Global

Dwight David Eisenhower, the Prophet-President of the United States, sixty-four years ago warned of the ascension of the military-industrial state, presently morphed into the military-industrial-intelligence complex, which, fully in control of our government, induces and manipulates our fears, creating serial enemies, justifying endless war for profit, openly canceling long-cherished constitutional rights, within  the hoary rubric of “National Security,” read: Plunder of the American taxpayer.  

Congress, as an Article One creation is in the thrall of  murderous interest groups which  are actively driving mass killings, assassinations, famine and ethnic cleansing, the progeny of genocide, in plain sight, recycling  U.S. taxpayers’ hard-earned money to tighten its grip on American politics, all the while using its media influence to deny any of this is happening, denying even the existence of a people, or how they died,  as  bodies pile up by the tens of thousands in Gaza.

Given the lying and fact twisting that have routinely been part and parcel of accounts of what is occurring in the Middle East, the past several weeks have nevertheless been shocking in terms of how an abysmally low standard of truth can be reduced even farther. Looking at developments objectively, one comes up with a series of facts. First of all, Israel was not at war with either Syria or Iran during the first weeks in April. Iran had never attacked Israel prior to that point and Syria last fought Israel in 1973, over fifty years ago. Israel, however, has regularly been assassinating Iranian officials and scientists and it has been frequently been bombing Syria since 2017, increasing the pace to weekly and sometimes even daily attacks over the past six months paralleling the Gaza fighting.

The western discourse on the circumstances behind the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 75 years ago, is hardly convincing. 

 Yet, that over-simplified discourse must be examined in order for the current decline of the organization to be appreciated beyond the self-serving politics of NATO’s members. 

 The history records page of the US State Department speaks of the invention of NATO in a language suitable for a US high school history book. 

 "After the destruction of the Second World War, the nations of Europe struggled to rebuild their economies and ensure their security," it reads, which compelled the US to take action: "(integrating) Europe as vital to the prevention of communist expansion across the continent."

In late 2022, just after the US mid-term elections, a billionaire cabal gathered in Florida to plot out Donald Trump’s return to power.

These mega/MAGA autocrats were at last ready to move their radically enhanced coup corps far beyond Trump’s shocking 2020 electoral defeat and the failure of the January 6 attack.

They met in a hidden high tech center deep in the bowels of Mar-a-Lago, with ample access to the secret documents the president-in-exile provided for their use.

A top Trump operative---possibly Steve Bannon---convened the cabal in person.  Vladimir Putin, Bibi Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, were summoned by zoom. 

They were joined by heads of state, rightist hundred-billionaires, Agency spooks, snarling hit men. 

The conspirators used AI to scramble their voices.

But a shadowy mole…who has since “committed suicide”…slipped the proceedings onto the internet. 

Other meetings have followed in total secrecy.    

With splendid sumptuous sets and sonorous singing, LA Opera’s risqué revival of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata is a veritable feast for the eyes, ears and senses. Translated from the Italian (the language this opera is sung in, although its action is set in France), the words “La Traviata” mean “The Fallen One,” and the title refers to the not-so-virginal Violetta Valèry (voluptuous soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen from Washington state), a highly successful Parisian prostitute (who is believed to have been based on an actual escort). The opera opens with a party Violetta is throwing for her exclusive circle of bourgeois pals at her elegant, exquisitely designed, capacious home, replete with chandeliers and wall-to-ceiling windows with excellent views of the City of Light (the dazzling sets and costumes are designed by Englishman Robert Innes Hopkins). The kinky courtesan’s opulent lair is the home that sex built – the world’s oldest profession can certainly be lucrative.

The New York Times coverage of the Israeli carnage in Gaza, like that of other mainstream US media, is a disgrace to journalism. 

 This assertion should not surprise anyone. US media is driven neither by facts nor morality, but by agendas, calculating and power-hungry. The humanity of 120 thousand dead and wounded Palestinians because of the Israeli genocide in Gaza is simply not part of that agenda. 

 In a report - based on a leaked memo from the New York Times - the Intercept found out that the so-called US newspaper of record has been feeding its journalists with frequently updated 'guidelines' on what words to use, or not use, when describing the horrific Israeli mass slaughter in the Gaza Strip, starting on October 7.