#world news and domestic crises aside

[gripes-withthesun]

What they don't tell you about making collages is that you'll go looking through the newspapers for an image and get very very sad along the way from Everything in the newspaper

[aimeecabo]

Renew, Reclaim, Rise – Aimee Cabo’s  Podcast of Hopeful Narratives

A Glimpse into Aimee's Inspirational Journey

Navigating through the expansive sphere of podcasts, where narratives are spun and reverberate in the audible ether, a singular woman, Aimee Cabo, emerges from the crowd. She masterfully directs discourse towards themes of recovery, reacquisition, and resilience. This unsung heroine of the auditory world has distinctly carved a space for herself, curating a unique aural journey that serves as a lighthouse in an often-chaotic sea of sound. Her resonant voice, coupled with the profound experiences she shares, provides listeners with an assurance of hope, a testament to human spirit and endurance, even amidst the tumult and storms of life.

Behind the soothing cadence of Aimee Cabo's voice lies a profound vision — a dream to carve out a dedicated space where tales of triumph over adversity, personal growth, and the journey to redemption are unveiled and celebrated. This exceptional woman, standing at the helm of this transformative podcast, has ingeniously crafted a platform that transcends mere entertainment. It serves as a beacon of hope, shining light on the path of recovery and inspiration. Her vision, encapsulated in three powerful words: Renew, Reclaim, Rise, echoes throughout each episode, reaching out to listeners and empowering them to overcome their challenges.

The podcast begins with the theme of renewal, where the power of transformation is explored through a myriad of narratives. From personal growth stories to tales of overcoming adversity, each episode is a symphony of voices contributing to the greater melody of renewal. The host's skillful interviewing techniques draw out the essence of each journey, offering listeners a front-row seat to the profound moments of metamorphosis.

What sets this podcast apart is its commitment to showcasing diverse stories of renewal. Whether it's an entrepreneur who rebuilt her business from the ground up or an artist finding a new muse in the face of creative block, the host weaves a tapestry of narratives that resonates with the universal theme of embracing change and emerging stronger.

Reclamation: Echoes of Empowerment

Continuing the journey from the aspect of renewal, the podcast ventures into the realm of reclamation. This phase is a powerful tribute to the resilience and fortitude of the human spirit, where individuals regain control of their stories, recasting shadows of their past into beacons for their future. Aimee Cabo, the host, exhibits exceptional prowess in steering conversations that inspire her audience to challenge and reassess societal and self-imposed limitations, which could potentially stunt their personal growth. Through her insightful dialogues, listeners are encouraged to redefine their paths, casting aside obstructions to their mental and emotional evolution.

Through a diverse range of guests, each episode unravels stories of individuals reclaiming their identities, be it in the professional arena, personal relationships, or societal expectations. From a trailblazing advocate for inclusivity in STEM fields to a survivor of domestic violence advocating for others, the podcast provides a stage for those who have reclaimed their voices and are now using them to amplify their experiences.

The podcast culminates in narratives of triumph — stories of rising above challenges, emerging victorious, and inspiring others in the process. The host, with an innate ability to extract the most poignant moments from her guests, crafts episodes that leave listeners with a profound sense of hope and motivation. Each tale of triumph is as unique as the individuals behind them. From overcoming health crises to achieving milestones that once seemed insurmountable, the podcast offers a panoramic view of human resilience. Listeners find themselves not only entertained but also deeply moved by the raw authenticity that permeates each episode.

In an era where information overload and the cacophony of negativity often dominate the digital landscape, this podcast emerges as a refreshing oasis. The host, with her unwavering commitment to hopeful narratives, has created a safe space where listeners can find solace, inspiration, and a renewed sense of purpose. What sets this podcast apart is not just the quality of storytelling but the genuine empathy that underpins each episode. The host's ability to connect with her guests on a human level transcends the virtual boundaries of the podcast, creating an intimate and authentic experience for the audience.

The Impact Beyond the Airwaves

Under the guidance of Aimee Cabo, this podcast transcends the physical limitations of earphones and speakers, reaching directly into the hearts of its listeners. The stories shared have become a beacon of solace for many who find comfort and strength in the triumphs of others. Each episode invites listeners to embark on their own journeys of renewal and reclamation, offering a roadmap for personal transformation. This podcast serves as a testament to the transformative power of storytelling. When narratives are shared with sincerity and authenticity, they have the profound potential to reshape lives, redefine personal narratives, and catalyze a process of healing and growth.

The host's commitment to her community extends beyond the podcast itself. Through social media engagement, live events, and collaborations, she fosters a sense of belonging among her listeners. The podcast becomes not just a source of inspiration but a community where individuals support each other in their respective journeys of renewal, reclamation, and rising above.

Hosted by award-winning Christian author and inspirational speaker, Aimee Cabo, this podcast is an uplifting beacon in a world typically riddled with challenges and uncertainties. It delivers compelling stories of resilience and hope that echo in the hearts of its listeners, calling upon us all to reframe our perspectives, redefine our narratives, and conquer adversities. Each episode underlines the truth that our individual stories, in the grand harmony of life, contribute unique and vital notes to the collective melody of hope. Through this shared journey, we remember that we are not alone in our struggles, and there are always tales of triumph awaiting to be discovered and celebrated.

[qqueenofhades]

You once said the Renaissance was a uniquely bad time for women. Would you mind going into moreso why? Thanks in advance.

Aha. I have indeed said this before, most recently-ish in this ask about the witch trials. I say this especially because the common (wildly erroneous) narrative of Western history goes essentially like this:

Rome good. Fall of Rome bad.

Blargle blarge Dark Ages. Bad!

Yay! Renaissance! People suddenly became smrt! (Note: by this they only ever mean the Italian Renaissance, when there were many eras of “renaissance” across the medieval world, including the Carolingian Renaissance and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, but we don’t talk about those because Dark Ages.)

Columbus Discovered America! (tm)

Enlightenment! Yay science! Boo religion! Make Europe Smart Again!

We are now Modern. The End.

Aside from the witch trials, which were a early modern phenomenon rather than a medieval one, the cultural climate of the Renaissance involved, to put it bluntly, a lot of rich and pretentious dudebros deciding that the crises of the late medieval world had been caused by the fact that society insufficiently resembled that of Greco-Roman antiquity (which was considered to be the most perfect form of society). This involved, similarly to the backlash against women currently taking place as a result of the crises of the 21st century, attacks on the fact that medieval women enjoyed quite a bit more latitude in public life than women in antiquity ever had, and the belief that it was clearly a Bad Thing that they were now well outside those social roles. As Joan Kelly-Gadol puts it in “Did Women Have a Renaissance?”:

The Renaissance is a good case in point.  Italy was well in advance of the rest of Europe from roughly 1350 to 1530 because of its early consolidation of genuine states, the mercantile and manufacturing economy that supported them and its working out of post-feudal and post-guild social relations. These developments reorganized Italian society along modern lines and opened the possibilities for the social and cultural expression for which the age is known. Yet precisely these developments affected women adversely, so much, so that there was no “renaissance” for women, at least not during the Renaissance. The state, early capitalism, and the social relations formed by them impinged on the lives of Renaissance women in different ways according to their different positions in society. But the starting fact is that women as a group, especially among the classes that dominated Italian urban elite, experienced a contraction of social and personal options that the men of their classes did not experience as markedly, as was the case with the bourgeoisie and the nobility.

I talked in this ask about how over the course of the late medieval era, women (who had heretofore been relatively present in universities and medical schools) were subject to increased and formal efforts to exclude them, under the guise of ensuring licensing requirements, standard curriculum, and individual competence. (This post also debunked some myths about premodern women’s healthcare and updated some of the arguments in that first ask.) The fact that Henry V felt it necessary to ban women from England’s universities and medical schools in 1421 demonstrates a) that they were there in the first place and b) they hadn’t been formally excluded beforehand. (This followed similar legislation in France.) Renaissance women faced sustained cultural and social pressure from this new ideal to restrict them back to “appropriate” domestic spaces. The average fertility and child-bearing rate for Renaissance women went sharply upward, especially for rich women expected to bear multiple heirs, and pregnancy and childbirth (but not necessarily child-rearing) became their overriding function. Girls began to suffer more systematically from more overt and institutionalized misogyny, both in cultural attitudes and social institutions, and it became still more of the case that daughters were regarded as less valuable than sons. These attitudes had obviously existed to some degree in the medieval era, but were refined, gained more currency and prevalence, were spread by the increasing popularity of printed literature, and began to be crystallized more explicitly.

We do have women writers of the Renaissance, Renaissance networks of intellectual exchange centered around women, and women who participated in the creation of Renaissance text and drama, whether as patrons or authors. It was sometimes the case that wealthy daughters were educated alongside sons, but dare we remark, the fact that they had recently been banned from going to university makes that a distinctly backhanded compliment; “hey, no college for you, but at least you get to learn with your brother at home!” Certain women like Margaret Roper, daughter of Sir Thomas More, were renowned for their learning, and Elizabeth I (who was obviously a princess) received an outstanding education in the Renaissance model. But nonetheless, this was a cultural sphere intensely designed by, for the needs for, and around the interests of (wealthy, educated) men, and this had both implicit and explicit misogynistic consequences. Once more from Kelly-Gadol:

In sum, a new division between personal and public life made itself fit as the state came to organize Renaissance society, and with that division the modern relation of the sexes made its appearance, even among the Renaissance nobility. Noblewomen, too, were increasingly removed from public concerns—economic, political, and cultural—and although they did not disappear into a private realm of family and domestic concerns as fully as their sisters in the patrician bourgeoisie, their loads of public power made itself fit in new constraints placed upon their personal as well as their social lives. Renaissance ideas on love and manners, more classical than medieval, and almost exclusively a male product, expressed this new subordination of women to the interests of husbands and male-dominated kin groups and served to justify the removal of women from an "unladylike" position of power and erotic independence. All the advances of Renaissance Italy, its pro-capitalist economy, its states, and its humanistic culture, worked to mold the noblewoman into an aesthetic object decorous, chaste, and doubly dependent—on her husband as well as the prince.

In other words, the Renaissance was a great time for a certain subset of elite male society, and not necessarily for everyone else. It was certainly no movement toward proto-equality, often represented an active drawback for women vis-a-vis their status in the medieval world, and laid the foundations for many of the misogynistic attitudes and assumptions that still enjoy widespread currency in the modern world. We are taught that it was some moment of “awakening” for humanity due to the deeply elite, Eurocentric, and androcentric nature of the canon of Western history, and while its ideals certainly did transform Europe at the end of the late medieval period, these were not always for the best. Once again, we can see some parallels in our own time, and while women have always served as a useful scapegoat during moments of social and economic upheaval, it would be helpful if we could at least realize how much, and what form that has taken before, even (especially) in things we are otherwise supposed to celebrate.

[ottomanladies]

I don't know if you can answer but why is Selim II regarded as a bad sultan? Why some historian weigh up the Sultante of Woman as the reason for the empire decadence? Are there still ottoman records without unveil?

Selim II was a sedentary sultan who had been preceded by the greatest conqueror of the Ottoman dynasty. If you look at the other great conqueror - Mehmed II - his son Bayezid II is too considered a bad sultan.

I hope you'll forgive me for this never-ending quote from Pinar Kayaalp-Aktan, but I think she captures the whole thing very well:

"Selim was forty-two years of age when he became Padishah and reigned for eight years. His relatively short sultanate drew a disproportionate amount of criticism, although his way of handling the affairs of the state was not substantively different from that of Suleyman, who delegated much of his power to the central bureaucracy in the second part of his reign. The difference between the two sultanates consisted of the nature and magnitude of the internal and external variables that impacted on the superpower status of the Empire and the remarkable adjustments by the administrative elite to counteract these crises. [...] The criticism that Selim summarily delegated his prerogatives to the Divan belies the fact that he did not disassociate himself from its workings much more than his predecessors. One significant difference was that Selim did not go on any military campaigns [...]. Selim’s personal life style was another source of opprobrium. His penchant for wine, neglect of Friday prayers, and favoring his gentlemen-in-waiting were all construed as evidence of his disrespect for royal customs. Actually, Selim was neither the first nor the worst imperial drinker in Ottoman history. The earliest evidence of Ottoman sultans imbibing wine is traced to Orhan Gazi (1324-1362) when the Genoese envoys presented him with more than a thousand gallons of Triglia wine in 1351. Bayezid I’s grandson Murad II (1421-1451) also appears to have inherited the family’s fondness for alcohol, as did Suleyman the Magnificent, who only towards the end of his life abandoned his early preoccupation with luxurious attires, music, gold and silver tableware, and wine. Nevertheless, Selim’s unabashed display of drinking at the outset of his inauguration ceremony particularly offended Islamic sensibilities. [...] As for Selim’s second transgression, poor attendance record at mosque, he was again not the first sultan to ignore this cardinal Islamic duty. Bayezid I (1389-1402) was refused by Molla Fenari to stand as a witness at the shari���a court Fenari presided in Bursa on the grounds that the Sultan had summarily given up the practice of public prayer. [...] Selim’s third vice, his overindulgent attitude towards his cronies and favorites, was deemed to produce the most serious consequences for the Ottoman state. Sokollu, who was the most notable among the favorites, drew a lot of criticism in this regard. In the 1573 relazione mentioned earlier Garzoni depicts the Grand Vizier as unduly favored by Selim and blames the Sultan with obvious neglect for promoting someone who “is hated by everybody, ... abhorred by the people, and ill-considered by the grandees.” The charge of favoritism was extended beyond the members of the Divan to include any person too close to the Sultan. [...] Putting the real or perceived foibles of Selim's aside, the lack of Ottoman military success during his reign was a recurrent source of criticism. Such accusations did not take into consideration that the Ottoman military muscle simply reached the limits of the premodem requirements of transportation and ordnance. Considering this reality, the Ottoman military record under the leadership of Selim, his Divan, and serdars did not fare as badly as was often expressed. On the western front, Chios was wrested from the Genoese and Cyprus from the Venetians. In the east, two territories the Porte previously had lost its grip on, Yemen and Tunis, were brought back within the Ottoman fold. In the northwest, a pact negotiated with Austria legitimized the capture of Szeged by Suleyman and required Emperor Maximilian to pay 30,000 ducats in addition to a yearly tribute of 2,000. On the southeast, another pact signed with Venice established Ottoman sovereignty over Cyprus and charged the Venetians to pay a yearly tribute of 300,000 florins. On the debit side, the decimation of the Ottoman naval force by a joint Christian armada in Lepanto inflicted a heavy blow to Ottoman sovereignty over the Mediterranean, though the Porte quickly assembled a new fleet that proved instrumental in recapturing the important fort of La Goletta in Tunis.”

The short answer to "why do some historian weigh up the Sultanate of Women as the reason for the empire decadence?" is: misogyny. The long answer is provided by Leslie Peirce: 

“The rise to power of the imperial harem is one of the most dramatic developments in the sixteenth-century history of the Ottoman Empire. From almost the beginning of the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent, who came to the throne in 1520, until the mid-seventeenth century, high-ranking women of the Ottoman dynasty enjoyed a degree of political power and public prominence greater than ever before or after. Indeed, this period in the empire's history is often referred to, in both popular and scholarly literature, as "the sultanate of women."' The women of the imperial harem, especially the mother of the reigning sultan and his leading concubines, were considerably more active than their predecessors in the direct exercise of political power: in creating and manipulating domestic political factions, in negotiating with foreign powers, and in acting as regents for their sons. Furthermore, they played a central role in what we might call the public culture of sovereignty: public rituals of imperial legitimation and royal patronage of monumental building and artistic production. If the prominence of the imperial harem is a notable feature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is also one of the most misunderstood. Modern historical accounts of this period have tended to represent the influence of the harem as an illegitimate usurpation of power that resulted from a weakening of the moral fiber and institutional integrity of Ottoman society and that in turn contributed to problems plaguing the empire toward the end of the sixteenth Century. Difficulties in interpreting the rise of the imperial harem stem in large part from the fact that its power became manifest in the post-Suleymanic period. Traditionally, the reign of Suleyman has been regarded as the apogee of Ottoman fortunes and the period initiated by his death in 1566 one of precipitous decline from which the empire never fully recovered (despite the fact that it survived until the end of World War I). In this view, the personal incapacity of Suleyman's successors, in contrast to the vigor and ability of their ancestors, opened the door to the "meddling" of harem women, who did not hesitate to exploit their influence over "weak-minded" sultans to satisfy their "lust" for power and wealth. But the power of Ottoman royal women was too broadly and publicly expressed and too embedded in the structure of imperial institutions for it to be simplistically dismissed as illegitimate. Modern treatments of this period have not recognized the politically partisan nature of much of the contemporary critique of female power, such as the proclamation of Sunullah Efendi. Recently, new work on this period in Ottoman history has challenged the very notion of post-Suleymanic decline, bringing about a long-overdue reevaluation of developments in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Even some of these recent works, however, continue to repeat the unexamined theme of the dynasty's dissipation."

(bold highlighting is mine)

As for your last question, every day new documentation could be discovered. Like, every single day. Sometimes papers are not stored correctly, sometimes they're dismissed as useless by archivists and therefore forgotten in the storage room, sometimes they're not translated or interpreted correctly. History is an evolving science; we'll never reach the day in which we'll tell ourselves: okay, we've studied all the sources, there's nothing left to do.

[workersolidarity]

Throwaway Culture: A Marxist Perspective

I never imagined I'd be interested in anything a Pope might have to say, but this caught my eye after Googling: Throwaway culture. It was something I had been thinking about all day.

I'm not religious in any way, and there are points of disagreement I have with how Pope Francis has framed Throwaway Culture, but he also gave voice to an aspect of Throwaway Culture I've personally been focusing on, our trained willingness to toss other human beings away like garbage.

So first my disagreement with the quotes above. Throwaway Culture isn't something that rose up out of nowhere from the bottom up. The set of ideas behind the development of the Throwaway Culture was something encouraged and developed from above. It began with the evolution of our Capitalist economy from one based on industrial production, into one driven largely by domestic consumer spending.

Beginning after the Second World War, consumerism began when US mega-corporations, hoping to take advantage of a better educated, wealthier population by encouraging families aspiring to be part of the expansion of the Petty-Bourgeoisie (Lower Middle Class), to buy disposable products that could simoly be thrown away after one use and replaced by subsequent purchases. This made life easier for busy Petty Bourgeois households to focus on their family, rather than the tedious cleaning tasks they were previously accustomed to.

At the same time, this fueled a massive economic expansion as the Resources and other spoils of America's development into an Imperialist Power poured back into the domestic economy. This created millions of stable, well paying jobs, funded further economic development and infrastructure, and further reinforced America's new status on the global stage as the major dominating Super Power.

Following the crises of the mid-70's and into the Reagan years, the Bourgeois politicians, grown fat after years of economic boom, were all too happy to oblige the further Corporate push towards Consumerism and the single use economy. Policy was used, not to discourage single use products and consequently heavy trash producing economy, but instead the State actively encouraged this evolution.

Movies and media began reflecting the turn towards Consumerism, encouraging a new culture, one of post-modern aloofness, cynicism and sarcasm. A brave new society was being built by cultural elites. They were creating a world where people were expected to be disgusted by the sentimentality and emotion of human interaction. It slowly became culturally taboo to feel deeply for anyone else but oneself. Sentimentality was treated as a sign of weakness, and by extension, someone who could never succeed under the Neoliberal Capitalist order. They'd managed to repackage an old idea (Classical Liberalism or laissez faire Capitalism) into a new ideological framework dominated by free markets, deregulation, global free trade and specialization, consumerism and financialization.

Everywhere you look, society tells you the only things worth investing yourself in are economic success and fame. In other words, public acknowledgement of your economic success, thereby enshrining a kind of reality television mindset into the id of the public. Everything else is just an expression of weakness.

Which brings us to today. A time when society seems to be breaking down. Many people are deeply disatisfied with their lives. Instead of being showered with fame and fortune, most people have had to experience extreme economic uncertainty, disappointment with their career, and an inability to accrue enough money to satisfy their habit of trying to buy their way to happiness. Just as we'd been trained since childhood to do.

Unfortunately, even the mountains of cheap plastic crap overflowing from landfills hasn't exactly left very many people feeling fulfilled.

For most people, this brave new world filled with opportunity and free wheeling human interaction, has turned out to be even more alienating than the 19th Century factories Marx once observed. Except today that alienation extends well beyond the workplace.

Despite spending endless hours a day perusing social media and bragging about ones latest good time, people are more likely than ever before to feel lonely and listless. The cool cynicism encapsulated in so many movies and television characters, has swiftly turned into bitter resentment, loneliness, depression, poverty and addiction.

Where once detachment seemed a hallmark of the successful Capitalist, the ironic optimism people once felt from leaving behind human emotions, particularly emotions such as love, simpathy and empathy, has devolved into a society willing to throw families living in poverty onto the streets, only to arrest them the next day for the crime of being homeless and visible.

Instead of Liberating society from life's ills, Throwaway Culture has led to a society willing to tolerate even the most offensive of injustices, stripping away the humanity for those who's fortunes never rose alongside Neoliberal Capitalism.

Consumerism, as encouraged by the newly reformed ideology of Neoliberalism, manifested itself most obviously in the 90's culture of Post-Modernism. Post-Modernism soon devolved into today's Throwaway Culture. Today, workers tolerate some of the most horrific conditions under Capitalism since the end of the Guilded Age.

A society with a high tolerance for extreme exploitation, oppression and abuse at the hands of both employers and the Bourgeois State was always a critical goal of the ruling elite. The Neoliberal ideology was built on, and driven into the minds of the masses as the tool with which to train the workforce into developing this tolerance, and it has largely succeeded. Workers today are more willing to blame themselves for their economic failures, as opposed to recognizing a system specifically designed to create the illusion of opportunity, while nearly always leading to economic mediocrity at best, and brutal destitution at worst.

That same Neoliberal alienating logic even extends to those around us. When someone loses a job,or can't pay their bills, or goes to jail for minor unpaid fines, we tell ourselves that they must not have worked hard enough. Why should we help these people when they won't help themselves? Yet, when we experience these same conditions for ourselves, instead of waking up to the reality of the inherent inequalities of Capitalism, we are trained to blame ourselves. Every economic failure we live through, no matter how absurd, how unavoidable, we see it as a failure on our part. We must have done something wrong right?

Neoliberal ideology has so infected the public mindset, that we fault ourselves for even the cruelest of outcomes, despite knowing we did everything we could, worked as hard as possible, and still we often suffer severe economic distress despite doing everything right.

It's been drilled into us from the time we are toddlers, that Capitalism offers success to anyone willing to work hard and make good decisions. (Good decisions as determined by Capitalist interests). Yet, even when this idea proves to be false, we blame ourselves rather than question Capitalism.

All of these markers of today's society are a direct result of unfettered Capitalism run amok. The Bourgeoisie and their Bourgeois State have so thoroughly manipulated the public consiousness, that we find ourselves steadfastly clinging to the assumptions of Neoliberal ideology. Capitalism has become indistinguishable in the public consiousness from ideas like "freedom", "democracy" and "the pursuit of happiness".

These buzzwords have served to make the Capitalist System omnipotent in the mind of the public. It has effectively taken the Capitalism out of the arena of politics. No longer is Capitalism something to be debated. It has officially become sacrosanct, scientific fact, and essential to personal freedom.

Taking all these assumptions of Neoliberalism to their logical conclusion brings us to today's cutting edge of Capital expansion and reproduction.

Anything can be a product to be sold on the market, even you and your most personal information, and the market is infallible. So if cruelty is a side effect of Markets, well than cruelty must be acceptable too.

As Marx once said, it's either Socialism or Barbarism. Well, the results are in and Barbarism is now a dominant feature within the frame of this Throwaway Culture and Neoliberal Capitalism.

So when Pope Francis talks about people individually taking responsibility to change their behavior, it's not that he's wrong. But he's purposely avoiding looking at the cause of today's culture. He is, like it or not, part of the elite. And the elite cannot effectively criticise, or criticise at all, other sections of the elite. That's why it has always been up to the Working Class to lead the Proletarian Revolution to Socialism. The Petty-Bourgeois reformers in Organizations such as the DSA cannot be depended on to challenge the basic tenets of Capitalism.

As much as I admire our DSA Comrades for their hard work, they seem incapable of acknowledging the Nature of Capitalism and the Bourgeois State. To understand Capitalism would mean to understand why Reformism and Electoralism within the context of the Bourgeois State can never succeed.

In much the same way, Pope Francis is incapable of confronting the threat Capitalism poses to his own Church. He neglects to see (or just ignores) the way the Church as been deeply intertwined with the fortunes of the Bourgeoisie, depending on wealthy benefactors to pay for the day to day operations of the Church.

Taking individual responsibility is something that must happen after we've cast aside the Bourgeoisie. It's something that must be confronted eventually, but only after we've begun to build a new Revolutionary Socialist society. A Socialist society must be built on empathy, collective success, collective liberation, collective wellbeing and collective responsibility. Only then is it warranted to even mention personal responsibility, which has always been another buzzword for the Capitalist Class.

Throwaway Culture has been so incredibly successful at raising the individual above all else (think the "rugged individualism" of the American ideal pushed upon us all our lives).

This is, of course, a necessary feature of Capitalist domination and exploitation. To control the masses, the Bourgeoisie must divide the masses, and the easiest way of sustaining and normalizing a divided society is by creating a culture centered around the individual while minimizing into insignificance the importance of the collective, the importance of community, and even minimizing the importance of family and friends.

This has been so successful that most human relationships have become so shallow as to be practically meaningless. This of course making it easier to allow Throwaway Culture to move from an attitude towards society generally, into an attitude towards even the most important relationships a person can experience in life.

After all, in order for someone to find it acceptable to throwaway even those closest to her, then her relationships with them must be reduced to simple, meaningless economic transactions between herself and those around her. (think of our holiday "traditions" that always seem to require consuming large amounts of disposable products, overcooking massive meals and giving of gifts. All of which require prolific spending that is treated as a competition)

This is essentially where we've arrived today. All relationships are being reduced to simple and meaningless economic transactions. And after all, as we've been trained to do all our lives, our economic interactions are always disposable.

Pope Francis is right to bring these issues into the fore for the world. The Church, just as Communities and families do, requires a certain degree of importance placed on human relationships. The Church brings people together under one roof on a weekly basis, and must convince them all that this religious Community is at least equal in importance to their economic concerns.

This where the analysis by, and strategies of, Historical Materialists and those employed by the Church for its own survival meet. Generally, throughout the history of Capitalism, the needs of the Bourgeoisie have run parallel with the needs of the Religious elites. But Throwaway Culture, Consumerism, and Neoliberal Capitalism are becoming antithetical to the very survival of the Church.

And I'm not necessarily calling the Pope an Opportunist. For all I know he may truly believe that Throwaway Culture and Neoliberal Capitalism go against the teachings of the Church. Still, we have yet to see either Pope Francis or the Church more generally turn against Capitalist ideology.

If Pope Francis and the Church really wants to challenge the Culture of Consumerism, just like Socialists he must name the enemy of the Collective: Capitalism, Imperialism and the International Bourgeoisie.

Additionally, no amount of idealism, religious or otherwise, will help us to defeat the Reactionary forces of Imperialism. Only a deep Materialist analysis and understanding of how we got here can open the eyes of the masses, and help us to develop the strategies and tactics we will need to defeat Capitalism on an international scale.

We didn't arrive at this point when Throw Away Culture dominates the ideological underpinnings of society overnight. Nor can we expect to sweep generations worth of manipulation, historical lies, and Bourgeois propaganda under the rug.

Opening the eyes of the masses will take time, and unfortunately time isn't on our side. A multitude of crises are converging more quickly than anyone could have predicted. Yet, for those of us living in the heart of the Imperialist world, we are vexed by the least developed Proletariat in nearly two centuries.

How we can develop and educate the Proletariat of the Western world fast enough to avoid complete disaster on a planetery scale? This is something we must organize around and work through.

The time for Academic Marxist papers and years of drawn out debates are over. Climate Change and sea level rise are occuring many times faster than anyone predicted just a couple decades ago. Capital, instead of working to solve this Global problem, is actively making things worse. Meanwhile our Throwaway Culture is corrupting the very souls of the masses. If change must occur quickly to save the planet, then the human race is headed in completely the opposite direction.

We must unite as Workers and begin the hard work of educating and organizing the Proletariat. We have to find a way of uniting and organizing behind a single Vanguard Party, and developing our Praxis without delay.

Capitalism is sucking the very humanity out of us all. Unless we act quickly with an urgency that matches the scale of the problems we face, and unless we put aside our differences and our final visions for the Socialist society to come, instead working together to develop the fledgeling Socialist Movement, than it may soon be too late to change course.

I want to live in a Society that values empathy. A Society that embraces the human condition and our human emotions. Not a culture that ignores the trashing of our planet, embraces greed and detachment, and assumes the consequences of our actions can be solved by idealistic notions of just moving to another planet once we've trashed and exhausted the resources of this one.

A want a world where those living in the Global South aren't starving while Americans throw away tens of thousands of tons of food a day, just to keep the homeless and hungry from getting a free meal out of our trash cans. How disgusting a society are we willing to live with?

And so even though I am motivated by objectively Idealistic notions of Community. I turn to Historical Materialism to understand how we got here, and how we may fix it.

Socialism offers the only way out.

I'm not so naive as to think simply appealing to our humanity is going to change anything. Even if suddenly the great masses of workers agreed with those appeals tomorrow, we would still be at the mercy of Capitalist exploitation, oppression and a Bourgeoisie ready and willing to use any destructive and violent means to enforce it's will. A simple look at the Middle East shows Imperialism is alive and well, and what it looks like when Western Bourgeois interests are threatened.

A strategy and set of tactics must be developed. Theory is only as good as the praxis it's used for. We must also provide for the development, education, and organization of the Working Class.

Lastly, we must be ready for massive resistance by the Bourgeoisie. They will almost certainly react with violence to any major challenges to their power and the system they've spent more than three centuries building. Potentially a violent Revolution and even civil war on a massive scale must be prepared for. Socialists cannot expect to passively win this war. One look back on Proletarian Revolutionary History should tell us all we need to know about what we must be ready for.

But NEVER forget Comrades, there's many many times more of us than their are of them! We will win the Revolution to come!

Solidarity Comrades

Workers of the world unite!

[bountyofbeads]

A Deal That Has Two Elections, Rather Than Mideast Peace, as Its Focus https://nyti.ms/37wxfCC

"The only plan that would work is to grant equal rights to all the inhabitants of the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Isn’t equal rights and democracy what the US stands for and promotes throughout the World. Isn’t this is what is expected for the “Shining City on the Hill”."

DENNIS, COLORADO

A DEAL THAT HAS TWO ELECTIONS, RATHER THAN MIDEAST PEACE, AS IT'S FOCUS

The Israeli-Palestinian peace plan unveiled by President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sounds more like a road map for their own futures than for the Middle East.

By David E. Sanger | Published Jan. 28, 2020, 8:05 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 28, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — A president trying to prevail in an impeachment trial stood with an Israeli prime minister under indictment on Tuesday to announce a long-delayed plan for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the result sounded more like a road map for their own futures than for the Middle East.

For President Trump, it is a plan that builds on his decision to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem — a huge political success among his conservative Jewish donors and evangelicals that, contrary to predictions, did not touch off a violent reaction in the region.

Mr. Trump now enters the heart of his election campaign declaring that he has delivered a plan that makes Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel and relegates the Palestinian capital to a suburb, and one that Mr. Trump, in a triumph of real-estate branding, is suddenly calling “East Jerusalem.”

And the timing is no accident: At a moment when cable television is focused on impeachment and the prospect that the former national security adviser John R. Bolton might testify, Mr. Trump had a chance to stand in the East Room and cast himself as a peacemaker. With rare self-discipline, he never mentioned the word impeachment.

For his part, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel marches toward his March elections wielding the potent argument that Israelis should ignore his indictment on corruption charges and focus on the fact that he, by force of his relationship with Mr. Trump, moved Washington to give permanent legitimacy to the Jewish settlements in disputed territory.

By Sunday, the prime minister said as he was leaving Washington, Israel will essentially annex the strategically vital part of the Jordan Valley that its military already controls. As the Israeli election nears, those moves allow him to sell himself as the Trump whisperer, the indispensable man who bent the White House to his will.

“Strip away the domestic and Israeli political considerations that determined the timing of the plan’s release," said Robert Malley, the president of the International Crisis Group and a former Obama administration official, “and the message to the Palestinians, boiled down to its essence, is: You’ve lost, get over it.”

That message, implicitly or explicitly, rewrites the art of the Middle East deal. By tilting the map of a future Palestinian state so precipitously in Israel’s direction, Mr. Trump has embraced a plan that essentially dismantles 60 years of bipartisan support for a negotiated process between Israelis and Palestinians, in which both make concessions and land swaps that would define the lines of a new map.

As Mr. Trump acknowledged, Washington would no longer play the role of neutral arbiter — even while vowing to be Israel’s source of protection. Instead, the United States has drawn the lines in a series of maps that sketch out a future Palestinian state that is so gerrymandered that it requires the construction of a giant tunnel across Israel to connect two areas of Palestinian control.

To Mr. Trump, this is the merger of deal making, Middle East urban planning and election-year politics — or rather, potential deal making.

A few days ago Mr. Trump said, “I think we’re relatively close but we have to get other people to agree to it.” In other words the “deal of the century” was no deal at all. And the other people were the Palestinians, who dismissed the proposal and the accompanying map on Tuesday hours after its publication.

[ Image: The White House released this map Tuesday as part of its Middle East peace plan. President Trump posted it on Twitter with the message, “This is what a future State of Palestine can look like, with a capital in parts of East Jerusalem."Credit...The White House]

For election purposes, Mr. Trump does not need a deal, he simply needs the impression that progress is being made.

And at the White House on Tuesday, the ambassadors from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman — but not Saudi Arabia, the country Mr. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has worked hardest to woo — were in the room for the announcement, a seeming endorsement of his approach, if not the specifics.

Their presence would have been unimaginable in the past, especially for any announcement that fell well short of creating a real Palestinian state.

And this one certainly falls short of that goal. Mr. Trump’s 180-page plan would require the Palestinians to accept only partial sovereignty over a future Palestinian state, at least for a considerable time, and give up any claim to territory where the Israelis have already accepted settlements. And it asked them to take the bet that, as Mr. Trump promised, they would ultimately get rich because of a $50 billion investment fund, paid for by Arab neighbors.

It has a brilliant twist: The Palestinians do not have to say yes or no for four years. That means their bottom-line response would not come until the very end of Mr. Trump’s next term, if he is re-elected. In the meantime, Israel would freeze settlements in the territory that Mr. Trump has set aside for the Palestinians, much of it areas the Israelis have little interest in.

That proviso defers all the hard questions for several years of negotiations — with their inevitable breakdowns and crises. But it gives Mr. Trump the campaign-trail talking point that he has fulfilled a 2016 promise and proposed an actual solution, rather than just a process.

The proposal, of course, helps Mr. Netanyahu by moving the goal posts. The status of Jerusalem is set out in the Trump document, rather than being a subject of negotiation. And while past presidents lectured Mr. Netanyahu about his creation of Jewish settlements in territories that are subject to negotiation, Mr. Trump’s plan makes them a permanent feature.

To critics, that is the fatal flaw.

Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, who was among the lawmakers briefed by Mr. Kushner at the White House, called it is “a total abandonment of decades of U.S. Middle East policy.”

He was referring to the longtime American support for a deal that would include only modest adjustments to the Israeli borders drawn in 1967, the year of the Arab-Israeli War, and by a process created in the Oslo Accords, which began in 1993 and largely ended with the failed summit in 2000 at Camp David. The premise of those talks was that the Israelis and Palestinians would set up a complex process and inch their way toward agreements on borders, settlements, political rights and the withdrawal of the Israeli military from Palestinian lands.

There were years of talks, stalemates, “road maps to peace,” collapsed negotiations and intifadas.

Mr. Trump, the disrupter, has made it clear he does not believe that approach would work. On Tuesday, he noted that every president since Lyndon B. Johnson had tried and failed to negotiate a peace deal. Always the real-estate mogul, Mr. Trump has declared that he is more interested in working with existing facts on the ground than on creating processes.

So his plan, three years in the making, is less about future negotiations and more about cementing what exists today and making deals around the edges. If the Palestinians take it, he suggested, riches would follow. There would be a million new jobs, he said, and poverty would be cut in half. Mr. Trump has offered a similar incentive to the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un.

It was pretty familiar Trump language, born of a certainty that economic incentives will overcome ethnic, tribal and religious differences, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. And for the Israeli prime minister, it was a plan tailor-made for an election four weeks away. So tailor-made that a dozen Democratic senators wrote in a letter to Mr. Trump on Tuesday that “the timing of this proposal to coincide with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s indictment on bribery charges also raises disturbing questions about your intention to intervene in the Israeli election process.”

Not surprisingly, Mr. Netanyahu disagreed. “It’s a great plan for Israel,” he said, with an enthusiasm he rarely showed during visits to the White House in the Obama years. “It’s a great plan for peace.”

"I find it hypocritical that a 36 year old real estate executive is allowed to lead a peace plan in Israel because he is Trump's son in law, while we have the GOP doubting the competency of Hunter Biden who sat on a private board of directors. Has the world gone insane?" YUSEF, NYC

"Call it what it is. This is the imposition of annexation on a people by main force, with neither voice nor vote in the matter. It has nothing to do with Democracy; indeed it is the very antithesis of democratic government. The article mentions—but does not press—the role of evangelicalism. That is what this is about, at least here in the US. Trump is reminding the GOP Senators, and reassuring his evangelical base, of his original contract with white conservative evangelicalism: he will do ANYTHING to keep them in power (as they see it). He will keep doing whatever he wants, and it is up to them to protect his back. Needless to say, from the point of view of every democratic norm—I refer to the system of government, not the political party—this is hideously shameful behavior, an autocrat flaunting his abuse. I should add, from the point of view of the Christian gospel, treating Palestinians this way—treating ANYONE this way—is despicable." PAUL, ATHENS, GA

" "It was pretty familiar Trump language, born of a certainty that economic incentives will overcome ethnic, tribal and religious differences, despite considerable evidence to the contrary." So this is "imposed peace" through the "deal of the century" effectuated by two leaders desperate for an escape hatch for their legal troubles. It's also "take it or leave it, but whatever you do doesn't matter" with some sort of pledge that Palestininans can vote on it way later when terms are cemented in place. Is this for real? How on earth can you say this is a peace plan, when the terms are dicatated, the advantages all accrue to Isreal, and it was dreamed up by the son of a US president, not any joint Palestinian-Israeli commission?"

CHRISTINE MCM, MASSACHUSETTS

This is not a plan for peace. The Palestinians were not involved in this plan. The plan terminates in four years. The Arab states are supposed to cough up $50 billion to create a Palestinian economy; pigs will fly when that happens. The mountain rumbled and all that came out from it was a mouse and not a very viable mouse either."

STEPHEN KURTZ, ONTARIO CANADA

"Good example of more gaslighting by Trump and Kushner to look like they are getting something done. Of course Trump had to announce it during his impeachment trial to deflect from the not so good news on that front. Jared worked so hard on the plan and didn't even get to be on TV for the announcement." JACQUIE, IOWA

"How is it possible to have a peace plan when there was no agreement with some of the major stakeholders?"

NEAL, DURHAM NC

"This is not a “deal”. It’s an imposition."

JEREMEY, CHICAGO

Kush baby didn’t have to do much to think up this peace plan. All he had to do was copy the treaties signed with native Americans and apply it to the Palestinians. The Israelis get the bounty and the Palestinians get the reservation. So let’s talk peace and forget illegality and corruption. We are solving the Middle East’s most intractable problem." PDH, WOODSTOCK GA

" This “plan” is typical of how Trump thinks and acts. There is little to no acknowledgment or understanding of the long and complex history of the region. It’s focused on the countries and leaders that Trump and his company have benefited from and ignores a vital party to any Mideast peace plan - the Palestinians. It’s transactionally based, mistakenly thinking that tempting the Palestinians with money, most likely with no real credibility or facts behind the amounts being thrown around, will be successful. And it’s all show with little substance. Trump wants to be seen as a deal maker so that he can brag about it at his rallies and help himself and his indicted friend Bibi win re-election. He really doesn’t care about peace in the Mideast. As usual it’s all to benefit Trump." LHW, BOSTON

This is a plan for war and explicit apartheid. At least it makes bare what has always been true- the settler colonial Israeli project is fully US supported, indeed Israel floats on a sea of US money and lives under a US diplomatic umbrella. This also means the US is explicitly hitching its future in the region to the most retrograde and corrupt forces and undermining the hopes of millions upon millions of people. This, along with deliberately acting to worsen relations with Iran will very likely lead to even worse long term bloodshed and chaos in the region. We all will reap the whirlwind." RICKIBOBBI,

CALIFORNIA

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Trump Outlines Mideast Peace Plan That Strongly Favors Israel

President Trump called the plan, which would discard the longtime goal of granting the Palestinians a full-fledged state, a “win-win” for both sides.

By Michael Crowley, Peter Baker and David M. Halbfinger | Published Jan. 28, 2020 Updated 6:31 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 28, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — President Trump unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan with a flourish on Tuesday, outlining a proposal that would give Israel most of what it has sought over decades of conflict while creating what he called a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty.

Mr. Trump’s plan would guarantee that Israel would control a unified Jerusalem as its capital and not require it to uproot any of the settlements in the West Bank that have provoked Palestinian outrage and alienated much of the outside world. He promised to provide $50 billion in international investment to build the new Palestinian entity and open an embassy in its new state.

“My vision presents a win-win opportunity for both sides, a realistic two-state solution that resolves the risk of Palestinian statehood to Israel’s security,” the president said at a White House ceremony that demonstrated the one-sided state of affairs as he was flanked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel but no counterpart from the Palestinian leadership, which is not on speaking terms with the Trump administration.

Mr. Trump insisted his plan would be good for the Palestinians and in his speech reached out to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, calling on him to join talks to advance the proposal. “President Abbas,” he said, “I want you to know that if you choose the path to peace, America and many other countries, we will be there, we will be there to help you in so many different ways.”

The event in the East Room of the White House had a Kabuki-theater quality to it as Mr. Trump ended years of suspense over a highly anticipated peace plan. But rather than viewing it as a serious blueprint for peace, analysts called it a political document by a president in the middle of an impeachment trial working in tandem with a prime minister under criminal indictment and about to face his third election in the span of a year.

Nearly three years in the making and overseen by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the plan is the latest of numerous American efforts to settle the 70-plus-year conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. But it marked a sharp turn in the American approach, dropping decades of American support for only modest adjustments to Israeli borders drawn in 1967 and discarding the longtime goal of granting the Palestinians a full-fledged state.

The proposal imagines new Israeli borders that cut far into the West Bank, and, at least in the short term, calls for what Mr. Netanyahu has described as a Palestinian “state-minus,” lacking an army or air force. The White House called it “a demilitarized Palestinian state” with Israel retaining security responsibility west of the Jordan River, although over time the Palestinians would assume more security responsibility.

Mr. Trump said it was the first time that Israel had authorized the release of such a conceptual map illustrating territorial compromises it would make. He said it would “more than double Palestinian territory” while ensuring that “no Palestinians or Israelis will be uprooted from their homes.” The White House said in a fact sheet that Israel had agreed to “a four-year land freeze” to preserve the viability of a Palestinian state.

Mr. Netanyahu welcomed the plan, describing it as “a realistic path to a durable peace” that “strikes the right balance where others have failed.” Calling Mr. Trump the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House, Mr. Netanyahu added: “It’s a great plan for Israel. It’s a great plan for peace.”

The new Palestinian state would have a capital, which the proposal called Al Quds, that would include some of the outer portions of East Jerusalem. The plan would preserve the status quo at the sprawling compound that Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary, or Al Aqsa, which is the name of one of two main Islamic shrines there. The location is the holiest place in Judaism and the third-holiest place in Islam, and the site of numerous clashes over the years. Muslims would continue to be permitted to visit Al Aqsa Mosque.

[ The White House released this map Tuesday as part of its Middle East peace plan. President Trump posted it on Twitter with the message, "This is what a future State of Palestine can look like, with a capital in parts of East Jerusalem."Credit...The White House]

The Trump plan promises a $50 billion economic plan for the new Palestinian state that the White House claimed would create 1 million new jobs over 10 years, double the size of the Palestinian economy, cut poverty in half and reduce unemployment below 10 percent.

By asking the Palestinians to make far more territorial concessions than past proposals, though, Mr. Trump’s plan provided an American imprimatur of support to decades of aggressive Israeli settlement-building in Palestinian areas seized in two wars between Israel and Arab states. And it sent a grim message to the Palestinians that they have missed their chance to win the “two-state solution” they long pursued — as least so long as Mr. Trump is president.

Mr. Kushner and a small circle of Trump officials chose not to pursue the traditional path of brokering talks between the two parties that could lead to a joint proposal, but to hand one down from Washington. Peace-process veterans say that last happened under President Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Working secretively, Mr. Kushner and his team — which included the American ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman, a strong supporter of Israeli settlement construction — consulted closely with Mr. Netanyahu’s government. But their contact with Palestinian officials ended after Mr. Trump moved the United States embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in December 2017.

Rather than court the Palestinians after that, the Trump administration only increased pressure on them, cutting off American funding for Palestinian areas and shuttering the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington.

That dashed the initial hopes of Palestinians who believed that Mr. Trump’s unorthodox approach toward foreign policy, and his love for a grand deal, could lead him to pressure Israel to a degree they felt previous American presidents had not.

In the near term, the 80-page plan is most likely to stir up Israeli and American politics. Mr. Trump is sure to cite the plan’s pro-Israel slant on the 2020 campaign trail to win support from conservative Jewish Americans in Florida and other key states, along with the Evangelical Christians who are some of his strongest backers and support Israeli expansion in the Holy Land.

While the Palestinians are nearly certain to reject the plan, Trump allies say they will be closely watching other Arab governments with whom Mr. Trump has established close relations and who have thawed relations with Israel, to see whether they might give the plan any political cover.

Speaking in Tel Aviv on Monday, Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s former United Nations Ambassador, suggested that such Arab support could force the Palestinians to come to the table. “If the Arab countries respond favorably to the plan, or even if they don’t run to the Palestinian side, that’s going to be a huge, telling lesson to the Palestinians that they may not have the backing they had before,” she said.

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Michael Crowley and Peter Baker reported from Washington, and David M. Halbfinger reported from Jerusalem.

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"As a descendent of Palastinians, on the one hand I am heartens by the gradual shift in public opinion which is evident in the comments. On the other hand it is also demoralizing that the fate of a people's aspirations is in large part dependent on convincing enough ordinary American citizens, thousands of miles away, that their cause is just and worthwhile."ZG, MARYLAND

"How does one country give away another to a third one? Should we worry Canada might give the US away to China? Somewhere is a mention of $5B. Is this more or less than the Palestinian taxes Israel has been withholding from Palestine? Who is going to pay it? Surely the Palestinians know that their land will be gone and the check will be in the mail."

TIBBY ELGATO, WEST COUNTY, Republic of CALIFORNIA

"A plan supposed to decide the fate of Palestinians, without one of their representatives taking part in the discussions. It reeks of colonialism."

MARTIN DEL CONTE, NYC

"Trump is saying that if the Palestinians agree to this "plan" that he will have their back. If I were a Palestinian, I would seek advice from a Kurd about Trump's trustworthiness."

POTLEMAC, STOW MA

"Trump is saying that if the Palestinians agree to this "plan" that he will have their back. If I were a Palestinian, I would seek advice from a Kurd about Trump's trustworthiness." SAM, MADRID, SPAIN

"So let me get this straight. In order to bring two sides of a land dispute to an agreement, Trump goes to one side, develops a policy they're willing to accept, and calls it a done deal? No wonder Trump University failed." SOME DUDE, SIERRA COUNTRY, CA

"How appalling to see these two felons trying to distract us with their nonsense." NEW ENGLAND We, Boston

"Pretty brazen move to bolster Netanyahu in the upcoming elections. Let’s see, not only does Trump illegally seek interference from a foreign country in our election but he’s in bed with Netanyahu trying to influence Israel’s election. Any more reasons why Trump needs to go NOW, and Netanyahu needs to indicted and prosecuted? "VIC OF NY, NJ

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A Muted Arab Response to Trump’s Mideast Peace Plan

The U.S. is banking on Arab leaders to help make its plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict work. It is not clear how realistic that is.

By Ben Hubbard and Declan Walsh |

Published Jan. 28, 2020 Updated Jan. 29, 2020, 5:44 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 29, 2020 |

BEIRUT, Lebanon — In unveiling his plan Tuesday for solving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, President Trump confidently declared that Arab countries would play a key role in its success.

But none of the United States’ Arab allies formally endorsed the plan or made concrete commitments to back it, raising questions about how helpful they will really be in bringing it to fruition.

Mr. Trump announced the plan in an appearance at the White House with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, describing it both as necessary for Israel’s security and as an opportunity for the Palestinians to govern themselves and grow their economy.

There are “many, many countries who want to partake in this,” he told Mr. Netanyahu, predicting that “you are going to have tremendous support from your neighbors and beyond your neighbors.”

But clear indications of that support were lacking.

While three Arab ambassadors — from Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates — were present at the announcement, Mr. Trump said, there were no Palestinians.

“You couldn’t find a single Palestinian to attend?” asked Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist and columnist with Al-Monitor, an online news site.

And despite Egypt and Jordan having peace treaties with Israel, and Mr. Trump having chosen Saudi Arabia for the first overseas trip of his presidency, “none of them came,” Mr. Daoud noted.

For decades, the Palestinian cause was that rare issue that united Arabs across the Middle East. But in recent years, it waned in importance as the peace process foundered.

Some Arab leaders turned their focus inward to domestic security and economic problems. Others, including Persian Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have come to see Iran as the region’s greatest threat, and Israel as a potential ally against it.

Concerns about Iran had become “much more existential than the Palestinian issue,” Mr. Kuttab said. “They are worried about their physical presence being threatened from Iran, much more than Israel,” he said.

Still, for all the changes, Arab leaders refrained from publicly backing Mr. Trump’s plan.

In his address at the White House on Tuesday, Mr. Trump thanked Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates “for the incredible work they’ve done in helping us with so much,” and noted that their ambassadors were in attendance. But even those countries did not formally endorse the plan.

Some other countries took a notedly measured stance.

The foreign ministry of Egypt, the first Arab country to reach a peace treaty with Israel, praised Mr. Trump’s efforts to reach an agreement, but the language of its statement remained inside the boundaries of Egypt’s longstanding policy on the conflict.

Egypt “appreciates the continuous efforts” of the Trump administration to end the conflict, the statement said. It encouraged both sides to resume talks that might eventually restore to Palestinians their “full legitimate rights through the establishment of a sovereign independent state.”

The carefully worded statement was a clear expression of support for the American president, if not for the plan itself, from Egypt’s authoritarian ruler, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whom Mr. Trump once called “my favorite dictator.”

The Trump administration is currently mediating a dispute involving Egypt by hosting negotiations with officials from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan over a contentious $4 billion dam that Ethiopia is building.

Jordan, another American ally that has made peace with the Jewish state, effectively ignored Mr. Trump’s plan and restated its commitment to many of the Palestinian demands that the White House proposal disregarded. Among them: the general borders of a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.

In a statement, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Jordan would continue to work with Arab countries and the international community for “the achievement of a just and lasting peace that meets all the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

Saudi Arabia, too, praised Mr. Trump’s efforts, but did not endorse his plan. The kingdom stuck to its longstanding stance that negotiations should lead to “an agreement that achieves legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

The de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has broken with previous Saudi leaders by speaking of Israel’s right to its own land and by praising its economy. But Prince Mohammed has not taken formal steps to improve relations because of potential blowback from his own population.

As American allies reacted cautiously to the proposal, adversaries heaped scorn on the United States for its support for Israel.

Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political party, called Mr. Trump’s plan “the deal of shame” and pointed an accusing finger at those Arab countries that have allied themselves with the United States.

“This deal would not have taken place had it not been for the complicity and betrayal of a number of Arab regimes, secretly and publicly involved in this conspiracy,” it said in a statement.

In much of the Arab world, Mr. Trump’s proposal was variously received with outrage, humiliation or weary resignation. Hostility toward the Americans and Israelis appeared matched only by a sense of disillusionment among some Arabs toward their own leaders.

[ IMAGE: A mural on  a Gaza City street on Tuesday depicted Mr. Trump with a footprint on his face.Credit...Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images ]

“Historical farces are repeating themselves,” Gamal Eid, a veteran human rights activist in Cairo, said on Twitter. “From the miserable 1917 Balfour Declaration to the farcical 2020 Trump Declaration. And Arab leaders are either useless or cheering.”

Nabil Fahmy, a former foreign minister of Egypt, said he feared that Mr. Trump’s proposal would not only fail to bring peace to the region, but that it might also scupper the chances for a lasting deal.

“To put the proposal this way, you must want to have it rejected,” he said. “And if you reject this deal, you are destroying the tenets of the peace process and all possibilities for progress. It is just astonishing.”

Ali Shihabi, a commentator close to the government of Saudi Arabia, said the plan was “all downside and no upside for U.S. allies in the region.”

Paula Yacoubian, a member of the Lebanese Parliament, was equally dismissive. “A deal from one side is the joke of the century,” she said on Twitter.

Mohamed ElBaradei, a former vice president of Egypt, said he felt the same sense of shame and humiliation that followed the defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. “How would we justify this miserable state of affairs to the upcoming generations?” he wrote on Twitter.

For many, the Trump proposal marked another dismal milestone in what many Arabs view as America’s decades-long abandonment of the Palestinian cause.

A thread of mournful, broader regret ran through some of the commentary, too, a sense that a cause that had united the Middle East for decades was quietly fading away, losing its relevance, and that ordinary Arabs were simply losing interest.

Some said young Arabs were simply preoccupied by the violence or political turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising in several countries, or had themselves been silenced.

“If the governments of the region were representing the will of their people, then perhaps Arab voices would be louder,” said Timothy E. Kaldas, a Cairo-based analyst with the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “But with the extraordinary repression the region has seen, with regimes uninterested in critical conversations in their own countries, it’s very hard to see what the publics in those countries could actually do.”

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Ben Hubbard reported from Beirut, and Declan Walsh from Cairo. Nada Rashwan contributed reporting from Cairo.

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"Why would President Abbas and the Palestinians accept an offer from an American president who has both been working against their aspirations since his election and a dismal track record of not keeping international agreements? To that one would have to add than the Palestinians would never see the full $ 50 billion bribe. Of course, refusing to play ball on a playing field steeply tilted against them will prompt Netanyahu, with Trump’s approving consent. to go ahead with annexing both the illegal West Bank settlements and the Jordan valley. The latter would deprive the Palestinians of their only major fresh water source. This theft is not even comparable to the US annexing the Rio Grande valley along our Mexican border, as the thus deprived Mexicans can migrate further into Mexico to seek other arable lands. The Palestinians don’t have that option in the arid region of the West Bank. This is a recipe for a major human disaster for which we are not only consensual, but guilty."RUDY, FALMOUTH MA

"This is perverse. As a jew I have long wondered if I would/could feel the same allegiance to Israel that my parents and grandparents have. The answer is a decisive no. I understand security is a constant concern for Israelis but, having visited there, I could not help but observe latent (and often overt) bigotry among the population. The general consensus was almost a dehumanization of the Palestinian people. I suppose that must make it easier to occupy and oppress these people for generations. It would also explain how they can continue to vote a gollum like Netanyahu into office over and over again. I know it hurts Americans, particularly American Jews, to acknowledge it but...we are effectively supporting apartheid South Africa right now. You can say it's more complicated than that but you cannot justify what we are doing to the Palestinian people. Not to mention the land we are allowing settlers to steal from the increasingly cramped Palestinian territories. History will not look kindly on our continued support/enablement of this Israeli occupation."

HALBORO, EARTH

" The Arabs were offered nearly everything that they demanded" The warden painted the guard towers in pastel shades and increased the exercise yard area by 50%, and still the prisoners complain!" ASG21, DENVER

"As an American Jew, I was horrified by the "Deal of the Century" proposed by Trump> he promoted it as a "win-win" yet I see a complete imbalance, giving nearly complete control of Jerusalem, with the exception of small areas to Israel and suggesting there might be an eventual pathway to Palestinian sovereignty but only if they completely agree to one-sided terms. It was of no surprise the the Palestinian Authority (PA) rejected it out of hand. And also no surprise that the peace plan was announced a month before Netanyahu and Gantz have their third election and radically different from what has been discussed over the past three years. This could have been a great opportunity for lasting peace. Instead its just "kick the can down the road""

LORRAINE, SUDBERY, MA

"Some Peace Plan. Apparently, Trump, Bibi, and Kushner forgot that there can’t be peace in the Holy Land without the Palestinians." JULIO Wong,

EL DORADO, OH

"There is little difference between this so-called "peace plan" and the vile apartheid system that once characterized South Africa. This plan was designed to be rejected as were all the other so-called "peace plans." No self-respecting Palestinian leader could sign on to it. Anyone who really wants peace must oppose it. Without justice for the Palestinians, a justice that has been denied them since 1967, there will never be peace. This plan does nothing to give the Palestinians the justice that they and every person in the world deserves. It perpetuates Israeli occupation and oppression." JAN, CA

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Trump’s Mideast Plan Could Give Israel Sovereignty Over Much of Jordan Valley

The president, joined by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, will announce the plan at the White House on Tuesday.

By Michael Crowley and Isabel Kershner | Published Jan. 27, 2020 Updated Jan. 28, 2020, 3:51 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 28, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — President Trump will release a long-awaited Middle East peace plan on Tuesday that is expected to include a proposal for new Israeli borders and provide for Israeli sovereignty over much of the Jordan Valley, a strategic area on the eastern frontier of the West Bank abutting Jordan.

Mr. Trump will be joined at the White House for the announcement by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.

Palestinian leaders, who no longer speak to Trump officials, are likely to oppose each of those elements, even if they are combined with the economic rewards of $50 billion or more that the Trump administration says it can deliver.

That is why many analysts say the plan, developed under the supervision of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, is relevant mainly for its potential effect on Israel’s March 2 election, which is likely to decide the fate of the embattled Mr. Netanyahu, and as a distraction from the Senate’s impeachment trial of Mr. Trump.

“One can’t ignore the obvious domestic political context to everything that is going to happen in the next couple of days, both here in the United States and in Israel,” said Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “In my view, that drives what is about to happen as much as Middle East peace may drive it.”

Speaking alongside Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Trump said that his proposal, nearly three years in the making, constituted “the closest we’ve ever come” to an agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians and that “we will ultimately have the support of the Palestinians,” a view few view regional experts share.

Mr. Netanyahu’s opponent in the election, Mr. Gantz, traveled separately from his rival to Washington to meet with Mr. Trump on Monday, and flew home after the meeting. Mr. Netanyahu remained in Washington and will appear alongside Mr. Trump at the White House on Tuesday for remarks unveiling the plan.

Mr. Gantz’s allies complained that the joint appearance inappropriately elevated Mr. Netanyahu, who has been a close Trump ally, over Mr. Gantz. Perhaps underscoring the point, Mr. Trump did not invite reporters into the meeting he held with Mr. Gantz shortly after Mr. Netanyahu’s visit.

Asked by reporters about hosting the two rivals in highly unusual back-to-back sessions, Mr. Trump professed neutrality but said he was impatient with Israel’s tangled politics, which have produced three national elections in the past year. Ballots in April and September ended inconclusively, with neither Mr. Netanyahu nor Mr. Gantz able to muster a majority government.

“They’re two good competitors. They’re fighting it out,” Mr. Trump said with Mr. Netanyahu at his side. “I’ve been waiting now — this is my third election. We keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting. So, let’s go. What kind of a system is that?”

Speaking in the Oval Office alongside the president on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu showered his host with flattery.

“You’ve been the greatest man Israel had in the White House,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “I think tomorrow you can continue making history.”

Mr. Gantz, too, praised Mr. Trump in remarks to reporters after he left the White House, calling the president “a true and courageous friend of the State of Israel,” and thanking Mr. Trump for his “profound support of Israel’s citizens and for his commitment to their security.” He called Mr. Trump’s peace proposal “a significant and historic milestone.”

An American plan providing for Israeli sovereignty — also known as annexation — over large portions of the Jordan Valley would present both Mr. Netanyahu and his opponent with a quandary.

It could force Mr. Netanyahu, who is fighting for his political future and his freedom — he is facing charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust — out of his risk-averse comfort zone and put his credibility with his supporters, and his legacy, on the line. The unveiling of the plan will occur on the same day his bid for parliamentary immunity from prosecution on the corruption charges gets underway in Israel.

Even if the American plan proposes annexation of the Jordan Valley only as part of a larger compromise with the Palestinians, any approval from Washington for the idea of Israeli control of the area is likely to increase pressure on Mr. Netanyahu from his right-wing partners to move ahead immediately and unilaterally.

“The time for talk is over — full sovereignty now,” Naftali Bennett, Mr. Netanyahu’s defense minister and the leader of a right-wing party Mr. Netanyahu depends on for support,  urged last week on Twitter. “Within two weeks we must impose sovereignty over all the settlements.”

Unilateral annexation, however, is not without risk, and something that Israeli leaders, including Mr. Netanyahu, have avoided for decades. For one thing, it could undermine Israel’s strategic peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt. It could also fuel Palestinian unrest or a violent reaction, costing lives on both sides.

For Mr. Gantz, the leader of the centrist Blue and White party, embracing the plan could alienate his more left-leaning supporters and send them back to their more traditional political home, the left-wing Labor-Meretz alliance, tipping the electoral scale away from him.

If Mr. Gantz rejects the plan or gives it a lukewarm reception, that could send his more right-leaning supporters back to Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud or other parties in the right-wing bloc, likewise snatching away the chance of a slim victory.

At a minimum, the peace plan will complicate Mr. Gantz’s efforts to focus Israeli voters’ attention on the cases against Mr. Netanyahu, which he referred to in comments after the meeting. “No one has the right to lead an entire country, at such an intricate diplomatic and security timing, when all of his interests and thoughts are devoted to his own interests,” he said.

“Netanyahu,” he added, “cannot both run a country and run a trial.”

Mr. Gantz also attempted to carve out his own position on the peace plan, welcoming it while distinguishing himself from Mr. Netanyahu by indicating that he prefers not to move unilaterally, but in coordination with Israel’s peace partners.

“Immediately after the elections, I will work toward implementing it from within a stable, functioning Israeli government, in tandem with the other countries in our region,” he said.

As for the weak and ailing Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, acceptance of the plan is impossible since it does not meet the most minimal of Palestinian demands. But refusal leaves his people divided between the West Bank and Gaza, with no state and no road map for the future.

“It is nothing but a plan to liquidate the Palestinian cause,” Muhammad Shtayyeh, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, said at a cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.

A senior Palestinian official said on Monday that Mr. Abbas had recently received an offer, made through a third party, to speak with Mr. Trump, but declined to do so. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Trump sounded energized on Monday by the scale of the challenge before him.

“I think it’s a fantastic thing if we can pull it off,” he said. “They say it’s probably the most difficult deal anywhere and of any kind to make. In the business world, when I was back in the business world, when a deal was tough, people would jokingly refer to it as, ‘This is tougher than Israel and the Palestinians getting together.’”

Mr. Trump also asserted of the plan: “Many of the Arab nations have agreed to it. They like it. They think it’s great.” No Arab leader has publicly embraced the as-yet-unreleased plan. But Mike Evans, an evangelical leader and Trump ally who has met with several senior Arab officials, said that “even though many won’t say it publicly, quietly they are on board.”

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of the liberal advocacy group J Street, said it was unlikely that the plan would win strong Arab support, particularly from Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

“We don’t expect what we’re going to hear tomorrow to be an actual plan for peace,” said Mr. Ben-Ami, who supports greater Palestinian rights. “This is really an effort to shift longstanding U.S. policy into alignment with the hardest-right positions that Israel has ever taken on these issues.”

“It’s not an effort to resolve this conflict,” he added. “It is an effort to redefine what is the baseline of U.S. policy.”

______

Michael Crowley reported from Washington, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. David M. Halbfinger contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Mohammed Najib from Ramallah, West Bank.

                        *********

[athomeenergylife]

Knock knock sex

Young children who are survivors of sexual abuse are not being heard Recruiting more mental health workers won’t stop suicides. It was written by: Michael Salter, UNSW and Delanie Woodlock, UNSW. A unique collaboration between academics and journalists.

This article is republished from The Conversation is the world's leading publisher of research-based news and analysis. If you believe you are in immediate danger call 000. If this article has raised any issues for you, please contact 1800 RESPECT through their national counselling hotline 1800 737 732. The Blue Knot Foundation provides telephone counselling for survivors of childhood trauma on 1300 657 380. Our interviewees often felt misunderstood and isolated, which obviously has a big impact on their ability to move on with their lives.Ĭhristian Jones contributed to the research study in this piece.įor support or advice about someone you know using online child sexual abuse material, you can contact or call the PartnerSPEAK Peerline 1300 590 589. There is a clear need for public education and awareness raising about the scale and impacts of child abuse material. This is a good start but mainstream services also need to build their capacity to support this group.Ĭhild abuse material offending represents an area in which domestic and family violence services could expand their current offerings, including by clearly identifying themselves as points of contact for non-offending partners. The recent national strategy has set aside A$10.2 million for the next four years for just such a support service. Specialist support for non-offending partners and families of child sex offenders needs to be properly funded and nationally available. Our recommendationsĪs the number of non-offending partners and family members of child sex abuse offenders continues to grow, our study made three key recommendations: Many women did not identify they had been in an abusive relationship until after the child abuse offending came to light, and did not know where to turn to for assistance with housing, child support or paid leave to attend court matters. And you go, where is this fear coming from? I don’t understand.Īt present, child sex abuse material offending is not recognised as a form of abuse against the non-offending partner, despite associated patterns of manipulation and control, as well as physical violence in some cases. I did not know how controlling a marriage I was in until I went to try and open a bank account I was hysterical. They spoke of feeling isolated, even if friends tried to help, they had no “frame of reference”. Participants felt as though they were judged by others in the community for their partner’s behaviour. This included police investigations into their partner and home life, while managing the emotional and practical fallout of separating in sudden and shocking circumstances. Where to turn to?įor the majority of participants, the discovery of the offending was the beginning of a frightening journey. This includes the shock of investigation, and the potentially ruinous implication that she may be a co-offender. This quote also highlights the intersecting crises that begin with the discovery of a partner’s offending. And the fear was that they would label me the same, as colluding with him. And then when they said the warrant was for – I thought it was for fraud, initially, I just couldn’t put the two together. something you’re never going to forget or put out of your mind, is the knock on the door The way they presented and when they spoke to me initially, I had no idea. In 2020, we conducted an evaluation of PartnerSPEAK, a non-governmnet organisation in Victoria providing peer support and advocacy for the (non-offending) family members of people who access child sex abuse material. However, this group is not well recognised or supported, despite their significant needs for psychological and practical help. The partners, families and children of offenders have been described as “ secondary victims”. Up to 65% of offenders in treatment have an intimate partner and up to 47% have at least one child, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology.

In the recently launched national strategy to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse, the federal government committed A$24.1 million to enhance the Commonwealth’s capacity to investigate and prosecute child sexual abusers, with additional funds targeting offenders who use technology to exploit children.Īs arrest figures swell, so do the numbers of partners and families of people charged with these offences. Read more: What's in a name? Online child abuse material is not 'pornography'

[roninwarrior47]

Does any of this sound Familiar already!!!

21 Goals of the Illuminati and The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman (ca. 1993)

1. To establish a One World Government/New World Order with a unified church and monetary system under their direction. The One World Government began to set up its church in the 1920:s and 30:s, for they realized the need for a religious belief inherent in mankind must have an outlet and, therefore, set up a "church" body to channel that belief in the direction they desired.

2. To bring about the utter destruction of all national identity and national pride, which was a primary consideration if the concept of a One World Government was to work.

3. To engineer and bring about the destruction of religion, and more especially, the Christian Religion, with the one exception, their own creation, as mentioned above.

4. To establish the ability to control of each and every person through means of mind control and what Zbignew Brzezinski called techonotronics, which would create human-like robots and a system of terror which would make Felix Dzerzinhski's Red Terror look like children at play.

5. To bring about the end to all industrialization and to end the production of nuclear generated electric power in what they call " the post-industrial zero-growth society". Excepted are the computer- and service industries. US industries that remain will be exported to countries such as Mexico where abundant slave labor is available. As we saw in 1993, this has become a fact through the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA. Unemployables in the US, in the wake of industrial destruction, will either become opium-heroin and/or cocaine addicts, or become statistics in the elimination of the "excess population" process we know of today as Global 2000.

6. To encourage, and eventually legalize the use of drugs and make pornography an "art-form", which will be widely accepted and, eventually, become quite commonplace.

7. To bring about depopulation of large cities according to the trial run carried out by the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. It is interesting to note that Pol Pot's genocidal plans were drawn up in the US by one of the Club of Rome's research foundations, and overseen by Thomas Enders, a high-ranking State Department official. It is also interesting that the committee is currently seeking to reinstate the Pol Pot butchers in Cambodia.

8. To suppress all scientific development except for those deemed beneficial by the Illuminati. Especially targeted is nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Particularly hated are the fusion experiments currently being scorned and ridiculed by the Illuminati and its jackals of the press. Development of the fusion torch would blow the Illuminati's conception of "limited natural resources" right out of the window. A fusion torch, properly used, could create unlimited and as yet untapped natural resources, even from the most ordinary substances. Fusion torch uses are legion, and would benefit mankind in a manner which, as yet, is not even remotely comprehended by the public.

9. To cause. by means of A) limited wars in the advanced countries, 😎 by means of starvation and diseases in the Third World countries, the death of three billion people by the year 2050, people they call "useless eaters". The Committee of 300 (Illuminati) commissioned Cyrus Vance to write a paper on this subject of how to bring about such genocide. The paper was produced under the title " Global 2000 Report" and was accepted and approved for action by former President James Earl Carter, and Edwin Muskie, then Secretary of States, for and on behalf of the US Government. Under the terms of the Global 2000 Report, the population of the US is to be reduced by 100 million by the year of 2050.

10. To weaken the moral fiber of the nation and to demoralize workers in the labor class by creating mass unemployment. As jobs dwindle due to the post industrial zero growth policies introduced by the Club of Rome, the report envisages demoralized and discouraged workers resorting to alcohol and drugs. The youth of the land will be encouraged by means of rock music and drugs to rebel against the status quo, thus undermining and eventually destroying the family unit. In this regard, the Committee commissioned Tavistock Institute to prepare a blueprint as to how this could be achieved. Tavistock directed Stanford Research to undertake the work under the direction of Professor Willis Harmon. This work later became known as the " Aquarian Conspiracy".

11. To keep people everywhere from deciding their own destinies by means of one created crisis after another and then "managing" such crises. This will confuse and demoralize the population to the extent where faced with too many choices, apathy on a massive scale will result. In the case of the US, an agency for Crisis Management is already in place. It is called the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), whose existence I first enclosed in 1980.

12. To introduce new cults and continue to boost those already functioning which include rock music gangsters such as the Rolling Stones (a gangster group much favored by European Black Nobility), and all of the Tavistock-created rock groups which began with the Beatles.

13. To continue to build up the cult of Christian Fundamentalism begun by the British East India Company's servant Darby, which will be misused to strengthen the Zionist State of Israel by identifying with the Jews through the myth of "God's chosen people", and by donating very substantial amounts of money to what they mistakenly believe is a religious cause in the furtherance of Christianity.

14. To press for the spread of religious cults such as the Moslem Brotherhood, Moslem Fundamentalism, the Sikhs, and to carry out mind control experiments of the Jim Jones and "Son of Sam" type. It is worth noting that the late Khomeini was a creation of British Military Intelligence Div. 6, MI6. This detailed work spelled out the step-by-step process which the US Government implemented to put Khomeini in power.

15. To e xport "religious liberation" ideas around the world so as to undermine all existing religions, but more especially the Christian religion. This began with the "Jesuit Liberation Theology", that brought an end to the Somoza Family rule in Nicaragua, and which today is destroying El Salvador, now 25 years into a "civil war". Costa Rica and Honduras are also embroiled in revolutionary activities, instigated by the Jesuits. One very active entity engaged in the so-called liberation theology, is the Communist-oriented Mary Knoll Mission. This accounts for the extensive media attention to the murder of four of Mary Knoll's so-called nuns in El Salvador a few years ago. The four nuns were Communist subversive agents and their activities were widely documented by the Government of El Salvador. The US press and the new media refused to give any space or coverage to the mass of documentation possessed by the Salvadorian Government, which proved what the Mary Knoll Mission nuns were doing in the country. Mary Knoll is in service in many countries, and placed a leading role in bringing Communism to Rhodesia, Mo��ambique, Angola and South Africa.

16. To cause a total collapse of the world's economies and engender total political chaos.

17. To take control of all foreign and domestic policies of the US.

18. To give the fullest support to supranational institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank of International Settlements, the World Court and, as far as possible, make local institutions less effective, by gradually phasing them out or bringing them under the mantle of the UN.

19. To penetrate and subvert all governments, and work from within them to destroy the sovereign integrity of the nations represented by them.

20. To organize a world-wide terrorist apparatus [Al-queda, ISIS, ISIL, etc.] and to negotiate with terrorists whenever terrorist activities take place. It will be recalled that it was Bettino Craxi, who persuaded the Italian and US Governments to negotiate with the Red Brigades kidnapers of Prime Minister Moro and General Dozier. As an aside, Dozier was placed under strict orders not to talk what happened to him. Should he ever break that silence, he will no doubt be made "a horrible example of", in the manner in which Henry Kissinger dealt with Aldo Moro, Ali Bhutto and General Zia ul Haq.

21. To take control of education in America with the intent and p urpose of utterly and completely destroying it. By 1993, the full force effect of this policy is becoming apparent, and will be even more destructive as primary and secondary schools begin to teach " Outcome Based Education" (OBE).

[irispublishersagriculture]

Iris Publishers

W.F.P.’S Nobel Prize, The Pandemic, & Our Emerging Existential Food Crisis

Authored by Scott M Lacy            

Opinion

The way we make food shapes the world we live in. And if that’s the case, by reverse logic, our 21st century lives are a collective indictment of an unjust global food system. Historic levels of inequality, poverty, and hunger pervade our lived experience despite centuries of experiments in search of political, economic, and even scientific solutions to alleviate all this suffering on a macro-level.

That is not to say that all of our previous experiments were mistakes, not by a long shot. In fact, our species has a remarkable history of adapting our food system to the dynamic and precarious balance between population growth and our lived environment, the planet. Specifically, the long arc of our Homo sapiens history reveals two existential food crises that may help us better understand our 21st century challenges to feeding the planet.

Our species’ first existential food crisis led to the development of agriculture. For 99.8% of our 7 million years as upright walking apes, our human ancestors relied on forms of hunter-gathering to produce food, but some 12,000 years ago, Homo sapiens started the journey that takes us from protoagriculture to industrial farming, not to mention sedentary living. The hunter-gatherers among us roll their eyes at the question of whether or not our present day socioeconomic inequalities, , are actually rooted in our food system; the anthropological record reminds us that global inequalities and world hunger were possible only after the agricultural transformation seeded surplus into civilizations, and all that comes with them. Foraged aspersions aside, the development of agriculture - from domestication to industrialization - was a human response to our species’ first existential food crisis: climate change and population pressures rendered untenable the widespread continuation of the food system we had relied on for millions of years. Paleopathology and nutritional studies reveal significant costs for this transition, but with populations and ecologies increasingly out of sync, our ancestors reinvented our food system by domesticating plants and animals.

 Into the 20th century, exponential population growth and ecological limits brought Homo sapiens into our second existential food crisis. Facing a world out of balance in which our food system could not keep up with exponential population growth, scientists worked with farmers and governments to do what our early agricultural ancestors did—they reinvented our food system. Humanity created a new form of agriculture that sought to produce more calories in a bounded ecosystem that was already tragically over-exploited. As it was with the development of agriculture, the 20th Century re-invention of agriculture came with sobering costs for humanity and the planet on which we live, but our choices were limited and the threat of widescale starvation and hunger was significantly reduced or delayed. The coming of age of scientific plant breeding and cultivation strategies bought us time just as we were running out, which is why pioneering plant breeder Norman Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

So here we are 50 years later, in the age of quantum computing and CRISPR, world hunger is on the rise yet again, and we’re nosediving into our species’ third existential food crisis. Literally 50 years after Borlaug received his Nobel Peace Prize for helping find new paths to feeding our planet, just this month the World Food Programme received the Nobel Peace Prize for its heroic contributions staving off a 3rd existential food crisis. Created in 1961, the WFP has worked to end world hunger and has been distributing over 15 billion rations annually.

The 12,000-year-old experiment we call agriculture emerged as an innovative yet compulsory adaptation to widespread ecological disruptions to the food system we upright walking apes had depended on for nearly 7 million years. But today, we’re facing a much more daunting existential food crisis plagued by extreme weather events associated with climate change as well as the rise of prolonged conflict zones across the globe. The good news is that despite ubiquitous ecological and socioeconomic disruptions, we create more than enough calories to feed the planet, so we’ll need to reconsider how and why we create this unequal surplus. The bad news is the that as a barometer of progress toward our Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating hunger and poverty by 2030, the WFP dashboard shows us a harrowing road ahead. Our emergent existential food crisis was on our horizon years before the COVID-19 pandemic further destabilized our food system, but as a result of this global health crisis the WFP projects that the number of acutely hungry in the countries where it operates could increase 82% in the.

So, as we celebrate the WFP Nobel Peace Prize, let’s remember that it was bestowed this honor not only because of the billions and billions of rations it has already distributed, but as we look into the ambiguities of the immediate and long-term future, WFP also earned this distinction because, if it can find the additional $5 trillion it requires to get emergency food assistance to an unprecedented 265 million people, it like no one else can get this job done. But the third existential food crisis on our horizon requires much more than emergency assistance.

As we work through this pandemic and an exacerbated food crisis, all of us with our hands and minds in the soil and food baskets, let’s focus on new opportunities to collaborate and build entirely new food systems that yield not only ample and nutritious calories, but one that re-seeds civilizations with our common humanity.

 To read more about this article: https://irispublishers.com/wjass/fulltext/wfps-nobel-prize-the-pandemic-our-emerging-existential-food-crisis.ID.000627.php

 Indexing List of Iris Publishers: https://medium.com/@irispublishers/what-is-the-indexing-list-of-iris-publishers-4ace353e4eee

Iris publishers google scholar citations

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[ramon-balaguer]

I’ve been asked by Minister Bailey to pray this lovely first Saturday in September morning that God will purge and cleanse our life, Our Leaders, and Israel, Israel with no end in sight to the turmoil in the Middle East, all signs and prophecies seem to point to an escalation in the violence and conflict. Yet no matter where you stand politically or spiritually regarding the current unrest in Israel or here, as Christians we can unite on one front: prayer because God calls us to always pray not just for ourselves and loved ones but people, even our enemies, nations, and for our leaders— that they would submit to His leadership for the sake of His will being done and for the advancement of His Eternal Kingdom. As followers of Christ, we need to pray for our leaders both in and out of the election season. But I’ll pray for Israel first and then for US. With all hearts and minds clear let us go to GOD in prayer:

Almighty God Creator and Sustainer of the Heavens and the earth and all there is… How Great thou are Everlasting, All powerful, All knowing and ever present King of Kings and Lord of lords, I adore and trust You wholeheartedly and thank you day and night for my life and salvation from the enemy, myself and Sin, for my wife, sons, family, friends, for your calling and ministries You have me serving in and your favor, provisions, healing and help. Help me to Love and forgive as you’ve forgiven and continue to love and forgive me and keep from sin and temptations…

My God, You are the Rock and Redeemer of Israel. I pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We are sad to see the violence and suffering as men, women, and children are injured and killed on both sides of the current conflict. We don't understand why it has to be this way, nor do we truly know if war is right or wrong. But i pray for justice, your sovereignty and righteousness, Lord. And at the same time, i pray for mercy. For everyone involved i pray, for governments and peoples, militants and terrorists, i ask for your kingdom to come and rule over the land. Shield the nation of Israel, Lord. Protect the soldiers and civilians from bloodshed. May your truth and light shine in the darkness. Where there is only hatred, may your love prevail. Help me as a Christian to support those who you support, Lord, and to bless those who you bless, my God. Bring your salvation to Israel, dear God. Draw every heart to you. And bring your salvation to the whole earth. Amen.

Now Lord, we know that in the midst of this time, You have kingdom purpose. You have brought our country to its knees through many crises. But Nothing that is happening is a surprise to You. You see the big picture, and You are at work in ways that we cannot see. Please guide the direction of our country to seek you, turn back to you and away from evil and wickedness. Lord, You said in Psalm 47 that the leaders Kings, Queens, Presidents, PMs of the nations in the world belong to You the King of Kings…

King of the Earth, i pray for the President. Please give him divine wisdom to lead our nation. i pray that he would serve and revere You in his words and actions. I humbly ask that You grant him grace to know how to unify our country when it feels so divided in so many ways.

We are facing immense crises regarding public health, a seemingly unending politicized pandemic with unprecedented mandates for masking and vaccines, financial hardship while Big Pharma and Big Tech reap the profits, social discords, sexual sins, gender neutrality, cancel culture, economic shutdowns, racial relations and tensions, illegal aliens, suicides, overdoses, devastation from violence and riots in the streets by BLM, Antifa, Proud Boys and other gangs to raging fires, water shortages to too much water from hurricanes, homelessness, drugs, porn, addictions, rapes, mass murders and more murders, and great political division among many other things. Our President faces fierce challenges and crises on the domestic and international fronts with the failed Afghanistan withdrawal and tensions with Iran, North Korea, China, Israel and more. Please grant our President divine wisdom to navigate our country through the uncertain path that lies ahead. His failures are a reflection or representation of US. I don’t want him to fail.

I lift up the Vice President who has also been harshly criticized, cabinet, and advisors to the President. The Bible and history texts are full of examples of counsel to the king resulting in laws and decisions leading the entire nation toward peace and prosperity or toward division, destruction, and even collapse.

I pray that You would give this President wisdom to surround himself with wise Godly counselors who have our country’s best interest at heart. Grant them all wisdom to advise the President in the course of action he should take. We pray that You would surround the President with sound, wise even Godly counsel to direct him as he tries leads our nation.

In 1 Timothy 2:1-2 You said we should pray for our leaders and others in authority that we may live peaceful lives in Godliness and Holiness…

Prince of Peace, i pray for the Senate and Houses of Representatives as they make laws to govern our land and delegate our nation’s resources. Grant them wisdom to allocate our resources wisely. Please raise up people who will make laws to protect our freedoms so that we can live peaceful, quiet lives in Godliness and dignity.

As with the general political climate throughout the nation, members of Congress are fiercely divided into tribal political parties unwilling to work together and compromise for the good of the nation. I pray against this divisiveness that plagues our land. I humbly plead that, by Your miraculous power, the members of Congress would put their agendas aside to work together in humility to serve for the good of our nation as our nation’s leaders that are suppose to be representing US as we elected and expect them to do.

Lord Jesus, You are the Righteous Judge who will judge the nations, so I lift up our Supreme Court. We pray that they would judge rightly before you and uphold what is true independent of conservative or liberal lean. We pray for balanced judgment that upholds our Constitution as they are appointed to do for the benefit of all Americans. Grant them divine wisdom to decipher what is right.

And then I pray for the judges across our land from the local level to the high courts. Help them to judge wisely and fairly. Please give them wisdom and discernment to balance justice and mercy blindly and not for political reasons. Raise up righteous judges who fear You and will judge in accordance with the laws of the land. Give them wisdom during these divisive times to do what is right no matter the social or political pressures.

Father God, I pray for our governors (especially those facing recalls or calls to resign to do the right thing and if they’re replace that their replacements do better) and our state and local officials. Grant them all grace to face their unique challenges or crisis in their states, cities or borders; and regarding secure voting measures, political unrest, COVID restrictions, financial crisis, law enforcement, racial division, schools and so on. Please give them insight into the needs of their communities and those concerned or affected. Give them discernment to make decisions to lead their states and communities well, especially when natural disasters strike and or the federal government is not doing enough or failing them.

Dear Heavenly Father, we are confident that You sovereignly place every leader and that You have marked the days for which You use them for Your purposes. By Your mighty hand i pray that You would be merciful to our nation to work in the hearts of those to whom You give authority. We pray for peace. We pray for unity. But whether in conflict or unity we are confident that You are implementing Your plan and accomplishing Your will.

Lord of lords, You appoint the nation’s leaders, in Congress and at the state and local levels. I pray for our leaders to protect our freedom so that we might live out our Faith freely without fear or persecution for Living, Preaching and standing on Your Word even in our businesses or places of employment.

I pray for the salvation of all of our nation’s leaders that they may know You. Place people in power who revere You and will serve You for the good of their communities to Your glory.

Lord Jesus, though our hearts are heavy for Israel, our nation and its leaders, may we not lose sight of the fact that our hope is in You. One day, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that You are Lord (Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10-11). You are our only hope.

Forgive us for placing our hope in the government, political ideologies, comfort, financial security, social groups and other circumstances. We repent that, in our prosperity, we have forgotten You and have become self-reliant (Deuteronomy 8:11-14). Our hearts are so quick to wander. We repent of idolatry. Help US Holy Ghost.

Holy Spirit, teach us to live with the realization in the forefront of our minds that our citizenship is in Heaven (Philippians 3:20) The New Jerusalen. We commit our future as a nation and as Υour people to Your Hands. Your will be done. Hallelujah and Amen. 2 Chronicles 7:14 🥰🙏🏼🇺🇸♥️🌎 #REBTD 😇 #FAITHoverFear 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

[melitaafterfeather]

The law of equality

The law of unequality

One is equal when compared to be similar to the other

One is unequal when compared to be unsimilar to the other

By age by gender by race by wealth by social position by education level by talent by achivments by lawful status

We want to achieve equality

Opportunity to make unequal will only increase the risk and will demonstrate bad precedent to younger generations

My personal topic research dismisses trust of unequal and concentrates on matching equal

By leaving traces I mean architecture

Should I chat about things people get upset about because they favour unequal status

Evolutionary stage runs in parallel as we have not set laws to place barriers between servants and non servants

What wasn't built by itself it's appreciated how it will end

A reason why wars were more battlefield set than now

The motion of acute battles slowed and became more chronic torture where especially genders correspond what they shouldn't

Feminine male testosteronal female

I suppose it's always been a crises

I have not intended for a moment to turn others into what they're not jump over evolution of natural development

If you think it's a crises accept my openion or find your own ways

Each country can make international policies apart from domestic laws

I am not asking permission from anyone I am telling you to leave my home as it was unlawfully unjustifiably taken

I have to punish entire Europe entire world because of one incident

Sell the joined properties divide money

Travelcards will be issued so each can cross the borders where they belong

Post Brexit amnesty

Tax must be paid if you claim state British pension if you made profit

What makes you believe it will resolve

When we get older things get harder as we do not plant what new generation will turn like with what respect with what system

My children lost confidence in communicating communities since divorce because a parets must create social environment to birth children

Prepare children to have skills aside of education

I still think that removing certain characters will open prospect more than waiting to oit number

You are doing fight yourselves against yourselves

During my trips I left behind what meant to be left behind pennies little islands

Things won't improve

Parties aren't important part of resolution winning posotion won't win you much of a prospect

Pay them they'll depart from your equlibrium

I do not want to owe what I cursed

[munlpcr]

EARTH University - An Otherworldly Experience

I’d like to start this off by just saying thank you to every single student, staff member, professor, and administrator who helped and educated me (not to mention tolerated my whining about the brutal jungle weather) throughout my journey at Earth University. Throughout this trip I met students from literally every corner of the Earth, and almost all of them made the effort to make me feel welcome and help me adjust to a very new and in many cases unfamiliar environment. This of course made my stay a lot easier (especially when I thought I had to wait in line for juice), and it made me remember my first days at La Paz, when I was a kid from a small beach town in the US moving to a whole different country. I also had the chance  to hear some of the most awe-inspiring, unbelievable life stories that were deeply personal, and I am forever thankful to those who shared their intimate details with us. We certainly asked a lot of questions and we tried to help students learn English during a workshop, and I am very grateful to the students for keeping up good attitudes and an open mind. Obviously those students will see this post (my blog is pretty much world famous), but either way the trip made me appreciate the diversity of our backgrounds, and the way in which even complete strangers can find a common ground. I would also like to thank Memphis the Two-Toed Sloth for his warm disposition and very photogenic good looks!

Of course this trip was also an amazing learning experience that few students are fortunate enough to receive, and I would go as far as to say that this trip changed my perspective on life in general. One thing that keeps coming to mind ironically has nothing to do with farming, but instead of something Blake told us following his hectic and in many ways tragic life story. Many of us (myself included) were in tears when Blake stopped talking and looked at us. “Don’t cry,” he said. “Be happy, I am here with you now. Look how far I’ve come. There’s no reason to be sad.” This resonated with me on a deep level, and I learned that while those of us who are more privileged tend to pity or empathize people like Blake, we should instead be happy for them and celebrate how far they’ve come. Blake was an easy-going, approachable guy with a gorgeous, ever-present smile who helped me learn a very valuable lesson that evening. But no need to worry, I did learn an enormous amount of information about agriculture, domestic animals, and other sustainable practices. My favorite tidbit was how EARTH students used fish in a hydroponics system. At first they appeared to be purely aesthetic, however I quickly learned that not only did the fish provide a vast amount of nutrients for the plants, but the plants cleaned the water for the fish at the same time, removing harmful components such as ammonia that could otherwise build up and become lethal. These students had managed to create a cheap, effective hydroponics system based off a symbiotic relationship that has been present on this earth since the early years of evolution.

One of the best parts of this trip in my opinion was the chance to work on the organic farm with EARTH students. Dag and I found ourselves in the compost section, tasked with moving heaping, steaming piles of leaf matter from one tarp to the next using nothing but pitchforks (or trientes en Español, which sounds way cooler in my opinion), shovels and our own bare hands. The student who led us through this process did not share her name in the whole 4 hours we worked together, nor did she ask for ours, however we all worked together seamlessly. We were complete strangers from totally different backgrounds, different education, and different upbringings and yet she was nothing but nice, smiling patiently as I struggled to move leaves with the shovel and always quick to give us tips on how to make the work easier. In my opinion, that’s really what collaborative work is all about. The ability to set aside differences in language and opinion in order to focus on the task at hand and make work more enjoyable for everyone. Make no mistake, shoveling piles of semi-wet steaming jungle matter in humid, 98 degree heat is no fun, however having a student mentor made it significantly more enjoyable.

In terms of my CAS project, La Paz Model UN, this trip gave me a whole new, very personal perspective on how international crises can affect such as the Rwandan Genocide can affect individuals and families. I will also apply what I learned about how new agriculture techniques can conserve space and resources to hopefully help fight global hunger to my MUN workshops as part of an example resolution. In general, this trip has truly given me a new perspective of work ad education, as well as a variety of ideas as to how I can improve my science and CAS projects this year as well as in 11th and 12th grade. I was also able to have a blast while improving my ever-graceful river jump!

#Ipromiseimhavingfun

All smiles for EARTH!

[phgq]

Gov’t trying best to keep PH economy afloat: Duterte

#PHnews: Gov’t trying best to keep PH economy afloat: Duterte

MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night assured the public that the national government is trying its best to keep the Philippine economy afloat after it contracted by a record 9.5 percent in 2020.

In a pre-recorded public address, Duterte admitted that the country’s economy is “sinking deeper and deeper” into recession amid lockdowns caused by the prevailing coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic but noted that other countries are also experiencing the same financial crises.

“We are sinking deeper and deeper pero hindi lang rin tayo (but it’s not just us)…Pero (But) we are trying our very best to keep us afloat. Ang ekonomiya natin, mga kabuhayan, masama talaga. Biro mo naman, ilang taong walang trabaho (Our economy, our livelihood is in bad shape. Many people lost their jobs). The economy of the Philippines is in bad shape but as I have said, it is not only the Philippines who suffers. We in the world are suffering with everybody,” he said.

Citing Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, he said Filipino workers lose a daily income amounting to PHP2 billion due to pandemic-related lockdowns.

“According to the Secretary of Finance, araw-araw, ngayon hanggang matapos ‘tong Covid, araw-araw (every day until Covid ends) we are losing PHP2-billion na pera para sana ‘yun sa mga tao (that could have been earned by people) the Filipino workers, would have earned that money kung ang ekonomiya natin gumagalaw (if our economy was moving),” he added.

Duterte, however, appealed to the public to keep their faith in his administration, noting that government is doing its best to balance Filipinos’ health and the economy.

On Jan. 28, the Philippine Statistics Authority said the local economy, as measured by its gross domestic product (GDP), sank by 9.5 percent in 2020, the nation’s worst economic performance since after World War II.

Presidential Spokesperson Roque, however, expressed optimism about the country’s recovery this year, saying the economic growth is projected to reach 6.5 to 7.5 percent in 2021 and 8 to 10 percent in 2022 if the reopening of the economy will be sustained.

“Inaasahan natin next year kung patuloy ang pagbubukas ng ating ekonomiya, ang estimate ng ating economic planners ay magiging positive tayo (We expect that by next year, if the opening of the economy will continue, our economic planners estimated positive growth),” he said.

He reminded the public to continue to observe health protocols, such as wearing of face masks, face shields, frequent hand-washing, and physical distancing from others, to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Many parts of the country are under varying degrees of lockdown since mid-March as the country is trying to control the spread of Covid-19 that has so far infected over 514,000 individuals nationwide.

Vaccines forthcoming

Amid criticism over the government’s vaccine rollout, Duterte guaranteed that there are enough funds to pay for Covid-19 vaccines.

He said the country’s “greatest disadvantage” is that it is not as rich as Western countries that have already pre-ordered 80 percent of the global vaccine supply, but assured that vaccine doses are forthcoming.

“We have funds to pay for vaccines. Ang Asian Development Bank pati ang World Bank magpahiram sa atin para ibayad natin sa vaccine na bilhin natin (We have funds to pay for vaccines. The Asian Development Bank as well as the World Bank are lending us money to pay for the vaccines),” he said.

Duterte slammed critics claiming corruption in the government’s Covid-19 vaccine procurement anew, urging Filipinos not to believe in their false accusations.

“Do not be so gullible and basta maniwala nalang kayo (just believe in their) talk about corruption left and right. It starts with the big bang and ends with a whimper,” he said.

He also promised to prove that vaccine procurement and rollout will be done “in accordance with the rule of law.”

“You have a choice. Maniwala kayo sa kanila, o maniwala kayo sa amin. Kung maniwala kayo sa kanila, go ahead, sige walang nagpipigil sainyo. Ngayon, kung may naiwan na maniwala sa’min (Believe them, or believe us. If you believe them, go ahead, nobody’s going to stop you. Now, if there are some who still believe in us), just keep faith with us. At the end of the day, you will see that everything has been done in accordance with the rule of law,” he said.

Vaccine czar, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said the country has locked in 106 to 108 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines after he signed five term sheets with manufacturers.

The Philippines hopes to secure some 148 million doses, aside from the 40 million doses that will come from the World Health Organization-led Covax Facility, to inoculate an initial 50 to 70 million Filipinos this year.

Economic managers are optimistic that the Philippine economy will recover this year as it eyes to roll out its large-scale vaccination program starting this month. (PNA)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Gov’t trying best to keep PH economy afloat: Duterte." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1129266 (accessed February 02, 2021 at 08:07AM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Gov’t trying best to keep PH economy afloat: Duterte." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1129266 (archived).

[armeniaitn]

Towards the "Fourth Republic" – Armenian President pens article

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/towards-the-fourth-republic-armenian-president-pens-article-67782-11-01-2021/

Towards the "Fourth Republic" – Armenian President pens article

January 11, 2021 – 18:53 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has peened a fresh article about the inevitability of building a substantive state and the ways to restore the country’s strength.

The article reads:

The opportunity of restoring the Armenian statehood was the dream of our people for the last few centuries. It stemmed not only from the need for having a national home to preserve own culture, identity, and history, but also from the desire to be able to master our own destiny. This had been the mission of our ancestors, who practically did the impossible: in the absence of statehood, subject to cruel and bloody trials of history, they preserved the ground, the sense of being Armenians – Armenia- and further enriched the Armenian civilization.

Our ancestors left a great heritage and hoped that we would be able to pass it to future generations in a completely different qualitative form.

The history of international relations shows that small countries often fall victim to the interests of big powers, as it happened with Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Those nations managed to build high-quality systemic states, were able to thoughtfully analyze the causes of their failures and sufferings, and work to correct their own mistakes, work out clear visions and development programs. Such states have the capability to meet their citizens’ internal needs and protect them from external threats. They can also create conditions which allow to compete with regional and even big powers, merge their own interests with theirs or even become a true and valuable ally.

Such examples exist and they prove that through the right policy, diplomacy and governance even the nations, which do not possess ample natural resources, can start as soldiers but rise to kings.

Today, we are experiencing yet another moment of all-national psychological depression. Whether we will be able to overcome it and establish new principles to build our future depend on us only.

Current failures are nothing but the result of once unresolved, deep-rooted problems, which were accumulating over the last three decades. We all, from top to bottom, apparently have no desire to take a substantive responsibility for our own destiny. And it is not about the lack of criticism, but rather its formal nature. Just like before, we are looking for special footholds and “rescuers” – individuals or countries who will be able to take us in the right direction which will ultimately lead to prosperity and security. In this frantic search, we completely forget that this path is right in front of our eyes and is called the independent Republic of Armenia.

Our millennial dream came true: we have our home, at last, our flag, our coat-of-arms, and our anthem. Finally, we are able to be Armenians in the Armenian state recognized by the international community. For the first time in the course of centuries, Armenians did not lose their territories, but regained historical territories in the 1990s during the war imposed by the adversary many times superior to us its resources. We managed to do that because dreams and dedication were our driving forces. They were filled with the insane energy; every Armenian particle anywhere in the world was maximally charged to achieve the national goal.

Subsequent events showed how much we underestimated that gift of history in reality. Instead of building a substantive state and national construction projects, based on the successful examples of small countries and peoples, we mostly engaged ourselves with imitating activities. The basis of internal immunity, i.e. foundations of the effective system of public administration based on the actual division of responsibilities between the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches, was not laid. It is this model that shapes any society and educates its citizens, which is the core value of any government. Such a citizen can appreciate the significance of being able to vote and being elected. And most importantly, such a citizen will be responsible for his or her own choice, the surroundings, and the country. The absence of such a system is an unacceptable luxury for the countries in difficult and geographically limited conditions.

For the past years, we have not conducted a pan-Armenian inventory to understand what is, for example, the real resource base for elaborating long-term development models for the economy, high technology, military and industrial complex, science, education, and healthcare. That is why we did not have vitally important and efficient strategic concepts of defense policy and security of demography, information, and food. After gaining independence, we did not fill it with specific content.

There is no need to go far for examples. In 1994, we liberated Artsakh, but up to September 27, 2020 we did not have a clear vision of the political future of Artsakh. There were only tactics of preventing a new war through diplomacy, doomed from the very beginning. For twenty years, our adversary asserted that it would not allow a second Armenian state in the Caucasus, acquired modern weapons, engaged in active international lobbying, and established networks of influence around the world for one purpose. For what? The question is rhetorical because the answer is very clear.

We lost at the moment we believed the mission to return Artsakh was over. We did not pay enough attention to the real guarantees of Artsakh’s development and strengthening: the population growth (population of Artsakh remained the same for the past three decades), and the improvement of the art of war, armament renewal and equipment. We got relaxed and continued to live as if there were no serious challenges or threats. Of course, the victory in the Artsakh war became an integral part of our identity, and it is obvious that the most terrible consequence today is the crisis of self-perception. The Armenians woke up, lived, worked, and went to bed with the feeling that they were part of a victorious nation. Now, in a search of the answer, they ask, “Who am I now?”

We lost the information war, both externally and internally. For years, we indulged in wishful thinking. These lies had crept everywhere, threatening the national security. In that imaginary world, we supposedly had an organized state, a modern economy and science, a strong army, a democratic society, and free press, but in reality the picture was completely different. We had only managed to deceive ourselves, and thus had already signed the defeat statement.

To throw off all this, we need immense efforts, willpower, and courage to look into the eyes of the bitter reality.

We are in a difficult situation, but we cannot allow Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora feel defeated.

There is a golden rule in politics for all times: never say never. Yes, we have lost today on the battlefield and on the external front, for which the current government must be held accountable. However, other challenges await us, both domestically and internationally. To preserve our statehood and to take it to a fundamentally new level, we must put our emotions aside and start the difficult, and unpleasant, but essential work on ourselves, giving it first priority.

Today, we (and first and foremost, the government that has taken responsibility for its own citizens and Armenians of the world) must acknowledge the existence of a deep political, economic, social and psychological crisis. Citizens have every moral right to demand concrete, timely and meaningful answers on the ways-out of the crisis from the members of the National Assembly elected by them, the government and prime minister.

The President of the Republic also has his role and responsibility.

The division of the society can lead to catastrophic consequences; thus, the country and the people need treatment. The only logical and civilized prescription is off-year elections in reasonable terms with necessary amendments to the Electoral Code and Constitution, which will allow to start the real process of state building from scratch. Until then, a government of national accord must be formed with the help of the institute of the president, one of the legitimate, balanced and impartial branches of power. I see the main mission of that government in achieving three goals.

Firstly, the elimination of immediate consequences of the war: return of all prisoners, hostages and displaced persons, proper treatment and care of the injured, repair of destroyed homes and apartments, provision of normal living conditions, and accommodation for the homeless.

Secondly, creation and implementation of a roadmap to bring the country out of the political and economic crisis.

Thirdly, the reform of the normative and legal framework, providing the necessary conditions for the early elections in reasonable terms, i.e., reforms of the Electoral Code, the law on political parties and, of course, the Constitution. Proceeding from this, the government should be composed of professionals and experts who specialize in specific areas.

I would like to repeat, there is no need to look for “saviors of the nation” or exceptional personalities. The country should be governed by institutions, a system of checks and balances should operate between the branches of power. All citizens, without exception, should respect the law and follow it. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in permanent crises.

The Law in capital letters and following it are the basis of any healthy society and strong state, the guarantee of development and survival. It is on this basis that our political culture must be built. There is no other formula for building a stable state.

Under a parliamentary system of government, the institute of the President is symbolic or formal in appearance, but internally it can be a lifebuoy in any political crisis. As the head of the state and follower of the Constitution, the institute of the President can become the irreplaceable platform where the constitutional ways-out and mechanisms for overcoming the crisis will be formed through a dialogue. The question is: is our Constitution ideal? The answer is one: no, like the constitution of any country. Everywhere in the world, there are ongoing debates and discussions about changing the basic laws of their countries. As a citizen of the Republic of Armenia, I have my opinion on the shortcomings of our Constitution, but as the President of the Republic, I am obliged to follow the letter of the Law. We can give in to emotions, but all political demands must be carried out within the law.

The “Third Republic of Armenia” is a thing of the past, we are facing a new reality that forces us to be very sober, accountable and purposeful. The national carelessness, disorganization, disorder and inconsistency, the false agendas, ideas and approaches that have accompanied us in recent decades must be thrown into the archives of history.

Unfortunately, to date there is no complete perception of the real scale of the dramatic events in Armenia and the Armenian world, and its causes and consequences. We need to understand that a new page of history begins for us with its challenges, and this time with an exceptional imperative to make no mistakes, and to act competently and professionally.

No matter what we call that new page: “New Page”, “Restart”, “A New Beginning”, “The Fourth Republic” or otherwise, the reality is that we are entering a new stage of history.

After the nationwide shock caused by the war and the obligatory transition phase, we must undertake the construction of a new state, conventionally called the “Fourth Republic” in this article.

The change of power in 2018 could have been the beginning of a new phase in our history, for which there were sufficient grounds for people’s unification, enthusiasm and support, but it became the end of the previous phase, without offering a new ideology.

The defeat in the last war was the defeat of that system, not of the soldiers, the people and the nation.

The “Fourth Republic” must become the new ideological, conceptual and substantive basis of our people. The emphasis will be placed on the quality of the state, which requires a radical overhaul of the system of interrelations with our compatriots around the world. Geopolitical perceptions, politics, economy, security, military-industrial complex, medicine, science and education are created by people, and today we are in dire need of the best specialists.

There is no lack of prominent Armenians and never has been; we need to stop just being proud of their existence, and make them part of our state’s reality. For that, it is enough to remove the artificially created Berlin Walls (which are in the Constitution and in the laws) between Armenia and the Armenian communities. Having a lot of experience in communicating with our Diaspora, I can speak with confidence about their huge potential. I shall repeat that in order to discover and use that potential effectively, we need a state systemic approach and proper governance.

Hard work is expected, but I do not doubt the final success. The main thing is that everyone should believe in it and participate in the work of bringing that day closer within their abilities and opportunities.

We do not have time and chance to think long. The time has come for cold-hearted, quick and effective actions to create an efficient, disciplined and organized modern country based on new technologies and thinking, the FUTURE ARMENIA, ready to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The ways to reach it will be discussed in the future.

Read original article here.

[liberalartssustainability]

Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

“UN report finds COVID-19 is reversing decades of progress on poverty, healthcare and education.” (Anon, ‘reversing decades of progress’, para 1)

As seen in the article above, the UN sustainable development goals have been drastically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. One goal that has been particularly affected by COVID-19 is ‘sustainable cities and communities’. Target 11.5 “by 2030, significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters, including water-related disasters, with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations” (https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal11) particularly highlights this. Assuming that the pandemic is a disaster in the sense that this target states, to attempt to “significantly reduce” the number of those affected by 2030 seems like a drastically larger challenge than it would have been before COVID-19. Therefore, it is likely that this target will not be met by 2030, though it begs the question - what defines “affected” people? Of course we have all been affected by this virus, so where does this put us on the road to sustainable development? Alongside countless other sectors of public interest, sustainable development has been greatly hindered by coronavirus.

Target 11.c “support least developed countries, including through financial and technical assistance, in building sustainable and resilient buildings utilizing local materials” (https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal11) is one target that certainly has been hindered by this. While many of the most economically developed countries battle financial crises within their own countries, it seems that this target will certainly be delayed. As seen in the recent decision by the UK government not to support free school meals for children living in poverty, it seems sustainable development may be being pushed aside in these countries themselves, let alone in aiding the least developed countries. Thus, it is reasonable to believe that this target will be delayed indefinitely.

However, it seems that in some ways the pandemic, or more so the national lockdowns that took place because of it, have in fact aided target 11.6: “by 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management.” (https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal11) In China, for example, “city lockdowns led to a sizeable improvement in air quality. Within weeks, the AQI in the locked-down cities was brought down by 19.84 points.” (G He, Y Pan, & T Tanaka, ‘short-term impacts’, para 1) Also, “air quality in cities without formal lockdowns also improved because of the enforcement of other types of counter-virus measures.” (G He, Y Pan, & T Tanaka, ‘short-term impacts’, para 1) Though this article states that lockdowns are an “unsustainable option to address environmental issues” due to the economic cost, it is evident that “existing environmental policies” could improve air quality in a much more economically sustainable way (G He, Y Pan, & T Tanaka, ‘short-term impacts’, para 1). Various other examples such as sightings of dolphins swimming in Venice show that the environmental improvements are in fact possible and can occur rather rapidly, which in turn has created more awareness and vigilance among the general people.

So, to conclude, even though it is true that the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly hindered the progress of the UN sustainable development goals, it is pleasing to see that within weeks of lockdown it is possible to reverse years of damage to air quality and animal re-habitation, and hopefully this in turn will provide more insight, determination and vigilance among the public and the governments of the world to meet these goals and create a more sustainable world.

 - Isabelle HJ

Bibliography:

Anon, “UN report finds COVID-19 is reversing decades of progress on poverty, healthcare and education”, UN, 7 July 2020, https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/sustainable/sustainable-development-goals-report-2020.html

Guojun He, Yuhang Pan, & Takanao Tanaka, “The short-term impacts of COVID-19 lockdown on urban air pollution in China”, Nat Sustain, 7 July 2020, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0581-y

https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal11

[maximuswolf]

China and “Marxism without Marx” (socialism as a historical form), by Elias Jabbour via /r/communism

China and “Marxism without Marx” (socialism as a historical form), by Elias Jabbour

The question I have been confronted with the most since the first time I wrote or presented anything about China concerns its character, socialist or capitalist. After a long time occupied with this issue, something that doesn't make sense to me today, I ended up realizing that this is an immense false controversy. Controversies have always caused victims. In the case in question, the victim is Marx himself, advocated by those in the denial of the real,not passing through antithesis and not exerting the practice of at least two fundamental laws of dialectics: the “unity of contraries” and the “negation of negation ”. Most "Marxists", when it comes to China, are often just stuck analyzing the form, tied to formal logic. They ignore the notion of the separation in parts; pure abstraction without dialectical rationality and attached to abstract representations.

It would be very strange to confront Marx himself with certain questions. We can rescue him in several ways. The first of them is directly related to the notion, taken from Hegel, of “Aufheben” which means “supersumption”, something that in Marx - using and abusing the “negation of negation” - can be read as an object only starting from the highest point of what he himself denies. But "Aufheben" also has three other meanings, widely usable for understanding Chinese dynamics: 1) to lift, support and raise; 2) annul, abolish, destroy, revoke, cancel, suspend and 3) conserve, save, preserve. Only this starting point would put all those who declare themselves “anti-capitalists” against the wall. For two reasons, the “anti” is alien to classical German philosophy. Basically, the “anti” ends up - because it is only antithesis and “negation” - in mirror of what is denied. From this starting point, “anti-capitalist” militants can be anything but Marxists.

I will borrow Marx straight from the source. In the famous “Manuscripts” of 1844, the following tells us: “An entity that has no object outside itself is not an objective entity. An entity that is not itself an object for a third party has no entity as its object, that is, it does not behave objectively, its being has no purpose. A non-objective entity is a non-entity ”. Without going into the merits of the (false) question, it sounds strange not to attribute grandeur to the Chinese experience solely due to the social manifestations worthy of a capitalist society: extraction of surplus value; law of value; individualism; consumerism etc. It is up to the question of what would be the “object for a third party” when we deal with the dynamics involving different modes of production and economic-social formations. Marx is repeatedly used not to distinguish objects and their objective behaviors - the essences of which are used to appear at historical moments on the frontier. Marx is used to make value judgments, aiming at the monkey without demonstrating the examination of human anatomy.

It is pedagogical for Marxists to work with totalizing notions. The reason for this is that the concept is something that manifests itself in the process of moving from abstract to concrete. Marx's passage is famous, pointing out the concrete as a “synthesis of multiple determinations”. Something sufficient to “cancel” a reality for its appearance traits. The difficulty of many Marxists in dealing with the big issues in the concrete is notorious, despite all the time appealing to the "concrete". This is the difficulty of a congenital problem of formation based on the "should be" that invades us from the church to the positivism that marks the formation in our schools. Dialectical thinking, the contradictory as an essence and the necessary demonstration “of what is above, illuminating what is below” is very little exercised. In this case, socialism is never shown as a “historical form”, but as a manifestation of “radical”, “anti-capitalist” and “pure” forms. Now, what is "pure" is a "non-being", simply because it does not exist and makes itself exist through, and generating, contradictions.

What does China have to do with all this? The reason is simple: to our "radicals" China does not demonstrate its socialism in its "pure form". Is China a civilizing alternative to neoliberalism and capitalism? The answer is always negative, without blinking. But if we live in a world where different economic and social backgrounds coexist and fight with each other, some more advanced others more backward; if the new is born in the midst of the old, where is that “new” that would be constituted (as opposed to the Chinese experience) in the middle of the “old”? The answer does not exist and when it does, it refers to the need to build a “utopia” by which all socialist activists should guide themselves towards the construction of the “other possible world”. Nothing further from Marxism.

Let us turn to Marx, now in his famous text from 1875 (“Criticism of the Gotha Program”), addressing the militants of the German Social Democratic Party, making his due warnings about the order to be constituted on the next day of the revolution: 1 ) "Only at a higher stage of communist society can the narrow bourgeois horizon be fully overcome"; 2) "only in the first phase of communist society, as it appears, after a long labor by capitalist society, the law can never go beyond the economic form"; 3) “so, in the first phase, to each one according to their work; in the upper phase, from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs ”; 4) "therefore, too, it is necessary to consider a period of revolutionary transformation between capitalist and communist society". No Utopia, nor a vicious “anti-capitalist” verbiage, are present in Marx. Instead. There, a sophisticated notion of transition, historical process and combinations is evident. The opposite of "should be". His thought was anchored in the history of the first failures of the capitalist experiences of Genoa and Venice, where a more powerful mode of production (feudalism) prevented it from flourishing. Something very close to what happened to socialism in the 20th century, by the way.

We could continue to cite the Marxian passages attesting to his vision of the historical process. For those who like a lighter reading of Marx's own hand, visit his letters to his friends and collaborators. Starting with his response to Vera Zasulich (1881), which in itself reveals to be an oxymoron to binary minds. The demonstration that old Karl makes of the evolution of the world as a “set of different layers of different ages” would be enough to argue that a country of China's dimensions is a set of “non-contemporary contemporaries” and that, therefore, the old and the new are all the time in unity of opposites. The backward and the modern; socialism, capitalism and archaic forms of agricultural production develop into a complex whole. Outside this complex whole there is a world where capitalist relations of production and exchange are dominant in all institutions.

In this totality where new and old institutions emerge and reappear over time, the same germs of the old that defeated the experiences of Genoa and Venice are also manifested. But the germs of these Italian hinterlands would be victorious with the institutions created by Cromwell after his victorious revolution. In China, its institutions inherited from its historic mother, the Russian Revolution, are present and in development. Permanent contradictions and the pressures of a world hostile to the "new" that needs the "old" to overcome itself, are a rule. The opening to foreign capital, the generation of a domestic capitalist class and the ideological hegemony of imperialism in the world enter and take part in the complex whole. There is capitalism in China. And what's the problem with that, I ask? (To me, the object's past is carved into the object, it is intrinsic to it, it is, say, in its own essence, although it is continually, at each historical moment, over-determined, denied, that is, reframed).

Over the past 40 years, the country's advocated system (socialism) has been responsible for lifting 840 million people out of poverty. The country's per capita income has grown exponentially and today the country is willing to demonstrate that new production relations between rich and poor countries in the world are an objective necessity of the system, its essence of survival. This process of immense internal transformations, driven by an “adhesion” to the globalization promoted by capitalism did not occur without trauma, nor without deep pain. But the persistence of a strategy based on centenary objectives has enabled the country to establish institutions and a productive and financial base to show itself superior to the capitalist countries in simply all the great challenges imposed on the world since the first financial crises.

Aside from the country's success in tackling the pandemic, it could not be ignored that while in the USA posters read, "social isolation is like communism", in China - where routinely typical social manifestations of capitalist countries are registered by "radicals" and " anti-capitalist as demonstrations that disqualify the substantive “socialism” in that reality - 480,000 activists from the Communist Party of China were the heroes who saved Wuhan by offering their own lives as sacrifice - a manifestation impossible to be perceived in capitalist countries unable to show their own people the virtues of what they stand for. In international relations, the Chinese “capitalists” and “oppressors” acted in broad harmony with the Cubans in a degree of coordination of international aid that no real capitalist country has been able to face. Xi Jinping's promise to socialize with the poor countries the vaccine to be discovered by the Chinese cannot be disconsidered in a world where the true capitalists were willing to buy the vaccine exclusivity.

I return to Marx, without sodomizing him, to make an analysis of the present starting from real categories of analysis, something not foreign to his tradition. After all, it was the same that methodologically equipped us to face the present time indicating the need to conceive the anatomy of the monkey starting from the human anatomy. China does constitute itself as an alternative to the anatomy of the monkey (neoliberal and capitalist decay). The unity of its society in the face of the threat of death and the challenges to imperialism condition it as the most advanced political and social entity of our present time. Its large companies and state-owned banks are the steel wall of the fight against Covid-19.

It was socialism that prevailed over capitalism that still exists in China. Not an idealized, utopian socialism tied to the collective “imaginary” of radical middle-class activists. It is socialism as a historical form. As something new that appears under circumstances not chosen by anyone. Its historical form occurs as a New Design Economy, an entity constituted in the light of overcoming the Keynesian uncertainty and the planning of the Schumpeterian “creative destruction”. It is the superior element internal to the most advanced production method of that economic and social formation.

An expression at a higher level of socialism where the restriction to the action of the law of value allows planning at higher levels and concentration on the construction of, simultaneously, large and thousands of public goods in response to the immense social contradictions of that development process. The “project” is slowly replacing the market as the nucleus of society. Its social counterpart is an "tacit adhesion pact". It is the belief in the State as its representative and in leaders attuned to the great national and popular needs that it is observed how the production relations adapt to the new productive forces that plague the world.

Starting from the "concrete", affirming that China - based on "Marxist" criteria - does not gather all the "checks" that condition it as an example of an alternative is the same as not identifying the human anatomy capable of unraveling the anatomy of the monkey. In the end, it's a different way of reaching the same conclusions as Francis Fukuyama. China demonstrates that the story has not ended; is still in its throes.

(Translation of this article . Elias Jabbour is one of the greatest Brazilian Marxist specialists on China today. This is a consensus among most of the Marxist Brazilian community)

Submitted October 21, 2020 at 04:38PM by DIOgenes_123 via reddit https://ift.tt/2FOKCp7