puts a record on the battery operated record player. The wind is howling hideously so he turns the sound up to full volume. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in C minor rocks the room, the walls shake like dice in a cup, tossing us on such swells of feeling that time is arrested in its turning. One hears the call to revolution.</p>
  367. <p>Suddenly it is October 1962, a man is time-travelling. The Cuban Missile Crisis – real fear everywhere. Fate knocking on the door, obedient men propped at flashing boards, in Moscow and Washington, D.C., awaiting orders. They are still waiting.</p>
  368. <p>There was a call then. A few men heard it. It was soul deep. In those days there were humans who could recite poetry, grasp the meaning of madness. We survived and have moved on. They call it progress. Technological progress. The machines have the answers to all our questions, except the important ones.</p>
  369. <p>Who will answer the wailing voices seeking answers? Who can tell them why the good God, the good earth their mother rose up to bury them in mud and water? Who dare answer the 1,000,000 Pakistani dead, drowned on November 13, 1970 beneath a cyclone driven tidal wave? Or maybe it was two or three million. Who knows? Who cares to ask: Was it an act of Mother Nature, of God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth? Tell me, who the hell is responsible?</p>
  370. <p>It is getting harder and harder to breathe. The world grows smaller as storms gather. We have been wasted by the phones, dinguses that will not save us from the nuclear weapons that the jackals with polished faces have prepared. Dead men sit at flashing boards awaiting orders. It is depressing but true, and while naturally we cannot stop nature from devouring her children, we can stop the human killers from their appointed task to close down the world and engender all a silent void.</p>
  371. <p>Long later, hours, years – who knows when? – the unexpected storm abated, the roads out were cleared. It was still hazardous to try. The old man who played Beethoven said as we were leaving that we must take fate by the throat and hear the silent cries of all the people desperate for peace on earth.</p>
  372. <p>“Oh, it is so beautiful to live – to live a thousand times. I feel that I am not made for a quiet life.”</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/when-fate-knocks-at-the-door-take-it-by-the-throat/">When Fate Knocks at the Door, Take It by the Throat</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  376. </item>
  377. <item>
  378. <title>Matriarchy, Witchery and the Great Goddess</title>
  379. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/matriarchy-witchery-and-the-great-goddess/</link>
  381. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Lerro]]></dc:creator>
  382. <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:47:41 +0000</pubDate>
  383. <category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
  384. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159803</guid>
  385.  
  386. <description><![CDATA[<p>A Heart-Felt Story In the beginning men and women lived in harmony and peace. We were once one with nature and there were few differences between us in social power or wealth. Women had a special place in early tribal societies: their motherhood was revered, they held positions of authority, and they practiced forms of [&#8230;]</p>
  387. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/matriarchy-witchery-and-the-great-goddess/">Matriarchy, Witchery and the Great Goddess</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  388. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Matriarchy-Witchery-and-the-Great-Goddess-Final-Image.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-159804 aligncenter" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Matriarchy-Witchery-and-the-Great-Goddess-Final-Image-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="281" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Matriarchy-Witchery-and-the-Great-Goddess-Final-Image-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Matriarchy-Witchery-and-the-Great-Goddess-Final-Image-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Matriarchy-Witchery-and-the-Great-Goddess-Final-Image-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Matriarchy-Witchery-and-the-Great-Goddess-Final-Image.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /></a></p>
  389. <p><strong>A Heart-Felt Story</strong></p>
  390. <p><em>In the beginning men and women lived in harmony and peace. We were once one with nature and there were few differences between us in social power or wealth. Women had a special place in early tribal societies: their motherhood was revered, they held positions of authority, and they practiced forms of magic centered on the worship of a monotheistic Goddess. Figurines of Goddesses have been discovered, proving there was once a great women’s religion. At the end of the Bronze Age, hunters and pastoralists from Central Asia invaded these peaceful societies creating social hierarchies, wars, and the beginnings of male dominance. All of this was later sanctioned by the worship of otherworldly, transcendent male deities that eventually coalesced to become a monotheistic God. The Goddess was discredited and went underground, being kept alive in later years by peasant communities in the magical practice of witchcraft. Today the Goddess has resurfaced as a focus of women’s spirituality. </em></p>
  391. <p>These are the claims about history and social evolution made by many Neo-Pagan or spiritual feminists. To be sure, not all people associated with the Goddess movement believe all of these claims. However, the summary above is probably a fair one, in that each of its elements is repeated in the writings of nearly all of the movement’s leaders. How plausible are these contentions in the light of anthropology, archaeology, macrosociology, political science, world history, mythology studies, and comparative religion? Were there once matriarchies or matrifocal societies? Does reverence for goddesses go all the way back to the Paleolithic Era? Can all or most of the figurines found by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas and others be classified as goddesses? If, in our society, a male god goes with male dominance, is it fair to infer that if we find evidence of goddesses in the ancient world this must indicate female dominance or at least the high status of women? Was motherhood revered in ancient societies? Is all magic goddess-centered? Is all witchcraft synonymous with goddess reverence? Were ancient tribal societies peace-loving before being invaded? Does the movement from polytheism to monotheism involve a battle among male gods, or between male and female gods? Here is a summary of the Goddess movement’s claims.</p>
  392. <p><strong>Common Claims or Assumptions Made by the Goddess Movement</strong></p>
  393. <ul>
  394. <li><em>There were once matriarchies or matrifocal societies</em></li>
  395. <li><em>All or most of the figurines discovered by archeologists are goddesses</em></li>
  396. <li><em>Goddess reverence goes all the way back to the Paleolithic Age</em></li>
  397. <li><em>All magic is synonymous with goddess reverence</em></li>
  398. <li><em>All witchcraft is synonymous with goddess reverence</em></li>
  399. <li><em>Ancient People revered a monotheistic goddess</em></li>
  400. <li><em>Motherhood is the leading function of goddesses </em></li>
  401. <li><em>There is a direct connection between the presences of goddesses in ancient societies and the prosperous material status of women </em></li>
  402. <li><em>The rise of institutionalized male dominance was caused by invasions of pastoral </em><em> nomads</em></li>
  403. <li><em>Tribal societies were peace-loving before being invaded by patriarchal societies</em></li>
  404. <li><em>The movement from polytheism to monotheism involved battles between male gods and female goddesses</em></li>
  405. </ul>
  406. <p>In addition to addressing these contentions about history, it is important to make explicit the underlying values of the Goddess movement. I agree with Philip Davis (1998) that the Goddess movement is part of a larger Romantic movement that began during the Renaissance and sustained itself through the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the twentieth century. I will paint as sympathetic picture as I can of the Romantic movement’s perspective on the world.</p>
  407. <p>The Goddess movement is generally critical of Western-style political centralization and the globalization of the human community because Western civilization is not now and never has been truly democratic. The movement’s members tend to believe that all state societies, even those predating capitalism, serve the interests of the wealthy. They do not believe that real democracy can ever work when power is centralized. Furthermore, they resist attempts to universalize different groups of people into a universal humanity because this grouping in the past has, in practice, excluded many groups from the wealth they produced because of their class, race, or gender. At the same time, the movement is generally critical of the competitive values of capitalism and is suspicious of the preoccupation with material wealth, the accumulation of commodities, and high technology. Finally, the Goddess movement is critical of science as a way of knowing because, while proclaiming to be neutral, it actually serves the interests of the elite classes by providing the methodological base by which technologies of war may be built. For these reasons, the movement looks to the political organization of pre-state societies as a model for participatory democracy, pre-capitalists ways of conducting economic relations, and pre-scientific ways of knowing how the world works.</p>
  408. <p>Because the Goddess movement often contrasts the values of tribal societies with those of state societies, it must also challenge the way world history has been presented. According to the Goddess movement, the dominant social order has placed a value judgment on social evolution by claiming that it constitutes “progress”. This means that the more complex societies are, the more they have improved life for everyone. Because the movement challenges this assumption, it must either try to revise history as written or, in more extreme cases, claim that the struggle to discover an objective history is futile. Here the Goddess movement joins forces with the extreme relativism of the Postmodernists, who say that one version of history is as good as another, and that competing ways of knowing about the past are equally relevant. One common approach is to fuse the study of history with mythology. Much of the work of the Goddess movement vacillates between the attempt to revise views of what really happened in history, and the effort to reinterpret history based on ancient mythology. For obvious reasons, this latter strategy garners little sympathy from those historians that aspire to using a scientific methodology.</p>
  409. <p>The system of industrial capitalism has impacts not just on the economy and political structure of societies, but also on their sacred traditions, their ideas about non-human nature, and the collective psyche or mentality of the people. The Goddess movement believes that there is a direct connection between the nature of the perceived sacred sources and the manner in which people treat the natural world. The movement’s members believe that an otherworldly, transcendental God, because he is out of the world, neglects this world and effectively colludes with elites who exploit and pillage the natural world. Conversely, when sacred sources are understood as immanent and worldly, nature is more likely to be treated with respect. According to spiritual feminists, the distant sky-god acts as if he were an absentee landlord. If Goddess advocates are skeptical about centralization and globalization in the political world, they will take the same attitude toward the spiritual world. Rather than believing in a universal monotheistic deity, many people in the Goddess movement prefer a decentralized polytheism, though this is a bone of contention within the movement, as we shall see.</p>
  410. <p>Patriarchal religions and atheistic non-believers have tended to use mechanistic metaphors to describe nature. The Goddess movement rejects the idea of nature-as-machine and believes that nature is alive, that the world is an organism. Even in patriarchal religions nature is often conceived of metaphorically as “mother”. The Goddess movement builds on this theme, viewing human beings and the rest of the animal kingdom as part of “her” body. Just as nature is not separate from sacred sources, so humanity is not separated from other creatures. Other animals are at least the equals of humans and we humans have no business trying to get away from nature or to improve her with scientific techniques. We need to merge with, or get back to, nature. There are also implications for our sense of time. One symptom of humanity’s problems, according to Goddess advocates, is our linear concept of time. This has caused us great problems in understanding how change occurs. Nature, for the Goddess movement, works in cycles. For humanity to merge with nature we would need to understand society and our individual lives as following the cycles of nature. Because the relationship between humanity and the rest of nature must be immanent, people do not need mediators and specialists to interpret sacred experience. We are all explorers together with no need for chaperones.</p>
  411. <p>There are two kinds of nature—external and internal. Our bodies are an internal, microcosmic slice of the external macrocosm of nature. This has deep psychological implications. For the Goddess movement, rationality, analysis, planning, and striving to be objective are the psychological skills an individual uses to dualize or separate our bodies from the rest of nature. These rational skills lead to other dualisms: God vs. nature, nature vs. society, society vs. the individual, and the mind vs. the body. These separations are partly responsible for the problems of the modern world.</p>
  412. <p>It is the non-rational part of the psyche—the part of the mind that synthesizes rather than divides—that is the true source of wisdom. The emotions, sensuality, intuition, and spontaneity are understood as virtuous. The Goddess movement believes that women have these skills more than men do and, generally speaking, though they would probably not claim this explicitly, most members act and talk as though women are inherently better than men.</p>
  413. <p>There are at least two tension points which are worth pointing out. While the Goddess movement opposes traditional female roles and supports experimenting with being simply more human, there is a tension between those who want to develop the skills that men have traditionally been encouraged to claim, and those who want to elevate traditional female skills as inherently superior to male skills.</p>
  414. <p>There is also a tension between the value of innocence in contrast to the value of experience. For the most part, the Goddess movement values experience over innocence but, in their contrast between tribal and state societies, they tend to romanticize tribal societies as innocent and uncorrupted. In the first chapter, I criticized the theory of progress as a way to understand history. Taken in its extreme, New-Age form, the Goddess view of history is a degeneration theory of social evolution. Instead of suggesting, as progress theorists do, that the further we go in history the better it gets, this theory argues that the earlier in time we go the better it gets. A summary chart of these Romantic values follows:</p>
  415. <p><strong>List of Twenty One Composite Values of Ancient Goddess Supporters </strong></p>
  416. <p><strong>SOCIAL STRUCTURES</strong></p>
  417. <ul>
  418. <li><strong>Simple, pre-state societies</strong> are an ideal to strive for (small is beautiful).</li>
  419. <li>Complex, large societies are inherently bad, because they are impersonal.</li>
  420. <li><strong>Innocence </strong>is more noble than experience when it comes to social evolution.</li>
  421. <li>What comes earlier in time must be better. Tribal societies are the ideal.</li>
  422. <li><strong>Material wealth, objects/commodities and technology </strong>are likely to be <strong>corrupting influences</strong>.</li>
  423. <li><strong>Science is alienating,</strong> cold, unfeeling and doesn’t address what is important in life.</li>
  424. <li><strong>Cooperation and communalism</strong> are better than competition as a way to organize social life.</li>
  425. <li>Modern society perpetrates a <strong>false unity of humanity,</strong> ignoring gender, ethnic and class inequalities.</li>
  426. <li><strong>Myth </strong>is at least as important as history.</li>
  427. <li>Historians reduce myth to illusionary or naive history<strong>.</strong> Support of a real “people’s history,” while retaining the value of mythic stories as a valuable sacred activity.</li>
  428. </ul>
  429. <p><strong>NATURE/SACRED</strong></p>
  430. <ul>
  431. <li>Spirit is<strong> immanent</strong> in nature and the individual rather than transcendent and separate from nature. Nature is all there is. Behind nature there is only more undiscovered nature.</li>
  432. <li>There are many goddesses and gods – <strong>polytheism</strong> &#8211; there is no single source which “unites them all.*</li>
  433. <li>Nature is understood as an<strong> organism,</strong> rather than a machine.</li>
  434. <li>Goddesses are inseparable from female physiology: menstruation and childbirth.</li>
  435. <li><strong>Neither organized religion nor atheism</strong> provide meaningful answers to the big questions of life.</li>
  436. <li>Other <strong>animals are at least the equal of or superior </strong>to human beings.</li>
  437. <li>Human beings should <strong>merge with nature. </strong>We have no business thinking or trying to improve her.</li>
  438. <li>Generally, sacred communion is<strong> experiential </strong>and not mediated by secular or sacred authorities based on faith.</li>
  439. <li>Change happens in<strong> cycles,</strong> rather than linearly.</li>
  440. </ul>
  441. <p><strong>PSYCHOLOGY</strong></p>
  442. <ul>
  443. <li><strong>Emotions, sensuality, intuition and the non-rational </strong>are at least as good as reason or empiricism as ways of knowing.</li>
  444. <li>What is<strong> subjective and personal</strong> is better than impartiality and striving to be objective.</li>
  445. <li><strong>Spontaneity</strong> is more in touch with what matters in life than planning.</li>
  446. <li><strong>Experimental gender roles </strong>are better than traditional male and female roles.</li>
  447. <li>When it comes down to it, <strong>women</strong> are inherently better than men.</li>
  448. </ul>
  449. <p>* There is a counter-argument which claims that there is a single goddess.</p>
  450. <p>According to Goodison and Morris (1998), the controversy between the supporters of Goddess theory and those who dismiss it is made worse because the two sides do not speak to each other. Those who support the theory are non-specialists, artists, psychotherapists, Neo-pagans, and amateur historians. They accuse academics—archaeologists, ancient historians, and anthropologists—of intentionally ignoring evidence of a powerful female presence in ancient history. This supposed intentional hiding or overlooking of evidence of the Goddess is usually described as being part of a male conspiracy to hide real history. Contemporary specialists in relevant fields ignore the Goddess claims, dismissing them as too far-fetched to take seriously. They also suspect that the movement is motivated by an ideology of feminist reform that attempts to rewrite history in the service of that ideology.</p>
  451. <p><strong>Defining Matriarchy</strong></p>
  452. <p>Victorian anthropologists, in attempting to understand the past, sometimes proposed the existence of tribal societies in which women were at least the equals of men. Part of the feminist movement has latched on to these claims to show the relativity of “patriarchal” institutions today. However, before we address specific arguments, we need a working definition of the term “matriarchy. Both the words patriarchy and matriarchy share the same suffix—<em>archy</em>, from the Greek &#8211;<em>archos</em>, which means “rule by.” Therefore, in simple terms patriarchy means the rule of men over women in the areas of technology, economics, politics and religion, art, science. To be consistent with the meaning of the suffix, matriarchy would have to be the reverse of patriarchy—i.e., the rule of women over men in these areas. Matriarchy would mean the control of technological, political, and economic power—the right to control production and distribution beyond the household. Women would have the military power to force men to go along with social policy, and they would control the myths by which the society lives. Have societies with these characteristics actually existed? Presumably, if they have, we should look for evidence among the Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, the Neolithic horticulturists, and the Bronze-Age agricultural states.</p>
  453. <p>Before proceeding, it is important to refine our definitions of patriarchy and matriarchy a little further. It is highly unlikely that any sociologist (man or woman) would define <em>patriarchy</em> or <em>matriarchy</em> as referring to “all men” or “all women.” In the case of rank and stratified societies, there is no question that those in power are men. However, the percentage of men with political, economic and technological power is small. The rest of the male population—the middle classes, the working class artisan and peasant men—are subordinate to them. All men have some privileges over women but privilege is not the same as power. A refined definition of <em>patriarchy</em> therefore would be, <em>the power and control exercised by a few men over all women and most men throughout the infrastructure, structure, and superstructure of society, with all men having some privileges over all women.</em> If we want to be consistent with what we know of patriarchal rank and stratified societies, then a <em>matriarchy</em> would be defined as <em>the power and control exercised by a few women over all men and most women throughout the infrastructure, structure, and superstructure of society, with all women having some privileges over all men. </em>Virtually everyone familiar with the evidence archaeology, anthropology, and history agrees that matriarchies have never existed.</p>
  454. <p>What are the implications? If women did not once dominate in the sacred, political, and economic dimensions of society, does this mean that patriarchies have always existed? The hidden assumption of those who ask us to choose between matriarchy and patriarchy as the mode of dominance in ancient societies is that rule over others was always the case. We are simply asked to choose whether it was women or men who were doing the ruling. But in hunting-and-gathering and simple horticultural societies everyone was doing the ruling. This means that these societies were neither matriarchal nor patriarchal.</p>
  455. <p>If matriarchy is simply defined as the reverse of patriarchy, then the notion of its prevalence in early societies is fairly easy to dismiss. However, some sectors within the pagan-feminist community have defined matriarchal societies differently, calling them “matrifocal.” What they mean by this is the existence of egalitarian political and economic relations between men and women in material culture and the predominance of a Goddess or goddesses in sacred culture.</p>
  456. <p>Most anthropologists, archaeologists, and macro-sociologists agree that hunting-and-gathering and simple horticultural societies were politically and economically egalitarian. Here Goddess advocates are on solid ground. But Goddess advocates confuse the issue by insisting that the superstructure of these societies was characterized by reverence for goddesses. This presumed predominance of goddesses, together with a presumed reverence for motherhood, seem to be the major justifications for calling these societies “matrifocal.”</p>
  457. <p><strong>Positive Conclusions</strong></p>
  458. <p>There are at least five positive conclusions to be drawn from the Goddess theorists and their claims with regard to history. First, they are right to point to a time in history when gender relations were politically and economically equal. Second, <em>some </em>of the figurines found by Gimbutas are likely to have been goddesses. Third, goddesses had many positive functions in Bronze Age societies, more than they did once the universalistic religions emerged. Fourth, the practice of magic, including goddess magic, long predated the rise of the great religions. Fifth and last, tribal societies did not engage in mass killings the way state societies did.</p>
  459. <p><strong>Negative Conclusions</strong></p>
  460. <p>In most other instances, however, as we have seen, the Neo-pagan goddess theorists overstate their case or are simply wrong. First, there have never been any matriarchal societies, as we have defined “matriarchy.” This does not mean that all ancient societies were patriarchal: tribal societies were neither patriarchal nor matriarchal. Second, many of the figurines discovered were probably not goddesses; some were male, some were non-gendered, and some were used as dolls, toys, or lucky charms. Third, there is no good evidence for goddess reverence going all the way back to the Paleolithic Age. It is more likely that it began in the Bronze Age.</p>
  461. <p>In terms of sacred practices, while all goddess practices were magical, magical practices were not tied necessarily to goddesses. Magic was conducted with earth spirits, totems, and ancestor spirits long before goddesses came on the scene. Correspondingly, while some elements of witchcraft have existed in all ancient societies, witchcraft was practiced in Paleolithic and Neolithic societies <em>before</em> goddess reverence emerged.</p>
  462. <p>Further, the goddesses within Bronze Age societies were polytheistic, not monotheistic. There was never a single monotheistic Great Goddess who was regarded as presiding over all of society. Further, motherhood was not the leading function of goddesses. While goddesses had many functions, motherhood was not a leading one. This is because most ancient societies did not think much of motherhood.</p>
  463. <p>In addition, there was no direct relationship between reverence for goddesses and high material status for women. At the time Bronze Age civilizations appeared, goddesses already had subordinate status, and this justified the low status of women in these societies. In the Iron Age, with the rise of the great religions, the status of women improved slightly despite the marginalization of goddesses. In societies that can be characterized as egalitarian (hunter-gatherer and simple horticultural societies) there were no goddesses. Therefore, so far “matrifocal” means egalitarian relations between men and women in material culture and the predominance of goddesses in the sacred dimension, ancient societies were not matrifocal. Women’s positive material and sacred status have never coexisted within the same society. When women lived material lives more or less on a par with men—in foraging and simple horticultural societies—the evidence for goddess reverence is absent. When goddesses emerged in agricultural states, women’s material status had already deteriorated (with the exception of queens and priestesses who constituted an insignificant proportion of the population).</p>
  464. <p>The rise of institutionalized male dominance was not caused by pastoral invasions, but rather by processes internal to pre-state societies. Tribal societies were far from peace loving. Their homicide rates and frequency of war were greater than in Bronze and Iron Age State civilizations, in which institutionalized male dominance emerged. Last, the transition/crisis from polytheism to monotheism did not involve conflict between gods and goddesses, but rather between male gods. Table 1 presents these conclusions in chart form.</p>
  465. <p>Goddess theorists either have not studied the anthropological literature fully (reading selectively), or they believe that there was such a thing as matriarchal dominance, at least in the sacred realm, as a kind of article of faith. In the case of child-rearing, it is generally admitted that this was the province of women, but Goddess theorists have projected romanticized notions of motherhood back in time. As a whole, motherhood and child rearing were rarely if ever held as sacred activities in the ancient world. To the extent that male dominance in tribal societies is admitted, it is generally attributed to external sources—male-dominated herders or patriarchal colonialists attacking hunter-gatherers and simple horticulturists—rather than seen as emerging from within societies.</p>
  466. <p>I call Goddess theorists “idealists” because they generally try to explain changes in material institutions—ecology, technology, the economy, and politics—from changes in spiritual beliefs, from the Goddess to the God.</p>
  467. <p><strong>Holding Out the Olive Branch</strong></p>
  468. <p>In denying most of the historical claims of the Goddess movement my intention is descriptive, not proscriptive. I am arguing not for what ought to have happened in gender history, but what is likely actually to have happened. It is certainly comforting and inspiring to believe that there was a time when women were respected in all areas of cultural life. If that were the case, it would be easier to believe that women can again achieve full equality with men in all aspects of society today and in the future. Even if most of the historical claims of the Goddess movement are mistaken we still can use the myths and rituals of pagan people to help build our future. More women have a better life today, at least in industrialized societies, than they ever did in agricultural states when goddesses first arose. The improvement in the life of most women in industrial societies is a solid basis for making a closer connection between women’s material and sacred status in the future. To me, that project offers the best prospect for achieving the Goddess theorists’ ultimate aims.</p>
  469. <p>This article is a summary of a thirty page chapter I wrote from my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Power-Eden-Emergence-Hierarchies-Ancient/dp/1412021413"><em>Power in Eden: The Emergence of Gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World.</em></a></p>
  470. <p><strong>Critique of the Goddess Movement Model of Ancient History</strong></p>
  471. <table width="714">
  472. <tbody>
  473. <tr>
  474. <td width="258"><strong>Neopagan Matriarchy, </strong></p>
  475. <p><strong>Goddess Claims</strong></td>
  476. <td width="227"><strong>Neopagan Marxist Claims</strong></td>
  477. <td width="229"><strong>Christian Progress Implications</strong></p>
  478. <p><strong>(which are not being implied)</strong></td>
  479. </tr>
  480. <tr>
  481. <td width="258"><strong>There were once matriarchies</strong></td>
  482. <td width="227"><strong>Tribal societies were neither </strong></p>
  483. <p><strong>matriarchal nor patriarchal</strong></td>
  484. <td width="229">Patriarchies have always</p>
  485. <p>existed</td>
  486. </tr>
  487. <tr>
  488. <td width="258"><strong>All female figurines found were </strong></p>
  489. <p><strong>Goddesses</strong></td>
  490. <td width="227">Some figurines were goddesses,</p>
  491. <p>Others’ gods, non-gendered dolls,</p>
  492. <p>Toys or lucky charms</td>
  493. <td width="229">Figurines were erotic toys for</p>
  494. <p>Pagan heathens</td>
  495. </tr>
  496. <tr>
  497. <td width="258"><strong>Goddesses go all the way back </strong></p>
  498. <p><strong>to the Paleolithic</strong></td>
  499. <td width="227">Spirits, totems and ancestor</p>
  500. <p>spirits preceded all goddesses</p>
  501. <p>and gods</p>
  502. <p>(goddesses and gods are</p>
  503. <p>products of stratified</p>
  504. <p>agricultural states)</td>
  505. <td width="229">There was God before there</p>
  506. <p>were goddesses</td>
  507. </tr>
  508. <tr>
  509. <td width="258"><strong>All magic was Goddess </strong></p>
  510. <p><strong>centered</strong></td>
  511. <td width="227">While all goddess reverence is</p>
  512. <p>magic centered, not all magic</p>
  513. <p>is goddess centered</td>
  514. <td width="229">Religion preceded magic</p>
  515. <p>Magic is degenerate religion</td>
  516. </tr>
  517. <tr>
  518. <td width="258"><strong>All witchcraft is Goddess</strong></p>
  519. <p><strong>centered </strong></td>
  520. <td width="227">While goddess</p>
  521. <p>practitioners use magic</p>
  522. <p>witchcraft has been used</p>
  523. <p>w/o references to goddesses</td>
  524. <td width="229">All goddess practitioners use</p>
  525. <p>witchcraft</td>
  526. </tr>
  527. <tr>
  528. <td width="258"><strong>Goddess practice was </strong></p>
  529. <p><strong>monotheistic</strong></td>
  530. <td width="227">With the exception of modern</p>
  531. <p>feminist Neopaganism,</p>
  532. <p>goddess reference was</p>
  533. <p>polytheistic &#8211; only male gods</p>
  534. <p>were monotheistic</td>
  535. <td width="229">Monotheism was the original</p>
  536. <p>sacred form</td>
  537. </tr>
  538. <tr>
  539. <td width="258"><strong>Motherhood was the leading </strong></p>
  540. <p><strong>function of goddesses</strong></td>
  541. <td width="227">Goddesses had many public</p>
  542. <p>functions which were more</p>
  543. <p>important. Motherhood not as</p>
  544. <p>important in hunting and</p>
  545. <p>gathering societies</td>
  546. <td width="229">Fatherhood was revered</td>
  547. </tr>
  548. <tr>
  549. <td width="258"><strong>There is a direct correspondence b</strong><strong>etween the presence of goddesses and h</strong><strong>igh material status of women</strong></td>
  550. <td width="227">There is a connection between the perceived source of resource supply and the gender of the source, not between sacred status and the status of women.</td>
  551. <td width="229">Women have always had a second class identity</td>
  552. </tr>
  553. <tr>
  554. <td width="258"></td>
  555. <td width="227">When goddesses were present, the status of women was low. When earth-spirits, totems or ancestor spirits were present, women were roughly equal to men</td>
  556. <td width="229"></td>
  557. </tr>
  558. <tr>
  559. <td width="258"><strong>Invasions by pastoralists caused </strong><strong>institutionalized male dominance</strong></td>
  560. <td width="227">Institutionalized male dominance was caused by processes internal to chiefdoms and agricultural states before the invasions of pastoralists</td>
  561. <td width="229">Institutionalized male dominance has always existed</td>
  562. </tr>
  563. <tr>
  564. <td width="258"><strong>Pre-state societies were peaceful</strong></td>
  565. <td width="227">All pre-state societies were violent</p>
  566. <p>Most were warlike</p>
  567. <p>There were few warless societies</td>
  568. <td width="229">Wars are caused by male aggression</td>
  569. </tr>
  570. <tr>
  571. <td width="258"><strong>The movement from polytheism to </strong><strong>monotheism was between gods and </strong><strong>goddesses</strong></td>
  572. <td width="227">The emergence of monotheism was played out mythologically between male gods rather than between and female goddesses</td>
  573. <td width="229">Goddesses had no power in mythology</td>
  574. </tr>
  575. </tbody>
  576. </table>
  577. <p>&nbsp;</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/matriarchy-witchery-and-the-great-goddess/">Matriarchy, Witchery and the Great Goddess</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  581. </item>
  582. <item>
  583. <title>Remembering Cornelius Castoriadis, the only French Intellectual with Humor</title>
  584. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/remembering-cornelius-castoriadis-the-only-french-intellectual-with-humor/</link>
  586. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Dimitris Eleas]]></dc:creator>
  587. <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:45:40 +0000</pubDate>
  588. <category><![CDATA[Obituary]]></category>
  589. <category><![CDATA[Philosophy]]></category>
  590. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159790</guid>
  591.  
  592. <description><![CDATA[<p>Cornelius Castoriadis reflected on man. And he decided that the role of each person in the social-historical is so important. Philosopher with an intellect of many carats. Castoriadis was in awe of the ideas. And ideas are what in time brought about his faith in man. He is a Greek (—French) who honors our ancestors. [&#8230;]</p>
  593. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/remembering-cornelius-castoriadis-the-only-french-intellectual-with-humor/">Remembering Cornelius Castoriadis, the only French Intellectual with Humor</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  594. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://iep.utm.edu/cornelius-castoriadis/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://iep.utm.edu/cornelius-castoriadis/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752216144840000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3IKgBLcrsEWm3pP6_jSW0Z">Cornelius Castoriadis</a> reflected on man. And he decided that the role of each person in the social-historical is so important. Philosopher with an intellect of many carats.</p>
  595. <p>Castoriadis was in awe of the ideas. And ideas are what in time brought about his faith in man. He is a Greek (—French) who honors our ancestors. Where was Castoriadis’ house in Athens? How did he spend his childhood? Behind what shadow was he growing?</p>
  596. <p>Castoriadis therefore lived in three cities: Constantinople (Istanbul today), Athens, and Paris. He was born in the first in 1922, grew up in Athens and, he left for France at the age of 23. In the latter city he was educated and died in 1997.</p>
  597. <p>Castoriadis competed from a young age and read a lot. In Athens, he studied law and philosophy. Cornelius’ house – as the author Mimika Kranaki, a friend of his youth, informs us – was located behind the Metropolis (main Cathedral) of Athens, 5 Hypatias Street. The volume of the temple will become a forerunner, years later, of his thinking against God and all religions. So, Cornelius grew up ‘in the shadow of God.’ In this house, at the age of only six, he “attempted to kill himself”, grabbing an electricity cable with wet hands&#8230; From a young age, Cornelius was interested in many areas of thought. He himself began to read early and learned how to promote thought. It was inspired by Max Weber’s work on bureaucracy. Karl Marx’s texts were read by him inside this house.</p>
  598. <p>This is where he returned after school and later after the lectures of the neo-Kantian philosopher K. Despotopoulos at the university. He was also a brave young man. At the age of just 13 he lost all his hair, and his mother, Sophia Castoriadis, went insane and died a few months later. His father, Caesar Castoriadis, who made sure that he did not miss anything – there was also a phonograph in the house – is a Voltairean, who because he did not allow his son to stay up all night to complete the written punishment that the school had imposed on him, almost caused Cornelius to grab the wet cable as mentioned above.</p>
  599. <p>At the same time, the loss of hair gave him strength at a very tender age. His friends now call him “globos” [“light bulb”]. In his first steps, he also sees the power that “small circles or small groups” have in the evolution of History and ideas.</p>
  600. <p><strong>The Odyssey of Castoriadis</strong></p>
  601. <p>The journey – the <em>Odyssey</em>&#8230; – of 1945 will be of a colossal importance! Paris with its libraries, its students, the groups that write history and the ‘biggest A’ in the world&#8230; He also read a lot. In Paris, in 1948, Castoriadis with co-founder Claude Lefort, and together with other friends/partners, created the group and the magazine, <em>Socialism or Barbarism</em> (1949-65 the magazine, until ΄66 the group) for the battle of ideas – the <em>Iliad</em>&#8230;– and in this magazine, under various pseudonyms, Castoriadis published many theoretical texts.</p>
  602. <p>At the same time, Cornelius Castoriadis also started working as a professional economist at the OECD and his writings were another reason to be written under various pseudonyms, such as Paul Gardan, etc. Through each line ‘that he composes like a musician’, Paris is the city that strengthens his thinking. In Paris, Sigmund Freud will influence him decisively. Reading Freud, he saw clearly what it was missing from Marx. That was, the human subject&#8230; His work is a continuous critique, to which it can be given a critical interpretation. The two pillars of the Castoriadian creation, are: “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262031349/the-imaginary-institution-of-society/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262031349/the-imaginary-institution-of-society/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752216144840000&amp;usg=AOvVaw36jzhpmv93AJ4G4-NPrmvS">the imaginary institution of society</a>” and “autonomy”. Castoriadis contributed to many areas of thought.</p>
  603. <p><strong>The personal acquaintance</strong></p>
  604. <p><strong> </strong>Here, let me just add that I knew him in person, we had exchanged a few letters, and I had spoken to him on the phone. I sent him the first letter when I was 18 years old, and he replied. And above all his kindness! He was extremely polite in our meetings, in his office or, when we went for a swim the other day. He radiated a light and had a sophisticated sense of humor.</p>
  605. <p>With him, there was no chance not to smile or laugh at something he would say or, at a remark he would make. He was an active man, who did a lot of stuff in a single day. I saw him swimming in the Greek sea, he could easily swim from island to island in the Aegean Sea. I have never forgotten the image of him swimming… He was also moving his hands a lot, not in the water, but mostly out of it. His thought has an experiential depth/ethos that I saw with my own eyes.</p>
  606. <p><strong> </strong>Castoriadis, who has always been exuberant in expression and strong in spirit, is constantly evolving. On a personal level: Women, gambling, <a href="https://www.jhiblog.org/2023/06/19/thinking-with-and-remembering-castoriadis/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.jhiblog.org/2023/06/19/thinking-with-and-remembering-castoriadis/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752216144840000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1se2uW-1sbZVguw8RXfK_H">cigars, whiskey,</a> the stock market and songs with a sad theme (moirologia, traditional Greek laments for the dead]) also play their crucial part. He had a very strong personality, and because of this, his path was lonely and outside the intellectual fashions of Paris. He stood out.</p>
  607. <p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Castoriadis" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Castoriadis&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752216144840000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3Xdt96FN0oOYiswn_2UKPK">Cornelius Castoriadis</a> had a love for dialogue and for every new thought that entered his mind. He liked ideas, and he told me when we met in his office, “when a new idea comes to my mind I feel a great surprise.” Awe for ideas, and from this awe, he started and reflected on the uniqueness that every human being deserves / every human being has. The uniqueness, let’s say, of the militant Nikitaras (Greek War of Independence hero, 1821), who was shouting to the Turks, “Persians, let’s fight”! The ‘only theory’ left behind by Cornelius Castoriadis is his imprint as a Human. An imprint that marked those who mostly knew him up close.</p>
  608. <p><strong> </strong><strong>Exuberant and powerful spirit</strong></p>
  609. <p>When asked how he knows that the cow appearing before them is wild, he answers in a lively voice, “but it has an expression on its face.” (It was, apparently, the peculiar breed of cow of the Greek island of Tinos.) Thus, he impresses the listener, and imparts knowledge <em>hand in hand</em> with humor. How did I find myself in the car driven by Castoriadis himself in 1996? This is the “<a href="https://www.politeianet.gr/books/9786185011697-eleas-dimitris-aggelaki-idiotikos-kornilios-236080" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.politeianet.gr/books/9786185011697-eleas-dimitris-aggelaki-idiotikos-kornilios-236080&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752216144840000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1iXUi_50mil890OE3tLSHP">Personal testimony</a>” that I developed in the humble book of 2014. The rare gift of humor that the ‘atheist Castoriadis’ had is like the strong stings you receive when you read him. He had a sense of humor and like a person as I said. And the ‘bites of humor’ make you say, “the West/Hellenism gave birth to a genius”.</p>
  610. <p>The legacy of Cornelius Castoriadis is priceless. And although we are separated from ancient Greece by 130,000 weeks, Castoriadis was, “an ancient Greek in Paris” as I often say. Man dies at some point, but his ideas remain standing. I think, he will continue to inspire… just like the Parthenon.</p>
  611. <p>In conclusion, the above thoughts/‘pictures’ published here, in a highly summarized form, are those delivered in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4duvKwCry0Q" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D4duvKwCry0Q&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752216144841000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0gNH31zX1m6iGAsFZhuwWz">humble lecture in the Greek language</a> (it&#8217;s the first forty minutes) that took place on Sunday, October 13, 2024 (Institute of Research and Study Thucydides, President Mr. Dimitris Trapeziotis). An ‘early manuscript’ of this speech was read by the excellent expatriate intellectual and professor, Mr. Vrasidas Karalis, in Sydney, Australia, and this fact, as well as his apt observations, honor him in particular.</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/remembering-cornelius-castoriadis-the-only-french-intellectual-with-humor/">Remembering Cornelius Castoriadis, the only French Intellectual with Humor</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  615. </item>
  616. <item>
  617. <title>New Superman Movie in MAGA Crosshairs: Will Right-Wing Critics Be Box Office Kryptonite?</title>
  618. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/new-superman-movie-in-maga-crosshairs-will-right-wing-critics-be-box-office-kryptonite/</link>
  620. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill Berkowitz]]></dc:creator>
  621. <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:29:21 +0000</pubDate>
  622. <category><![CDATA[Arts and/or Entertainment]]></category>
  623. <category><![CDATA[Film]]></category>
  624. <category><![CDATA[Wokism]]></category>
  625. <category><![CDATA[DC]]></category>
  626. <category><![CDATA[James Gunn]]></category>
  627. <category><![CDATA[Jesse Watters]]></category>
  628. <category><![CDATA[MAGA]]></category>
  629. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159821</guid>
  630.  
  631. <description><![CDATA[<p>These days, it doesn’t take much to antagonize MAGA, and James Gunn, the director of the new Superman film, scheduled to be released on July 11,  has set off another outrage cycle. “I mean, Superman is the story of America,” Gunn said in an interview with the Times of London, “An immigrant that came from [&#8230;]</p>
  632. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/new-superman-movie-in-maga-crosshairs-will-right-wing-critics-be-box-office-kryptonite/">New Superman Movie in MAGA Crosshairs: Will Right-Wing Critics Be Box Office Kryptonite?</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  633. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img decoding="async" title="A remastered version of the 1949 Superman book cover with the Man of Steel teaching kids about tolerance" src="https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1283922/story_image/superman-tolerance-1949.jpg?1711130265" srcset="https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1283922/story_image/superman-tolerance-1949.jpg?1711130265 1024w, https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1283922/lightbox/superman-tolerance-1949.jpg?1711130265 768w, https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1283922/large/superman-tolerance-1949.jpg?1711130265 600w" alt="A remastered version of the 1949 Superman book cover with the Man of Steel teaching kids about tolerance" width="505" height="696.9" /></p>
  634. <p>These days, it doesn’t take much to antagonize MAGA, and James Gunn, the director of the new <em>Superman</em> film, scheduled to be released on July 11,  has set off another outrage cycle.</p>
  635. <p>“I mean, Superman is the story of America,” Gunn said in an interview with the <em>Times of London</em>, “An <strong>immigrant that came from other places</strong> […] but for me it is mostly a story that says <strong>basic human kindness is a value</strong> and is <strong>something we have lost</strong>.”</p>
  636. <p>Amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, mass deportation plans, and creation of concentration camps like Alligator Alcatraz, Gunn also noted that his film leans into the character’s well-known backstory as an otherworldly refugee, a plot point that has been explored in Superman comics over the years.</p>
  637. <p>MAGA influencers jumped on Gunn speedier than longtime Superman antagonist Lex Luther, General Zod, and Mister Mxyzptlk.  <em>Fox News host </em>Laura Ingraham dismissed the film entirely, declaring it as “another film we won’t be seeing.”</p>
  638. <p>“He’s creating a moat of woke, enlightened opinion around him. He’s got a woke shield,” Fox News host <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fox-news-superman-james-gunn-woke-b2784869.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Greg Gutfeld said</a> as an on-screen graphic blared that the “Superwoke” movie embraced “pro-immigrant themes.”</p>
  639. <p>“I’m going to skip seeing Superman now. Director is an absolute moron to say this publicly the week before release,” conservative radio host and OutKick founder Clay Travis complained.</p>
  640. <p>“I can’t believe that we’ve come down to that,” she complained. “We don’t go to the movie theater to be lectured to and to have somebody throw their ideology onto us. I wonder if it will be successful.” MAGA-boosting Fox News host Jesse Watters, meanwhile, followed up by joking that Superman’s cape is now emblazoned with “MS-13.”</p>
  641. <p>The <em>Daily Dot</em>’s Anna Good reported that “Gunn’s <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/superman-legacy-casting-green-lantern-james-gunn/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">version of Superman</a> focuses on empathy, morality, and alienation. These themes have been embedded in the character since his 1938 debut in the first issue of <em>Action Comics</em>. In his interview, Gunn acknowledged that the movie might be received differently in liberal vs. conservative parts of the country.”</p>
  642. <p>Gunn’s take on aligns with the character’s Jewish roots. Created in the 1930s by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, sons of Jewish immigrants who fled the European pogroms, Superman was born of a need for hope during a time of rising anti-Semitism.</p>
  643. <p>“Yes, it’s about politics,&#8221; Gunn told <em>The Times of London</em>. “But on another level it’s about morality. Do you never kill no matter what — which is what Superman believes — or do you have some balance, as Lois believes? It’s really about their relationship and the way different opinions on basic moral beliefs can tear two people apart.”</p>
  644. <p>Gunn pointed out that “I’m telling a story about a guy who is uniquely good, and that feels needed now because there is a meanness that has emerged due to cultural figures being mean online.”</p>
  645. <p>“My reaction to [the backlash] is that it is exactly what the movie is about,” he declared. “We support our people, you know? We love our immigrants. Yes, Superman is an immigrant, and yes, the people that we support in this country are immigrants and if you don’t like that, you’re not American. People who say no to immigrants are against the American way.”</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/new-superman-movie-in-maga-crosshairs-will-right-wing-critics-be-box-office-kryptonite/">New Superman Movie in MAGA Crosshairs: Will Right-Wing Critics Be Box Office Kryptonite?</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  649. </item>
  650. <item>
  651. <title>Why Public Funds Should Be Deposited in Publicly-Owned Banks</title>
  652. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/why-public-funds-should-be-deposited-in-publicly-owned-banks/</link>
  654. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Ellen Brown]]></dc:creator>
  655. <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:25:22 +0000</pubDate>
  656. <category><![CDATA[Banks]]></category>
  657. <category><![CDATA[Finance]]></category>
  658. <category><![CDATA[Public banks]]></category>
  659. <category><![CDATA[Bank of North Dakota]]></category>
  660. <category><![CDATA[Non-Partisan League]]></category>
  661. <category><![CDATA[Thomas Marois]]></category>
  662. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159809</guid>
  663.  
  664. <description><![CDATA[<p>A thriving economy requires that credit flow freely for productive use. But today, a handful of giant banks diverts that flow into an exponentially-growing self-feeding pool of digital profits for themselves. Rather than allowing the free exchange of labor and materials for production, our system of banking and credit has acted as a tourniquet on [&#8230;]</p>
  665. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/why-public-funds-should-be-deposited-in-publicly-owned-banks/">Why Public Funds Should Be Deposited in Publicly-Owned Banks</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  666. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A thriving economy requires that credit flow freely for productive use. But today, a handful of giant banks diverts that flow into an exponentially-growing self-feeding pool of digital profits for themselves. Rather than allowing the free exchange of labor and materials for production, our system of banking and credit has acted as a tourniquet on production and a drain on resources.</p>
  667. <p>Yet we cannot do without the functions banks perform; and one of these is the creation of “money” as dollar-denominated bank credit when they make loans. This advance of credit has taken the form of “fractional reserve” lending, which has been heavily criticized. But historically, it is this sort of credit created on the books of banks that has allowed the wheels of industry to turn. Employers need credit at each stage of production before they have finished products that can be sold on the market, and banks need to be able to create credit as needed to respond to this demand. Without the advance of credit, there will be no products or services to sell; and without products to sell, workers and suppliers cannot get paid.</p>
  668. <p>Bank-created deposits are not actually “unbacked fiat” simply issued by banks. They can be created only when there is a borrower. In effect, the bank has monetized the borrower’s promise to repay, turning his promise to pay tomorrow into money that can be spent today — spent on the workers and materials necessary to create the products and services that will be sold to repay the loans. As <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0041">Benjamin Franklin wrote</a>, “many that understand Business very well, but have not a Stock sufficient of their own, will be encouraged to borrow Money; to trade with, when they have it at a moderate interest.”</p>
  669. <p>If banks have an unfair edge in this game, it is because they have managed to get <em>private control</em> of the credit spigots.  They have often used this control not to serve business, industry, and society’s needs but for their private advantage. They can turn credit on and off at will, direct it at very low interest to their cronies, or use it for their own speculative ventures; and they collect the interest as middlemen. This is not just a modest service fee covering costs. Interest has been calculated to compose <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Interest-Inflation-Free-Money-Everybody/dp/0964302500/ref=sr_1_3?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.cPugltZ2A8zXApMYJxUosb6c3i7f3Fr7QWjwAmQVSToQ5tl5YOl50lVqCFsIEq1DvnhC3H7gnE30KYB44o7bBn1rIlZoVVwR-RwYTioeI4NGpDgyMxiSPBV0-CR5vojFpUgnGhz3Tmum9YOq0K20Zp5ByauWvNps-P_UINZDlHnUawl8Ze6h_TpIGqmfVe_DoRFOY5hJTx5vJqMxSbK2RL_Sisd1w8ayGUm_FjWBGRA.jDtBxUkonqvQWwtepIYIGWkiejjeFYUWY9JzxbqjidM&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1737481550&amp;refinements=p_27%3AMargrit+Kennedy&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-3&amp;text=Margrit+Kennedy">a third of everything we buy</a>.</p>
  670. <p>Anyone with money has a right to lend it, and any group with money can pool it and lend it; but the ability to create money-as-credit <em>ex nihilo </em>(out of nothing), backed by the “full faith and credit” of the government and the people, is properly a public function, the proceeds of which should thus return to the public. The virtues of an expandable credit system can be retained while avoiding the exploitation to which private banks are prone, by establishing a network of public banks that serve the people because they are owned by the people.</p>
  671. <p><strong>The Stellar Example of the Bank of North Dakota </strong></p>
  672. <p>Publicly-owned banks can exist at many levels, from giant multinational infrastructure banks, to national infrastructure or postal banks, to local banks owned by states, counties, cities or tribes. In his 2021 book titled <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/9781108839150"><em>Public Banks</em></a>, Professor Thomas Marois showed that 17% of banks are publicly owned, with collective assets just under $49 trillion. In the US today, many groups are working on establishing local public banks. But our only existing state-owned bank is the century-old Bank of North Dakota (BND), a stellar model that will be the focus of this paper.</p>
  673. <p>The BND was founded in 1919, when North Dakota farmers rose up against the powerful out-of-state banking-railroad-granary cartel that was unfairly foreclosing on their farms. They formed the Non-Partisan League, won an election, and founded the state’s own bank and granary, both of which are still active today.</p>
  674. <p>The BND operates within the private financial market, working alongside private banks rather than replacing them. It provides loans and other banking services, primarily to other banks, local governments, and state agencies, which then lend to or invest in private sector enterprises. It operates with a profit motive, with profits either retained as capital to increase the bank’s loan capacity or returned to the state’s general fund, supporting public projects, education, and infrastructure.</p>
  675. <p>According to the BND website, <a href="https://thebndstory.nd.gov/an-agile-partner/returns-to-the-general-fund/">more than $1 billion</a> had been transferred to the state’s general fund and special programs through 2018, most of it in the previous decade. That is a substantial sum for a state with a population that is only about one-fifteenth the size of Los Angeles County.</p>
  676. <p>The BND actually beats private banks at their own game, generating a larger return on equity (ROE, that is, net profit divided by shareholder equity) for its public citizen-owners than even the largest Wall Street banks return to their private investors (for figures, see below). These profits belong to the citizens and are generated without taxation, lowering tax rates. On October 3, 2024, Truth in Accounting’s annual <a href="https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/financial-state-of-the-states-2024">Financial State of the States report</a> rated North Dakota #1 in fiscal health, with <em>a budget surplus per taxpayer of $55,600</em>. Small businesses are now failing across the country <a href="https://www.aspenpublicradio.org/economics/2024-05-16/report-small-businesses-are-failing-at-higher-rates-in-their-first-year">at increasingly high rates</a>; but that’s not true in North Dakota, which was <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/best-states-to-start-a-business/#:~:text=North%20Dakota%20holds%20the%20top%20position%20from%202023,for%20entrepreneurs%20who%20are%20mindful%20of%20initial%20expenses.">rated by Forbes Magazine</a> the best state in which to start a business in 2024.</p>
  677. <p><strong>Why So Profitable? The BND Model</strong></p>
  678. <p>For nearly a century, the BND maintained a low profile. But in 2014, it was <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/shale-boom-helps-north-dakota-bank-earn-returns-goldman-would-envy-1416180862">featured in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em></a>, which reported that the Bank of North Dakota “is more profitable than Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has a better credit rating than J.P. Morgan Chase &amp; Co. (JPM) and hasn’t seen profit growth drop since 2003.” The article credited this success to the shale oil boom; but <a href="http://ellenbrown.com/2014/11/19/wsj-reports-bank-of-north-dakota-outperforms-wall-street/">North Dakota was already reporting record profits</a> in the spring of 2009, when every other state was in the red and the oil boom had not yet hit.</p>
  679. <p>The average ROE of the BND from 2000 through 2024 (its latest annual report) was 19.4%. Compare JPMorgan Chase (JPM), <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/02/1173247344/with-a-recent-takeover-there-are-worries-jpmorgan-chase-has-grown-too-large">by far the largest bank</a> in the country, with 2.4 trillion in deposits. Its average ROE from 2000-23 was 11.38% over the same period. For a detailed breakdown, see <a href="https://publicbankinginstitute.org/which-is-more-profitable-jpmorgan-chase-or-the-bank-of-north-dakota/">here</a>.</p>
  680. <p>How could the BND have outperformed JPM, the nation’s largest bank? Most important, it has substantially lower costs and risks than private commercial banks. It has no exorbitantly-paid executives; pays no bonuses, fees, or commissions; has no private shareholders; and has low borrowing costs. It partners with local banks in “participation loans,” avoiding loan origination costs. It engages in old-fashioned conservative banking and does not speculate in derivatives, so it has no losses or risk from derivative trades gone wrong.</p>
  681. <p>The BND does not need to advertise or compete for depositors. It has a massive, captive deposit base in the state itself, which must deposit all of its revenues in the BND by law.  Most state agencies also must deposit there. The BND takes some token individual deposits, but it <a href="https://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/Demos_NationalBankPaper.pdf">does not compete</a> with local banks for commercial deposits or loans. As for municipal (as distinct from state) government deposits, the BND generally not only reserves those deposits for local community banks but enhances their ability to secure municipal deposits. In many states, stringent collateral requirements are attached to municipal government deposits, such as a <a href="https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t21c04.pdf">110% collateral requirement</a> with high quality securities. This essentially prevents local banks from using municipal deposits to fund local lending. In North Dakota, however, the BND <a href="https://bnd.nd.gov/bank-services/fi/letter-of-credit-pledge-for-public-deposits/">provides letters of credit</a> that guarantee the deposits of municipal governments and other public corporations, making collateral unnecessary and making municipal deposits available for local lending. In addition to its deposit base, the BND also has a substantial capital base, with a <a href="https://bnd.nd.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023-BND-Annual-Report.pdf">capital fund totaling $1.059 billion</a> in 2023, along with deposits of $8.7 billion.</p>
  682. <p>Among other costs avoided by the BND are those for fines, penalties and settlements arising from government and civil lawsuits. Since the year 2000, JPM has <a href="https://dailyhodl.com/2024/11/22/jpmorgan-chase-pays-40000000000-in-fines-and-settlements-as-us-bank-battles-hundreds-of-ongoing-legal-challenges-report/">paid more than $40 billion</a> in total fines and settlements to regulators, enforcement agencies and lawsuits related to anti-competitive practices, securities abuses and other violations; and it is still facing several hundred open legal cases.</p>
  683. <p><strong>The State’s Deposits Are Safer in Its Own Bank</strong></p>
  684. <p>The BND is not only more profitable but also safer than JPM. In fact <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/07/federal-data-show-jpmorgan-chase-is-by-far-the-riskiest-bank-in-the-u-s/">federal data show</a> that JPM is the most systemically risky bank in the country. The BND, by contrast, has been called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTidNcoeh6w">the nation’s safest bank</a>. Its stock cannot be short-sold, since it is not publicly traded; and it will not suffer a run, since the state would not “run” on itself.</p>
  685. <p>Compare JP Morgan Chase, which has <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/at-year-end-jpmorgan-chase-held-over-1-trillion-in-uninsured-deposits-versus-119-billion-at-first-republic/">over $1 trillion in uninsured deposits</a>, the type most likely to be withdrawn in a crisis. In March 2023, the FDIC insurance fund had a balance of only <a href="https://www.fdic.gov/news/speeches/2023/spmay3123.html">$116.1 billion</a> – only 5% of JPM’s total deposits of <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/14/jpmorgan-chase-jpm-earnings-1q-2023.html">$2.38 trillion</a>. JPM also had major counterparty risk in the derivatives market, with <a href="https://www.occ.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/quarterly-report-on-bank-trading-and-derivatives-activities/files/pub-derivatives-quarterly-qtr1-2023.pdf">close to $60 trillion in total (notional) derivatives</a>. The risks of large notional derivative exposures were highlighted in the 2012 <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2019/05/jpmorgan-chase-owns-2-2-trillion-in-stock-derivatives-two-thirds-the-total-for-all-banks">“London Whale” scandal</a>, in which JPM incurred $6.2 billion in losses from exotic derivatives trades.</p>
  686. <p>Not just the Bank of North Dakota but North Dakota’s local banks are very safe, aided by the BND with liquidity, capitalization, regulation, loan guarantees, and other banker’s bank services. No local North Dakota banks have been in trouble during this century, but if they were to suffer a bank run, the BND would be there to help. According to its former <a href="https://publicbankinginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/pbi_eric_hardmeyer_interview_WEB.pdf">CEO Eric Hardmeyer,</a> the BND has a pre-approved fed funds line set up with every bank in the state; and if that is insufficient for liquidity, the BND can simply buy loans from a troubled local bank as needed.</p>
  687. <p>Today, state governments often deposit their revenues in giant Wall Street banks designated as SIFIs (Systemically Important Financial Institutions), including JPM; but those banks are riskier than they appear.  They “insure” their capital <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/03/wall-street-mega-banks-have-created-a-circular-firing-squad-with-credit-derivatives-and-capital-relief-trades-with-the-feds-blessing/">with interconnected derivatives</a> backed by collateral that has been “rehypothecated” (pledged or re-used several times over). The Financial Stability Board in Basel has <a href="https://www.fsb.org/uploads/shadow_banking_overview_of_progress_2015.pdf">declared that practice to be risky</a>, “[a]s demonstrated by the 2007-09 global financial crisis.” The five largest Wall Street depository banks hold <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/02/five-wall-street-banks-hold-223-trillion-in-derivatives-83-percent-of-all-derivatives-at-4600-banks/">$223 trillion in derivatives</a> — a risk highlighted by the Bank for International Settlements as “huge, missing and growing” in <a href="https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt2212.htm">its December 2022 Quarterly Review</a> — and they have a combined <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/03/report-five-banks-have-a-combined-half-trillion-dollars-in-commercial-real-estate-loans-number-1-is-jpmorgan-chase/">half trillion dollars in commercial real estate loans</a>, also very risky in the current financial environment.</p>
  688. <p>Under the Dodd Frank Act of 2010, a SIFI that goes bankrupt will not be bailed out by the government but will be recapitalized through “bail-ins,” meaning the banks are to “bail in” or extract capital from their creditors. That includes their “secured” and “collateralized” depositors, including state and local governments. Under the Bankruptcy Act of 2005 and Uniform Commercial Code Secs. 8 and 9, derivative and repo claims have seniority over all others and could easily wipe out all of the capital of a SIFI, including the “collateralized” deposits of state and local governments. The details are complicated, but the threat is real and imminent. See fuller discussions <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/15/ellen-brown-casino-capitalism-and-the-derivatives-market-time-for-another-lehman-moment/">here</a> and <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2024/02/14/ellen-brown-defusing-the-derivatives-time-bomb-some-proposed-solutions/">here</a>, David Rodgers Webb’s <a href="https://thegreattaking.com/"><em>The Great Taking</em></a>, and Chris Martenson’s series drilling down into the obscure legalese of the enabling legislation, concluding <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVAijCscQ3w">here</a>.</p>
  689. <p>Even if the SIFIs remain solvent, they are not using state deposits and investments for the benefit of the state from which they come, and often they are betting against the public interest. The BND, on the other hand, is mandated to use its funds for the benefit of the North Dakota public. Other states would do well to follow North Dakota’s lead.</p>
  690. <p><strong>Advantages of a State-owned Bank for the Public, Local Government and Local Banks</strong></p>
  691. <p>Like private banks, a publicly-owned bank has the ability to create money in the form of bank credit on its books, and it has access to very low interest rates. But the business model of private banks requires them to take advantage of these low rates to extract as much debt service as the market will bear for the benefit of the bank’s private investors. A public bank can pass low rates on to local residents and businesses. It can also recapture the interest on local government projects, making them substantially cheaper than when funded through the bond market. As described above, the BND’s profits belong to the citizens and are generated without taxation, lowering tax rates.<em> </em>The BND also serves North Dakota’s local banks. It acts as a mini-Fed for the state, providing correspondent banking services to virtually every financial institution in North Dakota. It provides secured and unsecured , check-clearing, cash management and automated clearing house services for local banks. It participates in their loans and guarantees them, so the banks are willing to take on more risk, and they have been able to keep loans on their books rather than selling them to investors to meet capital requirements.  As a result, North Dakota banks were able to avoid the 2008-09 subprime and securitization debacles and the 2023 wave of bank bankruptcies.</p>
  692. <p>By partnering with the BND, local banks can also take on local projects that might be too large for their own resources or in which Wall Street has no interest, projects that might otherwise go to out-of-state banks or remain unfunded. Due to this amicable partnership, the North Dakota Bankers’ Association endorses the BND as a partner rather than a competitor of the state’s private banks.</p>
  693. <p><strong>Serving the State as a Rainy Day Fund and for Disaster Relief</strong></p>
  694. <p>Unlike the Federal Reserve, which is not authorized to support state and local governments except in very limited circumstances,  North Dakota’s “mini-Fed” <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/how-nations-only-state-owned-bank-became-envy-wall-street/">can help directly</a> with state government funding. Having a cheap and ready <a href="https://www.jamestownsun.com/news/pipeline-protest-costs-to-reach-double-digit-millions-emergency-spokeswoman-says">credit line</a> with the state’s own bank reduces the need for wasteful rainy-day funds invested at minimal interest in out-of-state banks.</p>
  695. <p>The BND has also demonstrated the power of a state-owned bank to leverage state funds into new credit-dollars for disaster relief. <a href="http://publicbanking.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/hurricane-sandy-the-great-red-river-flood-how-the-public-bank-of-north-dakota-saved-grand-forks/">Its emergency capabilities were demonstrated</a>, for example, when record flooding and fires devastated Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1997. Floodwaters covered virtually the entire city and took weeks to fully recede. Property losses topped $3.5 billion. The response of the state-owned bank was immediate and comprehensive. It quickly established nearly $70 million in credit lines – to the city, the state National Guard, the state Division of Emergency Management, the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and for individuals, businesses and farms. It also launched a Grand Forks disaster relief loan program and allocated $5 million to help other areas affected by the spring floods. Local financial institutions matched these funds, making a total of more than $70 million available.</p>
  696. <p>The BND coordinated with the U.S. Department of Education to ensure forbearance on student loans; worked closely with the Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration to gain forbearance on federally backed home loans; established a center where people could apply for federal/state housing assistance; and worked with the North Dakota Community Foundation to coordinate a disaster relief fund, for which the bank served as the deposit base. The bank also reduced interest rates on existing Family Farm and Farm Operating programs. Remarkably, no lives were lost, and the city was quickly rebuilt and restored.</p>
  697. <p>More recently during the COVID crisis, North Dakota distributed unemployment benefits through community banks coordinated by the BND 10 times faster than the slowest state, and North Dakota’s small businesses secured <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/15/north-dakota-small-business-ppp-coronavirus/">more Paycheck Protection Program funds per worker</a> than any other state.</p>
  698. <p><strong>Progress and Challenges</strong></p>
  699. <p>In the past 15 years, groups across the country have worked diligently to establish publicly-owned banks in their states and communities. A big push came in 2011 with the Occupy Wall Street movement, demonstrating that even the dry subject of banking can incite large groups of people to take action in times of economic crisis. Many people moved their individual deposits out of big Wall Street banks into local community banks, but what about the large public deposits held by state and local governments? No community bank was large enough for their needs. The Bank of North Dakota demonstrated the feasibility of another alternative: the state or city could form its own bank.</p>
  700. <p>Although more than 50 <a href="https://publicbankinginstitute.org/legislation-by-state/">public bank bills and resolutions</a> have been filed since 2010, the only new bank to emerge is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_Bank_of_American_Samoa?form=MG0AV3">Territorial Bank of American Samoa</a>, founded in 2016. Lobbying in opposition by big private banks has deterred politicians, who are reluctant to rock the boat when times are good and no immediate need is perceived. However, times are not so good today for the majority of the population, and they could soon get worse even for the wealthy.</p>
  701. <p>To muster the political will to take action, politicians need a business plan in which the benefits of establishing their own banks clearly outweigh the costs; and public bank advocates today face hurdles that the BND avoided by being grandfathered in before the relevant agency rules were instigated.</p>
  702. <p>One hurdle is that states today typically require uninsured public funds to be <a href="https://www.gfoa.org/materials/collateralizing-public-deposits?form=MG0AV3">backed by pledged collateral</a> (i.e. surety bonds or letters of credit) exceeding 100 percent of the value of the deposits. California, for example, has <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QTAXTOTALQTAXCAT3CANO">state tax revenues exceeding $80 billion</a>. As a single deposit in a bank, only $250,000 of that sum would be covered by FDIC insurance, leaving the balance uninsured; so the state insures that balance with a collateral requirement that is <a href="https://www.treasurer.ca.gov/inside/divisions/ctsmd/accounts.asp?form=MG0AV3">110% of uninsured deposits</a>. The result is to tie up more liquidity than the deposits provide. Public banking advocates argue that the requirement is unnecessary and unfairly burdensome for state-owned banks. The deposits of the BND, which was chartered as “the State of North Dakota doing business as the Bank of North Dakota,” are backed by the state itself. Meanwhile, letters of credit, <a href="https://www.fhlbny.com/financial_intelligen/muloc-deposits/">e.g. from a Federal Home Loan Bank</a>, are a viable alternative.</p>
  703. <p>Another hurdle is that most state constitutions prohibit the state from “lending its credit” to private parties. This has been construed as prohibiting the state from owning a bank, but <a href="https://publicbankinginstitute.org/legal-issues/">legal memoranda have refuted</a> that interpretation.</p>
  704. <p>Besides a profitable business plan, politicians need a push from their constituents to take action, and most people haven’t heard of public banks and don’t understand the concept. Wider public exposure and education are necessary. Even many politicians are unaware of how banking actually works. Chartered depository banks have the power to create money as deposits when they make loans, expanding the local money supply and increasing the capacity for local productivity. Over 95% of our money supply today is <a href="https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/667/money/banks-and-the-creation-of-money/?form=MG0AV3">created by banks</a> in this way. This vast power to create money as credit is one that properly belongs in the public domain.</p>
  705. <p>Times are changing, and public banking momentum continues to grow. By making banking a public utility, with expandable credit issued by banks that are owned by the people, the financial system can be made to serve the people and local enterprise without draining their resources away. Credit flow can be released so that industry and free markets can thrive, and the economy can move closer to reaching its full potential.</p>
  706. <ul>
  707. <li>First published at <a href="https://justmoney.org/why-public-funds-should-be-deposited-in-publicly-owned-banks/"><em>Just Money</em></a>.</li>
  708. </ul>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/why-public-funds-should-be-deposited-in-publicly-owned-banks/">Why Public Funds Should Be Deposited in Publicly-Owned Banks</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  712. </item>
  713. <item>
  714. <title>Globalist Monsters</title>
  715. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/globalist-monsters/</link>
  717. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Allen Forrest]]></dc:creator>
  718. <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2025 14:00:31 +0000</pubDate>
  719. <category><![CDATA[Cartoon]]></category>
  720. <category><![CDATA[Conspiracy]]></category>
  721. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159823</guid>
  722.  
  723. <description><![CDATA[<p>What is conspiracy theory a monster code for?</p>
  724. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/globalist-monsters/">Globalist Monsters</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  725. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alternative_opinions_128_12x9_ink_on_paper_w.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-159824" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alternative_opinions_128_12x9_ink_on_paper_w-768x1024.png" alt="" width="500" height="667" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alternative_opinions_128_12x9_ink_on_paper_w-768x1024.png 768w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alternative_opinions_128_12x9_ink_on_paper_w-225x300.png 225w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alternative_opinions_128_12x9_ink_on_paper_w.png 900w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /></a></p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/globalist-monsters/">Globalist Monsters</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  729. </item>
  730. <item>
  731. <title>KPK’s Monsoon Myopia: What KPK hasn’t learnt from Monsoon</title>
  732. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/kpks-monsoon-myopia-what-kpk-hasnt-learnt-from-monsoon/</link>
  734. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Zeeshan Nasir]]></dc:creator>
  735. <pubDate>Thu, 10 Jul 2025 08:22:05 +0000</pubDate>
  736. <category><![CDATA[Floods]]></category>
  737. <category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>
  738. <category><![CDATA[Khyber Pakhtunkhwa]]></category>
  739. <category><![CDATA[Swat Valley]]></category>
  740. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159777</guid>
  741.  
  742. <description><![CDATA[<p>On June 27 and 28, 2025, tragedy struck the Swat Valley again. The once tranquil and verdant slopes of the Fizagat and Khwaza Khela have seen catastrophic devastation as a massive flash-flood, triggered by torrential monsoon shower and cloudburst, washed away tourists, families and livestock along the Swat River. Videos circulating on the social media [&#8230;]</p>
  743. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/kpks-monsoon-myopia-what-kpk-hasnt-learnt-from-monsoon/">KPK’s Monsoon Myopia: What KPK hasn’t learnt from Monsoon</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  744. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>On June 27 and 28, 2025, tragedy struck the Swat Valley again. The once tranquil and verdant slopes of the Fizagat and Khwaza Khela have seen catastrophic devastation as a massive flash-flood, triggered by torrential monsoon shower and cloudburst, washed away tourists, families and livestock along the Swat River.</p>
  745. <p>Videos circulating on the social media showed over a dozen of people including children clinging on a piece of land surrounded by water on four sides, as the water started to surge. By the time the rescue operations could be initiated, which are frequently delayed in Pakistan, eleven people lost their lives.</p>
  746. <p>According to the initial reports of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, dated 28th, there were four children, three women and several men among the eleven killed. The reports also reiterated that three individuals are still missing, with 59 rescued in frantic operations carried out by KP Rescue 1122. Local sources also confirmed the damage of 56 houses, of which 6 were completely destroyed. The flash-flood also killed 13 in the Punjab province, bringing the total to 32 killed in the entire country.</p>
  747. <p>Given that the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) had issued warnings days earlier, with many areas being demarcated as red-flagged, riverbanks remained opened for the tourists. Hotels, restaurants and homes that stood tall in illegal proximity to the riverbank operated despite learning from the disasters of 2010, 2020 and 2022 that wrecked havoc to the area. In 2022, the valley witnessed destruction due to massive flooding on the same Swat River, with officials marking ‘red Zones ‘ and promised enforcement. However, this year those red zones became death zones.</p>
  748. <p>The tragedy of the valley due to massive flash-floods is emblematic of a larger crises that unfolds every monsoon in the country. Every year, whether they are agricultural crops of Sindh engulfed by floodwater to the port city of Gwadar submerged underwater in Balochistan, Pakistan continues to respond to monsoons as if each flood were a surprise. The rescue operations are always late. While some officials are suspended and promises of Inquiries are made to cover up the failure of governance, the absence of planning, and a dangerous cultural tendency to forget.</p>
  749. <p><b>The Unready North: When the Rains return </b></p>
  750. <p>Every year, the plains, hills and valleys of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa witness widespread devastation as floodwaters sweep away everything in their path: schools, homes, roads and even people. These cataclysmic events repeat every year with tragic predictability provoking one to question: What has KP learnt from its long-history of monsoon devastations? The answer, backed by field observations and available data is that while some slight steps had been taken for reactive systems, proactive measures to mitigate monsoon risks are largely absent.</p>
  751. <p>The most recent devastating floods hatched in our minds is that of 2022. According to the reports of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, over 100,000 homes were completely destroyed and more than 289 people died in that very year, including several children and women. With thousands of acres of farmlands wiped out in districts like Swat, Tank, Charsadda and Dera Ismail Khan, the NDMA’s national damage assessment marked 2022 as one of the most catastrophic years in KPK’s recent history. However, much of the promised reconstruction, reforms and regulations remained unfinished after the floods &#8212; existing only on paper.</p>
  752. <p>Rescue 1122’s capacity has improved in parts of Swat and Peshawar. Public awareness campaigns, specifically through local mosques and radios have educated most of the local people in evacuation procedures. However, such campaigns aren’t successful long-term because they are dependent on donor funding which limits their reach and sustainability.</p>
  753. <p>While the Planning Commission recommended relocating communities living within 100 meters of active riverbanks of Swat and Kohistan after 2010 floods, yet many of the same villages were washed away in 2022. Despite warnings issued in the aftermath of the 2010 and 2022 floods, no systematic and concrete steps were taken for anti-encroachment drives. Satellite-based floodplain assessments by the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit (SHA/SDC) in 2022 depicted that many of the destroyed commercial buildings and homes built in river buffer zones were in violation to environmental safety measures. This violation continued in 2024 and again in 2025. While the local authorities often blame local landowners and absence of adequate political support. The reasons are painfully evident: the residents are often poor farmers and laborers who build their houses on the same shaky spots due to the unavailability of alternative lands for houses and security. To date, no meaningful relocation policy has been implemented nor have any meaningful compensations been provided to help flood-affected families rebuild their lives on safer ground.</p>
  754. <p><b>Warnings Sound, but Prevention Falls Silent</b></p>
  755. <p>One of the few areas KP has shown progress is the early warning system. With collaboration between NDMA, PDMA and the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), a robust flood alert system was streamlined. In 2023, text message alerts were sent to the people living in flood-prone districts of Swat and Kohistan. Provincial Disaster Response Forces were on high alert and boats and tents were pre-positioned in seven districts.However, prevention rather than response exposed vulnerabilities.</p>
  756. <p>The rivers in KPK lack monitoring systems and they rely on basic rainfall forecasts. Punjab ,however, has real-time telemetry on several Indus tributaries. KPK’s most flash-prone rivers like Panjkora and Swat lack advanced river gauges. As a result, when the mudslides of the mid-July, 2023 washed away 30 houses, the NDMA repeatedly warned of hydrological sensors in these areas.</p>
  757. <p>A significant challenge is the ongoing encroachment of lands on riverbanks and floodplains. National Disaster Management Authority’s (NDMA) Monsoon Contingency Plan 2023 had termed the the northern districts of KPK &#8212; Swat, Kohistan, Mansehra and Dir &#8212; as flood-prone zones owing to their topography, deforestation and glacial melts. Despite court orders and government regulations, the construction on the bank of the Swat River continues. This has narrowed the river channel, magnifying the force and destructiveness of the floodwater. In 2022 deluge, the homes and hotels located in Bahrain and Kalam were completely washed away by the high-speed floodwater. As per the post-disasters reports of the Urban Unit, about 40 per cent of the homes that were destroyed in upper Swat were built within 50 meters of the river, directly violating the environmental safety guidelines.</p>
  758. <p>Infrastructure weaknesses continue to plague. The bridges built after the 2022 floods were damaged again in 2023 in Swat and Dir, revealing poor engineering. Temporary embankments constructed in 2023 were washed away by flash floods in 2024. Locals often blame the contractors for using substandard materials and leaving projects incomplete ahead of the monsoon season while contractors complain of lack of funds.</p>
  759. <p>Urban Drainage is also another glaring issue. Even moderate monsoon rains often leave parts of Peshawar submerged for days. The city’s storm-water drains (nullahs) are frequently choked with plastic waste. Despite allocations of budget for urban waste, many storm-water drainage projects in places like Faqirabad, Tehkal, Hayatabad remain uncompleted.</p>
  760. <p><b>The long road to recovery: education, health and policy gaps</b></p>
  761. <p>Community-based flood preparedness, which became successful in Nepal and Bangladesh are nearly absent. In many remote districts like Up Dir, elders rely on traditional knowledge and signs like river noise, animal behavior and sudden shifts in temperature to detect floods prior any text message alert are received in their phones. Such indigenous expertise are often side-lined in favour of advance models that fail to account for the on-the-ground rural realities.</p>
  762. <p>Notwithstanding that the mountainous districts of the province are inclined to GLOFs (glacial lake outburst floods), the mountainous districts lack a full-fledged and dedicated GLOF alert system in Kohistan and Upper Chitral. While federal government’s GLOF-II project, which primarily focuses on Gilgit-Baltistan, has some parts of KPK, but the reach is minimal.</p>
  763. <p>Warnings haven’t remained short in KPK. In 2018, NDMA and SUPARCO joined and warned of glacial melt and intensified GLOFs in the northern areas of the province. Local universities like the University of Peshawar’s Disaster Risk Management Centre have published researches urging the policymakers for greater investment in afforestation and slope stabilization, however, bureaucratic will to divert sources towards long-term progress seems lacking.</p>
  764. <p>The lack of climate adaptation Planning further aggravates the problems. Unlike Punjab and Sindh, where climate adaptation planning have been at least drafted, the province hasn’t formulated a climate adaptation roadmap, making the region inclined to excessive rainfall, landslides and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). A recent research by the Climate Analytics and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) keeps districts like Upper Dir and Chitral amongst the most vulnerable in the Hindu Kush Himalayan belt. With flash floods and GLOFs becoming common in future years, without proper planning and investment in infrastructure, entire communities remain at risk.</p>
  765. <p>The KPK Education Department’s report submitted to the National Assembly in 2023 pointed out that a staggering number of 1,180 schools were completely damaged in the 2022 floods. However as of 2024, only 430 of these have been reconstructed or repaired. According to Alif Ailaan’s Education Infrastructure Audit, Swat and Dera Ismail Khan have one of the highest proportions of children attending flood-affected schools.</p>
  766. <p>Figures from an another report, compiled by the KPK Education Department state that 142 schools were damaged in 2024, mainly in Upper Dir, Battagram and Swat while many of the schools that were already destroyed due to the tragic and devastating floods of 2022 awaited repairs. In many parts of the province, children continue to study in tents and open-air spaces. Temporary learning centres set-up by UNICEF and local NGOs have filled the gap, but the unavailability of proper infrastructure affects education quality and safety of the children.</p>
  767. <p>Medical preparedness is also deplorable in KPK during floods. In 2024, people in the villages of kohistan and Swat reported of skin infections, diarrhoea and snake bites after the floods. Mobile health teams arrive very late and Basic Health Units (BHUs) lack essential medicines. NDMA’s 2024 directives advised the pre-positioning of the medical supplies but district health officers often complain of funds arriving very late.</p>
  768. <p><b>A Cycle of Inaction with Deadly Costs</b></p>
  769. <p>Another joint report by the Asian Development Bank and UNDP in 2023, pointed out that budget for flood resilience in KPK stands at 0.5 per cent of the Annual Development Plan (ADP) which is insufficient to meet basic infrastructural upgrades. Despite the availability of donor funds, international technical support, implementation in the region remains abysmal. A monitoring report from the Asian Development Bank in 2024, says that KPK has the second-lowest fund utilization rate among the provinces for flood-related projects. Prolonged bureaucratic delays, and lack of interdepartmental coordination between PDMA, local government department, irrigation and communication departments further exacerbates the progress.</p>
  770. <p>Pakistan’s federal agencies have continuously warned that climate change will increase in intensity and monsoon rains would be more extreme in the years ahead, making Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the midst of both glacial melt and torrential monsoon showers threatening its southern and northern districts. Unfortunately, the province is yet to learn lessons.</p>
  771. <p>The cost of this inaction becomes very disturbing in the long-run. Economically, trillions of rupees are lost annually in precious lives, homes, livestock, and crops. Psychologically, the trust towards the state fades away. Socially, several generations of children lose out on education and environmentally, every flood gradually erodes the soil, depletes forest cover, making the future disasters more extreme.</p>
  772. <p>By far, flood mitigation policies in KP remain largely unimplemented. Residents speak of repeated promises, with rescue helicopters arriving when people had already been washed away and officials showing up more for photo opportunities than for decent solutions. Until the policymakers in Peshawar prioritize the development of proper drainage networks, resilient schools, urban planning policies and flood-proof infrastructure, tragedies like that of the Swat River will continue to repeat with deadliest consequences.</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/kpks-monsoon-myopia-what-kpk-hasnt-learnt-from-monsoon/">KPK’s Monsoon Myopia: What KPK hasn’t learnt from Monsoon</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  776. </item>
  777. <item>
  778. <title>Tipping Point</title>
  779. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/tipping-point/</link>
  781. <dc:creator><![CDATA[John Helmer]]></dc:creator>
  782. <pubDate>Thu, 10 Jul 2025 08:14:05 +0000</pubDate>
  783. <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category>
  784. <category><![CDATA[Militarism]]></category>
  785. <category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>
  786. <category><![CDATA[Ukraine]]></category>
  787. <category><![CDATA[United States]]></category>
  788. <category><![CDATA[Vladimir Putin]]></category>
  789. <category><![CDATA[Volodymyr Zelenskyy]]></category>
  790. <category><![CDATA[Sean Parnell]]></category>
  791. <category><![CDATA[Stephen Feinberg]]></category>
  792. <category><![CDATA[Tammy Bruce]]></category>
  793. <category><![CDATA[Walter Lippmann]]></category>
  794. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159773</guid>
  795.  
  796. <description><![CDATA[<p>President Donald Trump thought he had gotten the deal terms and the cover story right, and also the prize for himself (the Nobel Peace Prize ). The deal was that under cover of an authorized leak to the press from Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eldridge Colby, that the US was running out of ammunition [&#8230;]</p>
  797. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/tipping-point/">Tipping Point</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  798. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/3230.jpg&amp;nocache=1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-92027" src="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/3230.jpg&amp;nocache=1" sizes="auto, (max-width: 519px) 100vw, 519px" srcset="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/3230.jpg&amp;nocache=1 551w, https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/3230-300x119.jpg&amp;nocache=1 300w" alt="" width="505" height="200" /></a></p>
  799. <p>President Donald Trump thought he had gotten the deal terms and the cover story right, and also the prize for himself (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/21/pakistan-trump-nobel-prize-recommendation-india-ceasefire"><u>the Nobel Peace Prize</u></a> ).</p>
  800. <p>The deal was that under cover of an authorized leak to the press from Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eldridge Colby, that the US was running out of ammunition for Israel’s war with Iran, for the Ukraine war with Russia, and for US military stocks at their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON"><u>DEFCON  levels</u></a>,  Trump would pause ammunition deliveries to the regime in Kiev, and then persuade President Vladimir Putin to agree to an immediate ceasefire in exchange.</p>
  801. <p>That’s the ceasefire which, since February, Trump has been asking Putin to announce at a summit meeting between the two of them. That’s also the fourth ceasefire in the row which Trump has been counting as his personal achievements – between Pakistan and India on May 10; between Iran and Israel on June 23; and between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda on <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-business/ap-congo-and-rwanda-will-sign-a-us-mediated-peace-deal-to-end-the-conflict-in-eastern-congo/"><u>June 27.</u></a></p>
  802. <p>Only the scheme has failed.</p>
  803. <p>A Moscow source in a position to know explains: “The Russian calculus recognizes the tipping point [for US arms supplies to the Ukraine]. Until then the General Staff will grind away methodically, slowly. Then when the Western supplies run low, we will hit fast and hard. If you total the June attacks, the picture emerges clearly that Putin has chosen the Oreshnik option – without firing it <a href="https://johnhelmer.net/putin-announces-retaliation-strikes-against-americans-french-and-electric-grid-targets-oreshnik-saved-for-a-rainy-day/"><u>yet </u></a> — over compromising on Trump’s terms. The outskirts of Kiev are burning like never before.”</p>
  804. <p>There are American exceptionalists who insist they thought of this before —  in 1943, in fact, when Walter Lippmann spelled out what has come to be called (by Ivy League professors) the “<a href="https://classicsofstrategy.com/2008/09/16/us-foreign-policy/"><u>Lippmann Gap</u></a>”.  This is no more nor less than the ancient maxim — don’t bite off more than you can chew. But in Lippmann’s <a href="https://ia803405.us.archive.org/33/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.74564/2015.74564.U-S-Foreign-Policy-Shield-Of-The-Republic.pdf"><u>verbulation</u></a>:  “Foreign policy consists in bringing into balance, with a comfortable surplus of power in reserve, the nation’s commitments and the nation’s power. I mean by a foreign commitment an obligation, outside the continental limits of the United States, which may in the last analysis have to be met by waging war. I mean by power the force which is necessary to prevent such a war or to win it if it cannot be prevented. In the term necessary power I include the military force which can be mobilized effectively within the domestic territory of the United States and also the reinforcements which can be obtained from dependable allies.”</p>
  805. <p>From the Russian point of view, the first two of Trump’s ceasefires have been clumsily concealed rescues for Pakistan and Israel; the Congo-Rwanda terms remain undecided; and the “necessary power” to reverse the defeat of the US, its “dependable allies”, and its proxies in the Ukraine has already been defeated. It won’t be Putin, however, to announce publicly that Trump has no “comfortable power in reserve”.</p>
  806. <p>That, however, was Putin’s private message to Trump in their telephone call on <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/77354"><u>July 3</u></a>. “Russia would strive to achieve its goals,” was the way Putin allowed his spokesman to disclose:  “namely the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs, the bitter confrontation that we are seeing now. Russia will not back down from these goals.”</p>
  807. <p>This is the reason Trump later <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6375225337112"><u>acknowledged</u></a>: “[I] didn’t make any progress with him today at all.”   It’s also the reason Trump beat a retreat  from <a href="https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-after-air-force-one-arrival-july-4-2025/"><u>failure</u></a>. “I’m very disappointed. Well, it’s not, I just think, I don’t think he’s [Putin] looking to stop. And that’s too bad. This, this fight, this isn’t me. This is Biden’s war.”</p>
  808. <p>Here are the pieces of the intelligence assessment assembled in Moscow which led to the escalation of drone and missile attacks on Kiev since last Thursday night.</p>
  809. <p>The first announcement came from the Pentagon on <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/01/pentagon-munitions-ukraine-halt-00436048"><u>July 1</u></a>. “The Pentagon has halted shipments of some air defense missiles and other precision munitions to Ukraine due to worries that U.S. weapons stockpiles have fallen too low.”   The sources were authorized to identify Elbridge Colby, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, “after a review of Pentagon munitions stockpiles”. “The Pentagon had been dividing munitions into categories of criticality since February, over concerns that the DOD was using too many air defense munitions in Yemen…Plans were in place to redirect key munitions, including artillery shells, tank shells, and air defense systems, back to the U.S. homeland or to Israel.”</p>
  810. <p><a href="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/pentagon-hating.jpg&amp;nocache=1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-92021" src="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/pentagon-hating.jpg&amp;nocache=1" alt="" width="505" height="528" /></a></p>
  811. <p><code>Source: <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/01/pentagon-munitions-ukraine-halt-00436048"><u>https://www.politico.com/</u></a><br />
  812. Note the timing, according to <em>Politico’s</em> “three people familiar with the issue…The initial decision to withhold some aid promised during the Biden administration came in early June, according to the people, but is only taking effect now as Ukraine is beating back some of the largest Russian barrages of missiles and drones at civilian targets in Kyiv and elsewhere. The people were granted anonymity to discuss current operations. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.”</code></p>
  813. <p>Colby has been the brains behind the strategy of sequencing Trump’s wars according to the <a href="https://johnhelmer.net/one-war-at-a-time-and-plenty-of-money-to-be-made-in-the-meantime-this-is-trumps-game-as-the-russian-and-chinese-general-staffs-understand/"><u>bite-off-and-chew rule</u></a>.  But he has not been acting alone. He reports to Deputy Defense Secretary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Feinberg"><u>Stephen Feinberg</u></a>,  a Jewish financier of Trump’s campaigns whose wealth has been accumulated in part from the US defence industry and from his one-time stake in Israel’s largest bank, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-05-19/cerberus-gabriel-to-divide-stake-in-israel-s-leumi"><u>Bank Leumi</u></a>.</p>
  814. <p>The Colby-Feinberg idea was not to admit there was a “Lippmann gap”, but instead to persuade Trump the Israel war should take priority over the Ukraine war;   and that if that choice was made public, the Jewish lobby would prevail over the Ukraine lobby in supporting the president. Trump was also persuaded to acknowledge publicly there is a domestic shortfall of weapons, and in private get Putin to accept the ceasefire Trump had been promoting since their first telephone call on February 12.</p>
  815. <p>Trump dutifully announced at the NATO summit on <a href="https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-nato-summit-the-hague-netherlands-june-25-2025/"><u>June 25</u></a>: “we’re going to see if we can make some [arms] available, they’re very hard to get. They [Ukraine] do want to have the anti-missile missiles, as they call them the Patriots,  and we’re going to see if we can make some available. You know, they’re very hard to get. We need them, too. We were supplying them to Israel and they’re very effective. 100 percent effective.  Hard to believe how effective. And they do want that more than any other thing, as you probably know.”</p>
  816. <p>Trump then tried with Putin on the telephone on <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/77354"><u>July 3</u></a>. He “once again raised the issue of ending the hostilities as soon as possible,” Putin’s spokesman Yury Ushakov confirmed  Trump’s ceasefire pitch in the Kremlin read-out.</p>
  817. <p>But Putin <a href="https://johnhelmer.net/president-vladimir-putin-did-not-ask-president-donald-trump-for-a-bottle-of-his-fight-fight-fight-and-victory-perfumes-im-not-happy-about-that-trump-has-revealed/"><u>said</u></a> no ceasefire now. “In turn, Vladimir Putin noted that we still continued the search for a political, negotiated solution to the conflict…the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs…Russia will not back down from these goals.”</p>
  818. <p>“I’m not happy about that,” Trump <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6375225337112"><u>said</u></a> five hours later. “No, I didn’t make any progress with him today at all.”</p>
  819. <p>Another hour went by and Trump <a href="https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-after-air-force-one-arrival-july-4-2025/"><u>repeated</u></a>:  “Yeah, very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, ’cause I don’t think he’s there. I don’t think he’s there.”</p>
  820. <p>In Moscow an official source noted: “He is not telling why Zelensky is not there, not signing on the terms.”</p>
  821. <p>Trump followed on the morning of July 4 in a telephone call with Vladimir Zelensky to discuss new Patriot missile and other arms deliveries to the Ukraine.</p>
  822. <p><a href="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/trump-question.jpg&amp;nocache=1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-92022" src="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/trump-question.jpg&amp;nocache=1" sizes="auto, (max-width: 519px) 100vw, 519px" srcset="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/trump-question.jpg&amp;nocache=1 612w, https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/trump-question-300x178.jpg&amp;nocache=1 300w" alt="" width="505" height="300" /></a></p>
  823. <p><code>Source: <a href="https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-after-air-force-one-arrival-july-4-2025/"><u>https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-after-air-force-one-arrival-july-4-2025/</u></a> </code></p>
  824. <p>After the call with Zelensky, Trump was uncharacteristically silent. Zelensky did all the talking <a href="https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1941140278980526341"><u>instead</u></a>. “We spoke about opportunities in air defence and agreed that we will work together to strengthen protection of our skies. We have also agreed to a meeting between our teams. We had a detailed conversation about defence industry capabilities and joint production. We are ready for direct projects with the United States and believe this is critically important for security, especially when it comes to drones and related technologies.”</p>
  825. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-92023" src="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/kyibv-post.jpg&amp;nocache=1" alt="" width="505" height="260" /></p>
  826. <p><code>Source: <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/post/55728"><u>https://www.kyivpost.com/post/55728</u></a> </code></p>
  827. <p>“We also touched on mutual procurement and investment,” Zelensky <a href="https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1941140278980526341"><u>added </u></a>— “we exchanged views on the diplomatic situation and joint work with the U.S. and other partners.”</p>
  828. <p>This was a reference to proposals from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to run down his remaining stocks of Patriot missiles and their radar and launch batteries; send them to Kiev; and buy more from the US.  The <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/07/01/world-news/trump-admin-halts-some-weapons-shipments-to-ukraine-to-put-americas-interests-first/"><u>list</u></a> of US arms shipments which have been halted reportedly include 155mm artillery rounds, Patriot air defence systems, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, Stinger, AIM-7 and Hellfire missiles.</p>
  829. <p>As the Kremlin <a href="https://johnhelmer.net/when-the-strategy-of-words-fights-the-strategy-of-force-who-wins-the-war/"><u>interpreted</u></a> the call, there was no sign from Trump that he was asking or telling  Zelensky to accept any of the Russian terms which have been tabled in Istanbul.</p>
  830. <p>At the State Department, spokesman Tammy Bruce stumbled awkwardly over what to admit was the Feinberg-Colby plan which Trump had accepted, and what alternatives remained for the Ukraine. The decision-making had come from the Pentagon, not from State, Bruce claimed. She then read out from a prepared <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/07/01/world-news/trump-admin-halts-some-weapons-shipments-to-ukraine-to-put-americas-interests-first/"><u>script</u></a> quoting a White House press release and a statement from Colby.    “We don’t make decisions about the shipping of weapons,” Bruce <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/a4kk6L7uIaQ?t=4422s"><u>said</u></a>. “The DoD statement made clear that they have robust options as we continue to work to assist Ukraine when it comes to the options they might have from the DoD, and I don’t doubt that. So we should, I think, be cautious about judging the nature of what has just occurred, considering our commitment that remains for the country of Ukraine.”</p>
  831. <p><a href="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/tammy-bruce.jpg&amp;nocache=1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-92024" src="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/tammy-bruce.jpg&amp;nocache=1" sizes="auto, (max-width: 519px) 100vw, 519px" srcset="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/tammy-bruce.jpg&amp;nocache=1 578w, https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/tammy-bruce-300x80.jpg&amp;nocache=1 300w" alt="" width="505" height="129" /></a></p>
  832. <p><code>Left: State Department statement by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/a4kk6L7uIaQ?t=4422s"><u>Tammy Bruce</u></a>. Right, Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell reads out prepared <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sQB9SDB7yo"><u>script</u></a>. For more on the gap between DoD and State, read <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/02/ukraine-weapons-freeze-elbridge-colby-00438156"><u>this</u></a>.  </code></p>
  833. <p>“A capability review is being conducted,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell read out, “to ensure US military aid aligns with our defense priorities, and we will not be providing any updates to specific quantities or types of munitions being provided to Ukraine, or the timelines associated with these transfers,” he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sQB9SDB7yo"><u>said</u></a>. “We see this as a common sense pragmatic step …to evaluate what munitions are sent and where. But we want to be very clear about this last point. Let it be known that our military has everything that it needs to conduct any mission anywhere, anytime, all around the world.”</p>
  834. <p>In fact, as Colby <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/07/01/world-news/trump-admin-halts-some-weapons-shipments-to-ukraine-to-put-americas-interests-first/"><u>said</u></a>, the “capability review” had already concluded and Feinberg had agreed with the White House in early June —  before Israel launched its war on Iran on June 13.   As the US and Israel fired far more ordnance at Iran than Colby and Feinberg had anticipated, they became nervous at the backlash this caused at State and National Security Council. “The Department of Defense continues,” Colby told the <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/07/01/world-news/trump-admin-halts-some-weapons-shipments-to-ukraine-to-put-americas-interests-first/"><em><u>New York Post</u></em></a>,  “to provide the President with robust options to continue military aid to Ukraine, consistent with his goal of bringing this tragic war to an end. At the same time, the Department is rigorously examining and adapting its approach to achieving this objective while also preserving US forces’ readiness for Administration defense priorities. Department of Defense leadership works as a cohesive and smoothly-running team under the leadership of Secretary of Defense Hegseth. This is yet another attempt to portray division that does not exist…America’s potential adversaries know all of this and are acting accordingly.”</p>
  835. <p>Putin has acknowledged publicly there has been no movement from Washington or Kiev towards the Russian end-of-war terms. “These [Russian, US-Ukrainian] are two absolutely opposing memorandums,” he <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/77316"><u>told</u></a> the press, “but that is precisely why talks are set up and held – to find ways to bring positions closer. The fact that they were diametrically opposed does not seem surprising to me, either. I would not like to go into details, as I believe it would be counterproductive – even harmful – to get ahead of the talks.”</p>
  836. <p>From Ushakov’s read-out of the July 3 call, it is clear Trump and Putin were unable to agree on a date for a new round of Istanbul negotiations. “The two presidents will naturally continue communicating and will have another conversation soon,” Ushakov <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/77354"><u>reported</u></a>.   This is Russian for don’t call me, I’ll call you.</p>
  837. <p>The General Staff then launched its largest air attack on Kiev since the war began, continuing the operation from the night of July 4 through the night of July 5. The majority of the <a href="https://t.me/lost_armour/5764"><u>weapons</u></a> used were Russian and Iranian drones. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136"><u>According</u></a> to Boris Rozhin, the leading military blogger in Moscow,  “it is not entirely clear how the supply of missiles for the Patriot air defence system — if the United States will allow them — will save Ukraine from the growing flow of  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136"><u>Gerans</u></a> [and <a href="https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/russia_uses_modified_gerbera_decoy_drone_to_target_ukrainian_buk_m1_system_for_the_first_time_video-14247.html"><u>Gerberas</u></a> ]. Shooting down the Geran heroes with Patriot missiles is absolutely pointless from an economic point of view.” <a href="https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin">July 4 Min 22:54</a>.</p>
  838. <p>Oleg Tsarev, a leading Ukrainian opposition politician based in Crimea, <a href="https://t.me/olegtsarov/30762"><u>commented </u></a>“several thoughts about the termination of the United States’ supply of some weapons to Kiev. This is certainly great news, but we should not forget that, firstly, we are not talking about stopping the supply of all weapons, but only about some of the names, and secondly, the rear of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is the entire European Union, all Western countries, on which we do not strike.  And thirdly, Ukraine is largely holding the front with drones and electronic warfare, and with the supply of these components they have no problems and none is foreseen.”</p>
  839. <p><a href="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/russia-pounds.jpg&amp;nocache=1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-92025" src="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/russia-pounds.jpg&amp;nocache=1" sizes="auto, (max-width: 519px) 100vw, 519px" srcset="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/russia-pounds.jpg&amp;nocache=1 596w, https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/russia-pounds-300x128.jpg&amp;nocache=1 300w" alt="" width="505" height="212" /></a></p>
  840. <p><code>Source: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russian-drone-attack-triggers-fire-roof-apartment-block-officials-say-2025-07-03/"><u>https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russian-drone-attack-triggers-fire-roof-apartment-block-officials-say-2025-07-03/</u></a> </code></p>
  841. <p><a href="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/colcass-air.jpg&amp;nocache=1"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-92026" src="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/colcass-air.jpg&amp;nocache=1" sizes="auto, (max-width: 519px) 100vw, 519px" srcset="https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/colcass-air.jpg&amp;nocache=1 576w, https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/colcass-air-300x209.jpg&amp;nocache=1 300w" alt="" width="505" height="351" /></a></p>
  842. <p><code>Map of Russian air attacks on the evening of July 4 -- source: <a href="https://t.me/boris_rozhin/171383"><u>https://t.me/boris_rozhin/171383</u></a><br />
  843. For the July 5 map, click: <a href="https://t.me/boris_rozhin/171467"><u>https://t.me/boris_rozhin/171467</u></a> </code></p>
  844. <p>The Moscow consensus now is to escalate westwards from the front on the ground, and by air attack on Kiev, and wait for Trump. “Either Trump agrees on fresh direct shipments, or he will pretend that indirect shipments are a compromise, or he will abandon Zelensky to his fate. So we talk peace and keep moving on all fronts, keep hitting everything military. It is fast reaching the point where even if there was no Israel sector, Iran sector, Yemen sector, the US cannot save Ukraine. The US and Europe certainly can’t defeat Russia. That’s the calculus.”</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/tipping-point/">Tipping Point</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  848. </item>
  849. <item>
  850. <title>Vulgarity of Money</title>
  851. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/vulgarity-of-money-think-of-it-as-traumatic-insemination/</link>
  853. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Paul Haeder]]></dc:creator>
  854. <pubDate>Thu, 10 Jul 2025 07:13:32 +0000</pubDate>
  855. <category><![CDATA[Beliefs]]></category>
  856. <category><![CDATA[Children/Youth]]></category>
  857. <category><![CDATA[Genocide]]></category>
  858. <category><![CDATA[History]]></category>
  859. <category><![CDATA[Imperialism]]></category>
  860. <category><![CDATA[Islamophobia]]></category>
  861. <category><![CDATA[Militarism]]></category>
  862. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
  863. <category><![CDATA[Prejudice]]></category>
  864. <category><![CDATA[Racism]]></category>
  865. <category><![CDATA[Supremacism]]></category>
  866. <category><![CDATA[Zionism]]></category>
  867. <category><![CDATA[Jewish Terrorism]]></category>
  868. <category><![CDATA[Judaism as white supremacy]]></category>
  869. <category><![CDATA[sicarios and jews]]></category>
  870. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159148</guid>
  871.  
  872. <description><![CDATA[<p>Well, I wrote this below a while back, and I am updating it here: If anything you do brave liberators of Gaza, just find these people and immolate them many on my Substack tell me: &#8220;Court said to approve mom’s request to use fallen soldier son’s sperm to have grandchild. Sharon Eisenkot permitted to use [&#8230;]</p>
  873. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/vulgarity-of-money-think-of-it-as-traumatic-insemination/">Vulgarity of Money</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  874. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="post-header" role="region" aria-label="Post header">
  875. <h1 class="post-title published"></h1>
  876. <p>Well, I wrote this below a while back, and I am updating it here:</p>
  877. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!s5r9!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1a6d34ca-511c-42ff-981d-ada2906118a8_887x716.png" width="282" height="228" /></p>
  878. <p>If anything you do brave liberators of Gaza, just find these people and immolate them many on my Substack tell me: &#8220;Court said to approve mom’s request to use fallen soldier son’s sperm to have grandchild.</p>
  879. <p>Sharon Eisenkot permitted to use sperm of 19-year-old son Maor, Golani fighter killed in Gaza who was also nephew of ex-IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot.</p>
  880. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!p6FP!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6c58fbc8-01da-4dc7-99dd-cf535fc12b9a_2048x1365.jpeg" width="437" height="291" /></p>
  881. <p>This is what domination looks like. This is what schizophrenia looks like. This is what white supremacy looks like. While what, 100 a day murdered and imploded by Israel, those non-humans they call rats and roaches and snakes &#8212; Gazans.</p>
  882. <p>[War cabinet minister and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, with family and friends, at the funeral of his son Gal, in Herzliya on December 8, 2023.]</p>
  883. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_eX8!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffe01e327-4843-4513-8a0f-7ed66ae1a283_595x374.png" width="355" height="223" /></p>
  884. <p>So, there are many levels of leeching and leeches: This is not an in-your-face CRIME?</p>
  885. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!fTY-!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9feca03b-087d-4d06-a111-1127cc22a8cd_770x770.png" alt="INTERACTIVE_WATER_DEHYDRATION_GAZA_NOV7_2023-1699368977" width="459" height="459" /></p>
  886. <p><strong>THOUSANDS OF FAMILIES CUT OFF FROM WATER:</strong> <a href="https://aje.io/gvcsv2?update=3821298" rel="">A municipality spokesman</a> has told Al Jazeera that thousands of families in eastern Gaza City have been without water for about a week. Asem al-Nabi said the water blockade means Palestinians there are now suffering from a state of dehydration that cannot be addressed without external intervention.</p>
  887. <p>Here, my Substack Headlines in the News Feed of Haeder rant: <a href="https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/now-mothers-of-iof-want-sons-sperm">Now Mothers of IOF Want Sons&#8217; Sperm for more Evil Offspring</a></p>
  888. <p>Continuing the DV piece =+</p>
  889. <p class="subtitle"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Leeches.</span></p>
  890. </div>
  891. <div>
  892. <div class="available-content">
  893. <div class="body markup" dir="auto">
  894. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  895. <figure>
  896. <div class="image2-inset">
  897. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0916ad3e-ed84-42cb-b282-c402e970c475_1219x681.png" alt="" width="366" height="204" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/0916ad3e-ed84-42cb-b282-c402e970c475_1219x681.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:681,&quot;width&quot;:1219,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:958741,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0916ad3e-ed84-42cb-b282-c402e970c475_1219x681.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  898. </div>
  899. </figure>
  900. </div>
  901. <p>Several times, the question arose of whether Menachem Begin saw any comparison between the struggle of the Palestinians and the Jews’ War of Independence.</p>
  902. <p>Once, Mike Wallace, the well-known American interviewer asked him directly,</p>
  903. <blockquote><p>“Mr. Prime Minister, you were the commander of a terrorist organization. Do you see any comparison between this and the PLO?”</p></blockquote>
  904. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  905. <figure>
  906. <div class="image2-inset">
  907. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F377cce9f-153e-46af-8e28-1a629138c0f5_317x378.png" alt="" width="180" height="215" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/377cce9f-153e-46af-8e28-1a629138c0f5_317x378.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:378,&quot;width&quot;:317,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:271,&quot;bytes&quot;:191459,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F377cce9f-153e-46af-8e28-1a629138c0f5_317x378.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  908. </div>
  909. </figure>
  910. </div>
  911. <p>Begin replied,</p>
  912. <blockquote><p>“There’s nothing at all to compare. We fought to liberate our land from a foreign regime, from the British. They want to wipe us off the face of the Earth and take our land from us, because this land is ours. We threw out the British because the land is ours. What do the Arabs want? To throw us out of our land! There’s no comparison between the PLO, or any group of murderers of theirs. Another issue is the method of battle. They kill every man, woman, and child, whereas we did everything to avoid harming civilians. True, sometimes disasters happened, and civilians were hurt, but this was not part of our battle tactics.”</p></blockquote>
  913. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  914. <figure>
  915. <div class="image2-inset">
  916. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="A microscopic image of the spiny aedeagus of a bean weevil, as seen from behind the beetle" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3e2f0b92-c5b5-4557-8c18-751b8da9f343_461x400.jpeg" alt="A microscopic image of the spiny aedeagus of a bean weevil, as seen from behind the beetle" width="274" height="238" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/3e2f0b92-c5b5-4557-8c18-751b8da9f343_461x400.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:400,&quot;width&quot;:461,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;A microscopic image of the spiny aedeagus of a bean weevil, as seen from behind the beetle&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  917. <div class="image-link-expand">
  918. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset">
  919. <div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/twitter/public/imports/ReaganBeginFlagWhiteHouseIsrael.jpg?h=4c1fc98e&amp;itok=uh0xs0t2" alt="The Begin Phenomenon | The Washington Institute" width="423" height="211" /></div>
  920. </div>
  921. </div>
  922. </div>
  923. </figure>
  924. </div>
  925. <p>So, is it Zionism or Jewish Zionism or Israeli Judaism that is the global pandemic, the virus, or the parasite? Asking the questions and proposing the answers are all part of that super duper thought experiment, nothing to do with antisemitism<strong>. </strong></p>
  926. <blockquote><p>Read: <strong> Traumatic insemination</strong>, also known as <strong>hypodermic insemination</strong>, is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mating" rel="">mating</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sexual_behaviour" rel="">practice</a> in some species of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invertebrate" rel="">invertebrates</a> in which the male pierces the female&#8217;s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdomen" rel="">abdomen</a> with his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aedeagus" rel="">aedeagus</a> and injects his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm" rel="">sperm</a> through the wound into her abdominal cavity (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemocoel" rel="">hemocoel</a>).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination#cite_note-Arn-1" rel=""><sup>[1]</sup></a> The sperm diffuses through the female&#8217;s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemolymph" rel="">hemolymph</a>, reaching the ovaries and resulting in fertilization.</p>
  927. <p>The process is detrimental to the female&#8217;s health. It creates an open wound which impairs the female until it heals, and is susceptible to infection. The injection of sperm and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semen" rel="">ejaculatory fluids</a> into the hemocoel can also trigger an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_reaction" rel="">immune reaction</a> in the female. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_bug" rel="">Bed bugs</a>, which reproduce solely by traumatic insemination, have evolved a pair of sperm-receptacles, known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermalege" rel="">spermalege</a>. It has been suggested that the spermalege reduces the direct damage to the female bed bug during traumatic insemination. However experiments found no conclusive evidence for that hypothesis; as of 2003, the preferred explanation for that organ is hygienic protection against bacteria.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination#cite_note-reinhardt-2" rel=""><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
  928. <p>The evolutionary origins of traumatic insemination are disputed. Although it <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution" rel="">evolved independently</a> in many <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invertebrate" rel="">invertebrate</a> species, traumatic insemination is most highly adapted and thoroughly studied in bed bugs, particularly <em>Cimex lectularius</em>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination#cite_note-Arn-1" rel=""><sup>[1]</sup></a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination#cite_note-mono-3" rel=""><sup>[3]</sup></a> Traumatic insemination is not limited to male-female couplings, or even couplings of the same species. Both <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals" rel="">homosexual</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interspecies_breeding" rel="">inter-species</a> traumatic inseminations have been observed.</p></blockquote>
  929. <p style="text-align: center;">*****</p>
  930. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  931. <figure>
  932. <div class="image2-inset">
  933. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F94609295-3eb3-4484-b42f-7792cf6d4109_829x690.png" alt="" width="357" height="297" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/94609295-3eb3-4484-b42f-7792cf6d4109_829x690.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:690,&quot;width&quot;:829,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:870692,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F94609295-3eb3-4484-b42f-7792cf6d4109_829x690.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  934. </div>
  935. </figure>
  936. </div>
  937. <p><strong>Capitalism: A Rape Story! Qatar?</strong></p>
  938. <p>Turns out that Israel isn’t the only foreign power that commands tremendous influence over the United States thanks to lobbying (via AIPAC).</p>
  939. <p>Enter Qatar.</p>
  940. <ul>
  941. <li>From 2017, Qatar spent over $220 million on lobbying in the US, if the recent media reports and publicly available data are to be believed.</li>
  942. <li>Qatar has become a major, if not the largest, source of donations to US universities, providing them with over $6 billion over the last 15 years.</li>
  943. <li>The cost of maintaining the United States’ massive Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar is covered by Doha.</li>
  944. <li>Some of Trump’s inner circle members have ties to Qatar: his chief of staff Susie Wiles was the head of Mercury Public Affairs lobbying firm when it represented Qatar embassy in the US; FBI Director Kash Patel previously worked for Qatar as a consultant.</li>
  945. <li>Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff had his Park Lane Hotel investment, which was not doing too good at the time, bought out in 2003 by Qatar for $623 million.</li>
  946. <li>US Attorney General Pam Bondi previously worked as a lobbyist for the Qatari embassy.</li>
  947. <li>Trump himself has received a lavish gift from Qatar in the form of a Boeing 747 jet worth $400 that will become property of his presidential library when his presidential term ends.</li>
  948. </ul>
  949. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  950. <figure>
  951. <div class="image2-inset">
  952. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb23af3f2-3489-4c2d-ba00-03ed66ee7c37_846x567.png" alt="" width="348" height="233" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b23af3f2-3489-4c2d-ba00-03ed66ee7c37_846x567.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:567,&quot;width&quot;:846,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:497662,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb23af3f2-3489-4c2d-ba00-03ed66ee7c37_846x567.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  953. </div>
  954. </figure>
  955. </div>
  956. <p>Devolution:</p>
  957. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  958. <figure>
  959. <div class="image2-inset">
  960. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd38c3e3c-50d3-4895-9a8e-7039582b4e59_691x295.png" alt="" width="513" height="219" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d38c3e3c-50d3-4895-9a8e-7039582b4e59_691x295.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:295,&quot;width&quot;:691,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:297695,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd38c3e3c-50d3-4895-9a8e-7039582b4e59_691x295.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  961. </div>
  962. </figure>
  963. </div>
  964. <p>And now? That bed bug, or beetle:</p>
  965. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  966. <figure>
  967. <div class="image2-inset">
  968. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78b4cde6-d5ad-48ad-a4d3-b0db48c13564_591x388.png" alt="" width="402" height="264" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/78b4cde6-d5ad-48ad-a4d3-b0db48c13564_591x388.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:388,&quot;width&quot;:591,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:390134,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78b4cde6-d5ad-48ad-a4d3-b0db48c13564_591x388.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  969. </div>
  970. </figure>
  971. </div>
  972. <p>Trump and Israel, or, the male beetle and the male bed bug &#8230; the female seed beetle (or bean weevil; <em>Callosobruchus maculatus</em>) has to contend with her partner’s nightmarish penis – an organ covered in hard, sharp spikes. Just see if you can look at the picture on the right without wincing.</p>
  973. <p>It’s no surprise then that females sustain heavy injuries during sex. But why have male beetles evolved such hellish genitals? What benefits do they gain by physically harming their partners?</p>
  974. <p>It’s possible that the injuries directly benefit the males, either because they stop the females from mating again or spend more efforts in raising their fertilised eggs to avoid the strain of future liaisons.</p>
  975. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  976. <figure>
  977. <div class="image2-inset">
  978. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3f9d5e03-0fc9-4d27-9331-f1afc6118e17_701x534.png" alt="" width="387" height="295" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/3f9d5e03-0fc9-4d27-9331-f1afc6118e17_701x534.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:534,&quot;width&quot;:701,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:591,&quot;bytes&quot;:340853,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3f9d5e03-0fc9-4d27-9331-f1afc6118e17_701x534.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  979. </div>
  980. </figure>
  981. </div>
  982. <p>Below — a variation on the theme of traumatic copulation, beetle and bed bug, both blood suckers.</p>
  983. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  984. <figure>
  985. <div class="image2-inset">
  986. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F330f6de7-e2a5-4474-b4f8-056881e7ea41_693x475.png" alt="" width="371" height="254" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/330f6de7-e2a5-4474-b4f8-056881e7ea41_693x475.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:475,&quot;width&quot;:693,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:521,&quot;bytes&quot;:447752,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F330f6de7-e2a5-4474-b4f8-056881e7ea41_693x475.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  987. </div>
  988. </figure>
  989. </div>
  990. <p>We need Che, man, a few tens of millions of Ches:</p>
  991. <p><strong>Ten Years ago, this Source:<em> </em></strong><a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/resources/reports-and-publications/19930-che-guevara-in-gaza-palestine-becomes-a-global-cause" rel=""><em>Middle East Monitor</em></a></p>
  992. <p>Che Guevara’s visit to Gaza in 1959 was the first sign of transforming the Zionist colonization of Palestine from a regional conflict to a global struggle against colonialism. The trigger was the Bandung conference in 1955 and the resulting Non-Aligned Movement, whose members has just recently shaken the yoke of foreign domination. The stature of Nasser, as a world leader in the struggle against Imperialism and colonialism, brought world leaders to see for themselves the devastating results of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, clearly demonstrated in Gaza refugee camps.</p>
  993. <p>Gaza Strip became the symbol of Palestine. This tiny sliver of land (1.3% of Palestine) remained the only place raising the flag of Palestine. It carried a major part of al Nakba burden when it became the temporary shelter for the inhabitant of 247 villages, expelled from their homes in southern Palestine. Villages in the south were ethnically cleansed by the Israeli military operation “Yoav”, also termed “The Ten Plagues”, in October 1948. Not a single Palestinian village remained. This act of total ethnic cleansing was propelled by several massacres which took place in Al Dawayima, Bayt Daras, Isdud, Burayr, among others.</p>
  994. <p>Refugees, now corralled into Gaza Strip, were not immune from Israeli attacks even after their expulsion. The Majdal hospital was bombed in November 1948, as was the nearby al Joura village, which stood on the site of ancient Ashkelon and from which many future Hamas leaders would emerge. In January 1949, Israelis bombed food distribution centers in Dayr Al Balah and Khan Younis at peak hours, leaving over 200 bodies decimated by air raids. These raids led the usually restrained Red Cross to describe it as a “scene of horror”.</p>
  995. <p>The occupation of Palestinian land and the expulsion of its population gave rise to a resistance movement, known then as the fedayeen. These resistance fighters crossed the Armistice line to attack the occupiers of their land.</p>
  996. <p>In order to stop the incursions of the fedayeen and eliminate the idea of resistance, Israel continuously attacked the Gaza Strip refugee camps. In August 1953, Unit 101, led by Ariel Sharon, attacked Bureij refugee camp and killed 43 people in their beds. In August 1955, Israel, again led by Ariel Sharon, blew up the Khan Younis police station killing 74 policemen. In the same year, the Israelis killed 37 Egyptian soldiers in Gaza railway station and 28 others who were on their way to defend the others. The last attack changed the course of history in the region.</p>
  997. <p>Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser, who assumed power in Egypt in July 1952, signed the first armaments deal with the Soviet Block for arms denied to him by the British. He also authorised the fedayeen resistance by officially organising them under Colonel Mustafa Hafez.</p>
  998. <p>On 29 October 1956 Israel invaded Sinai in collusion with Britain and France. The attacking Israeli soldiers entered Khan Younis on 3 November 1956, and collected all males between the ages of 15 and 50 from their homes and shot them in cold blood at their doorstep or against a wall in the town’s main square. The names of the 520 people killed have been listed. The following week, another massacre of refugees took place in Rafah. There were a deafening silence in the West about these massacres until the gifted cartoonist Joe Sacco immortalised them in his book Footnotes in Gaza.</p>
  999. <p>These tragic events came to the world’s attention when Nasser became one of the recognised leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement starting with Bandung conference in 1955. Gaza Strip and Palestine came globally to light as the latest case of colonialism and ethnic cleansing.</p>
  1000. <ul>
  1001. <li style="text-align: center;">Fig-1</li>
  1002. </ul>
  1003. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1004. <figure>
  1005. <div class="image2-inset">
  1006. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb75366bd-4419-4f11-adb6-a8f3210b83a6_800x599.jpeg" alt="" width="452" height="338" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b75366bd-4419-4f11-adb6-a8f3210b83a6_800x599.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:599,&quot;width&quot;:800,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1007. <div class="image-link-expand"></div>
  1008. </div>
  1009. </figure>
  1010. </div>
  1011. <ul>
  1012. <li style="text-align: center;">Fig-2</li>
  1013. </ul>
  1014. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1015. <figure>
  1016. <div class="image2-inset">
  1017. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb490fafa-86d3-4417-a8bc-81073e82ae92_800x608.jpeg" alt="" width="400" height="304" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b490fafa-86d3-4417-a8bc-81073e82ae92_800x608.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:608,&quot;width&quot;:800,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1018. </div>
  1019. </figure>
  1020. </div>
  1021. <p>As a result of this political development, Che Guevara, the Latin American revolutionary, came to visit Gaza Strip at Nasser’s invitation.</p>
  1022. <p>Guevara’s visit was momentous. It was the first time that a famous revolutionary comes to see the devastation created by Al Nakba first hand. He was met most enthusiastically by resistance leaders, such as Abdullah Abu Sitta, leader of the fedayeen (and leader of the southern front in the Arab Revolt of 1936, seen in <strong>[Fig-1]</strong>, to the extreme right in Arab dress) and Qassem el Farra, third from right, Secretary of Khan Younis Municipality who kept records of fedayeen and their activities. Both were members of Palestine Legislative Council.</p>
  1023. <p>According to evidence I received from contemporaries about the visit, Guevara told Palestinian refugees they must continue the struggle to liberate their land. There was no way but resistance to occupation, he said. He admitted that their case was “complex” because the new Jewish settlers occupied their homes. “The right must eventually be restored”, he affirmed. He offered to supply arms and training but Castro wanted this aid to be coordinated through Nasser.</p>
  1024. <div class="captioned-image-container" style="text-align: center;">
  1025. <figure>
  1026. <div class="image2-inset">
  1027. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fabb74c1f-8db9-4e30-8c51-0ea16a0ffb87_800x1254.jpeg" alt="" width="518" height="812" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/abb74c1f-8db9-4e30-8c51-0ea16a0ffb87_800x1254.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1254,&quot;width&quot;:800,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1028. </div><figcaption class="image-caption">Fig-4</figcaption></figure>
  1029. </div>
  1030. <p>Mustafa Abu Middain, Al Bureij camp leader, took Guevara to visit the camp and showed him cases of poverty and hardship. “We have worse case of poverty”, Guevara shot back. “You should show me what you have done to liberate your country. Where are the training camps? Where are the factories to manufacture arms? Where are people’s mobilisation centres?”</p>
  1031. <div class="captioned-image-container" style="text-align: center;">
  1032. <figure>
  1033. <div class="image2-inset">
  1034. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff12c2afb-1304-435f-bd63-cabbda1ac059_300x541.jpeg" alt="" width="142" height="256" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f12c2afb-1304-435f-bd63-cabbda1ac059_300x541.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:541,&quot;width&quot;:300,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:208,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1035. </div><figcaption class="image-caption">Fig-3</figcaption></figure>
  1036. </div>
  1037. <p>Guevara was accompanied by General Caprera, an expert in Guerilla warfare. Caprera <strong>[Fig-2, with the beard]</strong> met with community leaders to advise on methods of resistance. Guevara became the icon of Palestinian resistance and struggle for freedom.<strong>[Fig-3]</strong></p>
  1038. <p>Nasser took great interest in Guevara’s visit. He met him in his office, took him to public and official functions, introduced him to community leaders and presented him with medals <strong>[Fig-4, composite photo].</strong> That was the start of very close relationship of revolutionary Latin America with Nasser and the Palestinians till this day.</p>
  1039. <p>After the visit, Cuba gave scholarships to Palestinian students, granted citizenships for stranded Palestinians and held many conferences in support of Palestine.</p>
  1040. <p>During the Israeli war on Gaza in the summer of 2014 Cuba sent tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza and received the injured. The support spread to most Latin American countries. El Salvador, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil have all withdrawn their ambassadors from Israel in protest. Bolivia’s President Evo Morales labeled Israel a “terrorist state” and restricted the entry of Israelis into the country. President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela “vigorously condemned the actions of the illegal state of Israel against the heroic Palestinian people”. Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign with Palestine was very vocal both in the official and popular fields. The presidents of Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela issued a joint statement calling for a cessation of violence and an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza Strip.</p>
  1041. <div class="captioned-image-container" style="text-align: center;">
  1042. <figure>
  1043. <div class="image2-inset">
  1044. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F13bd881f-79d3-45f0-9cc5-c55c0a3fe391_300x221.jpeg" alt="" width="259" height="191" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/13bd881f-79d3-45f0-9cc5-c55c0a3fe391_300x221.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:221,&quot;width&quot;:300,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1045. </div><figcaption class="image-caption">Fig-5</figcaption></figure>
  1046. </div>
  1047. <p>In the 1950s, Guevara was not the only well known personality of the Non-Aligned Movement to endorse the rights of Palestinians in a free Palestine. Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, also, came to visit Gaza in the same period <strong>[Fig-5].</strong> That was the start of close Indian and other Asian support for Palestine.</p>
  1048. <p>Today Palestine is the symbol of the struggle of liberation from the last and longest colonial project. That is why over three quarters of the world countries support Palestine in the United Nations. Those few who did not are the remnants of the old colonial Western countries which created the colonial project in Palestine in the first place.</p>
  1049. <p style="text-align: center;">*****</p>
  1050. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1051. <figure>
  1052. <div class="image2-inset">
  1053. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe36fa418-3292-4a08-a7f3-2e6e5ba641d7_596x404.png" alt="" width="444" height="301" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e36fa418-3292-4a08-a7f3-2e6e5ba641d7_596x404.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:404,&quot;width&quot;:596,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:384281,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe36fa418-3292-4a08-a7f3-2e6e5ba641d7_596x404.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1054. </div>
  1055. </figure>
  1056. </div>
  1057. <p>Hero on the right, above, and alas, the golden shower (probably) young girls on the lap and in the bedroom (certainly) Epstein/Mossad/Bibi Honey Pot/Trap Tapes on the left, the Apprentice, Rapist in Chief.</p>
  1058. <p>Here’s Dennis Kucinich, back to recovering some of his senses after working for RFK Jr to head to the White Man&#8217;s House:</p>
  1059. <p>But, he still takes that dirty regime’s ploy, using a lion (hader) as their touchstone for murdering Iranians, when nothing about Israeli Jews is like a LION:</p>
  1060. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1061. <figure>
  1062. <div class="image2-inset">
  1063. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4dad2131-a8a5-4ee3-88a0-2215a83acddd_695x647.png" alt="" width="394" height="367" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/4dad2131-a8a5-4ee3-88a0-2215a83acddd_695x647.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:647,&quot;width&quot;:695,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:825953,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4dad2131-a8a5-4ee3-88a0-2215a83acddd_695x647.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1064. </div>
  1065. </figure>
  1066. </div>
  1067. <blockquote><p>Dennis: Israel’s government, which has undertaken, with prevaricative impunity the illegal occupation and theft of Palestinian water sources, farmland, homes, property, and energy resources through ethnic cleansing and the execrable crimes of mass starvation and genocide in Gaza, has further escalated a world crisis by the preemptive bombing attack on Iran, through a self-proclaimed “Operation Rising Lion.”</p>
  1068. <p>This deadly deceit is of monumental proportions that one must struggle with the horrific reality it presents.</p>
  1069. <p>Attempting to label such crimes as a defensive strikes does violence to reason. The historical record will show that Israel’s oft-repeated insistence on the Iranian nuclear weapon threat was a contrivance to justify an arms buildup funded almost entirely by the American taxpayer.</p>
  1070. <p>America’s so-called defense of Israel’s freedom has been turned into a protection racket of such dimensions as to make the mafia blush. That racket has its own devises. Democratic and Republican Administrations, alike, have been contemplating an attack on Iran for decades. President Trump’s assurances of avoiding war while working closely with Netanyahu damages the President’s credibility, either he was not telling the truth or he was misled by people in his own foreign policy establishment.</p>
  1071. <p>Israel’s government now defines freedom thusly: Freedom to commit genocide, freedom to starve a defenseless population, freedom to wage aggressive war, and freedom to posture and to lie about all of their inhuman actions before the entire world and to demand everyone agree or be smeared as “anti-semites.”</p>
  1072. <p style="text-align: center;">*****</p>
  1073. </blockquote>
  1074. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1075. <figure>
  1076. <div class="image2-inset">
  1077. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fff5014d2-c1df-42ac-aa52-8041e90a207c_552x755.png" alt="" width="383" height="524" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/ff5014d2-c1df-42ac-aa52-8041e90a207c_552x755.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:755,&quot;width&quot;:552,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:716773,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fff5014d2-c1df-42ac-aa52-8041e90a207c_552x755.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1078. </div>
  1079. </figure>
  1080. </div>
  1081. <p>This guy sells dildos with his daughter. Look up those videos, man: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach today met with Democratic Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. and discussed Israel, the rise of antisemitism, and Kennedy’s recent tweet where he supported Roger Waters.</p>
  1082. <blockquote><p>“It was courageous of Bobby to come and meet me and reassert his lifelong support of Israel and the Jewish people, continuing in the legacy of his great father who was murdered by Palestinian gunman Sirhan Sirhan because of his own support of Israel in 1968.”</p></blockquote>
  1083. <p>Rabbi Shmuley and Kennedy discussed the volatile situation in the Middle East and the challenges facing America for more than two hours.</p>
  1084. <p>Kennedy explained that his tweet about Waters was in response to someone sharing with him a picture that Waters flashed of Kennedy at one of his concerts, saluting the candidate’s willingness to swim against societal currents. “Bobby told me he had no idea that Waters was a vicious antisemite and when he studied the issue and the facts, he immediately deleted the tweet. I believe Bobby and I thank him for his repudiation of Waters. How tragic it is for Waters to have his legacy as an antisemite now overtake his legacy as an accomplished artist.”</p>
  1085. <p>Kennedy said his dedication to Israel’s security is unshakable and unalterable. He also said that he reserves the right to challenge some of its policies, for example, as an environmentalist, with regard to water rights.</p>
  1086. <p>Rabbi Shmuley agreed that the beauty of Israel, as opposed to all of its neighbors, is that it is an open democracy with a free press and, just like America, welcomes criticism. Kennedy and Boteach discussed the holocaust and the existential and genocidal threats facing the Jewish nation and Kennedy once again affirmed his profound commitment to Israel’s security.</p>
  1087. <blockquote><p>“I told Bobby that his father was one Israel’s greatest friends and we in the Jewish community mourn him till this day. I then asked him to please march with me this Sunday, June 4th, at the annual Celebrate Israel Parade, and he immediately agreed. The conversation was riveting. While we disagreed on many issues, he speaks with a refreshing and non-partisan candor. I look forward to jointly marching this Sunday to champion the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish State.”</p></blockquote>
  1088. <p>Yikes: CIA asset, that monk: Birthday with the Dildo Salesman.</p>
  1089. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t51.82787-15/515958068_18513324013041802_4101791289549585087_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296_tt6&amp;_nc_cat=104&amp;ccb=1-7&amp;_nc_sid=127cfc&amp;_nc_ohc=wfNLi-sUvEYQ7kNvwHSNJAu&amp;_nc_oc=Adk05v7LkIOD2g8A8lrIblH4G4c31OReVhoMMJx3-tGjzp8eT3DdztYtfmrbCAg_UAk&amp;_nc_zt=23&amp;_nc_ht=scontent-sea1-1.xx&amp;_nc_gid=NMBCpQNqzH_6jTIvv2sjxw&amp;oh=00_AfQ9cRhi45ZgoiV1rF6ZekLHNkFxsK1ih9HVBjLTcGqJWQ&amp;oe=68746978" alt="May be an image of 3 people" width="276" height="276" /></p>
  1090. <blockquote>
  1091. <p style="text-align: center;">*****</p>
  1092. </blockquote>
  1093. <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/rcGi6U_3MSY?si=tK6zng4DXm_cqacf" rel="">Palestinians are the most pampered people in the world — RFK Junior.</a></p>
  1094. <p><iframe loading="lazy" title="RFK Jr. Says Palestinians Are The Most Pampered People In The World" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iFXEmBjeoXg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
  1095. <div id="youtube2-iFXEmBjeoXg" class="youtube-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;videoId&quot;:&quot;iFXEmBjeoXg&quot;,&quot;startTime&quot;:null,&quot;endTime&quot;:null}" data-component-name="Youtube2ToDOM">
  1096. <div class="youtube-inner">Vulgar Money, Vulgar Capitalism!</div>
  1097. </div>
  1098. <blockquote><p>“Defining everything that commands a price as valuable led to the marginalists’ conclusion that what you get is what you are worth. Profits are not determined by exploitation [the process whereby employers appropriate the surplus value created by the working class] but by technology and the ‘marginal product of capital’.” Mazzucato</p></blockquote>
  1099. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1100. <figure>
  1101. <div class="image2-inset">
  1102. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F970487d3-76f7-44bc-86db-e815bc91b974_628x356.png" alt="" width="423" height="240" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/970487d3-76f7-44bc-86db-e815bc91b974_628x356.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:356,&quot;width&quot;:628,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1103. </div>
  1104. </figure>
  1105. </div>
  1106. <p>Mazzucato uses Marx’s writings on value to attempt to ride to the rescue of ailing capitalism. Her intention is not to enable the new generation of workers and youth to understand the law of value and prepare them for the series of crises which inevitably flow from this. Nor does she suggest programmatic measures to replace the rule of capital with socialism.</p>
  1107. <p>In the <em>Communist Manifesto</em>, Marx and Engels write that capitalism is characterized thus:</p>
  1108. <blockquote><p>Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.</p></blockquote>
  1109. <p>Note how, in this passage, capitalism’s relentless “revolutionizing” of technologies and social relations also revolutionizes our self-understanding. As capitalism shakes up the material basis of life, it also demystifies and disenchants; it destroys all of the old mythical explanations and legitimations that were previously used to justify our place in society, and in the cosmos. And this destruction has only gone further in the years since Marx and Engels wrote. What Max Weber, somewhat later, called the “<strong>disenchantment of the world</strong>” has proceeded by leaps and bounds in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While all those “ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions” are still quite vehemently held, they have lost their grounding and their authority. Today we are left, as Ray Brassier puts it, with a world in which <strong>“intelligibility has become detached from meaning.” — </strong><a href="https://manifold.umn.edu/read/no-speed-limit/section/6166337c-2f8a-4fa2-b215-b83838ae099a" rel="">Parasites on the Body of Capital</a></p>
  1110. <p>On Fuck You Book/FB, if you are on it: The entire movie, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=406352770517804" rel="">The.Young.Karl.Marx</a>I</p>
  1111. <p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Raoul Peck Speaks On &quot;The Young Karl Marx&quot;" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H-MxYNiUryM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
  1112. <p>Israel is more than just an army-air force-spy ring posing as an occupied and apartheid country. This country (sic) is THE raping beetle on the world:</p>
  1113. <p><iframe loading="lazy" title="The Israel-Iran war is more dangerous than we imagine | David Hearst | The Big Picture" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qwPPQZPHHeE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
  1114. <p><strong>The Israel-Iran war is more dangerous than we imagine | David Hearst | The Big Picture</strong></p>
  1115. <p>Destroy Tehran, oil, hospitals, media, the lot. Two beetles fornicating each other.</p>
  1116. <div id="youtube2-qwPPQZPHHeE" class="youtube-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;videoId&quot;:&quot;qwPPQZPHHeE&quot;,&quot;startTime&quot;:null,&quot;endTime&quot;:null}" data-component-name="Youtube2ToDOM">
  1117. <div class="youtube-inner">&#8220;Intelligent design,&#8221; these beetles, these Talmudists, these Israelites, these ALL Jews Are Taught that Jerusalem and Zion are God’s Intelligent Design for Chosen Beetles Jewish people?</div>
  1118. </div>
  1119. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1120. <figure>
  1121. <div class="image2-inset">
  1122. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffdad510f-e413-48f0-94dc-b4cb6d8aa4f0_943x627.png" alt="" width="388" height="258" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/fdad510f-e413-48f0-94dc-b4cb6d8aa4f0_943x627.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:627,&quot;width&quot;:943,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:647987,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffdad510f-e413-48f0-94dc-b4cb6d8aa4f0_943x627.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1123. </div>
  1124. </figure>
  1125. </div>
  1126. <p><strong>What concerns did Jewish educators have about teaching about Israel?</strong></p>
  1127. <p>One teacher said,</p>
  1128. <blockquote><p>&#8220;My worst fear is that they might walk away from my classroom without feeling a commitment to the project of Israel in the way that I feel. And my other worst fear is that they will walk away and go into college and learn all sorts of things that I didn&#8217;t tell them and think my teacher lied to me.”</p></blockquote>
  1129. <p>More: When I was in fourth grade, the night before Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, my classmates and I gathered in the cafeteria of my Jewish day school and were handed a laminated map of Israel, a carton of ice cream and sundae toppings. We were told to use the ingredients to decorate the map—chocolate ice cream for the Negev, vanilla for the center of the country and Hershey’s Kisses for major cities. Years later, I discovered this was actually an activity in many day school and after-school curricula. The idea, I assume, was rooted in the Talmudic recommendation of putting honey on Hebrew letters when teaching children to read, so their learning would always be associated with sweetness. Similarly, we would always associate Israel with store-brand chocolate and vanilla ice cream.</p>
  1130. <p>To a certain extent, it worked. My classmates and I at my 1990s Modern Orthodox day school felt a strong connection to Israel throughout our school years; some lived there for a time, and some even made aliyah. Of course, this wasn’t just the ice cream. It was the Israeli maps and posters decorating every hallway, the celebrating and commemorating of important Israeli events throughout the year and the requirement to take “Zionism” for one semester in ninth grade. The unspoken goal was that we would graduate with ahavat yisrael, or “love of Israel,” as we went on to the next stage of our lives.</p>
  1131. <p>My experience is not necessarily representative; day school students are a small sliver of American Jewish children. Other Jewish children and young adults learn about Israel in their Sunday schools, youth group chapters or summer camps. Wherever they are, Jewish educational programs, formal or informal, make love of Israel a priority and a key part of Jewish identity. (<a href="https://momentmag.com/american-jewish-children-learn-israel/?srsltid=AfmBOopyWHneHoVWvm40Tv08sQ0Q7qdqKe85pUmCwCMt8YBwey7yS17D" rel="">Sarah Breger | Nov 15, 2017</a>)</p>
  1132. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1133. <figure>
  1134. <div class="image2-inset">
  1135. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdb500d6e-d23c-4253-a685-d81fea44ab17_919x529.png" alt="" width="410" height="236" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/db500d6e-d23c-4253-a685-d81fea44ab17_919x529.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:529,&quot;width&quot;:919,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:609319,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdb500d6e-d23c-4253-a685-d81fea44ab17_919x529.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1136. </div>
  1137. </figure>
  1138. </div>
  1139. <p>They do teach children that Israel is for the Jews, the chosen people, the mothership for Judaism.</p>
  1140. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1141. <figure>
  1142. <div class="image2-inset">
  1143. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb1fa2edc-ca62-4e3e-9cd9-39837ecb86d0_800x366.jpeg" alt="" width="459" height="210" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b1fa2edc-ca62-4e3e-9cd9-39837ecb86d0_800x366.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:366,&quot;width&quot;:800,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1144. </div>
  1145. </figure>
  1146. </div>
  1147. <p>This is the creationist freakdom, like one of a million creationist creepy beliefs:</p>
  1148. <blockquote><p>“The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more, as compared with somewhat less than 9,000 species of birds and a little over 10,000 species of mammals. Beetles are actually more numerous than the species of any other insect order. That kind of thing is characteristic of nature.” [JBS Haldane “What is Life?” 1949; often paraphrased, including by Haldane himself, to the effect of “The Creator must have an inordinate fondness for beetles, He made so many of them.”]</p>
  1149. <p>Well, yes, our God does have “inordinate fondness” for many things, being the God of Love, Who makes this or that out of love, and to be loved. Once one makes the leap of conceiving Him able and willing to love something else besides His glorious and eternal Self, there’s no real reason for Him not to love animals like beetles, or (probably) inanimate objects like stars, just as some of His images do (as the astronomers and entomologists in this group may attest). Though not necessarily in the same way (I won’t say “to the same degree”, as if He can give less than infinite attention to one thing or the other), since some of His gifts beyond mere existence (though that would have been enough, as the Jews recite at Passover) cannot in principle be grasped or used by the insentient.</p>
  1150. <p>Since God seems to want so many things to arise and develop through natural means and processes (possibly for the human will to be free, Nature must be free), including highly unlikely ones, then perhaps it was necessary for the visible universe to be the size and age it is for you and me to be here right now, or for any rational life to have arisen on this world, or perhaps any other, at all.”</p></blockquote>
  1151. <p>There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes that are found everywhere but Antarctica. That sounds like a lot, but there are millions of species of insects, and only about a hundred feed on human blood. During the peak of their breeding, mosquitoes outnumber every other animal but ants and termites. Historically, they have killed more than those who have died in war. Even during times of relative peace, tens of thousands died from diseases inflicted by mosquito bites during the construction of the Panama Canal. Mosquitoes also affect human migration on a grand scale: in many tropical zones, the effects of malaria cause people to move inland from the coast, where more primitive lifestyle, economic development, and other factors make medical help more difficult to obtain.</p>
  1152. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1153. <figure>
  1154. <div class="image2-inset">
  1155. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8541decb-3cd8-4505-9df7-5926168d20ff_724x828.png" alt="" width="425" height="486" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/8541decb-3cd8-4505-9df7-5926168d20ff_724x828.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:828,&quot;width&quot;:724,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:469513,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8541decb-3cd8-4505-9df7-5926168d20ff_724x828.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1156. <div class="image-link-expand">
  1157. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset">
  1158. <div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"></div>
  1159. </div>
  1160. </div>
  1161. </div>
  1162. </figure>
  1163. </div>
  1164. <p>Mosquitoes and the diseases they cause are notorious. Yet, we read in <a href="https://ref.ly/Gen%201.31;esv?t=biblia" rel="">Genesis 1:31</a> that <a href="https://answersingenesis.org/god/" rel="">God</a> made everything “very good.” If everything that God made was good, where did disease-causing mosquitoes come from? What is the origin of mosquito-borne diseases? Where do mosquitoes fit into the <a href="https://answersingenesis.org/creation/" rel="">creation</a> account? Were mosquitoes created along with the rest of life in the first week of Creation, or are they a result of the Curse? Are there good mosquitoes? These and other questions have been asked by creation biologists (Gillen 2007), and their answers may surprise you.</p>
  1165. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1166. <figure>
  1167. <div class="image2-inset">
  1168. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb7bb223e-be31-42e7-99c5-40aebaf3dabf_739x571.png" alt="" width="414" height="320" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b7bb223e-be31-42e7-99c5-40aebaf3dabf_739x571.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:571,&quot;width&quot;:739,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:413580,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb7bb223e-be31-42e7-99c5-40aebaf3dabf_739x571.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1169. </div>
  1170. </figure>
  1171. </div>
  1172. <p>God’s and Yaweh’s creation: YHWH</p>
  1173. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1174. <figure>
  1175. <div class="image2-inset">
  1176. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0b501fdc-8a58-4fbd-8fd1-e9e5eb33060e_738x606.png" alt="" width="363" height="298" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/0b501fdc-8a58-4fbd-8fd1-e9e5eb33060e_738x606.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:606,&quot;width&quot;:738,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:260096,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0b501fdc-8a58-4fbd-8fd1-e9e5eb33060e_738x606.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1177. </div>
  1178. </figure>
  1179. </div>
  1180. <p>Oh, Iran, those poor poor paper tigers with half-assed weapons and no air defense and the flagging Putin and Russia estrangement and abandonment syndrome, old Iran/Persia gobbled up by that Israel Swarm Mosquitoes.</p>
  1181. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1182. <figure>
  1183. <div class="image2-inset">
  1184. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F68ea31e1-4f65-4cf6-937b-78077c6bc12e_701x292.png" alt="" width="439" height="183" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/68ea31e1-4f65-4cf6-937b-78077c6bc12e_701x292.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:292,&quot;width&quot;:701,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:454361,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F68ea31e1-4f65-4cf6-937b-78077c6bc12e_701x292.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1185. </div>
  1186. </figure>
  1187. </div>
  1188. <p>Nonsense, believing Tucker Carlson or Glen Greenwald and Scott Ritter and the other usual suspects. Jimmy Dore. The Duran? Iran is dead.</p>
  1189. <p><iframe loading="lazy" title="MAGA&#039;s Civil War Over Israel First (w/ Abby Martin)" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vaCw2QRCDjs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
  1190. <p>Absurd endless live streams, man, with some bizarre belief Iran has a chance to succumb  Jewish State of Murder: Iran is defeated.</p>
  1191. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1192. <figure>
  1193. <div class="image2-inset">
  1194. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe916a6a4-4a8b-4419-a65d-585ef0ac4705_386x108.png" alt="" width="386" height="108" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e916a6a4-4a8b-4419-a65d-585ef0ac4705_386x108.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:108,&quot;width&quot;:386,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:48630,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe916a6a4-4a8b-4419-a65d-585ef0ac4705_386x108.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1195. </div>
  1196. </figure>
  1197. </div>
  1198. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1199. <figure>
  1200. <div class="image2-inset">
  1201. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F958e8eb3-2354-4054-8dfc-91777f897406_413x100.png" alt="" width="413" height="100" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/958e8eb3-2354-4054-8dfc-91777f897406_413x100.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:100,&quot;width&quot;:413,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:38023,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F958e8eb3-2354-4054-8dfc-91777f897406_413x100.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1202. </div>
  1203. </figure>
  1204. </div>
  1205. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1206. <figure>
  1207. <div class="image2-inset">
  1208. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F07282477-f796-4924-ae16-1ab8f0208c01_215x168.png" alt="" width="215" height="168" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/07282477-f796-4924-ae16-1ab8f0208c01_215x168.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:168,&quot;width&quot;:215,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:60440,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F07282477-f796-4924-ae16-1ab8f0208c01_215x168.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1209. </div>
  1210. </figure>
  1211. </div>
  1212. <p>I could list a million Podcasts on YouTube videos or Rumble or Odyesee programs. Whatever. Monetizing armchair prognostication. They ALL have an opinion. The death of the planet, man, and these people are just working hard to get $5 here and $10 there.</p>
  1213. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1214. <figure>
  1215. <div class="image2-inset">
  1216. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F896accfe-4ec7-41cf-be80-cebacced1374_1235x690.png" alt="" width="423" height="236" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/896accfe-4ec7-41cf-be80-cebacced1374_1235x690.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:690,&quot;width&quot;:1235,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:825874,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F896accfe-4ec7-41cf-be80-cebacced1374_1235x690.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1217. <div class="image-link-expand">
  1218. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset">
  1219. <div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"></div>
  1220. </div>
  1221. </div>
  1222. </div>
  1223. </figure>
  1224. </div>
  1225. <p>These creeps ask this NYC Mayoral candidate if he’d go to Israel if he’s elected. MAYOR of New York City. My oh my, Jew York City? Is that apropos? Watch it, man. Bad Faith — should Israel have the right to exist? They are an ethno racist warring spying terrorist nationalist state based on Judaism. Back to Abby Martin above.</p>
  1226. <p style="text-align: center;">++&#8211;++</p>
  1227. <p>[A British army officer and troops outside the King David Hotel, which had been bombed by the underground Zionist group the Irgun, Jerusalem, July 1946]</p>
  1228. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1229. <figure>
  1230. <div class="image2-inset">
  1231. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="sharon_1-092415.jpg" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3d5bf010-4f56-46e7-9305-7a78385d3d60_940x1259.jpeg" alt="sharon_1-092415.jpg" width="414" height="554" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/3d5bf010-4f56-46e7-9305-7a78385d3d60_940x1259.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1259,&quot;width&quot;:940,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;sharon_1-092415.jpg&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1232. </div>
  1233. </figure>
  1234. </div>
  1235. <p>Just go back to the Jewish Sicarios a few decades ago: <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1654849" rel="">The Roots of Zionist Terrorism</a> Read on:</p>
  1236. <p>The terrorism practiced nowadays by Zionists gangs like <em>Lahava </em>(the flame), <em>Paying the Price, Youths upon the Hills, </em>and the <em>Jewish Fighting Organization</em> cannot be divorced from the terrorism practiced during the British Mandate over Palestine by Zionist gangs which began to form at the beginning of the Twenties of the last century, becoming very active especially in the Thirties and Forties. However, what distinguishes the current Zionist terrorist gangs is that their acts of murder, arson, expulsion, sacrilege and cutting of trees being carried out against the Palestinians on the West Bank take place with the full support, and sometimes the active participation, of the soldiers of the Israeli army of occupation.</p>
  1237. <p><strong>Zionist terrorism before 1948</strong></p>
  1238. <p>The terms “Jewish terrorism” and “Zionist terrorism” were both used prior to 1948 to refer to terrorist acts committed by armed Zionist gangs which targeted the Arab inhabitants of Palestine as well as the British Mandate authorities. Since the Great Palestine Revolt of 1936-39 and right until the establishment of the State of Israel, Zionist terrorism was used as a strategic military weapon to hasten the founding of an independent Jewish state. Numerous attacks were mounted against Palestinians to terrorize them and drive them out of their ancestral land, and against British army and police outposts. Many assassinations were carried out as well as bombs planted in markets, ships and hotels. Heading these Zionist gangs were men who, in later years, became prime ministers of Israel, such as David Ben-Gurion, Menahem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.</p>
  1239. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1240. <figure>
  1241. <div class="image2-inset">
  1242. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F65568227-65a2-49f5-9c09-6e0a17a6740d_601x604.png" alt="" width="364" height="366" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/65568227-65a2-49f5-9c09-6e0a17a6740d_601x604.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:604,&quot;width&quot;:601,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:398934,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F65568227-65a2-49f5-9c09-6e0a17a6740d_601x604.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1243. </div>
  1244. </figure>
  1245. </div>
  1246. <p>[The Hebrew and Yiddish poet Uri Zvi Greenberg, who cofounded the anti-British extremist group Brit Habiryonim and was later a member of the Irgun, Kraków, mid-1930s]</p>
  1247. <blockquote><p><em>Like a rabbi<br />
  1248. Who carries his prayer-book in a velvet bag to the synagogue<br />
  1249. So carry I<br />
  1250. My sacred gun to the Temple.</em></p></blockquote>
  1251. <p>In another poem Yair wrote:</p>
  1252. <blockquote><p>“We shall pray by rifle, machine gun, landmine.” (<a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/09/24/jewish-terrorists/" rel="">Source</a>)</p></blockquote>
  1253. <p>The recent election of Benjamin Netanyahu—who after trailing in the polls made racist statements that were clearly intended to arouse fear—shows that the violent sentiments and views discussed by Hoffman and Bishop are still very much alive. Netanyahu’s father, a formidable scholar of the Inquisition who died in 2012, was a revisionist ideologue who belonged to the “maximalist” circle. He was an Islamophobe who supported pre-state terrorism and opposed any agreement with Arabs, even the peace accord with Egypt.</p>
  1254. <p>His son shares many of his views despite opportunistic rhetoric about a two-state solution, which he opposed during the election and then limply endorsed afterward. In early May he formed a new government including members of the Jewish Home party, which supports expansion of West Bank settlements and opposes a Palestinian state. The Likud, under Netanyahu’s leadership, has shed the last remnants of Jabotinsky’s liberal commitments and became a party willing to exploit racist contempt for Arabs. Understanding the ideological roots of Israel’s current leaders is indispensable if they are ever to be successfully challenged and replaced.</p>
  1255. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1256. <figure>
  1257. <div class="image2-inset">
  1258. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c49ede2-6b0f-4946-a384-1b734f25cb52_571x313.png" alt="" width="308" height="169" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2c49ede2-6b0f-4946-a384-1b734f25cb52_571x313.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:313,&quot;width&quot;:571,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:278992,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166114176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2c49ede2-6b0f-4946-a384-1b734f25cb52_571x313.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1259. </div>
  1260. </figure>
  1261. </div>
  1262. <p>Leeches. Netanyahu&#8217;s original family name was Mileikowsky, which was later changed to Netanyahu. He was also known as Benjamin &#8220;Ben&#8221; Nitai for a period, a name he adopted to make it easier for Americans to pronounce.</p>
  1263. </div>
  1264. </div>
  1265. </div>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/vulgarity-of-money-think-of-it-as-traumatic-insemination/">Vulgarity of Money</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  1269. </item>
  1270. <item>
  1271. <title>Different Types of Addicts</title>
  1272. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/different-types-of-addicts/</link>
  1274. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Allen Forrest]]></dc:creator>
  1275. <pubDate>Thu, 10 Jul 2025 06:46:44 +0000</pubDate>
  1276. <category><![CDATA[Cartoon]]></category>
  1277. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159761</guid>
  1278.  
  1279. <description><![CDATA[<p>Addiction is addiction, but different addictions may have different consequences.</p>
  1280. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/different-types-of-addicts/">Different Types of Addicts</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  1281. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/addicts_12x9_ink_on_paper_2019_w.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/addicts_12x9_ink_on_paper_2019_w-768x1024.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="667" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-159762" srcset="https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/addicts_12x9_ink_on_paper_2019_w-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/addicts_12x9_ink_on_paper_2019_w-225x300.jpg 225w, https://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/addicts_12x9_ink_on_paper_2019_w.jpg 1125w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" /></a></p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/different-types-of-addicts/">Different Types of Addicts</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  1285. </item>
  1286. <item>
  1287. <title>The Rise of the Prison State: Trump’s Push for Megaprisons Could Lock Us All Up</title>
  1288. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/the-rise-of-the-prison-state-trumps-push-for-megaprisons-could-lock-us-all-up/</link>
  1290. <dc:creator><![CDATA[John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead]]></dc:creator>
  1291. <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jul 2025 15:58:02 +0000</pubDate>
  1292. <category><![CDATA[Authoritarianism]]></category>
  1293. <category><![CDATA[Bill of Rights]]></category>
  1294. <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category>
  1295. <category><![CDATA[Freedom]]></category>
  1296. <category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
  1297. <category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
  1298. <category><![CDATA[Incarceration]]></category>
  1299. <category><![CDATA[Labor]]></category>
  1300. <category><![CDATA[Migration/Migrants]]></category>
  1301. <category><![CDATA[Prison Industry]]></category>
  1302. <category><![CDATA[Surveillance]]></category>
  1303. <category><![CDATA[United States]]></category>
  1304. <category><![CDATA[Alligator Alcatraz]]></category>
  1305. <category><![CDATA[forced prison labor]]></category>
  1306. <category><![CDATA[Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE)]]></category>
  1307. <category><![CDATA[Megaprisons]]></category>
  1308. <category><![CDATA[U.S. carceral state]]></category>
  1309. <category><![CDATA[U.S. detention state]]></category>
  1310. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159756</guid>
  1311.  
  1312. <description><![CDATA[<p>America is rapidly becoming a nation of prisons. Having figured out how to parlay presidential authority in foreign affairs in order to sidestep the Constitution, President Trump is using his immigration enforcement powers to lock up—and lock down—the nation. Under the guise of national security and public safety, the Trump administration is engineering the largest federal [&#8230;]</p>
  1313. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/the-rise-of-the-prison-state-trumps-push-for-megaprisons-could-lock-us-all-up/">The Rise of the Prison State: Trump’s Push for Megaprisons Could Lock Us All Up</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  1314. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>America is rapidly becoming a nation of prisons.</p>
  1315. <p>Having figured out how to parlay presidential authority in foreign affairs in order to sidestep the Constitution, President Trump is using his immigration enforcement powers to lock up—and lock down—the nation.</p>
  1316. <p>Under the guise of national security and public safety, the Trump administration is engineering the <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/07/prison-officials-talk-about-trump-budget-spending-ice-enforcement-immigrant-detention-expansion-aligator-alcatraz-deportations/">largest federal expansion of incarceration and detention powers</a> in U.S. history.</p>
  1317. <p>At the center of this campaign is Alligator Alcatraz, a federal detention facility built in the Florida Everglades and hailed by the White House as a model for the future of federal incarceration. But this is more than a new prison—it is the architectural symbol of a carceral state being quietly constructed in plain sight.</p>
  1318. <p>With over <a href="https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-anti-immigrant-police-state">$170 billion allocated through Trump’s megabill</a>, we are witnessing the creation of a vast, permanent enforcement infrastructure aimed at turning the American police state into a prison state.</p>
  1319. <p>The scope of this expansion is staggering.</p>
  1320. <p>The bill allocates $45 billion just to expand immigrant detention—<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/07/prison-officials-talk-about-trump-budget-spending-ice-enforcement-immigrant-detention-expansion-aligator-alcatraz-deportations/">making ICE the best-funded federal law enforcement agency in American history</a>.</p>
  1321. <p>Yet be warned: what begins with ICE rarely ends with ICE.</p>
  1322. <p>Trump’s initial promise to crack down on “violent illegal criminals” has evolved into a sweeping mandate: a mass, <a href="https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-anti-immigrant-police-state">quota-driven roundup campaign</a> that detains anyone the administration deems a threat, regardless of legal status and at significant expense to the American taxpayer.</p>
  1323. <p>Tellingly, the vast majority of those being detained <a href="https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-anti-immigrant-police-state">have no criminal record</a>. And like so many of the Trump administration’s grandiose plans, the math doesn’t add up.</p>
  1324. <p>Just as Trump’s tariffs have failed to revive American manufacturing and instead raised consumer prices, this detention-state spending spree will cost taxpayers far more than it saves. It’s estimated that undocumented workers contribute an <a href="https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-by-state/">estimated $96 billion in federal, state and local taxes each year</a>, and <a href="https://taxpolicycenter.org/fiscal-facts/yes-undocumented-immigrants-pay-taxes-and-receive-few-tax-benefits">billions more in Social Security and Medicare taxes</a> that they can never claim.</p>
  1325. <p>Making matters worse, many of these detained immigrants are then <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/us/using-jailed-migrants-as-a-pool-of-cheap-labor.html">exploited as a pool of cheap labor</a> inside the very facilities where they’re held.</p>
  1326. <p>The implications for Trump’s detention empire are chilling.</p>
  1327. <p>At a time when the administration is promising mass deportations to appease anti-immigrant hardliners, it is simultaneously constructing a parallel economy in which detained migrants can be pressed into near-free labor to satisfy the needs of industries that depend on migrant work.</p>
  1328. <p>What Trump is building isn’t just a prison state—it’s a forced labor regime, where confinement and exploitation go hand in hand. And it’s a high price to pay for a policy that creates more problems than it solves.</p>
  1329. <p>As the enforcement dragnet expands, so does the definition of who qualifies as an enemy of the state—including legal U.S. residents arrested for their political views.</p>
  1330. <p>The Trump administration is now pushing to review and <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/07/02/what-justice-departments-push-bring-denaturalization-cases-means.html">revoke the citizenship of Americans it deems national security risks</a>—targeting them for arrest, detention, and deportation.</p>
  1331. <p>Unfortunately, the government’s definition of “national security threat” is so broad, vague, and unconstitutional that it <a href="https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/in_a_legal_defeat_for_government_efforts_to_weaponize_immigration_judge_orders_release_of_u.s_protester_detained_for_political_speech">could encompass anyone engaged in peaceful, nonviolent, constitutionally protected activities</a>—including criticism of government policy or the policies of allied governments like Israel.</p>
  1332. <p>In Trump’s prison state, no one is beyond the government’s reach.</p>
  1333. <p>Critics of the post-9/11 security state—left, right, and libertarian alike—have long warned that the powers granted to fight terrorism and control immigration would eventually be turned inward, used against dissidents, protestors, and ordinary citizens.</p>
  1334. <p>That moment has arrived.</p>
  1335. <p>Yet Trump’s most vocal supporters remain dangerously convinced they have nothing to fear from this expanding enforcement machine. But history—and the Constitution—say otherwise.</p>
  1336. <p>Our founders understood that unchecked government power, particularly in the name of public safety, poses the most significant threat to liberty. That’s why they enshrined rights like due process, trial by jury, and protection from unreasonable searches.</p>
  1337. <p>Those safeguards are now being hollowed out.</p>
  1338. <p>Trump’s detention expansion—like the mass surveillance programs before it—is not about making America safe. It’s about following the blueprints for authoritarian control in order to lock down the country.</p>
  1339. <p>The government’s targets may be the vulnerable today—but the infrastructure is built for everyone: Trump’s administration is laying the legal groundwork for indefinite detention of citizens and noncitizens alike.</p>
  1340. <p>This is not just about building prisons. It’s about dismantling the constitutional protections that make us free.</p>
  1341. <p>A nation cannot remain free while operating as a security state. And a government that treats liberty as a threat will soon treat the people as enemies.</p>
  1342. <p>This is <em>not</em> a partisan warning. It is a <em>constitutional</em> one.</p>
  1343. <p>We are dangerously close to losing the constitutional guardrails that keep power in check.</p>
  1344. <p>The very people who once warned against Big Government—the ones who decried the surveillance state, the IRS, and federal overreach—are now cheering for the most dangerous part of it: the unchecked power to surveil, detain, and disappear citizens without full due process.</p>
  1345. <p>Limited government, not mass incarceration, is the backbone of liberty.</p>
  1346. <p>The Founders warned that the greatest threat to liberty was not a foreign enemy, but domestic power left unchecked. That’s exactly what we’re up against now. A nation cannot claim to defend freedom while building a surveillance-fueled, prison-industrial empire.</p>
  1347. <p>Trump’s prison state is not a defense of America. It’s the destruction of everything America was meant to defend.</p>
  1348. <p>We can pursue justice without abandoning the Constitution. We can secure our borders and our communities without turning every American into a suspect and building a federal gulag.</p>
  1349. <p>But we must act now.</p>
  1350. <p>History has shown us where this road leads. As I make clear in my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-America-War-American-People/dp/1590795229/"><em>Battlefield America: The War on the American People</em></a> and in its fictional counterpart <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Erik-Blair-Diaries-Battlefield-Dead/dp/1954968027/"><em>The Erik Blair Diaries</em></a>, once the machinery of tyranny is built, it rarely stays idle.</p>
  1351. <p>If we continue down this path, cheering on bigger prisons, broader police powers, and unchecked executive authority—if we fail to reject the dangerous notion that more prisons, more power, and fewer rights will somehow make us safer—if we fail to restore the foundational limits that protect us from government overreach before those limits are gone for good—we may wake up to find that the prisons and concentration camps the police state is building won’t just hold others.</p>
  1352. <p>One day, they may hold us all.</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/the-rise-of-the-prison-state-trumps-push-for-megaprisons-could-lock-us-all-up/">The Rise of the Prison State: Trump’s Push for Megaprisons Could Lock Us All Up</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  1356. </item>
  1357. <item>
  1358. <title>Fueling Genocide: Inside the Global Supply Chain that Delivers Jet Fuel to Israel’s Military</title>
  1359. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/fueling-genocide-inside-the-global-supply-chain-that-delivers-jet-fuel-to-israels-military/</link>
  1361. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Visualizing Palestine]]></dc:creator>
  1362. <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jul 2025 15:17:20 +0000</pubDate>
  1363. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  1364. <category><![CDATA[Antiwar]]></category>
  1365. <category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
  1366. <category><![CDATA[Genocide]]></category>
  1367. <category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
  1368. <category><![CDATA[Labor]]></category>
  1369. <category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
  1370. <category><![CDATA[Militarism]]></category>
  1371. <category><![CDATA[Palestine]]></category>
  1372. <category><![CDATA[Resistance]]></category>
  1373. <category><![CDATA[Solidarity]]></category>
  1374. <category><![CDATA[Transportation]]></category>
  1375. <category><![CDATA[United States]]></category>
  1376. <category><![CDATA[War]]></category>
  1377. <category><![CDATA[War Crimes]]></category>
  1378. <category><![CDATA[dockworkers]]></category>
  1379. <category><![CDATA[JP-8 military jet fuel]]></category>
  1380. <category><![CDATA[Overseas Santorini]]></category>
  1381. <category><![CDATA[Overseas Sun Coast]]></category>
  1382. <category><![CDATA[Saltchuk]]></category>
  1383. <category><![CDATA[U.S. Jet Fuel to Israel]]></category>
  1384. <category><![CDATA[U.S. Tanker Security Program]]></category>
  1385. <category><![CDATA[Valero]]></category>
  1386. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159753</guid>
  1387.  
  1388. <description><![CDATA[<p>Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza has been fueled by a surge in deliveries of military-grade jet fuel from U.S. providers. In this visual, we expose the companies and governments complicit in this supply chain, while highlighting grassroots efforts to track and disrupt this deadly cargo through direct action, boycott campaigns, and community resistance.</p>
  1389. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/fueling-genocide-inside-the-global-supply-chain-that-delivers-jet-fuel-to-israels-military/">Fueling Genocide: Inside the Global Supply Chain that Delivers Jet Fuel to Israel’s Military</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  1390. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza has been fueled by a surge in deliveries of military-grade jet fuel from U.S. providers. In this visual, we expose the companies and governments complicit in this supply chain, while highlighting grassroots efforts to track and disrupt this deadly cargo through direct action, boycott campaigns, and community resistance.</p>
  1391. <p><img decoding="async" class="js-visual-main-image w-100" src="https://visualizingpalestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/VP-EnergyEmbargo-07082025-scaled.jpg" alt="" /></p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/fueling-genocide-inside-the-global-supply-chain-that-delivers-jet-fuel-to-israels-military/">Fueling Genocide: Inside the Global Supply Chain that Delivers Jet Fuel to Israel’s Military</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  1395. </item>
  1396. <item>
  1397. <title>Death by Fungi: Cashing in on Erin Patterson</title>
  1398. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/death-by-fungi-cashing-in-on-erin-patterson/</link>
  1400. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Binoy Kampmark]]></dc:creator>
  1401. <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jul 2025 14:42:58 +0000</pubDate>
  1402. <category><![CDATA[Australia]]></category>
  1403. <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category>
  1404. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
  1405. <category><![CDATA[Murder]]></category>
  1406. <category><![CDATA[Amanita phalloides]]></category>
  1407. <category><![CDATA[culinary killings]]></category>
  1408. <category><![CDATA[Don and Gail Patterson]]></category>
  1409. <category><![CDATA[Erin Patterson]]></category>
  1410. <category><![CDATA[fungi]]></category>
  1411. <category><![CDATA[Heather Wilkinson]]></category>
  1412. <category><![CDATA[Ian Wilkinson]]></category>
  1413. <category><![CDATA[Leongatha]]></category>
  1414. <category><![CDATA[Nagi Maehashi]]></category>
  1415. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159750</guid>
  1416.  
  1417. <description><![CDATA[<p>She has become a notorious figure of international interest, shamelessly exploited for news cycles, commercial worth, and career advancement. After a trial lasting nine weeks, conducted at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell, Victoria, Erin Patterson, a stocky, thick-set mother of two, was found guilty of three murders and an attempted murder. Date: July [&#8230;]</p>
  1418. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/death-by-fungi-cashing-in-on-erin-patterson/">Death by Fungi: Cashing in on Erin Patterson</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  1419. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>She has become a notorious figure of international interest, shamelessly exploited for news cycles, commercial worth, and career advancement. After a trial lasting nine weeks, conducted at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell, Victoria, Erin Patterson, a stocky, thick-set mother of two, was found guilty of three murders and an attempted murder. Date: July 29, 2023, in the town of Leongatha. Her weapon in executing her plot of Sophoclean extravagance: death cap mushrooms (<em>Amanita phalloides</em>) served in a beef Wellington. Her targets: in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson. Of the four, only Ian survived the culinary killings &#8211; barely. Prudently, estranged husband Simon chose not to attend.</p>
  1420. <p>News outlets thought it useful to produce graphics about this Australian’s terminating exploits. CNN <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/07/australia/australia-erin-patterson-mushroom-trial-verdict-intl-hnk">produced one</a> with voyeuristic relish, making it appear much like a Midsomer Murders episode. Details aplenty are provided, including the gruesome end for the victims. “Gail and Heather died on August 4 [2023] from multiorgan failure, followed by Don on August 5 after he failed to respond to a liver transplant.”  Fortunately, Ian Wilkinson survived, but the rumour-mongering hack journalist can barely take it, almost regretful of that fact: “after almost two months of intensive treatment”, he was discharged.</p>
  1421. <p>Having an opinion on this case has become standard fare, amassing on a turd heap of supposition, second guessing and wonder. The range is positively Chaucerian in its village variety. The former court official interviewed about the killer’s guilty mind and poisoning stratagems, stating the obvious and dulling. The criminologist, keen on career advancement and pseudo-psychology, attempted to gain insight into Patterson’s mind, commenting on her apparent ordinariness.</p>
  1422. <p>One <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-shakespearean-small-town-murder-why-australia-became-so-obsessed-with-the-erin-patterson-mushroom-case-259982#:~:text=Erin's%20estranged%20husband%2C%20Simon%20Patterson,not%20attend%20the%20lunch%20either.">example</a> of the latter is to be found in <em>The Conversation</em>, where we are told by Xanthe Mallett with platitudinous and forced certainty how Patterson, speaking days after the incident, “presented as your typical, average woman of 50.” If attempting to kill four people using fungi is a symptom of average, female ordinariness of a certain age, we all best start making our own meals. But Mallett thinks it is precisely that sense of the ordinary that led to a public obsession, a mania with crime and motivation. “The juxtaposition between the normality of a family lunch (and the sheer vanilla-ness of the accused) and the seriousness of the situation sent the media into overdrive.”</p>
  1423. <p>This is certainly not the view of Dr. Chris Webster, who answered the Leongatha Hospital doorbell when Patterson first presented.  Realising her link to the other four victims suffering symptoms of fungal poisoning, Webster <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-08/chris-webster-erin-patterson-mushroom-murder-trial/105508638">explained</a> that death cap mushrooms were suspected. Asking Patterson where she got them, she replied with one word: “Woolworths.” This was enough for the doctor to presume guilt, an attitude which certainly gave one of Australia’s most ruthless supermarket chains a graceful pardon. “She was evil and very smart to have planned it all and carried out but didn’t quite dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’.”</p>
  1424. <p>The marketer, thrilled with branding and promotion, suggests how Patterson Inc. can become an ongoing concern of merchandise, plays, and scripts. (Think of a shirt sporting the following: “I ate beef Wellington and survived”.) The ABC did not waste much time commissioning <em>Toxic</em>, a show created by Elise McCredie and Tony Ayres, aided by ABC podcaster Rachel Brown. Ayres <a href="https://www.mediaweek.com.au/mushroom-lady-erin-patterson-the-focus-of-new-abc-tv-drama-toxic/">hams it up</a> by saying that, “True stories ask storytellers to probe the complexities of human behaviour. What really lies beneath the headlines? It’s both a challenge and a responsibility to go beyond the surface – to reveal, not just to sensationalise.” Given that this project is a child of frothy publicity born from sensationalism and hysteria, the comment is almost touching.</p>
  1425. <p>The media prompts and updates, mischaracterising Patterson as “The Mushroom Murderer”, leave the impression that she really did like killing fungi. But an absolute monster must be found, and the press hounds duly found it. Papers like the <em>Herald Sun</em> preferred the old Rupert Murdoch tactic: till the soil to surface level to find requisite dirt. According to a grimy bit <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/the-mushroom-cook/the-lies-that-got-crazy-erin-sacked-from-air-traffic-control-gig/news-story/69675337ebad7c618fe73ab0bd0c019b">of reporting</a> from that most distinguished of Melbourne rags, “the callous murderer, whose maiden name was Scutter before marrying Simon Patterson in 2007, was secretly dubbed ‘Scutter the Nutter’ among her training group.” <em>The Australian</em> <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/if-erin-patterson-was-a-man-we-would-know-what-the-motive-was/news-story/9b9a1b03594f2e36ee46a0dda294d520">was in a didactic mood</a>, unhappy that the judge did not make it even more obvious that a crime, committed by a woman involving poison and “not a gun or a knife”, was equally grave.</p>
  1426. <p>To complete the matter was an aggrieved home cook, Nagi Maehashi, who also rode the wave of publicity by expressing sadness that her recipe had become a lethal weapon. (Presumably, Maehashi did not have lethal mushrooms in her original recipe, but precision slides in publicity.)  Overcome with false modesty in this glare of publicity, Maehashi did not wish to take interviews, but felt her misused work <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/jul/09/australian-cook-behind-recipetin-eats-beef-wellington-recipe-in-patterson-case-asks-for-privacy-from-tragic-situation-ntwnfb">deserved a statement</a>.  “It is, of course, upsetting to learn that one of my recipes – possibly the one I’ve spent more hours perfecting than any other – something I created to bring joy and happiness, is entangled in a tragic situation,” she moaned on Instagram. Those familiar with Maehashi will note her <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/06/04/thieves-in-the-kitchen-the-stealing-of-recipes/">tendency to megalomania</a> in the kitchen, especially given recipes that have been created long before she turned to knife and spatula.</p>
  1427. <p>The ones forgotten will be those victims who died excruciatingly before their loved ones in a richly sadistic exercise. At the end of it all, the entire ensemble of babblers, hucksters, and chancers so utterly obsessed with what took place in Leongatha should thank Patterson. Her murders have excited, enthralled, and given people purpose. She will start conversations, fill pockets, extend careers, and, if we are to believe some recent reporting, make meals for her fellow inmates in prison.</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/death-by-fungi-cashing-in-on-erin-patterson/">Death by Fungi: Cashing in on Erin Patterson</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  1431. </item>
  1432. <item>
  1433. <title>DV Readers Get to Hear Bright Green Lies</title>
  1434. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/dv-readers-get-to-hear-bright-green-lies/</link>
  1436. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Paul Haeder]]></dc:creator>
  1437. <pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2025 14:42:33 +0000</pubDate>
  1438. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  1439. <category><![CDATA[Biodiversity]]></category>
  1440. <category><![CDATA[Climate Change]]></category>
  1441. <category><![CDATA[Ecosystems]]></category>
  1442. <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
  1443. <category><![CDATA[Fossil Fuels]]></category>
  1444. <category><![CDATA[Global Warming]]></category>
  1445. <category><![CDATA[Sustainability]]></category>
  1446. <category><![CDATA[Water]]></category>
  1447. <category><![CDATA[climate change]]></category>
  1448. <category><![CDATA[US infrastructure]]></category>
  1449. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159451</guid>
  1450.  
  1451. <description><![CDATA[<p>“There&#8217;s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story [&#8230;]</p>
  1452. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/dv-readers-get-to-hear-bright-green-lies/">DV Readers Get to Hear Bright Green Lies</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  1453. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>“There&#8217;s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will ACT like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.”<br />
  1454. ― Daniel Quinn, <a class="authorOrTitle" href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1041162"><em>Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit</em></a></p></blockquote>
  1455. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-16 pc-paddingTop-16 pc-paddingBottom-16 pc-justifyContent-space-between pc-alignItems-center flexGrow-tjePuI pc-reset border-top-detail-themed-k9TZAY post-ufi">
  1456. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset">
  1457. <div class="like-button-container post-ufi-button style-button">
  1458. <p>Listen to an activist, man, interviewed the real way, no bloody Alt or Indie Podcast where the same usual suspects go round and around and around. Airs August 13, KYAQ FM, streaming kyaq.org!</p>
  1459. <p><a href="https://maxwilbert.substack.com/p/alternative-cultures-are-beautiful">Go to Biocentric</a> &#8212; his Substack. &#8220;Alternative Cultures Are Beautiful and Important. They&#8217;re Also Not Enough. &#8216;The conscious destruction of a competing ethic&#8217; and the need for organizing and direct action&#8221;</p>
  1460. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset">
  1461. <div>
  1462. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://celdf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Max-Wilbert-1-aspect-ratio-416-520-1024x1280.webp" width="264" height="330" /></p>
  1463. <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j3dD4lSWzp8lodW73jhDEIqJVmg2LJC3/view?usp=drive_link">LINK.</a></div>
  1464. <div>
  1465. <div class="button-wrapper">
  1466. <p><b>Max Wilbert: Co -Coordinator of Community Resistance &amp; Resilience, and Publicist</b></p>
  1467. <div id="max-wilbert" class="text-wrapper expanded" data-toggler=".expanded" data-expanded="e6guwv-expanded">
  1468. <p>Max is a writer and biocentric community organizer. He is the author of two books, most recently <em>Bright Green Lies: How The Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It</em>, and writes the newsletter <a href="https://maxwilbert.substack.com/"><em>Biocentric</em></a> on Substack. Max has been part of grassroots political movements for 25 years<em>. </em>He is currently splitting his time between studying for a Masters Degree in Degrowth, defending against a mining company lawsuit, running a mentorship program for young activists, and participating in several campaigns and coalitions to protect nature. His work has been featured on CNN, the <em>New York Times</em>, NPR, <em>Le Monde</em>, BBC, and elsewhere.</p>
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  1481. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="Bright Green Lies - Apple TV" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RuTy!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F10566911-3994-492a-bb5c-bcd430d5f641_1200x675.jpeg" alt="Bright Green Lies - Apple TV" width="493" height="277" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/10566911-3994-492a-bb5c-bcd430d5f641_1200x675.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:675,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Bright Green Lies - Apple TV&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
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  1488. </figure>
  1489. </div>
  1490. <p style="text-align: left;">I interviewed Max Wilbert. He works for CELDF, and you already got that bonus of me interviewing his <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VbsL6AQ0PsvvE8vwGtH50rNWLdyh6uvD/view?usp=drive_link">Executive Director, Kai.</a></p>
  1491. <p style="text-align: left;">Max is in the Eugene area, and he has his Biocentric Substack. We talked much about the state of the state of play in capitalism, <strong>that </strong>capitalism all based on war against the land, species, hogs-cattle, against education, against philosophy, against critical thinking and agency, against Utopian Thought Experiments, against activism, against one child in Gaza or a few tens of millions in Iran.</p>
  1492. <p style="text-align: left;">This is an orgy, this society, an orgy of blood America. And the roots of that go to EuroTrashLandia, and alas, UK. We are the DNA morphed sloughed off crap of the White Race of Paranoia.</p>
  1493. <p style="text-align: left;">So, did it all start with the steam engine? You betcha. Advance now into the black pool of death, oil, and now we are here, Homo Plasticus, Homo TerraBiteSapiens.</p>
  1494. <p style="text-align: left;">I’ll throw some extra stuff below, but the interview is a winner!</p>
  1495. <div class="captioned-image-container" style="text-align: left;">
  1496. <figure>
  1497. <div class="image2-inset">
  1498. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ZOyy!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa20cc1e5-fdeb-4de9-bee9-ebe34a0601ff_778x787.png" alt="" width="286" height="289" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a20cc1e5-fdeb-4de9-bee9-ebe34a0601ff_778x787.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:787,&quot;width&quot;:778,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:570515,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166819176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa20cc1e5-fdeb-4de9-bee9-ebe34a0601ff_778x787.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1499. </div>
  1500. </figure>
  1501. </div>
  1502. <p style="text-align: left;">We have all sorts of conundrums, no?</p>
  1503. <ul style="text-align: left;">
  1504. <li>Is CO<sub>2</sub> the culprit, or are we now in a flurry of diseases thanks to the synergistic chemical orchestration of so many toxins — chemicals — working their chronic disease and extended illness magic on the entire world?</li>
  1505. <li>What is resilience? Do we do a complete power shift, and move toward revolution since a world without ice is on the horizon, and those 60 percent of the world near or on the seas will disappear?</li>
  1506. <li>Overshoot?</li>
  1507. <li>Carrying capacity?</li>
  1508. <li>Population bomb?</li>
  1509. <li>Sixth, Seventh, 10th mass extinction?</li>
  1510. </ul>
  1511. <div class="captioned-image-container" style="text-align: left;">
  1512. <figure>
  1513. <div class="image2-inset">
  1514. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" title="Rivers in Time: The Search for Clues to Earth's Mass Extinctions" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RVq2!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47d1b668-9bb2-4b6b-ac0c-cd6690c7cee4_313x466.jpeg" alt="Rivers in Time: The Search for Clues to Earth's Mass Extinctions" width="213" height="317" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/47d1b668-9bb2-4b6b-ac0c-cd6690c7cee4_313x466.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:466,&quot;width&quot;:313,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Rivers in Time: The Search for Clues to Earth's Mass Extinctions&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1515. </div>
  1516. </figure>
  1517. </div>
  1518. <p style="text-align: left;">Several times in the distant past, catastrophic extinctions have swept the Earth, causing more than half of all species―from single-celled organisms to awe-inspiring behemoths―to suddenly vanish and be replaced by new life forms. Today the rich diversity of life on the Earth is again in grave danger―and the cause is not a sudden cataclysmic event but rather humankind&#8217;s devastation of the environment. Is life on our planet teetering on the brink of another mass extinction? In this absorbing new book, acclaimed paleontologist Peter D. Ward answers this daunting question with a resounding yes.</p>
  1519. <p style="text-align: left;">Elaborating on and updating Ward&#8217;s previous work, <em>The End of Evolution</em>, <em>Rivers in Time</em> delves into his newest discoveries. The book presents the gripping tale of the author&#8217;s investigations into the history of life and death on Earth through a series of expeditions that have brought him ever closer to the truth about mass extinctions, past and future. First describing the three previous mass extinctions―those marking the transition from the Permian to the Triassic periods 245 million years ago, the Triassic to the Jurassic 200 million years ago, and the Cretaceous to the Tertiary 65 million years ago―Ward assesses the present devastation in which countless species are coming to the end of their evolution at the hand of that wandering, potentially destructive force called <em>Homo sapiens.</em></p>
  1520. <p style="text-align: left;">The book takes readers to the Philippine Sea, now eerily empty of life, where only a few decades of catching fish by using dynamite have resulted in eviscerated coral reefs―and a dramatic reduction in the marine life the region can support. Ward travels to Canada&#8217;s Haida Gwaii to investigate the extinctions that mark the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods. He ventures also into the Karoo desert of southern Africa, where some of Earth&#8217;s earliest land life emerged from the water and stood poised to develop into mammal form, only to be obliterated during the Permian/Triassic extinction.</p>
  1521. <p style="text-align: left;"><em>Rivers of Time</em> provides reason to marvel and mourn, to fear and hope, as it bears stark witness to the urgency of the Earth&#8217;s present predicament: Ward offers powerful proof that if radical measures are not taken to protect the biodiversity of this planet, much of life as we know it may not survive.</p>
  1522. <div class="captioned-image-container" style="text-align: left;">
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  1525. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UM7k!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F68aaab18-d972-4714-8866-e20333b53a0c_374x568.png" alt="" width="282" height="428" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/68aaab18-d972-4714-8866-e20333b53a0c_374x568.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:568,&quot;width&quot;:374,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:296475,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://paulokirk.substack.com/i/166819176?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F68aaab18-d972-4714-8866-e20333b53a0c_374x568.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
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  1532. </figure>
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  1534. <p style="text-align: left;">More than 200 million years ago, a cataclysmic event known as the Permian extinction destroyed more than 90% of all species and nearly 97% of all living things. Its origins have long been a puzzle for paleontologists, and during the 1990s and the early part of this century a great battle was fought between those who thought that death had come from above and those who thought something more complicated was at work.</p>
  1535. <p style="text-align: left;">Paleontologist Peter D. Ward, fresh from helping prove that an asteroid had killed the dinosaurs, turned to the Permian problem, and he has come to a stunning conclusion. In his investigations of the fates of several groups of mollusks during those extinctions and others, he discovered that the near-total devastation at the end of the Permian was caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide leading to climate change. But it&#8217;s not the heat (nor the humidity) that&#8217;s directly responsible for the extinctions, and the story of the discovery of what is responsible makes for a fascinating, globe-spanning adventure.</p>
  1536. <div class="captioned-image-container" style="text-align: left;">
  1537. <figure>
  1538. <div class="image2-inset">
  1539. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!SZL6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F87c5b1c2-1aaf-4c92-9105-1cd5d82f7465_633x490.jpeg" alt="" width="429" height="332" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/87c5b1c2-1aaf-4c92-9105-1cd5d82f7465_633x490.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:490,&quot;width&quot;:633,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
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  1546. </figure>
  1547. </div>
  1548. <p style="text-align: left;"><em><strong>Carrying Capacity</strong>: Carrying capacity is a well-known ecological term that has an obvious and fairly intuitive meaning: “the maximum population size of a species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment”. Unfortunately, that definition becomes more nebulous the closer you look at it – especially when we start talking about the planetary carrying capacity for humans. Ecologists claim that our numbers have already surpassed the carrying capacity of the planet, while others (notably economists and politicians…) claim we are nowhere near it yet!</em></p>
  1549. <p style="text-align: left;"><em><strong>Overshoot</strong>: When a population surpasses its carrying capacity it enters a condition known as overshoot. Because carrying capacity is defined as the maximum population that an environment can maintain indefinitely, overshoot must by definition be temporary. Populations </em>always decline<em> to (or below) the carrying capacity. How long they stay in overshoot depends on how many stored resources there are to support their inflated numbers. Resources may be food, but they may also be any resource that helps maintain their numbers. For </em>humans<em> one of the primary resources is energy, whether it is tapped as flows (sunlight, wind, biomass) or stocks (coal, oil, gas, uranium etc.). A species usually enters overshoot when it taps a particularly rich but exhaustible stock of a resource. Like oil, for instance…</em></p>
  1550. <p style="text-align: left;">
  1551. <p style="text-align: left;">The rate of population decline and how far it will fall is hard to predict. That will depend on many things but primarily on if and when globalization collapses. The collapse of globalization will bring about civil strife, border wars, and famine around the world.</p>
  1552. <p style="text-align: left;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kgYO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F53305c75-8d42-4a77-86f0-860a0786e11f_521x518.jpeg" alt="" width="284" height="282" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/53305c75-8d42-4a77-86f0-860a0786e11f_521x518.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:518,&quot;width&quot;:521,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:371,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1553. <p style="text-align: left;">Note the green, wild animal, portion. Notice the wild animal portion of the terrestrial vertebrate biomass, by 1900, had dropped to about 20% of its historical value. Then by 2000, it had dropped to half that amount. <strong>Then by 2050, we expect that 2000 value to be cut in half again.</strong></p>
  1554. <p style="text-align: left;">By 2100, it will very likely all be gone. Well, almost all gone. There will still be plenty of rats and mice and perhaps a few other small vertebrates will still survive, but all the large megafauna, except humans, will be gone. Gone forever… or at least for the next million years or so. It will take that long for new megafauna to evolve after the human population has been greatly reduced to a billion or even a few million people.</p>
  1555. <p style="text-align: left;">But the far distant future is of little concern to us now. The sad fact of the matter is your descendants will live in a world completely free of wild megafauna. There is no way to avoid that fact now, it is already too late to stop the destruction.</p>
  1556. <p style="text-align: left;"><strong>WHY?</strong></p>
  1557. <p style="text-align: left;">Yes, why? Why are we destroying the earth’s ecosystem? Why are we driving most all wild animals into extinction? Why have we dramatically overpopulated the planet with human beings? Why did all this happen? However, when you ask why, you are implying that all this had a cause, that someone or some group of people are to blame for this damn mess we have gotten ourselves into.</p>
  1558. <p style="text-align: left;">Was it the early farmers who invented agriculture. Or was it the early industrialists like James Watt or Thomas Edison? Or was it Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, are they the villains that got us into such a damn mess? No, it was none of these people. It was no one person or no group of people. It was not even any revolution like the industrial revolution, the medical revolution or the green revolution. There is no one to blame and there is nothing to blame.</p>
  1559. <p style="text-align: left;">Agriculture<strong> enabled</strong> the very small early population to expand. The industrial revolution and later the green revolution<strong> enabled</strong> more people to be fed. The medical revolution <strong>enabled</strong> more babies to survive and people to live much longer. Our population has exploded simply because it could. We have always lived to the limit of our existence and we always will. It was just human nature pure and simple.</p>
  1560. <p style="text-align: left;">Now many will say that we are now controlling our population, that we have learned how to limit our fertility rate. Well, yes and no. Reference the below chart and table that were produced by the <a href="http://www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2012/world-population-data-sheet/fact-sheet-world-population.aspx" rel="">Population Reference Bureau</a> in 2012.</p>
  1561. <div class="captioned-image-container" style="text-align: left;">
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  1563. <div class="image2-inset">
  1564. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xzTR!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3357a3b-f47f-4619-bf8b-e6275478163c_641x351.jpeg" alt="" width="449" height="246" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/c3357a3b-f47f-4619-bf8b-e6275478163c_641x351.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:351,&quot;width&quot;:641,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
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  1568. </div>
  1569. </div>
  1570. </div>
  1571. </figure>
  1572. </div>
  1573. <p style="text-align: left;">Max just had a kiddo, a newborn, and so we had that looming in the foreground, since I have a 29 year old daughter traumatized by her radical dad her entire life.</p>
  1574. <div class="captioned-image-container" style="text-align: left;">
  1575. <figure>
  1576. <div class="image2-inset">
  1577. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kgYO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F53305c75-8d42-4a77-86f0-860a0786e11f_521x518.jpeg" alt="" width="284" height="282" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/53305c75-8d42-4a77-86f0-860a0786e11f_521x518.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:518,&quot;width&quot;:521,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:371,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1578. </div>
  1579. </figure>
  1580. </div>
  1581. <blockquote>
  1582. <p style="text-align: left;">The zoomass of wild vertebrates is now vanishingly small compared to the biomass of domestic animals. In 1900 there were some 1.6 billion large domesticated animals, including about 450 million head of cattle and water buffalo (HYDE 2011); a century later the count of large domestic animals had surpassed 4.3 billion, including 1.65 billion head of cattle and water buffalo and 900 million pigs (FAO 2011). Calculations using these head counts and average body weights (they have increased everywhere since 1900, but the differences between larger body masses in North America and Europe and lower weights elsewhere persist) yield estimates of at least 35 Mt C of domesticated zoomass in 1900 (more than three times the total of all wild land mammals) and at least 120 Mt C in the year 2000, a 3.5-fold increase in 100 years (and 25 times the total of wild mammalian zoomass). And cattle zoomass alone is now at least 250 times greater than the zoomass of all surviving African elephants, which in turn is less than 2 percent of the zoomass of Africa’s nearly 300 million bovines (Table 2).</p>
  1583. </blockquote>
  1584. <div class="captioned-image-container">
  1585. <figure>
  1586. <div class="image2-inset">
  1587. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="sizing-normal aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OSwg!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F51d89c97-9637-49ac-bfa9-0a79909dba63_702x209.jpeg" alt="" width="576" height="171" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/51d89c97-9637-49ac-bfa9-0a79909dba63_702x209.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:209,&quot;width&quot;:702,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" /></p>
  1588. </div>
  1589. </figure>
  1590. </div>
  1591. <p>The Earth currently has about <strong>19.6 billion chickens, 1.4 billion cattle, and 980 million pigs</strong> being raised as livestock.</p>
  1592. <p>*****</p>
  1593. <p style="text-align: left;">And the rest of the world? The world we have dominated?</p>
  1594. <p style="text-align: left;">The 2025 grades range from a B in ports to a D in stormwater and transit. For the first time since 1998, no Report Card categories were rated D−. Among the 18 categories assessed, eight saw grade increases. Many of those categories had been chronically stuck at D- or D for years. This improvement was possible due to the government and private sector prioritizing investments in systems that historically had received little attention. Two categories—energy and rail— were downgraded because of concerns related to capacity, future needs, and safety. Broadband was introduced as a graded category in 2025, coming in at a C+. Although evidence points to improvements throughout infrastructure’s system-of-systems, nine categories remained within the D range—a clear sign that more needs to be done to improve the health of America’s built environment.</p>
  1595. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!VFim!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff511f707-d048-4fa0-a391-22894aaa6849_1644x457.png" width="514" height="143" /></p>
  1596. </div>
  1597. </div>
  1598. <div class="visibility-check">
  1599. <ul>
  1600. <li>With ongoing sea level rise, flooding is an increasingly pressing issue. Coastal communities are already experiencing increased tidal flooding and storm surges, which are only expected to worsen with time.</li>
  1601. <li>People living on small, low-lying islands are also severely impacted. Whole island nations such as Tuvalu, Maldives, Palau, Fiji, Kiribati, and the Philippines could be swallowed by sea level rise (pictures below) and their inhabitants are in danger of being displaced and becoming climate refugees.</li>
  1602. <li>Climate change will especially impact poor, Black, and Indigenous people, as well as other people of color, who already suffer due to poverty, racism, and other oppressions. White, wealthy, and Western people will be able to distance themselves from disaster, despite contributing more to carbon emissions that cause climate change.</li>
  1603. </ul>
  1604. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8jE8!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9411247d-43f0-47df-b218-28b607924156_631x306.png" width="351" height="170" /></p>
  1605. </div>
  1606. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-paddingTop-16 pc-paddingBottom-16 pc-reset border-top-detail-themed-k9TZAY">
  1607. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-16 pc-alignItems-center pc-reset color-secondary-ls1g8s">
  1608. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-flexDirection-row pc-gap-8 pc-alignItems-center pc-justifyContent-flex-start pc-reset">
  1609. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-flexDirection-row pc-alignItems-center pc-justifyContent-flex-start pc-reset rtl-zsi3Q8">
  1610. <div class="profile-hover-card-target profileHoverCardTarget-PBxvGm"></div>
  1611. <div class="profile-hover-card-target profileHoverCardTarget-PBxvGm"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Crta!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F18e76de8-14d4-453f-b680-6a7c2d60d615_758x628.png" width="496" height="411" /></div>
  1612. <div class="profile-hover-card-target profileHoverCardTarget-PBxvGm">
  1613. <p>Many hungry people live in countries with food surpluses, not food shortages. The issue, largely, is that the people who need food the most simply don’t have steady access to it.</p>
  1614. <p>In the hungriest countries, families struggle to get the food they need because of several issues: lack of infrastructure, frequent war and displacement, natural disaster, climate change, chronic poverty and lack of purchasing power.</p>
  1615. <p>The majority of those who are hungry live in countries experiencing ongoing conflict and violence — 489 million of 821 million. The numbers are even more striking for children. More than 75 percent of the world&#8217;s malnourished children (122 million of 155 million) live in countries affected by conflict.</p>
  1616. <p style="text-align: center;">*****</p>
  1617. <p>USA&#8217;s report cards!</p>
  1618. <p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Sv7_!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe43604bc-8559-48ce-b0ce-5527a3eeaa74_1473x433.png" width="536" height="157" /></p>
  1619. </div>
  1620. <div class="profile-hover-card-target profileHoverCardTarget-PBxvGm"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cEqa!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F139d7d1b-788a-42a1-b16d-9c58ff78e430_1468x374.png" width="476" height="121" /></div>
  1621. </div>
  1622. </div>
  1623. <div class="pencraft pc-reset color-secondary-ls1g8s line-height-20-t4M0El font-text-qe4AeH size-13-hZTUKr weight-regular-mUq6Gb reset-IxiVJZ">
  1624. <div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-4 pc-alignItems-center pc-reset"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AlHD!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9540cbad-a849-4dc3-a984-09ca148796a3_1000x1500.png" alt="Image of candy. It does not help with learning" width="343" height="515" /></div>
  1625. </div>
  1626. </div>
  1627. </div>
  1628. </div>
  1629. </div>
  1630. </div>
  1631. </div>
  1632. </div>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/dv-readers-get-to-hear-bright-green-lies/">DV Readers Get to Hear Bright Green Lies</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  1636. </item>
  1637. <item>
  1638. <title>Gunfire Communication with “Zombie Hordes”: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the IDF</title>
  1639. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/gunfire-communication-with-zombie-hordes-the-gaza-humanitarian-foundation-and-the-idf/</link>
  1641. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Binoy Kampmark]]></dc:creator>
  1642. <pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2025 13:00:18 +0000</pubDate>
  1643. <category><![CDATA["Aid"]]></category>
  1644. <category><![CDATA[Famine]]></category>
  1645. <category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
  1646. <category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
  1647. <category><![CDATA[Israeli Defense Force (IDF)]]></category>
  1648. <category><![CDATA[Massacres]]></category>
  1649. <category><![CDATA[Palestine]]></category>
  1650. <category><![CDATA[War]]></category>
  1651. <category><![CDATA[Zionism]]></category>
  1652. <category><![CDATA[Anas Baba]]></category>
  1653. <category><![CDATA[Israeli Defense Forces]]></category>
  1654. <category><![CDATA[The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation]]></category>
  1655. <category><![CDATA[“zombie hordes”]]></category>
  1656. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159740</guid>
  1657.  
  1658. <description><![CDATA[<p>It’s made to order. First, eliminate the aid system after creating circumstances of enormous suffering. Then, kill, starve, vanquish, and displace those in need of that aid.  Finally, give the pretence of humanity by ensuring some aid to those whose suffering you created in the first place. As things stand, the system of aid distribution [&#8230;]</p>
  1659. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/gunfire-communication-with-zombie-hordes-the-gaza-humanitarian-foundation-and-the-idf/">Gunfire Communication with “Zombie Hordes”: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the IDF</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  1660. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It’s made to order. First, eliminate the aid system after creating circumstances of enormous suffering. Then, kill, starve, vanquish, and displace those in need of that aid.  Finally, give the pretence of humanity by ensuring some aid to those whose suffering you created in the first place.</p>
  1661. <p>As things stand, the system of aid distribution in the Gaza Strip is intended to cause suffering and destruction to recipients. Since May 26, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an opaque entity with Israeli and US backing, has run the distribution of parcels from a mere four points, a grim joke given the four hundred or so outlets previously operated by the United Nations Palestinian relief agency. The entire process of seeking aid has been heavily rationed and militarized, with Israeli troops and private contractors exercising murderous force with impunity. Opening times are not set, rendering the journey to the distribution points even more precarious. When they do open, they do so for short spells.</p>
  1662. <p><em>Haaretz</em> has run reports quoting soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces claiming to have orders to deliberately fire upon unarmed crowds on their perilous journey to the food sites. In a June 27 <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-27/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-soldiers-ordered-to-shoot-deliberately-at-unarmed-gazans-waiting-for-humanitarian-aid/00000197-ad8e-de01-a39f-ffbe33780000">piece</a>, the paper quotes a soldier describing the distribution sites as “a killing field.”  Where he was stationed, “between one and five people were killed every day.” Those seeking aid were “treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.”</p>
  1663. <p>The interviewed soldier could recall no instance of return fire. “There’s no enemy, no weapons.” IDF officers also told the paper that the GHF’s operations had provided a convenient distraction for continuing operations in Gaza, which had been turned into a “backyard”, notably during Israel’s war with Iran. In the words of a reservist, the Strip had “become a place with its own set of rules. The loss of human life means nothing. It’s not even an ‘unfortunate incident’ like they used to say.”</p>
  1664. <p>An IDF officer involved in overseeing security at one of the distribution centers was full of understatement. “Working with a civilian population when your only means of interaction is opening fire – that’s highly problematic, to say the least.” It was “neither ethically nor morally acceptable for people to have to reach, or fail to reach, a [humanitarian zone] under tank fire, snipers and mortar shells.”</p>
  1665. <p>Much the same story can be found with the security contractors, those enthusiastic killers following in the footsteps of predecessors who treat international humanitarian law as inconvenient if not altogether irrelevant. Countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq can attest to the blood-soiled record of private military contractors, <a href="https://icoca.ch/case-studies/the-nisour-square-massacre/">with the killing</a> of 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad city’s Nisour Square by Blackwater USA employees in September 2007 being but one spectacular example. While those employees faced trial and conviction in a US federal court in 2014 on an assortment of charges – among them murder, manslaughter, and attempted manslaughter – such a fate is unlikely for any of those working for the GHF.</p>
  1666. <p>On July 4, the BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cnvmry71q5yo">published</a> the observations of a former contractor on the trigger-happy conduct of his colleagues around the food centers. In one instance, a guard opened fire on women, children, and elderly people “moving too slowly away from the site.” Another contractor, also on location, stood on the berm overlooking the exit to one of the GHF sites, firing 15 to 20 bursts of repetitive fire at the crowd. “A Palestinian man dropped to the ground motionless. And then, the other contractor who was standing there was like, ‘damn, I think you got one’. And then they laughed about it.”</p>
  1667. <p>The company had also failed to issue contractors any operating procedures or rules of engagement, except one: “If you feel threatened, shoot – shoot to kill and ask questions later.” No reference is made to the <a href="https://icoca.ch/the-code/">International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers</a>. To journey to Gaza was to go to a land unencumbered by laws and rules. “Do what you want” is the cultural norm of GHF operatives. And this stands to reason, given the reference of “team leaders” to Gazans seeking aid as “zombie hordes”.</p>
  1668. <p>The GHF, in time-honored fashion, has denied these allegations. Ditto the IDF, that great self-proclaimed stalwart of international law. It is, therefore, left to such contributors as Anas Baba, NPR’s producer in the Gaza Strip, to enlighten those who care to read and listen. As one of the few Palestinian journalists working for a US news outlet in the strip, his observations carry singular weight. In a recent <a href="https://ozarab.media/knivesbulletsandthievesthequestforfoodingaza/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=knivesbulletsandthievesthequestforfoodingaza">report</a>, Baba neatly summarised the manufactured brutality behind the seeking of aid in an enclave strangled and suffering gradual extinction. “I faced Israeli military fire, private US contractors pointing laser beams at my forehead, crowds with knives fighting for rations, and masked thieves – to get food from a group supported by the US and Israel called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”.</p>
  1669. <p>If nothing else, it is high time that the GHF scraps any pretense of being humanitarian in its title and admits to its true role: an adjutant to Israel’s program of extirpating Gaza’s Palestinian population.</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/gunfire-communication-with-zombie-hordes-the-gaza-humanitarian-foundation-and-the-idf/">Gunfire Communication with “Zombie Hordes”: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the IDF</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  1673. </item>
  1674. <item>
  1675. <title>Why I’m Running for Leadership of Canada&#8217;s NDP</title>
  1676. <link>https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/why-im-running-for-leadership-of-canadas-ndp/</link>
  1678. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Yves Engler]]></dc:creator>
  1679. <pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2025 12:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
  1680. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  1681. <category><![CDATA[Antiwar]]></category>
  1682. <category><![CDATA[Canada]]></category>
  1683. <category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
  1684. <category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
  1685. <category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
  1686. <category><![CDATA[Empire]]></category>
  1687. <category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
  1688. <category><![CDATA[Genocide]]></category>
  1689. <category><![CDATA[Imperialism]]></category>
  1690. <category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
  1691. <category><![CDATA[Mark Carney]]></category>
  1692. <category><![CDATA[Militarism]]></category>
  1693. <category><![CDATA[New Democratic Party (NDP)]]></category>
  1694. <category><![CDATA[Palestine]]></category>
  1695. <category><![CDATA[Peace]]></category>
  1696. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
  1697. <category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>
  1698. <category><![CDATA[Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives]]></category>
  1699. <category><![CDATA[Eco-socialism]]></category>
  1700. <category><![CDATA[Energy and Paperworkers Union (now Unifor)]]></category>
  1701. <category><![CDATA[Heather McPherson]]></category>
  1702. <category><![CDATA[Jean Chrétien]]></category>
  1703. <category><![CDATA[Michael Wernick]]></category>
  1704. <category><![CDATA[Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network]]></category>
  1705. <category><![CDATA[Sean Orr]]></category>
  1706. <category><![CDATA[Zohran Mamdani]]></category>
  1707. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=159736</guid>
  1708.  
  1709. <description><![CDATA[<p>I’m running to lead the New Democratic Party. Canada needs a mainstream voice willing to challenge capitalism and imperialism while promoting decolonization, degrowth, and economic democracy. Initially, my reaction to the NDP Socialist Caucus’ request to run was to reject it. But there are two crucial issues before us that I am particularly well placed [&#8230;]</p>
  1710. The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/why-im-running-for-leadership-of-canadas-ndp/">Why I’m Running for Leadership of Canada’s NDP</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></description>
  1711. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I’m running to lead the New Democratic Party. Canada needs a mainstream voice willing to challenge capitalism and imperialism while promoting decolonization, degrowth, and economic democracy.</p>
  1712. <p>Initially, my reaction to the NDP Socialist Caucus’ request to run was to reject it. But there are two crucial issues before us that I am particularly well placed to challenge: Canadian complicity in Israel’s holocaust in Gaza and the unprecedented growth in military spending.</p>
  1713. <p>Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are revolted by this country enabling Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza. They can trust that I’ll stand up to the genocide lobby. As student union vice-president, I was expelled from Concordia University in the aftermath of the 2002 protest against Benjamin Netanyahu, and fifteen years ago, I wrote <em>Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid</em>. I understand the scope of Canada’s complicity. I will push to jail anyone in this country who has participated in war crimes in Gaza, and to investigate institutions “inducing” young Canadians to join the Israeli military. I’ll seek to outlaw government-subsidized donations to Israel, de-list the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, and end Canada’s assistance to a security force overseeing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.</p>
  1714. <p>We need to politicize the popular uprising against Israel’s holocaust by “Canadianizing” it. But we also need to move those politicized by Gaza towards broader critiques of Canadian foreign policy, militarism, and the unequal, ecologically damaging status quo. The left has not done well in turning the Palestine mobilizations into a broader systemic challenge. Might an insurgent NDP candidacy assist?</p>
  1715. <p>Anyone appalled by the Liberals’ and Conservatives’ support for the holocaust in Gaza should be terrified by the prospect of giving these monsters greater means to wage violence.</p>
  1716. <p>But that is exactly what is taking place. Prime Minister Mark Carney has committed to the largest military expansion in seventy years. In Saturday’s <i>Globe and Mail,</i> Michael Wernick explained, “<u><a id="m_272921061084886861OWA5515495d-ea88-c0c1-efb2-747eb3c66f4d" title="Protected by Outlook: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-should-consider-hiking-consumption-taxes-to-pay-for-defence/. Click or tap to follow the link." href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-should-consider-hiking-consumption-taxes-to-pay-for-defence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-should-consider-hiking-consumption-taxes-to-pay-for-defence/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752023550668000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2U2kHo7qb33O8eAJwY3KHm">It’s a mistake</a></u> to think of this as a short-term issue. It’s going to bedevil finance ministers for the next six or seven budgets and probably be relevant to the next two federal election campaigns.” To pay for Carney’s massive military boost, the former head of Canada’s public service is calling for a new 2-per-cent “defense and security tax” in addition to the GST.</p>
  1717. <p>Wernick’s proposal should spur a backlash. So should the slashing of the civil service and social programs to pay for more war spending. Even before the massive military boost, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has concluded that Carney’s campaign promises would likely lead to the “<u><a id="m_272921061084886861OWA907be150-07c6-0e72-aa8d-edee2440cc71" href="https://ottawacitizen.com/public-service/worst-cuts-to-the-public-service-in-modern-history-could-be-on-the-horizon-says-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ottawacitizen.com/public-service/worst-cuts-to-the-public-service-in-modern-history-could-be-on-the-horizon-says-report&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752023550668000&amp;usg=AOvVaw38r9NQ3YNwVnjl_-5_3K4I">worst</a></u> cuts to the public service in modern history.”</p>
  1718. <p>While it’s bad enough that Mark Carney’s war spending plan will lead to major cuts in social programs and bolster an authoritarian, racist, and patriarchal institution, more soldiers and weapons will also lead to more international killing and subjugation campaigns. It’s beyond reckless to strengthen the killing hand of politicians who’ve enabled Israel’s holocaust.</p>
  1719. <p>However, the current NDP leadership is unable to say as much or even seriously push back on boosting military spending, as they’ve promoted the institution, US foreign policy, and the belligerent NATO alliance. Establishment leadership candidate Heather McPherson is part of the NATO Parliamentary Association, and she called for Canada to promote Ukraine’s membership in the alliance (even former Prime Minister Jean Chretien <u><a id="m_272921061084886861OWAb58c0312-e79d-d9d7-9583-3b2d35479c9d" href="https://yvesengler.com/2025/06/16/time-for-ndp-to-ditch-warmongering-like-former-pm-chretien-says/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://yvesengler.com/2025/06/16/time-for-ndp-to-ditch-warmongering-like-former-pm-chretien-says/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752023550669000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0kR_hBu3p3Ee156aUTtaFU">recognizes</a></u> that NATO expansion contributed to provoking Russia’s illegal invasion). As I detail in <a href="https://blackrosebooks.com/products/engler-stand-on-guard" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><u><em>Stand on Guard for Whom</em></u></a><em>: A People’s History of the Canadian Military,</em> we should withdraw from NATO, lessen US military ties, and cut military spending.</p>
  1720. <p>Although my knowledge and credentials in other areas of public policy may not be as strong, over the past 25 years, I’ve assisted environmental, indigenous, feminist, and other social movements.</p>
  1721. <p>As part of protecting political speech, I’ll push to end state surveillance of activists, weaken the intelligence agencies, and abolish Canada’s terrorism list. As part of promoting Land Back, I’ll seek to expand Indigenous jurisdiction. As part of significantly reducing Canada’s ecological footprint, I’ll push to immediately phase out Alberta’s tar sands.</p>
  1722. <p>Capitalism’s need for endless consumption and profit maximization is imperiling humanity’s long-term survival. We must build an alternative that rejects its war on the earth, human psyche, and democracy.</p>
  1723. <p>In <i>Economic Democracy: The Working Class Alternative to Capitalism,</i> my late uncle, Al Engler, proposed an egalitarian, democratic vision for replacing a capitalist economic system based on one dollar, one vote with an economic democracy based on one person, one vote. When I worked for the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (now Unifor), I successfully promoted measures that led to economic democracy. I crafted a widely circulated call to set up a publicly owned national telecommunications company, promoted an eco-socialist vision for a union representing tar sands workers, and published mainstream commentary questioning why we have democracy in the political arena but not in the workplace.</p>
  1724. <p>The aim of running is to win the party leadership, but that’s obviously a long shot. The more realistic objective is to drive the debate away from the mushy middle. To do so will require the support of many volunteers and registering a few thousand new members to ensure the other candidates know the campaign is serious. To win, we’d need to persuade 25,000 individuals to purchase NDP memberships and convince a significant portion of current members to support bold change. This is a steep hill to climb, but half of Canadians believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and many tens of thousands are appalled by Canada’s complicity.</p>
  1725. <p>Two months ago, I spoke before 20,000 at an anti-genocide demonstration in Ottawa, and six weeks into Israel’s holocaust at a march in Montreal of 50,000</p>
  1726. <p>As Sean Orr’s victory for Vancouver city council and Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York Democratic primary attest, there’s an appetite for change out there. Let’s see what happens.</p>The post <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/07/why-im-running-for-leadership-of-canadas-ndp/">Why I’m Running for Leadership of Canada’s NDP</a> first appeared on <a href="https://dissidentvoice.org">Dissident Voice</a>.]]></content:encoded>
  1730. </item>
  1731. </channel>
  1732. </rss>
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