RANT: WHO'S IN CHARGE OF THIS SLOW MOTION TRAIN WRECK?

 

IN CASE IT’S NOT CLEAR FROM THE PICTURE, this is a still photo clipped from a cell phone video taken at the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza last weekend. It was taken just after Israel bombed the refugee tent camp located within the hospital grounds. In the foreground there is a young man lying on a hospital bed with an I-V line in his arm. He is burning to death. Gazans use fire extinguishers to try and douse the flames and smother the blaze with carpets, but the fire is too intense. The young man in the photo was later identified by his younger brother as Sha'ban al-Dalou. He was a 19-year-old software engineering student at the Al-Azhar University in Gaza when he and his family were forcibly displaced last year during an IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) attack that destroyed his home. Last week, he was injured during an Israeli air strike on a mosque which killed 20 people. He was taken to the Al-Aqsa Hospital where he and his mother perished in the fire that engulfed the tent camp where they had been sheltering. He is survived by his father, two sisters and and two brothers.*

 

    Sha'ban al-Dalou

After a year of such atrocities, we are almost numb to it. There is just too much to be taken in, or even believed possible, as Israel wages its genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people of Gaza. Yet we must look, and continue to look, and never forget what we have seen. **

 

WEST JERUSALEM’S CAMPAIGN in Lebanon has taken the world’s eye temporarily from the war crimes committed daily by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) in Gaza, but Israel’s plan to ethnically cleanse the enclave continues at pace. The latest campaign, called the “Generals Plan”, named after retired General Giora Eiland and other retired Israeli military chiefs, calls for the expulsion of all Palestinians from northern Gaza by attacking infrastructure (like the Al-Qusa hospital) and the remaining populated centres in the district. There’s nothing new in that, except Israel has ratcheted it up a notch by blockading all humanitarian food supplies from entering northern Gaza—as per the Generals' suggestion of using starvation to depopulate the district—warning the remaining inhabitants (some estimates suggest there are between 300,000 and 400,000 Palestinians who have remained in place) to move south of the Netzarim Corridor (see map).¹ Otherwise, they will be considered Hamas operatives and become legitimate military targets. It seems starvation and slaughter are the tools de jour that Israel will use to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza of Palestinians.² And as more and more of the world watches in horror, will this finally prove a bridge too far? Will the international community condemn Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza (and its "scorched earth" assault into southern  Lebanon) and take action to stop it? Will the United States rein in this out-of-control, sociopathic Israeli government, which it easily could have done on day one by stopping military and financial aid? Time will tell, but don’t hold your breath.

 

RECENTLY, ISRAEL ANNOUNCED that it would be confiscating UNRWA’s (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) headquarters in Gaza City (what’s left of the place) and will develop it as an Israeli settlement.³ The headquarters is, of course, United Nations property.⁴ UNRWA has said it has great difficulties in getting aid into Gaza and to the Palestinian people, not only because of the blockade and the problem with so much of transportation infrastructure having been destroyed, but also because of the nature of the conflict whereby UNRWA workers, vehicles, warehouses and shelters are periodically attacked by Israeli drones and bombs. Thus far, 182 staff members of the UN aid agency have been killed.

 

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION earlier this week has warned, in writing, mind you, to withhold⁵ military shipments to Israel if aid relief to Gaza, including the northern district, is not brought up to humanitarian standards. Yea! [Applause!] Genocide Joe, you sure taught that Netanyahu a thing or two! Oh…wait. Why does the Israeli PM have a whole month to open the borders for food and medical supplies to get into Gaza? Why not immediately? That a real puzzle. What could be the reason? Let’s see. Could it be, maybe…the upcoming U.S. elections? Biden doesn’t want to tick off donors, those rich, American-Zionist Christians and Jews, zealots, and Israeli lobbyists who pour millions into Presidential and down-ballot political campaigns. Trump, for example, got $100 million from Miriam Adelson. Wowzers! He and his Democratic rival, Harris, who also gets scads of money from the same sources, are Israel supporters to the max, no matter what! At least until after November 5. 

 

IN OTHER WORDS, no U.S. political leader has the balls to really sanction Israel, to cut off arms and financial aid by using America's real leverage to tamp down this sick, rogue nation’s dangerous and genocidal military adventures. And Western nations, in Europe and elsewhere, while they raise complaints about Israel's behaviour, none of them will do anything because they're afraid of what the U.S. will do to them (sanctions, etc.). So, it's a roost full of cucks in the Western world!  Though it must be said that the recent attacks on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon have raised the ire of several European countries, including Spain, France and Italy, who have issued harsh condemnations of such flagrant violations of international law. Some columnists have even called for the expulsion of Israel from the UN. 

 

Just to make the point: Biden sent Netanyahu a ‘sternly worded’ letter the other day which warns the Israeli PM that there needs to be an improvement in the conditions of Gazan relief or the U.S. may stop the flow of arms and money into Israel. And to show Netanyahu he really means business, he's sending him an anti-missile battery. So there! 😆 Biden sent a THAAD missile defense system and 100 American troops to operate it. That’ll teach ‘em! You won’t get any more weapons from us a month from now, boyo, if you don’t get with the program! In the meantime, Bibi, pleasepleaseplease don’t bomb any more hospitals or starve any more Gazans, or use toddlers for target practice. Okay? Thanx.⁶

 

A FINAL NOTE: We will probably see before the November 5 U.S. elections the long-awaited Israeli response to the Iranian missile barrage of October 1. [Which, please remember, was a response, to the assassination of the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on July 31, while he attended the presidential inauguration ceremonies in Tehran, and for the assassination in Beirut of the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Ed.] The October 1 Iranian barrage was directed at Israeli military targets and caused just one accidental civilian death in a tit-for-tat, non-escalatory reprisal meant to signal that Iran would not initiate further attacks unless Israel makes good on its threats to launch a "lethal and surprising" strike in the coming days.

 

And we are waiting to see what Netanyahu and his cabal will do. They have said they will not attack Iran’s nuclear facilities or its oil infrastructure, just its military. We’ll see. But, if their attack is severe enough, then Iran will respond with significant force and then all bets are off. Fun times in the Levant. 😱

 

ADDITIONALLY: Russia has sent to Iran shipments of defensive armaments and, I believe, advanced jet fighters (which would probably be flown by Russian pilots). Iran entered the BRICS trade alliance this year and is in the process of negotiating a security pact with Russia. Therefore, Putin sent military equipment to support its Iranian partner as the two strengthen their ties within BRICS and unilaterally. Interestingly, Putin has publicly warned Israel against attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. Such an attack would not deter Iran from a nuclear weapons program, rather it would encourage Iran to develop nuclear weapons and the necessary rocketry, and keep them as a deterrent against a nuclear strike by Israel. [Iran may already have “The Bomb” or be capable of developing one within a short period of time. Ed.] Because of the fuktards in charge of the White House and U.S. foreign policy, the nuclear genie may be out of the bottle again, with Iran and possible other countries in the Middle East becoming nuclear powers as the region becomes more and more unstable. Good job, guys!👍

 

👉FUN FACT: The new Iranian president, a newcomer to politics, Masoud Pezeshkian, is seen as a moderate reformer. In fact, he reached out to the United States before the July 31 Israeli attack to renegotiate the original JCPOA (Joint comprehensive Plan of Action) nuclear deal that Donald Trump walked away from in 2018. The plan, though imperfect, kept Iran from developing a nuclear weapon's program. It’s off the table now that Israel, along with  the U.S., may be set to start a war with the Persian state. And, to be clear, the United States does not want to be drawn into a war with Iran because of the danger of it escalating into a conflict with Russia and China who support Iran. But, because of America's obscenely close ties with Israel, may be forced to follow them into the maw of a greater war. 

What an absolute clusterfuck! All this could have been avoided had the United States acquired a bit of humility, ate some crow and, instead of “gunboat” diplomacy, practiced real diplomacy.

 

 Cheers, Jake.______________________________________

 

* Sha'ban's 10-year-old  brother Abdulrahman was also burned in the tent fire and later succumbed to his injuries.

 

** Here’s an interesting, short article on how the media reported (or didn’t report) last Sunday’s attack on the Al-Aqsa hospital the seventh attack since March. For example, there was more coverage of Hezbollah's drone killing four young active-duty Israeli soldiers  in their barracks south of Haifa, than Israel’s attack on the Palestinian civilians at the Al-Aqsa hospital. It took a couple of days before MSM covered the Gazan hospital bombing in any detail. The horrific images of Sha'ban al-Dalou being burned alive [There were three others who also died in the flames, including Sha’ban’s mother] and shown globally on social media, prompted, presumably, even the New York Times to highlight the hospital’s bombing in its Sunday news coverage, a change from its normally ‘Israel-centric’ reporting. It is getting harder to ignore such visceral images or to wash our eyes of them.

 

👉1. FUN FACT: “Netzarim” was the name of the last kibbutz settlement evicted by the IDF from the Gaza strip when Israel withdrew its civilian and military presence there in 2005.

 

“The motivation behind the disengagement was described by [Prime Minister] Sharon's top aide as a means of isolating Gaza and avoiding international pressure on Israel to reach a political settlement with the Palestinians” (Wikipedia)

 

UNDER INTERNATIONAL law, an occupying power has certain obligations it must adhere to with respect to its occupied population. By unilaterally withdrawing its settlers and occupation forces from Gaza in 2005, the Israeli government hoped to bypass such obligations. The withdrawal occurred swiftly, in a matter of days, with the Israelis leaving the enclave to the Palestinians to govern for themselves. When elections were held there in 2006, the Hamas political wing broke with the Fatah Party. After a minor civil war between the two factions, the rival Fatah party, which had governed the Palestinian enclaves of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem since the mid-1990s, quit Gaza, leaving Hamas in charge. Most Gazans by that time had grown tired of a Fatah administration, seeing it as little more than a “cat’s paw” for Israel, keeping the peace in the Palestinian territories but not doing enough for the millions of Palestinians they purported to represent. [Of course, Israel did not want a unified Palestinian government, so it secretly funded Hamas to ensure it ended up ruling in Gaza. Divide and conquer is an age-old problem solver for despots and zealots, alike, though there is often blowback against such policies, given enough time, as we have seen recently.

AND FINALLY, some commentators suggest that if Hamas were allowed to run a slate of candidates in the West Bank, it would beat Fatah hands down. Ed.]

 

DURING ITS CURRENT CAMPAIGN of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, Israel created the Netzarim land corridor, bisecting the enclave and separating the north from central and south Gaza, with the intention of removing the remaining Palestinians and re-colonizing the northern district with Israeli settlers. Recall that the Netzarim kibbutzniks, mentioned earlier, were the last to leave the enclave in 2005. Wanna bet who’ll be first in if Israel’s resettlement plans start to gel?

 

2. Heated discussions between Washington and Tel Aviv have forced concessions on the part of the Netanyahu government with some food aid entering northern Gaza, a “trickle” according to UNRWA officials. And it is to be noted that aid “…is at its lowest level in months, and both the north and south of the enclave are at a ‘breaking point’, UN humanitarians said on Friday.” NOTE: There has been no aid entering Gaza since the October 1 missile attack on Israel by Iran. Deliberately withholding, or stopping altogether, necessary food and medical supplies from reaching a captive population is a war crime. It’s called “collective punishment”, and it occurs when civilians/non-combatants are kept from the necessities of life by one or the other combatant in a conflict.

 

3. QUESTION: “ALEXA, is UNRWA’s HQ a waterfront property and, if so, when can I buy a condo timeshare there?”

 

4. Israel has every intention of recolonizing the entire Gaza Strip using the tried-and-true methods of confiscation of Palestinian lands, settler re-developments, breaking up the enclave piecemeal and absorbing it bit by bit as they have done, and continue to do, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. As for the Gazans who live there, it’s a choice between submit, move or die. Or fight. What would we do if in the same situation? Just sayin’.

 

5. Well, the letter actually says that the U.S. Zionist State Department will do an “assessment” as to whether Israel is in compliance with strictures put in place for using U.S. weaponry in its wars in the Levant. I guess that means dropping a couple dozen two-thousand-pound, U.S. made, “bunker-buster” bombs on an apartment complex in Beirut to kill one Hezbollah leader, or deploying its snipers to shoot children in the head are no-nos. The letter is a cynical ploy attempting to bring back into the Democratic fold those under-30 voters who are appalled at the brutality and war crimes they witness daily on social media, war crimes that are aided and abetted by the current Democratic administration. “Genocide Joe” and “Killer Kamila” can preen and cluck and point to the letter and say: “See, we’re trying to stop the dying.” Liars, of course. Because all politicians lie, particularly around election time. They’re doing nothing and after November 5, all bets are off. The letter can then be discarded and shredded along with the bodies of tens of thousands Palestinian children torn up by Israeli bombs and buried under the rubble in Gaza.  

 

6. I think like a lot of people I am dumbstruck by the utterly feckless and appallingly inept leadership across almost the entire American political class, (and really Western leadership as a whole). We have never been this close to a broader regional war in the Middle East, with the real possibility of an escalation to the nuclear level. There is also the potential for an equally dangerous escalation in the Ukraine conflict if we do not tone down the rhetoric and hostility towards Russia (and China), and demand of our elites that they reacquaint themselves with the necessary art of diplomacy. Not to put too fine a point on it, but all of us, today, are being driven full bore in the clown car known as Western Civilization straight into that brick wall known as the End of History.     

 

HERE IS a short and inspiring (or damning, depending on your point of view) video recently put out by the Türkiye government.

 

 

JULIAN ASSANGE SPEAKS TRUTH TO POWER

 

I THOUGHT I WOULD WRITE a cheerier blog post today, just in case WWIII breaks out in Ukraine, should Zelensky and his crew of con artists decide to do something really stupid like launching missile or drone attacks on critical Russian infrastructure (like oil depots, radar installations, the Kerch Bridge again).* Or, perhaps it will start with the 1,900-strong Canadian NATO contingent in Latvia deciding to get busy building a bunch of drones (no doubt easier to assemble than IKEA shelf units) and sending them into Russia. Where’s the harm? Russia would never return the favour by launching a missile or two into the Canadian base. Why would they? They wouldn’t reverse-prank a regiment of ever-so-polite Canadian peacekeepers, would they? We’re too nice.¹ 

THEN THERE’S THE DOINGS in the Middle East, while the world waits with bated breath to see whether the conflict in Gaza and the West Bank, and now Lebanon, becomes a regional war, possibly going global if Russia and China way in to support Iran. Any bets on how soon the Levant becomes an ashtray if that happens?

 

👉BUT, BUT, BUT…I meant to write about a cheerier event that happened on October 1. That was when Julian Assange made his first public appearance since his release from Belmarsh prison four months ago. He spoke during a parliamentary hearing of the Council of Europe, testifying how the United States government had, for years, harassed, threatened and charged him under the Espionage Act, a draconian law that carries a potential death sentence. As Julian puts it, his real crime, in the eyes of his American accusers, was “doing journalism.”

 

AS WikiLeaks’ founder and publisher, he ran afoul of American authorities in 2010 when he published leaked classified information from Chelsey Manning (then Bradley Manning), an American Army intelligence analyst. Most notable among the leaked files was the infamous 2007 “Collateral Murder” video which depicts American Apache helicopter pilots firing on and murdering a group of Iraqi citizens including two Reuters correspondents. Another tranche of files released by WikiLeaks, called the “Afghanistan War Diary” greatly embarrassed U.S. authorities, and would prove to be, what The Guardian called,

 

"…one of the biggest leaks in U.S. military history ... a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and NATO commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fueling the insurgency". Der Spiegel wrote that "the editors in chief of Spiegel, The New York Times and The Guardian were 'unanimous in their belief that there is a justified public interest in the material'." (Wikipedia)

 

Also in 2010, while in Britain, trumped-up rape allegations were made against Julian by Swedish prosecutors. He and his lawyers concluded the charges were simply a pretext to force him to return to Sweden (which has an extradition treaty with the United States) where he would be promptly extradited to the U.S. to stand trial. He battled the Swedish extradition request until 2012 when it looked like he would indeed be extradited to the Scandinavian country. He subsequently sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and was granted political asylum there. He remained in the embassy until 2019 when a new Ecuadorian president revoked his asylum status (having been bribed with a large World Bank loan for his country). Julian was forcibly removed from the embassy and arrested by British police. Further charges of espionage were filed against him by the American Justice Department and his extradition to the U.S. was requested. He was sent to Belmarsh Prison while his “breech of bail” trial took place, followed by years of legal wrangling over the U.S. extradition request. He remained in prison until this year when he pled ‘guilty’ to one charge of “breaching the Espionage Act” and was released for time served. Altogether he spent 12 years in confinement, five of those years in a maximum-security prison in a jail cell twenty-three hours a day. Had he not taken the plea deal, he faced the possibility of 175 years in prison in the United States should he stand trial there.

 

ALL THIS IS TO SAY that the man has a good deal of resiliency, traveling as he has to Europe and speaking before the Council of Europe’s parliamentary committee. He was there because the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) was meeting the next day to rule on a motion declaring Julian’s forced confinement and harsh legal persecution by the United States a breech of international law in that his detention “…far exceeded the reasonable length acceptable for extradition." (Committee) His confinement in a British jail also violated his legal rights to fair treatment, as did the judicial malpractice in not declaring that the U.S. charges against him were politically motivated (and should therefore have annulled the extradition request made by the U.S., as per British law). He was, according to the PACE committee, considered by definition a “political prisoner” who should have had the extradition request by the United States quashed at the get-go, had there been an honest judiciary handling his case.³

The committee said, “...the disproportionately severe charges brought against Julian Assange by the United States of America, as well as heavy penalties foreseen under the Espionage Act for engaged [sic] in acts of journalism” fit the criteria for the definition of a “political prisoner.”

 

“For their part, the UK authorities had failed to effectively protect Assange’s freedom of expression and right to liberty, the parliamentarians said, 'exposing him to lengthy detention in a high-security prison despite the political nature of the most severe charges against him'” (Committee)

 

And the fight for press freedom continues….

 

Cheers, Jake. ______________________________________

 

* After all, it is quite possible the recent (and failing) Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region of Russia had as a mission goal the capture of a nuclear power plant (NPP) located some sixty kilometers from the border. There is also, apparently, a nuclear weapons depot near the facility, which might have been the actual target of Zelensky’s Charge of the Light Brigade. Fortunately, they got nowhere near the NPP (or the nukes depot), and Russia is methodically whittling down the Ukrainian forces in their tactically brilliant but strategically foolish invasion.

Nukes and Zelensky! What could go wrong?

 

1. BTW, contrary to what most Canadians are given to understand, Canadian munitions, military parts and hardware are making their way into Israel, despite the so-called “arms embargo” of Israel Global Affairs Canada put in place earlier this year. This is because Canada signed the “Arms Trade Treaty” with the United States in 2019 that allows, “reciprocal arrangements [between the U.S. and Canada] to ensure permit-free/license-free movement of most military items between our two countries.” (Al Jazerra) For example, explosive munitions for mortars can be sold to the United States and wind up in their military exports to Israel, where they will be used to further decimate the Gazan population, and in Lebanon. Why should we be surprised? Money trumps ethics nine times out of ten. And as American journalist and publisher, I.F. Stone, reminds us: “All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” Couldn’t have said it better myself!

   

2. Unlike the European Union, the Council of Europe (which is a separate organization from the EU), founded in 1949, cannot make binding laws. However,

 

“…the council has produced a number of international treaties, including the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR) of 1953. Provisions from the convention are incorporated in domestic law in many participating countries. The best-known body of the Council of Europe is the European Court of Human Rights, which rules on alleged violations of the EHCR. (Wikipedia)

 

The Council of Europe has a parliamentary assembly composed of “306 members drawn from the national parliaments of the Council of Europe's member states and meets four times a year for week-long plenary sessions in Strasbourg….”

Julian testified at the parliamentary committee meeting on October 1. He attended the Assembly’s plenary session the next day where an overwhelming majority of representatives voted in favour of a motion declaring Julian had been a “political prisoner”, and that his abusive treatment at the hands of the U.S. government and British authorities was done for political purposes, namely, to create a “chilling effect” on journalists who attempt to expose government malfeasance, corporate greed, or who otherwise ask uncomfortable questions of elites and politicians, while demanding transparency and full disclosure of what goes on 'behind the curtain' of state and executive boardroom. [Or as I like to think of it: Real journalists like Assange show us how the sausage is made, even if it makes us want to puke some of the time. Ed.] The PACE Assembly saw this type of harassment, some calling it "lawfare", as a growing threat to freedom of speech rights, and an attack on journalists and publishers everywhere.

AS AN ASIDE: In 2024, near the end of his arduous, years-long extradition hearing and imprisonment, Julian and his lawyers were preparing to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in a last-minute bid to forego his extradition to the U.S. He pleaded out instead.

 

    Hassan Hamad

👉FUN FACT: 128 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli bombing and targeted assassinations since the Gazan genocide began on October 8, last year. And recently, a 19-year-old Palestinian journalist, Hassan Hamad, was killed in a targeted drone attack at his home in the Jabalya refugee camp. He had received several death threats prior to his murder last Sunday. Additionally, an American journalist for the Grayzone publication, Jeremy Loffredo, along with several other journalists were arrested at a West Bank crossing by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), beaten and imprisoned. Loffredo was accused of uploading video footage censored by the Israeli authorities. He was released but is forced to remain in Israel “pending an investigation.” The U.S. State Department has done virtually nothing to procure his release, which is to be expected because the Grayzone and Loffredo provide the public with information about what is really going on, and they challenge the propaganda gruel MSM spews out in their relentless support of the government's official narrative⁴ and its attempts to suppress reporting on things like…oh, I don’t know…genocide, maybe? Tears of joy would be running down Big Brother's cheeks if he could see the rise of authoritarianism in the West, today.

 

    Jeremy Loffredo

KILLING AND ARRESTING journalists for doing journalism I guess means Israel must not want reporters alive and kicking on the ground in the hellscape that is Gaza. I wonder why? Murders and imprisonment of journalists, and the clamp down on free speech in general—whether by brain dead MSM’s self-censoring and sanitizing of the news; to cancelling alternative news outlets and podcasts, etc., and challenges to the right of assembly and to protest; to new internet "hate speech” laws popping up everywhere—all these are becoming a global threat to people's ability to access unbiased reporting and information which they need to make informed decisions in their lives, and without which governments and miscreants everywhere can spew lies and propaganda, unchecked by law or custom.       

 

3. And he would have been released years earlier if the British government and the mendacious hacks within its judiciary had not been complete and utter cucks, bowing and scraping before the American hegemon, doing everything and anything to please their master and maintain the “special relationship” that supposedly exists between Britain and the U.S. [Note: Britain is “Baby Girl” to the U.S.’s “Big Daddy” in this arrangement. Ed.]😲

 

4. It must be said, there are cracks forming in the official narrative (Israelis good, Arabs bad; Ukrainians good, Russians bad) of late. It’s becoming harder for Israel and its enabler, the United States, to ignore or deliberately disguise events in Gaza, the West Bank, and now Lebanon. In large part, this is due to social media and the ubiquitous cell phone capture of horrific events as they happen on the ground. Slowly, people are coming to trust their own 'lying eyes', and to judge for themselves the truths behind news stories and events. More and more people realize the emperor has no clothes, irrespective of how much he preens and prances about showing off his non-existent robes.😱

AND IN THAT OTHER potential global flashpoint (nuclear and otherwise) the narrative around the conflict in Ukraine is beginning to wear thin. For example, the war, contrary to the official narrative, did not begin in 2022. It began earlier, with the coup in 2014-15, engineered by the U.S. and the State Department’s maiden of death, Victoria Nuland, and with the ousting of the elected president and installing in his place a pro-Western puppet. A low-intensity civil war followed between  western and eastern Ukraine.  It is increasingly acknowledged that the roots of the conflict go back even earlier, to the 1990s, when Western elites formulated plans to encircle the former USSR with NATO member countries and carve it up like a butterball turkey. The official narratives are breaking down.

ALTERNATIVE NEWS REPORTING and valuable political analysis podcasts are reaching more and more of the public. One example of this is the changing narrative around the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea in the fall of 2022. High mucky mucks of the chattering class first claimed it was the Russians who conveniently blew up their own pipeline (LOL!) 😆 Investigations were done but no reports were made public. Then, American journalist Sy Hersh’s exposé in February 2023 hit the fools propagating such drivel like a wet fish slapped up the side of their face. Hersh declared it was—wait for it—the Americans who done it! Well Duh! Now they're trying to put the blame on a motley crew of drunken Ukrainians who cruised out one night from a Polish port and decided for fun to blow up a billion-dollar pipeline. But the story isn't gaining much traction. Compared to Hersh's thoughtful reporting, blaming anyone other than the Americans seems foolish to most people.

THIS IS HOW JOURNALISM chips away at the edifice of bullshit that elites in government and corporations throw up daily to disguise, distort and keep hidden their nefarious activities. Lies, lies, and more lies. This should reminds us, how vitally important a free press is for the maintenance of a healthy polity.

P.S. The Russians are winning. Deal.

[The original Feb. 2023 Hersh Nord Stream story is behind a paywall on his Substack page. Ed.]