#united nations is a farce

[news4dzhozhar]

Because the United Nations (like the ICJ) is toothless and requires for countries to police themselves and abide by the decisions passed (and international law), Israel is simply refusing to acknowledge the ceasefire. The video above was shot last night (March 26th). Considering the ceasefire was to only be 2 weeks long it really shows the belligerence and bloodlust on the part of Israel. It also reaffirms that Netanyahu and the IOF don't give a damn about hostages as the agreement would have seen them ALL released.

[cigarette-room]

Liberators - bravest, most beautiful. Their smiles are shining like the sun. Happy birthday to the defeat of European fascism and may we see it lose again, and again, and again ❤️

[cerealbastard]

[alt text: But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests. This is what is becoming clear (I must say that it was always clear to me).

The Palestinians have been paying for the British colonial policy of "divide and rule" and for Europe's guilty Christian conscience for more than thirty years.

- James Baldwin

The Nation, 1979

graphic and photo provided by the James Baldwin Archive in instagram

[ayakashibackstreet]

It's been a few days since the National Final and I still can't believe what our stupid broadcaster did, I will never get over it

[immaculatasknight]

Criminal that hid in plain sight

[read-marx-and-lenin]

Fuck off commie, anyway people in droves have fled places like the Soviet Union, The Eastern Bloc,Cuba, North Korea and the POS PRC. So communism being successful is a farce. That being said I also hat communism because I don't want to be "equal" to those inferior to me.

I already knew you were a bigot, you made that clear in your last ask.

If you want to talk about "fleeing in droves", we can also talk about how the US and West Germany literally bribed people to cross over with the direct intent to cause economic instability and decline.

A persecuted American political dissident left the US to seek asylum in Cuba, Assata Shakur, and she's still living there today. She prefers it to the US. Donald Trump undid Obama's efforts to thaw relations with Cuba using their refusal to return her to the US for trial as one of his excuses.

When exactly were people fleeing the USSR or China outside of wartime or famine early on in their history? By the time the nations had stabilized and recovered, living conditions had vastly improved. The USSR from the 50s onward had a similar net migration rate to the United Kingdom or Denmark at the time, with a net positive NMR from the 70s all the way up to 1991 when emigration jumped massively due to the collapse of the USSR.

China has also had a very stable NMR outside of the period of famine, and most of the people who left during the famine returned to the country once the famine ended.

As for North Korea, you might want to watch this video:

If the DPRK is hell on earth, why would anyone who left be fighting for so many years to return to their home? Why would the ROK need to trick people into leaving and bribe them to spout lies about the country? Why would the ROK work to censor "defectors" who don't parrot the government's narrative regarding the DPRK? If the DPRK government is incompetent, why would the West need to sabotage them?

[here-there-be-fics]

Bucktommy Nation I'm so proud of us for continuing to thrive through the absolute crap being churned out (not you Katey-Lou interview you're perfect).

I could end up being wrong because they do still surprisingly have a chance to turn things around if they are smart but that relies on them being smart about it and....anyway.

But in a way I do have to be thankful that they fumbled so damn badly because all it has done has united and fueled us to create, share and continue to trend on here with barely a wiff of our ship.

We still would have been here flying the flag but I don't think it would have been quite so visceral and motivating to keep going stronger than ever especially when noone would blame us for getting the fuck out. So at least 911 has been the basis for one good thing in these later seasons, because that train wreck of storytelling and media farce is certainly not what any of us wanted.

[kushblazer666]

'Why I Won't Vote'

By W.E.B. Dubois, The Nation, 20 October 1956

Since I was twenty-one in 1889, I have in theory followed the voting plan strongly advocated by Sidney Lens in The Nation of August 4, i.e., voting for a third party even when its chances were hopeless, if the main parties were unsatisfactory; or, in absence of a third choice, voting for the lesser of two evils. My action, however, had to be limited by the candidates' attitude toward Negroes. Of my adult life, I have spent twenty-three years living and teaching in the South, where my voting choice was not asked. I was disfranchised by law or administration. In the North I lived in all thirty-two years, covering eight Presidential elections. In 1912 I wanted to support Theodore Roosevelt, but his Bull Moose convention dodged the Negro problem and I tried to help elect Wilson as a liberal Southerner. Under Wilson came the worst attempt at Jim Crow legislation and discrimination in civil service that we had experienced since the Civil War. In 1916 I took Hughes as the lesser of two evils. He promised Negroes nothing and kept his word. In 1920, I supported Harding because of his promise to liberate Haiti. In 1924, I voted for La Follette, although I knew he could not be elected. In 1928, Negroes faced absolute dilemma. Neither Hoover nor Smith wanted the Negro vote and both publicly insulted us. I voted for Norman Thomas and the Socialists, although the Socialists had attempted to Jim Crow Negro members in the South. In 1932 I voted for Franklin Roosevelt, since Hoover was unthinkable and Roosevelt's attitude toward workers most realistic. I was again in the South from 1934 until 1944. Technically I could vote, but the election in which I could vote was a farce. The real election was the White Primary.

Retired "for age" in 1944, I returned to the North and found a party to my liking. In 1948, I voted the Progressive ticket for Henry Wallace and in 1952 for Vincent Hallinan.

In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no "two evils" exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say. There is no third party. On the Presidential ballot in a few states (seventeen in 1952), a "Socialist" Party will appear. Few will hear its appeal because it will have almost no opportunity to take part in the campaign and explain its platform. If a voter organizes or advocates a real third-party movement, he may be accused of seeking to overthrow this government by "force and violence." Anything he advocates by way of significant reform will be called "Communist" and will of necessity be Communist in the sense that it must advocate such things as government ownership of the means of production; government in business; the limitation of private profit; social medicine, government housing and federal aid to education; the total abolition of race bias; and the welfare state. These things are on every Communist program; these things are the aim of socialism. Any American who advocates them today, no matter how sincerely, stands in danger of losing his job, surrendering his social status and perhaps landing in jail. The witnesses against him may be liars or insane or criminals. These witnesses need give no proof for their charges and may not even be known or appear in person. They may be in the pay of the United States Government. A.D.A.'s and "Liberals" are not third parties; they seek to act as tails to kites. But since the kites are self-propelled and radar-controlled, tails are quite superfluous and rather silly.

The present Administration is carrying on the greatest preparation for war in the history of mankind. Stevenson promises to maintain or increase this effort. The weight of our taxation is unbearable and rests mainly and deliberately on the poor. This Administration is dominated and directed by wealth and for the accumulation of wealth. It runs smoothly like a well-organized industry and should do so because industry runs it for the benefit of industry. Corporate wealth profits as never before in history. We turn over the national resources to private profit and have few funds left for education, health or housing. Our crime, especially juvenile crime, is increasing. Its increase is perfectly logical; for a generation we have been teaching our youth to kill, destroy, steal and rape in war; what can we expect in peace? We let men take wealth which is not theirs; if the seizure is "legal" we call it high profits and the profiteers help decide what is legal. If the theft is "illegal" the thief can fight it out in court, with excellent chances to win if he receives the accolade of the right newspapers. Gambling in home, church and on the stock market is increasing and all prices are rising. It costs three times his salary to elect a Senator and many millions to elect a President. This money comes from the very corporations which today are the government. This in a real democracy would be enough to turn the party responsible out of power. Yet this we cannot do.

The "other" party has surrendered all party differences in foreign affairs, and foreign affairs are our most important affairs today and take most of our taxes. Even in domestic affairs how does Stevenson differ from Eisenhower? He uses better English than Dulles, thank God! He has a sly humor, where Eisenhower has none. Beyond this Stevenson stands on the race question in the South not far from where his godfather Adlai stood sixty-three years ago, which reconciles him to the South. He has no clear policy on war or preparation for war; on water and flood control; on reduction of taxation; on the welfare state. He wavers on civil rights and his party blocked civil rights in the Senate until Douglas of Illinois admitted that the Democratic Senate would and could stop even the right of Senators to vote. Douglas had a right to complain. Three million voters sent him to the Senate to speak for them. His voice was drowned and his vote nullified by Eastland, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who was elected by 151,000 voters. This is the democracy in the United States which we peddle abroad.

Negroes hope to muster 400,000 votes in 1956. Where will they cast them? What have the Republicans done to enforce the education decision of the Supreme Court? What they advertised as fair employment was exactly nothing, and Nixon was just the man to explain it. What has the Administration done to rescue Negro workers, the most impoverished group in the nation, half of whom receive less than half the median wage of the nation, while the nation sends billions abroad to protect oil investments and help employ slave labor in the Union of South Africa and the Rhodesias? Very well, and will the party of Talmadge, Eastland and Ellender do better than the Republicans if the Negroes return them to office?

I have no advice for others in this election. Are you voting Democratic? Well and good; all I ask is why? Are you voting for Eisenhower and his smooth team of bright ghost writers? Again, why? Will your helpless vote either way support or restore democracy to America?

Is the refusal to vote in this phony election a counsel of despair? No, it is dogged hope. It is hope that if twenty-five million voters refrain from voting in 1956 because of their own accord and not because of a sly wink from Khrushchev, this might make the American people ask how much longer this dumb farce can proceed without even a whimper of protest. Yet if we protest, off the nation goes to Russia and China. Fifty-five American ministers and philanthropists are asking the Soviet Union "to face manfully the doubts and promptings of their conscience." Can not these do-gooders face their own consciences? Can they not see that American culture is rotting away: our honesty, our human sympathy; our literature, save what we import from abroad? Our only "review" of literature has wisely dropped "literature" from its name. Our manners are gone and the one thing we want is to be rich--to show off. Success is measured by income. University education is for income, not culture, and is partially supported by private industry. We are not training poets or musicians, but atomic engineers. Business is built on successful lying called advertising. We want money in vast amount, no matter how we get it. So we have it, and what then?

Is the answer the election of 1956? We can make a sick man President and set him to a job which would strain a man in robust health. So he dies, and what do we get to lead us? With Stevenson and Nixon, with Eisenhower and Eastland, we remain in the same mess. I will be no party to it and that will make little difference. You will take large part and bravely march to the polls, and that also will make no difference. Stop running Russia and giving Chinese advice when we cannot rule ourselves decently. Stop yelling about a democracy we do not have. Democracy is dead in the United States. Yet there is still nothing to replace real democracy. Drop the chains, then, that bind our brains. Drive the money-changers from the seats of the Cabinet and the halls of Congress. Call back some faint spirit of Jefferson and Lincoln,and when again we can hold a fair election on real issues, let's vote, and not till then. Is this impossible? Then democracy in America is impossible.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Meghan Blonder

New York Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman is touting an endorsement from a left-wing group that denounced a resolution commemorating "End Jew Hatred Day" in New York City. That resolution was "dangerous" and "a farce," the group said.

In a Monday tweet, Bowman heaped praise on Indivisible Brooklyn, calling their work "crucial in ensuring that everyday people are actually represented in our democracy."

"I am honored to have their endorsement and continue working with them," Bowman said.

Roughly one year prior, in June 2023, Indivisible Brooklyn blasted a bipartisan New York City Council resolution that established an "End Jew Hatred Day" in an attempt to combat rising anti-Semitism in the city. "That 'End Jew Hatred' bill was a total farce and is dangerous," the group said, adding that one of the two Brooklyn Democrats who voted against the resolution "was right to oppose it." The resolution passed with 41 yes votes.

Bowman's praise for Indivisible Brooklyn comes as the lawmaker faces a difficult primary challenge from Westchester County executive George Latimer, a pro-Israel Democrat whom local rabbis encouraged to run, citing Bowman's hostility toward the Jewish state. In the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 attack, the two-term congressman has accused Israel of "mass murder," "genocide," and "ethnic cleansing."

"Many of us tried to engage the congressman early in his term, seeking constructive dialogue about the damaging positions he took—especially on matters related to America's relationship with Israel," the rabbis wrote in an October letter. "Regrettably, Congressman Bowman disregarded our outreach and doubled down on his anti-Israel policy positions and messaging."

Neither Bowman nor Indivisible Brooklyn responded to requests for comment.

The "End Jew Hatred Day" resolution, which was sponsored by Republican councilwoman Inna Vernikov, came as New York led the nation in anti-Semitic incidents and experienced a record number of anti-Semitic assaults, according to data from the Anti-Defamation League. In 2022, 72 anti-Semitic assaults were reported in the state, the highest on record at the time. That number represented 65 percent of all anti-Semitic assaults reported in the United States.

Vernikov's resolution aimed to "acknowledge this reality and to express support for this historically victimized community," according to New York GOP chair Ed Cox. Still, in addition to the two Democrats who voted against it, four others voted to abstain. One of those four, Charles Barron, said he did so because the "Jewish community … supported apartheid in racist South Africa and said nothing about African people dying."

A bipartisan group of lawmakers denounced the New York City Democrats who refused to back the bill.

"Antisemitism has a long and ugly history. It has seen a resurgence in NYC with a record number of hate crimes," Rep. Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.) said at the time. "How can anyone vote against a resolution to end antisemitism?"

Since Latimer's entry into the race in December, Bowman has done little to improve his relationship with his district's Jewish leaders.

During a January panel discussion titled, "Palestine Oct. 7th and After," Bowman glowingly introduced anti-Israel author Norman Finkelstein, who celebrated Hamas's massacre as a "heroic resistance" that "warm[ed] every fiber" of his soul.

"I'm also a bit starstruck, because I watch them all the time on YouTube," Bowman said of Finkelstein and two other anti-Israel panelists. "You have given me the knowledge on YouTube even before coming here."

One month later, Bowman teamed up with fellow anti-Israel House member Cori Bush (D., Mo.) to hold a joint fundraiser in Los Angeles. That fundraiser was hosted by a number of activists who defended Hamas's attack, including one who called it "a desperate act of self-defense," the Washington Free Beacon reported. Bowman also held a joint fundraiser with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), during which the lawmakers filmed themselves leading a "Free Palestine" chant.

In addition to Indivisible Brooklyn, Bowman in January touted an endorsement from Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a left-wing nonprofit that blamed Israel for provoking Hamas's attack. The group has also argued against sending anti-Semitic hate criminals to jail, saying those criminals should be met with "restorative, community-based education and healing," not "a police-driven response with criminal penalties."

[capybaracorn]

US lawmakers slam ICC prosecutor’s Israel arrest warrant requests

Republican legislators threaten ‘consequences’ against International Criminal Court officials, including travel bans.

'I insist that all attempts to impede, to intimidate or to improperly influence the officials of this court cease immediately,' International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan says in announcing he is seeking arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders [File: Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters]

(20th of May 2024)

Lawmakers in the United States have slammed the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) decision to seek arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials accused of war crimes in Gaza with some Republicans threatening to impose “consequences” against the international tribunal.

Joe Biden was less confrontational in his opposition to Monday’s announcement from ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, but the US president still labelled the move “outrageous”.

Khan is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as well as three senior Hamas officials.

Khan accused the Israeli leaders of bearing “criminal responsibility” for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, including intentional attacks against civilians, willful killings and starvation of civilians as a weapon of war.

The response in Washington, DC – where Israel enjoys staunch support among lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican parties – was swift.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton said Monday’s announcement shows that the ICC — which is tasked with investigating war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities — is “a farce”.

“My colleagues and I look forward to make sure neither Khan, his associates nor their families will ever set foot again in the United States,” Cotton wrote on X.

Republican Congressman Anthony D’Esposito said the ICC was “playing with fire”, writing on social media that “there will be serious consequences if they proceed.”

Brian Mast, another Republican in the House of Representatives, said: “America doesn’t recognize the International Criminal Court, but the court sure as hell will recognize what happens when you target our allies.”

Neither the US nor Israel are parties to the Rome Statute, under which the ICC was established, and neither recognise the jurisdiction of the court.

Palestine, a nonmember observer state at the United Nations, formally accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction in 2015, extending the court’s authority to investigate atrocities committed in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Several Republican legislators had warned Khan in late April against seeking arrest warrants against Netanyahu or other Israeli officials after reports began to circulate that such a request was imminent.

“Such actions are illegitimate and lack legal basis, and if carried out will result in severe sanctions against you and your institution,” they wrote in a letter that was made public this month.

The letter was signed by a dozen top Republican senators, including Cotton, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Tim Scott.

“Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward … we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States. You have been warned,” it concluded.

[See embedded video in article]

Intimidation must ‘cease immediately’, Khan says

For months, rights groups and Palestinian advocates had urged Khan and the ICC to seek arrest warrants for Israeli leaders involved in the country’s war and siege on the Gaza Strip.

Israeli attacks on the coastal enclave have killed more than 35,000 Palestinians since the war began in early October, prompting accusations that Israel was committing genocide.

Severe Israeli restrictions on water, food, medical supplies, fuel and other critical aid from entering Gaza have also created a humanitarian crisis.

During his announcement on Monday, Khan said: “Israel, like all states, has a right to defend its population,” but that does not “absolve Israel of its obligations to comply with international humanitarian law”.

He also said, “It is critical in this moment that my office and all parts of the court continue to conduct our work with full independence and impartiality.

“And I insist that all attempts to impede, to intimidate or to improperly influence the officials of this court cease immediately. My office will not hesitate to act, pursuant to provisions of Article 70 of the Rome Statute, if such conduct continues and persists.”

Article 70 makes “impeding, intimidating or corruptly influencing an official of the Court for the purpose of forcing or persuading the official not to perform, or to perform improperly, his or her duties” an offence that the court has jurisdiction over.

[See embedded video in article]

Biden administration’s position

Biden rejected what he portrayed as an attempt to compare the actions of Israel and Hamas.

“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” Biden said in a statement. “And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

While Biden came into office in 2021 pledging to re-engage with international institutions after his predecessor Donald Trump’s isolationist stance, the US continues to have a fraught relationship with the ICC.

Last week, a spokesperson for the US Department of State said Washington does not believe the ICC has jurisdiction over the situation in Gaza.

“We have made clear that we do not believe the ICC has jurisdiction in this case and oppose their investigation,” Matthew Miller told reporters.

The Biden administration has provided largely unwavering diplomatic and military support to Israel during its war on Gaza, prompting widespread protests and criticism.

Some members of Biden’s own Democratic Party have joined calls for the US president to cut off aid to Israel. Others also have expressed support for the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, stressing that international law must be applied evenly.

Nancy Okail, president of the Center for International Policy, a US-based think tank, urged the US government “to fully cooperate with – and in no way impede – the ICC process currently underway on this matter”.

“One need not agree with the prosecutor’s allegations to respect and defend the legitimacy of the court, its processes and the law which it is tasked to enforce. Any attempt to penalize or intimidate the court or its officers must be categorically condemned,” she said in a statement on Monday.

“The United States should also fulfill its own obligations and immediately cease military support enabling the violations of human rights and international law enumerated in the requested ICC warrants.”

[deadpresidents]

"You know very well, sir, for you were familiar with my views while I was President, what my estimate of [Ulysses S.] Grant was, and I don't know anything that has since occurred that has caused me to change my mind the slightest. I know Grant thoroughly. I had ample opportunity to study him when I was President, and I am convinced he is the greatest farce that was ever thrust upon a people. Why, the little fellow -- excuse me for using the expression, but I can't help pitying him -- the little fellow has nothing in him. He hasn't a single idea. He has no policy, no conception of what the country requires. He doesn't understand the philosophy of a single great question, and is completely lost in trying to understand his situation. He is mendacious, cunning and treacherous. He lied to me flagrantly, by God, and I convicted him by my whole Cabinet; but that even would have been tolerable were it the only instance, but it was not. He lied on many other occasions.

I tell you, sir, Grant is nothing more than a bundle of petty spites, jealousies and resentments. And yet they say Grant is a second Washington. Only think of it, when you compare him with Washington or Jefferson where is he? Why he is so small you must put your finger on him. He, a little upstart, a coward, physically and intellectually, to be compared to George Washington! Why, it makes me laugh. I have more pity for the man than contempt, for I have no spite against him. But I fear for the country when such a man is likened to the father of his country. Why, just look at the inaugural of Washington. He speaks about his fear and trembling in accepting the Presidency, even after all his experience and success. But this little fellow Grant, an upstart, a mere accident of the war, a creature without the ability to comprehend the philosophy of a single great question, says in his inaugural, 'I know the responsibility is great, but I accept it without fear.' Is that like Washington or Jefferson? Pshaw! It's monstrous to think of.

Grant, I tell you, sir has no ideas, no policy. Why, Washington considered that a man's greatness was measured by his morality, by the standard of his soul. And I have always considered that the more soul a man had, the more developed the soul or intellect within him, the more Godlike he became. But, sir, Grant has nothing. Physically and mentally and morally he is a nonentity. Why, sir, his soul is so small that you could put it within the periphery of a hazel nutshell and it might float about for a thousands years without knocking against the walls of the shell. That's the size of his soul.

Just look at the man sitting at a Cabinet council. He has no idea, no policy, no standard, no creed, not faith. How can he guide the people? How can he impress any great improvements or moral ideas upon the nation? He has no object to look forward to, no leading aim to draw the people towards any particular end. He sits there with his Cabinet. One member has bought him a house in Philadelphia, another has given him $65,000, another has given him a carriage, and so on. It is degrading to the office of President of the United States to have such a man there.

They talk about his generalship. Well, he was a mere incident of the war. Men and arms were supplied in abundance, and his forces were so massive that they simply crushed out the rebellion. It would have been done had Grant never been born. Therefore he was a mere incident. But the little fellow has come to think he is somebody really. I can't help pitying him when I think how well I know him and what an infinitesimal creature he really is."

-- Former President Andrew Johnson, delivering a scathing attack on President Ulysses S. Grant, shortly after Johnson left the White House, during an interview with a correspondent from the New York Herald, June 27, 1869

[mightyflamethrower]

After last Thursday’s debate, Biden himself laid to rest the Democratic lie that he was robust and in control of his faculties. In truth, he demonstrated to the nation that he is a sad, failing octogenarian who could not perform any job in America other than apparently the easy task of President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief in charge of our nuclear codes.

In 2019, Democratic primary candidates often hit rival Joe Biden for his apparent senior moments and incoherence. During the 2020 campaign, Biden often became in bizarre fashion animated and nasty (“you ain’t black”/“fat”/“lying dog-faced pony soldier”/“junkie”).

His “corn pop” stories were grotesque and had a senile accentuation of his earlier “super-predator” and “clean” black riffs. As president, his mental decline progressed geometrically, in the sense that every three months, Biden became far, far worse than during the prior 90 days. His handlers long ago had determined that masking his feebleness at the expense of the security and safety of the nation was a small price to pay to retain power.

What followed was the most comprehensive deceit in presidential history, analogous to insisting that frail and dying FDR in 1944 was just fine as the November election approached or that Woodrow Wilson was expertly running the country as he lay bedridden and near comatose.

Any who questioned the vigorous Biden narrative was trashed as “ageist.” Special counsel Robert Hur was dubbed a “hack” for accurately describing Biden as so amnesiac he would win nullification acquittal from a sympathetic jury.

An array of court sycophants periodically gave interviews, insisting that the robust Biden was smarter and wiser than ever. His press secretary, Karin Jean-Pierre, helped coin a new slur, “cheap fake,” for any who collated video and audio clips demonstrating that Biden was obviously non compos mentis. Would she say the same today after the about-face CNN panelists reviewed Biden’s serial debate lapses to support their now-opportune advocacy that he not run for reelection? Would she wish to be a passenger in a car driven by Biden?

In sum, the “dynamic Biden” farce was finally laid to rest by a debate, but not before it had served the original leftist Faustian bargain. Under the guise of COVID, an enfeebled and stationary Biden outsourced his entire 2020 campaign to toady journalists and surrogate politicians.

His task was to pose from his basement as the uniter, ‘good ol’ Joe from Scranton,’ serving as the pseudo-moderate veneer for the most far left agenda in recent history. In the bargain, Joe and Jill enjoyed the privileges of power and status, while they farmed out the presidency to an array of former Obama subordinates and the hard left of what is left of the old Democratic Party.

The useful lie continued throughout his presidency, escalating in direct proportion to Joe’s mounting stumbles, brain freezes, rambling, and incomprehensible speech. When our president said something either outrageous or unfathomable, the public was to assume that it was intemperate to attribute his failures to senility.

So, the nation became acculturated to deciphering about 60 percent of what he said and writing off the rest to his never-to-be-spoken-of disability. It was the cognitive bookend to the ruse that FDR was able to stand and walk—although far worse because being wheel-chair bound is not a limitation for a president, whereas cognitive incapacity of Biden’s magnitude most certainly is.

The Biden lie was the crown jewel of a number of other left-wing/media fabrications. The more they spread, the more they seemed absurd, and the more they were refuted—so all the more others took their place and the more their promulgators never apologized but simply moved on to their next one. The common denominator was that all the lies, during their existence, were useful to the progressive project.

The Russian collusion hoax helped lose Trump the 2016 popular vote. Its resumption during his presidency ate up 22 months of his administration during the Special Counsel Robert Mueller farce.

The October surprise laptop disinformation lie may have cost Trump the 2020 election. But it was concocted so that Joe Biden could stare at the debate camera and swear to the American people that Trump was a liar, citing “51 intelligence authorities” who insisted Hunter Biden’s laptop was a likely hallmark of Russian disinformation.

We were asked to believe that clever Russian disinformationists fabricated all the sick photos and selfies of poor Hunter, knew the Biden family’s intimate tensions and fault lines as evidenced in the computer’s texts and emails, and were able to package and deposit the computer to either a Russian operative masquerading as a computer repairment or have it delivered to the supposedly useful idiot. The truth was, the FBI had the laptop during the debate and had long verified its authenticity—and thus kept mum as its brethren intelligence apparatchiks lied to the nation.

What the untruth did not fully reveal was that Biden’s campaign foreign policy guru, Antony Blinken (the current Secretary of State), cooked up the entire ruse. He enlisted former CIA grandee Mike Morell, who then rounded up on spec the confessed lying duo of John Brennan and James Clapper, who in turn drafted still more deceivers, among them the once esteemed Leon Panetta.

And the lie worked perfectly as envisioned, far better than even Russian “collusion.” The nation was deceived into believing that the “asset” Trump was reduced once again to colluding with Putin to enlist his former KGB soldiers to smear the upright Biden family and thus warp yet another election.

Note that all these lies were never retracted. No one ever apologizes. No one is ever punished, even when the lie is given under oath. No one ever has any regrets. And no one ever has any hesitation to lie again, given the utility of the prior untruth.

We were told by the deceitful Alejandro Mayorkas that the border was “secure” as he deliberately destroyed it and welcomed in over 10 million illegal aliens. That lie survived even the absurdity of years of nightly news clips (“cheap fakes?”) of thousands swarming an open border. And it died only when the 2024 election approached and the Biden administration read polls showing that a vast majority wanted the border closed and illegal entrants deported. Then suddenly, the lie that the border was secure transmogrified into the back-up lie that “Republicans would not help us close the now-insecure border.” Translated into Orwellian terms, the border that was crossed by 10 million was always secure but could have been made even more secure had Republicans joined Democrats to secure what was already “secure.”

We live in an era of lies. Sometimes they are purely political, like the Charlottesville “both sides” yarn. And sometimes they change history, like the fabrications that bats and pangolins, not the communist Chinese Wuhan virology lab, birthed the COVID-19 virus, or the Anthony Fauci contortion that his offices did not fund and help out, stealthily and in circumvention of U.S. law, deadly gain-of-function virology research in communist China.

Yet another lie was institutionalized: the January 6 riot was a full-fledged, carefully planned armed insurrection to overthrow the government. In contrast, the four months in 2020 of killing, assault, arson, and looting that saw over 35 dead, 1,500 injured law enforcement officers, $2 billion in damage, and a federal courthouse, a police precinct and a historic church torched were “cries of the heart” from the oppressed and victimized.

Those untruths ensured that hundreds of mostly naïve protestors who showed up in the capitol soon became convicted felons serving long sentences, while the 14,000 arrested for the 2020 mayhem were mostly released as overzealous but otherwise sympathetic activists.

These lies changed the course of the nation. They are birthed by the incestuous marriage of a Washington-New York political culture and a corrupt media.

The purveyors are Juvenal’s “who will police the police.” They are the administrative overseers in the FBI, CIA, DOJ, and the various cabinets and agencies. They feel they are exempt from any consequences for the damage they do, given that in their day jobs they operate as judges, jury and executioners.

Finally, while all governments lie, the left is far more adroit at it because, in their any-means-necessary/the-ends-justify-the-means credo, they spread supposedly good “lies” that stop the Hitlerian Trump, neuter the creepy deplorables/irredeemables/chumps/clingers or save the good people from the MAGA anti-vaxers and assorted yahoos.

Will the lies continue?

Indeed, they will thrive until the people slash the administrative state of its unaccountable and unelected “experts”; until they indict those in the future like Andrew McCabe, James Clapper, John Brennan and their brethren who lie under oath or to federal investigators; until they ostracize and utterly discredit those like Mayorkas, Fauci, and the Bidens whose deceptions took hostage an entire nation; and until they tune out a bankrupt media, the power cord of the entire Pravda enterprise.

[plethoraworldatlas]

In what case litigants are calling the first time an American jury has held a U.S. corporation legally liable for atrocities abroad, federal jurors in Florida on Monday found that Chiquita Brands International financed a Colombian paramilitary death squad that murdered, tortured, and terrorized workers in a bid to crush labor unrest in the 1990s and 2000s.

The federal jury in West Palm Beach, Florida found the banana giant responsible for funding the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and awarded eight families whose members were murdered by the right-wing paramilitary group $38.3 million in damages.

EarthRights International, which first filed the case—Doe v. Chiquita—in 2007, called the verdict "a milestone for justice."

"The jury's decision reaffirms what we have long asserted: Chiquita knowingly financed the AUC, a designated terrorist organization, in pursuit of profit, despite the AUC's egregious human rights abuses," the group said.

"By providing over $1.7 million in illegal funding to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, Chiquita contributed to untold suffering and loss in the Colombian regions of Urabá and Magdalena, including the brutal murders of innocent civilians," EarthRights added. "This historic verdict also means some of the victims and families who suffered as a direct result of Chiquita's actions will finally be compensated."

One of the plaintiffs in the case called the verdict the "triumph of a process that has been going on for almost 17 years, for all of us who have suffered so much during these years."

Plaintiffs' attorney Agnieszka Fryszman said that "the verdict does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed, but it sets the record straight and places accountability for funding terrorism where it belongs: at Chiquita's doorstep."

The U.S. labor reporting site More Perfect Unioncalled the verdict "an unprecedented win against corporate violence, which could [be] the first of many."

A Chiquita spokesperson toldFruitnet that the company plans to appeal the verdict.

The AUC was formed in 1997 via the union of right-wing paramilitary groups battling leftist guerrillas—mainly the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN)—in the South American nation's civil war. Closely linked to Colombia's U.S.-backed military, the AUC—some of whose members were trained by Israelis—was designated a terrorist organization in 2001 by the U.S. State Department, which cited its "massacres, kidnappings of civilians, and participation in the trafficking of narcotics."

[dragoneyes618]

Recent decisions against Israel by the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, which are clearly intended to rescue Hamas and aid and abet its genocidal war on the Jewish state, can only reinforce a truism often expressed by Israelis: Kol ha’olam negdeinu. “The whole world is against us.”

Israelis have reason enough to feel this way, but it is worth asking whether it’s actually true. What, after all, is the “whole world”?

If the term refers to world popular opinion, then it is almost certainly wrong. It is unlikely that the majority of the world’s 8 billion human beings particularly care about Israel. If they do, it can only be in the most shallow and cursory way.

In another sense, however, Israelis’ angry rumination is quite accurate: What is often called the “international community” is most certainly against Israel.

The phrase “international community” is usually used as shorthand for the entire world. In fact, the international community is an elite, a clique, even something like a religious sect. It is made up of the vanishingly small minority of privileged and powerful people who work at or with an alphabet soup of international organizations and NGOs led by the United Nations.

It is worth emphasizing how small this cabal actually is. The largest international organization—the United Nations—employs some 116,000 people in total. This is approximately half the number employed by Microsoft. Most international organizations, including ostensibly independent NGOs, are much smaller. Even with various envoys and diplomats from each participating country thrown in, it is highly unlikely that the “international community” consists of more than 500,000 people. If, for the sake of argument, we double that number to 1 million, it would constitute only 0.0125% of the global population. This may be a “community” and is certainly “international,” but it is by no means “the world.”

This tiny sect received its privileges via a series of historical anomalies. It was constructed out of the wreckage of World War II when, hoping to prevent a World War III, the victorious Allies formed the United Nations—the brainchild of progressive U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who hoped to realize his predecessor Woodrow Wilson’s failed vision of the League of Nations.

Indeed, for a brief moment before the Cold War began in earnest, there were wild hopes that the United Nations would usher in a new era in human history: Disputes and conflicts would be settled according to international law via what was essentially an enormous debating society/charitable organization. The old imperial rivalries and balance-of-power diplomacy would disappear. War would become a thing of the past. The blessings of liberty and democracy would be bestowed upon the entire human race.

Needless to say, it didn’t happen. History continued on exactly as it had before: The great powers and the balance between them continued to define global affairs, and a third world war was prevented not by the world body but by the atomic bomb. In response, however, the international community that grew up around the United Nations simply pretended this was not the case. Instead, it created a hermetic bubble in which the international community was competent and effective at its job of ensuring peace and dispensing global charity. This should not have been surprising. After all, those involved made good money out of the charade.

This perpetual farce would have been amusing but not disastrous except for the fact that the international community swiftly began to take on a very sinister form. The reasons are well-known. Put simply, most of those who made up the international community represented authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. Thus, the international community inevitably became more and more amenable to authoritarianism and totalitarianism, so long as it was practiced by the right people. Beginning in the 1970s, as terrorism became a major tool of the world’s tyrants, the international community increasingly endorsed the most horrendous atrocities and the organizations that committed them. It was inevitable that this would end in a scramble to rescue a genocidal terrorist organization from near-certain destruction.

The international community, in other words, ceased to be farce and became a weapon—a kind of diplomatic suicide-bomber. For example, it is very doubtful that Hamas would have launched the Oct. 7 attack if it did not think that the international community would rescue it from Israel’s retaliation. We don’t yet know if Hamas was wrong. The blood of a great many people, in other words, is on the international community’s hands.

Clearly, in its current state, the international community has no right to exist. This raises a complex dilemma, however, which is if and how to replace it.

Despite the difficulties, it isn’t hard to see how alternative institutions could be created. For example, the democratic nations and their allies could easily form their own independent alignments like NATO without bankrolling a gang of parasites dedicated to enabling crimes against humanity in the name of human rights.

Moreover, if the international community did not exist, very little would change. The old ways of doing things have persisted and will likely continue to do so. International affairs would go on much as they always have through balance-of-power diplomacy. The only difference would be that the world would be free of much of the terrorism and war that the international community fosters through collaborationism and corruption.

More importantly, perhaps, the world will at last have accepted reality. This is a good thing in and of itself. It is dangerous to live by lies because the results are always incompetence, hypocrisy and ultimately self-destruction. Thus the essential admonition: If something isn’t working, stop doing it.

The international community is not working. Because it is not working, it is killing people. It’s time for those disinclined towards terrorism, genocide and their attendant pathologies to give up on the mad dreams of long-dead progressives. They must finally pull the curtain down on a blood-soaked and very expensive farce that has already gone on for far too long.

[worsethankonstantinlevin]

Full article under the cut:

President Gustavo Petro is coming good on his election promise to cut tree felling.

Deforestation in Colombia fell by 36% in a year, marking a new record low.

It's especially good news the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon, one-third of which is in Colombia. The Amazon is a crucial carbon sink meaning it sucks up carbon emissions that would otherwise contribute to global warming.

The drop happened between 2022 and 2023 and comes off the back of years of campaigning by Indigenous activists who depend on the Amazon for their homes and livelihood.

The decrease “means that 44,262 hectares of forest stopped being cut down,” Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad told journalists. “It is very good news, but we definitely cannot say that the battle is won. We continue to confront illicit economies."

The data was released as Colombia ramps up to host the COP16 United Nations biodiversity summit in the southwestern city of Cali in October.

How did Colombia achieve record low deforestation?

When elected in 2022, President Gustavo Petro vowed to halt record high rates of deforestation in the Amazon by limiting agribusiness expansion into the forest and creating reserves where Indigenous communities and others are allowed to harvest rubber, acai and other non-timber forest products.

Advancing peace talks between the government and guerrilla groups in the area, along with financial incentives for farmers in the Amazon to help with conservation, drove the drop. It came after deforestation had fallen about 29% in 2022.

Environmental experts over past years have said the decrease in deforestation was also likely tied to orders from dissident groups of FARC guerrillas forbidding deforestation.

What does Colombia need to do to keep deforestation down?

Minister Muhamad said the strong presence of government armed forces in guerrilla-controlled areas, as well as progress made with peace talks, will be key to maintaining a downward trend.

But next year's figures don't look as promising. A significant rise in deforestation has already been recorded due to the effects of dry weather caused by El Niño, Muhamad said, a weather phenomenon that warms the central Pacific.

Mass cattle ranching, drug crops and illegal mining and logging continue to drive deforestation in the Andean nation, Muhamad said.

[oldgayjew]

The United Nations is invading America at the request of ChinaJoe and the Nazicrats so there will be no doubt who will win in the coming "Farce Election" ...

We are watching our country implode in slow motion and it's being orchestrated by the illegitimate Administration that installed itself back in 2020 ... and the willing accomplices that smugly allow this "Soros-paid-for" coup believe that they will be allowed to survive and thrive after the coming HellStorm ...

History tells a different story ... as it repeats itself ...