#a foreign threat to peace that must be eliminated

[kraviolis]

with the rising fascism in the world, im not gonna trust any new medias with stories that make the villain an agent of chaos & terror while the hero/es fight to preserve the status quo.

[tieflingkisser]

Biden Executive Order on West Bank violence more likely to be used against Palestinians than Israeli settlers

Joe Biden’s Executive Order targeting those “undermining peace, security, and stability in the West Bank” is too narrow to address Israeli settler violence, yet so broadly written it will likely be used disproportionately against Palestinians.

There have been mixed reactions to the Biden Administration’s decision to place economic and travel-based sanctions on four Israeli settlers on Thursday, February 1. Some have been cautiously optimistic that the sanctions—which came in the form of an Executive Order—would bring long-absent accountability for Israeli settler violence in the West Bank. Others have criticized the sanctions as a cynical move to whitewash the Biden Administration’s own crimes and win over disillusioned Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian voters, whose support for Biden has substantially plummeted as a result of his unwavering support for Israel’s onslaught on the Gaza Strip.

[...]

Unfortunately, Biden’s Executive Order is unlikely to meaningfully address the scourge of Israeli settler violence. This is not just because of a lack of political will. Rather, it is also because the sanctions order, itself, is written narrowly in ways that circumscribe its impact on settler violence, while at the same time is written so broadly it can be used against Palestinians. Indeed, the Executive branch will almost certainly use the order against Palestinians, perhaps even disproportionately so. The Executive Order is narrow because, while it applies to the West Bank, it is unclear whether it also applies to East Jerusalem. Though the United States officially considers East Jerusalem to be occupied by Israel, its statements about and policies towards East Jerusalem suggest it unofficially supports Israeli sovereignty over the occupied city. At the very least, the U.S. government seems to consider East Jerusalem to be separate from the West Bank. On top of this, given Israel’s position on East Jerusalem—which it unilaterally annexed in contravention of international law in 1980 and considers part of its undivided capital—it is unlikely the Biden Administration or any other presidential administration will be willing to extend the Executive Order’s ambit to this territory. This omission, of course, means a crucial and important site of Israeli settler violence remains beyond the Executive Order’s reach. As part of their efforts to demographically dominate the city, the Israeli state and its settlers have been particularly keen on reducing, if not eliminating, the Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem, through both legal and extra-legal, violent means.   Further narrowing Biden’s Executive Order is the fact that it only sanctions “foreign persons.” While Americans must comply with sanctions against such foreign persons, U.S. persons are not directly subject to Biden’s order. Again, this significantly limits the Executive Order’s scope. By excluding Israeli-American settlers from its effects, the order fails to cover a community that is reportedly “leading” the rise in settler violence against Palestinians. At the same time, the Executive Order is quite broad and goes beyond the government’s stated concerns with settler violence. The word “settler” is only mentioned once—in the preamble to the Executive Order—and, even then, is used simply to note that “the situation in the West Bank — in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction — has reached intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region.” That is it. That is the only reference to settlers in the Executive Order—in what effectively amounts to a non-exclusive list of concerns that purportedly led the administration to create the sanctions order. Notably, the Executive Order neither describes the settlers as Israeli nor does it mention, at any point, that the forced displacement of “people and villages, and property destruction” is happening to Palestinians.

[bllsbailey]

Pure Gold: JD Vance Blasts Dem/Media Hypocrisy Over Rhetoric

Since Sunday's second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, Democrats and the legacy media have been on overdrive in their efforts to blame Trump himself for the incident. One way or another, they must find a way to hang the threat of violence against Trump around his own neck, even if that means twisting logic into an unrecognizable pretzel and dispending with any effort at consistency. 

Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), had his hands full Sunday (prior to the attempt), making the rounds on the Sunday shows and going toe-to-toe with the likes of Dana Bash and her partisan fervor. 

Monday evening, Vance took to X and, in the way that only Vance could, eloquently and pointedly laid bare the hypocrisy and utter, well, as my colleague Ward Clark might describe it, bovine excrement emitting from Dems and the media in response to the second attempt in two months to assassinate a former (and possible future) president.

Yesterday, Donald J. Trump nearly lost his life. An armed gunman waited for him in the bushes. He brought a go-pro camera to record it. A secret service agent spotted the barrel of a gun through a fence and shot at the gunman. The gunman fled. He was caught. And now we slowly learn about him and his motive.

President Trump is my running mate, and my friend, but he is more importantly a father and grandfather to people who love him very much. I want him to have many more years with his family. (And selfishly, I'd like many more with my own.)

I admire the president for calling for peace and calm. The rhetoric is out of control. It nearly got Steve Scalise and many others killed a few years ago. It nearly got Donald Trump killed twice. But I want to say something about yesterday's news, and how it illuminates the difference between vigorous debate and violent rhetoric.

Here is what we know so far: Kamala Harris has said that "Democracy is on the line" in her race against President Trump. The gunman agreed, and used the exact same phrase. He had a Kamala Harris bumper sticker on his truck. He was obsessed with Ukraine's "fight for Democracy" and absorbed many unhinged views about the Russia-Ukraine war. HIs name is Ryan Routh, and he donated 19 times to Democrat causes and zero to Republican ones.

How do you think the Democrats and their media allies would respond if a 19-time Republican donor tried to kill a Democratic official? It's a question that answers itself. For years, Kamala Harris's campaign surrogates have said things like "Trump has to be eliminated." And how have their media allies responded to the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump in as many months?

NBC News called the attempted assassination a "golf club incident." The LA Times told us "Trump Targeted at Golf Club." The USA Today's top of the fold headline is "Hope in America," and they published a preposterous letter to the editor arguing that Trump "brings these assassination attempts on himself." CNN's Dana Bash--who just yesterday bizarrely accused me of inciting a bomb threat--said today that Harris campaign rhetoric didn't motivate Routh even though he echoed their rhetoric explicitly.

PBS's weekend show perfectly illustrates the double standard of Kamala Harris's media friends. After spending 30 seconds on the second assassination attempt on President Trump, they then focused on the real danger: me and President Trump, who are, according to them, personally responsible for bomb threats against Springfield. Of course, I repeatedly condemend those threats. And reports today suggest they came from a foreign country, not--as the media suggested--a deranged Trump fan.

The double standard is breathtaking. Donald Trump and I are, by their account, directly responsible for bomb threats from foreign countries.  Why? Because we had the audacity to repeat what residents told us about the problems in their town. Meanwhile, Harris allies call for Trump to be eliminated as the media publishes arguments that he deserved to be shot.

This seems like a double standard. But at a deep level, it is entirely consistent.

Consider Springfield. Citizens are telling us that there are problems. These include the undeniable truths of higher car accidents, unaffordable housing, evictions of residents, overcrowded hospitals, overstressed schools, and rising rates of disease. They also include the infamous pet stories--which, again, multiple people have spoken about (either on video or to me or my staff).

Kamala Harris's first strategy was to ignore these people and their concerns. Yes, she had prevented the deportation of millions of illegal aliens, and some of them made their way to Springfield. But it was a small town with no voice. Some of the local leadership even loved the cheap labor. So the suffering of thousands of American citizens went ignored.

Their next move with these stories is censorship. In Springfield, a psychopath (or a foreign government) calls in a bomb threat, so they blame that on President Trump (and me). The threat of violence is disgraceful of course, yet the media seems to relish it. They cover a bomb threat, but not the rise in murders. They cover the threat, but not the HIV uptick. They cover the threat, not the schools overwhelmed with new kids who don't speak English. They cover the threat, not rising insurance rates or the car accidents that caused them. They cover the threat, not the failures of Kamala Harris's leadership.

The purpose is not to turn down the rhetoric. If anything, covering the bomb threats gives whoever makes them exactly what he wants: attention. The purpose is distraction and shame. How dare you talk about the problems of Haitian migration in Springfield? You're endangering people, simply by discussing the problems of Kamala Harris's policies. It's a form of moral blackmail, designed not to make anyone safe but to shut everyone up.

Springfield is the most recent, but hardly the most egregious example. There was the Hunter Biden laptop story, censored by BigTech. And who can forget that anyone who didn't support Kamala Harris's Ukraine policy was drenched in the blood of Ukrainian children. That last one appears to have had some effect on Routh--the most recent would-be assassin. The message is always the same: don't you dare express an opinion on the public affairs of your nation. The message is: shut up.

This is the difference between debate--even aggressive debate--and censorship. It is one thing to attack Kamala Harris for "destroying the country" and quite another to say that President Trump should be "eliminated." It is one thing to criticize overheated rhetoric, and another to say that a former president has invited an assassination on himself. It is one thing to say that Donald J. Trump's arguments about the election of 2020 are wrong; it is another thing to attempt to remove him from the ballot over it.

It is one thing to say that pets are not, in fact being eaten, and another thing to say that anyone who disagrees is trying to murder people. Dissent, even vigorous dissent, is a great tradition of the United States. Censorship is not.

For the next 7 weeks of this campaign, I will vigorously defend your right to speak your mind. I believe you have every right to criticize me and Donald J. Trump, even if you say terrible or untrue things about us. But when I ask you to "tone down the rhetoric" it's not about being nice--our citizens have every right to be mean, even if I don't like it--or empty platitudes.

Instead, I'm asking all of us to reject censorship. Reject the idea that you can control what other people think and say. Embrace persuasion of your fellow citizens over silencing them--either through the powers of Big Tech or through moral blackmail.

I think this will make our public debate much better. But there's something else. Reject censorship and you reject political violence. Embrace censorship, and you will inevitably embrace violence on its behalf.

The reason is simple. The logic of censorship leads directly to one place, for there is only one way to permanently silence a human being: put a bullet in his brain.

Vance nails it. "The logic of censorship leads directly to one place" — and that's a dark, awful place. The Dems and their media parrots are so very fond of saying, "Democracy is on the ballot" in the upcoming election. I disagree. Freedom is. 

Bring on October 1 and the vice presidential debate. 

[argyrocratie]

yea like if states in general are inevitable i don’t see why “empires” would not be too, if anything the seeming inevitability of state is concomitent to the seeming inevitability of imperialism, if states are an interconected global inevitability so some measure of global imperialism will be inevitable

this convo made me recall two quote:

-Randolph Bourne, “War is the health of the state” (1918)

“For the last stronghold of State power is foreign policy. It is in foreign policy that the State acts most concentratedly as the organized herd, acts with fullest sense of aggressive-power, acts with freest arbitrariness. In foreign policy, the State is most itself. States, with reference to each other, may be said to be in a continual state of latent war. The “armed truce,” a phrase so familiar before 1914, was an accurate description of the normal relation of States when they are not at war. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the normal relation of States is war.

Diplomacy is a disguised war, in which States seek to gain by barter and intrigue, by the cleverness of wits, the objectives which they would have to gain more clumsily by means of war. Diplomacy is used while the States are recuperating from conflicts in which they have exhausted themselves. It is the wheedling and the bargaining of the worn-out bullies as they rise from the ground and slowly restore their strength to begin fighting again. If diplomacy had been a moral equivalent for war, a higher stage in human progress, an inestimable means of making words prevail instead of blows, militarism would have broken down and given place to it. But since it is a mere temporary substitute, a mere appearance of war’s energy under another form, a surrogate effect is almost exactly proportioned to the armed force behind it. When it fails, the recourse is immediate to the military technique whose thinly veiled arm it has been.

(...)

The State, acting  as a diplomatic-military ideal, is eternally at war. Just as it must  act arbitrarily and autocratically in time of war, it must act in time  of peace in this particular role where it acts as a unit. Unified  control is necessarily autocratic control.

Democratic control of foreign policy is therefore a contradiction in  terms. Open discussion destroys swiftness and certainty of action. The  giant State is paralyzed. Mr. Wilson retains his full ideal of the State  at the same time that he desires to eliminate war. He wishes to make  the world safe for democracy as well as safe for diplomacy. When the two are in conflict, his clear political insight, his idealism of the  State, tells him that it is the naïver democratic values that must be  sacrificed. The world must primarily be made safe for diplomacy. The  State must not be diminished.”

                        _______________________________

-Gruppen Gegen Kapital und Nation, “What is Imperialism?” (2018)

“Efforts to expand by states or state-like entities have existed for a very long time. See, for example, Alexander the Great or the Roman Empire. Clearly, none of this had anything to do with capitalism. However, the following basic principle was already valid at that time:

An authority over a certain territory claims the underlying economy in order to maintain its own power. The question then is always why that power should stop at a certain point. On the other side of the border there are also farmers or trading places that the authority can control and whose economic yields it can use for its own power. If there is already another state-like entity on the other side of the border, i.e. another authority, then it is regarded as a threat to the own authority. It is assumed to have the same interest: why not expand the basis of power? From this it is already clear, regardless of the particular economy that prevails at the moment, that wars always ensue where such authorities exist. The considerations preventing wars were: Does the internal economy produce enough surplus product to sustain enough soldiers to start an expansion? Alternatively, neither side believed it could win a war. Or, the authority’s rule had become fragile due to insurrections, so that the rulers did not want or could not afford the expansion because the interior had to be brought to order first.

(...)

Nationally, a capitalist state organise its rule so that the question of force is settled in favour of the state. The state’s authority is above the competing subjects, it has the sovereignty to dictate to everyone a system of private property, to guarantee contracts (i.e. to enforce them against anyone), to permit or ban business opportunities.

When previously states incorporated foreign territories or subordinated them as colonies, the need for violence was obvious. The local population or even structures of authority had to be subordinated to their own monopoly on the use of force. Other states, that were also interested in these territories, had to be educated by force of arms who ruled over the territory. That is what the First World War was all about.

The modern imperialism of successful nations, on the other hand, relies on the recognition of the sovereignty of other states. The state acknowledges that the other state has full control over its territory and its people and on this basis enters into agreements with it which are then intended to realise its own national advantage.

In this respect, however, the recognition is already a conditional one. Only when the other state is willing to enter into certain contracts does it deserve recognition and the promise that it will not be compelled by direct force.

This is something that needs to be brought about. NATO has for decades clearly stated to a third of the world, i.e. the Eastern bloc: just as you are withdrawing from our use economically, we are working towards sweeping you away with war as well.

But you don't have to be a communist regime to attract military hostility. Sometimes it was enough to implement a more social democratic programme with nationalisation of the economy to get the CIA involved, as many Latin American governments have experienced.

With such military intervention, the United States have spelled out the limits up to which other states are granted a sovereign calculation at all, i.e. one based on national advantage.

Some countries beyond the Eastern Bloc have denied the West's claims to authority. Sometimes verbally, sometimes through supporting small militant groups. Iran, Syria or Gaddafi’s Libya, for example, have made it clear that they do not want to accept the West's claims to authority. This has earned them the hostility of the United States. The deposition of these regimes by force that is being practised or is aimed for is not only a message to these countries in particular, but to the whole world. You are only sovereign if you acknowledge the worldwide regulatory rights of the United States.

The idea that a state expands its basis of power by annexing previously foreign territories does not vanish from the world from one day to the next. Here, too, the United States has essentially enforced on others that this means of national politics has no justification in the modern world. They made this clear once again following the attack by Iraq on Kuwait. The ongoing sanctions against Russia for the integration of the Crimea also stand for this. When Eastern Germany was integrated into the Federal Republic of Germany, it was not the people's will that was decisive, but the “yes” from the disintegrating Soviet Union and above all the “yes” from the United States.

The United States, as the number one military power, has earned a reputation in Europe of being a trigger-happy cowboy by using the force necessary for the free world trade order, while Germany cultivates the self-image of a negotiating peace power.

This image is being partially destroyed by current debates. The case of Ukraine shows just how much Germany has always lived off American violence in the world.

Ukraine was a country that depended on trade with both Russia and Europe. Both sides more or less insisted that Ukraine must decide with whom it wants to deal in the long term. Accordingly, there have always been groups in Ukraine that have stressed one side more than the other, but there was never a decisive conclusion. This was criticised by the EU as a policy of sitting on the fence. The EU wanted Ukraine to fully adopt EU trade law, which necessarily meant Ukraine's withdrawal from the customs union with Russia. After long negotiations with the EU, the Ukrainian President did not agree at the last moment. A civil war or coup d'état broke out in the Ukraine.

By then, both Russia and the EU had flexed their economic power to try to get the Ukrainian government to decide. Ukraine's economic dependence was used to sway the government. In terms of economic offers and economic threats, the EU was simply superior to Russia. This shows that successful states use their power not only for the success of their national capital, but vice versa, the superiority of national capital over which they rule is a weapon used to produce insights for other states.

Russia has ultimately abandoned the rules of the world economic order: With the support of the armed groups in Eastern Ukraine and the annexation of the Crimea, Russia has shown that the peaceful conquest of countries by the EU with economic offers and blackmail goes only as far as one can militarily secure this impudence against Russia.

Suddenly NATO is in demand and that essentially means the United States. The whole eastward enlargement of the EU, as the case of Ukraine shows, was based on the military power of the United States.

By the way: even within the EU one can ask how it comes that Germany of all countries, which has comparatively little to offer militarily, has the leading role. After all, France and the UK have nuclear weapons and they have shown that they can wage war. The fact that military might within the EU has not yet turned into leadership roles, but only economic potency, is also due to the superiority of the United States. It has obliged the European powers to act together without bringing military power into play. This obligation is ultimately based on the United States's military superiority.”

Anarchism sensu lato being opposition to all possible governing orders and institutions capable of exerting power (a valuable ideal and an instinct which I respect, achievable only asymptotically), anarchism sensu stricto being opposition to governance by states specifically (which is just correct—we do not need states).

[joannalannister]

Anonymous asked:

Hey there, Lauren! I love your blog and metas! I have a question for you, in terms of the book, could you tell me when and where Daenerys shows signs of being a tyrant or a fascist? I see lots of metas say that she is, but from what I've read, I don't see any signs of that? Sure, she kills her enemies, but what powerful monarch doesn't? I just feel like the fandom has a very biased and double standard hatred when it comes to her, and I would like your opinion! Thank you!

Before I answer your question, we need some sort of working definition of fascism. To achieve this, I would like to quote a disabled person who helped lead the fight against fascism for years, and who died in the line of duty:

Over a year and a half ago I said this [...]: "The militarists in Berlin, and Rome and Tokyo started this war, but the massed angered forces of common humanity will finish it."

Today that prophecy is in the process of being fulfilled. The massed, angered forces of common humanity are on the march. They are going forward [...] 

We will have no truck with Fascism in any way, in any shape or manner. We will permit no vestige of Fascism to remain. [...]

In every country conquered by the Nazis and the Fascists, or the Japanese militarists, the people have been reduced to the status of slaves or chattels.

It is our determination to restore these conquered peoples to the dignity of human beings, masters of their own fate, entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

We have started to make good on that promise. I am sorry if I step on the toes of those Americans who, playing party politics at home, call that kind of foreign policy “crazy altruism” and “starry-eyed dreaming.”

--President Franklin D. Roosevelt, July 28th, 1943 Fireside Chat

What did the fascist Nazi Party stand for in WWII?

Historically, there was no Nazi Party apart from their racial and social agenda. It was a party founded on racial distinctions, with a vision to dramatically transform their society. The Nazis disliked and persecuted anyone who they did not consider Aryan. They persecuted and killed Jewish people, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and communists, and they wanted to eliminate people with mental or physical ailments. The Nazis pushed women out of the workplace and actively promoted patriarchy. [x]

But where does GRRM come into this?

I wasn’t a complete pacifist; I couldn’t claim to be that. I was what they called an objector to a particular war. I would have been glad to fight in World War II. But Vietnam was the only war on the menu. [x]

GRRM’s ethical views are at their clearest and most concise while discussing slavery and dehumanization in his (most excellent and highly recommended) vampire novel, Fevre Dream:

I never held much with slavery […]. You can’t just go… usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended.

Some things are worth fighting for. Fascism requires opposition, some form of opposition, or it will steamroller all over you. 

My regret now is not that I stayed my arm, but that I remained aloof in my window while others protested peacefully outside. It would be naïve to think that those marching in neo-Nazi parades could have a change of heart from such efforts, but I am more concerned with those who are not marching for anything. We must convince the apathetic to care, and stop those who are walking down the path of hatred before it becomes too late.

--David Olin, The View from My Window, Berkeley 2018, written for the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity 

Now, let me apply this to ASOIAF piece by piece. 

In every country conquered [...] the people have been reduced to the status of slaves or chattels.

This is Tywin. This is Tywin enslaving people as part of his militaristic campaign of aggressive force in the Riverlands. This is Tywin sanctioning the capture and torture of innocent people. This is Tywin “using” other kinds of people and disregarding the fact that they are human beings. This is Tywin enslaving Arya Stark. This is Tywin impressing people to work in his gold mines on a whim, as we learn in AGOT. This is Tywin reducing people to the status of slaves or chattels. This is Tywin. 

I don’t know how many different ways I can say it, but as I���ve said before and will say again: Tywin is the character in the ASOIAF books who most prominently espouses fascist ideology. 

There are other characters in the main series -- Roose Bolton and Randyll Tarly, for example -- who also exhibit characteristics of fascist ideology, but I would argue that it is Tywin who is the fascist poster boy of ASOIAF ... and it is also Tywin who is one of the main villains who is drawing humanity’s attention south away from the true threat of the Others, who wish to turn every living thing into their slaves and playthings. (Littlefinger also comes to mind.) Tywin is an unwitting general in the Others’ army. Tywin is fighting the Others’ Campaign of Dehumanization on their behalf. 

The Nazis disliked and persecuted anyone who they did not consider Aryan. 

Substitute “Aryan” for “Lannister” and this is Tywin. “a Lannister, and worth more.” It is Tywin who pushes an agenda of Lannister superiority and it is Tywin to whom non-Lannisters aren’t human, to the point that he had to marry his own cousin. He dislikes non-Lannisters so much he had to marry his own cousin!!!! It’s Tywin who passed down his obsession with blood purity to his children to the point that they literally have to fuck each other. It’s Tywin who puts his House (a proxy for his race) above the individuals in it; it’s Tywin who doesn’t care if Cersei and Jaime and Tyrion are ground to dust under his disgusting ideology as long as House Lannister reigns supreme. 

"Spice soldiers and cheese lords," his lord father called them, with contempt. 

This is Tywin. 

Non-Lannisters aren’t fully human to Tywin. This is fascist ideology!!!!

It was a party founded on racial distinctions

This is Tywin and Kevan, refusing to allow the Westerlings to marry into their family because of “doubtful blood”!!!!! (”Ser Kevan seldom had a thought that Lord Tywin had not had first.”) 

It was a party founded on racial distinctions

This is Tywin and his refusal to allow a betrothal between Jaime and Elia. 

they wanted to eliminate people with mental or physical ailments. 

This is Tywin and his hatred toward disabled Tyrion. This is Tywin and his refusal to allow a betrothal between Jaime and disabled Elia. 

The Nazis pushed women out of the workplace and actively promoted patriarchy.

This is Tywin. This is Randyll hating on Brienne of Tarth. (And you can bet your ass Tywin doesn’t approve of women with swords.) 

I don’t know how many ways I can say it: Tywin and others like him are the fascists. 

Tywin is one of the cold fucks the AGOT prologue warns us about in the very beginning: “the real enemy is the cold.” 

The central conflict of ASOIAF is between the living (the fire) and the dead (the cold), those who would recognize your humanity and those who won’t. 

It is our determination to restore these conquered peoples to the dignity of human beings, masters of their own fate

^^ This is Daenerys Targaryen ^^

Daenerys Targaryen is a freedom fighter who kills slavers in the books. 

Her breakup of the economic system of Essos (meaning SLAVERY) is more akin to a communist revolution than a fascist takeover imo. Daenerys associates herself with people of all races, all classes. She gives Missandei, who canonically has dark skin in the books, a place as one of her closest advisors. Unlike Tywin, Daenerys is not pushing an agenda of Targaryen superiority. 

Daenerys is not perfect. She does not always get it right. Daenerys has got some things wrong. But I don’t think there has been any other option for Daenerys. You ... you can’t just look the other way when evil men are crucifying children, and I truly do not think that non-violent opposition would change anything in Essos. “Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see?” 

Sometimes innocents like Hazzea have died on Daenerys’s journey. 

And I fully believe that more people are going to die in TWOW, and that Daenerys will hold herself responsible, whether she is or not. I know that TWOW will give all the antis of every character a lot of ammunition. TWOW is going to be a dark and depressing book. 

I think that Daenerys is going to reach a very low point in TWOW, just as Tyrion is nose-diving in ADWD, but I think that’s just what GRRM does with his greatest heroes. It’s the moment in a movie when the hero falls off the cliff, and the Evil Villain starts cackling maniacally and you think all is lost, and then you see the hero’s hand reach up over the edge and the music crescendos as the hero pulls himself up. Except the real villains that GRRMs heroes are battling are themselves. The cliff is a metaphor for our darkest impulses. 

Characters tell Dany in AGOT that “she is nothing” but Dany’s story is about proving them wrong. It’s about her finding her own dignity and worth as a human being out on the Dothraki Sea, and becoming the master of her own fate. As her story progresses, she helps others to do the same, helping people to rediscover their dignity, to regain their names (or take new ones), to find the humanity that was stolen from them. 

(This is why it’s so important to me that her story intersect with zombie!Jon, so that she can help a dead man remember what it is to be human and remember why it all matters. Because if none of it matters ... if a man can’t find a fuck to give, well, that’s Tywin Lannister, who was a cold dead man long before Tyrion shot him.) 

I brought up FDR in the beginning of this post. Although FDR died before GRRM was born, he was one of the great American cultural figures of the 20th century and I have no doubt FDR’s legacy was a formative influence on GRRM. And that’s the thing - so many of these, these great American cultural figures of GRRM’s life died before their work was completed: FDR, JFK, MLK, so many others... The promised land is somewhere ahead of us, despite the opposition making accusations of “crazy altruism” and “starry-eyed dreaming.” No one is going to drive us there and drop us off; we have to get there by ourselves, and the journey isn’t an easy one. It’s a place we have to keep striving for, working for. A dream of spring...

It’s not Daenerys’s destiny, I think, to rule humanity in the long term; Dany’s destiny is, I think, to make sure that humanity doesn’t, well, lose their humanity. To make sure that humanity doesn’t fall into eldritch slavery.

The Others would make us automatons in their icy, inhuman regime. The Others would steam-roller all over humanity, and take away humanity’s freedom to choose, as Tywin Lannister tries to do to his children, trying to take all of their choices away and control them completely. The Others would take away our self-determination, our freedom to choose good or evil, our freedom to be the rulers of our own fate. 

I don’t think it’s Daenerys job to be a ruler in the end. I think she’s fighting evil now so that other people can keep fighting that good-and-evil “human heart in conflict with itself” fight long after she’s gone ... I’ve never believed in a “Targaryen restoration” ending although I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it. 

Like Moses, Daenerys won’t lead us into the promised land ... we have to get there ourselves. 

And I’ve strayed from your question into a topic that’s more interesting to me because I cannot fucking belieeeeeeve that you are even asking me if the compassionate, caring, teenage-girl, sexual-abuse-survivor, messiah-figure Daenerys Targaryen is a fucking fascist when everything Daenerys “the fire is mine” Targaryen does is in narrative opposition to Certified Fucking Fascist Tywin Racist Lannister oh my god I cannot believe this is where we’ve come to as a fandom, I cannot fucking belieeeeeeve. 

Anon. Honey. Baby. I say this gently, with love: Whyyyyyyyyy are you reading “Daenerys is a fascist” metas? That didn’t even work on the show. 

When I googled “Daenerys Targaryen fascist” to try and figure out what you could possibly be reading to argue against it, the top result is an alt-right thinkpiece website about how dangerous Dany was all along in freeing slaves!!!! And the next results are people who think the iron throne actually matters when GRRM himself has said that the political war is a red herring. 

The endgame rulers don’t even particularly matter because what matters in the end is that humanity wins against the Others and we still have control over ourselves, what matters is for that human heart conflict to continue to exist inside ourselves and that we rule over that conflict inside ourselves. 

"We all must choose," she proclaimed.

Practice some self-care; go read Armageddon Rag, and remember this: TWOW is not going to save us. 

[oilgroove]

That is a very upbeat statement

On 20 January 2004, George Bush Jr. the President of the United States gave his last (?) State of the Union Address. In this article, I will point out 25 fallacies of the speech on the war on terror. Fallacy 1. "By bringing hope to the oppressed and delivering justice to the violent, [the American servicemen and women] are making America more secure." Apologists of the war on terror are quick to point out that there have not been any major attacks on the U.S. since September 11, 2001. But what of the numerous terror alerts? And how did the deadly toxin ricin recently find its way into the US Senate for the second time! Or did & PTFE Bushes Manufacturers 8216;Senator' Ricin, the ‘terrorist,' win a re-election into the upper house? Does that not show that the terrorists still present a clear and present danger? Clearly an early warning signal! Fallacy 2. "Each day, law enforcement personnel and intelligence officers are tracking terrorist threats; analysts are examining airline passenger lists; the men and women of our new Homeland Security Department are patrolling our coasts and borders. And their vigilance is protecting America." Americans and indeed the world should not live under the false hope of being protected by the intelligence officers. Because the terrorists themselves are becoming more creative. Who has ever heard of shoe bombers before? The U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi exposed this illusion in her speech: "One hundred percent of containers coming into our ports or airports must be inspected. Today, only 3 percent are inspected. One hundred percent of chemical and nuclear plants in the United States must have high levels of security. Today, the Bush Administration has tolerated a much lower standard. One hundred percent of the enriched uranium and other material for weapons of mass destruction must be secured. Today, the Administration has refused to commit the resources necessary to prevent it from falling into the hands of terrorists." In this case, is America protected? If the answer is no, what about other countries with less security measures and porous borders? Fallacy 3. "We have not come all this way, through tragedy, and trials, and war, only to falter and leave our work unfinished." The war on terror is an unfinished business. In fact, the battle has only begun. Commenting on this, the New York Times Magazine said that the war on terror "is the beginning of an epic battle." And to support this, La Repubblica newspaper said: "Today we get the feeling that we are living in the middle of a tornado, an unparalleled catastrophe." Those are not the right words to describe the end of a story. Fallacy 4. "And by our will and courage, this danger must be defeated." That is a very upbeat statement. On 24 July 2003, US Vice-President Dick Cheney also sounded oracular when he said: "One by one, in every corner of the world, we will hunt the terrorists down and destroy them." Al-Qaeda has now mutated into multifaceted anonymous groups. And this new phase is more dangerous than the former centralized visible organization. Take a warning: Do not go to some radical Muslim country to search for terrorists. Because that your prodigal son, or your estranged husband, or in fact, that distant relative of yours may be a terrorist. A roll call in the prison at Guantanamo Bay reveals that even some Americans and Britons—citizens of two nations in the forefront of the war on terror—have been "Talibanized." Besides, these groups are becoming more desperate. They have succeeded in their use of surface-to-air missiles (SAMS)—tumbling down military aircrafts at will in Iraq. And make no mistake about it: these cave dwellers may crack a dirty nuke somewhere someday, or unleash a deadly plague. In that case, how would the world respond? Detonate a nuclear bomb? So you can see that "we are perilously near a new international anarchy" according to the Washington Post. The war on terror, therefore, is not winnable. Fallacy 5. "And one of these essential tools is the Patriot Act, which allows Federal law enforcement to better share information, to track terrorists, to disrupt their cells, and to seize their assets." Terrorism can not be wiped out by legislation. After all, these are man-made laws and man himself is imperfect. There must be loopholes, and the terrorists exploit the weakness of the system. Now, what if they stop living in cells? Or what if they stop keeping their money in banks? Then they would be as elusive as the shadows. Fallacy 6. "We are tracking al-Qaida around the world and nearly two-thirds of their known leaders have now been captured or killed. Thousands of very skilled and determined military personnel are on the manhunt, going after the remaining killers who hide in cities and caves—and, # one by one, we will bring the terrorists to justice." It is true that most of the key terrorist suspects—including Saddam Hussein—have either been arrested or eliminated. But according to Time Magazine, "Lopping off the beast's head may not kill the body." If Saddam or Osama bin laden are hanged today, more Saddams and Osamas will rise tomorrow. Terrorists want attention. And that is why various groups are eager to claim credit for any attack—even though they are not responsible. In like manner there may be a lord of the flies waiting for Saddam and Osama to pass on before taking center stage and bringing his pursuers to ‘justice.' Fallacy 7. "The United States and our allies are determined. We refuse to live in the shadows of this ultimate danger." Right? Wrong! We must continue to live in the shadows of the terrorists. This is because terrorism is as old as the history of man on this planet—6,000 years. We have never left its shadows. Rather, terrorism continues to increase with the passing of the day. It is no wonder that Time Magazine remarks: "Determining whether the West is gaining in the fight against terrorism requires interpreting shadowy, shapeless data. Yet this much can be safely said: international terrorism existed long before 9/11 and will continue long after that." This is the message of my published book, CHASING SHADOWS!: A Dream. (A book that reveals the terrorists' master plan to finally set the world on fire! ) Terrorism starts from the heart and mind, and this is fueled by the hypocrisy and double standard in this world—two things that are not in a hurry to go away. In this regard, killings and destruction will exacerbate, rather than stop terrorism. When will the world address the issues that cause this evil, instead of chasing shadows? Fallacy 8. "The first to see our determination were the Taliban, who made Afganistan the primary training base of al-Qaida killers. As of this month, that free country has a new constitution, guaranteeing free election and full participation by women." Afganistan is not a free nation. Terrorist attacks and bombings are the order of the day—signifying that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are back. Warlords are also doing their thing. The only ‘free' place in Afganistan is the capital Kabul. Some Afgans even long for the return of the Taliban because of security concerns. Democracy itself is not an insurance against terrorism—some ‘democrats' are known to terrorize their subjects. Ask Zimbabweans. Fallacy 9. "Since we last met in this chamber, combat forces of the United States, Great Britain, Austrialia, Poland and other countries enforced the demands of the United Nations, ended the rule of Saddam Hussein—and the people of Iraq are free." The U.N. did not send any country to invade Iraq and change its regime. It was a unilateral action, a pre-emptive war, which itself is a weapon of mass destruction. Says Nancy Pelosi: "But even the most powerful nation in history must bring other nations to our side to meet common dangers. The President's policies do not reflect that. He has pursued a go-it-alone foreign policy that leaves us isolated abroad and that steals the resources we need for education and health care here at home." The Iraqi government was toppled on the excuse that it possessed dangerous weapons that could sink the world in 45 minutes. (Sorry, Lord Hutton has cleared British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for sexing up the report on Iraq. Let's blame the BBC.) But about a year after the invasion and the collateral damage of Iraq—and after a thorough search of the deserts and tunnels in that country, no such weapons have been found! Again in the words of Nancy Pelosi: "The President led us into the Iraqi war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence; he embraced a radical doctrine of pre-emptive war unprecedented in our history; and he failed to build a true international coalition." Fallacy 10. "These killers, joined by foreign terrorists, are a serious, continuing danger. Yet we are making progress against them." This was in reference to the American war in Iraq. The President did not mention the over 500 American troops that have been killed and the thousands that are wounded. Nor did he mention the scores of daily attacks against American soldiers, or the crashing planes. Is it progress when servicemen and women are killed or maimed? This reminds me of the saying: winning the war is not winning the peace.

[chinasunsong]

Sun Weidong: China and India should jointly follow the path of mutual respect, dialogue and cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win

On September 23, Sun Weidong, the ambassador to India, was invited to attend the opening ceremony of the 4th China-India High-level Track 2 Dialogue co-sponsored by the Sichuan University School of International Relations, the China South Asia Research Center and the Indian Institute of Defense Research and Analysis. Former Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo attended the opening ceremony.

Ambassador Sun Weidong's speech is as follows:

Dear Mr. Dai Bingguo, former State Councilor of China,

Dear scholars from China and India,

ladies and gentlemen,

good afternoon!

It is an honor to attend the 4th China-India High-level Track Two Dialogue. First of all, I want to thank Mr. Dai Bingguo for his continuous dedication to China-India relations. Your profound insights on China-India relations have always inspired us deeply and helped us to clear the "fog" and find the right direction for China-India relations. Thanks to the organizers of the event, Sichuan University and the Institute of Defense Research and Analysis of India, for their meticulous preparations for the dialogue. The participants here today are important experts and scholars, many of whom have previously undertaken important tasks in the diplomatic, military, and economic fields of the two countries. I would like to take this opportunity to have a candid and in-depth exchange of views with you all.

Since last year, China-India relations have faced difficulties that have not been encountered in many years, and they are still at a low ebb. At present, the world has entered a period of turbulent change, the new crown pneumonia epidemic is still spreading, the global economic recovery is weak, and the situation in Afghanistan has undergone a sudden change, which has a major impact on the regional situation. As the largest developing countries and emerging economies, China and India should strengthen coordination and cooperation to jointly fight the epidemic, seek common development and rejuvenation, jointly maintain Asian unity, and jointly promote world peace and development. The status quo of Sino-Indian relations is obviously not in line with the fundamental interests of both parties. Many people of insight in the two countries advocate that China and India should improve relations and push bilateral relations back on track. I would like to share a few views on this.

First, as two major eastern countries, China and India must avoid falling into the trap of outdated Western thinking. According to the so-called realistic theory of international relations in the West, neighboring powers like China and India inevitably regard each other as threats and rivals. Competition and confrontation are the main modes of interaction. Sphere of influence, zero-sum game, and the fight for hegemony are mantras. You gain or lose. You win and I lose is the inevitable result. The Western way of thinking that pursues power politics and the law of the jungle runs counter to the trend of the 21st century of peace, development, cooperation, and win-win, and is unpopular. Even the most powerful country in the world today is doomed to fail if it recklessly intervenes in other countries and tries to impose its own values ​​and social system on others. Afghanistan is the latest example.

As ancient civilizations, China and India have always pursued "university in the world" and "one family in the world", advocating tolerance and harmony, and seeking common ground while reserving differences. We should jointly follow the path of peaceful development so that the people of the two countries can lead a better life, instead of repeating the mistakes of history and taking the evil path of confrontation and conflict between the two major developing countries. China does not agree with the logic of "a strong country must be hegemony". Our historical wisdom is that "a country hegemony must decline." No matter how far it develops, China will never seek hegemony or expand. Some Indians believe that China has become India’s “main threat” and “strategic opponent”. This is a serious strategic misjudgment. If this judgment becomes India’s foreign policy, it may become a “self-fulfilling prophecy”. We don’t want to see.

The second is to look at the relations between the two countries from a comprehensive rather than one-sided perspective. China-India relations are multi-level and multi-dimensional, with contradictions and differences, and more consensus and cooperation. All aspects of bilateral relations should promote each other, rather than restrict each other. We must avoid generalizations, because we can only see the trees but not the forest due to small losses. For example, border areas and peace and tranquility are very important, but this is not the whole of bilateral relations.

China has always viewed China-India relations from a strategic and long-term perspective, and has made unremitting efforts to this end. When India was severely hit by the second wave of the epidemic, China immediately extended a helping hand to overcome difficulties to ensure the smooth supply of medical supplies to India. The pragmatic cooperation between China and India meets the needs of both parties and is highly complementary. Facing the impact of the epidemic, the economic and trade cooperation between the two countries bucked the trend and reached 57.5 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of this year, an increase of 62%. The two countries have extensive common interests on international and regional issues. Just this month, the leaders of the two countries jointly attended the BRICS Leaders’ Meeting and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit to discuss and cope with the current outstanding challenges facing the international region. It takes only one party to break the relationship, and to make the relationship a good one requires the joint efforts of the two countries. China-India relations should be a two-lane road of mutual respect, mutual care of each other's concerns, and win-win cooperation. It should not be a one-way line in which one party makes demands and conditions, and the other party responds.

Third, China and India must adhere to strategic autonomy and take their destiny in their own hands. In the middle of the last century, China and India won national liberation and national independence, and achieved national development. They have important international influence. An important reason is to insist on independence. For a large country like China and India with a population of more than one billion, development can only rely on itself, not others. The primary task of both parties is to achieve development and revitalization and concentrate on doing their own affairs well. At present, out of ideological prejudice and Cold War mentality, some countries are pursuing closed and exclusive "small circles" seeking to contain third parties, encouraging group confrontations and geopolitical games. In fact, containing other countries will not make oneself develop better, and forming gangs will not make oneself safer. Once on board someone else’s ship, you can’t help but take the helm by yourself. Twenty years ago, the United States launched the war in Afghanistan, and many countries boarded the American chariot. 20 years later, what benefits have these countries gained? We should insist on true strategic autonomy, not only in expressing our attitudes, but also in actions.

friends,

This year we solemnly celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. President Xi Jinping solemnly declared that we have achieved the first centenary goal, built a moderately prosperous society on the land of China, historically solved the problem of absolute poverty, and are marching towards the second centenary goal of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way. . India is also moving towards its own development goals. Both China and India need a good external environment, especially the surrounding environment. We must proceed from the fundamental interests of the two countries and explore ways for two neighboring big countries to live in harmony and develop and rejuvenate together.

First, China and India should enhance mutual trust and grasp the correct direction of bilateral relations. China and India must lay a solid foundation for mutual trust, insist that they do not pose a threat to each other and provide development opportunities for each other. The two countries are strategic partners rather than competitors. They must carefully maintain mutual trust and do nothing that is not conducive to mutual trust. What is conducive to mutual trust, no matter how difficult it is, we must work hard. It is hoped that the Indian side will respect China's core interests on issues related to Tibet, Taiwan, and South China Sea, be cautious in words and deeds, and abide by its commitments. We must eliminate the interference of mutual trust, refrain from interfering in the other party’s internal affairs, refrain from being instigated by a malicious third party, and refrain from joining a "alliance" or "quasi-alliance" against the other side. To foster an atmosphere of mutual trust, officials, think tank scholars, and the news media should make more rational and constructive voices, not the other way around.

Second, China and India should strengthen dialogue and promote cooperation. Since the beginning of this year, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has met and talked with Foreign Minister Su Jaishen many times. A few days ago, the two sides held a bilateral meeting in Dushanbe. We must strengthen communication and dialogue at all levels and in all fields to promote the gradual improvement of bilateral relations. The economic and trade cooperation between the two countries has great potential, but the cooperation between the two sides has been artificially restricted by some Indians since last year. We should build more bridges instead of walls, and complement each other instead of decoupling. It is hoped that the Indian side will create a fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies to invest and operate in India. If all Chinese companies are blasted away or squeezed away, what are the benefits to the Indian side? This issue deserves serious consideration by the Indian side. In addition, China and India should strengthen communication and coordination on multilateral affairs, jointly respond to global issues such as the epidemic, disaster prevention and poverty reduction, energy security, climate change, and safeguard the common interests of developing countries.

Third, China and India must properly handle their differences and prevent them from becoming disputes. We should put the border issue in the proper place in our bilateral relations and seek a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution through equal consultation. China has always properly handled the Sino-Indian border issues with a positive attitude, and the current border situation between the two countries is generally developing towards relaxation. It is hoped that the Indian side and the Chinese side will meet each other halfway, promote the continuous stabilization of the situation and gradually shift from emergency response to normalized management and control, and jointly maintain the peace and tranquility of the border area. For differences in other areas, we should also focus on the goal of narrowing rather than expanding, communicate frankly, and seek acceptable solutions.

The current China-India relations are at an important juncture and we need to make the right choice. In the final analysis, China and India should work together to follow the path of mutual respect, dialogue and cooperation, and mutual benefit and win-win results, rather than a "single-plank bridge" of confrontation, suspicion and consumption, and you lose and you lose. I hope you can talk frankly about the current situation facing China-India relations, and make suggestions responsibly, so as to provide advice and suggestions for China-India relations to return to the track of healthy and stable development. Finally, I wish this dialogue a complete success.

Thanks!

[jokertrap-ran]

(未定事件簿) EVENT!「午夜华章」 [Tears of Themis] EVENT: Symphony of the Night Translations (Chapter 2-01: Abyss Drink Bar)

*Tears of Themis Masterlist  *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *The tracking tag for ALL Event Stories will go under: #Tears of an Event *(y/n) is your name when in direct referral; otherwise referred to as MC.

Location: Abyss

Barkeeper: Tsk.

A smooth drawl sounded the moment we walked through Abyss' door.

Barkeeper: I've got big business coming in recently and am not interested in watching your Poker Games, Mr. Psychiatrist.

Mo Yi: I'm very interested in guessing just what your recent big business is all about.

Mo Yi sat down in front of the bar, as if he was a regular. I sat down together with him, staring dumbfoundedly at his exchange with the Boss of the place.

Mo Yi: Many foreigners have come by recently, am I right?

Barkeeper: ...Interesting. So, you're here again, as prepared as ever. Is it the same as the last time? Poker's just a guise.

Mo Yi: What happened last time isn't important anymore. I'm more concerned about the big issue that's about to unfold before my eyes.

Mo Yi: It hasn't been very peaceful in the bar these days, right?

Barkeeper: It is just as you say. I'm truly intrigued as to why you're asking about these people.

Barkeeper: Are they your friends? Or...

The Boss raised his eyebrow. I looked at the both of them as if they were reading the Gospel.

Mo Yi: To take the money of others and eliminate their threats for them? I don't have that sort of friends.

Barkeeper: I'll advise you not to get involved in these things since it has nothing to do with you.

Barkeeper: This is my last advice out of goodwill, towards someone looking for trouble.

Mo Yi: ......

MC: Dr. Mo, this is...

Mo Yi suddenly reached out, gently holding onto my hands that rested atop my legs. But his eyes didn't leave the Barkeeper's sharp ones for even a second.

Mo Yi: I don't like poking my nose in places where it doesn't belong, but I've never been afraid of challenges that come knocking at my door.

Saying so, Mo Yi grasped my hand, turning me around and leading me out speedily.

Barkeeper: This is all for your own sake... Dear Psychiatrist.

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆  

MC: Dr. Mo, what did you mean by those conversations earlier...?

Mo Yi turned his head, looking at me with a look of utter seriousness.

Mo Yi: Don't be afraid after I tell you the truth.

Mo Yi: You must come here accompanied by someone in the future. And you shouldn't open your mouth to speak for the entire duration of the trip.

Mo Yi: Promise me first, and I'll tell you what's going on.

MC: Okay...I promise, so tell me.

Mo Yi remained silent for a while before he spoke slowly.

Mo Yi: There are assassins in there.

MC: !!!

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Previous Part: (NXX Group Chat: Abyss) | Next Part: (Chapter 2-02: Obsolete Server Room)

[crimethinc]

What Is Burning the Amazon? A Plea from Brazilian Anarchists

As the fires in the Amazon rainforest continue to burn, our comrades in Brazil have sent us this analysis of the causes of the catastrophe and how it should inform our vision of the future.

“I worry about whether the whites will resist. We have been resisting for 500 years.”

—Ailton Krenak

Living Dystopia

The scene is gloomy. On August 19, 2019, smoke covers cities across the state of São Paulo, turning day into night at 3 pm. The previous day, in Iceland, people organized the first funeral, complete with a gravestone and a minute of silence, for a glacier declared dead. The smoke that engulfed São Paulo is caused by forest fires in the Amazon Forest far away in the North of Brazil; the glacier has disappeared due to rising temperatures related to the carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere.

Chief of the Tenharim people of southern Amazonas fighting wildfire.

These tragic scenes—almost picturesque, almost absurd—could sound comical if they weren’t real. They are so extreme that they remind us of fictional scenarios such as those described in the novel And Still the Earth, a Brazilian environmental dystopia by Ignácio de Loyloa Brandão. Written in the 1970s during the military dictatorship in Brazil, the book describes a fictitious dictatorial regime known as “Civiltar,” which celebrates cutting down the last tree in the Amazon with a jingoistic declaration that it has created “a desert greater than that of the Sahara.” In this story, all the Brazilian rivers are dead; jugs of water from each of the extinct rivers are displayed in a hydrographic museum. Aluminum can dunes and highways permanently blocked by the shells of abandoned cars are the backdrop of São Paulo. The city itself suffers from sudden heat pockets capable of killing any unsuspecting person; mysterious diseases consume the citizens, especially the homeless.

The author claims that he was inspired by real events that seemed absurd and unusual at the time. Today, these are becoming ever more ordinary.

News of the increased burning of the Amazon has sent shockwaves around the world. Burns rose 82% in 2019 over the same period last year in Brazil, according to the National Institute for Space Research, and new outbreaks of fire are still being reported as we write. The catastrophic images of destruction have fueled the indignation of people around the world who are concerned about the future of life on earth, seeing how important the Amazon rainforest is for climate regulation and global biodiversity. Images of the fires compelled French President Emmanuel Macron to bring the subject to the G7 summit and to exchange barbs with President Jair Bolsonaro in the media after France offered millions of dollars in funds to fight forest fires.

Protest against deforestation in the Amazon, in São Paulo, August 23, 2019.

Since the end of 2018, half a billion bees have been found dead in four Brazilian states. The death of these insects that are essential to fertilizing 75% of the vegetables we eat is linked to the use of pesticides banned in Europe but permitted in Brazil. In August 2019, the court dismissed the charges against a farmer who used pesticides thrown from a plane as a chemical weapon against Guyra Kambi’y indigenous community in Mato Grosso do Sul in 2015. The same month, groups of farmers, “land grabbers” [people who falsify documents in order to obtain ownership of land], union members, and traders used a Whatsapp group to coordinate setting fires in the municipality of Altamira, Pará, the epicenter of fires consuming the Amazon rainforest. As reported in Folha do Progresso, the “day of the fire” was organized by people encouraged by the words of Jair Bolsonaro: “The goal, according to one of the leaders speaking anonymously, is to show the president that they want to work.”

The recent wave of fires linking President Jair Bolsonaro’s policies to attacks against forests, peasant farmers, and indigenous peoples is an intensification of a process as old as the colonization of the Americas. While the Workers’ Party (PT) was still in power, many projects were introduced to expand and accelerate growth, including the construction of the Belo Monte plant, which displaced and impacted indigenous communities and thousands of other people living in the countryside. The approval of the Forest Code in 2012 enabled farmers to advance over indigenous territories and nature reserves with impunity, while suspending the demarcation of new protected lands.

Both left and right governments see nature and human life chiefly as resources with which to produce commodities and profit. The government of Bolsonaro, a declared enemy of the common people, women, and indigenous groups, doesn’t just threaten us with the physical violence of police repression. In declaring that he will no longer recognize any indigenous land, Bolsonaro is intensifying a war on the ecosystems that make human life possible—a war that long precedes him.

A 500-Year-Running Disaster

For centuries, we have struggled to survive the greatest disaster of our time, a disaster that threatens the sustainability of all the biomes and communities on this planet. Its name is capitalism—the cruelest, most inequitable, and destructive economic system in history. This threat is not the result of the inevitable forces of nature. Humans created it and humans can eliminate it.

Anarchists in Sao Paulo on August 23, 2019 protesting against the government and against the deforestation of the Amazon: “Burn fascists, not forests!”

In Brazil, we have witnessed firsthand how this system exploits people, promotes genocide, and degrades and pollutes the earth, water, and air. Even if we ultimately manage to abolish it, we will still have to survive the consequences of letting it go on for so long. The destruction of entire ecosystems, the poisons in rivers and in our own bodies, the species that have gone extinct, the glaciers that have disappeared, the forests that have been cut down and paved over—these consequences will remain for many years to come. In the future, we will have to survive by gathering what we need from the ruins and waste that this system has left in its wake. All the material that has been torn from the ground to be strewn across the earth’s surface and dumped into the seas will not return overnight to the depths it came from.

Recognizing this should inform how we envision our revolutionary prospects. It is foolish to imagine that the abolition of capitalism will expand that the consumer activities that are currently available to the global bourgeoisie to the entire human population; we must stop fantasizing about a regulated post-capitalist world with infinite resources to generate the sort of commodities that capitalist propaganda has led us to desire. Rather, we will have to experiment in ways to share the self-management of our lives amid the recovery of our biomes, our relationships, and our bodies after centuries of aggression and exploitation—organizing life in regions that have become hostile to it.

The ways we organize our resistance today should be informed by the fact that our revolutionary experiments will not be taking place in a world of peace, stability, and balance. We will be struggling to survive in the midst of the consequences of centuries of pollution and environmental degradation. The best-case scenario for the future will look like the situation in Kobanê in 2015: a victorious revolution in a bombed-out city full of mines.

Last stand: neither utopias nor dystopias—revolution!

So What Is Burning the Amazon?

There is a consensus among scientific researchers, government institutions, social movements, and rural and urban peoples regarding the impacts and risks of global warming and increasing industrialization and urbanization. Some of these consequences are about to become irreversible. The deforestation of the Amazon itself may become irreparable if it reaches 40% of its total area.

It has never worked to demand that governments solve these problems for us—and it never will. This is especially foolish when we are talking about the environmental disasters caused by their own policies. Land seizures and the deforestation of the Amazon are inextricably interlinked with the organized criminal enterprises that smuggle and kill in the countryside. Fully 90% of the timber harvested is contraband supported by a vast apparatus of illegal capitalism involving armed militias and the state itself.

Populist leaders like Bolsonaro aim to benefit from the unfolding ecological catastrophe at the same time that they deny it is occurring. On the one hand, they claim that there is no need for action to curb global warming—alongside Trump, Bosonaro was the only other leader who threatened to abandon the Paris Agreement, claiming that global warming is a “fable for environmentalists.” This helps to mobilize the far-right base, which admires and celebrates outright dishonesty as a demonstration of political power. On the other hand, as the consequences of climate chaos and environmental imbalances become obvious undeniable facts, these leaders will opportunistically take advantage of environmental crises, product shortages, refugee migrations, and climate disasters such as hurricanes as pretexts to accelerate the implementation of ever more authoritarian measures in the fields of health, transportation and security. Using authoritarian and militarized means to determine who can have access to the resources they need to survive in a context of widespread scarcity is what many theorists have called ecofascism.

The intervention of foreign states in the Amazon forests according to their own economic interests is simply the continuation of the colonialism that began in 1492. No government will solve the problem of fires and deforestation. At best, they might slow the impact of the exploitation they have always engaged in. Neoliberal capitalism demands endless growth, mandating the transformation of forests and soil into competitive consumer goods on the global market.

So what is burning the Amazon—and the entire planet? The answer is clear: the pursuit of land, profit (legal or not), and private property. None of this will be changed by any elected or imposed government. The only truly environmental perspective is a revolutionary perspective seeking the end of capitalism and the state itself.

Mundurukus warriors without state support set out for direct action to expel loggers from the Sawré Mybu Indigenous Land in Pará.

Exercising Our Ability to Imagine

The dystopian images of And Still the Earth and George Orwell’s novel 1984 were intended as warnings: exaggerated projections of the worst that can happen if we fail to change the course of history. Today, with cameras around every corner and our own TVs and cell phones carrying out surveillance on us, it is as if these dystopian novels are being used as a handbook for governments and corporations to bring our worst nightmares into reality.

Dystopias are warnings; but utopias, by definition, represent places that do not exist. We need other places, places that are possible. We need to be able to imagine a different world—and to imagine ourselves, our desires, and our relationships being different as well.

We should use the creativity that enables us to picture zombie apocalypses and other literary or cinematic calamities to imagine a reality beyond capitalism right now and begin building it. Today, as reality surpasses fiction, our activities are largely characterized by disbelief and passivity. But you cannot be neutral on a moving train—especially not one that is accelerating on a track into the abyss. Crossing your arms is complicity. Likewise, acting individually is insufficient because it maintains the logic that has brought us here.

We have to rediscover revolutionary reference points for self-organized and egalitarian collective life. We need to share examples of real societies that have resisted the state and capitalism, such as the anarchist experiments during the Russian and Ukrainian Revolutions of 1917 and the Spanish Revolution of 1936. We should remember, also, that all of these were ultimately betrayed and crushed by, or with the connivance of, the Bolshevik Party and the Stalinist dictatorship that followed it, which carried out unprecedented industrialization and the mass displacement of agrarian peoples. This illustrates why it is so important to develop a way of imagining that does not simply replicate the visions of capitalist industrialism.

We can also look to contemporary examples like the Zapatista Uprising in Mexico since 1994 and the ongoing revolution in Rojava in northern Syria. But in addition to the examples offered by anarchists or influenced by anarchist principles, we should learn from the many the indigenous nations around us: Guaranis, Mundurukus, Tapajós, Krenaks, and many others who have ceaselessly resisted European and capitalist colonial expansion for five centuries. They are all living examples from whom anarchists can learn about life, organization, and resistance without and against the state.

If there is any fundamental basis for solidarity in response to the attack on the foundation of all life in the Amazon, it is the potential that we can build connections between the social movements, the poor, and excluded of the world and the indigenous and peasant peoples of all Latin America. To put a halt to the deforestation underway in the Amazon and countless similar forms of destruction that are taking place across the planet, we must nourish grassroots movements that reject the neoliberal resource management of soil, forests, waters, and people.

For a solidarity between all peoples and exploited classes, not between paternalism and the colonialism of governments! The only way to address the environmental crisis and global climate change is to abolish capitalism!

Another end of the world is possible!

[xtruss]

VOICE

Everyone Misunderstands the Reason for the U.S.-China Cold War

The left says it’s U.S. arrogance. The right says it’s Chinese malevolence. Both are wrong.

— B yStephen M. Walt | June 30, 2020 Foreign Policy

Flags of the United States and China are placed ahead of a meeting between U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and his Chinese counterpart, Han Changfu, at the Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing on June 30, 2017. JASON LEE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The United States is pretty polarized these days, but nearly everyone seems to agree that China is a big problem. The Trump administration has been at odds with China on trade issues since day one, and its 2017 National Security Strategy labeled China a “revisionist power” and major strategic rival. (President Donald Trump himself seems to have been willing to give Beijing a free pass if it would help him get reelected, but that’s just a sign of his own venality and inconsistent with the administration’s other policies.) Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden may have started his campaign in 2019 downplaying fears that China was going to “eat our lunch,” but his campaign has grown increasingly hawkish over time.

Not surprisingly, hard-line Republican members of Congress like Josh Hawley and Matt Gaetz have been sounding the alarm as well, while progressives and moderates warn of a “new cold war” and call for renewed dialogue to manage the relationship. Despite their differing prescriptions, all of these groups see the state of Sino-American relations as of vital importance.

Unfortunately, discussion of the Sino-American rivalry is also succumbing to a familiar tendency to attribute conflict to our opponents’ internal characteristics: their ruling ideology, domestic institutions, or the personalities of particular leaders. This tendency has a long history in the United States: The country entered World War I in order to defeat German militarism and make the world safe for democracy, and later it fought World War II to defeat fascism. At the dawn of the Cold War, George Kennan’s infamous “X” article (“The Sources of Soviet Conduct”) argued that Moscow had a relentless and internally motivated urge to expand, driven by the need for foreign enemies to justify the Communist Party’s authoritarian rule. Appeasement would not work, he argued, and the only choice was to contain the Soviet Union until its internal system “mellowed.” More recently, U.S. leaders blamed America’s problems with Iraq on Saddam Hussein’s recklessly evil ambitions and portrayed Iran’s leaders as irrational religious fanatics whose foreign-policy behavior is driven solely by ideological beliefs.

In all of these conflicts, trouble arose from the basic nature of these adversaries, not from the circumstances they found themselves in or the inherently competitive nature of international politics itself.

And so it is with China today. Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster maintains that China is a threat “because its leaders are promoting a closed, authoritarian model as an alternative to democratic governance and free-market economics.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agrees: In his view, relations have deteriorated because “it’s a different Chinese Communist Party today than it was 10 years ago. … This is a Chinese Communist Party that has come to view itself as intent upon the destruction of Western ideas, Western democracies, Western values.” According to Sen. Marco Rubio: “Chinese Communist Party power serves no purpose but to strengthen the party’s rule and to spread its influence around the world. … China is an untrustworthy partner in any endeavor whether it’s a nation-state project, an industrial capacity, or financial integration.” The only way to avoid a conflict, Vice President Mike Pence said, is for China’s rulers to “change course and return to the spirit of ‘reform and opening’ and greater freedom.”

Even far more sophisticated China watchers, such as former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, attribute much of China’s increasingly assertive stance to President Xi Jinping’s centralization of power, and Rudd sees this behavior as “an expression of Xi Jinping’s personal leadership temperament, which is impatient with the incremental bureaucratism endemic to the Chinese system, and with which the international community had become relaxed, comfortable, and thoroughly accustomed.” The implication is that a different Chinese leader would be a much less serious problem. Similarly, Timothy Garton Ash believes that the “primary cause of this new cold war is the turn taken by the Chinese communist party leadership under Xi Jinping since 2012: more oppressive at home, more aggressive abroad.” Other observers point to rising nationalism (whether spontaneous or government-sponsored) as another key factor in China’s greater foreign-policy assertiveness.

Relying on categories originally conceived by the late Kenneth Waltz, international relations scholars variously refer to such accounts as “unit-level,” “reductionist,” or “second-image” explanations. The many variations within this broad family of theories all view a country’s foreign-policy behavior as primarily the result of its internal characteristics. Thus, U.S. foreign policy is sometimes attributed to its democratic system, liberal values, or capitalist economic order, just as the behavior of other states is said to derive from the nature of their domestic regime, ruling ideology, “strategic culture,” or leaders’ personalities.

Explanations based on domestic characteristics are appealing in part because they seem so simple and straightforward: Peace-loving democracies act that way because they are (supposedly) based on norms of tolerance; by contrast, aggressors act aggressively because they are based on domination or coercion or because there are fewer constraints on what leaders can do.

Focusing on the internal characteristics of other states is also tempting because it absolves us of responsibility for conflict and allows us to pin the blame on others. If we are on the side of the angels and our own political system is based on sound and just principles, then when trouble arises, it must be because Bad States or Bad Leaders are out there doing Bad Things. This perspective also provides a ready solution: Get rid of those Bad States or those Bad Leaders! Demonizing one’s opponents is also a time-honored way of rallying public support in the face of an international challenge, and that requires highlighting the negative qualities that are supposedly making one’s rivals act as they are.

Unfortunately, pinning most of the blame for conflict on an opponent’s domestic characteristics is also dangerous. For starters, if conflict is due primarily to the nature of the opposing regime(s), then the only long-term solution is to overthrow them. Accommodation, mutual coexistence, or even extensive cooperation on matters of mutual interest are for the most part ruled out, with potentially catastrophic consequences. When rivals see the nature of the other side as a threat in itself, a struggle to the death becomes the only alternative.

What unit-level explanations either overlook or downplay are the broader structural factors that have made Sino-American rivalry inevitable. First and foremost, the two most powerful countries in the international system are overwhelmingly likely to be at odds with each other. Because each is the other’s greatest potential threat, they will inevitably eye each other warily, go to considerable lengths to reduce the other’s ability to threaten their core interests, and constantly look for ways to gain an advantage, if only to ensure that the other side does not gain an advantage over them.

Even if it were possible (or worth the risk), internal changes in either the United States or China are unlikely to eliminate these incentives (or at least not anytime soon). Each country is trying—with varying degrees of skill and success—to avoid being in a position where the other can threaten its security, prosperity, or domestic way of life. And because neither can be completely sure what the other might do in the future—a reality amply demonstrated by the erratic course of U.S. foreign policy in recent years—both are actively competing for power and influence in a variety of domains.

This troubling situation is exacerbated by the incompatibility of their respective strategic objectives, which derive in part from geography and from the legacies of the past century. Quite understandably, China’s leaders would like to live in as secure a neighborhood as possible, for the same reasons that the United States formulated and eventually enforced the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere. Beijing need not impose one-party state capitalist regimes around its periphery; it just wants all of its neighbors to be mindful of its interests and does not want any of them to pose a significant threat. Toward that end, it would like to push the United States out of the region so that it no longer has to worry as much about U.S. military power and so that its neighbors cannot count on American help. This goal is hardly mystifying or irrational: Would any great power be happy if the world’s most powerful country had significant military forces arrayed nearby and had close military alliances with many of its immediate neighbors?

The United States has good reasons to remain in Asia, however. As John Mearsheimer and I have explained elsewhere, preventing China from establishing a dominant position in Asia strengthens U.S. security by forcing China to focus more attention closer to home and making it harder (though of course not impossible) for China to project power elsewhere in the world (including areas closer to the United States itself). This strategic logic would still apply if China were to liberalize or if America were to adopt Chinese-style state capitalism. The result, unfortunately, is a zero-sum conflict: Neither side can get what it wants without depriving the other.

Thus, the roots of the present Sino-American rivalry have less to do with particular leaders or regime types and more to do with the distribution of power and the particular strategies that the two sides are pursuing. This is not to say that domestic politics or individual leadership do not matter at all, either in influencing the intensity of the competition or the skill with which each side wages it. Some leaders are more (or less) risk acceptant, and Americans are currently getting (another) painful demonstration of the harm that incompetent leadership can inflict. But the more important point is that new leaders or profound domestic changes are not going to alter the inherently competitive nature of U.S.-Chinese relations.

From this perspective, both progressives and hard-liners in the United States are getting it wrong. The former believe that China poses at most a modest threat to U.S. interests and that some combination of accommodation and skillful diplomacy can eliminate most if not all of the friction and head off a new cold war. I’m all for skillful diplomacy, but I do not believe it will suffice to prevent an intense competition that is primarily rooted in the distribution of power.

As Trump said of his trade war, hard-liners think a competition with China will be “good and easy to win.” In their view, all it takes is more and tougher sanctions, a decoupling of the U.S. and Chinese economies, a big increase in U.S. defense spending, and a rallying of like-minded democracies to the U.S. side, with the ultimate goal of ending Chinese Communist Party rule. Apart from the obvious costs and risks of this course of action, this view overstates Chinese vulnerabilities, understates the costs to the United States, and greatly exaggerates other states’ willingness to join an anti-Beijing crusade. China’s neighbors do not want it to dominate them and are eager to maintain ties with Washington, but they have no desire to get dragged into a violent conflict. And there is little reason to believe that a supposedly more liberal China would be any less interested in defending its own interests and any more willing to accept permanent inferiority to the United States.

So what does a more structural view of this situation imply?

First, it tells us that we are in it for the long haul; no clever strategy or bold stroke of genius is going to solve this conflict once and for all—at least not anytime soon.

Second, it is a serious rivalry, and the United States should conduct in a serious way. You don’t deal with an ambitious peer competitor with a bunch of amateurs in charge or with a president who puts his personal agenda ahead of the country’s. It will take intelligent military investments, to be sure, but a major diplomatic effort by knowledgeable and well-trained officials is going to be of equal if not greater importance. Maintaining a healthy set of Asian alliances is essential because the United States simply cannot remain an influential power in Asia without a lot of local support. The bottom line: America cannot entrust the care and feeding of those relationships to campaign contributors, party hacks, or dilettantes.

Third, and perhaps most important, both sides have a genuine and shared interest in keeping their rivalry within boundaries, both to avoid unnecessary clashes and to facilitate cooperation on issues where U.S. and Chinese interests overlap (climate change, pandemic prevention, etc.). One cannot eliminate all risks and prevent future crises, but Washington must be clear about its own red lines and make sure it understands Beijing’s. This is where unit-level factors kick in: The rivalry may be hard-wired into today’s international system, but how each side handles the competition will be determined by who is in charge and by the quality of their domestic institutions. I would not assume that America’s will fall short, but I wouldn’t be complacent about that either.

— Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

[berniesrevolution]

Brothers and Sisters–

I am writing to let you know I have decided to run for president of the United States. I am asking you today to join me as part of an unprecedented and historic grassroots campaign that will begin with at least a million people from across the country.

Please join our campaign for president on day one and commit to doing what it takes to win this election.

Our campaign is not only about defeating Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history. It is not only about winning the Democratic nomination and the general election.

Our campaign is about transforming our country and creating a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice.

Our campaign is about taking on the powerful special interests that dominate our economic and political life. I’m talking about Wall Street, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial complex, the private-prison industry and the large multi-national corporations that exert such an enormous influence over our lives.

Our campaign is about redoubling our efforts to end racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry and all forms of discrimination.

Our campaign is about creating a vibrant democracy with the highest voter turnout of any major country while we end voter suppression, Citizens United and outrageous levels of gerrymandering.

Our campaign is about creating a government and economy that works for the many, not just the few. We are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. We should not have grotesque levels of wealth inequality in which three billionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of the country.

We should not have 30 million Americans without any health insurance, even more who are under-insured and a nation in which life expectancy is actually in decline.

We should not have an economy in which tens of millions of workers earn starvation wages and half of older workers have no savings as they face retirement.

We should not have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth and a dysfunctional childcare system which is unfair to both working parents and their children.

We should not have a regressive tax system in which large, profitable corporations like Amazon pay nothing in federal income taxes.

Make no mistake about it. The powerful special interests in this country have unbelievable power and they want to maintain the status quo. They have unlimited amounts of money to spend on campaigns and lobbying and have huge influence over the media and political parties.

The only way we will win this election and create a government and economy that works for all is with a grassroots movement – the likes of which has never been seen in American history.

They may have the money and power. We have the people. That is why we need one million Americans who will commit themselves to this campaign.

Stand with me as we fight to win the Democratic nomination and the general election. Add your name to join this campaign and say you are willing to do the hard work necessary to transform our country.

You know as well as I do that we are living in a pivotal and dangerous moment in American history. We are running against a president who is a pathological liar, a fraud, a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe and someone who is undermining American democracy as he leads us in an authoritarian direction.

I’m running for president because, now more than ever, we need leadership that brings us together – not divides us up. Women and men, black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian American, gay and straight, young and old, native born and immigrant. Now is the time for us to stand together.

I’m running for president because we need leadership that will fight for working families and the shrinking middle class, not just the 1 percent. We need a president who understands that we can create millions of good-paying jobs, rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and construct the affordable housing we desperately need.

I’m running for president because we need trade policies that reflect the interests of workers and not multi-national corporations. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, provide pay equity for women and guarantee all workers paid family and medical leave.

I’m running for president because we need to understand that artificial intelligence and robotics must benefit the needs of workers, not just corporate America and those who own that technology.

I’m running for president because a great nation is judged not by how many billionaires and nuclear weapons it has, but by how it treats the most vulnerable – the elderly, the children, our veterans, the sick and the poor.

I’m running for president because we need to make policy decisions based on science, not politics. We need a president who understands that climate change is real, is an existential threat to our country and the entire planet, and that we can generate massive job creation by transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

I’m running for president because the time is long overdue for the United States to join every other major country on Earth and guarantee health care to all people as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare-for-all program.

I’m running for president because we need to take on the outrageous level of greed of the pharmaceutical industry and lower prescription drug prices in this country.

I’m running for president because we need to have the best educated workforce in the world. It is totally counter-productive for our future that millions of Americans are carrying outrageous levels of student debt, while many others cannot afford the high cost of higher education. That is why we need to make public colleges and universities tuition free and lower student debt.

I’m running for president because we must defend a woman’s right to control her own body against massive political attacks taking place at the local state and federal level.

I’m running for president because we need real criminal justice reform. We need to invest in jobs and education for our kids, not more jails and incarceration. We need to end the destructive “war on drugs,” eliminate private prisons and cash bail and bring about major police department reform.

I’m running for president because we need to end the demonization of undocumented immigrants in this country and move to comprehensive immigration reform. We need to provide immediate legal status for the young people eligible for the DACA program and develop a humane policy for those at the border who seek asylum.

I’m running for president because we must end the epidemic of gun violence in this country. We need to take on the NRA, expand background checks, end the gun show loophole and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons.

I’m running for president because we need a foreign policy which focuses on democracy, human rights, diplomacy and world peace. The United States must lead the world in improving international cooperation in the fight against climate change, militarism, authoritarianism and global wealth inequality.

That is why we need at least a million people to join our campaign and help lead the movement that can accomplish these goals. Add your name to say we’re in this together.

Needless to say, there is a lot of frightening and bad news in this world. Now, let me give you some very good news.

Three years ago, during our 2016 campaign, when we brought forth our progressive agenda we were told that our ideas were “radical,” and “extreme.” We were told that Medicare for All, a $15 an hour minimum wage, free tuition at public colleges and universities, aggressively combating climate change, demanding that the wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes, were all of concepts that the American people would never accept.

Well, three years have come and gone. And, as result of millions of Americans standing up and fighting back, all of these policies and more are now supported by a majority of Americans.

Together, you and I and our 2016 campaign began the political revolution. Now, it is time to complete that revolution and implement the vision that we fought for.

So here is my question for you:

Will you stand with me as part of a million person grassroots movement which can not only win the Democratic primary, not only win the general election but most importantly help transform this country so that, finally, we have a government that works for all of us and not just the few? Add your name to say you will.

Together we can create a nation that leads the world in the struggle for peace and for economic, racial, social and environmental justice.

And together we can defeat Donald Trump and repair the damage he has done to our country.

Brothers and sisters, if we stand together, there is no limit to what we can accomplish.

I hope you will join me.

Thank you very much.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

[iturbide]

When you get right down to it, there is very little separating the Assassins' goals from the Templars'. They both want peace for the world: the difference is only in how they want to bring it about. While Assassins hold that peace will come by humans freely uniting in understanding and acceptance of their differences, leading to a world where all mankind can value and support one another; Templars hold that peace must be imposed on mankind with a firm hand, as human nature is to abhor what is different. Their opposing views on free will are the primary source of friction between them, with Assassins valuing it as the key to innovation and progress and the Templars loathing it as the root of all conflict.

But in Plegia, where the Templars and Assassins have been increasingly at odds for centuries, there is one thing they both agree on: the Heart of Grima is a stepping stone toward the peace they desire.

For the Templars, who have become entrenched in positions of power at the top of the Grimleal hierarchy, the resurrection of the nation's divine is everything they could want. Even without raising the dragon form, having the branded child gives them leverage, a figurehead that stands for the divine that their faith is built around, and anything he says might as well be law to the people. With him in their control, they would be able to sway most of the population to obey their orders, ushering in that peace through 'divine' mandate.

The Assassins, meanwhile, see the Heart of Grima as the protector of their cause. Grima was called 'the fell dragon' even in Plegia due to the ferocity of his defense against outside threats, allowing the people of Plegia to live as they wished rather than being bent to outside influences or foreign demands. They want to give the Heart to the people, so that he might spread his influence and lead the nation by example of how they can be their best.

The loss of Grima's Heart was a major blow for the Templars, and they have not stopped searching for him since. The Assassins, meanwhile, have been evading the Templars at every turn to keep the Heart from falling into their hands. Robin is brought up in the Order knowing the importance of his Brand, and strives always to do and be his best, offering kindness and compassion at every turn. Few have ever heard him speak a truly harsh word, but when it happens his assessments are incisive, cutting directly to the core of a matter and laying bare the harshest truths.

Robin's place in the Order was initially that of a ward, a child in their protection and nothing more. As the years passed and the war with Ylisse continued to rage, leading the Templars to expand their influence over an increasingly desperate nation and subjugate the people to their will, Robin decided that he could not stand by and watch any longer: Grima had once protected Plegia by eliminating the threats to her people, so as Grima's Heart, he vowed to do the same. He began his training at the age of twelve, and at eighteen was inducted into the Order as a full-fledged assassin. Even with that title and the hidden blade that comes with the office, though, Robin prefers not to kill. His targets are chosen by higher-ranked members of the Order, and Robin will conduct his own investigations to verify the claims that led to each one being marked. He also makes extensive use of tools for cover and distractions, like smoke screens and cherry bombs, and will incapacitate enemy guards on a stealth approach rather than killing them under normal circumstances. The only situation where he will not stay his hand is in combat, where hesitation will lead to death -- and those lives weigh on him more heavily than any target's.

In his assassin gear, aside from the customary hidden blade, Robin also carries a silver sword, a steel bow, a wide variety of tools (including vulneraries, sleep darts, smoke bombs, cherry bombs, and throwing knives), and a Mjolnir tome for emergencies. He also has a variety of outfits used for social stealth objectives, and his equipment varies accordingly (he does not carry either a sword or bow while passing for a dark mage, for example); however, he will conceal his hidden blade in any guise for protection.

[magesona]

YO EVERYONE HEY

BERNIE IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT AGAIN

REPEAT - BERNIE SANDERS IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN THE 2020 ELECTIONS

This is the turn of the era everyone, honest to everything holy and whatever you hold dear, i really truly believe this is our opportunity to fix the fucked up shit Trump has been doing, and to lead America and humanity into a more positive and progressive future! This isn’t a petition or asking for a donation (though it will ask after you sign, you don’t have to, but y'know it’d be helpful if you can afford it), Bernie just wants to know and be able to show we’ll all be with him during this campaign!

This is all it takes, for real just sign!! Sign if you’re with this wonderful sweet man who has been screwed by elite class countless times, he wants to and can do so much to help our people, but we have to work together on this!! Believe me, even if the system is corrupt, even if it may not work in the end, it’s worth a shot! I’d say it’s worth the biggest shot we have, don’t let pessimism hold us back! Things have changed over the past few years, we have more of an advantage now with people realizing just how wrong they were to trust the man we’ve put into power. It’s the only way we can fight him and the broken system, TOGETHER!!

https://act.berniesanders.com/signup/em_bern_message/

Below the cut, i’ve included the rest of Bernie’s email. It includes all the promises he’s making for us, explains what we’re up against, and why he thinks we have a chance this time. It’s astounding how many important topics he addresses, universe bless this precious man, please don’t let the system fail him again.

---

I am writing to let you know I have decided to run for president of the United States. I am asking you to join me today as part of an unprecedented and historic grassroots campaign that will begin with at least a million people from across the country.

Please join our campaign for president on day one and commit to doing what it takes to win this election.

Our campaign is not only about defeating Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history. It is not only about winning the Democratic nomination and the general election.

Our campaign is about transforming our country and creating a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice.

Our campaign is about taking on the powerful special interests that dominate our economic and political life. I’m talking about Wall Street, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military industrial complex, the private prison industry and the large multinational corporations that exert such an enormous influence over our lives.

Our campaign is about redoubling our efforts to end racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry and all forms of discrimination.

Our campaign is about creating a vibrant democracy with the highest voter turnout of any major country while we end voter suppression, Citizens United and outrageous levels of gerrymandering.

Our campaign is about creating a government and economy that work for the many, not just the few. We are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. We should not have grotesque levels of wealth inequality in which three billionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of the country.

We should not have 30 million Americans without any health insurance, even more who are underinsured and a nation in which life expectancy is actually in decline.

We should not have an economy in which tens of millions of workers earn starvation wages and half of older workers have no savings as they face retirement.

We should not have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth and a dysfunctional childcare system which is unfair to both working parents and their children.

We should not have a regressive tax system in which large, profitable corporations like Amazon pay nothing in federal income taxes.

Make no mistake about it. The powerful special interests in this country have unbelievable power and they want to maintain the status quo. They have unlimited amounts of money to spend on campaigns and lobbying and have huge influence over the media and political parties.

The only way we will win this election and create a government and economy that work for all is with a grassroots movement – the likes of which has never been seen in American history.

They may have the money and power. We have the people. That is why we need one million Americans who will commit themselves to this campaign.

Stand with me as we fight to win the Democratic nomination and the general election. Add your name to join this campaign and say you are willing to do the hard work necessary to transform our country.

You know as well as I do that we are living in a pivotal and dangerous moment in American history. We are running against a president who is a pathological liar, a fraud, a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe and someone who is undermining American democracy as he leads us in an authoritarian direction.

I’m running for president because, now more than ever, we need leadership that brings us together – not divides us up. Women and men, black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian American, gay and straight, young and old, native born and immigrant. Now is the time for us to stand together.

I’m running for president because we need leadership that will fight for working families and the shrinking middle class, not just the 1 percent. We need a president who understands that we can create millions of good-paying jobs, rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and construct the affordable housing we desperately need.

I’m running for president because we need trade policies that reflect the interests of workers and not multi-national corporations. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, provide pay equity for women and guarantee all workers paid family and medical leave.

I’m running for president because we need to understand that artificial intelligence and robotics must benefit the needs of workers, not just corporate America and those who own that technology.

I’m running for president because a great nation is judged not by how many billionaires and nuclear weapons it has, but by how it treats the most vulnerable – the elderly, the children, our veterans, the sick and the poor.

I’m running for president because we need to make policy decisions based on science, not politics. We need a president who understands that climate change is real, is an existential threat to our country and the entire planet, and that we can generate massive job creation by transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

I’m running for president because the time is long overdue for the United States to join every other major country on Earth and guarantee health care to all people as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare-for-all program.

I’m running for president because we need to take on the outrageous level of greed of the pharmaceutical industry and lower prescription drug prices in this country.

I’m running for president because we need to have the best educated workforce in the world. It is totally counterproductive for our future that millions of Americans are carrying outrageous levels of student debt, while many others cannot afford the high cost of higher education. That is why we need to make public colleges and universities tuition free and lower student debt.

I’m running for president because we must defend a woman’s right to control her own body against massive political attacks taking place at the local, state and federal level.

I’m running for president because we need real criminal justice reform. We need to invest in jobs and education for our kids, not more jails and incarceration. We need to end the destructive “war on drugs,” eliminate private prisons and cash bail and bring about major police department reform.

I’m running for president because we need to end the demonization of undocumented immigrants in this country and move to comprehensive immigration reform. We need to provide immediate legal status for the young people eligible for the DACA program and develop a humane policy for those at the border who seek asylum.

I’m running for president because we must end the epidemic of gun violence in this country. We need to take on the NRA, expand background checks, end the gun show loophole and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons.

I’m running for president because we need a foreign policy which focuses on democracy, human rights, diplomacy and world peace. The United States must lead the world in improving international cooperation in the fight against climate change, militarism, authoritarianism and global wealth inequality.

That is why we need at least a million people to join our campaign and help lead the movement that can accomplish these goals. Add your name to say we’re in this together.

Needless to say, there is a lot of frightening and bad news in this world. Now, let me give you some very good news.

Three years ago, during our 2016 campaign, when we brought forth our progressive agenda we were told that our ideas were “radical” and “extreme.” We were told that Medicare for All, a $15 an hour minimum wage, free tuition at public colleges and universities, aggressively combating climate change, demanding that the wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes, were all concepts that the American people would never accept.

Well, three years have come and gone. And, as result of millions of Americans standing up and fighting back, all of these policies and more are now supported by a majority of Americans.

Together, you and I and our 2016 campaign began the political revolution. Now, it is time to complete that revolution and implement the vision that we fought for.

So here is my question for you:

Will you stand with me as part of a million person grassroots movement which can not only win the Democratic primary, not only win the general election, but most importantly help transform this country so that, finally, we have a government that works for all of us and not just the few? Add your name to say you will.

Together we can create a nation that leads the world in the struggle for peace and for economic, racial, social and environmental justice.

And together we can defeat Donald Trump and repair the damage he has done to our country.

Brothers and sisters, if we stand together, there is no limit to what we can accomplish.

I hope you will join me.

Thank you very much.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

[regina-georg-blog]

Trans Activism and Ur-Fascism

So, you know how trans activists are constantly insisting that so-called “terfs” are Nazis or fascists?  Well I’m in a trolling mood, so just for fun, lets compare the contemporary trans movement to Umberto Eco’s fourteen-point definition of fascism.  How many characteristics of fascism does trans activism share?

“The Cult of Tradition" characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by Tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement. This point is debatable I guess, depending on your definition of “tradition.” The contemporary trans movement certainly relies on a rigid dogma from which “no new learning can occur,” but it’s not necessarily tied to nostalgia and it’s certainly not a form of nationalism.

"The Rejection of Modernism" which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system. Like other post-modernist movements the contemporary trans movement absolutely rejects modernism and reason while embracing and even glorifying new technologies that serve its purposes.  This one is pretty open and shut.

"The Cult of Action for Action's Sake” which dictates that action is of value in itself, and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science. The same as the previous point. Contemporary trans activism is based in post-modern queer theory, which rejects science and reason as tools of oppression. Contemporary trans activism promotes an ethos of “action for action’s sake,” by celebrating violence, disruptive spectacle, and constant struggle, and by discouraging critical thinking and introspection.

"Disagreement Is Treason" Fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith. Contemporary trans activists circulate “terf” block lists and try to suppress “terf” rhetoric because they know that their ideology is internally contradictory, and they fear that it will collapse under critical scrutiny.

"Fear of Difference" which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants. Despite the racism of some trans activists, contemporary trans activism does not rely on racism or xenophobia, so this point doesn’t really match up.  However, contemporary trans activism absolutely relies on the demonization of marginalized out-groups, especially lesbians.

"Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class" fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups. Contemporary trans activism does not rely on an economic appeal.  However, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that alienated, downwardly-mobile, middle class white males are its primary constituents.

"Obsession with a Plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. This point is pretty obvious.  Contemporary trans activism is obsessed with a non-existent “terf” conspiracy.  The movement also promotes an extremely paranoid worldview, teaching its followers that everyone is out to get them and encouraging an unhealthy hyper-vigilance about trivial things like “misgendering.”

Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak." On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.  See the “terf” conspiracy.  Contemporary trans activism promotes the idea that its followers are under constant existential threat from powerful and dangerous “terfs,” while simultaneously crowing about how ugly, uncool, unpopular and politically marginalized “terfs” supposedly are.

"Pacifism is Trafficking with the Enemy" because "Life is Permanent Warfare" – there must always be an enemy to fight. This is evidenced by the fact that contemporary trans activism can never be satisfied and must constantly move the goalposts to maintain a state of permanent struggle.  No matter how much trans activists claim to want to eliminate “terfs,” they need “terfs” to oppose them in order to justify their movement’s existence.  If every single woman on earth acquiesced to all of their demands, they would still never be satisfied.  No level of submission will ever be enough to make peace with them, because they don’t actually want peace.

"Contempt for the Weak" which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group.  Contemporary trans activism resembles a cult, in this respect.  Followers are encouraged to believe that their edgy haircuts and obscure micro-identities make them morally superior to the unenlightened “cis” masses. 

"Everybody is Educated to Become a Hero" which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, "the Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death." The contemporary trans movement aggressively promotes and glamorizes mental illness, self-harm, and suicide as markers of authenticity and righteous victimhood.  In turn, trans activists’ fixation on their own supposed victimhood is used to justify their victimization of others. 

"Machismo" which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality."  The contemporary trans movement is intensely misogynistic and homophobic.  Among the straight male leaders of the movement, it’s easy to see a kind of machismo in drag.  Despite the superficial trappings of femininity such as makeup and clothing, most male trans activists exhibit stereotypical masculine behaviors, including aggression, sadism, narcissism, sexual entitlement, emotional fragility, and contempt for weakness.

"Selective Populism" – The People, conceived monolithically, have a Common Will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the Leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the Voice of the People." While the contemporary trans movement lacks a single Leader who can speak for everyone in it, it does have a small vanguard that dictates its Common Will.  The contemporary trans movement conceives of its constituents as a monolith who all share the same interests and dogmatic opinions.  Any trans-identified person who rejects this dogma is smeared as an enemy and often said to be “not really trans.”

"Newspeak" – Fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.  This point speaks for itself.  One of the most obvious features of contemporary trans activism is its heavy use of obnoxious jargon and its aggressive sloganeering and cult-like repetition of thought-terminating clichés.

[newstfionline]

Gorbachev on INF withdrawal: Not the work of “a great mind”

By Andrew E. Kramer, NY Times, Oct. 21, 2018

MOSCOW--President Trump’s announcement that the United States would withdraw from a nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia drew sharp criticism Sunday from one of the men who signed it, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who called the decision reckless and not the work of “a great mind.”

In making his announcement Saturday, Mr. Trump cited Russian violations of the pact, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was signed in Washington in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev.

Mr. Gorbachev, who is now 87 years old, cast Mr. Trump’s decision as a threat to peace.

In an interview with the Interfax news agency, Mr. Gorbachev called Mr. Trump’s rollback of the disarmament agreement “very strange.” He added: “Do they really not understand in Washington what this can lead to?”

The last Soviet leader, who is perceived more warmly in the West than inside Russia, has already watched his domestic reform agendas supporting democracy and greater freedom of the press unravel in recent years. Nuclear disarmament also defined his legacy.

“All agreements aimed at nuclear disarmament and limiting nuclear weapons must be preserved, for the sake of preserving life on earth,” Mr. Gorbachev said on Sunday.

Mr. Trump’s announcement also drew criticism from some Senate Republicans.

Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday” that it would be a “big, big mistake to flippantly get out of this historic agreement.”

He added: “This was a big part of Reagan’s legacy, and we should not get rid of it. It was an important step. We went from 64,000 nuclear-tipped missiles down to 15,000.”

The pact required the elimination of short- and intermediate-range missiles launched from land, and helped pull the superpowers back from the hair-trigger nuclear posture of the Cold War. The United States formally notified Russia of suspected violations four years ago, for developing banned missiles.

President Vladimir V. Putin had as early as 2007 suggested that the treaty no longer served Russia’s interests. Still, it remained in force as a cornerstone of the disarmament agreements of the late Soviet period.

The Kremlin said Mr. Putin would seek an explanation about the move when he meets this week in Moscow with John Bolton, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser.

The treaty, known in shorthand as the INF agreement, resolved a crisis of the Cold War as both superpowers deployed a new generation of relatively short-ranged missiles in Europe, the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and the United States in response in 1983.

The United States’ missiles in Europe, including the Pershing II, shortened the decision-making window for the Soviet leadership in Moscow to respond to a nuclear strike to as little as 10 minutes, compared with about half an hour for an intercontinental ballistic missile launch.

If a leader failed to respond in time, the Soviet command might be obliterated before ordering a retaliatory nuclear assault on the United States.

In part to address this shortcoming in the Soviet deterrence posture, the Soviet Union developed a so-called “dead hand” launch mechanism that could fire missiles at the United States even if the leadership died in a first strike.

The Russian government first publicly acknowledged the existence of this launch authority during Mr. Putin’s tenure.

In a period of tensions at the outset of the Ukraine crisis, the government newspaper, Rossiskaya Gazeta, published an article describing this system for launch using a computer and “artificial intelligence.” It is not activated in peacetime, the article said.

The INF Treaty banned nuclear-capable, ground-based missiles with a range of more than 500 kilometers, or 311 miles.

[businessweekme]

Trump Shakes Hands With Kim to Kick Off Summit

President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un took a historic first step toward ending decades of enmity between the U.S. and North Korea, shaking hands to start a summit between two adversaries that only last year had seemed on the brink of nuclear war.

With somber expressions, the two men opened their highly anticipated meeting in Singapore shortly after 9 a.m. local time Tuesday — 9 p.m. Monday in New York — marking the first face-to-face encounter between a sitting U.S. president and a leader of North Korea. They then appeared to warm up, smiling as they chatted after their initial handshake.

“We will have a terrific relationship, I have no doubt,” Trump said in brief remarks to reporters. He and Kim were seated with a small round table between them and their flags behind them.

“It was not an easy journey,” Kim said, speaking through a translator. “We’ve had a past that stopped us from advancing, and wrong behaviors and practices sometimes closed our eyes and ears, but we’ve overcome those to come to this point.”

For each leader, the meeting represents a major gamble, and its outcome will be dissected around the globe for a sense of whether one of the world’s greatest security threats — Kim’s nuclear arsenal — can be solved. The talks could also bring an end to the almost the seven-decade-old Korean War.

For more on the Trump-Kim summit  What to Know About Sanctions for Trump-Kim Meeting: QuickTake A Rough Guide to  North Korea’s Many Promises to Abandon Nukes China’s  Jumbo Jet Diplomacy Shows Influence in Trump-Kim Talks Kim Jong Un Surprises Crowds in Singapore With  Late-Night Tour

The fate of the summit may very well turn on the first moments they spend alone with each other. Trump has said that he expects to know “within the first minute” of their meeting if Kim is serious about giving up his nuclear weapons. They will be joined later by their staffs for an expanded meeting and a working lunch.

Drama surrounding the event heightened in the hours before the leaders greeted each other, as the two sides shifted their schedules. After Kim made clear that he would be leaving Singapore by the end of the day, the White House announced that Trump would depart in the evening after delivering a news conference at about 4 p.m. local time.

Kim Jong Un Surprises Crowds in Singapore With Late-Night Tour

Trump has said that he would be willing to stay longer and potentially stretch the summit out over two days depending on how talks were proceeding. White House spokesman Raj Shah said Trump’s schedule change was not in response to Kim but instead due to the quick-moving negotiations between the two sides.

Top aides to Trump and Kim spent much of the night trying to negotiate terms for the summit and any potential statement that will come out of it, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

Hours before the meeting’s start Trump tweeted that final staff meetings between the two sides “are going well and quickly…but in the end, that doesn’t matter. We will all know soon whether or not a real deal, unlike those of the past, can happen!”

“The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the U.S., say the haters & losers,” Trump tweeted about three hours before the summit. “We have our hostages, testing, research and all missle launches have stoped, and these pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say! We will be fine!”

Trump wants the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Kim is seeking a security guarantee — possibly including a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War — and the removal of the U.S.’s nuclear umbrella protecting allies South Korea and Japan.

Kim has rejected calls to unilaterally give up his weapons in return for economic aid, and instead has proposed a step-by-step denuclearization process. His public statements and state-run media indicate he wants a deal to ease sanctions, but that he won’t give up his nuclear weapons until he feels safe enough to retain power without them.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday drew a firm line, saying the U.S. plans to keep sanctions in place until North Korea eliminates its nuclear weapons capability. Complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization, he told reporters, “is the only outcome that the United States will accept.”

Yet the top U.S. diplomat added Trump is ready to offer “unique” guarantees to ease the regime’s concerns about giving up a nuclear arsenal that provides a deterrent against foreign adversaries while also serving as a key point of national pride.

The summit has drawn thousands of journalists to the Asia city-state. On Monday night, Kim took a surprise late-night tour of downtown Singapore, strolling along the harbor as reporters and residents shouted his name and snapped pictures with their phones.

Just meeting with Trump will be a diplomatic accomplishment for Kim, who has emerged from isolation in recent months and rapidly increased his outreach to other world leaders.

By sitting down with an American president — a longtime goal of North Korea’s government — Kim’s regime is advancing its effort to establish its “reputation, respect, and credibility as a nuclear weapon state,” said Michael J. Green, senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Top members of Trump’s administration have said that the North Koreans wouldn’t receive any benefits before taking steps to denuclearize — wary of falling into the same predicament that doomed previous agreements with the rogue regime.

But North Korea now deems itself “a nuclear state,” and insists the U.S. must end its “nuclear threats and blackmail” as a precondition for denuclearization, according to a statement last month from First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye Gwan.

The post Trump Shakes Hands With Kim to Kick Off Summit appeared first on Bloomberg Businessweek Middle East.

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