Our Friday News Analysis | What the World Reads Now!

Watch Video Here – 47 Minutes, 52 Seconds

By Glenn Diesen
Substack.com
22 August 2024

Has the thin line between proxy war and direct war now been eliminated? I spoke with Colonel Douglas Macgregor, as NATO’s direct involvement in the war is evident in its participation in the invasion of Russia.

Russia has restrained itself to a large extent, as retaliating against NATO could trigger another world war and possible nuclear exchange. However, the failure to retaliate emboldens NATO and results in subsequent escalations. Even Zelensky referred to the failure of Russia to respond to the invasion of Kursk as a reason why NATO should not fear stepping over more Russian red lines. Colonel Macgregor suggests that the assumption that the US and NATO are all-powerful will continue to contribute to reckless escalations in the war against Russia - but also in the Middle East and against China.

Most Ukrainian, Western, and Russian observers seemed to recognize during the first days of the invasion of Kursk that it was a mistake. Ukrainian troops emerged from well-defended frontlines and could be easily targeted in the open and with poor supply lines. As this is a war of attrition, it is likely a huge mistake to throw away Ukraine’s best soldiers and NATO’s military equipment on territory that is not strategic and cannot be held. However, the propaganda machine has since been turned on, and the war is now sold to the Western public as an excellent opportunity to improve negotiation power, develop a buffer zone, and humiliate Putin – although none of these arguments can stand up to scrutiny.

The Ukrainian and NATO invasion of Kursk has changed the war completely as the Ukrainian causalities have increased dramatically, the Ukrainian defensive lines in Donbas are now collapsing even faster, and NATO’s role in the war is no longer ambiguous. This is all happening as internal divisions in NATO are surfacing, and the US/Israel will likely trigger a regional war in the Middle East.

What is the Side of the Story that is Not Yet Decisive? Edited by Abraham A. van Kempen.

EDITORIAL REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM

Or,

Need I say more?

Reductio ad absurdum is a Latin phrase that means "reduction to the absurd.” The word describes a kind of indirect proof, proof by contradiction, which is a common form of argument. It shows that a statement is true because its denial leads to a contradiction or a false or absurd result – disproof, falsification, refutation, or any evidence that helps to establish the falsity of something.

Examples

1. Nearly all humanity doesn’t want a nuclear crater in their backyards. Why is NATO playing Russian Roulette with our lives, coldly exploiting young Ukrainians as cannon fodder?
2. How can Netanyahu accomplish “total victory”—all HAMAS must die – with a simultaneous ceasefire and all HAMAS hostages safely back at home?
3. Why are some in the ‘light’ accusing others of being in the ‘dark’ when neither are in lightness or darkness?
4. What is the mathematical probability that some are incontrovertibly right and others unarguably wrong – each, of course, from their inimitable perspective?
5. On 5 November 2024, when the anticipated 60 to 70 percent of U.S. citizens vote to slide Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump into the White House, will they fret about the high cost of groceries? Today, what one purchases for $100.00 cost $35.00 four years ago.

How will the two candidates competing for the U.S. presidency convince the American people that they’re committed to healing a broken humanity?

As of today, close to 70 countries worldwide want to join BRICS+. The EU-US/NATO dominion, though still formidable but no longer invincible, has lost its credibility and prestige.

This is the ultimate ‘Reductio ad Absurdum.’ In the Sacred Texts, ‘dominion’ connotes stewardship. God, the creator of the heavens and earth – everything – supersedes humanity. We are all merely custodians, our brothers’ keepers.

Finally, how does one “love your enemies?” Have none!

U.S. INVESTIGATING AMERICANS WHO WORKED WITH RUSSIAN STATE TELEVISION

The F.B.I. raided the homes of two prominent commentators on Russian state television channels as part of an effort to blunt attempts to influence November’s election.

Dimitri K. Simes, far right, was an adviser to former President Donald J. Trump’s first campaign for president in 2016 at a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Russia. Credit...Pool photo by Mikhail Klimentyev

By Steven Lee Myers and Julian E. Barnes

New York Times
21 August 2024

The Department of Justice has begun a broad criminal investigation into Americans who have worked with Russia’s state television networks, signaling an aggressive effort to combat the Kremlin’s influence operations leading up to the presidential election in November, according to American officials briefed on the inquiry.

This month, F.B.I. agents searched the homes of two prominent figures with connections to Russian state media: Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector and critic of American foreign policy, and Dimitri K. Simes, an adviser to former President Donald J. Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016. Prosecutors have not announced charges against either of the men.

Some of the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss investigations, said more searches are expected soon. They also said criminal charges are possible.

The investigation comes in the wake of the Biden administration’s official intelligence findings that Russia’s state news organizations, including the global news channel RT, are working with its intelligence agencies to sway elections around the world.

Those efforts include November’s contest between Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. For a third time, according to the officials and public statements, the Kremlin’s propaganda apparatus has thrown itself behind Mr. Trump’s candidacy, creating online news outlets and fake videos to denigrate President Biden and, more recently, Ms. Harris.

The investigation so far has focused on potential violations of the economic sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine and a law that requires the disclosure of lobbying efforts on behalf of foreign governments.

The government’s investigation is politically fraught, reprising the furiously partisan debate over Russia’s influence in the 2016 presidential campaign. The inquiry could also violate the First Amendment’s protection of free speech rights by targeting Americans working with state-run news organizations.

Continue Reading …

THE DNC'S SINISTER REBRAND OF "FREEDOM"

"Freedom from" was right up there with "joy" and "unity" as key themes of last night's Blue Party Grammy Awards. Unfortunately, it wasn't funny.

By Matt Taibbi
Substack.com
20 August 2024

Hillary Clinton, speaking at the Democratic Convention last night, said Democrats had “put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling”:

               “I want to tell you what I see through all those cracks… I see freedom.

               I see the freedom to make decisions about our health, lives, loves, and families, work with dignity and prosperity, worship as we choose, and speak freely and honestly.

               I see freedom from fear and intimidation, violence and injustice, chaos and corruption.

               I see the freedom to look our children in the eye and say, ‘In America, you can go as far as your hard work and talent will take you,’ and mean it.”

Get ready for the new “Freedom Frame,” an argument for massive expansion of federal authority disguised as a celebration of rights:

Studying abroad in 1989, I heard a Soviet professor stress that his country guaranteed health, housing, education, free education, employment, fair payment for work, “rest and leisure,” and “maintenance in old age” as fundamental rights. Our class knew this same Stalin-authored Constitution from the 1930s guaranteed freedoms of conscience and assembly as people were being put to firing squads for wrongthink. It still impressed some in the class that the Soviets defined as rights things Americans only called policy aims and dealt with at best through programs like Social Security. For obvious reasons, my Russian professor left out why our Constitution was written that way.

The American system is built to protect natural rights derived not from the government but God, or whatever your conception of God might be. The Soviets believed “rights” flowed from the state, so citizens had duties and apparent benefits. With economic rights, you had a responsibility to help build up the “wealth and might of the country,” which was the “inviolable foundation of the Soviet system.”

This learning experience left me paranoid about any promises of “freedom” phrased as delineations of public authority. We heard many last night.

Freedom from is as hot a catchphrase in campaign 2024 as “joy” or “weird.” Many of these freedoms are either new assertions of authority or efforts to overturn a longstanding emphasis on natural rights, which academics have long argued is flawed. Author George Lakoff’s “Whose Freedom? The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea” is a seminal moment in this loony history. I read the New York Times excerpt in 2006 and remember thinking it was almost cartoonish in misreading the Bill of Rights.

Lakoff thought the minimum protections laid out in the Constitution could be expanded to a vast list of progressive promises (Broad access to borrowing! Longer life expectancy! More class-action suits!) without fundamentally altering the American system. Why didn’t Lakoff push to make his promises government policy? Why demand they be added to our intentionally short list of immutable, natural rights? No way this catches on, I thought.

At first, it seemed it wouldn’t. Democrats ceded the word “Freedom” to Republicans for ages, content to mock the GOP’s more ridiculous uses of it (“freedom fries” being a great example). On the stump, Democratic candidates emphasized words like “justice” and “equality” instead, in much the same way they used terms like “compassion.” In contrast, GOP candidates thundered about “hard work” and “responsibility.”

In campaign 2024, however, “equality” is disappearing (for reasons that should also raise eyebrows), and a flood of propaganda initiatives is embracing a new blue-party “freedom frame,” under which Democrats are supposedly re-seizing the term from Republicans. Of course, liberal groups like the ACLU were once more aggressive guardians of traditional civil liberties than Republicans, or at least as aggressive as libertarian groups like the Cato Institute, but framing the Bill of Rights as GOP territory has been central to the propaganda assault.

Hillary’s speech last night was the most aggressive rollout of the “freedom frame” re-brand I’ve heard. She heralded the “freedom to work with dignity and prosper,” a line pulled from Stalin’s 1936 constitution, which included the right and the duty to do “socially useful work.” I’m not sure what Hillary’s “freedom from chaos” can mean except expanded policing rights, nor can her endorsement of the freedom to speak “honestly” do anything but frighten since America already has the most expansive and thriving laws protecting freedom of speech ever written. Coupled with the Tim Walz brain fart claiming there is no Constitutional protection for “misinformation,” cheering the right to “speak honestly” sounds like exactly the kind of Orwellian word shift we were all once taught to watch out for in junior high.

Also released on this front last night was the “We Choose Freedom” ad sung by Beyonce for Harris, which features lines about freedoms “not just to get by, but to get ahead” while cheering the freedom to “be safe from gun violence.”

Regarding the former, the New Republic just ran a piece (“The Democratic Party Is Now the Real ‘Freedom’ Caucus”) that talked about “negative freedom,” which they equate with Republicans traditionally defining “freedom as the absence of government intrusion.” They quoted “freedom frame” advocate and Florida House member Fentrice Driskell talking about “the freedom to be healthy, prosperous, and safe. You tell people what they deserve and what freedom would look like.”

The idea that people not only deserve to be prosperous but should have that belief guaranteed by government would have mortified the likes of Jefferson and Madison, who were primarily concerned with assuring our right to try to make a living without having our heads beat in or soldiers quartered in our homes. As for the second idea, no matter what your feelings about guns are, a “freedom to be safe from gun violence” is a clear challenge to the 2nd Amendment, which is designed to give individuals the right to challenge state power. This classic “freedom to” version of rights, which BU health officials wrote years ago, was too “narrow” an idea and needed updating for a more civilized time.

Drumbeats about the “freedom frame” started long before last night. Rick Stengel, the ex-journalist who became one of America’s first federal censorship officials while serving as head of Barack Obama’s Global Engagement Center, just wrote a piece in Time about “How Kamala Harris Took ‘Freedom’ Back from the GOP.” Stengel, in it, rewrote history to fit the new “progressive” concept of freedom, by which he means a more state-controlled one:

                It was the philosopher Isaiah Berlin who first distinguished between positive freedom—freedom to—and negative freedom, freedom from. Positive freedom is exercising choice and acting on one’s free will. Negative freedom is freedom from the constraint imposed by others… Modern Republicans embraced the idea of negative freedom…

               It was Lincoln who… saw the infringement of freedom for some as undermining freedom for all… The Progressives in the early 20^th century continued this idea and saw the government’s role as freeing people from economic exploitation while creating more economic opportunity.

These mental gymnastics transform the “pursuit of happiness” into tasking the government with “freeing people from economic exploitation,” which is the opposite idea. As we’ve seen, the U.S. system is flexible enough to accommodate government policies to encourage economic growth. The “rights” portion of the Constitution, though, is intentionally concerned with restraining government for the excellent reason that the people who founded this country had horrific insight into the tendencies of depraved despots. Trying to knock over the Bill of Rights by adding a long list of new positive “freedoms” guaranteed by benevolent officials like Rick Stengel is a sinister idea. Of course, the media is entirely on board.

Stengel is also using a trick that’s suddenly everywhere. The Bill of Rights, it is claimed, was written only for “old white guys,” according to Republicans. Therefore, new freedoms need to be added or restored, so people like Walz can say, “Mind your damn business!” without it becoming an instant laugh line. In reality, the efforts of people like Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr. were designed to make America “be true to what you said on paper,” not to add new state powers. But the notion that new powers are needed to secure “equality” will be claimed, and bet on it not being the last time.

Some of the wounds Republicans are going to suffer here are self-inflicted.

Democrats are crafting a lot of the “freedom” argument around the abortion issue. They will claim, I think plausibly, that the battle over reproductive care started with conservative efforts to use state power in a way they usually eschew, in this case, to bar abortions. Of course, they’ll leave out more recent Democratic efforts to put medical authorities at the center of our lives during the COVID years with expanded surveillance, censorship, and vaccine mandates since making “freedom from disease” a “core aspirational right” is part of this new re-brand. “Mind your damn business” apparently only applies to specific medical procedures, not all of them.

Articles like “Democrats Lean Into Liberty and the Language of Republicans” in the New York Times use sleight of hand to get to the main idea. That piece starts with the abortion issue but moves to the concept that “government has a major role to play in promoting the public good.”

I can tell you right now what “freedoms” you’ll be offered under this flag: freedom from “chaos” (more policing), freedom from “misinformation” (censorship), freedom from “want” (command economics), freedom to “love who we want” (we have that already, but this will be the rallying cry for gender-identity lunacies), freedom from “fear and intimidation” (more surveillance of domestic threats), and so on.

In a political season filled with trivialities and stupidities like “the politics of joy,” this “freedom frame” is highly consequential and deadly serious. This is the whole ballgame; we’ll hear more of it all week. The Constitution has been a boon to conservatives and liberals alike for centuries because it placed people's natural rights above those of the state. This rebrand claims to add new individual rights under the guise of assuming new state powers.

As Walter Kirn said last night, it places a collective vision above the traditional American emphasis on the individual. It’s not a tiny thing, even regarding the change in attitudes on this front within the Democratic Party.

Beware the “freedom frame.”

CANCELLING ‘CONTROVERSIAL’ SCHOLARS

Banning dissent with vague labels that make no sense

By Glenn Diesen
Substack.com
16 June 2024

The West's policy towards Russia over the past 30 years has put us

on a collision course and undermined our security.

Should this be labeled as "pro-Russian" and "anti-Western" arguments?

Understanding the other party's security concerns is the point of departure for conflict resolution.

Is it possible to analyze international security

with such restrictions on freedom of expression?

In response to an article in Khrono, I want to challenge the label "controversial" used to describe me. Controversial means I have strong and conflicting opinions about my argument.

However, academics should use scientific methods to challenge established truths. This is particularly important in international conflicts, where society's consensus is primarily shaped by the human instinct to respond to threats with conformity and solidarity.

Every time there are attempts to censor and cancel me, it is based on the fact that I have "controversial" arguments about Russia and the war in Ukraine. If my arguments are based on hard facts important for understanding the war in Ukraine, they can still be labeled as "controversial" if they contain information left out of the public debate.

Let me give one example of how reality can become "controversial." There is now a strong consensus in Norwegian society that Russia's invasion was not a reaction to NATO expansionism but motivated by territorial expansion. Was this established truth shaped through the scientific method, where freedom of speech allowed us to present all the facts? Or has society been pressured to present this conflict as a battle between good and evil forces, where even explaining is condemned as defending? There is overwhelming evidence that Russia invaded to prevent NATO expansion, yet it is never reported in the media. How can none of our journalists report on facts that can be proven and are of the highest relevance to the public to understand this conflict?

The human instinct to seek safety in the group is strengthened in war. We only discover in retrospect that the war narratives were full of errors and that the poor analysis led to a bad policy that harmed our security interests. Since the demand for conformity is tremendous and we punish dissent and deviation from the group, academia is a vital balance as ignoring reality undermines the possibilities for peace.

If we believe that Russia will continue to invade new countries, then it supports the argument that "weapons are the path to peace" - even if it could result in a significant war. However, if Russia wants limitations on NATO's presence along its borders, then there are possibilities for peaceful solutions.

When the word "controversial" is combined with "pro-Russian," it becomes impossible to discuss arguments. Suspicion of the person becomes the main focus. The term "pro-Russian" is charged and tendentious as it suggests that the person concerned has chosen a side against our country and that there is loyalty to the out-group against the in-group.

The West's policy towards Russia over the past 30 years has put us on a collision course and undermined our security. Should this be labeled as "pro-Russian" and "anti-Western" arguments? The point of departure for conflict resolution is understanding the other party's security concerns. Is it possible to analyze international security with such restrictions on freedom of expression?

I am open to considering counterarguments. In academia and an open society, arguments must be allowed to compete to get the best possible understanding of reality.

Labeling dissenters as "controversial" legitimizes censorship and cancellation. This is particularly problematic as the strong consensus in society was formed by leaving out fundamental information.

UKRAINE COLLAPSES & NATO ESCALATES

INTERVIEW WITH COLONEL DOUGLAS MACGREGOR

Watch the video here (50 minutes, 22 seconds)

By Glenn Diesen

Substack.com
4 July 2024

I talked with Colonel Douglas Macgregor about the problematic stage of the current conflict. NATO is losing the war in Ukraine and must either start negotiations or escalate. However, we have reached the end of the escalation ladder, as we are on the verge of triggering a direct NATO-Russian war.

There are political crises across the West, and the Ukrainian frontline collapses, yet the EU-US/NATO continues to escalate rather than starting negotiations.

Watch the video here (50 minutes, 22 seconds)

THE DANGEROUS OBSESSION WITH TERRITORY IN A WAR OF ATTRITION

By Glenn Diesen

Substack.Com
12 August 2024

It is nearly impossible to make this argument in the West, as journalists and the public have been trained to clap as seals every time Ukraine conquers territory.

This is mandatory to display loyalty and prove one's support for Ukraine.

Dissent is immediately denounced as ‘Russian propaganda.’
and punished with high social costs.

In a war of attrition, the objective is to exhaust the adversary. Extensive territorial conquests come afterward as well-defended defensive lines are costly to break in terms of workforce and equipment.

The journalists who have reported on a stagnant conflict and celebrated whenever Ukraine went on the offensive (and often entered artillery pockets) are obsessed with territory.

After exhausting the Ukrainian military and NATO weaponry, Russia opened another front in Kharkiv to further stretch the depleted Ukrainian army. Ukraine's Kursk offensive is risky because it predictably comes at an extremely high price. Men and machines are destroyed in the open without reliable supply lines, and the territory cannot be held. The deeper Ukraine penetrates Russian territory, the weaker its supply lines become. These troops could instead have been used to defend crumbling frontlines in Donbas.

The value of territory must be assessed primarily by its impact on logistics and the positions for favorable attrition rates. Thus, territorial conquests that result in less favorable attrition rates are not a measurement of success. The Ukrainian and NATO invasion of Kursk lacks strategic purpose—why are so many men and so much military equipment traded away for vulnerable territory?

It is nearly impossible to make this argument in the West as the journalists and the public have been trained to clap as seals every time Ukraine conquers territory. This is mandatory to display loyalty and proof of being "pro-Ukrainian." Dissent is immediately denounced as "Russian propaganda" and punished with high social costs.

Zelensky has wasted many troops on PR battles, yet it is not entirely his fault. The PR stunts are necessary to attract attention and more weapons from the West, as our politicians and the public get excited every time Ukraine acquires some territory.

The assumption is that Russia will be demoralized and make significant concessions if it loses some territory. But Russia considers NATO expansion to be an existential threat and can, therefore, not stand down before Ukrainian neutrality is restored. As NATO rejects any negotiations on NATO expansion, the only path for Russia to achieve its objective is attrition warfare. Yes, this war is also a territorial conflict now, although that is a symptom of the failure of a diplomatic path to end NATO expansionism. This should all be obvious, but it is not permitted to state the obvious anymore as it is criminalized as "legitimizing" the Russian invasion.

Suppose we survive this proxy war with Russia (not a certainty as we keep escalating against the world's most significant nuclear power). In that case, we should reflect on how our sloganeering, war propaganda, and censorship have impeded our ability to conduct the rational analysis required to maximize security.

The attrition war has already entered a new stage as the Ukrainian army has been exhausted, and the frontlines are collapsing without much resistance. The foolish Ukrainian/NATO invasion of Kursk worsened the situation further, as important logistics centers were no longer sufficiently defended. Below is the most critical frontline, where the Russians are approaching the very strategic transportation hub of Pokrovsk - without meeting much resistance.

SEYMOUR HERSH | THERE IS NO PROCESS

Talking the political conventions with Thomas Frank

The stage is seen in the Fiserv Forum on Sunday, the day before the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee. / Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

By Seymour Hersh

Substack.com
19 August 2024

It's Democratic National Convention time and thus time for another fun and informative lunch with Tom Frank, America's most lucid chronicler of the political process today—and someone with a heavy-hitting collection of t-shirts. Last week, his luncheon attire promoted Olathe, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City where Tom grew up and where, so I gather, he got his first taste of the importance of working-class America and… the Populists. In his widely praised 2020 book, The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism, he described populists as those who look to ordinary people and not those who admire highly educated people to make the right decisions on our behalf.

How has relying on the elites turned out, Tom asks?

Our lunch took place in a restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, that promotes healthy food. I ordered a modest salad, and he opted for a Korean BBQ pork sandwich.

He has a beautiful laugh. We got into it right away.

SEYMOUR HERSH: You went to the recent Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. How did it go?

Continue Reading …

RECESSION FRENZY IS MISSING THE POINT

Jeffrey Tucker on Skewed Data and the Root Causes of Our Economic Woes

Watch the video here (1 hour, 17 minutes, 27 seconds)

Click Here for Full Transcript

Host: Jan Jekielek

American Thought Leaders
18 August 2024

The end of the U.S. dollar gold standard in 1971 had unexpected, far-reaching consequences for the United States and its adversaries, ones that are central to today’s economic and geopolitical realities.

What happened?

Jeffrey Tucker is the senior economics columnist at The Epoch Times and the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute.

“You’re gutting your entire industrial base and turning yourself into a whole country of indebted and stupid consumers. And you’re not making anything anymore. This is a crazy system,” said Tucker.

In this episode, we dive into what’s happening with the U.S. economy. Are we in a recession? Are prices and unemployment rising or falling? What about domestic goods and imports? And what is the data saying?

“You need to adjust this data by inflation, which is easy to say. But if you do that, you need an accurate reading of inflation. And if you don’t have that, you’ll have inaccurate data,” said Tucker.

He claims that many financial indicators we use to measure economic growth must be more accurate.

“So now, we’ve got the highest rate of multiple job holders ever seen. Some people hold two full-time jobs, which is extremely strange,” he said.

ONE OLD GUY’S PERSPECTIVE ON WHY WE ARE WHERE WE ARE

An alternative recent history of US Politics.

This essay was posted as a comment by “Daniel P” in response to an UnHerd piece titled ‘The revolt of the Rust Belt Democrats have squandered the white working class.’
I was so impressed by Daniel’s alternative historical summary
I thought it was worth cross-posting on Substack.

Robert M.

________________________________________

Robert W Malone Md, Ms
Substack.com
4 August 2024

If I may, I would like to offer one old guy's perspective on why we are where we are and where I think things are going.

The political issues we face today go back to the 1990’s and the end of the Cold War. The Republicans were the party of the country club and Chamber of Commerce, the party of the old Wall Street. The Democrats were the union, the blue-collar party, the party of Civil Rights and Women’s rights, and the party of the working and middle class. The country was still run mainly by the Greatest Generation, which had the same experiences as the Great Depression, WWII, and the Cold War. Both parties were unabashedly patriotic and proud of their country and its role in the world, confident in our economic and military strength. Both parties were unabashedly religious. The Republicans were more on the protestant side, and the Democrats were more rooted in the Catholic Church of their working-class base. The Democrats were more anti-war, and the Republicans were more aggressive in the use of military force. We were only 20 years old from Roe v Wade and 25 or so from the height of the Civil Rights movement. Busing and race riots were still in the consciousness of the nation.

But between 1992 and 2015, a lot happened that would shatter the direction and makeup of both parties, first by merging interests and then by breaking them.

The root of many of our issues goes back to Bill Clinton and the 3rd Way Democrats. In my opinion, Bill Clinton sold out the working class and blue-collar Joe’s (remember Joe the Plumber?) to entice Wall Street and Silicon Valley money to the democratic donor pool. Until then, the Republicans had been consistently beating the daylights out of the Democrats in fundraising, and it cost them. Hence, we got NAFTA, over the unions' objections, and financial reform that killed off the Glass Steagle rules and opened the floodgates to financialization. We now had not one but TWO parties that were dedicated to neoliberal economics, to catering to the interests of the financial class.

It was a process, but over time, the working and middle classes lost all representation of their interests. This was a great deal for the donor class, as they now controlled the policy of both political parties.

Continue Reading …

…

Wow, I did not set out to write an essay. I hope I did not waste your time or mine! I just did a brain dump. Sorry.

“Daniel P”

THE WASHINGTON POST | DEMOCRATS LEANED IN ON SOME OF THEIR MORE PROBLEMATIC ISSUES, AND WALZ DROVE HOME THE PARTY’S NEWFOUND ‘FREEDOM’ THEME.

Tim Walz accepted the vice-presidential nomination at the Democratic convention.

• Last night: Minnesota’s governor projected a regular-guy persona and focused on freedom. Former president Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey had memorable lines — fact-checked here.
• Tonight: Vice President Kamala Harris will try to stick the landing with her speech in Chicago. But pro-Palestinian delegates will not get a chance to speak [Editor’s Note: are not free to speak]. Follow live updates here.

Read this story

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is moving closer to endorsing Donald Trump.

• The latest: The independent presidential candidate announced that he’ll address the state of his campaign tomorrow. He has discussed his departure from the race with Trump.

• Zooming out: Kennedy’s poll numbers have dropped since Harris replaced President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, and he has struggled to get on every state’s ballot.

Read this story

Iran signaled that a promised strike on Israel may not be imminent.

• What happened? Iranian officials said yesterday a response to the killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran last month “must be carefully calibrated” to avoid damaging Gaza cease-fire talks.
• Where things stand: The U.S. had hoped to conclude negotiations this week, but they hit another roadblock Tuesday. Several Israeli hostages were laid to rest yesterday.

Read this story

BUILDING THE BRIDGE! | A WAY TO GET TO KNOW THE OTHER AND ONE ANOTHER

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanism for Many to Move Mountains

Photo Credit: Abraham A. van Kempen, our home away from home on the Dead Sea

By Abraham A. van Kempen

Senior Editor
Updated 19 January 2024

Those who commit to 'healing our broken humanity' build intercultural bridges to learn to know and understand one another and others. Readers who thumb through the Building the Bridge (BTB) pages are not mindless sheep following other mindless sheep. They THINK. They want to be at the forefront of making a difference. They're in search of the bigger picture to expand their horizons. They don't need BTB or anyone else to confirm their biases.

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanism for Many to Move Mountains

Accurate knowledge promotes understanding, dispels prejudice, and awakens the desire to learn more. Words have an extraordinary power to bring people together, divide them, forge bonds of friendship, or provoke hostility. Modern technology offers unprecedented possibilities for good, fostering harmony and reconciliation. Yet its misuse can do untold harm, leading to misunderstanding, prejudice, and conflict.

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