alanjjohnstone
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The consequence of business-as-usual
Analysis by the Labour party shows that the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere if the government’s fracking plans go ahead would be the same as the lifetime emissions of 286 million cars – or 29 new coal-fired power plants.
Chomsky has often repudiated the charge of American middle east foreign policy being set in the interest of Israel but I don’t think he can deny that there is active manipulation to steer that policy by pro-Israel’s but not always by American Jews. The US right wing saw Israel as a counterweight to the leftist/baathist Arab countries and many of now rare secular Palestinian leftist national liberation movements.
I read somewhere that it was only the result of the 1956 war that the US eventually opted to ally with Israel and until up to then was ready to align with Nasser. Historically, when Israel was created it was France and Russia via Czechoslovakia that supported it militarily. The UK foreign office was dominated by what were called the Arabists and probably still thought Israel was a terrorist-created state.
Little is said about the US aid to Egypt, particularly military. Between 1979 and 2003, Egypt acquired about $19 billion in military aid, making Egypt the second largest non-NATO recipient of U.S. military aid after Israel. Also, Egypt received about $30 billion in economic aid within the same time frame. General Anthony Zinni, the former Commandant of CENTCOM, once said, “Egypt is the most important country in my area of responsibility because of the access it gives me to the region.”
“…A second impediment to American aid to Egypt, of course, was Israel. Eisenhower was not so personally concerned with the fate of the Zionist experiment as his predecessor, Harry Truman, had been, but neither was he oblivious to the political salience in the United States of the Israel issue. Abba Hillel Silver told Eisenhower in 1956, “You can be reelected without a single Jewish vote,” and he was undoubtedly right. Eisenhower liked to make much of his independence of the Israel lobby. At the height of the Suez crisis, he wrote to a friend that he had ordered the State Department to “inform Israel that we would handle our affairs exactly as though we didn’t have a Jew in America…”
It is a useful link to read as a summary of the ins and outs, the going and froing of Middle East diplomacy to show that nothing is ever simple.
So is this alliance also designed by America’s Zionists. Some will say yes, others will determine that it is America’s independent interests being expressed.
Off Topic
[One of my mum’s sister met and married a Norwegian who was involved in the Shetland Bus as the wartime boats between the two places were called, so I have a Norwegian branch of my family.
When the sisters (5 sisters. One brother who is a bit of a mystery, a skeleton the cupboard) ll meet up they always reverted to their Shetland dialect
But my maternal antecedents were newcomers to Shetland as a result of the whaling industry but even so they considered themselves distinctly Shetlanders.
Paternally, ancestors were from a Border reiver family, tinkers from Galloway, but to become full of Orange and Freemason connections.]I’m sorry to say, Marcos, in all my internet travels to American progressive websites the SLP and De Leon are never mentioned even when many others such as Big Bill Haywood and the IWW are referred to except occasionally by myself in the comments.
De Leon remains a lost figure for the Left and it is probably due to the fact that todays political left do not share any of the SLP’s ideas.
To bring about re-newed attention in the SLP/De Leon will most likely be as difficult as to create any interest in the WSPUS or even John Keracher and the Proletariat Party.
Perhaps Robbo will include such references to our “political cousins” as the Standard once said, in a strategy of resurrecting the WSPUS.
Although he stood for the Presidency on a number of occasions, Debs never actually held any organizational office within the SPA, declining nominations for its EC etc.
Arundhati Roy on Kashmir and other aspects of Indian politics.
Come on…another Guardian promotion of Uri Gellar…what’s going on, here?
And in this there is no qualifying “alleged” or “supposed” psychic powers but straight reporting, the only doubt is calling him an illusionist, irrelevant to this article.
Has the Guardian lost all traces of reason to attract readers.
Well I have cast a evil magical spell upon Gellar (I have one eye on the tv and it’s the Shrek movie on) and he’s going to turn into a fool …see it’s worked
As others have pointed out, for the first time in a long time, socialism is actually being featured in the political conversations.
Eugene Debs has been re-discovered by the media
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/23/american-socialism-bernie-sanders-eugene-debs
Nitrites do not protect against botulism – the chief reason ham and bacon manufacturers say they use the chemicals.
“This leaked internal report is highly embarrassing for the processed meat industry and for the Food Standards Agency which have persistently peddled the myth that nitrites are essential to protect against botulism,” said Baroness Walmsley, the vice-chair of parliament’s all-party group on cancer. On the contrary, this report reveals nitrites are not a controlling factor against Clostridium botulinum. This evidence raises serious questions about why nitrites are being added to our bacon and ham.”
The Green New Deal which has not even reached the legislative process as yet has been costed by Trump as a HUNDRED TRILLION dollars, based on a $93 trillion calculation (More conservative estimates suggest between $46 and $81 trillion)
The guessimate Trump used came from the Manhattan Institute.
Paul Singer, the founder and CEO of Elliott Management, is the chairman of the Manhattan Institute’s board of trustees. His Paul E. Singer Foundation contributed $3.725 million to the Manhattan Institute from 2011 to 2017. Elliott Management is now the top shareholder in Peabody Energy, a major producer of coal, with a 26 percent stake valued at more than $850 million. Elliott Management also reveal current investments in fossil fuel producers like Devon Energy and ExxonMobil, and electric utilities like FirstEnergy Corp and Sempra Energy. Singer is known in energy circles has pushed utilities like NRG and Sempra Energy to divest from their renewable energy assets. In 2015, the Paul E. Singer Foundation had contributed $200,000 to climate skeptic Bjorn Lomborg’s think tank.
ExxonMobil itself has contributed over $1 million to the Manhattan Institute since 1998. Koch foundations have contributed over $1 million dollars to the Manhattan Institute over the years.
Who’s Behind Trump’s Claim the Green New Deal Will Cost $100 Trillion?
Proponents of the GND have simply laid out their aspirations and say that actual “the math will come once the policy is ready”
MEANWHILE
Since the Paris Agreement’s adoption, 33 global banks have invested $1.9 TRILLION into financing climate-changing projects worldwide.
Global Banks Invested $1.9 Trillion in Fossil Fuels Since Paris Climate Pact
AND
U.S.-based Morgan Stanley tallied $650 billion in climate-related disasters over the past three years — and predicted $54 TRILLION in damages worldwide by 2040
Why is the Guardian promoting a proven charlatan? Shame on them. It is not even funny.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/22/uri-geller-promises-to-stop-brexit-using-telepathy
“..he felt “psychically and very strongly” that most Britons were anti-Brexit and promised to stop the process telepathically…”
Shame on me for also giving him the oxygen of publicity on this forum.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47666007
Sir David Attenborough is to present an “urgent” new documentary about climate change for BBC One.
“It may sound frightening, but the scientific evidence is that if we have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we could face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies,” he says in the documentary.
Hopefully, he won’t be pushing his over-population theory.
The Democratic Socialists of America formally endorses Bernie Sanders after a one-week advisory poll open to all dues-paying members that endorsed Sanders 3 to 1 (13,324 people, roughly a quarter of DSA’s membership, weighed in.)
An analysis of this here
DSA’s Afrosocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus issued an open letter urging the NPC to withhold an endorsement until Sanders “acknowledges the validity of black demands for reparations in America,” and noting the organization’s “deficiencies on issues of race and racism.” The statement came in response to a February 25 CNN town hall in which Sanders declined to say he supported reparations.
One of the lesser known 2020 hopefuls, Peter Buttigieg [who?], mayor of South Bend, Indiana,[where?] talks about the Republican “socialist” scare campaign.
“I think in many ways it’s a term that’s lost its meaning because it’s being thrown around politically,” Buttigieg replied. “I’ll give you an example, the Affordable Care Act.”
“This was a piece of legislation, as a way to improve our health care system created by conservatives,” he went on, naming the Heritage Foundation as the wellspring. “The first time anyone tried it, it was a Republican governor in Massachusetts. Then a Democratic President, Obama, basically stole this Republican idea that was based on market on market principles,” Buttigieg continued. “And then the moment it became associated with him, suddenly people are calling it socialism. They’re talking like it’s the road to winding up in the Soviet Union if we do this, which was a scare tactic.”
“It’s also one of the reasons why this term has lost its meaning,” he continued, and changed the spin. “I believe that capitalism is this incredibly powerful force that can do a lot of good, but I guess in the same way people talk about democratic socialism, I want to talk about democratic capitalism.”
Janet, I had mixed thoughts when I read this.
The idea of divided national loyalties may be an issue for those who offer allegiance to their place of birth or upbringing and only to that land. Thus the US Supreme Court defines us to one nationality and if we dare to choose another, it legally exiles us.
But I do consider myself a citizen of the world despite holding a passport that says otherwise and what happens to my fellow-workers in whatever region is as equally my concern. This is class solidarity that extends beyond borders. It legitimises my “foreign” interventionism in another country’s internal politics or its treatment of another country’s people.
Socialism is all about, to adopt a biblical expression, being our brothers’ keepers. (I think Debs said that somewhere), accepting social responsibilities.
When socialists are asked about the migration, we condemn closed frontiers and agree with open borders (even if we know capitalism will never permit no controls, hence my need to hang on to this passport of mine).
So, in a way, despite the strict religious limitations to it, Israel saying any Jew from anywhere is welcome is positive. What is negative is then declaring those who are non-Jewish, all persona non grata.
When Israel’s Netanyahu tells French Jews to come home, that is okay, but for a gentile to tell the same French Jews to go home to Israel, that is anti-Semitic. Strange that, isn’t it?
It is equally not for Netanyahu or anybody else to tell someone where his or her home is.
I’m daily asked where I am from and when I name the town I presently reside in, it is simply not acknowledged as a correct answer.
Being in a similar situation yourself, Janet, i’m sure you too find yourself with so-called “dual” loyalties but like myself being a world socialist we recognise we all share a common humanity.
The climate optimists assume that it will not be business-as-usual and that effective action, even if a tad tardy, will take place.
They cite the change within the oil corporations as proof that the leopard is changing its spots.
This report casts doubts on the sincerity of the carbon emitters.
“Oil majors’ climate branding sounds increasingly hollow and their credibility is on the line.”
A little longer and a bit more general observation about terrorism and political violence on our blog
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2019/03/terror-and-violence-socialist-answer.html
