#just pushing the 60+ army agenda

[wqdwaefes]

Usually injuries include broken shoulders

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[joachimnapoleon]

On the Murat/Lannes relationship

Napoleonic history is a tangled web. In the relatively short amount of time (three years-ish) since it first ensnared me, I've lost count of all the narratives/anecdotes/random tidbits I've come across in one source that have ended up being contradicted in another. I feel better about not always knowing what to believe when I see professional historians tripping over the facts themselves--like Michael Broers, in the first volume of his overall amazing trilogy-in-progress on Napoleon, referring to the story about Eugène de Beauharnais asking Napoleon for his father's sword back, as a myth "fabricated by Eugène and Hortense, after Napoleon's fall," when Napoleon himself recounted the story on Saint Helena. The truth is, this subject is just so vast it's impossible to get everything right 100% of the time.

And it doesn't help that a lot of what has come down over the years and become "common knowledge" on the subject often derives from memoirs written to push certain agendas, to fashion narratives, and to defend (and destroy) reputations.

Napoleon's marshals grabbed my interest right off the bat--Murat in particular--and I grabbed up every book I could find early on, with zero idea of which ones were credible or outdated. And some of them were old--the first Murat biography I read (by Atteridge) was from before all eight volumes of his available correspondence had even been published. The first book on the marshals I read was from 1934 (by Macdonell); the next (by Delderfield) was from the 60s. They were all good introductory reading but left me with a lot of ideas/assumptions that I ended up abandoning later on as I delved more into the primary sources.

One of these is the "Murat and Lannes hated each other" narrative.

I can't say beyond a shadow of a doubt that Laure Junot's infamous memoirs are entirely to blame, but I'm sure they definitely contributed to mainstreaming this particular narrative (among others). The Duchess d'Abrantès despised both Joachim and Caroline Murat, and devoted ample space in her memoirs to making them look as heinous (and universally disliked) as possible. The professional rivalry between Lannes and Murat--which legitimately did exist, at least early on--was blown out of proportion, and future historians gleefully piggybacked on it because drama sells books. And so we end up with excerpts like this in Delderfeld's Napoleon's Marshals:

The two future marshals, who already detested one another, were laid side by side in the hospital and Lannes must have taken full advantage of the fact that he could insult his rival with impunity, for Murat's jaw had been shattered by a pistol shot and his face was swathed in bandages. [2002 edition, page 51]

Again, I don't deny there was an early professional rivalry between the two, deliberately exacerbated by Napoleon, who delighted in this sort of thing. Marbot, who served under Lannes, relates the following:

General Bonaparte, when on his way to assume the command of the Army of Italy in 1796, took as his senior aide-de-camp Murat, whom he had just promoted to colonel, and for whom he had a great liking. Having, however, in the first actions noticed the military capacity, zeal, and courage of Lannes... he granted to that officer an equally large share of his esteem and friendship, thus exciting Murat's jealousy. When the two colonels had become generals of brigade, Bonaparte was accustomed, on critical occasions, to entrust to Murat the direction of the cavalry charges and put Lannes in command of the reserve of the grenadiers. Both did splendidly, and the army had nothing but praise for either. But between these gallant officers there grew up a rivalry which, if the truth must be told, was not at all displeasing to the commander-in-chief, as tending to stimulate their zeal and their desire of distinction. He would extol before Murat the achievements of General Lannes, and enlarge in Lannes' presence on the merits of Murat. [Memoirs of the Baron de Marbot, 1903, page 336]

From this early rivalry, we are led to believe that Lannes and Murat hated each other unhappily ever after. As "proof" of this we are given the occasional heat-of-the-moment blowup during later campaigns.

But the narrative starts to melt away when you look at their personal correspondence.

When I first started diving into Murat's correspondence after my obsession took hold, I was fairly shocked when I read some of the letters between him and Lannes and saw so many marks of affection--and frequent use of the informal tu, used between close friends and intimates, instead of the formal vous. I’ve seen this spun, in order to uphold the Lannes Hated Murat™ narrative, as Lannes just doing it to nettle Murat by being blatantly disrespectful or some such nonsense. I don’t buy that take, personally.

Some of the letters/excerpts (with translations following each):

"I see with pleasure that Blücher and the Duke of Weimar will not escape you. Be sure that you will never have as much glory as I want for you and that I love you a thousand times more than you love me. I will never cease to seize every circumstance of giving you new proofs of it. A thousand and thousand times your friend."

Excerpt in Lannes' own hand from a letter to Murat dated 1 December 1806:

"I give you my word, my dear friend, that the soldier is in the greatest misery, make sure that food is sent to us from Warsaw. Your best friend, Lannes."

"I pray you, my dear Duke, tell me if the Emperor must come soon to Warsaw. If I can get in a carriage, I count on going in two days to the capital, unless you think we're making a movement; in this latter case, I will be obliged to you to let me know it. You can't have an idea of what I've suffered. The Emperor gave me much grief, on the subject of what was found in Stettin, I will tell you all that when I see you. Farewell, my good friend, I love you with all my heart."

"The rumor runs here, my dear Murat, that you are coming with the Emperor, the governor himself assures me of it, I will be obliged to you to let me know if this is true. I'm writing to His Majesty to request his orders. You must have suffered much this campaign, my dear Murat, I have no need to tell you that I've shared all your fatigues. I would have been happier to  be with you. Farewell, my dear Murat, give me your news and believe me for life your best friend."

In July of 1808, recovering from a severe illness that struck him in Spain, Murat went to "take the cure" in Barèges. He spent a few days there with Lannes and Ney, and was able to share the news with them that Napoleon had just made him the King of Naples. He writes the following letter to Lannes while in Barèges:

"I'm sending you, my dear marshal, a letter from the Emperor; read it and send it back to me. You will learn this good news with pleasure, and I am sure that you will be delighted with the advice that His Majesty gives you to hurry and drink the waters. If you want to write him, send the letter immediately; I will send it by the return of his courier. Farewell, love always your good friend."

After their brief stay at Barèges, Murat accompanies Lannes to Lannes' chateau near Lectoure, and stays as his guest, to finish his recuperation through the end of July. Murat, months later in Naples, writes to his friend to express his gratitude for Lannes' care of him during his illness (this one's a bit hard to read, sorry):

"My dear Duke, it has been a long time since I left you, I was glad to see your journey, I am persuaded that you were and are happy, I believe you are happy myself, since you are with the Emperor. Never leave him, it is only with him that there is happiness, I am no longer happy since I left him. You are persuaded of my friendship, but wanting to give you a recent proof of it, I just wrote to His Majesty to beg him to permit me to send you my Order of the Two Sicilies, it will acquire a new merit, worn by you. You are going to leave, you are going to fight again, and me, I will make wishes for your success. Was the Emperor Alexander friendly? And the Grand Duke? Did you conclude anything? You must tell me. Farewell, my dear Duke, love always your friend who will never forget your recent proofs of attachment. All yours; I kiss your children."

So in summary: I believe that Murat & Lannes were professional rivals early in their careers, but that their rivalry has been blown way out of proportion because drama makes good copy, and I'm pretty firmly convinced that they were a good deal closer than has commonly been believed/written. At any rate, I'm glad to be able to show another side of their relationship that hasn't gotten nearly as much attention as Lannes referring to Murat as an ass and a strutting rooster or whatever it was in Laure Junot's memoirs. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading; this ended up being a good deal longer than I originally envisioned it.

[All the letters above come from Volumes 4-7 of Lettres Et Documents Pour Servir À l'Histoire de Joachim Murat, except for the 18 July 1808 letter, which is from Albert Lumbroso’s Correspondance de Joachim Murat. I take full blame for any flaws in the translations, which are entirely my own.]

#Joachim Murat #Jean Lannes #Napoleon's marshals #history #Napoleonic history #letters #translations

[whatshappeninginchile]

The Chilean revolution: It’s not 30 pesos, it’s 30 years.

Via Reddit: What is going on with the protest in Chile? (r/OutOfTheLoop)

Written by: georgeoftheandes

Chilean here. The rioting started with a call to evade the payment of the subway - a state owned company - after a panel of experts decided the price had to increase. The price after the hike was set to $830. However, the subway can operate, at a profit, with $600 and the difference is to subsidize the buses of the private concessionaires which are usually derelict machines. The subway was made the core of the public transportation system in 2003 and it has been bad and insufficient since then.

As you can imagine, the price hike was only the tip of the iceberg. For the last 15 or 20 years economic growth has been stable, but salaries of the middle and poor have remained constant although indexed to inflation - an index that rarely reflects the actual cost of living of poor people. As an example, avocados which were a staple of Chilean diet since the times of Allende can now be found at lower prices in Europe than in the local farmer's market.

Food prices are related to an ongoing drought. The drought is partially related to global warming, but a lot of water is diverted to plantations and mining and companies don't just grab their allotment: they grab a lot more. This is another source of discontent as water rights are owned by rich privates and landlords.

Since the average salary is low, the resulting pensions are miserable. The pensions system dates back to 1982 and since its inception it has been known that it had to be adapted. A women retiring at 60 will have her pension savings exhausted by the time she is 67, while her life expectation is 79. Guys fare a bit better, but since the average salary here is 600,000 pesos per month (USD 800, heavily skewed to lower numbers than that) then the average pension is lower than minimum wage. Efforts to fix this during the last years have resulted in discussion of the politicians around who is going to manage the money and not about the amount of the pension.

Health coverage is the best if you can afford an expensive insurance plan. State coverage is supposed to cover for everything in the most expensive (economically catastrophic) diseases such as cancer, aids, rare genetic diseases, etc.... but with a small print such as the coverage is for those who get the disease at an age when its improbable you will get it. State health staff and hospitals is insufficient, so people need to arrive at 5am to expect to be seen at some time during the day.

Pretty much every administration since the return to the democracy has given more of the cake to big foreign and local investors and has turned a blind eye to company mergers that result in a huge concentration of the market.

There is a general distrust in institutions. A rich banker which evades taxes is sentenced to ethics classes, while a middle-class guy will lose everything, so the courts are not trusted. The carabineros (the police) used to be the last bastion of trust from the populace but it has recently been found that they have been misappropriating millions of dollars from their budget; same with the army.

The members of parliament make 32 times the minimum wage - their compensation is higher than most middle-sized companies' CEOs. Yet they just spend time adding 'political gestures' in laws supposed to be for the general good, introducing an artificial noise in the operation of the law.

Finally, the executive power here is almighty. Law initiatives start in the president's office to be sent to the congress. So the last 4 administrations (Bachelet 1 and 2, Piñera 1 and 2) have been pushing for laws that were sold to the people as huge social improvements, that in the end were just a matter of redistributing who owned the structures and who managed them.

One of the great changes of those administrations is that participation in elections are not compulsory anymore, so a lot of people do not feel represented by anybody so they don't vote instead of attending the booth and writing down their option which is legal. So the representatives elected represent a minority of the minority.

So people feel cheated. Discontent has been brewing for decades and now we want these fuckers in power to stop waisting everybody's lives.

Finally, I am sorry but you won't find a single source of unbiased info - especially not in r/chile because there's guys focused on pushing their side of the political agenda there, just like in twitter, facebook and instagram.

#chile #chileanrevolution #chileansituation #politic #30pesos #Piñera #30years #reddit #georgeoftheandes

[nandasachra]

the spirit of aging

This past year shaped another perspective of mine about aging. I used to be anxious and agitated on the particular aging moment called birthday but now I am about to receive it with a warm welcome. 

Since the catharsis process I went through a couple of months ago, I can feel my heart feels a bit well-ventilated and my mind feels a bit lighter. Thanks to the healing journey of catharsis, I can find meaning—even strength, from the painful feeling that I was intentionally facing—even seek. This catharsis process is indeed destroying me, yet so much empowering at the same time, a proof to my own self that I’m bigger than my own fear. Even I had tried to convert my fear into love. The very kind of love that I know will always there, intimate, hanging on the air of that sentimental city, waiting to fall like a clean rain washing out the dust on the ground of fear. 

Yes, I did it, also left some of it for another time. 

That moment also did a favor of emptying my emotional bucket that apparently has been full since my mind rotating around fragmented subjects of my existential angst, as preparing myself for whatever misery will come to me in a spur-of-the-moment, the action of anticipating my disguised fragility. Maybe some people are unwittingly a living paradox, they can be firm on their shells just to protect their delicacies. Or may I say all of us? 

Anyway, emptying my emotional bucket gives me outcomes to be more fair and sensible towards every choice that life has been given recently. And I guess, this catharsis process is one of the trials of whatever I learn from it.

-

5 July 2021

I woke up in the morning, half-awake to the yellow light softly came through my window, I believe when I’m fully awake & aware I can see the dust heavenly dancing around the beam—I’ll be joining them in a minute.

I heard distance movements from the living beings such a clear sign that the island is waking up. I grunted while I moved my body steadily. I felt much safe and easy under this blanket, the soreness of my body really want to makes me root onto this bed.

-

Days in my sicknesses, I finally decided to do COVID swab test and then got a positive result. It’s an “Uh-oh” moment, seems that I’ve got another unexpected birthday present from the universe huh. Who knows this virus would eventually be a personal blessing for me we’ll see. I’m quite sure it is COV19 because the illness spreading so fast in one day. Five persons in our place having a symptoms altogether then 4 of us were resulting positive. Greeting to the virus, evidently there will be no place in this world really have a privilege of the immune state, not even this tiny remote island. A reality that we must accept, a measurement that we must undergo.

My life feels like hit a pause button going thru this time. The symptoms was high in the early few days, like cannot breathe properly without the reserved O2 for several nights is a real thing. It’s been 6 days the very moment I write this. I’m a bit in distress not only because of the physical pain I felt, but I’m afraid if this virus could spread easily on this island by something we cannot anticipate at this moment, though we’re doing what we can do to make this isolation system works properly by the very least interaction—still, there’s slight interaction cannot be avoided. Also we can never be sure how each person’s immune system responds to the virus and how the body reacts to it. No sufficient health facility, so, fingers crossed.

However, being isolated on this island is actually way better than going off to be isolated in the city. Think I’m lucky by getting COVID while I’m here, for the virus cannot spread pervasively. When I feel decent I can do morning sunbathe at the beach to get Vit D, still can dip at sunset to release any tension, still can have a mindful walk around the trees in 50m proximity to get fresh air supply. I’m giving cheers to this isolated island’s made for.

The fact that I’m isolated with 3 other rangers that also infected makes me get to know them well. The isolation obviously could make someone feeling disconnected whatsoever, of course for me too, but for me also there’s a connection with people who bear the same struggle. In one very tiny building occupied by 4 sick people, we’re checking one another, entertaining each other by the silly stories, jokes, off-tune singing, and absurd behaviors. It’s been light-hearted in some ways. Treat each other more as friends than co-workers, no professional agenda. And day by day I’m able to understand each of them slightly deeper and build more intimacy that I always long for in people, develop my empathize with them.

By the time I’m basically pushing away work and other responsibilities as much as I can, let me just first reflect on life at the moment—like birthday always be a moment of reflection. Birthday will always be a very personal to me, it’s going deep inward rather than human-relational as one of the social-phenomenon I’ve been used to witnessed in this eon. It’s quite contradictory that I like to keep a mark for my close circle’s birthdays, like family and my closest friends—for the highest mark, in my prayer. 

For the moment of birthday, I’d like to get to the point that I understand myself a little better. To look at how myself experience life a bit wider—emotionally, spiritually, physically, and see how much I experienced intimacy, warmth, and compassion towards my own self and those around me. After all, I look at how myself progressed and regressed and what can be done to maintain this progression and rectify any regression. And as I’m getting older I also contemplate of how this trivial, annual incremental number means to me.

I recall one dusk time in Sorong, myself was sipping a Malaysian coffee while I listened to someone’s story echoed at my table. He’s a friend of mine, Don, 60 years old seems like 40 something. I asked him why he seems way much younger than his age?

He told me story, he had cancer when he was 30, he was being an army. It was the turning point of his life when he got a chance to live longer, cured of his illness, and then he felt like he was reborn to someone new, because it makes him rethink about himself and redefining his meaning on this life as one single human blessed with second chance. From US then he moved to Jakarta, looking for another way to live, from an army then being an engineer in an oil & gas company. He said maybe that’s why he looks younger because his life started again ever since. I know he was just trying to make fun of it, but somehow I love the spirit at the end of the story. Currently in his 60s he’s actively trail-running jump around the woods in Sorong nearby, hence I met him.

The point of his chronicle is not because of his illness regarding me fighting against COVID at this moment, I can say this is nothing compared to his—thanks for the full dose of vaccine shots that I got a few times ago, ease up the symptoms. But this is about the spirit of aging that emits from him, that whatever number you’ve been stand in this world, you’re still functioning. You can still choose how to bring yourself to the world, what act of services you can do to others. You can still learn everything and be whatever you want in alignment with your purpose. Your brain and your potential won’t decay over time as long as you sharpen it very careful and precise.

I believe aging is a biological phenomenon, the thing is after so many times it becomes a social symbol well-tailored by the culture—by the certain age you have to get a job, you have to get married, to bearing children, to be on top, to do this and to do that.. we have to be conform—and for this reason, I can tell you why. it. always. makes. me. uncomfortable, by getting older.

But now I get to embrace aging by the moment of getting mature, not getting old. Mature by healthy mindset, healthy lifestyle, healthy soul, also a broader set of knowledge to get along with people from a wide range of ages and backgrounds, just like Don. Even, he also displays that aging—the physical phenomenon itself—hasn’t necessarily dictate our own physical—boom. It’s adding more accuracy that age really is just a number. 

Your whole being, decide.

Last but not least. A special note for my birthday, I’m grateful that I’m not alone going thru this.

Stay safe, everyone.

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Canadian beavers chomp down town’s internet (BBC) Beavers have been blamed after a town in the Canadian province of British Columbia lost their internet service for some 12 hours. The provider Telus said that parts of the underground cabling, servicing Tumbler Ridge, had been found in the beavers’ home. Some 900 internet users and 60 TV customers were affected, it said. Telus spokeswoman Liz Sauvé described it as a “very unusual and uniquely Canadian turn of events”.

US marks slowest population growth since the Depression (AP) U.S. population growth has slowed to the lowest rate since the Great Depression, the Census Bureau said Monday, as Americans continued their march to the South and West and one-time engines of growth, New York and California, lost political influence. Altogether, the U.S. population rose to 331,449,281 last year, the Census Bureau said, a 7.4% increase that was the second-slowest ever. Experts say that paltry pace reflects the combination of an aging population, slowing immigration and the scars of the Great Recession more than a decade ago, which led many young adults to delay marriage and families. The new allocation of congressional seats comes in the first release of data from last year’s headcount. The numbers generally chart familiar American migration patterns: Texas and Florida, two Republican Sunbelt giants, added enough population to gain congressional seats as chillier climes like New York and Ohio saw slow growth and lost political muscle. The report also confirms one historic marker: For the first time in 170 years of statehood, California is losing a congressional seat, a result of slowed migration to the nation’s most populous state, which was once a symbol of the country’s expansive frontier.

After Nearly a Year of Unrest, Portland Leaders Pursue a Crackdown (NYT) After the protests have concluded, sometimes in the early morning hours, Margaret Carter finds herself climbing into her gray Toyota Camry and cruising the streets of Portland so she can see the latest damage for herself. Carter, 85, has been downtown to the Oregon Historical Society, where demonstrators have twice smashed out the windows, recently scrawling “No More History” on the side of the building. She has driven past the local headquarters of the Democratic Party, where windows have also been shattered. Last week, she found herself at the Boys & Girls Club in her own neighborhood, nearing tears at the scene of costly window destruction at a place she has worked so hard to support. “Portland was a beautiful city,” said Carter, who was the first Black woman elected to the Oregon Legislative Assembly and is now retired. “Now you walk around and see all the graffiti, buildings being boarded up. I get sick to my stomach. And I get angry.” After almost a year of near-continuous protests since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Portland’s city leaders are signaling that it may be time for a more aggressive crackdown on the most strident street actions. Mayor Ted Wheeler last week put into place a state of emergency that lasted six days and vowed to “unmask” those demonstrators who engaged in repeated acts of vandalism or arson. In his call for the public’s help, Wheeler urged people to report anything they might overhear about property destruction plans or boasts. He also called for residents to report protesters who appeared to be disguising their identity and to document their license plates for the police.

California recall has enough signatures to make ballot (AP) Organizers of the recall effort against California Gov. Gavin Newsom collected enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, state election officials said Monday, likely triggering just the second such election in state history. The recall against Newsom, a first-term Democrat seen as a possible White House hopeful someday, will be among the highest-profile political races in the country this year. An election is likely in the fall and voters would face two questions: Should Newsom be recalled and who should replace him? The votes on the second question will only be counted if more than half say yes to the first. Newsom won election in 2018 with support from more than 60% of the voters. Recalling him will be a tough sell in the heavily Democratic state where just a quarter of the state’s registered voters are Republicans, about the same number as those who identify as “no party preference.”

Under the sea, out of sight (Bloomberg) A 52-foot long, 8-foot wide submersible hauling 2,500 kilograms of cocaine was intercepted by U.S. authorities in the Caribbean about 150 miles north of South America. Since last October, the U.S. Caribbean Corridor Strike Force has seized a total of 17,000 kilograms of cocaine worth more than $510 million off the coast of Puerto Rico. Increased enforcement has pushed cartels to invest significant funds in transporting their wares under the sea.

Turkey announces “full lockdown” from April 29 to curb COVID spread (Reuters) Turks will be required to stay mostly at home under a nationwide “full lockdown” starting on Thursday and lasting until May 17 to curb a surge in coronavirus infections and deaths, President Tayyip Erdogan announced on Monday. Turkey logged 37,312 new COVID-19 infections and 353 deaths in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed, sharply down from mid-April but still the world’s fourth highest number of cases and the worst on a per-capita basis among major nations. Announcing the new measures after a cabinet meeting, Erdogan said all intercity travel would require official approval, all schools would shut and move lessons online, and a strict capacity limit would be imposed for users of public transport. Turks will have to stay indoors except for essential shopping trips and urgent medical treatment.

Iran, US warships in first tense Mideast encounter in a year (AP) American and Iranian warships had a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf earlier this month, the first such incident in about a year amid wider turmoil in the region over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday. Footage released by the Navy showed a ship commanded by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard cut in front of the USCGC Monomoy, causing the Coast Guard vessel to come to an abrupt stop with its engine smoking on April 2. The Guard also did the same with another Coast Guard vessel, the USCGC Wrangell, said Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet. Such close passes risk the ships colliding at sea.

Israel is committing the crime of ‘apartheid,’ new report says (Washington Post) Israeli authorities are “committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution,” according to a major new 213-page report released Tuesday by global advocacy group Human Rights Watch. The organization argued that, in terms framed by existing international law, overarching Israeli policy toward Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem constituted an agenda to both maintain Jewish Israeli domination and systematically oppress Palestinians. Beyond the all-but-dead “peace process” of the past few decades, the organization pointed to the inescapable and unequal reality that defines life for everyone living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. “This is the most stark finding Human Rights Watch has ever reached on the conduct of Israeli authorities,” Omar Shakir, the organization’s Israel and Palestine director and the author of the report, told Today’s WorldView. “For too long, the international community has failed to recognize the reality on the ground for what it is.” Shakir added that HRW is hardly alone in arriving at this conclusion. For years, Palestinians have invoked apartheid in discussing the region’s status quo: where an Israeli military occupation governs over many aspects of their lives, where the security and political imperatives of the Israeli government curtail their own rights, and where the expansion of Jewish settlements inexorably entails further Palestinian dispossession.

Virus surge in crowded Gaza threatens to overwhelm hospitals (AP) More than a year into the coronavirus pandemic, some of the worst fears are coming true in the crowded Gaza Strip: A sudden surge in infections and deaths is threatening to overwhelm hospitals weakened by years of conflict and border closures. Gaza’s main treatment center for COVID-19 patients warns that oxygen supplies are dwindling fast. In another hospital, coronavirus patients are packed three to a room. For months, Gaza’s Hamas rulers seemed to have a handle on containing the pandemic. But their decision to lift most movement restrictions in February—coupled with the spread of a more aggressive virus variant and lack of vaccines—has led to a fierce second surge.

Fighting erupts in Myanmar; junta to ‘consider’ ASEAN plan (Reuters) Karen insurgents attacked a Myanmar army outpost near the Thai border on Tuesday in some of the most intense clashes since a military coup nearly three months ago threw the country into crisis. The Karen National Union (KNU), Myanmar’s oldest rebel force, said it had captured the army camp on the west bank of the Salween river, which forms the border with Thailand. The Myanmar military later hit back against the insurgents with air strikes, the KNU and Thai authorities said. The fighting took place as the junta, in a setback for diplomatic efforts by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said it would “positively” consider the bloc’s suggestions to end the turmoil in Myanmar but only when stability was restored.

‘Red Tourism’ draws Chinese on centennial of Communist Party (AP) On the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, tourists are flocking to historic sites and making pilgrimages to party landmarks. On a street where the Red Army once roamed, a group of retirees in historic pastel-blue army uniforms belt out tunes made famous through countless movies, television shows and other forms of propaganda. Historic locations in Jiangxi and Guizhou provinces—the sites of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong’s early battles, his escape from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces in the Long March and the cementing of his leadership in Zunyi—are experiencing an influx of tourists this year as post-pandemic travel returns to China. In Guizhou, tourism in the first quarter of 2021 has already recovered to 2019 levels, local official Lu Yongzheng said. The province, among China’s top tourist destinations, received millions of tourists who brought in billions of dollars in revenue. The rise in tourism is also spurred by a campaign announced by President Xi Jinping in February to educate the Communist Party’s 91 million-plus members on its history and ideology.

Gunfire rocks Mogadishu (Foreign Policy) Violence erupted in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Sunday as anti-government fighters traded fire with troops loyal to Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed over his decision to remain in power after his term expired. Mohamed, whose four-year term ended in February, extended his presidency for two years on April 14 after an election deadlock, drawing strong condemnation from, among others, the United States and the European Union, who have threatened to impose sanctions on the country.

Shipping Containers Plunge Overboard as Supply Race Raises Risks (Bloomberg) Containers piled high on giant vessels carrying everything from car tires to smartphones are toppling over at an alarming rate, sending millions of dollars of cargo sinking to the bottom of the ocean as pressure to speed deliveries raises the risk of safety errors. The shipping industry is seeing the biggest spike in lost containers in seven years. More than 3,000 boxes dropped into the sea last year, and more than 1,000 have fallen overboard so far in 2021. The accidents are disrupting supply chains for hundreds of U.S. retailers and manufacturers such as Amazon and Tesla. There are a host of reasons for the sudden rise in accidents. Weather is getting more unpredictable, while ships are growing bigger, allowing for containers to be stacked higher than ever before. But greatly exacerbating the situation is a surge in e-commerce after consumer demand exploded during the pandemic, increasing the urgency for shipping lines to deliver products as quickly as possible.

Ungrounding (Skift) Last year saw the mass grounding of commercial aircraft as airlines grappled with an utter collapse in demand for their services, and in the United States, those mothballed planes are getting ready to re-enter service. At American Airline’s Tulsa maintenance base, idled jets are getting revamped ahead of a summer when most of the carrier’s 1,400 jet fleet will re-enter the skies. Reactivating a single 737 takes 1,000 person-hours and costs about $39,340 in labor alone. That is, comparatively, cheap, at least stacked against the $10 million impairment charge taken for each of the 150 aircraft it retired last year.

#headlines #news

[ramrodd]

What was Joseph McCarthy’s motivation to push the Red Scare?

COMMENTARY:

I generally associate myself with Brent Cooper’s excellent brief in response to this question. In particular, there was, in fact, a significant Soviet presence in Washington DC, generally and considerable infiltration by soviety agents into State and, to a lesser degree, Defense. They never penetrated The Manhatten Project before Heroshima and they had been largely isolated and/.or co-opted by the time they tested the Hydrogen Bomb that was part of the motivation for the execution of the Rosenbergs aside from raw anti-semitism by people associated with Joe McCarthy’s midwest background. The cold-blooded anti-semitism of the Final Solution and Henry Ford.

But there was a real Soviet presence in America regardless of the scoffing of 60s liberals who claimed it was purely fabrication, globally, the Soviet threat, and, in particular, Vietnam. It’s part of the Oliver Stone version of Vietnam that helped elect Trump that acts as a force multiplier for the moral confusion being deliberately generated by the disinformation of everything connected with William F. Buckley.

My dad was working for Ridgeway during the Army/McCarthy Hearings. My memory of the hearings was of Crusader Rabbit being pre-empted one Thursday for the televised hearings. like Watergate before C-Span. It was reality TV in its infancy. I knew the hearings were important in a way which would compel a serious person to sit down and watch it and bring it up in Show-and-Tell in the morning, but I was never called on and I went outside to play.

In about 1958, dad conducted a lecture at the dinner table one night about the necessity for the HUAC committee that sort of mystified me at the time as a message from Captain Obvious, but there must have been something going on in the news that triggered the lecture. I understood the connection between HUAC and McCarthy and he was preaching to the choir. This is back when J. Edgar Hoover was the apogee of American manliness.

When I got back from Vietnam, I asked him what he thought about McCarthy and he said the Army was totally on-board with McCarthy, black list and all, right up until the moment Cohn tried to get preferential treatment for his boyfriend in a very Stephen Miller at the boarder, Trump leaning on the Georgia state investigator to help steal the election kind of way which ended up on TV instead of Crusader Rabbit. And it gave the Army intelligenia pause.

What they came to realize that domestic terorism and white supremacy were a far more clear and present danger to the US of A. And they did a couple of things to deal with the white supremacist problem in the Army.

First, they conducted a purge of right-wingers under the guise of a a RIF in compliance with Eisenhower’s budget for his 1956 Presidential Platform. The right wingers never saw it coming. We had a family friend who had served with my dad from the Louisiana Manuevers to securing Leyte for MacArthur’s return to the Philipines and he was reduced in grade from Ltc to WO4 so he could stay in for retirement purposes, at which time he would retire as a Ltc. He was very bitter, but it wasn’t because he resented being identified as a security risk with his alt-right sympathies. He might show up at the Capitol on his own time some weekend.

That was the first thing the Army did to geld any potential for a home-grown ninji warrior, helping to “dismantle the administrative state” from the belly of the Beast, like Edward Snowden. That RIF occured in 1957, just after the Hungarian Revolution fizzled out and settled into the low simmer of an occupied people.

The second thing that happened was that the Army bands began to feature the 1812 Overture on the 4th of July on the basis that it was appropriately noisy and triumphant leading into fireworks. Nobody authorized it, per se, and it seems to have sprung, naturally, from the Army community of the Greatest Generation.

But there has always been a subversive subtext to its performance totally connected to the Army/McCarthy hearings: it is a tribute to the Red Army from the US Army for their sacrifice and devotion to duty in crushing the Fascist viper in Berlin.

But, even beneath that tribute to the Red Army is a further insulting subtext, to wit:

Fuck you, Joe McCarthy and the Proud Boys/Tea Party horse you rode in on

The 1812 Overture is a warning from the Secretariat of the US Army Chief of Staff circa 1951- 1957 about the clear and present danger of domestic terrorism arising from white supremacist and Libertarian political agendas associated with William F. Buckley and Newt Gingrich.

Most of the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 were useful idiots for the Fascist sophistry of Movement Conservatives. William F. Buckley’s political career was dedicated to dismantling Eisenhower’s 1956 Presidential Platform and the New Deal, and replacing it with a political culture where Joe McCarthy was the Second Coming of George Washington and the prototype for figurehead demagogues committed to the Free Market economis of pre-Disraeli British Tory Socialism and the industrial plantation and willing to fill the organizing role of a cult of personality like Reagan and Trump.

Everytime you hear the 1812 Overture, think of the Capitol Police defending the Capitol against a mob Rob Johnson feels right at home with. It’s what my dad’s generation is telling Biden voters, going forward, a warning against everyting associated with William F. Buckley, Jr.

[badkatdesignsmastersblog]

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cuddy, Luke. BioShock and Philosophy : Irrational Game, Rational Book. Chichester, West Sussex, Uk ; Malden, Ma, John Wiley And Sons, Inc, 2015.

This book is one of my favorites for discussing the inherent political and philosophical issues in games. The Bioshock franchise has a lot to say about rejecting control and programming, be it the programming of polite society (“would you kindly”) or the more metaphorical rejection of a tyrannical parent’s expectations (Elizabeth Comstock’s entire character arc), and these myriad messages are parsed and considered through numerous philosophical and sociological frameworks. It constantly questions the ethical and moral implications of the many decisions a player can make in these games and pushes many varying views on the arcs of the different characters. It is a fascinating look at how games can help develop a critical mind towards structures in power through consistent diegetic writing and references to prominent (and wrong, in Ayn Rand’s case) thinkers in its scant dialogue.

Dyer-Witheford, Nick, and Greig De Peuter. Games of Empire : Global Capitalism and Video Games. Minneapolis, University Of Minnesota Press, 2009.

Yet another book to feature leftist views on the history of gaming (this entry was written like third to last chronologically), this one is more concerned about how technology that was once used to code subversive counter-culture gaming experiments in the 1970’s has since been expropriated to further capitalist and neocolonial interests and goals. As visual mass media like films and video games and TV has since supplanted print media (posters and print ads), all sorts of insidious agendas and troubling trends can and have been implanted subtly into what we normally consume, such as the glorification of warmongering and conquest games that then link through to the literal army website for enlistment.

The book itself is a critique of late stage capitalism and neoliberal interests that have made up the backbone of real-life simulation games like Second Life and America’s Army, and a galling look at the slimy ways we are fed ideology through games. 

Guillaume De Laubier, and Jacques Bosser. Sacred Spaces : The Awe-Inspiring Architecture of Churches and Cathedrals. New York, Abrams, 2018.

Growing up in a majority Catholic country with a highly devout grandmother and many aunts and uncles subscribing to that grift masquerading as a religion meant getting dragged to upwards of 40 church ceremonies and a lot of subtle proselytizing and covert conversions. All it did for me was make me fall in love with the gaudy excesses of its aesthetic sensibility. This book feeds my irrepressible need to look at Gothic architecture and stained glass and informs a lot of my aesthetic choices. The photography of church interiors and descriptive passages of the historical significance of Gothic architecture in relation to churches constantly informs my many aesthetic choices as both a goth and an agnostic/Jewish designer fascinated with the aesthetics of high Catholic camp and excess.  

Hernandez, Patricia. “The Cyberpunk 2077 Crunch Backlash.” Polygon, 7 Oct. 2020, www.polygon.com/2020/10/7/21505804/cyberpunk-2077-cd-projekt-red-crunch-youtube-jason-schreier-labor-the-witcher-3.

DISCLAIMER: While I am aware of the opinions surrounding Polygon and its purported corporate agenda, I have elected to source this article regardless, as it is reporting on an important aspect of the industry and the future we as designers have to look forward to as crunch becomes more and more normalised.

This article details the ways that CDPR (CD Projekt Red) treats its designers and developers, with six day work weeks and broken promises of ending crunch. It also shines a light on how netizens and players respond to negative reporting of this trend and how worryingly apathetic and downright disdainful the responses are. Exploitation isn’t new in any industry, but it scares me that someone could die of overwork and the people they’re slaving away on a game for wouldn’t care because “that’s just the way the industry is”.

Kakutani, Michiko. The Death of Truth. London, William Collins, 2018.

This text is invaluable for anyone who cares about how biases in the media they consume changes and warps news based on what they care about, while also addressing the trend of fully fabricated news to scare less informed (and often conservative) constituents further into their holes of prejudice and uneducated opinions. As a media student it’s fascinating to consider, but as a person living in the world it’s downright necessary. The sooner a person is aware of the biases in the media they consume, the faster they can learn the importance of diversifying the voices they listen to and address the blind spots in their information pipelines, and this book is really good at diving into the kind of language and rhetoric to be on the lookout for to parse out bias, which keeps me on my toes about the media I want to put out in the world.

Löwy, Michael. “Capitalism as Religion: Walter Benjamin and Max Weber.” Historical Materialism, vol. 17, no. 1, 2009, pp. 60–73, www.urbanlab.org/articles/moneyspeak/Lowy%202009%20-%20capitalism%20as%20religion.pdf, 10.1163/156920609x399218. Accessed 28th November 2020.

This article attempts to interpret one of the socialist critic Walter Benjamin’s reflections on capitalism as a societal framework, and how it had at the time of writing (1920s) come to resemble something closer to a religious cult. The unpublished paper makes allusions to Max Weber’s book The Protestant Work Ethic and The “Spirit” of Capitalism and Ernst Bloch’s (then unpublished) Thomas Münzer as Theologian of the Revolution.

Currently I believe this critique of capitalism has only become more relevant. He couldn’t have predicted the ravenous cultlike behaviours of Apple fanatics but that’s nothing more than the end point of the behaviours he was critiquing a hundred years ago come to roost. It’s important for people involved in games to understand this and take it to heart if we don’t want the industry to be more overrun with triple A yearly sports releases and the latest instalment of “grizzled white guy with gun and traumatic backstory”.

Skal, David J. The Monster Show : A Cultural History of Horror. New York, Faber And Faber, 2001.

This work is basically a historical look at the western media’s depictions of its greatest monsters, often discussing contextually as part of the cultural zeitgeist of any given time. It’s a fascinating look at the intersection of fear and semiotics in our current cultural landscape and additionally details the creation and eventual decline of the Hayes Code and normalisation of queer-coding villains, although my personal viewpoint on the matter is that it would have benefited the text to have delved into monsters and their depictions across nonwestern cultures, because fears (outside the unknown and darkness) aren’t really universal, and it would have made an interesting contrast to see the differences between a traditional western vampire and a manananggal, but I digress.

Unrelated to its cultural discussions, it also serves as a pretty scathing report of theatre writer pettiness and old Hollywood drama.

Weber, Max, et al. The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism and Other Writings. New York, Penguin Books, 2002.

This seminal work by turn of the century German theorist Max Weber proposes that a line exists between the puritanical beliefs that heavily relied on working oneself to the bone to be considered a moral person in the eyes of the lord and the eventual rise of industry and capitalism in western Europe. He juxtaposes the Protestant beliefs in productivity for its own sake to wash oneself clean of sin with the way that work under capitalism is presented as a way to contribute to society and, in some instances, repent and atone for transgressions and wrongdoings, arguing that one indelibly led to the other.

As a socialist (and non-Christian) myself, I believe I should be able to critically analyse the ethics of working myself (and others) to the bone, and why we’re taught it’s good and moral to push ourselves to physical and mental exhaustion. I don’t want my work to be created under conditions that are both spiritually and physically crushing, and this text is paramount to the analysis of so-called worker-oriented games companies and their policies towards worker welfare.

Woodcock, Jamie. Marx at the Arcade. Haymarket Books, 2019.

As a socialist myself I found this book to be a great insight into gaming as transgression from the systems of hierarchy around us. In a world where all anyone cares about is money, capital and the almighty bottom line, the idea that taking time for yourself is a revolutionary act fighting capitalism is definitely an interesting one. Yes, there are systems to serve within the game, but it’s a fascinating look at what we can consider transgression from the oppression of real life. Gaming is, according to the writer, an inherently unproductive activity where capital is not served (unless you work for a warcraft gold farming operation), and therefore a revolutionary action where you put yourself first. It can be an outlet for passion, and in some cases a coping mechanism for mental issues. It really made me hopeful in the industry I want to work in. (Disclaimer: I realise this barely scratches the surface of the book but it’s what stood out to me the most and what resonated with me the most.)

Wright, Alexa. Monstrosity : The Human Monster in Visual Culture. London, I.B. Tauris, 2013.

Another look at monsterhood, this time analysing our fears through personhood and how we as a culture project our fears on those who are different from us. I did a lot of research on monsterhood and how we see the other as inherently frightening for my final paper for university (which I will eventually upload as a reflective post because I still stand by a lot of it), and I think it’s valuable to know why we’re afraid of things so we can begin to unlearn harmful misconceptions of people who aren’t like us. As someone who wants to work in games art (focusing mainly on character art), I personally want to challenge the fear of the other through my work, and I want to use signifiers that are traditionally thought of as fearful to create more thoughtful art and hopefully help humanise that which was once considered hateful and gross.  

#since apparently i needed one big post for it #i like how i laid mine out better BUT I GUESS I GOTTA DO IT THIS WAY FOR THE SAKE OF SUBMISSION #researchandinquiry #frickin making me redo my whole tag with one post #oh well #annotatedbib

[expatimes]

Analysis: The politics behind the Lebanon-Israel border talks

Beirut, Lebanon - Lebanon and Israel are scheduled to sit down for talks this week on a decade-old maritime dispute that has gained importance after large border and lucrative discoveries of natural gas in the eastern Mediterranean.

The talks are the first between Beirut and Tel Aviv in 30 years on a civilian matter. They are set to begin on Wednesday in the southernmost Lebanese border town of Naqoura under United Nations auspices, with US mediation.

The United States has worked to broker a deal on the issue for most of the last decade - a hard task given that Lebanon does not officially recognized Israel and the two nations technically remain at war.

Israel in 2006 fought a 34-day war with Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim group backed by Israel's greatest regional foe, Iran.

But it was Hezbollah's main Lebanese ally, House Speaker Nabih Berri, who announced late last month that he had reached a framework agreement for the talks after working on the issue for 10 years.

Any deal on the maritime border is likely to be far off. But the parties involved in negotiations stand to reap immediate political benefits.

(Al Jazeera)

The backstory

The dispute dates back to 2011 when Israel ratified a maritime border agreement with neighbouring Cyprus that used as a reference point a maritime border that Lebanon and Cyprus had agreed to in 2007, but which Lebanon's parliament never ratified.

Lebanon later in 2011 clarified its maritime border to the United Nations, saying that it included an additional 860 square km (332 square miles) south of the 2007 line.

Israel disagreed, and the dispute over that sliver of the sea was born.

A decade of US mediation was beset by differing views in Lebanon and chronic political crises.

Lebanon has insisted that both its land and sea border disputes with Israel be resolved together and disagreed with Israel about setting a time limit for the negotiations.

A visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in March of last year led to a breakthrough.

“When Pompeo came and met with Berri, it clicked,” Yassine Jaber, a member of Berri's political bloc and head of parliament's foreign affairs committee, told Al Jazeera.

Laury Haytayan, Middle East and North Africa Director of the National Resource Governance Institute told Al Jazeera: “From what we've seen there's definitely been a compromise.”

“The Israelis wanted a deadline, which doesn't exist. It could start this week and never end. And the Lebanese said there would be no agreement if there wasn't an agreement on land and sea together. But this is not there, ”Haytayan said.

Instead, the land borders will be discussed on a separate track.

Israel and Lebanon both fell into political crises shortly after Pompeo's visit, which pushed back talks.

Israel held three elections between April 2019 and April 2020 as it failed to form a government, and Lebanon moved from its biggest-ever popular uprising against the ruling class into near-collapse.

As the crisis in Lebanon grew, so did the significance of potential gas revenues. Lebanon in 2018 signed its first contacts for exploratory drilling with an international consortium, including for southern Block 9 which partially lies in the disputed area, but Berri said drilling there has been delayed by the dispute.

“All the fine details were agreed to in mid-2020,” Jaber said.

Lebanon heads into the negations with a four-man team, two military and two civilians, but no diplomat, as had previously been reported.

Israel's six-person delegation includes the director-general of the energy ministry, a diplomatic adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and an Israeli army strategist.

The two Lebanese civilians, Wissam Chbat, lead geologist at the Lebanese Petroleum Administration, and Najib Massihi, a maritime border expert, have a “maximalist approach to the border issue - they see that legally we can get more than we've asked for so far, ”Haytayan said.

Former US-sponsored proposals had given Lebanon between 52 and 60 percent of the disputed area, but Lebanese officials declined.

A question of timing

The timing of the negotiations has raised eyebrows. They take place as the US ramps up sanctions on Lebanese individuals and entities with ties to Hezbollah.

The US blacklisted Berri's top aide, former finance minister Ali Hasan Khalil, just three weeks before Berri announced that negotiations would take place.

“This was a direct threat to him: 'If you don't comply, you're blacklisted and sanctioned too',” Hilal professor Khashan, a of political science at the American University of Beirut, told Al Jazeera.

The announcement of talks also comes amid the US-sponsored landmark normalisation deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on September 15, seen as an attempt by US President Donald Trump to boost his foreign policy record amid a difficult re-election campaign.

Berri announced the agreement on October 1, saying it had been reached in July - though the version he read was dated September 22.

“It's clear Trump thinks that signing treaties between the Arabs and Israel will help his re-election bid. He can tout these talks between Israel and Lebanon as part of that process, ”Khashan said.

Lebanese leaders have also agreed to go to the table as they face unprecedented pressure, both at home and from the international community, to implement wide-ranging reforms after a huge explosion at the port destroyed large parts of Beirut and killed nearly 200 people in August .

The blast exacerbated an economic and social crisis that had already thrown most of the population into poverty.

French President Emmanuel Macron visited Beirut twice after the blast and said the international community would disburse much-needed financial aid if politicians quickly formed a government to implement an ambitious reform agenda.

But Hezbollah and their ally, Berri, prevented that from happening.

Instead, they chose familiar ground: negotiations with no time limit that pose little threat to their interests at home, versus a French initiative that sets clear, short-term deadlines for an overhaul of the political system.

Sami Nader, the director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Studies, said the parties picked the US-mediated negotiations over the French initiative in an attempt to stave off more sanctions by the Trump administration until US elections in November - elections that Trump increasingly looks like he will lose.

“At the end of the day they know the buck stops in Washington. If [former US vice president Joe] Biden is elected I don't think Lebanon will sign a final [borders] deal: they'll gather their cards and play a new hand, ”he told Al Jazeera.

Soft normalization?

Jaber says that Lebanon had always pushed for the talks to take place under UN auspices at Naqoura, where the Israeli and Lebanese armies hold regular meetings to discuss security matters, rather than outside of Lebanon.

“We didn't want to go to New York, or somewhere else so as not to give the appearance of normalization [with Israel], ”He said.

He dismissed any such possibility and said both parties had come to the table for purely economic reasons: Oil and gas extraction requires stability.

Others say Lebanon has taken a soft step towards normalization.

“Its beyond demarcating our borders,” Haytayan said. "We are recognizing the existence of Israel by recognizing its borders."

#world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=11807&feed_id=9695

[losbella]

[news-ase]

[jennielim]

[saraseo]

[daveliuz]

[news-monda]

[wesalegold]

Gold Bar for Sale from South Africa

Take an honest and deep observe where the arena has come; nothing is untouched via manipulation and peculation, sincere and reliable records regarding finance and investments of actual value have also been misplaced in this modern age of gruesome exploitation of all things we people vicinity value in.

What came about to Libya’s one hundred and forty four tons of gold?

Why did Hugo Chavez grow to be sicker when he demanded the repatriation of Venezuela’s gold from western international locations garage facilities?

Why has the CFTC canceled its research into silver manipulation and now not report any type of prices?

Why does the FED retain expressing unabated that gold and silver isn’t money?

Why has the USA government created laws that require everyone buying gold need to provide good sized non-public records before a purchase can be finished?

Why are international occasions manipulated into country wide regulations?

Why is it that every time gold rallies, it’s miles knocked backtrack for no clever or monetary purpose?

Why has India become the brilliant discourager of its population insatiable urge for food for gold purchases, mainly now?

Why is China domestically and globally generating and buying any gold that turns into available within the international market?

Why isn’t always personal finance and credit score management taught in public college?

Why does not the COMEX inform the public of its true gold holdings?

Why doesn’t the American media display movies from the 30s, 40, 50s 60s or 70s on top time television anymore?

Why hasn’t the ECB (European Central Bank) and the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) been disbanded for their global crimes towards global financial markets, why?

Why is america mint always going for walks out of gold coins for sale?

Why are gold garage centers at some stage in the western world raiding personal and allotted debts in their gold?

Why are western nations getting ready for Cyprus styled account confiscations?

Why is the USA fearful of Countries that do not have significant banks, why?

How can ETFs offer a small quantity of gold which they do not must masses of human beings it’s promised to?

Why is the USA authorities so in opposition to sustainable natural agriculture, why?

Why is the USA government so in opposition to assisting the improvement of highly efficient strength technology along with sun/hydrogen improvements which make electricity use local, smooth and sustainable, why?

Why is the USA government helping private companies that produce toxic GMOs which damage natures stability and human fitness given all the facts which show the unfavourable nature of this abomination called transgenic seeds, why?

Why cannot gold be transported with you to another international locations jurisdiction without hassles?

Why does america authorities permit a hand complete of conglomerate media hobby to control over 90% of the nation’s media?

Why does america authorities spend over 50% of its national price range on the army industrial complicated?

Why does the USA government continually assault natural and alternative medicines and remedies?

Why does america authorities really want to dispose of Americans rights to endure palms?

What is the real reason and agenda for CISPA?

Why did the federal authorities certainly bailout the big banks knowing their criminal sports before and after the bailout?

Why are US law makers getting ready law to limit or maybe outlaw alternative media?

What changed into America’s authentic reason and reason for wanting to bomb Syria on distinctly questionable allegations of chemical weapons use by using the Syrian government given the highly unstable conditions at the ground, and the extreme violence being dedicated by means of so many crook corporations in that us of a, why?

Once you’ve got responded all of those questions for starters, will really offer you with more records with a purpose to astound you as to why you need to have gold and other valuable metals as a part of your average wealth and survival method. With just a little effort and studies it’s far viable to research what honest credible forecasters and economist projects in which gold and different treasured metals are headed in the near and not too distant future in regards to its unstoppable upward push in value and call for.

#GoldBarforSale #GoldBiscuitsforSale #9CaratGoldForSale

[ramrodd]

What was Joseph McCarthy’s motivation to push the Red Scare?

COMMENTARY:

I generally associate myself with Brent Cooper’s excellent brief in response to this question. 

In particular, there was, in fact, a significant Soviet presence in Washington DC, generally and considerable infiltration by soviety agents into State and, to a lesser degree, Defense. They never penetrated The Manhatten Project before Heroshima and they had been largely isolated and/.or co-opted by the time they tested the Hydrogen Bomb that was part of the motivation for the execution of the Rosenbergs aside from raw anti-semitism by people associated with Joe McCarthy’s midwest background. The cold-blooded anti-semitism of the Final Solution and Henry Ford.

But there was a real Soviet presence in America regardless of the scoffing of 60s liberals who claimed it was purely fabrication, globally, the Soviet threat, and, in particular, Vietnam. It’s part of the Oliver Stone version of Vietnam that helped elect Trump that acts as a force multiplier for the moral confusion being deliberately generated by the disinformation of everything connected with William F. Buckley.

My dad was working for Ridgeway during the Army/McCarthy Hearings. My memory of the hearings was of Crusader Rabbit being pre-empted one Thursday for the televised hearings. like Watergate before C-Span. It was reality TV in its infancy. I knew the hearings were important in a way which would compel a serious person to sit down and watch it and bring it up in Show-and-Tell in the morning, but I was never called on and I went outside to play.

In about 1958, dad conducted a lecture at the dinner table one night about the necessity for the HUAC committee that sort of mystified me at the time as a message from Captain Obvious, but there must have been something going on in the news that triggered the lecture. I understood the connection between HUAC and McCarthy and he was preaching to the choir. This is back when J. Edgar Hoover was the apogee of American manliness.

When I got back from Vietnam, I asked him what he thought about McCarthy and he said the Army was totally on-board with McCarthy, black list and all, right up until the moment Cohn tried to get preferential treatment for his boyfriend in a very Stephen Miller at the boarder, Trump leaning on the Georgia state investigator to help steal the election kind of way which ended up on TV instead of Crusader Rabbit. And it gave the Army intelligenia pause.

What they came to realize that domestic terorism and white supremacy were a far more clear and present danger to the US of A. And they did a couple of things to deal with the white supremacist problem in the Army.

First, they conducted a purge of right-wingers under the guise of a a RIF in compliance with Eisenhower’s budget for his 1956 Presidential Platform. The right wingers never saw it coming. We had a family friend who had served with my dad from the Louisiana Manuevers to securing Leyte for MacArthur’s return to the Philipines and he was reduced in grade from Ltc to WO4 so he could stay in for retirement purposes, at which time he would retire as a Ltc. He was very bitter, but it wasn’t because he resented being identified as a security risk with his alt-right sympathies. He might show up at the Capitol on his own time some weekend.

That was the first thing the Army did to geld any potential for a home-grown ninji warrior, helping to “dismantle the administrative state” from the belly of the Beast, like Edward Snowden. That RIF occured in 1957, just after the Hungarian Revolution fizzled out and settled into the low simmer of an occupied people.

The second thing that happened was that the Army bands began to feature the 1812 Overture on the 4th of July on the basis that it was appropriately noisy and triumphant leading into fireworks. Nobody authorized it, per se, and it seems to have sprung, naturally, from the Army community of the Greatest Generation.

But there has always been a subversive subtext to its performance totally connected to the Army/McCarthy hearings: it is a tribute to the Red Army from the US Army for their sacrifice and devotion to duty in crushing the Fascist viper in Berlin.

But, even beneath that tribute to the Red Army is a further insulting subtext, to wit:

Fuck you, Joe McCarthy and the Proud Boys/Tea Party horse you rode in on

The 1812 Overture is a warning from the Secretariat of the US Army Chief of Staff circa 1951- 1957 about the clear and present danger of domestic terrorism arising from white supremacist and Libertarian political agendas associated with William F. Buckley and Newt Gingrich.

Most of the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 were useful idiots for the Fascist sophistry of Movement Conservatives. William F. Buckley’s political career was dedicated to dismantling Eisenhower’s 1956 Presidential Platform and the New Deal, and replacing it with a political culture where Joe McCarthy was the Second Coming of George Washington and the prototype for figurehead demagogues committed to the Free Market economis of pre-Disraeli British Tory Socialism and the industrial plantation and willing to fill the organizing role of a cult of personality like Reagan and Trump.

Everytime you hear the 1812 Overture, think of the Capitol Police defending the Capitol against a mob Rob Johnson feels right at home with. It’s what my dad’s generation is telling Biden voters, going forward, a warning against everyting associated with William F. Buckley, Jr.