Why Do You Keep Thanking Soldiers?

tomdispatch |  Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz has said of the upcoming Concert for Valor:

“The post-9/11 years have brought us the longest period of sustained warfare in our nation’s history. The less than one percent of Americans who volunteered to serve during this time have afforded the rest of us remarkable freedoms -- but that freedom comes with a responsibility to understand their sacrifice, to honor them, and to appreciate the skills and experience they offer when they return home.”

It was crafty of Schultz to redirect that famed 1% label from the ultra rich, represented by CEOs like him, onto our “heroes.” At the concert, I hope Schultz has a chance to get more specific about those “remarkable freedoms.” Will he mention that the U.S. has the highest per capita prison population on the planet?  Does he include among those remarkable freedoms the guarantee that dogs, Tasers, tear gas, and riot police will be sent after you if you stay out past dark protesting the killing of an unarmed Black teenager by a representative of this country’s increasingly militarized police? Will the freedom to be too big to fail and so to have the right to melt down the economy and walk away without going to prison -- as Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Chase, did -- be mentioned? Do these remarkable freedoms include having every American phone call and email recorded and stored away by the NSA?

And what about that term “hero”? Many veterans reject it, and not just out of Gary Cooperesque modesty either. Most veterans who have seen combat, watched babies get torn apart, or their comrades die in their arms, or the most powerful army on Earth spend trillions of dollars fighting some of the poorest people in the world for 13 years feel anything but heroic.  But that certainly doesn’t stop the use of the term.  So why do we use it?  As journalist Cara Hoffman points out at Salon:

“‘[H]ero’ refers to a character, a protagonist, something in fiction, not to a person, and using this word can hurt the very people it’s meant to laud. While meant to create a sense of honor, it can also buy silence, prevent discourse, and benefit those in power more than those navigating the new terrain of home after combat. If you are a hero, part of your character is stoic sacrifice, silence. This makes it difficult for others to see you as flawed, human, vulnerable, or exploited.”

We use the term hero in part because it makes us feel good and in part because it shuts soldiers up (which, believe me, makes the rest of us feel better). Labeled as a hero, it’s also hard to think twice about putting your weapons down. Thank yous to heroes discourage dissent, which is one reason military bureaucrats feed off the term.

There are American soldiers stationed around the globe who think about filing conscientious objector status (as I once did), and I sometimes hear from some of them.  They often grasp the way in which the militarized acts of imperial America are helping to create the very enemies they are then being told to kill. They understand that the trillions of dollars being wasted on war will never be spent on education, health care, or the development of clean energy here at home.  They know that they are fighting for American control over the flow of fossil fuels on this planet, the burning of which is warming our world and threatening human existence.

Making Enemies Faster Than You Can Kill Them...,

themarshallproject |  When police officers return to work after a military deployment, they cannot be automatically required to sit for a mental health evaluation — the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act prohibits it. Because of the Americans With Disabilities Act, police departments can’t reject a job candidate for simply having a PTSD diagnosis.

The only time most of America’s law enforcement officers, military veterans or not, are required to sit for a mental health analysis is when they first apply to join a police force, and the rigor of the screening varies widely. Fewer than half of the nation’s smallest police departments conduct pre-employment psychological testing at all, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Many other departments offer “screenings” in name only — in some cases simply a computerized test with no face-to-face interview — says Stephen Curran, a Maryland police psychologist who has researched the transition from the military to policing.

 Where there is systematic testing of would-be police, military veterans are more likely to show signs of trauma. 

Matthew Guller, a police psychologist, is managing partner of a New Jersey firm, The Institute for Forensic Psychology, that works with about 470 law enforcement agencies across the Northeast, screening for impairment. 

Of nearly 4,000 police applicants evaluated by Guller’s firm from 2014 through October of 2016, those with military experience were failed at a rate higher than applicants who had no military history — 8.5 percent compared to 4.8 percent. 

The higher rates of trauma are exacerbated by the fact that service members suffering PTSD often aren’t diagnosed and keep quiet about their suffering. Although up to 20 percent of those deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have PTSD, only half get treated, according to a 2012 National Academy of Sciences study. Veterans are 21 percent more likely to kill themselves than adults who never enlisted, according to an August report by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 

PTSD and traumatic brain injuries have been called the “signature injuries” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Experts say trauma is cumulative, so the transition from one potentially violent profession, the military, into another, policing, can compound the risk. 

Officers with a history of mental health problems — even those who have been treated and are now healthy — can pose a two-fold problem for departments who hire them. First, their history can become a liability if the department is sued. Second, it can be used to attack their credibility on the stand if they’re called to testify.

Asian Gamma Males Lament Their "Global" Punk-Bish Mating Status...,

qz |   Harvey’s recent comments regarding Asian men can’t be as easily dismissed. Essentially, Harvey told his audience that he couldn’t imagine any way an Asian man could ever be deemed attractive—causing a social media eruption by playing into long-standing stereotypes of Asian males as emasculated and nonsexual.

And the reaction rapidly expanded beyond the internet. Prominent Asians, from The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng to Star Trek icon George Takei to Fresh Off the Boat author Eddie Huang, denounced Harvey—the latter in a massively shared op-ed for the New York Times. All of New York’s leading Asian American politicians sent a joint letter to Endemol Shine, who produce Harvey’s show, demanding an immediate public apology for his “offensive, classless comments.”

 Within hours, the internet hive mind had posted a staggering array of undeniably hot Asian guys, such as those on this expertly curated list by Huffington Post relationship editor Brittany Wong: “21 Fine-As-Hell Asian Men Who Will Make You Swoon And Then Some.”

This is hardly the first time lists like this have popped up—they’re generated any time a celebrity or media organization invokes the stereotypical image of the Asian male. Wong’s is very similar to this BuzzFeed post published back in 2014. Some of the names and faces have changed, but the commonalities are clear: Almost all of these men are tall, shirtless, and have the muscles of a Greek god training for the Iron Man triathlon.

And as a not-so-undeniably-hot Asian guy—a medium-aged divorced dad with a one-pack, a molded-not-sculpted face and hair that’s backed gingerly away from my forehead like it’s afraid of my eyebrows—I find these galleries a little awkward. Highlighting a handful of insanely gorgeous genetic-lottery winners doesn’t exactly contradict the assertion that average Asian men like me are, in the eyes, minds, and hearts of the West, inherently unappealing.

In fact, these hyper-hot galleries underscore the fact that these guys are exceptions to the rule; that by reaching an optimal standard of Western masculine beauty, these Asian men have managed to overcome their racialized lack of appeal.

Did Terrorism Exist Prior to the State of Israel?

unz |  As the world has witnessed the oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, many people have risen in protest. In response, the Israeli government and certain of its advocates have conducted a campaign to crack down on this activism, running roughshod over civil liberties (and the English language) in the process.

 

The mechanism of this crackdown is the redefinition of “antisemitism”[1] to include criticism of Israel, and the insertion of this definition into the bodies of law of various countries.

Where most people would consider “antisemitism” to mean bigotry against Jewish people (and rightly consider it abhorrent), for two decades a campaign has been underway to replace that definition with an Israel-centric definition. That definition can then be used to block speech and activism in support of Palestinian human rights as “hate.” Various groups are applying this definition in law enforcement evaluations of possible crimes.

Proponents of this Israel-centric definition have promoted it step by step in various arenas, from the U.S. State Department and European governments to local governments around the U.S. and universities.

While this effort has taken place over the last two decades, it is snowballing rapidly at this time. The definition is increasingly being used to curtail free speech and academic freedom, as well as political activism.

Furthermore, such politicizing of an important word may reduce its effectiveness when real antisemitism occurs, doing a disservice to victims of true bigotry.

As of this writing, the U.S. Congress has endorsed the distorted definition, the governments of the UK and Austria have officially adopted it (in December and April, respectively), various U.S. State legislatures are considering it, and numerous universities are using it to delineate permissible discourse. Many representatives and heads of other states around the world have embraced the new meaning, even if they have yet to officially implement it.

This article will examine the often interconnected, incremental actions that got us where we are, the current state of affairs, and the public relations and lobbying efforts that are promoting this twisting of the definition of “antisemitism” — often under cover of misleadingly named “anti-racism” movements.

Colonial Mentality Notwithstanding Israel is Not a Western Country

jerusalempost |  In 1946 there were only 543,000 Jews in Palestine. Between 1954 and 1964, according to the Immigrant Absorption Ministry, around 250,000 Jews came to Israel from Morocco. You’d think the musical impact of that community, almost a third of the country’s population at the time, would be immediate and that by 2017 European-origin Israelis would no longer be whining about it. But they still are whining, because for some of them Israel cannot have diversity, it cannot have Ethiopian culture, or Russian culture, or Moroccan or Iranian or even Arabic culture. These Israelis have waged a jihad against everything non-Western since 1948, and they have lost.

To those Israelis who dreamed of Israel being a “villa in the jungle,” a kind of Denmark in the Middle East, or a kind of Rhodesia, everything that was non-European was “primitive.” Journalist Ari Shavit asked fellow writer Amos Elon if Israel had this “primitiveness” in a 2004 interview and Elon agreed; the “primitiveness” comes from the Arab countries, he said. What he meant was Jews from those countries.

This colonial mentality of a subset of Israeli society cannot accept that Israel is not a Western country, that it has major influences from non-European peoples and cultures. It is a hybrid civilization, with Western currents in it but a foundation that is rooted in the Middle East. Jewish civilization has always had that hybridity. Since the time of the Hasmoneans fighting the Greeks and the war with Rome, or the expulsion from Spain at the hands of Catholic Europeans, Jewish history has been East struggling with the West.

Some Jewish thinkers cannot accept this. Richard Cohen in his 2014 book Israel: Is it Good for the Jews predicted what would happen when Israel’s “fighting intellectual, rifle in one hand and a volume of Kierkegaard in the other,” became a minority and “Jews from Islamic lands” became the majority. Cohen didn’t realize Israel was never a country of “Jews holding Kierkegaard in one hand.” This was a myth invented among American Jews about Israel, in order to convince themselves Israel was like a miniature version of the Upper West Side in New York, only with tanks and a flag.

Why the fear of “Jews from Islamic lands,” who are presented as barbarians by Israel’s European-rooted writers and their fellow travelers abroad? The same “Western values” that welcome Syrian refugees in Europe despise Syrian Jews in Israel? The same people who value the diversity Moroccan immigrants bring to Paris despise Moroccan Jews in Israel.

Because Israel’s Europhile cultural minority is rooted in a different time, the era of Rhodesia and the Old South, when non-Europeans were still openly called primitives. They cannot accept that Israel is not a Western state and that the revolution of Zionism has overthrown Europeanism in “their” Levant. They cannot accept the hybrid culture of Israel. This is why they imagine that only when Israelis are not “welcomed” in Europe will Israelis end the occupation of the West Bank.

Quoth Big Don: Leadership! Accept No Substitutes....,

Breitbart |   Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to expand a 60-day state of emergency in southern Mindanao to the whole country should the Maute group, a terrorist organization that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS), expand its killing spree beyond the island.

Duterte, who arrived home from an abbreviated trip to Russia Wednesday, elaborated on the implications of martial law on the island. The president suspended the writ of habeas corpus and announced that police would no longer require a warrant on the island to arrest anyone suspected of being a member of the terrorist group.

“Checkpoints will be allowed. Searches will be allowed. Arrest without a warrant will be allowed in Mindanao,” Duterte explained. “And I do not need to secure any search warrant or a warrant of arrest. If you are identified positively on the other side, you can be arrested and detained.”

“Anyone caught possessing a gun and confronting us with violence, my orders are shoot to kill. I will not hesitate to do it,” he vowed. “If I think that you should die, you will die. If you fight us, you will die. If there is an open defiance, you will die.”

“Anyone now holding a gun, confronting government with violence, my orders are spare no one, let us solve the problems of Mindanao once and for all. Do not force my hands into it,” he added. Duterte added that he was mulling an order to allow civilians to use their legally purchased guns against Maute terrorists and carry them publicly to deter violence.

Duterte added the rare warning that he would not allow police to abuse human rights with impunity. “I will assure you I am not willing to allow abuses. Government is still running, the Congress is functioning, and the courts are open for citizens to seek grievance,” he assured residents.  Fist tap Big Don.

Mueller and Comey's FBI Works to Create Terrorism

KansasCity |  Announcements of foiled terrorist plots make for lurid reading.

Schemes to carry out a Presidents Day jihadist attack on a train station in Kansas City. Bomb a Sept. 11 memorial event. Blow up a 1,000-pound bomb at Fort Riley. Detonate a weapon of mass destruction at a Wichita airport — the failed plans all show imagination. 

But how much of it was real? 

Often not much, according to a review of several recent terrorism cases investigated by the FBI in Kansas and Missouri. The most sensational plots invoking the name of the Islamic State or al-Qaida here were largely the invention of FBI agents carrying out elaborate sting operations on individuals identified through social media as being potentially dangerous. 

In fact, in terrorism investigations in Wichita, at Fort Riley and last week in Kansas City, the alleged terrorists reportedly were unknowingly following the directions of undercover FBI agents who supplied fake bombs and came up with key elements of the plans.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article135871988.html#storylink=cpy

Russian FSB Works to Prevent Terrorism

Newsweek |  Power, for Vladimir Putin, has always been closely linked to terrorism. Back in 1999, as an unknown and untried prime minister, he first showed Russians his steely character after a series of unexplained bombings demolished four apartment buildings and killed more than 300 people. Putin, in his trademark brand of clipped tough-talk, announced that the those responsible would be “rubbed out, even if they’re in the outhouse,” and launched a renewed war against the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The resulting wave of approval, stoked by fear of terrorism, carried Putin to the presidency months later.

Eighteen years on and Putin has fulfilled his promise by rubbing out many thousands of extremists—with his army in Chechnya and all over the North Caucasus, via Federal Security Service assassins in Turkey and Yemen, and most recently from the air and by the hand of special forces in Syria. What’s more, he has expanded the definition of extremists to include not just Islamist militants but also Ukrainian filmmakers and gay activists who share digitally altered images of Putin in garish makeup on social media. Nonetheless, as the deadly bombing in St. Petersburg’s metro on April 2 showed, neither violence nor repression has put an end to terrorist attacks in Russia.

Obamacare Will Die Because the Medical Industrial Lobby Wants To Kill It...,

mishtalk |  Despite accelerating progress towards fully autonomous cars and trucks, many people still do not accept the obvious fact it’s going to happen soon.

For example, in response to Death Spiral for Car Ownership? End of Fuel-Powered Cars by 2024? one reader suggested it will not happen because of capitalism.

Failure to Understand Capitalism

People who believe in this utopia do not understand capitalism. We own cars because consumers chose what they wanted and backed that up with their hard earned cash.

It is already far cheaper to ride the bus or carpool. Few choose that because sharing has its downsides. Fleets of driverless cars are really just a more modular bus service. Some will use this, but most will prefer ownership.

Ass Backwards

The above line of thinking is ass backwards.

Capitalism is precisely why driverless is coming. Corporations are betting their money and resources. The government is not resisting. The trucking industry will save hundreds of millions of dollars. People who believe driverless is not coming are the ones who do not understand capitalism!

Fully autonomous vehicles are not some pie in the sky prediction by Al Gore. Real companies (hundreds of them) all working on driverless. A bet against them is a foolish bet against capitalism.

Did the CBC Help Pakistan's ISI Hack the DNC?

thedailycaller |  A criminal suspect in an investigation into a major security breach on the House of Representatives computer network has abruptly left the country and gone to Pakistan, where her family has significant assets and VIP-level protection, a relative and others told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

Hina Alvi, her husband Imran Awan, and his brothers Abid and Jamal were highly paid shared IT administrators working for multiple House Democrats until their access to congressional IT systems was terminated Feb. 2 as a result of the investigation. Capitol Police confirmed the investigation is ongoing, but no arrests have been reported in the case.

The Awans are “accused of stealing equipment from members’ offices without their knowledge and committing serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network,” according to Politico. Many of the Democrats who employed the Awans are members of the House Committee on Homeland Security, the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. (A list of potentially compromised members is listed below.)

Their positions gave them access to members’ emails and confidential files. In addition, Imran was given the password for an iPad used by then-Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat. The five came to the U.S. from Pakistan.

 

Since the investigation became public, the Awans have abruptly moved from longtime homes in Lorton and Springfield, Va.

Ain't Nobody Tryna Pay $3.99-$4.99 For A Comic Book!!!

Not As If Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Corruption Was Ever in Question...,

thedailycaller |  Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz threatened the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police with “consequences” for holding equipment that she says belongs to her in order to build a criminal case against a Pakistani staffer suspected of massive cybersecurity breaches involving funneling sensitive congressional data offsite.

The Florida lawmaker used her position on the committee that sets the police force’s budget to press its chief to relinquish the piece of evidence Thursday, in what could be considered using her authority to attempt to interfere with a criminal investigation.

The Capitol Police and outside agencies are pursuing Imran Awan, who has run technology for the Florida lawmaker since 2005 and was banned from the House network in February on suspicion of data breaches and theft.

“My understanding is the the Capitol Police is not able to confiscate Members’ equipment when the Member is not under investigation,” Wasserman Schultz said in the annual police budget hearing of the House Committee On Appropriations’ Legislative Branch Subcommittee.

 

“We can’t return the equipment,” Police Chief Matthew R. Verderosa told the Florida Democrat.

UMKC Prof. Bill Black Sheds Further Light on FBI Corruption Discretion

therealnews |  KIM BROWN: Bill Black, that has been the buzzword pretty much for the past couple of weeks, but this week in particular regarding the investigations. We're talking about an investigation into former FBI Director Jim Comey's email investigation into Hilary Clinton and now an investigation into former Director Comey's firing, an investigation happening surrounding Mike Flynn and his potential role there. So what are we to take away from these numerous investigations not only swirling around D.C. but swirling around this White House in particular?

BILL BLACK: I wanted to provide some background and some perspective. As you said, I'm a former financial regulator that worked very closely with the FBI and Department of Justice investigations and prosecutions of elite white collar criminals and also, on a pro bono basis, was an outside consultant, an expert to the investigation of a portion of the Bill Clinton stuff. That was a special counsel relationship as well. I can tell you a little bit about these things that are now famous, these Comey notes about the meeting that he had with the president in which, at least according to the leaks, the notes show that the president asked Comey to not pursue General Flynn.

So to begin at the beginning, also with this claim that you're hearing repeated time after time, that nothing can interfere with an FBI investigation and such. In fact, enumerable things can and do interfere with FBI investigations and anybody that's lived through the financial crisis that we just had knows that because they know that the same person, Robert Mueller, the former head of the FBI, not an evil person at all, understandably reorganized the FBI in response to the 9/11 attacks to make it almost exclusively, in its priorities, a counter-terrorist and intelligence organization. That meant that the absolute best people that investigate white collar crime, and the way they do that is by following the money, in other words, the ones with real financial expertise, were transferred out of the white collar section and they were never replaced. That's one of the stories of why there have been zero successful prosecutions because they easily defeated investigations of all the top bankers by never assigning remotely enough agents to the work and assigning them to minor cases.

Historically, J. Edgar Hoover of course was the first director of the FBI and served almost forever and notoriously would not allow the FBI to investigate attacks on, for example, blacks and civil rights workers. The movie, Mississippi Burning, is a fictionalized account of when the attorney general of the United States finally pushed back and forced the FBI to investigate. There were hundreds of occasions in which Hoover intervened to start investigations or stop investigations. Of course, John Dean came up with a bright idea of stopping an FBI investigation by having the CIA, who was only too happy to agree to help President Nixon, falsely claim that the FBI shouldn't look because it was really a CIA operation.

Let's do away with this myth that there's nothing that can interfere with an FBI investigation. The FBI investigations were very much at risk. Let's talk a bit about the key players. Rod Rosenstein is the Deputy Attorney General and because Sessions is recused from dealing with matters involving Russia, Rosenstein actually serves as the acting attorney general when he appointed Mueller, former head of the FBI, before Comey as the special counsel to look at these matters. A little bit about the notes. FBI agents are, in fact, taught, like most people with senior positions in Washington D.C. that involve important matters, to, immediately after a key meeting, to take detailed notes in writing while you're doing the meeting and then turn those notes into a description of the meeting.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch....,

Counterpunch |  There’s more about Mueller that people should know, too, like the fact that he was the architect of an FBI entrapment program that lured simple-minded gangbangers into terrorist scams and then threw them in the slammer for the rest of their lives.  Check out this blurb from an article at Electronic Intifada titled “The FBI’s penchant for “manufacturing terrorists”:

“What the FBI was doing before, during and after the financial crisis is the subject under examination in Trevor Aaronson’s new book The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism. The book unveils the FBI’s domestic counterterrorism program that began after the 11 September attacks and has continued well into Barack Obama’s second term in office. The program, vividly portrayed by Aaronson, is defined by a wanton use of informants and sting operations in order to produce a high rate of convictions…

Since the 11 September attacks, the FBI has employed more than 15,000 confidential informants nationwide. And, according to Aaronson, for each official informant there are as many as three unofficial informants — known within the FBI as “hip pockets.” By 2011, the Justice Department had prosecuted more than 500 individuals on terrorist charges, a handful of whom Aaronson categorizes as “actual terrorists.” The rest were hatched within the context of FBI sting operations, informants and agents provocateur…..

What Aaronson discovered was that, far from preventing terrorism, the FBI uses its funds to “manufacture” terrorists out of marginalized, desperate, mentally ill or immature men (many of the convicted individuals profiled are in their early twenties). In Aaronson’s words, “The FBI has been effective at creating the very enemy it is hunting.”….

Taking his readers through several FBI sting operations, Aaronson reveals a sordid practice in which the FBI often employs criminals to infiltrate Muslim communities to turn otherwise powerless malcontents into “terrorists.” According to Aaronson’s accounts, these so-called terrorists would have no more than the capability to mouth off in a chat room if it weren’t for the inert weapons and cash that informants would literally place in their hapless hands, thus creating “bogeymen from buffoons.”…

Aaronson’s book is a powerful portrait of the FBI’s insidious and destructive counterterrorism program that enables the contortion of the innocuous into the threatening, ruining hundreds of lives in its wake.”

(“FBI’s penchant for “manufacturing terrorists” probed in new book” by Trevor Aaronson, Charlotte Silver, Electronic Intifada)

So this is what Mueller and his FBI pals were up to before Comey arrived on the scene?

Apparently so. They were devoting a considerable amount of time and resources to operations  that framed hapless dupes and patsies as dangerous terrorists threatening our precious national security.

And the man who oversaw these operations, Robert Mueller, is the same guy the media has been praising  as the embodiment of integrity and moral rectitude.  Give me a break. Mueller knew these operations were a hoax, he had to know. The FBI was working a sting to lure hard-luck dimwits into doing things they’d never normally dream of doing. It’s called entrapment, which is exactly what it is.  What the FBI was doing is no different than coaxing a hungry dog into a steelcage with a T-Bone steak.  The Bureau calls the practice “counter-terrorism”.  Anyone in their right mind would call it “Baloney”.

This is why the bigshots chose Mueller to spearhead their Russia hacking witchhunt. They figure his experience with entrapment will help him to bag his biggest trophy yet, the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. That’s the plan at least.

Moscow and Beijing: Multipolar World Order

strategic-culture |  Once in a while, think tanks such as the Brookings Institute are able to deal with highly strategic and current issues. Often, the conferences held by such organizations are based on false pretences and copious banality, the sole intention being to undermine and downplay the efforts of strategic opponents of the US. Recently, the Brookings Institute's International Strategy and Strategy Project held a lecture on May 9, 2017 where it invited Bobo Lo, an analyst at Lowy Institute for International Policy, to speak. The topic of the subject, extremely interesting to the author and mentioned in the past, is the strategic partnership between China and Russia.

The main assumption Bobo Lo starts with to define relations between Moscow and Beijing is that the two countries base their collaboration on convenience and a convergence of interests rather than on an alliance. He goes on to say that the major frictions in the relationship concern the fate that Putin and Xi hold for Europe, in particular for the European Union, in addition to differences of opinions surrounding the Chinese role in the Pacific. In the first case, Lo states that Russia wants to end the European project while China hopes for a strong and prosperous Europe. With regard to the situation in the Pacific, according to this report, Moscow wants a balance of power between powers without hegemonic domination being transferred from Washington to Beijing.

It Must Be Communist and Therefore Evil

asiatimes |   Western critics continue to pour cold water on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an ambitious and well-planned architecture connecting the massive Eurasian landmass through a system of roads, railways and ports. They complain that it lacks transparency, erodes trade standards set up by the West, is financially too huge for China to handle, is self-serving, and is a deceptive vehicle for China to dominate the world, just to name a few.

They insist that the fact India and most countries in the West are snubbing the BRI is proof that the Chinese initiative is going nowhere or will likely fail. However, judging from the response of a large number of prominent economists and world business and political leaders, the critics may be exaggerating their claims.

In 2016, two-way trade between China and the more than 60 countries along the BRI corridor approached US$1 trillion, and China invested more than $2 billion in these countries in addition to infrastructure investment funded by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Silk Road Fund. At the recent Belt and Road Forum, China pledged to invest about $120 billion over the next few years in the countries participating in the initiative.

The consensus among analysts, participating nations and multinational institutions is that the BRI in fact fits into the United Nations Development Agenda of promoting economic growth, eradicating poverty and enhancing all facets of globalization.

India Waits for Trump

strategic-culture |  So, what is India’s real problem with the BRI? Quintessentially, India’s problem is geo-strategic – its inability to come to terms with China’s rise. The pundits in Delhi used to fancy that India would eventually catch up with China’s development and even overtake it. But that turned out to be a pipedream. The real challenge today is to come to terms with the yawning asymmetry in development.

Indeed, India’s China watchers are a rather pedestrian lot. Some assessed that China was about to implode out of internal contradictions, and even if it survived, its high growth would be simply unsustainable. Others insisted that the medium term advantage would accrue to India because of the so-called «demographic curve» – India’s young population. All this turns out to be wishful thinking.

Today, India sees in the BRI the objective co-relative of China’s growing capacity and economic influence in the emerging global economic and strategic architecture. The policymaker agonises that the BRI holds the potential to be a conduit of strategic access for China. No doubt, the BRI event in Beijing showcases China as a responsible great power.

The Indian elites counted on the US’ containment strategy to rein in China’s march to superpower stature. Weaned on the neoconservative foreign-policy ideology dominating successive US administrations through the past decade and a half, they blithely assumed that Washington would mentor India’s rise as a global power, as a counterweight to China.

Admittedly, the United Progressive Alliance government (2004-2014) led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also subscribed to the Washington Consensus but retained some degree of strategic autonomy by keeping an independent line open to China while not averse to selectively tapping into the US’ pivot to Asia to create synergy. That policy worked to India’s advantage and when UPA relinquished power in 2014, India-China relations had reached an appreciable level of stability and predictability. Even the negotiations on the border dispute began tiptoeing toward a breakthrough point.

However, the foreign policy directions under the present government have undone those gains. The policy shift to bandwagon with the Obama administration’s pivot strategy aimed at containing China altogether changed the matrix. Of course, there was a domestic dimension, too, since the Modi government’s strident nationalistic agenda dovetailed nicely with the optics of a «muscular diplomacy» towards China. In turn, if the India-China relations began losing direction, the «animated suspense» only provided justification for the drive to align India’s foreign policy with the US’ regional and global strategies.

Enter Donald Trump. The incipient signs of a reshaping of the US’ ties with China under Trump threaten to derail Modi government’s China policies. Going back to Beijing in sackcloth and ashes is neither an option nor is it acceptable to the Hindu nationalist groups mentoring the government and/or the Sinophobes entrenched amongst the security and foreign policy elites. Therefore, Delhi is watching anxiously the outcome of the power struggle in the Washington Beltway and is hoping against hope that the Obama-era US policies would eventually revive.

India: Why Its Attempt to Go Digital Will Fail

Acting-Man |  Over the three years in which Narendra Modi has been in power, his support base has continued to increase. Indian institutions — including the courts and the media — now toe his line.

The President, otherwise a ceremonial rubber-stamp post, but the last obstacle keeping Modi from implementing a police state, comes up for re-election by a vote of the legislative houses in July 2017.  No one should be surprised if a Hindu fanatic is made the next President. India is rapidly entering a new phase.

During his reign in Gujarat, a civil-war like situation erupted, which seriously segregated the province’s society. It brought Hindus into a state of trance and excitement and provided them with the fake-security of the collective. Alas, wealth and civilization are created by an intense focus on value-addition, not from the short-term escapist excitement of mobs expressed through riots and rape. Destructive endeavors are a major vulnerability of poor societies, given their irrationality and lack of foresight and planning, and their short-sighted focus on high time-preference, pleasure-centered activities.

Modi, a major world-traveler, who has run around quite a bit to please foreign governments and win the support of identity-lacking non-resident Indians, is no longer going abroad with the same abandon. Historically and even today, whatever gained approval in the West is what Indians have looked up to.

But Modi has matured. Modi has directed the attention of Indians to nationalism, Hindutava (fanatic Hinduism), the army, the flag, the anthem, and other superficial collective “causes” not underpinned any values or wealth-creating, civilization-producing objectives. Behind this is an empty arrogance pumped up by having grown relatively richer (still with GDP at a mere $1,718 per capita) over the last several decades due of the free gift of western technology.

If all this reminds you of the early days of the Arab Spring, you are right on track  with respect to understanding what is happening in India.  India is an extremely irrational, superstitious and tribal society, which I have discussed in great detail in earlier articles, the last one of which is linked here.

War of Attrition 

Modi has infused so-called educated Indians with a sense of confidence and identity. It does not matter that this is all fake. To a man with a tribal, irrational mind incapable of thinking about tomorrow, throwing furniture onto the bonfire is not a problem, for today’s excitement is all that matters. Lacking empathy and compassion — another tribal “quality” — he pays no heed to the suffering of his fellow man.

Quoth Big Don: India Has It Figured Out

trtworld |  As Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrates three years in power, one story has persisted in making headlines: the project to create “tall and fair customised children” with high IQs. 

It’s a decade-old project and is operated by the health wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the mother organization from which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) draws its inspiration, and the project is spreading its wings around the country.

As the country exploded in rage over similarities with the Nazi “Ubermenschen” ideal, which attempted to create a super Aryan race through eugenics funded by Hitler’s regime, many suggested that the RSS’ covert admiration for strong leaders – like US president Donald Trump and Modi –  is directly related to this attempt to create perfect babies.

An abiding theme of Hindu extreme right-wing literature has been the self-loathing associated with the inability to fight off invading armies, mostly Muslim, over the last thousand years. In fact, RSS leaders routinely collaborated with British authorities before independence so that they didn’t have to join hands with who they perceived to be the greater enemy: India’s Muslims.

No wonder RSS leaders are obsessed with the “weak Hindu” and how to overcome his weaknesses. Enter the customised baby project.

The RSS’ ‘Garbh Vigyan Sanskar’ project, loosely translated as ‘Science & Culture of the Womb,’ properly prescribes the norms which go into the making of a custom-perfect baby. The Indian Express, which broke the story last week, outlined the process that involves three months of “purification” of the intended parents which prevents “genetic defects” from being passed on, intercourse at a time decided by planetary configurations, complete abstinence after the baby is conceived as well as procedural and dietary regulations.  Fist tap Big Don.

Why Were Democrats Completely Co-opted by the Deep State?

Counterpunch |  We don’t know who killed Seth Rich and we’re not going to speculate on the matter here.  But we find it very strange that neither the media nor the FBI have pursued leads in the case that challenge the prevailing narrative on the Russia hacking issue. Why is that? Why is the media so eager to blame Russia when Rich looks like the much more probable suspect?

And why have the mainstream news organizations put so much energy into discrediting the latest Fox News report, when– for the last 10 months– they’ve showed absolutely zero interest in Rich’s death at all?

According to Fox News:

“The Democratic National Committee staffer who was gunned down on July 10 on a Washington, D.C., street just steps from his home had leaked thousands of internal emails to WikiLeaks, law enforcement sources told Fox News.

A federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report detailing the contents of DNC staffer Seth Rich’s computer generated within 96 hours after his murder, said Rich made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time….

Rod Wheeler, a retired Washington homicide detective and Fox News contributor investigating the case on behalf of the Rich family, made the WikiLeaks claim, which was corroborated by a federal investigator who spoke to Fox News….

“I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and Wikileaks,” the federal investigator told Fox News, confirming the MacFadyen connection. He said the emails are in possession of the FBI, while the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police Department.” (“Family of slain DNC staffer Seth Rich blasts detective over report of WikiLeaks link”, Fox News)

Okay, so where’s the computer? Who’s got Rich’s computer? Let’s do the forensic work and get on with it.

But the Washington Post and the other bogus news organizations aren’t interested in such matters because it doesn’t fit with their political agenda. They’d rather take pot-shots at Fox for running an article that doesn’t square with their goofy Russia hacking story. This is a statement on the abysmal condition of journalism today. Headline news has become the province of perception mandarins who use the venue to shape information to their own malign specifications, and any facts that conflict with their dubious storyline, are savagely attacked and discredited. Journalists are no longer investigators that keep the public informed, but paid assassins who liquidate views that veer from the party-line.

WikiLeaks never divulges the names of the people who provide them with information. Even so, Assange has not only shown an active interest in the Seth Rich case, but also offered a $20,000 reward for anyone providing information leading to the arrest and conviction of Rich’s murder. Why? And why did he post a link to the Fox News article on his Twitter account on Tuesday?

I don’t know, but if I worked for the FBI or the Washington Post, I’d sure as hell be beating the bushes to find out. And not just because it might help in Rich’s murder investigation, but also, because it could shed light on the Russia fiasco which is being used to lay the groundwork for impeachment proceedings. So any information that challenges the government version of events, could actually change the course of history.

Have you ever heard of Craig Murray?

A Call to Clampdown on Ungovernable Internet Companies

nakedcapitalism |  Silicon Valley brings us the worst of two economic systems: the inefficiency of a command economy coupled with the remorselessness of laissez-faire liberalism.

One reason it’s been difficult to organize workers in the tech industry is that people have a hard time separating good intentions from results. But we have to be cold-blooded about this.

Tech companies are run by a feckless leadership accountable to no one, creating a toolkit for authoritarianism while hypnotized by science-fiction fantasy.

There are two things we have to do immediately. The first is to stop the accelerating process of tracking and surveillance before it can do any more harm to our institutions.

The danger facing us is not Orwell, but Huxley. The combo of data collection and machine learning is too good at catering to human nature, seducing us and appealing to our worst instincts. We have to put controls on it. The algorithms are amoral; to make them behave morally will require active intervention.

The second thing we need is accountability. I don’t mean that I want Mark Zuckerberg’s head on a pike, though I certainly wouldn’t throw it out of my hotel room if I found it there. I mean some mechanism for people whose lives are being brought online to have a say in that process, and an honest debate about its tradeoffs.

I’m here today because I believe the best chance to do this is in Europe. The American government is not functional right now, and the process of regulatory capture is too far gone to expect any regulations limiting the tech giants from either party. American tech workers have the power to change things, but not the desire.

Only Europe has the clout and the independence to regulate these companies. You can already point to regulatory successes, like forcing Facebook to implement hard delete on user accounts. That feature was added with a lot of grumbling, but because of the way Facebook organizes its data, they had to make it work the same for all users. So a European regulation led to a victory for privacy worldwide.

We can do this again.

Here are some specific regulations I would like to see the EU impose:

• A strict 30 day time limit on storing behavioral data.
• The right to opt out of data collection while continuing to use services.
• A ban on the sale or transfer of behavioral data, including to third-party ad networks.
• A requirement that advertising be targeted strictly to content, not users.

With these rules in place, we would still have Google and Facebook, and they would still make a little bit of money. But we would gain some breathing room. These reforms would knock the legs out from underground political ad campaigns like we saw in Brexit, and in voter suppression efforts in the US election. They would give publishers relief in an advertising market that is currently siphoning all their earnings to Facebook and Google. And they would remove some of the incentive for consumer surveillance.

The other thing I hope to see in Europe is a unionized workforce at every major tech company. Unionized workers could demand features like ephemeral group messaging at Facebook, a travel mode for social media, a truly secure Android phone, or the re-imposition of the wall between Gmail and DoubleClick data. They could demand human oversight over machine learning algorithms. They could demand non-cooperation with Trump.

And I will say selfishly, if you can unionize here, it will help us unionize over there.

If nothing else, we need your help and we need you to keep the pressure on the tech companies, the Trump Administration, and your own politicians and journalists, so that the disaster that happened in the United States doesn’t repeat itself in Germany.

You have elections coming soon. Please learn from what happened to us. Please stay safe.

And please regulate, regulate, regulate this industry, while you can.

Global Beta Test: UK Fitna Clampdown On Ungovernable Open Source Culture

Independent |  Theresa May is planning to introduce huge regulations on the way the internet works, allowing the government to decide what is said online.

Particular focus has been drawn to the end of the manifesto, which makes clear that the Tories want to introduce huge changes to the way the internet works.

"Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet," it states. "We disagree."

Senior Tories confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the phrasing indicates that the government intends to introduce huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online.

The plans will allow Britain to become "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet", the manifesto claims.

It comes just soon after the Investigatory Powers Act came into law. That legislation allowed the government to force internet companies to keep records on their customers' browsing histories, as well as giving ministers the power to break apps like WhatsApp so that messages can be read.

The manifesto makes reference to those increased powers, saying that the government will work even harder to ensure there is no "safe space for terrorists to be able to communicate online". That is apparently a reference in part to its work to encourage technology companies to build backdoors into their encrypted messaging services – which gives the government the ability to read terrorists' messages, but also weakens the security of everyone else's messages, technology companies have warned.

 The government now appears to be launching a similarly radical change in the way that social networks and internet companies work. While much of the internet is currently controlled by private businesses like Google and Facebook, Theresa May intends to allow government to decide what is and isn't published, the manifesto suggests.

The new rules would include laws that make it harder than ever to access pornographic and other websites. The government will be able to place restrictions on seeing adult content and any exceptions would have to be justified to ministers, the manifesto suggests.

The manifesto even suggests that the government might stop search engines like Google from directing people to pornographic websites. "We will put a responsibility on industry not to direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm," the Conservatives write.

Interwebs Grinding Out the Seth Rich Whodunnit!

iBankCoin |  Reddit and 4chan have been hard at work trying to connect the dots surrounding Rich’s murder.

To that end, a user in Reddit’s ‘the_donald’ forum has found Seth Rich’s Reddit account – ‘MeGrimlock4’ (a Transformers reference) revealing much about the slain DNC staffer. For the most part, Rich seemed like a regular kinda guy – into football, dogs, patriotism, riding his bike, fun clothes, and volunteering at the Washington Humane Society.

Seth Rich’s twitter is @panda4progress, which follows @Reddit, which led us to believe he was in fact a redditor. That seems consistent with this reddit account, in that they’re both in DC and have an interest in bicycles. Edit: not JUST bicycles. A company named “split” which this account is talking about here @Panda4Progress talks to them here. Also /u/MeGrimlock4 is posting about Nebraska football.

Rich was from Omaha. No cornfed midwestern kid from Nebraska isn’t a Huskers fan. THIS IS DEFINITELY SETH RICH’S ACCOUNT

#WikiLeaks informer Seth Rich murdered in US but 🇬🇧 MSM was so busy accusing Russian hackers to take notice. pic.twitter.com/0XVezTyfHM

— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) May 19, 2017

Here’s where it gets interesting: /u/pandas4bernie and a tumblr by the same name ALSO stopped posting at the same time as this account. If that’s Rich, then that proves motive. Rich was a BernieBro.

———-

Which may be why Rich gave WikiLeaks the DNC emails – after they false flagged Bernie…

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) uses an outside software partner “NGP VAN,” founded by Nathaniel Pearlman, chief technology officer for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. Their ‘VoteBuilder’ software was designed for Democratic candidates (Bernie, Hillary, etc.) to track and analyze highly detailed information on voters for the purposes of ‘microtargeting’ specific demographics.

On December 16th, 2015, NGP VAN updated the Votebuilder with a patch that contained a bug – allowing the Sanders and the Clinton campaigns to temporarily access each other’s proprietary voter information for around 40 minutes. Lo and behold, the Sanders campaign National Data Director, Josh Uretsky, was found to have accessed Clinton’s information and promptly fired.

Uretsky’s excuse was that he was simply grabbing Clinton’s data during the window of vulnerability to prove that the breach was real.

Bernie cried false flag!

Sanders claimed that Uretsky was a DNC plant – “recommended by the DNC’s National Data Director, as well as a former COO of NGP VAN.”

Of note, Seth Rich was not the National Data Director. According to the DNC’s 2016 roster, Seth Rich was the DNC’s “Voter Expansion Data Director” while Andrew Brown was the National Data Director – who Bernie said referred Uretsky.

So Seth Rich, a Bernie supporter, would have known people involved in the ‘hack’ Bernie says was meant to frame him…

It’s easy to speculate how Seth Rich could have become disgruntled after witnessing the DNC attempt to sabotage the Sanders campaign. As such, it’s not a stretch to imagine that Rich – a guy with access  to sensitive emails and technical skills, did in fact communicate with Wikileaks in order to expose and root out the DNC’s misdeeds.

Trump: Like a BOSS!!!

straightlinelogic |  If Seth Rich was the source of the WikiLeaks’ DNC email disclosures and the FBI knew it, then the Russian hacking story was a fabrication, and James Comey was probably involved in an attempt to drive President Trump from office.

The biggest story of the entire Russiagate controversy was published Tuesday. Not the story about President Trump’s alleged statement to former FBI Director James Comey: “I hope you can let this go.” A witness is only as good as his or her credibility. If the actual big story pans out, Comey has none, which is why the mainstream media is obsessing over Trump’s alleged statement and doing everything it can to ignore and stifle the other story.

Seth Rich was on the staff of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). He was gunned down on July 10, 2016. Robbery has been speculated as a motive for the murder, but his wallet and watch were not taken. There is also speculation that Rich was the source of the DNC emails that were released by WikiLeaks twelve days later, to the consternation and embarrassment of the DNC. Fueling that speculation was WikiLeaks’ offer of a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Rich’s murderer. WikiLeaks has neither confirmed nor denied that Rich was its source.

The emails appeared to show a concerted DNC effort to stop Senator Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign for the Democratic nomination and led to the resignation of party chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz. After WikiLeaks’ DNC disclosure, the DNC refused to let the FBI investigate its computer servers. Instead, it allowed a cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, to investigate. It’s conclusion, subsequently undercut, was that the Russians had hacked the DNC’s server.

Fox News reported that an unnamed source, almost certainly from the FBI, has seen and read emails between Seth Rich and the late Gavin MacFadyen, a director of WikiLeaks. A FBI forensic report on Seth Rich’s computer was allegedly compiled within 96 hours of his murder. The source said there were 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments between DNC leaders transferred from Rich to MacFadyen from January 2015 through May 2016.

If this is correct, then within 96 hours of Rich’s murder, or by July 14, 2016, the FBI knew that Rich had communicated with WikiLeaks and it knew what he had communicated. That means that when WikiLeaks subsequently released the DNC emails on July 22, the FBI knew that Rich, not the Russian government, was the source. That would make the entire “Russia hacked the DNC” story nothing more than a concocted fabrication.

Let's Hope It Chokes Miss Lindsey and Auntie Maxine...,

Mishtalk |  Bending to the will of Democrats and mainstream media, Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, cited ‘public interest’ in investigating Trump’s ties to Russia. As a matter of public interest,, Rosenstein named former FBI director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel for Russia Probe.

What’s the Real Mission?

1. Republicans and Trump want to pacify the media and get this nonsense behind them.
2. Democrats want this to drag on forever.

Peter King is correct in his assessment “These guys go on forever.”

As a byproduct of point number two, numerous witch hunts will take place as Democrats will want to investigate every lead, no matter how ridiculous.

The budget is open-ended and there are no time limits. The witch hunt could conceivably last for the duration of Trump’s presidency.

Much of Trump’s agenda will be on indefinite hold as the progress, or lack thereof, as the story unfolds.

The appointment of a special counsel does not change impeachment odds. For discussion, please see Impeachment Odds Approximately Zero

Comey Memos the 4th Branch's "Wish I Had" Sandwich

unz |  I am somewhat embarrassed to cheer the US President for doing such minor routine things as firing an FBI director or meeting with the Foreign Minister of a major state. Next, I’d have to laud him for eating an apple or washing his hands (“Attaboy!”). But one feels that the guy needs our encouragement for doing something right. As the father of three boys, I know: boys need encouragement. And if there is no great achievement to cheer them for, even washing their hands before the meal will do.

 

Trump has a huge, Herculean task: to turn the battleship America away from its collision course when all the important people in all the important positions are deadly keen to run it full speed ahead. They think the other ship will turn away first; but the “other ship” is actually a lighthouse. It is the rock of the World-Island and its Heartland. Why would so many smart Americans, Brits and Europeans push their luck by courting war and disaster?

Exactly a hundred years ago, in 1917, Vladimir Lenin discovered that the present system necessarily produces world wars. It is not a question of bad guys or good guys, it’s the system, stupid! He wrote about it a concise book called Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, radically updating Marx. The idea is that capitalism evolves from dynamic competitive production to financial capital takeover, while the financial capital unavoidably leads to wars. If financiers rule, war is inevitable, he said, because they are insatiable.

 

Industrialists, builders, farmers can and will stop at the limits of their territory, but financiers always want more, and there is no natural limit to their expansion. They want to colonise more lands, subjugate more nations and suck up their substance. The only way to save the world from the horrors of war (remember, Lenin wrote after Verdun and Ypres), is to get rid of financial capital’s dominance (Jesus came to the same conclusion whens He expelled the moneychangers from the temple).

That same year, Lenin made his great experiment to rid his country Russia of bankers and other exploiters, while earning their eternal hatred (and volumes of fake news about his bloodthirsty cruelty, in addition). History has proven him partially right: the countries that followed Lenin’s path never began a war, and they never colonised other states, though they did help some to get rid of their leeches and Western interference. Soviet Russia is an example: it was a donor to all the other socialist states, from Georgia to Afghanistan. (Perhaps the communists had been too good for this world. After Russia was de-communised, Russian income went up, while the incomes of practically all the ex-Soviet states plummeted, unless subsidised by the EU.) And they knew no war.

On the other hand, the states that remained under bankers’ sway went to war more and more frequently. They colonised or were colonised. Probably none as often as the US, the home country for the Federal Reserve, for the dollar and for so many great financial companies.

For America, the next World War is inevitable, unless the Americans can get rid of their financiers – and of their servants in the mass media and other state institutions. My sympathy to President Trump has been based on his antipathy to the moneymen. When he attacked the Federal Reserve and Wall Street, he swayed me, and perhaps you, too.