Alt Left: The Russian ‘Denazification’ PR Disaster: How, Why and What To Do

The Russian ‘Denazification’ PR Disaster: How, Why and What To Do

by Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker blog

Maybe it’s worked in Russia, but a military operation in Ukraine based on “denazification” has been a total public relations disaster everywhere else. Quite simply: Russia should have known that the use of the word “Nazi” totally shuts down any discussion in the West. Russia is waging a new type of military operation but they lazily or foolishly thought that “denazification” was a new enough concept to base its justification around for non-Russians — they have paid a price of total intellectual defeat so far in the battle for hearts and minds.

They could have known it was coming – I wrote about this issue just two weeks prior to the start of the Ukraine operation, in an article on France’s elections titled, France’s conservatives cry out for National Socialism – Zemmour’s response?:

“Ah, old Adolf – we can’t bring him up in the West, can we?

Many have heard of Godwin’s Law, or the rule of Nazi analogies: an Internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches. However, an important corollary is that whenever someone compares someone or something to Nazism – that person has lost the argument and/or the argument is summarily over.

Essentially, the world is to accept that all discussions of Western politics cannot discuss the anti-Western Liberalism ideology which was German Nazism.”

Yes, Russia should have accepted that in February. Practically nobody west of the Oder River understood what Moscow meant by “denazification”, and they still don’t after a month of Russian explanations.

Russia’s military operation has made much harder by failing to recognise the iron Western cultural reality of Godwin’s Law, and the reality that the West only associates Nazis with anti-Semitism and – not at all! – with Russophobia, despite the 20+ million Russian deaths at the hands of the Germanic Nazis.

This is how iron that law is: Political science PhD holders have responded to me with, “But… Ukraine’s president is Jewish – how can there be Nazis?” If you cannot even get Western political science PhD holders to see where you are coming from – even remotely – you have zero chance to get the average Westerner to understand you.

Thus it’s a total, ongoing public relations catastrophe.

It’s not an easy problem to fix

It’s such a huge problem I actually have to discuss it in detail in my new book on the Yellow Vests, in a chapter titled: “Where the West is stuck: The fascism of the 1930s and the ‘fascism’ of the 2020s”. The West is stuck in misunderstanding what fascism is, and in 2022 Russia has not solved this problem; they have maybe even made it worse?!

It’s not an easy problem to fix, but in April 2014 I must say that I was farther along than Russia is in 2022 – well, at least I tried to propose some solution in a column for PressTV titled, “Ukraine: The Rise of the ‘Nalis’”.

I can’t find a link for it anywhere – I’d complain about how Iran’s PressTV has been so deplatformed but – thanks in part to the awful Russian public relations campaign – Russia has now become even more deplatformed than us, wow! If someone finds a link, great, but these highlights show the idea still holds up: the combination of rabid Nationalism and far-right Liberalism (in economics, politics and in anti-socialism) is still the problem in Ukraine. The column began:

“The combination of ultra-nationalists and ultra-liberals who have overthrown the Ukrainian government is indicative of a new type of political party in the region: National Liberals, or ‘Nalis’. They are to be differentiated from ‘Nazis’ – National Socialists – only by the economic ideology of liberalism (otherwise known as free-market capitalism).

But it is a mistake to call the protesters in Ukraine “Nazis”. Yes, at Maidan Square there was plenty of footage taken of neo-Nazis, fascists, violent anarchists and other types who showed up to a political protest in camouflage and armed with a firearm. But they are actually “Nalis” – National Liberals.

That’s why not all of Ukraine’s protesters should be called Nalis: There are true progressives who were calling for legal, constitutional changes to the corrupt Yanukovych government. Unfortunately, they have been outgunned by the Nalis, who have deposed a president unconstitutionally, voted to ban the Russian language and whose violent tactics have created the real possibility of civil war.

Many of these people are true Nalis: economic nationalists who do not even want to join the EU.

But the moneyed set of the Nalis certainly do. They want to work with the US and the EU to institute IMF-led austerity reforms. They want to reduce pensions, reduce government subsidies on things like heat, reduce wages and increase corporate protections to foster a capitalist society. All you need to do is look at their proposals and it’s clear: they want free market liberalism…but of course for the benefit of themselves and the other moneyed Nalis.

Two things are certain: Western politicians will back the Nalis to the hilt. Of course, always putting the best interest of the EU or US or Germany (or many others) well-before the interests of the Ukrainian people.

And two: The Western media, passionately pro-Nali and just as passionately anti-Russian and anti-Putin, will also be unquestioningly backing the Nalis until the bitter end.”

Did “Nali” catch on? No, but did Russia come up with anything better?

Are they even strenuously pushing the term “Ukrainian Civil War”, which is no longer just a “possibility” but today’s reality, in my estimation?

I understand how Russians would use “Nazism” synonymously with “Russophobia”, just I understand how Jews would use “Nazism” interchangeably with “anti-Semitism”, but clearly most Westerners do not understand the former and only the latter. Given that the “Nalis” have been around since 2014, and given that the US has used shameless Russophobia to distract from the political failures of the two mainstream parties in their 2016 election, I’m surprised that Russia couldn’t come up with a better way to express “pathological and murderous hatred towards Russia”?

“Anti-Russianism”, “Russophobic paramilitaries”, “Nalis” – somebody better come up with something better than “denazification” because it takes more than hating Russians or Jews to make a Nazi, and because “denazification” has clearly not worked. If they don’t come up with something – anything – other than “denazification” they will never explain the situation in Ukraine correctly. Take Nali, or improve upon Nali, but come up with something to increase diplomatic understanding.

However, Russia needs to not only admit they got it wrong, but they need to get at the root of why they got it wrong, and this is actually much harder for Russia.

Russians need to ask why they get – as their failed PR campaign proves – “Nazi” as wrong as the West does

It’s not really that the times have changed and “Nazi” is outdated – it’s that “Nazi” was never accurate to begin with in Ukraine, as I wrote back in 2014.

Racism or xenophobia – the hating of Russia – isn’t enough to make one a Nazi, merely a racist. Germanic Nazism had political and economic components, and to ignore them is only ignorance and only causes more ignorance. The West only associates Nazis with anti-Semitism, and that’s foolish, but some Russians think associating Nazis with anti-Russianism is a complete picture, and that is just as foolish.

Incorrectly believing that it does is to totally ignore the economic factor, and the factor of political structure, and to merely make ethnic/identity politics the only factor – it is also to lay the foundation for total PR failure outside of Russia, and that cannot be denied.

The obvious difference is that Russia is on the right side of being against the “Nalis”, but… they don’t even know what that means, or what being anti-Nail implies for their society going forward – and the implications are revolutionary-big.

The Western and Russian elite leadership both misuse “Nazi” because it serves them – cui bono applies here too.

Both Russian and Western elites do not want to seriously talk about the economic/political aspects of socialism – of any variety – whatsoever. This is because post-1991 both regions’ elites began to wrongly take for granted that Socialist Democracy is a failure (China has emphatically disproven this, thankfully) and thus Russia adopted many aspects of what I term “Western Liberal Democracy”.

I can list a half-dozen synonyms: liberalism, neoliberalism, ultra-liberalism, English parliamentarian oligarchy, Western democracy, Nali-ism, etc. It all comes down to the same thing: liberalism, which is the ideology that emerged after the downfall of absolute monarchy in 1789 and before the establishment of socialist democracy in 1917.

The West is fighting for Western Liberal Democracy, and thus they do not permit honest discussion and honest critiques of Western Liberal Democracy. This explains why there is no admission regarding the historical reality that Nazism and 1930s European fascism won power precisely because so many people realised that Western Liberal Democracy was nothing but awful oligarchy. Most of Russia does not understand this either – not since 1991 – and thus they are stuck between aping Western Liberal Democracy and rejecting Socialist Democracy.

Putin definitely doesn’t want to talk about socialism honestly – or even acknowledge its achievements in Russia – because socialists are not just an ideological rival but an actual political one, unlike in the West: The Communist Party is the main opposition party in Russian parliament. Clearly, Western Liberal Democracy still has plenty of detractors in Russia.

But Putin is thus at an absurd and contradictory place in his political outlook: He wants to oppose Western Liberal Democracy’s surprising counter-attack on Russia with… more Western Liberal Democracy in Russia? It’s illogical, and thus it can’t work, and here’s why:

Putin is essentially saying that he wants Russia to take the Iranian road of taking total sanctions war head-on, but… without the influence of 1917? It won’t work. In 1979 Iranian political leaders were aware of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism, and they were also aware that Western Liberal Democracy was an awful economic and political model, and as a result they nationalised the economy to a degree only surpassed by North Korea and (maybe, I contest) Cuba – that’s the only way to beat sanctions!

What Russia is proposing in response to the Western counter-attack is truly radical for them in the sense that it is a total overturning of the economic and political choices of Western Liberal Democracy, and thus of many Russian choices post-1991. I don’t think Russia realizes how radical what they are proposing to do in response to sanctions really is, and how much it requires a complete rethink in political terms and interpretations of history – is Putin willing to embrace the USSR’s political and economic past?

What’s certain is that if Russia wants true sovereignty and independence as a response to the Western sanctions war – if they want to follow the Iranian road, as I first posited here, in an article which deserves way more attention, given that Russia now has 5

Yes, the EU isn’t sanctioning Russian fossil fuels, but France just announced they want no more Russian gas by 2027. The EU sanctions and what they portend are serious.

The Iranian road led to sovereignty – and maybe even an actually-signed JCPOA which would be more proof its correct choices – because Iran rests on totally different (i.e. revolutionary) economic power and political power structures than those of Western Liberal Democracy. Russia cannot defeat a sanctions campaign with Western Liberal Democratic structures – it’s a system geared to protect oligarchs, of course.

Does Russia have oligarchs? Of course, to Western Liberal Democrats west of Russia “oligarchs” only exist in Russia, never in the West – absurdly and falsely. Listening to Westerners, “oligarchs” must only be a region in Siberia, perhaps? But oligarchs are not going to help counter sanctions; they are not going to accept mass nationalisations; they are not going to accept price controls, profit limitations, central planning, etc. and etc. and etc.

If Russia continues to face off with the West a la Iran they can either have a revolution in thinking or they can fail. Western Liberal Democracy will not save them, as Russians were told in 1991.

Perhaps Putin is just bluffing about his totally anti-capitalist response to the Western sanction war? Or perhaps it’s truly a new world, with China-Russia-Iran leading the way?

But the fact that no one in the West can easily grasp Russia’s intellectual campaign for the war indicates a major problem. Russia needs to think and talk honestly about political terms, and I recommend starting with “denazification”. This will, I think, necessarily take them into bigger issues, such as how a “bring on your sanctions” stance necessarily reacquires very revolutionary (or perhaps return-to-revolutionary, for Russia) changes.

Should Russia fail to realise this, it may reveal that they are as intellectually stuck as the West: If the conflict in Ukraine is only about Russia-hating, then they have succumbed to the same identity politics worldview of the West – they have made “race” the end-all be-all of their political-economic discourse. It will be proof that they have ignored the class warfare lens, the imperialist lens and 1979’s “maybe we do need some spiritual morality in our socioeconomic policies?” lens. These are all lenses which came around between 1917-1991, which current Russian leadership has rather disavowed.

These are strong, serious ideas, but they are motivated by the catastrophic failure of the “denazification” idea outside of Russia, which seems like thus far the biggest failure in Russian planning for their military operation.

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.

Alt Left: Face It, Ukraine Is Pretty Much a Nazi Country: 20-33% of Ukrainians Are Nazis

 

CLAVDIVS AMERICANVS: So Time Magazine less than 2 years ago admitted there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s east, namely the Azov Battalion. Again, I believe you that there are nah-tsees in dah you-crane but I did not see a Nazi (lol) elsewhere. Seriously, the country is not overrun by the Hitlerjugend.

You just hate right-wingers and see the devil everywhere they gather. Putin is a mass murder who decimated Grozny with impunity. A few Hitler-hailin’ dickheads in Eastern Ukraine aren’t a real threat to anybody but the locals. And considering Putin already controlled Crimea and Donbass, he could have killed the Nazis there. Shelling other cities is not justifiable.

First of all, conservatives in most parts of the world are not really Nazis. However, rightwingers in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Croatia, Romania, Hungary, France, Germany, Slovenia, Sweden, Bulgaria, Austria can absolutely be Nazis, thought most rightwingers in the more western of these nations are not Nazis.

In the East it is different, and conservatism in those eastern countries simply tends to be Nazism. Nazism is a phenomenon of White Europeans, and there’s about zero support for it in most other parts of the world, though there are a few Nazis in places like Argentina, the UK, the US, Bolivia, Chile, India, Mongolia, and a few other places.

There aren’t really many Nazis left in the Donbass. Members of Nazi battalions, when captured by the separatists, were slowly beaten and tortured to death over a period of a day or time. Most of the pro-Ukies took off, but all of the rest of them went over to the separatists because the Ukie occupiers pissed so many people off.

Most of the Nazis in Crimea, what few were even there, presumably took off after independence. Keep in mind that when the “little green men” took over Crimea, the entire Ukrainian Army stationed in Crimea immediately surrendered to Russia. However, there is still some opposition to Russia in Crimea because when the Russians started this war, there was even some armed resistance in Crimea!

Ukraine Has a Nazi Problem, to Put It Mildly

It’s hard to say how many Nazis there are as so many “non-Nazis” go along with the Nazis due to fear, peer pressure, propaganda, or other reasons. The 2

Up to 3

So 20-3

Three Ukrainian Regions – East, Center, and South

Eastern and Southern Ukraine are Russian. This is where the separatists are or at least they are in the East in the Donbass. If they put the entire area east of the Dniper to a plebiscite, I’m pretty sure that they would vote to secede from Ukraine. Only part of this region, the Donbass, is now separate.

The area west of the Dniper and east of Kiev is called Central Ukraine, and it is completely different. It’s not really Nazi but it’s not pro-Russian at all. It’s pro-Ukrainian government. They’re somewhere in the middle of the pro-Russian East and the Nazi West.

But they are not pro-Russian at all, and Russia will have a very hard time occupying this place because the population will be so hostile.

The only place Russia can occupy is the South and the East, and they are having problems with anti-Russian demos right now.

Occupying Nazi Western Ukraine will be almost impossible because the population will be insanely hostile. I don’t know how they will do it. They probably won’t. But it will be a perennial problem. If the East goes independent or strongly pro-Russian, which is probable, and the Center is controlled by a pro-Russian demilitarized, neutral, and at least somewhat denazififed state, as is possible if difficult to carry out, the idea would be for Russia to say the Hell with the Nazi West.

Problem is all the Nazis in the rest of the country will flee there. And lots of advanced weapons are pouring in there, so it’s full of powerful weapons and armed to the teeth. Not to mention the population are already Nazi fanatics for a good 80 years now ever since 1941 and maybe even before from 1932 and the famine. The temptation is to say the Hell with it and let this Nazi state fester.

A new rump Ukraine state will be formed there, and I believe that NATO forces may even move in in large numbers to occupy it. It will then become a new “Ukraine” with the same dynamic in place – endless weapons supplies and NATO training to turn it into a cat’s paw to attack Russia with, although Russia will now have some geographic depth with Novorussia in the east and the pacified state in the center.

An insurgency against the Center and the East is already planned there, as all US factions from “right” to “center” to “left” are in agreement about bogging down Russia in a new Syria or Afghanistan. Call it the Syrianization of Ukraine. So the Ukraine  problem of 2014-present will simply move from Ukraine to Western Ukraine. At some point, Russia might have to go into Western Ukraine to clean those Nazis out, and it won’t be pretty.

Hitlery Clinton has already come out in support of Syrianization, as has (((Victoria Nuland))) who pretty much singlehandedly created this whole mess. Her husband is (((Donald Kagan))), one of the craziest, most vicious, and blood-drenched neocons of them all. They both installed (((Yatzeniuk))) as President, a fanatical Russia-hating nationalist and oligarch. So there’s a bit of an (((angle))) here as there is with so many lousy things, but that’s not the whole story, and this is what crazy antisemites miss.

These are just American Jewish neocons. They don’t represent Israel or American Jewry at all. Mostly they are just fanatical US imperialists. They’ve hitched themselves to US imperialism, but almost all US Gentiles are in the same sheep flock.

The Democratic Party and Joe Biden Started This War

(((Nuland))) is a neocon Clintonite.

When Biden came in, he brought back the neocons, many of whom had been thrown out by isolationist Trump. Both parties have a vast neocon faction, almost all of it Gentile, though a number of the leaders are Jewish.

Hence, anti-Russian policy was vastly ramped up. If Trump was still in, this war would not have happened. But the Democrats radically ramped up the aggression against Russia because the Democrats are now the McCarthyite party of Russia-haters, while Republicans are split between a base that is both pro- and anti-Russia, even if Republican politicians are whores with fingers to the wind who have no basic values at all other than “zero sum game” and “win at any cost.” So Biden and the Democratic Party’s foreign policy is worse than the Republicans, and Biden and the Democrats pretty much started this war.

A Recent Historical View of the Ukrainian Nazi Infestation

There are plenty of Nazis in Central Ukraine too, especially after eight years of incessant Nazi propaganda. It’s started to effect people, and even ordinary Ukies are a lot more anti-Russian and pro-Nazi than they were eight years ago. Also a lot of the Russian speakers simply left, especially the ones in the South and East.

It was like this all over the Donbass inside and outside of the separatist regions. Many of these people are coming home now on the backs of advancing Russian troops, and they are quite happy to be home.

The reason for the anti-Russian protests in the South is due to a variety of reasons.

First, many men are veterans of the war in the East.

Second, many Ukies have relatives or neighbors in the military currently fighting the Russians.

Third, eight years of brainwashing works.

Fourth, many people may have turned pro-Ukie and anti-Russian to avoid persecution.

Fifth, most of the Russian speakers took off.

The result is you now have quite a few pro-Ukies in the South, but they are still a minority. The majority are still Russian speakers, but they have been quiet and holed up inside for eight years, and a lot of them left and will presumably return. But there are definitely pro-Ukies in the West and even some in the East.

There Are No Pro-Ukrainians Left in the Donbass

When the operation in the Donbass started, the Ukie troops came in as liberators taking back the separatist zones for Ukraine. About 2

However, the Ukies conquered a lot of those towns but were never able to control them. The separatists fought an extremely dirty guerrilla war, not wearing uniforms, hiding among the population in yards and houses, jumping fences from house to house, on and on.

The Ukies would be lured into rooms where there were women and children present so the Ukies thought it was OK to come in. Then a hidden separatist would jump out and attack the Ukie soldiers. Obviously this endangered the women and kids too. There were booby-traps and hidden bombs everywhere.

The Ukies eventually decided that there was no way they were going to defeat them because they were too deeply rooted in the population. They also said that after months of brutal occupation, the entire pro-Ukie 2

About half of the Donetsk and Lugansk states were controlled by the Ukies after they pushed the separatists out and them. Indeed the separatists were about ready to be defeated when Russia poured in and reversed the losses.

Support for Nazism among East European Nationalists

Yes, the Nazis had a lot of support in Hungary, Romania, the Baltics, Finland, Croatia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Belarus. They played the nationalism card and went into those parts of the USSR promising those peoples independence. Of those, four are Orthodox, four are Catholic, and two are Protestant.

In Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece and Albania, the Nazis had little support and often much opposition. The first three are Catholic and the last three are Orthodox.

I’m not seeing any particular tendency of any particular religion to be more Nazi-supporting than any other.

In Poland, they probably just killed too many Poles. How many Poles would go along with that? Protestants never went over to Nazis too much for whatever reason. Maybe they’re too individualistic. Also Protestants have never been very antisemitic. That’s been more of a Catholic and Orthodox thing.

Many Ukrainians sided with the Nazis. In every country they went into, the Nazis recruited homicidal antisemites for the SS. They found no more than moderate support in most places, but in Ukraine, they were overwhelmed with volunteers.

Ukrainian SS units fought all the way over in Northern France, where they hatched a famous rebellion against the Nazis in 1944.

You see, to the Nazis, even the SS Ukrainians were just inferior Slavs, and the Germans treated them terribly. The Ukrainians didn’t appreciate it. They rebelled in Northern France and killed the 50 Germans leading their unit, only losing four men. Then they all went over to the French Resistance. The Resistance happily took them in even though they were former SS. Pretty weird. SS guys joining the resistance!

The Ukrainian SS in France didn’t work very well. A German officer said, “It’s hard to motivate Ukrainians to kill Americans for Germans in France.” They were simply not part of the fight over there.

A lot of Ukrainians became concentration camp guards. The famous guard Ivan the Terrible, Ivan Demjanjuk, was one of them. They even had a special name for the Ukrainians who worked in the camps named after the camp where they were trained.

Ukrainian nationalists also committed a number of massacres in Slovakia and Poland.

Villagers under their rule said they were worse than Germans. They said German soldiers at least had a basic civilized politeness about them. They were mostly just doing a job, and they seemed a bit bored a lot of the time. They didn’t tend to go in for gratuitous unnecessary violence. The Ukrainians seemed to enjoy being cruel for the fun of it.

Keep in mind that the German Army itself often did not commit ethnic massacres. That was usually left to the SS. The German troops didn’t really have the stomach for lining civilians up and slaughtering them. Originally, the Nazis had ordinary soldiers massacring civilians, but the soldiers were outraged at what they had done and wrote letters back home about how awful it was. There were a lot of PTSD cases and desertions.

That’s why they created the SS in the first place – because the ordinary soldiers were not capable of massacres like that. Soldiers may be killers but they’re not necessarily murderers.

A German general in Warsaw saved 3,000 Jews. The Nazis had captured 3,000 Jews and put them to work in a factory for a general. The idea was to work them for a few weeks until they could transfer them to camps. The general got wind that the SS were coming, and he called his Jewish workers around. He got up and simply said, “The SS will be coming in two days.” The workers got the message and they all took off. He didn’t stop them.

Later in the war the same general tried to save another few thousand Jews. This time he was caught and executed. I have a lot of respect for that man.

Understand that your average German soldier or officer was just a soldier first and foremost, a fighting man. They were not necessarily any more antisemitic than any other German. A lot didn’t have passionate feelings about Jews one way or the other.

Some of those Nazi nationalists in those other countries were worse than the Germans! The Germans were so outraged by the behavior of the Ukrainian UNO under Stepan Bandera that they put him in prison in Germany! The Romanian nationalists outraged the Germans when they hung Jews on meathooks in slaughterhouses. That was too much for the German Army. Germans, you know, they do have certain standards!

I saw an interview with a Belorussian man. He was talking about the Belorussian nationalist Nazi collaborators, whose heirs are now the Belorussian opposition that the US supports. He was alive in World War 2. He said that the Belorussian nationalists were going to come to their village of 10,000 people and kill everyone in it. The villagers went to the local Nazi commander and told him about it, and he was outraged. He stationed a unit inside the village to protect the villagers. I respect that man too.  When you’re worse than Nazis, that’s pretty bad!

Alt Left: The US Opposes Al Qaeda, Except When We Support Them

In addition to running the Al Qaeda Armies in Libya and Syria to overthrow Qaddafi and Assad, we also run the Al Qaeda Army in Yemen to overthrow the pro-Iran Houthis, in Turkey to support Al Qaeda Syria, and in Iran to overthrow the government. In every one of these places, the Al Qaeda Army is actually the (((Al Qaeda Army))) because they have Israeli support, especially in Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Yemen. So it’s not even Al Qaeda. It’s more (((Al Qaeda))).

However, we oppose the Al Qaeda Armies in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Somalia, Mozambique, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and the Sahel because in those places, they are attacking our allies.

Any of it make sense? Of course not! The USA sucks. The whole West is basically fascist.

Yes, both of those branches of Al Qaeda are funded and armed in part by the US and also by (((Israel))), (((France))), the UK, (((UAE))), Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar. There were intelligence agents from all of those countries literally embedded with Syrian Al Qaeda. We know this due to an interview with a top Al Qaeda leader in a cave by an East German journalist.

10 US intelligence agents were trapped by Assad’s army in Aleppo when his army conquered the city. That’s why the US was freaking out at the end. Assad even published every one of their names, ranks, everything. I think they were actually DIA, but they’re just as bad the CIA. Assad allowed them to be smuggled out. The DIA was involved in faking that (((Sarin gas attack in Damascus))) that never even happened. This was proven by the UN recently.

The DIA was also deeply involved in the rouge Ukrainian warlord oligarch was shot down hat airliner in the Ukraine to frame Russia, which has been covered up by the West ever since, including a fake judgement against Russia by NATO-run Netherlands, complete with literal faked forensic evidence. They scattered parts of what they said were a Buk missile as the site where the plane went down. Actually only one part and we don’t know how they linked it to a Buk.

We have literal eyewitness reports that a rogue element of Ukraine, a governor of a state who acts like a dictator – (((Kolomoisky))) is the culprit.

A lot of the really nasty foreign false flags, etc. are actually run by the DIA because it is US military and they are really good at actual military stuff. The CIA, not so good. Anyway, the DIA takes orders from the CIA. They’re both ratfuck agencies.

For instance, the people involved in recent paramilitary operations in Venezuela were active duty US military, often Marines or especially Special Forces, who are great at doing dirty work. One of these guys was recently caught in Venezuela with maps of oil refineries and huge cache of bomb material. There have been mysterious explosions that took out the entire Venezuelan electrical system that coincided with a US military mission to fascist Brazil (remember I keep telling you we love fascists?).

I am certain that US military – Special Forces or DIA – was involved in those explosions. There are regular sabotage attacks carried out against the oil industry and the electric sector by the Venezuelan opposition (You know, the “democratic” opposition), the same opposition which also tried to assassinate Maduro. Colombia was invoked in that assassination attempt and I know for a fact that the Pentagon was deeply involved.

You understand why I hate it when people say, “Support the troops?” Seriously, fuck the Pentagon. They’re no better now than they were in Vietnam and I came directly out of that protest movement. I walked door to door with my father for the antiwar “Clean Gene” Gene McCarthy antiwar campaign in the Democratic primary in 1968.

Alt Left: Neuveau Fascism in South America and Europe

Manuel Rodriguez: Back to politics. What is going on in Bolivia is worrying me. We have fascist squads lynching “undesirables” like peasants. We also see that there have been placed barricades with rubbish and tires that block vehicle mobilization, causing people to be fed up and remove the barricades. You know what this all reminds me? The guarimbas of 2014 in Venezuela and Nicaragua. I can see where this is going.

————————– Separate: There is an tendency that is pretty worrying going on at least in Latin America.

The people are tired of the structural inequalities from the neoliberal policies of the right, causing them to lose in elections whenever they appear as they are, and the people are conscious enough.

The mutation consisted on swapping in the public’s mind the Traditional Right image with Center-Right, which seems like a more popular alternative. The complementary tactic is for thee Center-Right to dress up as the Center-Left, which in reality are already prepared sell-outs whose main purpose is try to divert votes from the Left to help the Right win.

The media did their thing, which was to help Center-Left Boric would win over the Leftist Jadue. The whole purpose of Center-Left Yaku Pérez’ candidacy was to make the Leftist Andrés Arauz lose.

That strategy seems to be being recently changing. They are changing the Center-Right for populist Trump-style fascist Far Right candidates. The most worrying thing is that they are getting a lot of support from the population. Bolsonaro is an classic example. Jose Antonio Kast is a more recent example. It seems that Vamos in Argentina is going to win in the parliament.

I would like to point out that the election in Ecuador was profoundly unfair. First of all, the main opposition party kept getting banned, and its leaders all have warrants out for their arrest on fake charges. This “lawfare” is similar to what was done in Brazil. By the way, the FBI greatly assisted the Brazilian fascists in the lawfare against the Left down there. The US is also engaging in lawfare against Venezuela.

Vamos are Argentine fascists?

Obviously Bolsonaro is a fascist, and Kast is clearly a Pinochet-style Chilean fascist.

Why are people voting fascist? I don’t get it. Although Chile and Argentine both have deep fascist blocs in each country, in my opinion mostly because those are majority-White countries. Brazil is also a majority-White country, which may be why they are going fascist too.

In Latin America nowadays, where you lack a White majority, fascism is hard to install because Latin non-Whites hate fascism. They’ve had quite enough of it. However, they do support it in Colombia. On the other hand, Colombia is also a fairly White country. Fascist roots in Colombia go back to Independence. The country simply has developed a culture of popular fascism for whatever reason. Turkey is very similar. The people get no benefit for voting fascist, but they keep doing it anyway.

There are fascist governments in non-White Haiti, Honduras, and Paraguay, but all of those are dictatorships. The Right seized power with fascist coups – armed in Haiti and Honduras and legislative in Paraguay – and they have ruled by dictatorship ever since.

In the Americas, Whiteness is associated with rightwing authoritarianism and fascism. In Europe this is not the case, but Whites are a huge majority over there. It appears that Whites go fascist when they are in the minority, but Argentina and Chile are majority-White, so I don’t get it.

Really any population descended from the Catholic Spaniards divides into the typical Far Right-Far versus Left Collectivist pattern. This pattern is also seen in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, and Lebanon, all Mediterranean countries. This is also seen now somewhat in France. Spain, France, and Italy are Catholic, Greece is Orthodox, Turkey is Muslim, and Lebanon is mostly Catholic and Muslim. Mediterranean countries are collectivist, so politics tends to be collectivist. Islam, Catholicism, and Orthodox Christianity are collectivist religions.

Left collectivism is Communism and socialism, while Right collectivism is fascism.

The Catholic East European fascism in Poland and Hungary is different and has a Catholic socially conservative and anti-Communist tint. Liberation theology never took hold in Eastern Europe except in Czechia, where there is a long tradition of “Catholic Communism.”

In Ukraine, the Baltics, and Belarus, the fascism is simply Nazism, pure and simple. Ukraine and Belarus are Orthodox, and the Baltics are Catholic (Lithuania) and Protestant (Latvia and Estonia). The Nazism here stems from World War and the independence movements in these countries making alliances with the Nazi occupiers who promised them independence. The Communists in turn were seen as anti-nationalists who thwarted these nations independence dreams. See below for more on that.

In Orthodox Georgia and Russia, fascism nationalist – ethnic nationalist in Georgia or simply nationalist or “Russian Empire nationalist” in Russia.

Protestant Northern Europe is more individualistic. The Right there is just about dead except in the UK and the Baltics. The Right in the UK is a pale copy of US politics. See below for the anti-Communist roots of the Right in the Baltics.

The Right in the northern individualist parts of Europe is mostly anti-Muslim. It’s conservatism is toned down like all politics in Northern Europe is toned down, so it’s not really fascist, instead a type of Woke Anti-Islam. Otherwise they are very left on social issues. One of their leaders in the Netherlands was a gay man. And they support a more socialist economics, but this is the case for both the Right and Left in most of Europe proper other than the Baltics.

The Economic Right is only popular in the UK, where the political economics mirrors the US, and in Czechia, the Baltics, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. In all of these places except the UK, it is an anti-Communist reaction where many people are angry about living under Communism in the past, so they have gone to extreme Right economics as an overreaction.

In Estonia and Latvia, support for the economic Right has been disastrous and has almost destroyed both countries. The Economic Right has little power in Russia and Belarus, with only 10-2

The Destruction of the Langues d’Oil Was a Deliberate Project

I got this from a paper on Academia. We see many typical arguments here against the use of dialects and sub-languages of the main prescriptive official language – that speaking them indicates that one is rural, uneducated, backwards, stupid, and not modern, cool, hip, urban, intelligent, and educated. Hence this process of wanting to dissociate with the old backwards ways and associate with the new modern ways continues today.

I was involved for a bit with a German woman in the US. She spoken Hessian, which is actually a separate language under the rubric of High German or Standard German. It is spoken in the Hesse, a wine-growing region in the central-west. She still spoke Hessian, but she told me it was not popular for the reasons above – it meant you were backwards, stupid and uneducated.

She also said something interesting about mutual intelligibility.

We see also the unifying effect of the Jacobin French Revolution, one of the most progressive revolutions the world had seen up until that time. In fact the American and French revolutions were modeled on each other. This was a progressive, modernizing revolution the likes of which had never been seen before. Egalite, liberte, and fraternite – Equality, freedom, and fraternity. It was also quite anti-religious, giving rise to something called laicism or extreme secularism in France.

The idea was to unify all Frenchmen under a single language. The local patois in addition to the other languages non-related to French such as Flemish, Basque, Catalan, the various Occitan and Arpetin languages, Breton, Alsatian, Moselle Franconian, etc. were seen as impeding in particular the fraternite or assimilitory aspects of the Revolution. They also kept people backwards, stupid and perhaps even promoted inequality and lack of freedom, both of which were associated with the ancien regime.

We also see how the local patois were tied into the land, the landscape, the stars, the times of day, the seasons, the foods, the plants and animals, the very lifeblood of the people. To uproot the patois would be to destroy people’s intimate connection with all of these things.

As all of these earthly connections were considered the realm of savagery – after all, the modern man was to liberate himself from the natural world and rule over or move beyond it – the civilization versus savagery motif also came into play. As you can see, lack of patois was seen as due to healthier lives, better food and water, more human interaction, and more money and higher level of civilization. Patois was associated with poor food and water, even poor weather, lack of sociability, poverty, and lack of integration into the monied economy.

As you can see, the development of capitalism in France also played a role here. The rural areas were to be forced into the capitalist mode whether they wanted to or not.

In epistemological terms the aim of Modernity is unequivocally to do away with the Old World, and the French Revolution provided precisely that opportunity. In order to align nature with productive forces, existing environmental regulations had to be done away with at the end of the 18th century (Chappey & Vincent, 2019, p. 109).

Not coincidentally it was also at that same period, from 1790 on, that the Revolutionary governments of France sought to survey the use of ‘patois’ in order to uproot them and replace them with the language of Reason (Certeau, Julia, & Revel, 1975) or at least a revolutionary version of it (Steuckardt, 2011). In line with the Ideologues’ project, this linguistic project was devised to gain knowledge and use this knowledge to transform (and improve) living conditions in the country.

So next, language.

Nowhere is the pre-modern vernacular connection between language and what we now call ‘nature’ better expressed than in a response given to Grégoire’s 1790 survey on patois by the Société des Amis de la Constitutions of Perpignan, in the Catalan-speaking part of France. Asked about how to eradicate the local patois, they retorted:

To destroy it, one would have to destroy the sun, the freshness of the nights, the kind of foods, the quality of waters, man in its entirety. (Certeau et al., 1975, p. 182).

Conversely, in a 1776 account of life in Burgundy, Rétif de la Bretonne accounted for the lack of patois in the village of Nitry in contrast with surrounding areas by resorting to natural explanations: purer air, better grains producing better bread, dairy products, superior eggs, and animal flesh. All those elements were then correlated with the practice of commerce, which brought inhabitants in contact with other localities and generated the need to speak politely (Certeau et al., 1975, pp. 277–278).

In the next village of Saci [where patois was apparently still spoken] one mile away, however, stagnant waters caused the air to be “devouring,” and the local inhabitants to be “heavy, ruminative, and taciturn” (ibid. 278).

In France, the patois are forms of non-language that index a state of wilderness and superstition and point to the savage (Certeau et al., 1975, Chapter 8) – forms of knowledge and practices which were to be uprooted pointing to an absence of a rational outlook on the world and a lack of industriousness (Bonneuil & Fressoz, 2016) and lust for more money over time.

In that particular view, the patois are immediately transparent forms of language: they are isomorphous with nature and with emotions. Along with the ways of life of their speakers and mores, they are susceptible to description in the natural science sense of the term: mere mechanical facts to be described (Certeau et al., 1975, p. 154). In this representation, mores are opposed to civilization (ibid. 155), rurality to urban life, and patois to language; access to language is thus tantamount to access to civilization.

One of My Twitter Posts May Have Violated French Law

The Languages of Northeastern Spain: Aragonese, Catalan, and Occitan

Gus Love: No, the Aragonese language looks different. I might put up a sample sometime. This is Catalan. Occitan looks different but I’m not sure how different or in what way. I’ve seen quite a bit of Occitan writing but that was a while back.

This is Catalan. Occitan looks different but I’m not sure how different or in what way. I’ve seen quite a bit of Occitan writing but that was a while back. There is a type of Occitan, the western half of which is nothing but Catalan. The eastern half of that Occitan language is not fully intelligible with Catalan. This is the Occitan language that is spoken across the border from Catalonia. I am not talking about Northern Catalan or French Catalan. That’s also spoken across the border but that’s more over by the coast.

No, the Aragonese language looks different. Aragonese looks much more Castillian and it’s not nearly as Frenchified as Catalan. The Kingdom of Aragon never came under the influence of France. Aragonese is spoken in the Pyrenees on the west side of those mountains. On the French side it’s not even French. It’s Occitan. For instance, Aranese Occitan is intelligible with Comminghese Occitan across the border in France. The Pyrenees are very high mountains, and they probably served as a barrier to French influence.

There were different lects of Macro-Spanish spoken in the various kingdoms in France. Aragonese was spoken in the Kingdom of Aragon. Asturian was spoken in the Kingdom of Asturias. Castillian split away from all of them around 1100 and started expanding south from its homeland in Cantabria on the north coast. It was a crapshoot fora while which kingdom would come to rule Spain and supplant the others. It turns out that the kingdom of Castille and Leon won the contest but it could just as easily have been the kingdoms of Aragon or Asturias.

Asturian-Leonese has been split from Castillian for 900 years. Aragonese split off much later around 1600. It used to be spoken in all of Aragon but Castillian took over Southern and Central Aragon, and Aragonese was relegated to the hinterlands of the inaccessible Pyrenees Mountains where it still holds out. There are children coming to school as Aragonese monolinguals in one town to this very day.

 

Alt Left: The French Revolution: When the Battle Lines of the Modern Right and Left Were Drawn

Transformer: Hey Robert, I want to know what is the truth about the French Revolution? Conservatives criticize it for being a Communist, but did they have legitimate concerns? I sometimes read rightwing websites to get a feel of their point of view. I would like your response.

https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1344928/

I haven’t read that piece, but I am certain that the fascists at Stormfront think of the French Revolution as the beginning of the Apocalypse. And in a lot of ways, the Revolution is seen as “apocalyptic” in terms of setting the stage for modern politics.

It was absolutely not a Communist revolution, but in a lot of ways, the Modern Western Left was born with Robespierre and all modern Western Leftists are his children. The Modern Western Right sees the French Revolution as their bete noire. It was much more extreme than the American Revolution.

The Left opinion is that it was a good idea until it got bloody and started murdering people like crazy. Then it got bad.

Conservatives starting with Edmund Burke himself have condemned the French Revolution as the ultimate in evil. Burke wrote a famous tract on the French Revolution. It’s considered a classic of conservatism. Burke may be seen as the father of modern conservatism, and all Western, particularly American, conservatives consider themselves the Children of Burke. One of the forefathers of modern fascism, De Maistre, also cut his teeth on tracts condemning the French Revolution.

The conservative movement sees the French Revolution as “when it all started going down hill.”

From the Left, the alternative is to twofold, one either supports (critically) French Revolution or you support the “ancien regime.” Clearly, modern conservatism is all about resurrecting the ancien regime that was overthrown in 1798. And the modern Left in part has been all about overthrowing the various forms of “ancien regime” that exist the world over.

Both the modern Left and Right in the West think of the French Revolution as “when the battle lines of the modern Right and Left were first drawn.”

Alt Left: Another Look at the Israeli Nuclear Bombing of the Port of Beirut

The (((coincidence marks))) in this piece refers to Israel and its supporters, not ordinary Jewish people in the Diaspora who are not involved in affairs of the Israeli state and should not be blamed for its predations. Are the Jews in the US squatting in Palestine, killing people and doing all manner of sleazy dirty things all the time? Of course not. So why are they are problem. I have a beef with the Israeli state, not with Jewish people in general.

There are almost no limits to what the Israelis will do, as we saw in the nuclear bomb attack on the Beirut port a year ago. The port was attacked with a mini-nuke by an Israeli F-16 overhead that was witnessed and heard by thousands of witnesses.

There was little radiation because those bombs give off hardly any radiation anyway. However, 10 hours after the attack, the UN Agency for Nuclear Arms Control facility in Sicily recorded a large radiation spike consistent with either a nuclear bomb or a failed nuclear reactor. 10 hours is about how long it would take for that spike to drift over to Italy.

The governments of Syria, Lebanon, Greece, and Italy have all privately confirmed that Beirut was attacked by Israel. All except Syria said it was with a nuclear bomb. Syria said the attack was with “some new type of weapon.” They compared it to another mini-nuke nuclear bomb Israel had dropped over Syria in Homs a few years back when acting as the air force for Al Qaeda while it was fighting the Syrian government.

I have seen the cloud from that explosion, and it can only be a nuclear bomb. Further, a look at the mushroom cloud indicates that this bomb was similar to the one dropped on Beirut. So Israel is regularly dropping nuclear bombs on Arab countries! Remember what I said about Jews having no morals? Well, there you go.

Sources say that now even the US government, including all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have agreed that Israel attacked Beirut with a nuclear bomb. Even Trump was told that Beirut was an attack by warplanes, a fact that he repeated to the media.

The nuclear bomb attack was timed to occur in tandem with the (((fake UN investigation))) that convicted Hezbollah of assassinating President Hariri, although Hezbollah has now proven that the attack was done by an Israeli drone (possibly with another mini-nuke) in order to frame Hezbollah. There was an Israeli drone directly over the site of the attack for one hour up until the attack. It left shortly afterwards.

The grain silo at the port was destroyed and this was the obvious target. It contained a month’s worth of grain for the country. So Israel wiped out all the grain in Lebanon. This was quickly followed by several (((US))) attacks on grain silos in Eastern Syria. There were also (((attacks against food warehouses))) in Southern Iraq and a (((huge fire at an Iranian shopping mall))) in (((Dubai))) caught fire. These all appear to be Mossad plots. Linking all of these attacks (most of them against food supplies) is an (((attack on Iran and Iran’s supporters))) – the Syrian government, the Shia in Southern Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Shortly before the attack, Israeli president Netanyahu had given a presentation pinpointing the precise Ground Zero of the attack as the site of a Hezbollah missile depot. Netanyahu pledged to attack the site. After the attack, sources in Israel along with (((UAE))) and (((Saudi))) intelligence put out the (((fake story))) that a Hezbollah missile depot had blown up. However, Hezbollah does not store missiles at the port and never has. Also that part of the port is controlled by the Lebanese Forces, a Christian fascist force that hates Hezbollah. No way would they have let Hezbollah store missiles there. This fake story was also intended to get the Lebanese people to rise up against Hezbollah.

Nevertheless, the whole world suckers has swallowed the (((cover story))) lie that was put out about 2,300 pounds of ammonium nitrate blowing up, except that AN is inert and dirt is more likely to blow up than AN. It’s pretty pathetic that the whole world has been (((scammed))) like this, but it’s par for the course.

Later, when informed that AN doesn’t blow up without being carefully mixed with fuel oil, a new fake story went out that the AN stash had been stored next to a huge amount of (((fuel oil))). See how the story changed? You can tell about these false flags and fake attacks because the story keeps changing. In a real attack, the story doesn’t change every few days. The spark needed to set it off was from a (((fireworks factory))) that never existed.

In fact, Lebanese intelligence reported that there was no AN at all in that warehouse. Instead, there was nothing but dirt and rocks. The entire affair was a Mossad plot dating back up to 10 years leading to this point involving a (((ship))) full of fake AN (really dirt and rocks) that had been in a number of ports, including one in Georgia where they loaded up with AN, except that AN is not produced in Georgia. Lebanese intelligence discovered that everything about the ship was fake, including the (((Russian captain))). Everything on the ship’s record had been (((faked and forged))).

After the (((fake fertilizer))) was unloaded, it sat in a warehouse for a decade. Meanwhile another plot was hatched to protest the (((AN))) being stored at the port as a hazard. Someone in the Lebanese government or courts must have been paid off because they kept passing the buck on getting rid of the (((fake fertilizer))). This was a set up for an “incompetent government allows horrible accident to occur” scenario.

I’m thinking these officials or court officers were (((paid off))) somehow. The whole thing was probably done in tandem with the fascist (((Lebanese Forces))) who controlled the port. They must have known that the fake fertilizer was nothing but dirt and rocks. However, the (((LF))) is the most pro-Israel group in Lebanon, but they are primarily motivated by mutual hatred of Hezbollah.

Of course, everyone knows that Lebanon is crawling with Israeli spies and Israeli assets. They get caught all the time. Hezbollah is always finding them. I guess a bit of (((money))) goes a long way or recruiting assets is easy due to a mutual enemy.

On the anniversary of the nuclear attack, the (((LF))) is leading the charge to use the attack to try to get rid of the Hezbollah-dominated government on grounds of incompetence. In truth, Hezbollah is one of the least corrupt forces in Lebanon and the LF are one of the most, but never mind the logic. Soon after the attack, the (((US))) and (((Macron)))’s (((France))) staged a (((color revolution))) that managed to overthrow the government with a mere 2,000 rioters. (((Macron))), who by the way was put into power by the British (((Rothschilds))), flew into Beirut and demanded that Lebanon form a new government without Hezbollah or else.

The government refused to do this, so the (((US))) retaliated and put massive sanctions on all of Lebanon’s banks on the basis that they were all moving Hezbollah money. That was true of course, but Hezbollah is a huge force in Lebanon with massive influence.

The sanctioning of all of Lebanon’s banks has completely collapsed the economy of the country. The (((US))) did this with the purpose of making things so miserable in Lebanon that the people would rise up and throw out Hezbollah. As it is, Hezbollah and allied forces control 6

Clearly, Lebanon’s voters voted for a Hezbollah government. Although (((US))) sanctions wrecked the country, the (((US))) is predictably using the wrecked economy to attack the government by blaming the government for all of the hardship. This is what the US does every time it destroys an economy with sanctions. Put on sanctions, destroy the economy, and then blamed the attacked government for the economic wreckage. It’s obviously a gigantic lie and scam, but apparently most Americans either don’t care or are too dumb to figure it out.

On the anniversary of the fake AN explosion, the LF have been organizing riots and violence all over Lebanon to use the fake incident (which they were probably involved in (((faking))) themselves) to try to overthrow the government.

Alt Left: Chaos in Lebanon

Alt Left: Rural Land Reforms: An Overview

What’s odd is that imperialism went along with land reforms in a lot of other places such as Europe and the Middle East. All of the Middle East has done a land reform.

That was one thing the wave of Arab nationalist leaders who came to power in 1950-1970 did right away, including the Baath in Iraq and Syria, Yemen, Nasser in Egypt, the FLN in Algeria, Tunisia, and Qaddafi in Libya.

I believe there was some type of land reform done in Palestine too. If you read Ghassan Kanafani, the Palestinian Leftist, in the 1930’s, he talked about how terribly exploited the Arab fellahin or peasants were in Palestine.

If you went to Yemen in the 1960’s, there was a portrait of Nasser in every house.

I’m not sure if a land reform was ever done in Morocco. It’s been ruled by a fairly rightwing king for a long time.

A land reform was probably done in Lebanon, but I don’t have details. Likewise with Jordan.

Nothing grows in the Gulf anyway, so there’s no need for a reform.

I’m not sure about Sudan or Mauritania, but I doubt much grows in Mauritania except date palms.

In all of these places, land reform was a very easy sell for whatever reason, probably because neoliberal capitalism seems to be antithetical to Islam itself. The feudal lords of the former Ottoman Empire had tried to justify feudalism on the basis that in the Koran it says something like, “Some are rich and some are poor, and this is a natural thing” but that never went over too well.

The idea that in an Islamic country, the rich Muslims were viciously exploit the poor Muslims is nearly haram on its face. You just can’t do that. All Muslims are part of the ummah. All the Muslim men are your brothers and all the Muslim women are your sisters. Also individualism never made it to any part of the Muslim World other than the Hindu variety in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but that’s not really the same radical individualism that we have in the West. It’s just an ancient caste based system.

The first thing the Communists did in Eastern Europe was to do a land reform. You will never hear it here in the West, but until 1960, the Communist regimes in the East were very popular with industrial workers and also with the peasants.

In most of the world, peasants and rural dwellers are leftwingers. This is even the case in Western Europe in France.

The US is odd in that it’s farmers are so reactionary. That goes against the usual trend.

Yes, farmers are said to be conservatives, but that usually just means social conservatism. In most of the world, peasants are literally Alt Left: left on economics and right on social and cultural issues.

A land reform was definitely done in Iran.

Obviously one was done in the USSR, and the large landowners have not yet consolidated themselves in the former USSR, mostly because everybody hates them. Large landowners have taken over some of the state farms in Russia, but for whatever reason, they are not very productive. In fact, many of the state farms are still in existence. I am not sure what sort of arrangement they have now.

5

After World War 2, the US supported land reforms in some places as a way of heading off a Communist threat. This is one great thing about the Communists. So many great steps of social progress were only done out of fear or terror that if these were not done, the Communists would take over. Now that that threat is gone, one wonders what motivation the oligarchs have to give up anything.

In particular, land reforms were done in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. They went over very easily. And in fact, the subsequent economic growth occurred right on the back of these reforms. There is a good argument that you can never develop a proper economy without first doing a land reform.

First of all, you need to get rid of the problem of rural poverty.

Second of all, you need to feed your own people. Large landowners in these countries typically grow food for export or simply fallow the land and keep it as an income base or a source of wealth.

When crops are grown for export, there is a problem in that the nation does not grow enough food to feed its people. This is a problem in Cuba and Venezuela right now, and it should not be. These are very fertile countries and there is no need to import food, but they have gotten hooked on some sort of “crack” of importing their food for whatever reason, possibly because most of their farmland was being used to grow crops for export.

When a nation can feed itself, this means it can feed its urban workers. This is extremely important and it is part of the reason that Stalin went at such breakneck speed in his collectivization. He had to feed his urban workers so he could industrialize because even back then, he was looking into the future and seeing that he was going to have to fight Hitler.

I’m not quite sure why, but no country seems to be able to properly industrialize and develop as long as the problem of rural poverty exists.

And once you are feeding your own people, you have solved a lot of other problems. Money that would be wasted importing inferior food from the West, especially the US, can now be spent on actual development of a national economy. The elimination of rural poverty gets rid of a constant revolutionary bur in the side of the state.

The US has always opposed land reform in Latin America because large US corporations are usually involved in growing foods for export down there. See Dole Pineapple in Guatemala. We want all of their agricultural land to go for export crops so US corporations can grow those crops or make money importing them. And we do not want them to grow their own food. That way there won’t be so much land for export crops which we need to make money off of.

Also, we want them to spend all of their food money importing lousy processed food from the US. So we make money on food both ways – importing food from crops grown for export to the US and in exporting processed food to the Latin America. This processed food is not very good for you and it is implicated in a lot of health problems in these places.

This is why the US opposes most efforts at land reform in the Americas.

An exception was made in El Salvador. After 200,000 people died, the US and the Salvadoran oligarchs were forced to the negotiating table and a land reform was one of the first things they pushed. I recall a piece written soon afterwards where the reporter went out to the rural areas and interviewed recipients of the land reform. They basically said, “Well, at least we can eat now. It wasn’t like that before.”

In semi-feudal countries, there is debt bondage whereby large landowners rent out their land to sharecroppers or peasants who never seem to get out of debt. This is a very primitive form of development.

The Philippines is notable that there has never been a land reform. And of course they have a vicious Communist insurgency.

Nor has there been one in Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, Paraguay, Honduras, or Argentina. The first five countries are horribly screwed up. Colombia and Paraguay have active armed leftwing guerrillas, and Guatemala did for many years. Haiti is a disaster. Honduras has a vicious rightwing dictatorship that has murdered over 1,000 people.

Argentina is mostly urbanized, but the landed rural elite still runs the country. Any talk at all of land reform or even taxation of large estates as was done recently under Christine Fernandez, and the ruling class starts making ominous threats of a coup. I assume something similar is going on in Uruguay. Those countries are urbanized though, so large landownership is not such a problem.

I’m not sure if there has ever been a land reform in Brazil, but there is no dearth of large landowners.

The fact that Colombia, Guatemala, and Haiti are so backwards is largely because there has never been a land reform.

The land reform was incomplete in Venezuela.

It is interesting that every country that fails to do a land reform seems to end up with a Communist or Leftist insurgency at some point or another. It’s almost without fail. This goes to show you that most Communist insurgencies in the Third World are over the most basic things dating all the way back to French Revolution: land and bread (food).

As far as land reforms go, they were done in Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Peru.

I’m not sure about Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Panama, Jamaica, Belize, the Guyanas, Chile, and most of the Caribbean.

And I’m not sure if one ever got done in the Dominican Republic after Bosch.

In El Salvador, 200,000 had to die in order for a land reform to take place. Roberto D’Aubission, the godfather of the Salvadoran death squads and the most favored visitor at the US Embassy, once said that “We will have to kill 200,000 people in order to prevent socialism in El Salvador.” What he meant by socialism was land reform.

It is notable that no land reform was ever done in India, nor in Pakistan or even Bangladesh. I had a friend whose parents were large feudal landowners in Pakistan who rented out land to farmers who ended up in debt peonage. In 1986, 14 million people a year were dying of starvation related diseases in the capitalist world. Most of that was in South Asia in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India. Most of these deaths were attributed to the problem of the private ownership of land.

There is a problem with the private ownership of land. In the US, we think this is sacrosanct, but on a worldwide basis, it doesn’t work very well. What do you need all that land for? What do you need more than, say, an acre and a house? Nothing, unless you are a farmer.

In China, all land is owned by the state. All homeowners lease the land, often on 100 year leases. I’m not sure how it works in the countryside.

In Mexico, much of the land is owned by the state also, a product of the land reform that occurred after the Revolution. One of the major demands of the Revolution was land reform. Pre-revolution, most peasants usually lived like serfs. The state land in Mexico is called ejidos.

If you ever can’t make it in the city, if you become unemployed or homeless, you can always go out to the countryside and take up residence in an ejido, which are something like communal lands that are formed by the group that makes up the ejido. You join this group, work the land, and get a share of the crop. At least you have enough food to eat. So in Mexico the ejidos are a stopgap measure.

In China too, if you can’t make it in the city, you can always go back to the rural areas, take up residence, and work the land. At least you will have enough to food to eat. It is illegal to be homeless in China. If you are homeless, the police pick you up and put you in shelters, which are something like college dorms. They also encourage you to go back to the countryside if you have relatives back there. In recent years, many people have moved from the countryside to the cities to make more money. Those that don’t make it can always move back to the farm.

There was debate a while back about privatizing state land, but it ran aground on the idea that the state ownership of land was necessary as a stopgap measure in the event of urban poverty. In addition, state ownership of land has prevented the development of a national oligarchy or plutocracy.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been adamant that the  development of a national oligarchy or plutocracy must be prevented at all costs. Once they develop, they are sort of like an infection in that they soon spread and take over society. The CCP has billionaire party members who are members of the People’s Assembly.

Guess what these “Communists” are advocating for? Reduction or elimination of taxes on the rich, massive reductions in social spending, state repression of labor, and the privatization of land along with most of the rest of the economy. I think this goes to show you that billionaires are the same everywhere. Whether in a Communist or capitalist country, a rightwing or leftwing country, billionaires always have precisely the same class interests that barely vary at all. It’s usually something like this:

Reduction or elimination of taxes on the rich, massive reductions in social spending, state repression of labor, and the privatization of land along with most of the rest of the economy.

This goes to show that class interests of various classes are nearly a  law in a mathematical sense and not even a theory of social science. This was what Marx was getting at when he spoke of the laws of economics. They are so predictable that we can almost class them with the laws, theorems, and corollaries of mathematics instead of the typical “true for now” theories of most of the sciences.

I have a feeling that a Hell of a lot more things are laws, too, especially in terms of basic human behavior. So many of these things seem almost unchangeable. Of course they would never apply to everyone, but it’s pretty obvious that they are general tendencies.

Alt Left: Anti-Aircraft Missile Lands Near Dimona

About a month ago, Israeli jets attacked Syria for the umpteenth time. They’ve probably attacked them a thousand times since the war started. Of course, Syria can’t lift one finger to hit back because of they do, those (((dogs in Israel))), like all (((bullies))), will say that they got attacked for no reason and now they have to defend themselves.

And they’ve threatened to raze Syria to the ground if Syria so much as looks at them wrong when they get attacked. That’s the bully. The bully beats you up all the time, all the while saying you are attacking him. Israel bombs Syria constantly, all the while saying Syria is attacking it.

If you dare to fight back against the bully even one time, he goes completely crazy and tries to destroy you in some way or another.

That is because you, the victim, are not allowed to retaliate against the bully. It is as if you are upsetting the whole fabric of the bullying itself. It’s a slave rebellion and you know how outraged masters get when slaves fight back. So Israel is just a typical 8th grade punk that everyone hates going around beating up on all the weaker, wimpier, or effeminate boys. America is also a bully country. In fact, we are the biggest bully in the whole world. So naturally we form an alliance with the Israeli bully as bullies tend to befriend other bullies.

Sometimes shells from the Syrian Civil War go errant and fly into the Golan Heights. Syria attacks the Syrian Army every time this happens, saying it “holds Syria responsible for any shells that come over its border.” Except the shells are often launched by the rebels. Syria is not allowed to fight back against these attacks because Israel threatens to destroy Syria if it lifts a finger against it.

Israel, of course, in tribute to its kind, humanitarian nature, has been treating ISIS and Al Qaeda rebels in Syria. All they have to do is present themselves at the border saying they’re wounded and it’s a first class ticket to an Israeli hospital. But the US, UK, France, Turkey, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia have also been supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria. In the case of Al Qaeda, a while back, a former East German journalist who now works for a German newspaper who is somehow not completely cucked got an interview with an Al Qaeda commander in a cave in Aleppo Province.

The commander was emphatic that US, UK, Turkish, Ermirati, Saudi, Israeli, and US intelligence officers were all embedded with Al Qaeda forces in Syria. In fact, when Aleppo was being liberated by the Syrian Army, Syria announced that 10 US intelligence officers were still holed up in the last strongholds of the city. Syria said the US was demanding that they be allowed to evacuate their Al Qaeda-embedded US spies. The Syrian government even published a list of the  10 spies. The execrable Samantha Power, a Democrat (!) was having hissy fits in Aleppo while all of this was going on. Even Biden admitted that we had been supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria for a long time.

Anyway, Israel was bombing Syria as usual, and Syria fired some Anti-air missiles at the Israeli jets, which it missed as usual. One was an F-5 Anti-aircraft missile. These missiles have a short range and if they miss their target, they are programmed to simply fall towards the ground and explode, I believe in the air.

At around this time, there was a huge blast from a missile or a rocket 20 miles north of the Dimona nuclear plant in Dimona, Israel. Israel quickly reported that an F-5 Syrian missile fired at an Israeli jet over the Golan traveled all the down to Dimona and blew up on the ground. First of all, I don’t think they blow up on the ground. Second of all, an F-5 missile does not have a very long range, surely not all the way down to Dimona. Third, even if it did blow up on the ground, it would not make a very big explosion, not as large as the one reported. Fourth, it somehow managed to completely evade the Iron Dome and all Israeli radars. Fifth, as I noted, it would have blown up in the air after it missed the jet.

A colleague of mine, E.J. Magnier, wrote an article saying everything above. He also said that the attack was not done by a anti-air missile but by a ballistic missile, a Fajr-110. It flies very fast so it can evade the Iron Dome, besides I don’t think that Dome is much use against actual ballistic missiles. An interesting report from Veterans Today said that Russia used electronic warfare to jam the Iron Dome’s radars, enabling the ballistic missile to slip by unnoticed. I think there is something to it, but E.J. poo-pooed it in an email to me.

On the other hand, rejects a lot of stuff. He still believes that 2,800 pounds of unexplodable fertilizer somehow blew up in a harbor in Beirut because that is the lie that Hezbollah and Iran told him. Hez and Iran had reason to lie about the Israeli nuclear bomb attack on Beirut because it would be an extremely demoralizing thing to report to the Iranian and Lebanese people as it would imply an omnipotent Israel and there was no way for either Hezbollah or Iran to retaliate against Israel.

Anyway, it appears that that was a Syrian knockoff of an Iranian Fajr-110 ballistic missile. And it appears that Iran either helped launch it or gave it a go-ahead. And Russia may well have assisted with the electronic warfare because Israel was stunned that the missile got through. E.J. said it is because these missiles fly very fast, hence they can avoid the Iron Dome. I doubt if that is true. Anyway, this missile caused a huge explosion 20 miles north of Dimona in an open area. That missile has a targeting that causes it to land within 12 feet of where it is programmed to land. That is, it is a guided missile. So it was targeted to land just there.

This was a message to Israel from Syria and especially Iran to watch it. It was also payback for the endless attacks on Iran and Syria that Israel has engaged in. And it also said that we can shoot a missile that can hit your nuclear reactor, a huge ballistic missile that flies very fast, and we know how to make it invisible to your radars and anti-aircraft batteries.

In other words, paybacks from Iran and Syria.

Alt Left: Christianity Is Anti-Capitalist?

Christianity Is Anti-Capitalist?

James Schipper: Still, theologically, Christianity is not a capitalism-friendly religion. There is nothing in the NT which encourages wealth accumulation or expresses admiration for the rich. In earlier times, there were very rich monasteries but also monastic orders which are committed to poverty, such as the Franciscans. These monasteries were rich for the same reason that Harvard and Yale are very rich. They became rich through donations and bequests.

Sure, theologically it may be so, but in practice, capitalism, extreme inequality, and class hatred have been accommodated in Christian countries quite easily.

You can say that Christianity is against capitalism all you want, but it hasn’t worked out that way in the West.

Social democracy was an easy sell in Europe, but the US is worse classwise than any European country. In the US we almost have a celebration of inequality and that’s somehow been accommodated with the Christianity, which seems weird. The Gospel of Wealth the Evangelicals practice here strikes me as downright heretical though. If Jesus was around, he’d reject it.

Feudalism lasted a long time in Europe, and early capitalism in England was horrible from the 1300’s-1800’s. England is terribly classist even today, but there’s a huge backlash. Thatcher was burned in effigy all over the UK when she died. Can you imagine that happening with Reagan in the US? The class hatred in the UK is pretty raw.

Classism in France was awful, but they killed their rich, and now it’s socialist.

Germany never had a vicious capitalist class. The Kaiser put in the first social democracy in the late 1800’s. It went over easily.

Italy’s never been all that classist, nor has Greece. After World War 2 in Italy, Communists were set to win local elections all over Italy but the US CIA got involved and there was massive election fraud that cheated them out of a victory. But Eurocommunists have been running states in Italy for decades, especially in the North. They’ve had a heavy emphasis on small business at the expense of big business and it’s worked great. I had a commenter on here who owned a small factory in a northern state and he loved the local Communist government. And he was a capitalist! In Greece, the Communists almost won a revolution.

I don’t think Eastern Europe has been classist. Communism went over easily there.

Communism went over easily in Yugoslavia too, though it was a modified form. It was also very popular. I know people who lived there, and they loved it. They almost won in Turkey too.

The Baltics are not classist and neither is Scandinavia. That area is all based on egalitarianism.

Spain and Portugal were classist, but there was a civil war in Spain, and it’s a pretty socialist country right now.

There was a Leftist Carnation Revolution in 1974 that overthrew Salazar’s fascism and a Leftist regime was nearly installed. It was very popular.

Alt Left: Right and Left in Islamic and Catholic Societies

If you’re not careful, the media will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and cheering the people doing the oppressing.

Malcolm X

This is precisely the function of the media in a capitalist society. The Chinese media is not like this because, duh, China is not a capitalist country! Nor is the Iranian media because Iran is not a capitalist country. In fact, Iran is almost something like “Islamic Communism.” I’m not wild about Ayatollah Khomeini, but he did have a strong social justice streak.

The Revolution was populist, pro-independence, and anti-imperialist. Iran is almost based on a Muslim version of Liberation Theology or “the preferential option of the poor.” The social safety net is huge in Iran. Also, much of the economy is run by the state. It’s actually run by religious charities, often with ties to the military and the IRGC. I believe these religious charities do not operate at a profit. Small businesses are not bothered at all, as in all Muslim countries. I was reading Ayatollah Khameini’s tweets for a while on Twitter, and I could have been reading Che Guevara. Basically the same message.

Islam is just not friendly to neoliberal economics or radical individualism. It is a very collectivist religion in a very collectivist society.

Neoliberalism hasn’t caught on much of anywhere in the Muslim world other than Indonesia and the Southern Philippines, and they had to murder 1 million Communists in cold blood to get there in Indonesia and the Moros have always rejected Catholic rule in both a political and economic sense. it is notable that the Maoist NPA are also huge in Mindanao, home of the Moros.

Pakistan, too, has inherited the selfish economics and even feudalism in land tenure straight from Indian Hinduism. They even have caste, which would be considered an aberration in any decent Muslim society.

All of the Arab countries are basically socialist at least in name, and that was never a hard sell there. It’s true that 100 years ago, the Arab lands were mostly feudal in nature, with big landowners and peasants in debt bondage. They rich had co-opted the religious authorities like they always do, and the mullahs preached that Islamic feudalism was right and proper because the Prophet had said, “It is normal that some are rich and some are poor.” But it was always a hard sell, and it had a very weak foundation.

After independence, socialism was instituted in most if not all Arab countries at least in name. In particular, huge land reforms were done in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Palestine. I assume something like that was done in Algeria too. It was a very easy sell, and everyone went along with it without a hitch. The mullahs quickly changed from support for feudalism to support for socialism.

Hamas rules Gaza and I was shocked at how huge the social safety net is. The many religious charities run the safety net, which is distributed under the rubric of Islam. This is done instead of the state doling it out.

Mohammad himself didn’t have much to say about economics, but he wasn’t a neoliberal capitalist or a feudalist.

In Christian societies, the rich have utter contempt and hatred for the poor, who they regard as little more than human garbage. If you want to see this philosophy in action, look at the classism in Latin America. As all Muslims are part of the umma, and hence, as all are brothers and sisters, it is simply unconscionable that wealthy Muslims would be able to openly hate poor Muslims. You simply cannot treat your fellow Muslims like that. It’s not officially haram but it might as well be.

European Style Fascism in the Middle East

It is instructive that the only place in the Arab world where neoliberal economics and in particular Libertarianism took hold was in Lebanon, and even there, it was only among Catholic Maronites. Most Arab Christians look east to Antioch (and before that, Constantinople) to the Eastern Orthodox church, which is really just the eastern wing of Catholicism.

The Maronites, though, deride Antioch and instead look to Rome. They see themselves as European people instead of Arabs. Many deny that they are Arabs and instead refer to themselves as “Phoenicians.” It is interesting that the only real classical fascism in the Arab World  took hold in the Lebanese Maronites, where the Gameyels imported it from Europe in the 1930’s.

The Jews of Israel also developed a very European form of fascism starting with Jabotinsky and his book The Iron Wall in 1921. This man was an open fascist. He is considered to be the spiritual father of the Likud Party. During the 1940’s, the armed Jewish rebels split into leftwingers who were almost Communists and rightwingers who were more or less fascists.

The Kahanists today look a lot like a European fascist party. And in fact, the entire Israeli rightwing around Likud, etc. looks pretty fascist in a European sense. So Israeli Jews are really Jewish fascists or fascist Jews. It has never been an easy ride for liberal and secular US Jews to support the Orthodox religious fanatics and rightwingers if not out and out fascists in the Likud, etc. in Israel. This was always completely unstable, and after that latest war, it’s finally starting to fall apart. But the seeds of destruction were already there.

But note that the Jews of Israel very much look to the West and see themselves as Europeans (which many are for all intents and purposes). They align themselves with the Judeo-Christian European society that many of them came from.

Half of Israeli Jews are Mizrachi Jews from the Arab World, and they have always had a Judeo-Islamic culture. However, when they moved to Israel, this was dismantled by perhaps not entirely. They rejected it due to the association of Arabs and Islam with the enemy, which is correct.

Economics and Catholicism

This radical classism and near-feudalism in Latin America was supported by the Catholic Church, which was always a very rightwing institution because they were always in bed with the rich. There were always Left splits in Catholicism like Dorothy Day and The Catholic Worker. The Catholic clergy in the US has tended to be quite leftwing.

There is a long history of “Catholic Communism” in the Philippines, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, the Basque Country, France, Italy, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Cuba, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay. The IRA was a leftwing Catholic armed group. A lot of priests were caught hiding IRA cadre. So was the ETA in the Basque Country of Spain.

Catholic Leftism never caught on in Poland and Lithuania due to hatred of Russia and the USSR. Nevertheless, both are more or less socialist countries.

Even today there is an active “Catholic Communist” movement in Cuba that is very lively. In Honduras and Colombia, Catholic priests actually led guerrilla bands. Liberation Theoloy is something like “Jesus Christ with an AK-47.” The Leftist who recently took power in Paraguay was a former Catholic priest.

The ELN was founded by a priest, Camilo Torres, and many Catholic clergy even supported the Shining Path! Edith Lagos, a 20 year old woman, was the leader of a very early Shining Path column in Peru. She was killed in 1980 and the entire town of Ayacucho, 30,0000 people, came out for her funeral which was held at midnight. The lines of mourners stretched through the whole city. All of the priests in town blessed her body, and she was given a proper Catholic funeral.

I believe that the PT or Workers Party of Brazil has a large Liberation Theology component. The Catholic clergy had an excellent relationship with the FARC in Colombia. Of course, the Catholic clergy played a big role in Venezeula, and Hugo Chavez himself was a practicing Catholic. The FMLN Salvadoran rebels were explicitly Catholic, as were the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. One of the Sandinists’ top leaders, Tomas Borge, was a Catholic priest. Jean-Paul Aristide in Haiti was a Catholic priest. Catholic believers are now allowed to join the Communist Party in Cuba, and near the end of his life, Fidel Castro said he was a “cultural Catholic.”

After Vatican 2 and Liberation Theology began to spread out via the seminal documents written by Gustavo Gutierrez in Brazil, “A Theology of Liberation,” otherwise known as “exercising the preferential option for the poor,” it began to spread in Latin America. It started with local priests and especially Catholic lay workers in impoverished areas and then slowly spread. Even today, Catholic layworkers and especially seminaries are very leftwing, while the Vatican itself is not. A lot of seminaries are hotbeds of homosexuality, and the gay priests and lay workers are quite open about it. It is estimated that 1

A Brief Overview of the Langues d’Oil

The French language is only one of the langues d’oil, a group of languages that developed out of Old French around ~1000. They’ve all been separated from Old French for about 1,000 years. It’s uncertain how many of these are still alive. It’s also unknown how many are still full languages and how many have simply turned into dialects of regional French. Mutual intelligibility is also not known with most of these languages and few if any studies have been undertaken. Another problem is that the languages themselves range from forms of regional French to full-blown separate languages.

The French language itself is a langue d’oil called Francien that was chosen as the de facto French language several hundred years ago. However, as recently as 100 years ago, 8

Percheron, spoken very close to Paris. Said to be extinct but there are still some speakers. Together with Sarthois in Manceau.

Berrichon, spoken in Berry. Said to be extinct but still has speakers.

Tourangeou, spoken in Tours. Said to be extinct, but it is still spoken in the rural areas.

Orleanais, said to be extinct but still spoken in the rural areas.

Manceau or Mainot, spoken in Mans. Said to be a French dialect, but is really a language. Said to be extinct but still spoken. Includes Percheron and Sarthois.

Sarthois, spoken in Sarthe, probably a separate language. Together with Percheron in Manceau.

Mayennais, spoken in Mayenne, probably a separate language.

Gallo, still spoken in Brittany, 300,000 speakers. Lot of Breton words. Gallo was formed from Manceau, Sarthois, Mayennais, and Percheron.

Angevin, spoken in Anjou, together with Gallo but a separate language. Said to be nearly extinct but still spoken.

Poitevin, spoken in Poitiers, separate language. There are still native monolinguals in their 60’s who cannot even speak French!

Saintangenais, spoken in Western France, separate language. Still fairly widely spoken. This is together with Poitevin.

Norman or Normand, different types, separate language, still spoken. Cotentinais still has native speakers in their 40’s, farm workers.

Gernesiais Norman, spoken on Guernsey. Probably two different languages.

Jerriais, spoken on Jersey, separate language from Gernesiais.

Sercquiais, spoken on Sark Island, only 15 speakers left, separate language.

There are different Norman forms spoken on the mainland in Normandy. Cauchois, Cotentin, etc.

Picard, spoken in Picardy, still widely spoken in different forms that all seem to be dialects of one language. A separate language, still fairly widely spoken, especially by coal miners.

Champenois spoken in Champagne, still spoken but going extinct, separate language. Ardennois is a dialect spoken in the Ardennes, still spoken.

Lorrain spoken in the Loire, still spoken in different forms but going extinct.

Bourguignon, separate language, still spoken in Burgundy. Fairly widely spoken.

Bourbonnais, probably a separate language, spoken in Burgundy. Close to Berrichon.

Franche-Comte, still spoken in Franche-Comte mostly by old people.

Alt Left: The Chameleon-Like Nature of Fascism

I wrote this in objection to a paper under review right now on Academia by a Left professor of Somatic Psychology, a PhD and a very smart man, who quotes Wilhelm Reich, a Jewish pro-sex and anti-fascist writer, as saying that fascists are out of touch with their bodies. Presumably antifascists are in touch with their bodies and not repressed. Apparently sexual repression and being out of touch with your body is part of the genesis of fascism. I don’t agree. Here is my response, in part.

I think that quoting Reich on fascism is not the greatest idea. He’s not the best person to ask about fascist theory. The modern intellectual descendants of Reich (the Cultural Left) don’t have a very good view of fascism.

Further, Reich was an extreme sexual libertine who may have molested his sister and raped his maids as a boy. Reich’s sexual libertinism was rejected by all Communists in the last century and is still condemned in existing Communist countries. So Reich’s critique is ill-formed, as the Communists were just as bad as the fascists when it came to Reich’s libertinism.

Fascists are sexually repressed? I don’t know. I’ve run into some MAGA women lately who are ridiculously libertine to the point of being degenerate or depraved. They’re about this far from becoming out and out porn stars. Yet fascists they are. A friend used to be an actor in the porn industry. He told me that the industry is full of conservatives. I’m aware of a few pornstars who were basically White Supremacists.

Donald Trump’s fascism was nearly a “pornographic fascism.” He cavorted with pornstars, cheated on all of his wives, made lewd remarks about his own daughter and the teenage underage daughters of his friends, reportedly attended sex orgies, and may have raped a 13 year old girl and forced a 12 and 13 year old girl to have sex with each other. He’s as libertine as Reich, yet he’s a fascist.

Better definitions are coming out of serious scholars of the Left. There area number of modern scholars who are trying to pin down exactly what fascism is. Almost all are operating from the Left. Among these superb modern theorists of fascism are David Neiwert who blogs at Daily Kos, the authors of a blog called Three Way Fight (not sure if it’s still up), along with excellent political scientists working out of the universities.

Better older analyses of fascism also come from Lenin and especially from Trotsky, who wrote some of the best essays on fascism ever written.

A “popular dictatorship against the Left” seems to be the best definition. “Palingetic nationalism” is another, referring to the bird that rises from the ashes in mythology. Fascism appeals to “the everyman,” “the man on the street” – “the shirtless ones” of Peronist fame. That’s the appeal – to your “basic man” and “basic woman.” It also appeals to strong primitive drives of aggression, violence, projection of failures onto outsiders, expansionism, often imperialism, an opposition to liberalism and democracy. It also opposes equality and in favor of hierarchy.

Fascism involves a reverence for sacred violence bordering on the religious, a worship of “the greatness of the ancestors,” a dialogue to restore “the glory days of yore” from the ruins of the “degenerate present”, ruined by liberals, democracy, anti-nationals, nation-haters, and traitors.

Fascism has historically supported a return to traditional values and a rejection of degenerate modernism, but as we can see in the “pornographic fascism” of Donald Trump, that’s not necessarily the case anymore.

Fascism also always advocated a return to traditional male female role models, but that need to be a hindrance to basic equal de jure rights for women, as seen in the many successful MAGA women and the many often-religious MAGA men who love and cherish their wives.

Fascism has typically targeted minorities and has been racist. People think that fascism is inherently anti-Semitic, yet many early Zionists such as Jabotinsky were open fascists and supported the fascist movement in Europe. Some of the early Israeli guerrillas were Jabotinskist fascists.

I’d argue that Israel has been fascist from Day One, but certainly with the coming of Sharon and Netanyahu, the ideological descendants of Jabotinskyist fascism, Israel became literally a fascist country. Jacobinsky is the hero and spiritual founder of the Likud Party. He was an early Zionist who wrote a book in 1921 called The Iron Wall. He and his followers were strong supporters of the fascist parties in Europe in the 1920’s and 30’s. Some of the early Zionist guerrilla organizations were Jabotinskyist fascists.

In Lebanon, the Gemayalist Phalangists named after a general named Gemayal, are an actual literal fascist party. Even their name is fascist as phalange is a popular name for fascist parties. They are Christian Maronites who see themselves as transplanted Europeans, descendants of “Phoenicians,” who despise Arabs and Islam. They are also the most pro-Israel party in Lebanon. This founder of this party had photos of Hitler in his school locker when he was in high school and the party’s ideology is modeled on the classic European fascism of the 30’s.

Israeli fascism is not anti-Semitic at all, and many White Supremacists actually support Israel as the model for the racist state they wish to set up. Many dislike Jews in the Diaspora who are seen as anti-national, but have no problem with the fascist Jews in Israel and see them as fellow fascists.

A number of the anti-immigrant Right parties in Europe are pro-Israel, including the National Front in France, the AfD in Germany, and the neo-Nazi party in Austria! They often like Israel because of its strong anti-Muslim orientation. Along the same lines, the Muslim-hating Hindu nationalist fascists ruling India in the form of the BJP party, are very pro-Israel.

The pro-fascist Spanish and Italian conservatives, remnants of former large fascist movements in those countries, are pro-Israel. The fascist Saudis, Bahrainis, Egyptians, Moroccans, and Ermiratis are now pro-Israel. They’ve always been Rightists so it’s no surprise. So philosemitic fascism is absolutely possible and even existing.

Arab nationalists have always been quite fascist despite their Leftist trappings. Saddam was a fascist, as was Hafez Assad. Some think Bashar Assad is a fascist. The North African leaders, all Arab Nationalists, were fascists in the sense that they tried to destroy the Berbers’ identity and make everyone into an Arab. The Assads and Saddam also attacked Kurds and Assyrians, in both cases in attempts to turn everyone into an Arab. Saddam also attacked Turkmen. And he discriminated against Iraqis of Iranian background in the South so much that he threw hundreds of thousands of them out of the country.

The Moroccan fascists are even expansionists, having invaded Spanish Sahara. The Indonesian fascists committed genocide in East Timor and Aceh and in the entire country against Communists when they unleashed a genocide in 1965 that murdered 1 million Communist in less than a couple of months. It was as bad as the Rwandan genocide.

All of these are examples of “Muslim fascists,” so fascism and Islam are quite compatible.

There seems to be a view in the West that fascism must be White Supremacist and of course it must be anti-Semitic.

None of the above were White Supremacists. They were all non-Whites, and none were self-haters.

Also as you can see above, fascism need not be anti-Semitic.

I also listed a number of fascist and anti-Islamic movements, rightwing dictatorships along with the post-fascist conservatives in Spain and Italy. The former fascist followers of Mussolini and Franco simply melted into the rightwing movements of both countries. In Spain it was the Conservative Party, a party with fascist roots.The Francoists simply changed clothes and melted into the Conservative Party. Francoism is still extremely popular, mostly in the form of anti-separatism, these days. I’ve been to their very popular websites.

Burlusconi in Italy has inherited the descendants of fascism in Italy. A fascist and racist separatist and somewhat White Supremacist movement has formed in Northern Italy. They are White Supremacists in the sense that  they claim the are Celts or “pure Whites” and they despise Southern Italians as de facto “niggers.”

A friend in Italy told me that fascism was still very popular in Italy to this very day, although it was also widely hated as the Left in Italy is often Far Left or almost Communist. There are cities in Sicily were the leftwingers are all Communists and the rightwingers are all fascists. They engage in street battles all the time.

My friend told me that the Red Brigades, an anti-fascist Far Left group of Communists that attacked the state, was extremely popular in Northern Italy, particularly in Vicenzia Province where he lived. His sister was a strong supporter of the Red Brigades, and she came from a normal middle class background in Trieste.

Fascism is said to be anti-Muslim, yet we have Islamic fascism in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Brunei, Morocco, and probably the Taliban in Afghanistan. Turkey and Azerbaijan are classic fascists of the 1930’s type, however they have married this to Ottoman imperialism and Islamic jihadism, particularly the genocidal variety that held sway in Turkey from 1880 until 1940.

That the Taliban are a new sort of fascism was an argument of the Leftists at Three Way Fight. I’m not sure I agree with that. Other Muslim fascists used to rule in Indonesia,  Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Iran. Above I listed more Muslim fascists in the Arab World, who might better be described as rightwing dictatorships.

Fascism is chameleon-like and changes shape endlessly to mirror and capture whatever times it is in. I can even see chameleon-like fascists adopting yoga, meditation, and bodywork, the “Left” body psychology mechanisms the author refers to. Hitler was a vegetarian and a good animal rights supporter, if terrible in so many other ways.

This aspect of fascism of what makes this political mercury blob so hard to pin down. Indeed, many fascists pose as anti-Nazis and anti-fascists and accuse anti-fascists of being fascists! I’ve seen this with my own eyes.

Problem is the Modern Left starts talking about fascism, and it immediately degenerates into propaganda and nonsense where we push views that line up whatever biases our Left formation is pushing du jour. The Cultural Left, which is almost devoid of intelligence or intellectual honesty of any sort, in particular cannot be relied upon, as almost everything coming out of there is propaganda and a lie in some form or another. For instance, the Cultural Left argues that White Supremacists, anti-feminists (or what feminists would call misogynists), homophobes, and transphobes are all “fascists.”

That’s utter nonsense as none of this Identity Stuff has anything to do with the Left in the first place, as the Left is only about economics and many Communists of the last century were in fact social conservatives described under the epithets above. Many of the antifascist fighters fighting in the Allies in World War 2 were White Supremacists, racists (in particular, racist against Blacks), “misogynists” (or at the very least strong sexists), and virulent homophobes. Trannies didn’t exist back then, but they would have been hated much worse than gays.

The very racist White Southern Democrats of that time absolutely despised Hitler, Mussolini, and the rest of the European fascists along with the Japanese, who were promoting a sort of “fascist militarism.”

The Cultural Left would have us believe that Stalin, Mao, Castro, Hoxha, Deng, Ho Chi Minh, the Bulgarian Communists, etc. were all fascists because they were social conservatives. Homosexuality was banned as a bourgeois vice in the Eastern Blog. The Shining Path executed homosexuals and cocaine abusers (another bourgeois vice). The Khmer Rogue were terribly racist. I don’t think anyone will deny that they were Communists.

Even Strasserites are Communists, granted they were odd ones. Further, Strasser had no biological race-based objection to Jews. He had an economic objection. And he wasn’t the best anti-Semite. He kept asking the others why they were so overboard on the Jewish Question.

Stalin wasn’t the best on women’s rights.

The Bulgarian Communists had opinions on race that would be considered Nazism nowadays.

As noted, homosexuality was banned in all of the Communist World. Castro put them in labor camps. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation even today doesn’t have the best policy on gays nor on Jews for that matter. I’m pretty sure they are Communists.

Trans people were not even acknowledged by any Communist country ever.

We have to completely rethink our view of fascism.

It is perfectly possible to have a libertine fascism in a porn-drenched society, which is what we just went through with Trump. MAGA folks are not repressed at all in my observation. They’re not out of touch with their bodies. The Sex Revolution of the 60’s which I was a part of took care of that.

MAGA fascism even allowed for equal rights for women. MAGA women do not appear to be discriminated against legally. A lot of them made a lot of money and held high positions.

Fascism has always been homophobic, yet the Nazi brownshirts were full of homosexuals, and I’ve talked to many gay MAGA types.

I assure you that there are gay MAGA folks. I’ve talked to a number of them. Mitch McConnell is a lifelong homosexual. He’s as fascist as they come. The first brownshirts were full of homosexuals. The Republican Convention welcomed an open fascist, the founder of Ebay, to their convention. They gave him a standing ovation.

I’m aware of Neo-Nazis to this day who are open homosexuals. James O’Meara was one. A number of White Supremacists have been outed as closeted gays. One was murdered by his young Black boyfriend. A friend used to be involved in these groups and he told me that was a LOT of homosexuality in this scene.

Brazilian fascist integralism was multi-racial and formally anti-racist, populist to the core. But Bolsonaro does not come from this milieu; he represents an actual throwback in some ways to classical European fascism of the 1930’s.

Fascism has traditionally been racist, but Black and Indian fascism is a real thing. I believe that fascism knows no color. The Tonton Macoutes of Haiti were black fascists. The Black Hutu government in Rwanda was fascist, as was Mobutu in Zaire and Samuel Doe in Liberia.

A fascist indigenist Indian rights activist is running for President in Ecuador. He’s pulled support from Cultural Left morons who support his Identity Politics while overlooking his fascism, a typical error of IP types, who are the a scourge of the Left.

Obviously modern fascism opposes transsexualism, but that’s not necessarily the case into the future. Caitlin Jenner, a fully-transitioned transwoman, is MAGA.

In the future we may see even forms of fascism that offer equal rights to gays and maybe even transsexuals.

Alt Left: The Death of Social Democracy in Europe

If you haven’t noticed, there’s no more social democracy or democratic socialism in Europe. Probably the only thing left is Belarus, Moldova, Turkey, and Russia. Possibly Iceland because they told the banks to go pound sand. Greece elected a Leftist government, Syriza, that quickly went full-blown neoliberal, reportedly out of necessity. What has happened to social democracy is something that any Marxist could have predicted – the incompatibility of even trying to have any sort of socialist society in the midst of a capitalist economy.

The fate of social democracy is the what has always been the fate of social liberalism in the US and its counterpart in Canada and Australia. All of these variants have never been anything but reactionary on foreign policy – smashing the slightest sign of liberalism anywhere in the world if it even dared to peek its head out. Many governments in Latin America were overthrown for the crime of raising the minimum wage.

And most of these were overthrown by “liberal” Democratic governments. Bill Clinton set the stage for the overthrow of Aristide. Aristide’s crime? He dared to raise the minimum wage. He had investments in some factories there. So did Hilary. Hilary overthrew Honduras. The crime? Raising the minimum wage.

Even FDR, the most progressive President of the 20th century, was a raving reactionary freak on foreign policy. “Somoza may be a sonofabitch, but he’s our sonofabitch.”

Teddy Roosevelt was progressive at home but an imperialist brute overseas. “Walk softly and carry a big stick.”

The standard formula for all of these countries has always been some form of liberalism at home combined with hard right or ultra right policies that favored rightwing dictatorships, death squads, the genocide of the Left, and out and out fascism overseas. Liberal at home, reactionary abroad. And now Joe Biden, one of the most liberal Presidents in modern memory, is already treading down the same worn path.

And now the social democracies have undergone the same transformation that social liberalism, etc. has had from the start. One gets the feeling that liberalism or socialism at home in a capitalist country will always have to co-exist with ultra-right, pro-fascist politics overseas. In other words, a foreign policy of imperialism.

Most of Europe is whored to the ultra-rightwing NATO. The EU is for all intents and purposes the civilian state and NATO is the Defense Ministry of that state. Even Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are hard right countries when it comes to their NATO alliance. Finnish foreign policy has always been rightwing, a legacy of their hatred for Russia. Dutch, French, British, and Spanish foreign policy have been horribly rightwing forever now under social democratic and conservative governments both. Indeed in Europe, there is little difference between the two.

Spain strides around Latin America like a brute. Apparently they still think they rule the place as they once did.Most of this involves threats, arm-twisting, sanctions and whatnot every time countries try to assert more control over their resources, which are inevitably being exploited by Spanish corporations. Bolivia’s nationalization of oil and gas is instructive in this regard. The social democratic Spanish government was just as reactionary as the conservative one.

The French are cruel and colonialist towards their former colonies and do not allow any independent governments to form there, especially in Africa. The French and Canadians were deeply involved in the overthrow of Aristide in Haiti, apparently for the crime of raising the minimum wage. In addition, France is still demanding that Haiti repay it for its losses when the slaves of Haiti were freed and the slave-holding families were massacred. France is a social democracy.

The Dutch held a phony inquest in the M17 false flag shootdown where a Ukrainian fighter jet shot down an airliner in order to blame it on Russia. The EU was also deeply involved in this plot and especially the coverup. As were the British and in particular the BBC, the official organ of the British state. The British stole $4 million in gold from Venezuela by confiscating it. British foreign policy mimics US foreign policy in every reactionary thing we do. The UK is a social democracy.

Italy led the charge against Qaddafi and helped steal billions of his gold reserves. Italian corporations also quickly tried to get on Libya’s oil. Italy is a social democracy.

10

So you see, these countries may have some sort of socialism at home (increasingly threadbare) but in foreign policy, it’s straight up full-blown reaction and imperialism, support for rightwing dictatorships and out and out fascists. The reason is simple. The economies of all EU countries are based on their multinational corporations.

Multinational corporations want nothing but rightwing dictatorship, preferably fascist, when they cannot elect hard Right democratic states. These corporations will not tolerate the slightest socialism or even liberalism overseas because they all operate on a predatory model towards the Third World.

Hence the foreign policy of all of the EU “socialist” countries is all about what’s good for the corporations that run their economies. Their corporations wish to go abroad and rape, ruin, exploit, destroy, and stripmine the economies of the Third World by exploiting their resources such that the corporations get almost everything and the countries themselves barely get a nickel.

This has always been the model and it always will be the model. So the EU social democracies have the same problem of the Democratic Party – while they can be leftwing at home to some extent, they all go hard rightwing and pro-fascist and rightwing dictatorship overseas due to their fealty to the corporations that run their economies.

Alt Left: Evidence That Israel Attacked Syria and Lebanon With Nuclear Weapons

RL: The fertilizer only blows up if you mix it with fuel oil.”

Sun Tzu: And this fact free and science free statement takes the gold medal for complete ignorance about Ammonium Nitrate properties.

RL: [The August 2020 Beirut explosion]… was when Israel dropped a tactical nuclear weapon on Lebanon’s wheat supply in silo in the Beirut port. And Hezbollah was blamed…You also fail to notice Robert Lindsay belief in the Israeli Nuke theory @Feb28 6:14 #212. That bit of misdirection was proven false soon after the incident.

Jackrabbit: The nuke theory is known to be false without a doubt. The characteristics of the fireball match that of an Ammonium Nitrate explosion and no radiation was reported.

Sun Tzu: There was no mysterious explosion in Beirut in August 2020. There was a predictable “waiting to happen” detonation of an Ammonium Nitrate Nitrate load unprofessionally stored for years in a port facility near a highly dense population center. There is wilful or criminal neglect of legal and well established international norms and regulations for the storage of dangerous goods UN placards 1942 / UN 2067. What exactly set it off, among the plurality of anecdotal and hearsay versions, is for forensic investigators to determine.

No Ammonium Nitrate Fertilizer Explosion

There was no fireworks factory in the area. The explosion looks nothing at all like a fertilizer explosion. Ammonium nitrate sends up a yellow cloud and this cloud was reddish brown, which makes sense as according to Lebanese intelligence, the warehouse it hit was full of bags of rocks and dirt masquerading as fertilizer. Lebanese intelligence, as noted, said there was no fertilizer.

Anyway, the crater that was blown was so wide it probably could not even have been blown with 280 tons of fertilizer instead of the 2.8 tons that was said to be in there. In other words, the amount of fertilizer said to be in that warehouse was not large enough to blow a crater that size. In addition, the characteristic mushroom cloud seen afterwards is only seen after nuclear blasts. No other weapon can produce such a cloud.

RL: The fertilizer only blows up if you mix it with fuel oil.”

Sun Tzu: And this fact free and science free statement takes the gold medal for complete ignorance about Ammonium Nitrate properties.

Everything I have ever heard says it has to be mixed with fuel oil and then a flame or spark has to be thrown onto it. Otherwise nothing happens. If you drop a bomb on it, it’s like dropping a bomb on a pile of sand. Also notice that the liars who made up this story changed the story after a couple of weeks after this fact came out. The new story said that fuel oil had been absolutely mixed in with the fertilizer mix a couple of years before.

Furthermore, neither ammonium nitrate nor any other explosive device can blow a hole that deep in solid rock.

Evidence for an Israeli Attack with a Tactical Nuclear Weapon

A mining engineer wrote a column saying that no known explosive could blow a crater that deep in solid rock. In fact, all known explosives blow upwards when they hit solid rock. The engineer said that because explosives can’t penetrate down into solid rock, holes must be bored deep into the rock. The explosive is placed deep inside the rock and detonated, as they can blow upwards into rock. The only known explosive that can blow a huge crater in solid rock is a tactical nuclear weapon. This includes bunker busters, which are actually small tactical nukes.

Syrian intelligence told another journalist team that the Beirut blast was caused by Israel bombing Beirut with a “new and experimental weapon.”

They also said that the explosion looked a lot like the one in Syria prior. I have seen photographs of that blast. The two explosion clouds look very similar. It is thought that Israel dropped a tactical nuke on Syria in that attack. I do not know what the target was.

The Russians were suspicious so they sent a team to the site. At the bomb site, the team did find low levels of radiation that could only have come there from a nuclear weapon. Based on video of the blast and the radiation found at the blast site, the Russian team concluded that Israel had bombed Syria with a tactical nuclear weapon. However, the Syrian government has never officially reported this.

No radiation was found in Beirut, sure, but also none was not found, as nobody even looked for any!

Anyway, with tactical nukes, you will only have small amounts of radiation in and around the crater after a day or two. They will linger for a week or so and then disappear. I am aware of a team from the US that arrived in Beirut by plane a day or two after the explosion. They had a lot of equipment with them, including radiation counters. The Lebanese military denied them entry to the country.

The nuclear arms control branch of the UN reported a large wave of radiation at their station in Sicily right around the time of the blast. I saw a printout from their data. The amount of radiation was consistent with either a nuclear explosion or a nuclear reactor failure.

An arms inspector for this UN agency, a Berkeley professor of Physics, reported told a team of journalists that Israel had dropped a tactical nuke on Beirut. The Italian government told a team of journalists that Israel had dropped a tactical nuke on Beirut. An addition, both Lebanese intelligence and the Lebanese military told a team of journalists that Israel had dropped a tactical nuke on Beirut.

Evidence for an Israeli Attack with No Mention of Tactical Nukes

Richard Silverstein reported that his source deep inside the Israeli government reported told him that Israel bombed Beirut and that the target was a Hezbollah missile depot. Israel was basically saying that the fertilizer report was a lie and what really happened was a missile depot was blown up.

Another team of journalists was told by Saudi and UAE intelligence that Israel attacked Beirut and blew up a Hezbollah missile depot. So these two intelligence agencies are also saying there was no fertilizer blast.

The Hezbollah missile depot story was put out by Israel in case the fake fertilizer story washed out. It did wash out, but fools keep repeating it anyway. The purpose was to blame Hezbollah for the blast and casualties by endangering the Lebanese people by carelessly storing missiles at the harbor, thereby leading to a loss of popularity for Hezbollah. This does not seem to have worked. All the usual idiots are sticking with the insipid fertilizer story.

A team of journalists was told by the Pentagon that Israel had attacked Beirut. No mention was made of a nuclear weapon. A group of generals then relayed this information to President Trump. Very soon afterwards, Trump said that the Beirut explosion was the result of a military attack.

Seven Different Countries and the UN Tell Five Different Teams of Journalists That the Blast Was Due to An Attack, with Most Saying It Was an Israeli Attack

We now have people from seven different governments telling five different journalist outfits that the blast was a result of an attack on Beirut.

UN: UN nuclear weapons control agency released a graph showing a large radiation release in the area at their station in Sicily. A US arms inspector for this agency reported that Israel dropped a tactical nuclear weapon on Beirut. (Journalist 1 – Veterans Today)

US: Generals report blast caused by attack on Beirut. Perpetrator and weapon used not named. (Journalist 1 – Veterans Today)

Italy: Government reported that Israel attacked Beirut with a tactical nuclear weapon. (Journalist 1- Veterans Today)

Lebanon: Government, military, and intelligence reported that Israel dropped a tactical nuclear weapon on Beirut harbor. Intelligence said there was no ammonium nitrate in the sacks. There were only sacks filled with rocks and dirt, a result of a six year long Mossad plot the culmination of which was the nuclear bombing of the harbor.

Israel: Source deep inside government said that Israel bombed a Hezbollah missile depot. (Journalist 2 – Richard Silverstein) An Israeli newspaper quoted a rightwing Israel Congressman as saying that Israel attacked Beirut. I am not sure if he mentioned a missile depot. He also said, “That blast was huge. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think we attacked them with a nuclear bomb.” He was laughing and dancing a victory dance when he said that. That is a very suspicious statement. (Journalist 3)

UAE: UAE intelligence reported that Israel bombed a Hezbollah missile depot. (Journalist 4 – Asia Times)

Saudi Arabia: Saudi intelligence reported that Israel bombed a Hezbollah missile depot. (Journalist 4- Asia Times)

Syria: Syrian intelligence reported that Israel attacked Beirut with an unknown experimental weapon and that it resembled the blast from an attack on Syria a year ago. That blast was later proven by a Russian team of having been a tactical nuclear weapon. The two mushroom clouds look almost identical (Journalist 5 – Voltaire Network)

To reiterate:

Five different teams of journalists were told by seven different governments and the UN that there was at an attack on Beirut.

The same teams were told by five governments and the UN that the attack was the result of Israel bombing the harbor.

Two teams were told by three different governments that Israel either attacked Beirut with a tactical nuclear weapon or with a new and experimental weapon.

One team was told by two different governments that the attack was conducted by Israel with a tactical nuclear weapon.

The “No Bombing Attack” Theory

Wow, talk about complete nonsense! Jets were both heard and seen by hundreds and possibly thousands of Beirutis.

There is video of the Armenian Quarter where men are pointing up in the sky – presumably at jets – and soon afterwards, a terrible blast is heard and debris is flying in the street.

There is a video where you can hear with your very own ears the sound of a fighter jet – it sounded like an F-16 to my ears – roaring in for about 10 seconds, followed by the huge blast. The people making the video can be heard asking, “What’s that?”

How is that hundreds to thousands of Beirutis reporting hearing or seeing jets prior to the blast? Are they all hallucinating?

Why are men in Beirut pointing up to the sky at unknown objects, followed by a huge blast that sends objects flying. Did all of these people hallucinate?

Did I hallucinate when I heard the clear sound a fighter jet for 10 seconds on a video followed by an explosion?

Did the UN fake a graph showing a radiation spike at its Sicily station?

None of this makes sense.

Furthermore we have statements from sources in six different governments telling five separate teams of journalists that the explosion was due to an attack on the harbor, with most of them adding that the attack was done by Israel. Are five different teams of journalists making this up? Were five separate teams of journalists fed false information that Israel attacked Beirut? How likely is any of that?

There were 3-4 US spy planes over Lebanon at the time. They showed up several hours before the attack and left several hours afterwards. US spy planes do not commonly fly over Lebanon. What were they doing there?

The Backstory

A few weeks prior, Israel said that if Hezbollah attacks Israel again, Israel will attack Lebanese economic targets.

Two weeks later and a week before the attack, Israel staged a fake Hezbollah attack on the border. They said a Hezbollah team had tried to plant a bomb on the border but they were eliminated by Israel. Hezbollah said there was no team. This attack was apparently completely made up.

Three days later, Netanyahu issued a speech in which he threatened Hezbollah in some of the strongest language ever used.

Four days later, Israel drops a tactical nuclear weapon on the Beirut harbor, blowing up the grain silo that contains all of Lebanon’s wheat supply for the next month. Notice that this is an attack on the economy.

1. Israel threatens to attack the Lebanese economy if Hezbollah attacks again.

2. Israel stages a fake Hezbollah attack on the border, which can now be followed via the threat by an attack on the Lebanese economy.

3. Israeli leader threatens Hezbollah in a speech containing some of the strongest language ever used.

4. Israel bombs a grain silo in Beirut harbor that contains the next month’s grain supply = attack on Lebanese economy.

Jackrabbit: You also fail to notice Robert Lindsay belief in the Israeli Nuke theory @Feb28 6:14 #212. That bit of misdirection was proven false soon after the incident.

It is most certainly was not proven false.

In fact, seven different states and the UN told five different teams of journalists that the blast was due to a military attack on the harbor, with most saying it was an Israeli attack.

Three different states and the UN said or implied to two teams of journalists that Israel bombed Beirut with a tactical nuclear weapon.

It’s imperative upon the doubters to prove that multiple governments lied and/or that multiple teams of journalists lied or were all fed the same false information. Most of these teams have a good record for advocacy, and half of the governments put out quite reliable information.

The Mossad Plot That Started It All

A team of journalists was informed by Lebanese intelligence that this whole episode was a Mossad plot dating back several years. They discovered that nothing about this ship made any sort of sense. All of the documentation about it was fraudulent, forged, or dishonest. Nothing added up. Mossad purchased a ship in Cyprus. Then they went on a rendezvous of three different countries, supposedly buying fertilizer. The last stop was in Georgia, where the ship purchased 2,800 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. This is the ultimate source of the “fertilizer” on the ship.

There is a problem with this: Ammonium nitrate fertilizer is not manufactured anywhere in Georgia, so the ship literally could not have bought this cargo there.

According to intelligence, there never was any fertilizer. Instead, the sacks were filled with rocks and dirt. The rocks and dirt labeled ammonium nitrate fertilizer were placed in the warehouse at the dock. They reportedly sat there for a number of years as buyers for the fertilizer supposedly fell through. Obviously there were no fertilizer buyers because there was never any fertilizer in the first place.

In addition, the ship’s owner, a Russian, went bankrupt and lost possession of the ship. This Russian ship owner may have been in on the plot. The fertilizer then had no owner.

Lebanese courts thought that the fertilizer was a hazard and issued a number of orders to remove it from the warehouse. None of these orders were followed. It is hard to explain this part of the story.

That part of the port of Beirut is owned by Lebanese Maronite Falangists, hardcore opponents of Hezbollah who formed the pro-Israel Southern Lebanese Army that enforced the Israeli conquest and annexation of Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah forced the Israelis to leave via continuous deadly or injurious attacks and the SLA had to flee for their lives. Most of them were quickly taken in by Israel but a few went to the US. One was arrested and imprisoned a few years ago when he came back to Lebanon. He was the head of a notorious prison in Southern Lebanon where resistance fighters were imprisoned and tortured.

It is certainly possible that these Falange worked with Israel on this plot. They may have been involved in the refusal to remove the “fertilizer.” We must also note that since the Falange control that part of the port, there is no way that Hezbollah could have stashed missiles there. So the “Hezbollah missile depot” story cannot possibly be true.

The figure of 2,800 tons is important. As noted, the crater of the blast was so large that it is dubious whether even 280,000 tons or 100 times that amount of ammonium nitrate could have blown a hole that big. And no amount of ammonium nitrate could have blown that deep crater in the solid rock below.  As noted, only a nuclear bomb, tactical or otherwise can blow a hole in solid rock. This is why all known bunker buster bombs are actually small tactical nuclear weapons. They have to be.

That the fertilizer was ammonium nitrate is also important. An Italian chemist noted that ammonium nitrate leaves a large yellow cloud when it blows up. The cloud in the explosion was red-brown. The chemist thought that may have been due to the Hezbollah missiles blowing up. But as we now know, there were no Hezbollah missiles. Lebanese President Auon himself said there was no missile depot at the port.

The Aims of the Attack

Also, note that the “fertilizer explosion” or “Hezbollah missile depot blast” occurred only a week before a corrupt UN investigation team was due to convict Hezbollah for killing former President Hariri. However, Hezbollah was framed for this crime as Hariri was actually killed by an Israeli drone overhead. This would be a one-two blow for Hezbollah. Hezbollah would be blamed twice in a week for serious catastrophes that befell the land. The idea was to make Hezbollah lose all its support.

In the event of the fertilizer explosion story, the intent there was to blame the Lebanese government. “The Lebanese government killed 1,000 Lebanese people!” This was then very suspiciously followed by a US-led color revolution supposedly outraged over the government ineptitude that caused the explosion in which a mere 3,000 paid demonstrators managed to overthrow the government. US government regime change specialists were spotted at these demonstrations with huge grins on their faces.

As soon as the government of Lebanon was overthrown, the (((Rothschild-controlled))) President Macron of France flew in and immediately began strongarming the Lebanese government into setting up a new government without any Hezbollah supporters. Lebanon was specifically threatened with consequences if they did not set this government up.

The US then put crushing sanctions of Lebanon that wrecked its economy. With the addition of a banking crisis that also collapsed the economy, the idea was to wreck the economy to make people so angry they would throw out the pro-Hezbollah government. It hasn’t worked yet.

In other words, the entire aim of the attack was to get Hezbollah out of the Lebanese government and marginalized in Lebanese society.

Very Suspicious Concurrent Attacks

The very next day after the attacks, US forces blew up several grain silos in Syria. Note that Israel’s attack blew up Lebanon’s entire supply of grain. So the US attack on Syria’s grain is concurrent with an Israeli attack on Lebanese grain. The US blowing up Syrian grain silos does not fit with an accidental fertilizer explosion. Why would we bomb grain silos because some fertilizer blew up?

In the next couple of days, a series of fires broke out at food warehouses in the southern Shia part of Iraq. Israel or the US is suspected. So the connection? In all three cases, food supplies for pro-Iranian populations were destroyed. The Lebanese people support Hezbollah by 6

Lebanon: Attack on Hezbollah and the people of Lebanon for supporting Hezbollah and Iran by blowing up the country’s supply of bread.

Syria: Attack on Syria, a pro-Iranian government, by blowing up the country’s supply of bread.

Iraq: Attack on the Iran-supporting Shia of Iraqi South by destroying their food supply.

UAE: Attack on Iran by setting an Iranian-owned shopping mall on fire, destroying it.

Why would an accidental fertilizer explosion just happen to destroy a country’s food supply. Why would it be followed by attacks on the food supply of two other populations which just happen to support Iran? Why would it also be followed by the destruction by fire of a shopping mall in the UAE that just happens to be owned by Iran?

All four of these attacks were obviously coordinated. Accidents are not followed by coordinated attacks destroying similar things that got destroyed in the accident. All attacks were against either Iran, or pro-Iranian armed groups, governments and populations.

Starting to get the picture?

The Coverup

A team of journalists was told by the Lebanese military and intelligence that all parties had agreed to cover up this incident and go with the fake fertilizer story. The Lebanese government wanted to cover it up so as not to spread panic in the population. Also it made the government look very weak in the face of Israeli aggression. Hezbollah wanted it covered up too because they have no effective response or deterrent now that the Israelis are using nuclear weapons against their adversaries.

They felt it would lead to disillusionment and defeatist thinking on the part of the Lebanese people with a resulting loss of support for Hezbollah: “Hezbollah is impotent to defend us against Israeli nuclear weapons, so why support them? Let’s just surrender. The war’s over.” In addition, Iran also wished to cover it up because they have no effective response to Israeli nuclear weapons either and admitting this might lead to similar disillusionment and defeatism on the part of the population. “Just surrender to the US and Israel already. We can’t win.”

As noted above, there is excellent evidence that Israeli dropped a tactical nuclear weapon on Syria about a year before the Beirut blast. The Syrian government has not admitted this for the same reasons as the Lebanese, Hezbollah, and Iran above.

Israel will of course never admit to using tactical nuclear weapons for fear it would set off an increase in anti-Israel sentiments in the world. However, considering how Israel-cucked the US and increasingly the EU is, not to mention the Arab sellouts and traitors, I think a lot of the world would probably cheer that Israel was nuking the Arabs.s

The US will also not admit to using tactical nuclear weapons. Any mention of this will be relegated to the usual conspiracy theory tinfoil hat territory. We reasonably fear an increase in anti-US sentiment after such a revelation. But considering how US-cucked the Europeans are, I’m wondering if they wouldn’t cheer that America is dropping nukes on those dirty Muslims.

Israel started using tactical nukes as early as 2008 when they used them against the Hezbollah resistance. A very suspicious blast was investigated soon afterwards by a Russian team and they indeed found abnormal levels of radiation at the site. The Russians concluded that Israel had used a tactical nuclear weapon against Hezbollah.

There is now excellent evidence that the US used a few to several tactical nuclear weapons (bunker busters) against Al Qaeda’s cave fortifications at Tora Bora. In addition, we now know that the first US use of tactical nuclear weapons was in the first Iraq War in 1991, when we dropped a tactical nuclear weapon 13 miles east of Basra. This marked the first use of a tactical nuclear weapon by a military in the modern era.

Alt Left: A Rundown on the Latest News about Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad Regime in Syria

Where are “world dangers” Iran? Hamas? Hez (Hiz) bollah? Assad in Syria? All of these threats to world peace we kept hearing so much about from Shia Islam. Haven’t heard much lately.

They’re still around. And they are all very much targeted.

The Iranian War for the Jews: Iran is under (((blockade))). (((Assassinations, sabotage, riots, constant military threats))).

The War on Hamas: Hamas has been under total (((blockade))) for 12 years now. Every now and then they shoot some rockets at Israel, usually for a good reason. The rockets rarely cause casualties and almost never kill anyone. Israel responds by bombing Hamas targets. In the last few weeks, Hamas shot down two Israeli drones over Gaza. Israel flies these drones over Gaza all the time. I’m very happy that they have figured out how to shoot down the drones.

Their military capacities keep getting better. Most of the material comes via Iran and Hezbollah. I have no idea how it gets in. There are missile factories underground in Gaza that keep upgrading these missiles. Hezbollah advisors are down there helping them build better rockets. It is very hard for Israel to target these factories.

There are also some other armed groups in Gaza – pro-Iran Islamic Jihad, Marxist PFLP, and hardline ISIS-Al Qaeda types that Hamas dislikes but can’t really control. A lot of the stupid rocket attacks are by these ultras but every time the ultras shoot a rocket, Israel attacks Hamas, saying, “Hamas bears all responsibility for attacks from their territory.”

The Syrian War for the Jews: Syria is under (((total blockade as bad as Iran’s))) that is causing mass deprivation and even hunger. Attacks are launched all the time by ISIS, Al Qaeda and Turkey against Syrian troops. ISIS is supported by the West, Israel, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. They use them as as a tool against Assad.

Al Qaeda controls a lot of territory in Idlib which is now full of Turkish troops there to “protect civilians.” Turkey has also taken over a lot of Syrian territory northwest of Aleppo in Afrin and to the west of Hasakah. These are “anti-PKK buffer zones.”

In reality, Turkey has conquered these lands and annexed them. They have waged slow genocide against the Kurds there, who are regularly arrested, beaten, imprisoned, robbed, have their possessions destroyed, tortured, raped, and murdered. This is done by Turkish troops and their proxies who are basically Al Qaeda. There is an underground Kurdish guerrilla force in the area of Afrin operating in Turkish-controlled territory. They carry out regular attacks and have killed and wounded quite a few Turkish soldiers and proxies.

There is regular fighting in the area south of M4 highway to the west of Hasakah. The pro-US SDF which is now a Kurdish force has taken over much of Eastern Syria and more or less annexed it. They are under US protection. There are occasional fights with Syrian troops in their bases in Hasakah. US and Russian troops patrol the area to try to keep everyone apart, but it’s not working.

The (((US))) is (((occupying the oil fields))), and yes, we are literally (((stealing Syria’s oil))) and have been for a long time. I guess Americans don’t care. I guess (((“liberal Democrats”))) like (((Biden))) and his Secretary of State (((Blinken))) don’t care. (((Blinken))) recently stated gleefully about how the (((US controls Syrian oil))). We were giving it to the SDF to help them occupy Eastern Syria, but lately it has been turned over to a US company that sells it.

Extremely anti-Shia and anti-Iran Saudi troops are guarding the oil fields so we can steal the oil. However, that area is mostly Arab, and they don’t take kindly to all of this, nor do they think much of Kurds. Before most of them were supporting ISIS. Now they are supporting Assad, have taken up arms against “the Kurdish occupation,” and are also targeting US and Saudi forces stealing the oil. In this area, the (((US))) is also (((setting fire to much of Syria’s wheat crop))) because that is where the wheat is grown.

After the Israeli attack on the Beirut harbor that targeted Lebanon’s wheat supply, destroying most it, within the next day, (((US forces bombed three grain silos in Syria in conjunction with the Israeli attack on the wheat supply in Lebanon))). This was followed by a (((series of attacks against Shia storehouses in southern Iraq and an Iranian shopping mall in the UAE))). These were all set on fire. Obviously this was all coordinated. Still believe this was just some harmless “fertilizer blowing up?”

By the way, wasn’t even possible, not that there was any fertilizer in there anyway. In fact the “fertilizer” was nothing but sacks of rocks and dirt. And even if it was fertilizer, it couldn’t have blown up anyway, and it could not have blown that huge crater even if there was 100 times as much fertilizer in there as there was!

Israel also carries out regular bombing raids in Syria against “Iranian forces” and “shipments going to Hezbollah.” Sometimes they just attack Syrian forces. Of course the Syrians can’t really fight back because then the Israeli bullies will scream “Syria attacked us,” and they could well level Syria. Of course, the (((US media))) and (((Western media))) will go along with the whole charade, as will the (((US government))).

The Hezbollah War for the Jews: The recent nuclear bomb attack on Lebanon was meant to take out Hezbollah once and for all. It was timed to go along with the fake and corrupt (((UN investigation of the Hariri assassination))) which has been pinned on Hezbollah and Syria. In fact, the Hariri assassination was done by an Israeli drone flying overhead at the time in a false flag attack meant to put the blame on Syria and Hezbollah by framing them.

There was no “bomb in the van” and even if there was, it could not have gone off because Hariri had an Israeli system in his limo that disarms such bombs so they won’t go off. Only Israel knew how to disrupt that code. However, many witnesses saw a flying object coming from a drone overhead. Also, Hezbollah hacked all drones over Lebanon for some time before the attack. They have footage of an Israeli drone hovering over the attack site for two hours before Hariri shows up. Soon after the attack, it leaves.

The bomb crater is not consistent with a huge bomb packed in a van. The suicide bomber who supposedly did the attack was never found. This attack may have been done with a tactical nuclear weapon too, as a number of the people who died had very bizarre injuries that could not be explained.

The idea was to marry the false flag “fertilizer blowing up Hezbollah missile depot in harbor” attack with the (((conviction of Hezbollah for the Hariri assassination))), taking out Hezbollah once and for all. The idea was Lebanese would blame Hezbollah for the assassination and the missiles blowing up and for the devastation of the harbor.

However, the missile depot story never took off because there was no missile depot. That part of the harbor is controlled by pro-Israel Christian Maronites, the sworn enemies of Hezbollah. No way they would let Hezbollah store missiles there, not that they would store missiles in the port anyway.

And the conviction apparently never took place.

The attack itself was explicitly against Hezbollah. A week before, Israel staged a fake attack against itself on the border, claiming that a four man Hezbollah team tried to plant a bomb on the border and was eliminated. However, there was no team, there was no attempt to place a bomb, and no one was killed. Israel just made up the whole thing.

Just three days before, Israel had said that if Hezbollah ever attacks Israel again, Israel will destroy the Lebanese economy. Three days later, a fake “Hezbollah attack.” Get it? After that, Netanyahu issued serious threats against Hezbollah. Follow? Then the false flag at the Beirut harbor to “destroy the Lebanese economy.” See how that works?

After that, in the chaos of the attack, the (((US))) put (((massive sanctions))) on Lebanese banks for (((doing business with Hezbollah))). This wrecked the Lebanese economy, which was a completely crooked kleptocracy for decades anyway. This just tore the mask off.

Amidst all the destruction of the attack and devastation of the economy, the US organized a (((color revolution))) with a lot street violence. Many protestors were paid by the US and may have numbered no more than 3,000 in total. However, they were very destructive and burned down some buildings. Somehow they took down the government.

(((France))) then swept in in the form of (((Macron))), who is literally nothing more than an agent of (((Lord Rothschild))) in the UK. I’m not kidding. Look it up. Who do you think funded his political career?

(((Macron))) attempted to strong-arm the Lebanese president into (((forming a new government with no Hezbollah in it))).

Problem? Lebanese government is 6

The (((US))) got involved too and demanded a new “technocratic” government (another word for pro-US satraps and traitors the world over).

A new government was formed but it was just as pro-Hezbollah as the previous one.

Many efforts were made to pin the horrendous corruption on Hezbollah, but Hezbollah, possibly due to their religious background, is one of the cleanest parties in Lebanon and engages in little corruption. The most corrupt parties of all were the anti-Hezbollah ones, but some of the pro-Hezbollah ones such as the pro-Hezbollah Shia moderate Amal party are pretty bad too.

There were also many lies spread by the (((US media))) during the rioting that all of the violence, burning, and injuries were the result of “Hezbollah thugs,” but although there were many attempts to provoke them, Hezbollah refused to take the bait. Hezbollah was mostly operating as police trying to prevent public disorder. Almost all of the violence was done by the anti-Hezbollah rioters.

So this entire effort failed. The (((US))) and (((France))) were furious that they could not take down the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese government.

Repost: Berber Genes in Europeans

Interesting stuff about Berber

Berber Genes in Europeans

It seems reasonable that Southern Europeans especially would have a considerable amount of Berber genes in them. This has been disputed by certain Southern European White racist bloggers like Dienekes Pontikos and Racial Reality. These bloggers are vociferously opposed to the notion that Southern Europeans are anything but pretty near pure White.

For instance, here Dienekes states gives Berber percentages in Europeans as follows:

Nation          Berber

Spain           
Italy           1.7
France          

I am going to disagree with this assessment, though I admit I am not an expert on the subject. Looking at this journal article (table here). we come up with something a lot different. From Cruciani et al 2004:

Ethnic Group                Berber

Spain (Cantabrian Pasiegos) 3
Spain (Cantabria)           1
Southern Portugal           12.
Northern Portugal            
Spain (Basques)              3.
France                       3.
Spain (Asturias)             2.
Southern Spain               1.
Northern Italy               1.
Central Italy                1.
Italy (Sicily)                .
Sardinia                      .

The Berber genes seem to have come to Europe for the most part in the past 3,000 yrs. Cantabria is an interesting place. The Cantabrians, in particular the Pasiegos, are said to be quite distinct genetically, almost like the Basques. No one really knows what this is all about.

During the Moorish invasion, they conquered all the way up to the southern mountains of Cantabria, a province in the far north of Spain on the coast next to the Basque region. Perhaps this is where the Moorish (Berber) genes came in.

Looking at the figures above, most Berber genes appear to have gone into Iberia in tandem with the Moorish conquest. Strangely, they are concentrated in the North of Spain. This doesn’t make much sense to me.

The Cantabrian language is still spoken here. It is said to be a dialect of Spanish, but actually it is part of the Extremaduran language spoken in Caceres in Extremadura. People say it is dying out, but in the mountains children are still being raised speaking Cantabrian. They show up in school as Cantabrian monolinguals and their teachers cannot understand them.

Extremaduran-Cantabrian is really just Eastern Leonese, which got cut off from the rest of Leonese ~400 years ago and came under heavy influence from Old Castilian. Nowadays East Leonese proper scarcely exists in either Asturias or Leon. Extremaduran itself spoken in Caceres is endangered, has no official status, and but has 500,000 speakers, including monolinguals (!). A Spanish informant who grew up in the region told me that Extremaduran has only 1

Leonese has only 50,000 speakers, is considered very endangered, but does have special status in Castile and Leon. And children are still being raised speaking Southeastern Leonese or Porteno. Leonese is part of the Asturian-Leonese language, with Asturian spoken in the north in Asturias and Leonese spoken to the south in Castile y Leon.

Asturian has 550,000 speakers, but is considered endangered.

A related language is Mirandese, spoken in Portugal. This language looks a lot like Portuguese, but it is actually a branch of Asturian-Leonese. It has 8

About the Berbers, I consider them to be one of the most ancient, if not the most ancient, Caucasian groups in existence. Berbers go back at least 20,000 years and possibly up to 50,000 years in North Africa. Much of the Berber group may have come from the Middle East in the past 10,000 years. There is a huge split between Berbers and Sub-Saharan Africans.

The Mozabites, the Tuaregs and the Chenini-Douiret are quite different from the rest of the Berbers. Why? Probably genetic drift.

These men are Mozabites, possibly some of the most ancient Caucasians on Earth, with a genetic line going back up to 50,000 years. Though White nationalists probably freak out if you say these people are White, they are most definitely Caucasians. The fellow in the right forefront also looks Caucasian – he looks somewhat East Indian.

The two men standing at the top could be East Indians or some strange Mediterranean type. Given that East Indians are also one of the most ancient Caucasian groups on Earth, it figures that these Berbers resemble Indians. Both groups came out of the Middle East – the Berbers probably 42,000 years ago, and the East Indians about 17,000 years ago.

There are few genetic differences between Berbers and North African Arabs, which means that North African Arabs are simply Arabized Berbers. There are lots of great photos of Berbers at this link.

The origin of the Berbers is nevertheless quite obscure. This article suggests that both Berbers and Europeans came out of the Levant about 40-45,000 years ago. Obviously, prior to that, they came out of Africa. A date of 40-45,000 years is about right for the genesis of the Caucasian race. The homeland of the Caucasians is often said to be located in the Caucasus itself.

This line rose in Southwest Asia (the Caucasus) and then moved to Africa along the Mediterranean, not via Somalia – Yemen as the Out of Africans went. They moved first into the Levant, and from there went to Europe and to North Africa, both at the same time. This line went to the Cro-Magnon as well as the Berber, and both came out of the Levant about 40-45,000 years ago.

Another very interesting looking Mozabite fellow. There are some Mediterranean types who look something like this, but I have a hard time pinning this phenotype down. Clearly, they are Caucasians, but other than that, they look pretty sui generis. A recent genetics study, though poorly done, seemed to show the Mozabites as one of the most ancient ethnic groups on Earth and a source population for many other groups outside of Africa.

The Uighurs in Central Asia were also a source population for many diverse groups all over the place. The Uighurs may be the remains of ancient Caucasian-Asian hybrids that go back up to 40,000 years.

The first Caucasians were probably a mixture of 1/2 Africans (possibly Maasai and Tutsi types from Central Africa) mixed with ancient proto-Asians from China (who may have resembled the Ainu). From this strange mixture arose the original Caucasians, probably in the Caucasus and southern Russia, but maybe also in Iran.

There is good evidence that the first Caucasians, including the Cro-Magnons, looked a lot like Black Africans, in particular the Caucasoid-appearing Africans such as the Maasai and the Tutsi. Cro-Magnon skeletons look like the Masai more than any other modern skeleton. Cro-Magnon skulls are more likely to be confused with Negroid skulls than any other.

References

Cruciani, F.; La Fratta, R.; Santolamazza, P.; Sellitto, D.; Pascone, R.; Moral, P.; Watson, E.;  Guida, V.; Colomb, EB.; Zaharova, B.; Lavinha, J.; Vona, G.; Aman, R.; Cali, F.; Akar, N.; Richards, M.; Torroni, A.; Novelletto, A.; and Scozzari, R. 2004. “Phylogeographic Analysis Of Haplogroup E3b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events within and out of Africa.” American Journal of Human Genetics 74:1014-1022

Alt Left: Why There Are No Liberal or Leftwing Newspapers, Newsmagazines, or Radio or TV Stations

The New York Times is a classic corporate Democrat newspaper pushing the ideology of the pro-corporate DNC Centrist wing of the Democratic Party.

They never promote liberal anything other than humanitarian bombing and the Cultural Left Freakshow. The joke is that the Times is a “liberal” paper.

Look, I’ve got some news for you. There are no liberal newspapers in the US. There are no Left papers in the US. We don’t even have anything as progressive as the execrable UK Guardian. But in the UK, that’s what passes for the left. They’re corporate Laborites. France has Liberation, a long time Left paper. I think Italy has one too.

The problem for leftwing newspapers is an old one. How do you get advertisers? Name one capitalist who wants to advertise in a liberal or leftwing paper? You would think there would be some if they had a big enough circulation, but most of them would just boycott the paper. And once they did start accepting advertising, the fake wall between advertising and news would collapse for real and the paper wouldn’t be so left anymore as it would now have to support the interests of its capitalist advertisers, which are never anything but rightwing.

The old Chicago Tribune got around this problem, and yes, back in the day, it was an actual liberal big city newspaper. It was run by a very rich yet progressive man named Marshall Field. Advertising was always a problem, predictably, so he ran the paper at a loss and funded it out of his pocket. His son is an record executive at Death Row/Interscope Records and is similarly loaded. He has floated the idea of a millionaire-financed left paper to be sold across the US.

Alt Left: And People Keep Incredulously Wondering Why I’m a Socialist and Why I Hate Rightwing and Libertarian Economics

Here.

When I say socialism, I’m not necessarily talking about the state running the whole economy. We have plenty of good evidence of the limitations of that model.

Read in that article where it says that $2.5 trillion has been stolen from the bottom 9

That’s all we “evil socialists” and “evil Leftists” want. We want you, the bottom 9

What in the Hell is wrong with that?

Why On Earth Are You Supporting Neoliberalism?

This is what rightwing economics is. Rightwing economics says take $2.5 trillion from the bottom 9

It’s for the top 1

What is the economics that the World Bank and the IMF forces on every nation in the South? Neoliberalism, the theft of money from the bottom 9

What is the economics of every social democracy in Europe? In terms of their  foreign policy, it’s the maintenance of neoliberalism, which is the theft of income of the bottom 9

A Bigoted Socialist Beats a Woke Neoliberal Any Day of the Week

No wonder everyone’s given up on them in favor of the populist Right. At least the populist Right speaks to the concerns of the ordinary people, the workers. And the populist Right in Europe is very socialist. The party of Marie Le Pen is one of the most socialist parties in France. They’re far more socialist than the fake socialist Social Democrats.

I don’t particularly care if they’re not nice to immigrants, Muslims, and Arabs. So what? I’d rather have racist socialists who support the workers than of antiracist neoliberals. I can’t eat a BLM flag. I can’t pay my rent with a critical race theory lecture. I can’t fix my car by tearing down a stupid statue. Throwing shit at cops for no good reason won’t help me pay my bills. SJWism offers me, a straight White man, just about nothing at all, other than designating me as Enemy #1.

The Democratic Party: The Worst of the Right Combined with the Worst of the Left

There’s an ideology pushed by woke SJW neoliberal entities in the form of individuals like (((Soros))) and (((Bloomberg))) and corporations like the Tech Giants. Woke SJWism + neoliberalism is literally the worst of the Right combined with the worst of the Left. What do you get when you combined the worst of the Left with the worst of the Right? The Democratic Party! The party of Woke SJW Corporate Neoliberal Democrats.

Alt Left: The Modern Jewish Nation Is Murderous and Genocidal, But So Are Many Nations, Especially the US

Jews are not monstrous genocidal maniacs on the level of the Nazis, though the genocidal Jewish monsters in Israel surely give Nazis a run for their money. It’s all pretty sad. Innocent Jewish people get murdered by genocidal Master Race supremacist racist maniacs. So what do Jews do in response? Turn into genocidal Master Race supremacist racist murdering maniacs. Sure the Nazis killed a lot more and did it in a more up close and personal manner. But Jews are genocidal too.

Jews declared war on the Iraqi People in 2003 and used Jewish control over the US state to attack and destroy Iraq for no reason at all other than the state being hostile to Jews. The UK helped. As a result, 1.4 Arab Iraqis were killed, basically slaughtered by Jews and their American and British allies.

Next, the Jews along with their US, Turkish, Saudi, British, French, UAE, Saudi, and NATO allies launched a war on the Syrian people using Al Qaeda and similar terrorists to destroy the country and massacre its people. 500,000 people died. Jews are partly responsible for the deaths of those 500,000 people.

Prior to that, the Jews along with the US and the UK imposed a no fly zone on Iraq. The purpose of this was to exterminate the Iraqi people via terror disease plagues by not allowing their to treat their waste water. This caused Iraqis to drink contaminated war, causing the death of 500,000 Iraqi children. The Jews absolutely helped slaughter those kids.

The Jews assisted the US, British, Saudi, UAE, Sudanese, and Egyptian war on the people of Yemen. The war has had genocidal overtones as the aggressors, including the US attempted to starve the Yemeni people into defeat. In Iraq, the Jews, the US, and the UK tried to exterminate people with plagues.

In Yemen, the same people tried to exterminate people with a error famine. Deliberate terror famines caused by the Saudis and their allies in addition to a scorched Earth campaign against the Yemeni people and their civilian infrastructure killed at least 200,000 Yemenis.

First plagues, then famines. The Americans and the Jews are almost Biblical in the ways they go about exterminating their enemies. What’s next? Locusts?

All told, the Jews have their hands in the murder of 2.1 million of their racial enemies, the Arabian people. The conclusion is inescapable:

Modern Jews are killers.

The Jews are not alone in their murderous and genocidal behavior. The US, UK, NATO, Turks, Saudis, UAE, Qatar, Sudanese, and Egyptians are also murderous genociders.

Of these the worst by far are the Americans and the British, particularly the former, with direct hands in the deaths of 2.1 million Arabian people. The British mostly stood on the sidelines and cheered the US on. The Saudis and UAE are next. They have the blood of 700,000 Arabian people on their hands all because of their genocidal hatred of the Shia Muslims.

Next are the French and Turks, with the blood of 500,000 Arabs on their hands. The Turks because of their genocidal hate of the Shia Muslims, and the French because they are American suck-ups and sidekicks and in particular strong allies of the genocidal Jews.

Check out President Macron of France, who was placed directly into office by the notorious family of Jewish monsters in the UK, the Rothschilds. Macron is essentially working for Lord Rothschild. There’s no other way to put it.

The Egyptians and Sudanese had a role in 200,000 deaths. The only reason for their role in the killing is their murderous hatred of the Shia Muslims.

Coronavirus Has an Affinity for Cold Weather

SHI: Many Asian cities are very urbanized, and there is also a lot of air travel. We will have to watch out before concluding more about patterns. Who would have thought a month ago that Wuhan, the origin of this virus, would now be returning to normalcy. Even as we speak, the number of cases in India, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. is rising very fast. I still don’t think it will get as bad as Italy in these parts.

It’s rising a lot faster in colder parts of the world than in hotter. Even in China, Southern China is not much affected. Nor is Taiwan, SE Asia, Philippines, Indonesia, or even India for that matter.

In Italy, it mostly hit the mountainous north. The south has hardly been affected.

In Austria, most cases were in the Alps in the west.

In France and Germany, most cases were in the Alps SW Germany and SE France.

Switzerland was hit bad.

Netherlands and Belgium were hit hard.

In Iran, it is hitting mostly in the mountainous north of the country.

In the US, it has hit Washington State and the Northeast very hard. In California, it has hit the Bay Area and Sacramento for the most part.

The Southern Hemisphere is being spared.

Africa and the Middle East are little effected outside of Iran, which is a cold country.

Central and South America and the Caribbean are scarcely effected.

There are 25 countries in the Southern Hemisphere. If it hit the South as easily as the North, there would be 12 countries in the South in the above average sphere and 12 in the below average sphere.

Instead, 3 nations in the South are in the above average sphere and 22 are in the below average sphere.

An easy explanation is that the South is experiencing summer right now, or late summer anyway whereas we are in winter or late winter anyway.

SHI: By the way, anti-malarial drugs such as chloroquinine have been found to be effective cures for Coronavirus although not laboratory-tested fully. What do you make of that?

By the time you are going to the hospital, you pretty much can’t breathe. At that point, drugs will do fuck all. You’re going on that ventilator, unless you are in Italy where they will decide if your life is worth saving or not. If you are being placed on that ventilator prone as you see in some of those videos out of Italy, you are in pretty bad shape, I guarantee.

There are lots of drugs that are being found effective for this illness. What all of that boils down to right now, I don’t know because here in the US, they tell you it’s viral pneumonia, and there are no drugs to treat it because it’s a virus. Also US rates are very low because many, many people are being refused tests due to a test shortage.

Alt Left: The State of the Alternative Left and Realist Left in the US and around the World

Both the Alt Left and the Realist Left definitely continue to exist. There are Facebook groups, websites, and even a couple of online major magazines for these groups. But both movements are quite small, there are no political parties in the US promoting this view, and as far as I can tell, there are few if any people in national office or even running for national office who are Alt Left or Realist Left.

For the purposes of this post, we will focus on the Alt Left and not the similar but not equivalent Realist Left. The differences between the two movements could be summed up by saying that the Alt Left is further to the left than the Realist Left on economics but further to the right of the Realist Left on social issues.

Some media personalities and political thinkers fall into the category of Alt Left. As an example, I would regard Cenk Uygur, Jimmy Dore, and Chapo Treehouse (the “dirtbag Left’) as Alt Left. They would fall into the category of “Bernie Bros.” There are some male Bernie supporters who are  pretty much Alt Left, but it’s not reflected in the candidate Bernie himself or anyone running along his lines – for example, see “The Squad.”

Interestingly, Bernie used to be part of the anti-Identity Politics Left or so-called “class reductionists.” The Trotskyite World Socialist website of the International Socialist Tendency is in the old Left tradition of class reductionist and  anti-Identity Politics. Most other Trots in the West are extreme SJW’s, as are almost all Western Communists and Leftists.

I would proudly call myself a class reductionist, but it’s used as a term of insult on most of the Left, where it translates to something like “bigot” or “Nazi.” Sanders also used to be a nationalist and the Alt Left is absolutely a nationalist movement, but now Sanders along with the whole Western Left is internationalist, much to their detriment.

There is a sort of an “Alt Left” forming on the Danish and French Left. A couple of the major parties there like Melancon’s in France and the Social Democratic Party in Denmark have taken an anti-immigrant line, a stance which is throwing shock waves through the Left.

Victor Orban in Hungary is said to be a Rightist. In some ways he is, but he has nationalized quite a bit of the economy and promoted huge social spending under the nationalist rubric. If he was in Latin America, we would be calling him a Communist and trying to overthrow him. Orban is virtually Alt Left.

There are also some pretty strange Alt Left-type formations on the Arab Left, especially among Arab nationalists. Keep in mind that Arab nations are very socially conservative, so even the Left parties there reflect that.

The Iranian regime is actually quite far to the Left. Most of the economy is actually nationalized and social spending is huge. They’re almost Marxist in a sense. But they don’t think much of the Cultural Left, so in a sense Iran could be an Alt Left country.

The Russian Communist Party (KPRF) supports Putin, and they are quite socially conservative for a Leftist party. I would absolutely consider the  KPRF to be Alt Left.  Putin himself is rather leftwing believe it or not, but he is very much against the Cultural Left. The Alt Left generally supports Putin, or at least I do, and I consider Putin to be a type of Alt Leftist.

The former Communist regimes were all very much against the Cultural Left, which they called Western bourgeois decadence, so in that sense, most if not all of the former Communist regimes could be thought of as Alt Left. That strain of Communism is pretty much through though.

Things here in the West as far as the Left-Right split have gotten wildly partisan and “party line,” but if you step outside the West, there’s a lot more heterogeneity.

Alt Left: The U.S. Is Recycling Its Big Lie about Iraq to Target Iran

A superb article. People need to get this through their damned heads: Iran does not have a Goddamned nuclear weapons program! The CIA even said so itself in its last word in the subject in 2007. Yet this evil government of ours keeps insisting that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.

This is literally the reason for the entire sanctions regime, the targeting and war threats against Iran, the bombing of pro-Iranian Iraqi Shia militias in Iraq, and the assassination of Hajj Qassem Soleimani.

How many Moronicans believe these big fat lie? How many Eurotrash believe this lie. It must be a large majority of both of them.

After all, the entire MSM in the West – every single newspaper, magazine, and TV and radio news show, along with all Western governments insists that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Not even one media outlet anywhere in the West will admit the obvious truth that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons and hasn’t had one for a minimum of 30 lies.

Guess (((who))) cooked up this big, fat lie in the (((US media))). Guess (((why))) the entire media and every state in the West keeps repeating this lie? I’ll tell you why. (((This))) is the reason why. (((These people))) want Iran invaded and destroyed because it is the only country left other than Syria which is a sworn enemy of (((their state))).

Guess who the US, UK, France, and Germany take orders from. (((This)) is who they take orders from.

Granted the US is also out to destroy Iran because the Shia-haters in Jordan, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, and Turkey all hate Iran simply because they are profoundly bigoted Sunnis with a homicidal hatred and paranoia of Shia Muslims.

In addition, US imperialism has had a hard-on for Iran ever since the Embassy Takeover in 1979. We never got over it. And the rule of US imperialism is simply “never forgive, never forget.” Exactly the same motto as (((some people))). Coincidence? For the crime of standing up to the US and shouting “Death to America! Death to Israel!” for 40 years, US imperialism wants Iran gone.

In addition, Iran has no central bank. US imperialism demands that all countries have central banks.

In addition, Iran is selling its oil in currencies other than dollars. This threatens the “petrodollar,” one of the essential pillars of US imperialism. The use of the dollar in international trade has indeed been declining in the past 10 years. It’s down to 6

As long as most international trade is conducted in dollars, US imperialism can charge full steam ahead. But when that number goes down below 5

And this World Dictator and Most Powerful Nation on Earth nonsense is one thing that America wants to keep perhaps more than anything else. The US will do most anything, start wars, kill millions of people – it matters not- to retain those positions.

As Lenin said, power does not give up without a fight which was one reason that he said the electoral road to socialism could never happen and why he called people who supported it “parliamentary cretins.” It’s not so much that he opposed it, as he simply thought it would not work.

It is instructive to note that every single country that has gone off the dollar has been either attacked, subjected to heavy sanctions, had coups, color revolutions, or armed insurgencies unleashed upon. Sometimes more than one or all of the above.

  • Iraq went off the petrodollar. It was invaded soon after.
  • Libya went off the petrodollar. It was quickly attacked.
  • Syria went off the petrodollar. It had an insurgency unleashed upon it.
  • Iran is going off the petrodollar. It’s been subject to many threats and vicious sanctions.
  • North Korea went off the dollar. Result was totally brutal sanctions, many deaths, and endless military threats.
  • Venezuela is going off the petrodollar. Result: sanctions, economic warfare, and coup attempts with lockout strikes, use of armed forces, violent street demonstrations and now with an entire fake alternate facts government set up led by a man who was never elected President even one time.
  • Russia and China are going off the dollar. Result: sanctions, tariffs, and hybrid warfare was launched on both countries and both have been designated as top US enemies. A color revolution is being attempted in Hong Kong.

See how this works?

The U.S. Is Recycling Its Big Lie About Iraq to Target Iran

Sixteen years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, most Americans understand that it was an illegal war based on lies about non-existent “weapons of mass destruction.” But our government is now threatening to drag us into a war on Iran with a nearly identical “big lie” about a non-existent nuclear weapons program, based on politicized intelligence from the same CIA teams that wove a web of lies to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In 2002-3, U.S. officials and corporate media pundits repeated again and again that Iraq had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction that posed a dire threat to the world. The CIA produced reams of false intelligence to support the march to war and cherry-picked the most deceptively persuasive narratives for Secretary of State Colin Powell to present to the UN Security Council on February 5th 2003.

In December 2002, Alan Foley, the head of the CIA’s Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center (WINPAC) told his staff,

If the president wants to go to war, our job is to find the intelligence to allow him to do so.

Paul Pillar, a CIA officer who was the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, helped to prepare a 25-page document that was passed off to Members of Congress as a “summary” of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq.

But the document was written months before the NIE it claimed to summarize and contained fantastic claims that were nowhere to be found in the NIE, such as that the CIA knew of 550 specific sites in Iraq where chemical and biological weapons were stored. Most members read only this fake summary, not the real NIE, and blindly voted for war. As Pillar later confessed to PBS’s Frontline:

The purpose was to strengthen the case for going to war with the American public. Is it proper for the intelligence community to publish papers for that purpose? I don’t think so and I regret having had a role in it.

WINPAC was set up in 2001 to replace the CIA’s Nonproliferation Center or NPC (1991-2001), where a staff of 100 CIA analysts collected possible evidence of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons development to support U.S. information warfare, sanctions, and ultimately regime change policies against Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and other U.S. enemies.

WINPAC uses the U.S.’s satellite, electronic surveillance, and international spy networks to generate material to feed to UN agencies like UNSCOM, UNMOVIC, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which are charged with overseeing the non-proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

The CIA’s material has kept these agencies’ inspectors and analysts busy with an endless stream of documents, satellite imagery, and claims by exiles for almost 30 years. But since Iraq destroyed all its banned weapons in 1991, they have found no confirming evidence that either Iraq or Iran has taken steps to acquire nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.

UNMOVIC and the IAEA told the UN Security Council in 2002-3 they could find no evidence to support U.S. allegations of illegal weapons development in Iraq.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei exposed the CIA’s Niger yellowcake document as a forgery in a matter of hours. ElBaradei’s commitment to the independence and impartiality of his agency won the respect of the world, and he and his agency were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

Apart from outright forgeries and deliberately fabricated evidence from exile groups like Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC) and the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), most of the material the CIA and its allies have provided to UN agencies has involved dual-use technology which could be used in banned weapons programs but also as alternative legitimate uses.

A great deal of the IAEA’s work in Iran has been to verify that each of these items has in fact been used for peaceful purposes or conventional weapons development rather than in a nuclear weapons program.

But as in Iraq, the accumulation of inconclusive, unsubstantiated evidence of a possible nuclear weapons program has served as a valuable political weapon to convince the media and the public that there must be something solid behind all the smoke and mirrors.

For instance, in 1990, the CIA began intercepting  Telex messages from Sharif University in Tehran and Iran’s Physics Research Centre about orders for ring magnets, fluoride, and fluoride-handling equipment, a balancing machine, a mass spectrometer, and vacuum equipment, all of which can be used in uranium enrichment.

For the next 17 years, the CIA’s NPC and WINPAC regarded these telexes as some of their strongest evidence of a secret nuclear weapons program in Iran, and they were cited as such by senior U.S. officials. It was not until 2007-8 that the Iranian government finally tracked down all these items at Sharif University, and the IAEA inspectors were able to visit the university and confirm that they were being used for academic research and teaching as Iran had told them.

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the IAEA’s work in Iran continued, but every lead provided by the CIA and its allies proved to be either fabricated, innocent, or inconclusive. In 2007, U.S. intelligence agencies published a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran in which they acknowledged that Iran had no active nuclear weapons program. The publication of the As George W. Bush wrote in his memoirs, “…after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?”

But despite the lack of confirming evidence, the CIA refused to alter the “assessment” from its 2001 and 2005 NIE’s that Iran probably did have a nuclear weapons program prior to 2003. This left the door open for the continued use of WMD allegations, inspections, and sanctions as potent political weapons in the U.S.’s regime change policy toward Iran.

In 2007, UNMOVIC published a Compendium or final report on the lessons learned from the debacle in Iraq. One key lesson was that “complete independence is a prerequisite for a UN inspection agency” so that the inspection process would not be used “either to support other agendas or to keep the inspected party in a permanent state of weakness.”

Another key lesson was that “proving the negative is a recipe for enduring difficulties and unending inspections.” The 2005 Robb-Silberman Commission on the U.S. intelligence failure in Iraq reached very similar conclusions, such as that“…analysts effectively shifted the burden of proof, requiring proof that Iraq did not have active WMD programs rather than requiring affirmative proof of their existence.

“While the U.S. policy position was that Iraq bore the responsibility to prove that it did not have banned weapons programs, the Intelligence Community’s burden of proof should have been more objective…

“By raising the evidentiary burden so high, analysts artificially skewed the analytical process toward confirmation of their original hypothesis – that Iraq had active WMD programs.”

In its work on Iran, the CIA has carried on the flawed analysis and processes identified by the UNMOVIC Compendium and the Robb-Silberman report on Iraq.

The pressure to produce politicized intelligence that supports U.S. policy positions persists because that is the corrupt role that U.S. intelligence agencies play in U.S. policy, spying on other governments, staging coups, destabilizing countries, and producing politicized and fabricated intelligence to create pretexts for war.

A legitimate national intelligence agency would provide objective intelligence analysis that policymakers could use as a basis for rational policy decisions. But as the UNMOVIC Compendium implied, the U.S. government is unscrupulous in abusing the concept of intelligence and the authority of international institutions like the IAEA to “support other agendas,” notably its desire for regime change in countries around the world.

The U.S.’s “other agenda” on Iran gained a valuable ally when Mohamed ElBaradei retired from the IAEA in 2009 and was replaced by Yukiya Amano from Japan. A State Department cable from July 10th, 2009 released by Wikileaks described Mr. Amano as a “strong partner” to the U.S. based on “the very high degree of convergence between his priorities and our own agenda at the IAEA.”

The memo suggested that the U.S. should try to “shape Amano’s thinking before his agenda collides with the IAEA Secretariat bureaucracy.”  The memo’s author was Geoffrey Pyatt, who later achieved international notoriety as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine who was exposed on a leaked audio recording plotting the 2014 coup in Ukraine with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

The Obama administration spent its first term pursuing a failed “dual-track” approach to Iran in which its diplomacy was undermined by the greater priority it gave to its parallel track of escalating UN sanctions. When Brazil and Turkey presented Iran with the framework of a nuclear deal that the U.S. had proposed, Iran readily agreed to it.

But the U.S. rejected what had begun as a U.S. proposal because by that point, it would have undercut its efforts to persuade the UN Security Council to impose harsher sanctions on Iran. As a senior State Department official told author Trita Parsi, the real problem was that the U.S. wouldn’t take “yes” for an answer.

It was only in Obama’s second term after John Kerry replaced Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, that the U.S. finally did take “yes” for an answer, leading to the JCPOA between Iran, the U.S., and other major powers in 2015. So it was not U.S.-backed sanctions that brought Iran to the table but the failure of sanctions that brought the U.S. to the table.

Also in 2015, the IAEA completed its work on “Outstanding Issues” regarding Iran’s past nuclear-related activities. On each specific case of dual-use research or technology imports, the IAEA found no proof that they were related to nuclear weapons rather than conventional military or civilian uses.

Under Amano’s leadership and U.S. pressure, the IAEA “assessed” that “a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003,” but that “these activities did not advance beyond feasibility studies and the acquisition of certain relevant technical competences and capabilities.”

The JCPOA has broad support in Washington. But the U.S. political debate over the JCPOA has essentially ignored the actual results of the IAEA’s work in Iran, the CIA’s distorting role in it, and the extent to which the CIA has replicated the institutional biases, reinforcing of preconceptions, forgeries, politicization and corruption by “other agendas” that were supposed to be corrected to prevent any repetition of the WMD fiasco in Iraq.

Politicians who support the JCPOA now claim that it stopped Iran getting nuclear weapons, while those who oppose the JCPOA claim that it would allow Iran to acquire them.

They are both wrong because as the IAEA has concluded and even President Bush acknowledged, Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program. The worst that the IAEA can objectively say is that Iran may have done some basic nuclear weapons-related research some time before 2003, but then again, maybe it didn’t.

Mohamed ElBaradei wrote in his memoir, The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times that if Iran ever conducted even rudimentary nuclear weapons research, he was sure it was only during the Iran-Iraq War which ended in 1988, when the U.S. and its allies helped Iraq kill up to 100,000 Iranians with chemical weapons.

If ElBaradei’s suspicions were correct, Iran’s dilemma since that time would have been that it could not admit to that work in the 1980s without facing even greater mistrust and hostility from the U.S. and its allies and risking a similar fate to Iraq.

Regardless of uncertainties regarding Iran’s actions in the 1980s, the U.S.’s campaign against Iran has violated the most critical lessons U.S. and UN officials claimed to have learned from the debacle in Iraq.

The CIA has used its almost entirely baseless suspicions about nuclear weapons in Iran as pretexts to “support other agendas” and “keep the inspected party in a permanent state of weakness,” exactly as the UNMOVIC Compendium warned against ever again doing to another country.

In Iran as in Iraq, this has led to an illegal regime of brutal sanctions under which thousands of children are dying from preventable diseases and malnutrition and to threats of another illegal U.S. war that would engulf the Middle East and the world in even greater chaos than the one the CIA engineered against Iraq.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is a freelance writer, researcher for CODEPINK and author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

A Bit on Breton and Other Minority Languages of France

@SHI, responding to this post:

Sounds like Welsh or something in the Celtic languages family.

Perhaps, Breton or any other minority languages? I think it’s spoken in modern France.

Yes, it is Celtic. Good job for getting that.

Nope, it’s not Breton. Yes, Breton is spoken in Brittany in France at the far northwestern part of the country. It stems from a migration by Welsh speakers to that part of France in 1300, so it’s close to Welsh. Apparently they can’t really understand each other though. I would guess ~3

Both languages are part of a branch of Celtic called Byrthonic. Believe it or not, 2,000 years ago, Byrthonic languages were the only languages spoken in England and Wales. They’ve gone extinct now except for Welsh, Manx, and Cornish.

The other branch is called Goidelic and includes Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

Although Breton has 500,000 speakers, it’s not in very good shape because France tries to destroy every non-French language spoken in the country. Most speakers are older and there are few young speakers.

However, a number of private schools have been set up to teach children. The teach them a new form called Unified Breton, which oddly and comically enough is so different from the other Breton languages spoken that the older speakers cannot understand these New Breton speakers.

France has even attacked the other langues d’oil, of which French (Parisien) is only one. Parisien happened to be the langue d’oil spoken in Paris, so it became Standard French. However, in WW 1, 8

They spoke the other langues d’oil, the various Occitan languages (perhaps as many as 18),  Arpitan  or Franco-Provencal (which may also be u to 20 languages), Souletin Basque, Breton (four different languages), Alsatian (German), or West Flemish. Incredible, isn’t it? The other langues d’oil are in horrible shape, though most have not gone extinct yet.

They split from Parisien and the other langues d’oil from Old French around 1,000 years ago, so they are very divergent. Intelligibility between Poitevin and Lorraine is estimated at

SHI: It’s clearly not Manx or Cornish.

Ha ha, what makes you so sure about that second opinion, my man?

Alt Left: Communism Is a Universal Movement Not Tied to Any Ethnicity

Communism appeals to all sorts of people on a basic level. Look at what Communism promises. It’s pretty clear that that’s something that a lot of humans would want, not any particular ethnicity or culture.

Polar Bear: NS Germany surely had a German spirit. Was Communism based on Russian farm culture or anything native? I often think it contrasts with warring Celtic tribes on the British Isles and Ireland. Maybe some of it is Slavic in nature.

I’m not sure. You know it took off in Mozambique, Grenada, Angola, Cuba, Afghanistan, China, Vietnam, Laos, Chile, Congo, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Yemen too, right?

And they almost won in Peru, El Salvador, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, and Colombia.

The CP was huge in Iraq – the  base of Moqtada Sadr’s movement is actually the old Iraqi CP! Most of Sadr’s followers and soldiers were former members of the Iraqi CP. It had huge memberships in Sadr City. Eurocoms were huge in France and Italy. The CP is in the ANC government in South Africa.

In addition, Communism  was very popular in Kazakhstan (Turkics), Tajikistan (Iranics), Uzbekistan (Turkics), Turkmenistan (Turkics), Kyrgyzstan (Turkics), Karelia, Mari-El and Udmurtia (Finno-Urigics), the Caucasus, Azerbaijan (Turkics), Armenia, among Siberian Turkics, Buryats (Mongolics), Tungusics, the Nivkhi (Japanese types), and the Chukchi (Inuit types).

I’m afraid there’s a little more to it than Slavicism. I do not believe it was ever very popular in Poland, the Baltics, Finland or Georgia though. Stalin once said that forcing Communism on the Poles was like putting a saddle on a cow.

Anyway, Marx was German and Engels was British. Rosa Luxembourg was German. Antonio Gramschi was Italian. Carlos Luis Mariategui and Edith Lagos were Peruvian. Manuel Marulanda Gabriel Garcia Marquez were Colombians. Gabriel Mistral was Chilean. Farbundo Marti and Roque Dalton were Salvadorans.

Augustino Sandino was Nicaraguan. Pablo Picasso was a Spaniard. Ho Chi Minh was Vietnamese. Mao Zedong was Chinese. Patrice Lumumba was Congolese. Samora Machel was Mozambican. Those are all very famous Communists who were non-Slavic.

We and our pals overthrew non-Commie Leftist nationalists in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Guyana, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Portugal, Iraq, Iran, and Libya. We and our pals tried unsuccessfully to overthrow them in a number of other places.

Communism has universal appeal. It is nothing less than the dream of a better world. That is why in a way I was sad when the Eastern bloc collapsed because what collapsed with it was that most beautiful dream.

The Latin American Left believed in the dream of a better world. And in Latin America, that is a dangerous thing.

– Alejandra, an Argentine ex-girlfriend

The Doors, “The End” Live at Isle of Wight Festival

The Doors, “The End,” at the Isle of Wight Festival in the UK, 1970. From the album, Live at The Isle of Wight Festival 1970, not released until 2018, believe it or not!

Of course this is one of the greatest songs ever written, that’s obvious to anyone who’s ever heard it. This is the live version. I usually don’t like live versions better than album versions, but I’m familiar with the album version very well, and this live version was something special. He’s making a lot of stuff up here and there’s a lot of improvisational jamming but if ever a chaotic song was written about the beauty of chaos and entropy, this is it.

So this live version is really something special. I’ve heard this was a great concert, sort of the British version of Woodstock. Don’t know anyone who was there, though. The hippie movement was pretty big in the UK too, by the way.

It wasn’t just a US phenomenon. It was happening all over the most of the West to the best of my understanding. There were absolutely hippies in France, Sweden, and especially Denmark and Germany. Much of the rest of Europe was part of the Eastern Bloc, and they were not friendly to the movement.

Outside of the West, I’m not sure how big the movement was, but I suppose one can argue that some places in the world are just naturally “hippie,” so to speak. Aspects of Indian, Nepalese, and Moroccan culture absolutely come to mind.

The Beats headed to Tangier in Morocco, and India and Nepal were flooded with hippies in search of enlightenment and paradise. In a way, these were precisely the places to go. For when the hippies went to India and Nepal (or Afghanistan for that matter), after all, they were only going home again, to the Subcontinent, where the roots of the movement were birthed long ago.

There were definitely hippies in Peru in the 1970’s though, I can tell you that much. And no doubt in other parts of Latin America.

If anyone has any anecdotes about the hippie movement outside the West, let me know in the comments.

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