“No Kings” and Lack of Democracy

The "No Kings" people are out again, none of them protesting that Kamala Harris was appointed (not elected) to head the presidential ticket. Nor are there any signs protesting what the DNC did to Bernie (who deserves no tears in light of how he folded in countless ways ever since). I once canvassed for Bernie. I will get out and protest when they hold a "No Heroes Day."

Aaron Mate:

To explain: the DNC rigged the 2016 primary against Bernie in favor of Hillary. Leaked DNC emails, released by Wikileaks, proved that. Hillary's campaign invented a conspiracy theory blaming Russia for the DNC leak and accusing Trump of colluding with Moscow.

Rather than call out Hillary's Russiagate scam and seize the Democratic party from the wreckage of her failed neocon/neoliberalism, Bernie decided to prop it up. He event introduced a measure to "Protect American Democracy from Russian Meddling." (see video below)

In 2020, Bernie was rewarded for his obedience by having the Russiagate playbook weaponized against him. The same anonymous intel officials who helped give us Russiagate declared that Putin was trying to help Bernie win. That helped sink his primary chances. Two consecutive primaries rigged against him, this time with his acquiescence.

In 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine -- partly a result of years of Russiagate mania, which promoted conflict and criminalized diplomacy -- Bernie again deferred to the Democratic establishment. Abandoning his longstanding warnings about NATO expansion, militarism, and weapons spending, he voted repeatedly to authorize tens of billions of dollars for Biden's proxy war.

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US Corporate Media’s indifference to Netanyahu’s Support of Hamas

Again, things aren't what they were reported to be by the US corporate media. This video clip is from the 2024 documentary The Bibi Files (directed by Alexis Bloom, produced by Alex Gibney), which uses leaked Israeli police interrogation footage from 2016–2018. I asked Grok to double-check the translations of the letter to Qatar and the verbal statements of Netanyahu. Here's the important point: According to major U.S. corporate media outlets (such as The New York Times, CNN, NPR, and others), Israel's policy of approving and facilitating Qatari cash transfers to Gaza (under Hamas control) was not prominently explained to the American public in the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks. Instead, the focus was overwhelmingly on the Hamas attacks themselves, the scale of the violence, Israel's response, and initial hostage negotiations. AM.png" alt="" width="474" height="560" />

Netanyahu's statement (in the video) translated: AM.png" alt="" width="474" height="560" />

Netanyahu (in Hebrew, with English subtitles/narration in the documentary):“This is confidential and can’t be leaked, okay? We have neighbors here, sworn enemies. I’m constantly passing them messages. I confuse them, mislead them, lie to them, and then hit them over their heads.

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About the Totally Unnecessary War in Iran

It's important to remind ourselves that there was no anti-war candidate on the ballot last election. And there is no stridently anti-war faction of the corporate media. Thinking back to George Carlin again: "You have no choice." The current insanity results from an unholy marriage involving American neocons (who permeated Biden's cabinet, as well as Trump's), AIPAC money, Israeli government non-stop aggression (capturing large swaths in Lebanon recently while everyone has been focused on Iran), the U.S. military-industrial complex lit up for profit, good old political corruption, absolutely no concern for destroying the lives of thousands of innocent people using sophisticated bombs (just like we saw in Gaza), American conservative christian politicians who see anything Israel does as an existential religious war and all the shit that we don't know about and we'll probably never know about (cf. Epstein saga). That's how I see this war.

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The Importance of Taking a Vacation from the News

Arthur Schopenhauer's words to the wise about obsessing about the "news."

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. — A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.

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