Category: 1st Issue

The Empire Stubs its Toe with a Bad Case of the Enlistment Blues

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Be All

The U.S. empire is on the horns of a real dilemma. While its wars keep multiplying, its warm bodies to fight them keep dwindling. The Pentagon predicts that in 2024 the U.S. will have its smallest military since WWII. As a matter of fact, 77% of 17 to 24-year-olds couldn’t enlist if they wanted to (and most of them don’t) due to mental or physical health conditions, chiefly drug abuse, or being overweight. It’s even worse than you think. Almost three-quarters of American adults would not join up even if war was imminent. In case that isn’t enough bad news, here’s a real stunner: the results of a Gallup poll in June, 2023 showed confidence in the U.S. armed forces at record lows, with only 60% of American adults expressing either “a great deal” or “quite a lot of” confidence. The military is only .04% of the population and is dwindling yearly. Why aren’t more young Americans drinking the Koolaid and signing up in droves when most branches are offering bonuses up to $50,000. Here’s the answer straight from the horse’s mouth. In a defense department survey, over half of eligible recruits “think they’re going to be physically or emotionally broken after serving,” What they didn’t mention was how badly they will be treated if they do come home with physical or mental disabilities. Waiting months or years to get the financial assistance they were promised and need or having to battle to even get health insurance from an ungrateful America. If you want to know one way to solve this abomination, check out The Empire Stubs Its Toe with a Bad Case of the Enlistment Blues

 

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The Whole World is Watching

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The whole world is watching the U.S. provide unconditional support for Israel whether supplying arms, obstructing ceasefire resolutions in the UN or talking tough defending Israel’s slaughter of at the latest count 21,000 innocent Palestinians (40% of them children) and the destruction of their land. This is how U.S. president Biden sees it: “In the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attack —brutal, inhumane—…we will continue to have Israel’s back as you [Israel] work to defend your people. We will continue to work with you…to prevent more tragedy of innocent civilians… Today, tomorrow and always…[Joe Biden after October 7]

The rest of the world doesn’t agree. “The world’s patience with us [the U.S.] and our arrogance and presumption is coming to an end.” [Chas Freeman] In a recent UN vote in the General Assembly for a ceasefire 153 countries (representing 89% of world’s population) voted yes for a cease fire. Just 10 countries (5% of world’s population) voted no. Since the U.S. is 4+% of the world’s population, less than 1% of the world’s people are on the side of the U.S.

At home, the majority of the American people are clamoring for their government to stop their complicity in Israel’s war crimes.

It’s simple really when you think about it. America’s moral leadership of the world has crumbled. The empire is teetering on the precipice of decline having lost the patience and respect of the entire world by its unwavering support of Israel, a nation that has gone mad on its own excesses and is viewed by most of the world as an outlaw state.

Why did U.S. leaders decide to join Israel on the dark side? You’ll find the answer in The Whole World is Watching

 

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A US War Criminal Bites the Dust

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WANTED

With war criminals growing like weeds in the good old U.S., we fix our gaze on the most prolific Henry Kissinger. Want to remove a democratically elected leader who threatens to upend the privileges of the country’s elites? Henry Kissinger is your boy. As he did in Chile in 1973, where he oversaw a military coup that led to the deaths of Chilean President Salvador Allende and Commander in Chief General Rene Schneider. Or how about his cheerleading the atrocities of the Argentine military junta with these words of encouragement — “if there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly.”  Genocide was another one of Henry’s favorite things. And he got plenty of opportunity to hone his craft while he supported genocides in Cambodia, East Timor and Bangladesh. And let’s not forget the civil wars in South Africa, the coups and death squads throughout Latin America. All of them came with Kissinger’s seal of approval. Difficult to imagine but most estimate his murder spree extinguished the lives of three million around the world. To read more of this chronicle of an American official whose depravities have become the play book for US actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela and countless other countries who have felt the heavy hand of US militarism, check out “A US War Criminal Bites the Dust”

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Scam of the Century

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Pharma Billionaires

Could it be that the Covid pandemic was Act 1 of a get rich quick scheme that defies all odds? While over one million ordinary Americans died, vaccinated or not, nine new vaccine-billionaires were created. 613 million vaccines that Uncle Sam paid (actually overpaid) for went into American arms. What choice did we have? Send our kids to school? They had to be vaccinated. Go to work? We had to be vaccinated. Take a trip on an airplane? Need proof of vaccination. Shop at the grocery store? Make sure you’re vaccinated and oh yes, put on your mask. The vaccine makers promised transparency, but they wanted 75 years to be transparent. The FDA and CDC kept changing the narrative. It all came down to one simple fact —maybe the vaccine won’t keep you from getting Covid but our buddies at big pharma will make out like gangbusters.  Three years later and we learn not only that the FDA approved Covid boosters based on the results of a trial that included only 20 mice and 50 humans, but the findings of over sixteen studies, one at the University of Chicago Medical School and another one at the Cleveland Clinic were unanimous: Covid sufferers were no more likely to infect others than those who didn’t have Covid and “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from Covid 19 vaccinations.” Make of it what you will, but check it out and decide for yourself in “Scam of the Century”.

 

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Adieu Mother Empire

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Empire In Decline

Media reports have become the canary in the coal mine. “US State Department report details damning failings around chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal.” [CNN, June 2023]; “Hawaii Officials Were Warned Years Ago That Maui’s Lahaina Faced High Wildfire Risk.” [Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2023]; “WHAT US TAXPAYERS ARE GETTING FOR THEIR MONEY IN UKRAINE —American taxpayers are financing more than just weapons. We discovered the U.S. government’s buying seeds and fertilizer for Ukrainian farmers… and covering the salaries of Ukraine’s first responders – all 57,000 of them.” [CBS NEWS, 9/24/2023] The drumbeat gets louder, its message harder and harder to ignore. The empire is in a hell of a mess. At home its people are suffering. They are angry, resentful, and discouraged. What happened to the land of the free, the greatest democracy in the world? What has replaced it?  The national security state, a paramilitary outfit that calls itself the law enforcement arm of the government. Although all it enforces is a new regime of censorship, a narrow window of acceptable speech, and an emphasis on identity politics. When was the last time you heard the media bring up mounting student debt ($1.8 trillion and rising], the astronomical rise in housing costs (more than half a million Americans experienced homelessness in 2022), childhood poverty (11 million children live in poverty, 14% of them children of color) and other indicators of American decline. Instead war has become the topic du jour. Forget about Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. This time it will be different. Except it won’t be, will it? It’s a grim read but an important one. In “Adieu Mother Empire” we spell out the perils of living in a declining empire.

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Why Do They Hate Us?

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THEY HATE US

No, President Bush, the rest of the world doesn’t hate us for our freedoms. They hate us because we are an imperial nation committed to stalking other peoples’ lands for the oil and mineral reserves we crave and after a U.S. assisted coup installing a “friendly” tin pot dictator to do our bidding. A succession of presidents Bush, Clinton, Obama and Biden to name the most recent have patted themselves on the back for orchestrating a coup or two. It all works out in the end: the US gets what its elites want and the victims get years of autocratic rule until the dictator pisses off the U.S. and is replaced with another U.S. puppet (Noriega in Panama is a good example). With 800+ military bases around the world and a military industrial complex besotted with the plunder of other country’s resources, the world has become the victim of a capitalist bully determined to bring it under its umbrella. While the U.S. rampages around the world creating death and misery wherever its jackbooted military goes, it persists in thinking that same world is its oyster. How delusional to ignore the evidence in plain sight of the depth of ill will roiling nations who are tired of the U.S. interfering in its business. “Yankee go home.” Not that America doesn’t have a lot of family business to take care of. Our major cities are getting hollowed out — homeless people sleeping under every bridge while the bridges themselves are crumbling, citizens in East Palestine afraid to go back to their polluted homes, the onslaught of crooks from Blackrock and similar vulture firms rushing into Maui to buy ruined homesteads on the cheap, while the USG gives billions to Ukraine and $700 to each Maui resident. If you really want to know why they hate us, check out “Why Do They Hate Us?” and wince.

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Part 2: Prevaricating Presidents — Worms on Parade

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The Last Three

In Part 2, we look at the resumes of the last three presidents of the United States. Carrying on a well-honed tradition, they are a pack of liars. Their watch includes the usual foreign policy missteps: leading America into endless war, laying waste to countries in Southeast Asia and Africa, disrupting the lives and fortunes of inhabitants to satisfy the demands of empire. They have lied to their own people and the people who live in the countries they target with a wide variety of lies — claiming human rights abuses, threats to democracy or to the rights of women or to the rights of minorities within the country. Any excuse, even the laughable one that Susan Rice, Obama’s ambassador to the UN, uncorked that Muammar Gaddafi was supplying his troops with Viagra to encourage mass rape. No evidence to back up her claim but U.S. elites don’t need evidence to do what they planned to do all along. In short order Qadaffi was dispatched and Libya quickly went from the most prosperous African state to a failed state. Even more hilarious the tale dreamed up by one of Trump’s noodle heads that Russia secretly offered Afghan militants bounties to kill U.S. troops. One thing for sure lying about supposed enemies of the empire is a bipartisan sport. Here’s Biden supporting the bounty story — “I don’t understand why this president  [Trump] is unwilling to take on Putin when he’s actually paying bounties to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.”  After Biden was elected, the usual denials took center stage — “US spies doubt reports of Russian ’bounties’ for troops” [BBC, 4/18/2021] Before you believe the next claim by U.S. leaders that a targeted enemy is threatening the U.S., make sure you check out Part 2: Prevaricating Presidents —Worms on Parade

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U.S. Presidents Lying Their Way into Forever Wars

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Indispensable Nation

Why do all U.S. Presidents lie? It seems to come with the oath of office. Like President Lyndon Johnson’s promise to the American people in July,1964 —”We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” Eleven months later he sent 100,000 troops to Vietnam and authorized an additional 100,000 in 1966. In all 1.7 million troops were sent to Vietnam. 58,000 of them never came home. Who can ever forget President George W. Bush telling the American people with a straight face that Iraq had a “massive stockpile” of biological weapons. Vice President Cheney followed that whopper up with one of his own —”Simply stated, there’s no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” A pack of lies but they served their purpose — winning public buy-in for the Iraq war which was the next war on the empire’s to-do list. It doesn’t matter whether presidents are democrats or republicans. War is bipartisan. Even the now venerated human rights activist and ex-president Jimmy Carter deliberately propagated lies that led to America’s favorite pastime: war. His CIA bankrolled Muslim extremist groups (collectively known as the Mujahideen) which later came back to bite the U.S. in the form of terrorists with their sights set on America, including Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, Taliban leader Mullah Omar, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the “Butcher of Fallujah,” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It’s an old story and the fallout is always further bloodshed.  Americans are the ultimate losers.  As lies become truth and truth goes the way of whalebone corsets, what is left is an empire ludicrously out of touch and out of time. Check out “U.S. Presidents Lying Their Way into Forever Wars.”

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Prescription Drugs Prices Are Too Damn High

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Big Pharma Ripping Off American

The topic of today’s article is greed, the kind that U.S. industries are famous for. Making a killing off those least likely to afford it (and that’s includes more than one-half of Americans) is business as usual in America’s capitalist economy. Whether it’s the oil and gas industry making billions in profits by exploiting their monopoly status to raise prices far exceeding the cost of their products, the tech industry minting instant billionaires by trading on the gullibility of the public to pay for outrageously overpriced goods, or the financial crooks that underwrite virtually every new corporate swindle. Slimy as the business practices of these operators are, it is not until you reach the pharmaceutical industry that you have finally arrived at the bottom of the barrel. Big pharma profits to the tune of over half a trillion dollars on the misery and desperation of sick people. The worst place in the world to live if you have a life-threatening illness, particularly cancer, is the U.S. where cancer drugs are three to four times more expensive than any other place on earth. Even patients with insurance are forced to pony up an average of $16,500 every year out of their own pocket to stay alive. Imagine, living in the richest, most powerful country in the world and getting stiffed by big pharma on a scale that wouldn’t be tolerated in any other wealthy country. But in the U.S. the government is a silent partner in the swindle. Heard enough? There’s lots more that will make your blood boil. Check out “Prescription Drug Prices Are Too Damn High” and continue to take your overpriced blood pressure medicine.

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Aggression Not Negotiation: The U.S. War Machine On the Hunt

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US Empire

“The “American way of war,” is to seek absolute annihilation and to treat the other side as subhuman monsters bent on world domination.” [Todd Greentree, Foreign Service officer, once stationed in Afghanistan] Whether it’s Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen…the list goes on and on, the U.S. “way of war” in these countries is unnervingly similar. From accusations of a Communist (lately updated to “terrorist) conspiracy to promises to bring American ”values” to the masses, the U.S. MO starts with an invasion, drones, bombs, a cadre of indigenous troops usually at the behest of a U.S. ‘fav’ autocrat doing the dirty work of the empire in-house. But what about the U.S. State Department? Isn’t the Secretary of State supposed to be America’s chief negotiator? Not so fast. The U.S. always starts an invasion convinced (by the generals) despite a history of failed interventions that it can beat the enemy du jour on the battlefield. Negotiating is for weak countries not the world’s sole super-power. Reality always proves them wrong. The latest candidate is this cavalcade of missteps is Ukraine. Here’s how it works. First the chest pounding and inflated promises. Here’s President Biden on March 26, 2022, predicting the imminent demise of Russia: “Russia’s ruble is reduced to rubble. Their economy will be cut to half. The ruble is crumbling now.” [President Biden, March 26, 2022] Two months later: “Russia’s ruble strengthens to 57.1 per US Dollar, its strongest in over four years.” Now with most of the world, including NATO “partners,” predicting the defeat of Ukraine, Biden digs in “America . . . will stand with you as long as it takes.” (State of the Union, Feb 7), How long do you think it will take before Biden and the rest of his war cabinet do their usual two-step out of Ukraine leaving the pain and suffering of its people in the rearview mirror? For more on the pernicious history of U.S. foreign policy disasters tune into “Aggression Not Negotiation: The U.S. War Machine On the Hunt”

 

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