Global

Let us consider why the Donald Trump White House is currently considering detonating a nuclear weapon. It would be the first “test” of a nuke since 1992 and is clearly intended to send a message that those weapons sitting around in storage will be available for use. The testing is in response to alleged development of low-yield tactical nuclear devices by Beijing and Moscow, a claim that is unsupported by any evidence and which is likely a contrivance designed to suggest that there is strong leadership coming out of Washington at a time when the Administration has been faulted for its multiple failures in combatting the coronavirus.

Eighteen years before Minneapolis police killed an unarmed black man named George Floyd on Monday, Minneapolis police killed an unarmed black man named Christopher Burns. Today, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar decries the killing of Floyd. Back then, Minneapolis chief prosecutor Amy Klobuchar refused to prosecute city police for killing Burns.

Donald Trump is no accident. 

He is our Imperial Vulture come home to roost. Our Exceptional Karma. The ultimate incineration of a City on a Hill defined by arrogance, brutality, and greed. 

Trump’s willful negligence has killed more Americans in three months than did the Vietnam War in ten years. 

He’s saturated our lives with dictatorship, disease, dementia, depression. 

But we have no claim to self-pity. 

Pinochet (Chile), Mobutu (Congo/Zaire), the Greek Junta, the Shah (Iran), Somoza (Nicaragua), Diem/Thieu/Ky (Vietnam), Yeltsin/Putin (Russia), Pol Pot (Cambodia), Lord Jeffrey Amherst (Indigenous America), Salazar (Portugal), Marcos (the Philippines), Alvarado (Honduras), the Duvaliers (Haiti) … murderers, thieves, despots, liars, bigots, buffoons, puppets, thugs, butchers, hypocrites, clowns, torturers, mobsters, devils incarnate … all installed to serve American corporate interests. 

They are Trump and he is them. 

I’m adding Christian Sorensen’s new book, Understanding the War Industry, to the list of books I think will convince you to help abolish war and militaries. See the list below.

The cleverly named On the Record threatens to dethrone the so-called “King of Hip-Hop.” The 97-minute documentary may be to music mogul Russell Simmons what the #MeToo movement and Ronan Farrow’s reportage have been to that other entertainment industry icon, Harvey Weinstein. But unlike the exposes of the disgraced movie producer, Record delves into matters of race, as well as of sex and gender.

Record’s protagonist is Drew Dixon, daughter of a 1990’s Washington, D.C. mayor, Sharon Pratt Dixon, and her father Arrington Dixon was a D.C. City Councilman. Growing up in the milieu of African American politics, Dixon saw Hip-Hop as a musical genre that expressed the voices, issues and concerns of Black people through an art form and decided to pursue a career in the music business. With an ear for talent Dixon rose in industry ranks, and she became an executive at Def Jam, the Hip Hop label co-founded by entrepreneur Simmons, who is also African American.

This is so much bigger than personal accountability.

Yes, the four police officers present at the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis were fired the next day. The case is being investigated by the FBI. And the mayor of Minneapolis and lots of other politicians are talking about “values.”

Dan Kovalik’s new book, No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using “Humanitarian” Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests — which I am adding to my list of books you should read on why war should be abolished (see below) — makes a powerful case that humanitarian war no more exists than philanthropic child abuse or benevolent torture. I’m not sure the actual motivations of wars are limited to economic and strategic interests — which seems to forget the insane, power-mad, and sadistic motivations — but I am sure that no humanitarian war has ever benefitted humanity.

 
BANGKOK, Thailand -- An uncontrolled virus killed at least 543 horses
and many are being buried in mass graves, amid suspicion that imported
zebras brought the disease which is ravaging Thailand's international
multi-million-dollar racing and horse show industry.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animals and Plant Health
Inspection Service declared on March 30 a 60-day quarantine on all
horses imported from Thailand to stop the insect-borne African Horse
Sickness (AHS) virus spreading to America.

The only quarantine facility in the U.S. for horses suspected of
carrying AHS is located at the New York Animal Import Center, in Rock
Tavern, New York. The U.S. also prohibited imports of horse semen and
embryos from Thailand.

The World Organization for Animal Health, based in Paris, cancelled
Thailand's status as an "AHS-Free Country" on March 27 after the first
42 horses died.

The outbreak, which does not make humans ill, began on February 24 and
rapidly spread among horse breeding, riding, training, and rental
businesses in two central provinces.

Two months have gone by since the Secretary General of the United Nations proposed an absolutely necessary global ceasefire.

The U.S. government has blocked a vote on the ceasefire in the UN Security Council.

The U.S. government during these past two months has led the world in:

We are being utterly transformed. And the world is being utterly transformed around us.

Ostensibly, this is to tackle a simple virus. In reality, it is to achieve an elite design at staggering cost to humanity and to life generally.

If you have not been carefully following what is taking place, let me highlight some recent developments and what we can do about them.

On 26 March 2020, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) granted Microsoft a world patent. Titled ‘1. WO2020060606 – Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data’, this patent gives Microsoft (that is, Bill Gates) extraordinary power over our lives.

As Professor Vandana Shiva evocatively explains in her latest article, ‘My Earth Journey in defence of Biodiversity, Life and Freedom over 5 decades’, this development is ‘robbing us of our deep humanity’:

The patent is dramatically changing the meaning of being human.