New fake gas attack to prolong war in Syria? (take 2)

Another so-called chemical gas attack is due any time now.  Same old story. The Syrian army is winning decisively by conventional means and the jihadists are up against the wall. Their only hope is to bring in Western forces with another fake gas attack, knowing they are all too eager to engage.

The last one happened this April 7th in Douma, with a short video shot on location. Six days later the US, UK and France hurled 100+ missiles at Syrian targets in punishment. One day after that, the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) inspectors arrived in Douma to examine the scene of the crime.

Remember all that? It received headline news coverage, complete with video of scud missiles launching from ships and inspectors arriving in Damascus. What came of their report?

Twelve weeks later the OPCW issued its report, to a whisper of publicity, reporting that no evidence was found of a chemical weapons attack. Traces of chlorine were found at two locations. It’s a household chemical. They found no evidence on the ground, or residues in people, of chemical weapons use, saying only that “the persons affected in the reported incidents may, in some instances, have been exposed to some type of non-persistent, irritating substance.”

The OPCW report is somewhat less than conclusive. Note the vagueness of “may in some instances,” which indicates a possibility not based on evidence, and limited to a few. In other words, some of “the persons” may have been exposed to a temporary irritant before the event, which was filmed on the spot by the White Helmets. Or they may have just been acting. The mention of “persons affected in the reported incidents” does not identify them as victims and suggests that some may have been exposed to something temporary. So the others, most of them, were not exposed to even anything. What are they telling us, in this round-about manner? There is no mention or confirmation of any dead or damaged victims of the so-called attack, despite the media horror story we were fed, based on unverified photos and reports from the jihadists who, it appears, stage-managed the entire event.

At that time, with the real Syrian army ascendant, gassing civilians near a hospital would have been a pointless military move, putting aside the madness of waving such a red flag at Uncle Sam. Whatever the propaganda tells us of Assad, there is never any suggestion that he or his generals are that stupid.

The Syrian Army now needs to end this war, and cannot leave an important province in the hands of armed and murderous foreign fighters of ISIS, Al Nusra and Al Qaeda. The weakened terrorist forces have only two options – to surrender or play the chemical weapons card again. This time they could create real casualties, from the ranks of captive young women and children taken during ISIS’s murderous assault on the Yazidi population. They are without scruples or morals.

On August 22^nd, Trump’s National Security advisor, John Bolton, appears to have given the cue to the jihadist insurgents for another false flag event by once again publically pronouncing that “…if the Syrian regime uses chemical weapons we will respond very strongly and they really ought to think about this a long time.” American ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright, expressed similar sentiments. They are laying the foundations for another fake attack. America, and perhaps Britain and France, will be poised to send more missiles to an undeserving recipient and do whatever they can to prolong conflict in the Middle East and maintain healthy profits for their arms industries.

The US military establishment would hate to lose some of its new best enemies, at a time when they are terrified that Trump might make peace with Russia. Without enemies, how could the military and intelligence communities defend their ever-increasing budgets? As I have put it before, the voracious military establishments of America and Britain are threatened not by any enemy, but by the absence of one. Without an enemy to fear who needs to support the expensive and destructive military and intelligence communities that act like a state within a state?

Of course, I hope another gas attack is never staged, and that events move swiftly to an end of the conflict in Syria without further fighting or civilian death. I hope that the Yazidi captives are freed and able to rejoin and rebuild their communities. Most of all I look forward to the day when peace has comfortably settled into the whole of Syria, from where my father’s parents emigrated to America over a century ago. I have been twice to the village where my father’s aunt’s descendants lived, as did that aged aunt when I visited Mishtaya, a village in the hills outside Homs mercifully unscathed by the war.

May there be an end to pointless conflict. Peace is not an unnatural condition for mankind. It was the norm for millennia before rulers imposed themselves upon developed and largely peaceful civilisations around the world.

Primed for another Chemical Weapons charade

Will there be another fake chemical attack soon, staged by the forces of ISIS or Al Qaeda still controlling Syrian territory in Idlib province? There have been at least three so far, the last one in Douma, outside Damascus last April. The OPCW inspectors who visited that site finally released their report (see below), which found neither evidence nor victims of any chemical attack. 100+ missiles were lobbed into Syria by the US, UK and France, as punishment, a day before they even arrived.

Whenever the jihadists are up against the wall, with the Syrian Army winning by conventional means, they fake a chemical weapons attack in the hope of giving Western powers an excuse to intervene. And they are all too willing for any excuse to play with their deadly toys.

The Syrian Army now needs to end this war, and cannot leave an important province in the hands of armed and murderous foreign fighters. The weakened terrorist forces have only two options – to surrender or play the chemical weapon card. This time they could create real casualties, from the ranks of captive young women and children taken during ISIS’s murderous assault on the Yazidi population of Iraq (older women and men were killed).

Here is the tell-tale timeline for that last so-called chemical gas attack, the one that launched a thousand missiles:

April 7 – alleged gas event in Douma, last outpost of insurgents around Damascus. Our media’s  information on this was unverified, coming from anti-government sources. The jihadist White Helmets made a short film, widely broadcast.

April 13 – America and its allies launch 100+ missile attack upon Syria as punishment, also making millions for the US arms industry.

April 14 OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) inspectors arrive at Douma to examine the scene. Their report was expected in “the usual” 3-4 weeks.

July 6 (12 weeks later) the OPCW issues its report, to a whisper of publicity, reporting that no evidence was found of a chemical weapons attack. Traces of chlorine were found at two locations. It’s a household chemical. They found no evidence on the ground, or residues in people, of chemical weapons, saying only that “the persons affected in the reported incidents may, in some instances, have been exposed to some type of non-persistent, irritating substance.”

The OPCW report is somewhat less than conclusive. Note the vagueness of “may in some instances,” which indicates a possibility not based on evidence, and limited to a few. In other words, some of “the persons” may have been exposed to a temporary irritant before the event, which was filmed on the spot by the White Helmets. Or they may have just been acting. The mention of “persons affected in the reported incidents” does not identify them as victims and suggests that only some of them may have been exposed to a temporary irritant. So the others, most of them, were not exposed to even anything temporary. What are they telling us, in this round-about manner? There is no mention or confirmation of any dead or damaged victims of the so-called attack, despite the media horror story we were fed, based on unverified information from the jihadists who, it would appear, stage-managed the entire event they filmed.

At that time, with the real Syrian army ascendant, gassing civilians near a hospital would have been a pointless military move, whether or not it was waving a red flag at Uncle Sam. Whatever the propaganda tells us of Assad, there is never any suggestion that he or his generals are that stupid.

On August 22^nd, Trump’s National Security advisor, John Bolton, appears to have given the cue to the jihadist insurgents for another false flag event by once again publically pronouncing that “…if the Syrian regime uses chemical weapons we will respond very strongly and they really ought to think about this a long time.” Suggestions keep appearing in the media that Assad will use chemical weapons in the battle for Idlib. They are laying the foundation for a fake attack. America, and perhaps Britain and France, will again be poised to send more missiles to an undeserving recipient and do whatever they can to prolong conflict in the Middle East and maintain healthy profits for their arms industries.

What surprises me is how they get away with it, and why so many of the mainstream media appear to believe the lies they are fed. If not then how do they sleep at night? ISIS and their associates are a truly unpleasant murderous bunch. If you did not look at the link to their  Yazidi genocide then take a look now. They are not deserving of continued tacit support and sympathy from our governments and media. It is past time for the conflict to end, though the enclave of armed fundamentalists in Idlib will continue to fight in any way they can, including the staging of terrorist attacks abroad. It’s what they do.

The US military establishment would hate to lose two of its favourite enemies, ISIS and Al Qaeda, and are terrified that Trump might make peace with Russia. Without enemies, how could the military and intelligence communities defend their ever-increasing budgets? As I have put it before, the voracious military establishments of America and Britain are threatened not by any enemy, but by the absence of one. Without an enemy to fear there is no perceived need to support the expensive, and destructive, military and intelligence communities that act like a state within a state.

Of course, I hope another gas attack is never staged, and that events move swiftly to an end of the conflict in Syria without further fighting or civilian death. I hope that the Yazidi captives are freed and able to rejoin and rebuild their communities. Most of all I look forward to the day when peace has comfortably settled into to the whole of Syria, from where my father’s parents emigrated to America over a century ago. I have been twice to the village where my father’s aunt’s descendants lived, as did that aged aunt when I visited Mishtaya, a village in the hills outside Homs mercifully unscathed by the war.

May there be an end to pointless conflict. Peace is not an unnatural condition for mankind. It was the norm for millennia before rulers imposed themselves upon developed and largely peaceful civilisation.

 

 

The wheel needs a whole new hub, not just another revolution.

 

Faking it for War

Fake WMD took us to war in Iraq and disastrous conflicts throughout the Middle East, none of them justified. It was looking like we were about to see these conflicts finally come to a end.

Now, alleged chemical attacks on the last active terrorists in Syria are being used to justify Western intervention that prolongs a vicious campaign aimed at making Syria an Islamic state. The last remaining militants in Douma,  Eastern Ghouta, are the Army of Islam (Jaysh al-Islam), supplied and funded by Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are great friends with America and Britain, and their largest customer for military equipment.

The voracious war machines of America and Britain are threatened not by any enemy, but by the absence of one. This conflict is good news for the military and arms industries. Israel hates Syria and Iran, and would like to see those strong nations collapsed and fragmented. The media has leapt onto the bandwagon, laying blame for this “alleged” attack on Syria and, ominously, Russia and Iran. Their crime is to support the Syrian government in its fight against an array of Islamic fighters who would stop at nothing to impose their version of Islam on that secular nation.  Israel has already attacked an unrelated Syrian airfield, in response to this unfounded allegation.

Not for a moment could the Trumps, Theresa Mays, and Macrons of this world believe that Assad launched this attack. It is as clearly fake as the WMD for which there was never evidence. For the legitimate Syrian government the battle for Damascus was virtually over, with 90% of Eastern Ghouta recaptured, with the militants and their families safely evacuated to Idlib Province, allowed to keep their belongings, including their personal handgun or AK-47.

Only Douma was still controlled by the Army of Islam, who held 3,500 hostages  prisoner, mostly Syrian military, their family, or sympathisers. They rained shells upon Damascus daily, and received return bombardment, but had no chance of military victory, none whatsoever. There was only one strategy that could prolong the struggle – to bring in Western military support. Their only way to prompt this was a staged chemical weapons attack, choreographed by the infamous White Helmets, who have form on this. It is alleged that real victims were taken from their hostage stock. The White Helmets were extensively trained by their Western backers in the arts of propaganda, and make great use of children.

After their final fling, even the Army of Islam now appears to be leaving Douma under safe conduct. With no rational reason whatsoever to rain rockets on Syria, some emotional video provides the excuse for our macho leaders to make war on that ancient cradle of civilization. President Trump’s reputation is on the line, with May and Macron wanting in on the act. This is more like bukakke than war, unless Russia becomes engaged, in which case the military will have their hot war, may the gods help us.

Our ruling elite want Russia back as a fearful enemy and magnifies or fabricates whatever it it can to foster this unfounded paranoia.  Back when Russia threatened to spread communism across the free West, Americans understandably built bomb shelters and proudly proclaimed that they’d rather be dead than red.  The US kept a fleet of nuclear laden B-52 bombers in the air 24/7, just in case.  It was an ideological clash that ended in 1991 with the dissolution of communism and the Soviet Union. But Russia was the best enemy the West ever had, and we witness a monumental effort to re-instate it as a fearful threat to our democracy, way of life, and cyber security. Hogwash.

They just keep faking news to make war! The first Gulf War was fuelled by an emotional report of babies being taken out of incubators by Iraqi forces. A public relations firm created that story, using the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter as the video “witness.” The second Iraq war was based on fake WMD. Destruction of Libya based on a phoney attempt to protect the people of Libya from their evil ruler.  Ditto Syria, a successful secular nation with a strong army having no mission other than to protect its homeland.

All this calculated conflict is funded by our hard-earned taxes, and sadly, this is what ruling elites do and have done for a millennia or two. Without our fear of the enemy, we might start questioning the need to be owned by a big shepherd and directed by their sheepdogs – dogs well trained to do whatever they are told. We might stop worrying about what we would do without the state and start wondering about what we could do in a state of connection and freedom.

——————

Yes, I wrote a book that takes this further, so if you wonder whether we could live successfully in a state of freedom, without the protection of men in uniforms, then do check it out. It’s as fresh today as the day it was written, and even more relevant. For a 2.5 minute condensation, go to this BBC Newtopias page.

The wheel needs a whole new hub, not just another revolution.

Russia, the USA and Israel – Who colludes with whom?

Unless blissfully unaware of the bullshit being peddled by the MSM you may have heard allegations of collusion between Team Trump and the Russians. The current smoking gun is an admission by Trump’s national security advisor, Michael Flynn, that he lied about having meetings with the Russians. This is being used to support unproven allegations that Russia interfered in the US election. In the Flynn scenario, the MSM ignores information pointing to collusion of US officials with Israel that relegates Russia to a bit player who wouldn’t cooperate.

Those meetings were not about the American election, which had already ended, but about a UN vote in Dec 2016 that would condemn Israel’s illegal settlement building in occupied territory. Israel wanted the President-elect to put pressure on other nations to vote against UN resolution 2334, after Obama enraged them by rebuffing their demands. Russia was asked by Flynn to obstruct the vote, and refused. It was passed anyway. During his trial Michael Flynn admitted that a “senior member” of Trump’s transition team had directed him to approach the Russians – widely assumed to have been his son-in-law Jared Kushner, a close friend of Israel.

Today, Trump is poised to announce moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a move that will enrage the entire Middle East and destroy any hopes of a 2-state solution for Palestine. This total divergence from US policy on Palestine, and that of the rest of the world, has clearly come about through collusion between Israel and the US presidential team.

Were Trump’s team colluding with Russia then perhaps moving the US Embassy in Ukraine to Crimea would be equivalent. The Trump-Russia connection is a diversion, plain and simple. The connection between Trump and Israel is the linkage that threatens world peace and America’s standing in the world.

Occupy inspired debut track

I got a call from Tom Grashion earlier this year asking if I would lend my voice to his debut music project. He was making a track inspired by the Standing Rock protest against the pipeline build through sacred land and under river. “Sure,” I said.

It is titled Occupy and is a deeply rich tune that gets better with each listen (enhanced by my progression from laptop speaker to bluetooth to headphones).  It’s damn good video work as well. My voice is blended in at the beginning and then comes in again right at the end.

 

This was Tom’s comment when he posted the video up on Facebook.

It gives me great pleasure to announce the online release of my debut track ‘Occupy’. Featuring two formidable forces in their own right; Lara Smiles & Gregory Sams.

What an absolute honour it is to have two legends agree to be involved in your work. I had heard a lot of good things about these two during my time as an engineer with ‘Youth’ a.k.a. Martin Glover.

Who I would like to thank for chucking me in the deep end, which couldn’t do anything but build character as well as learning to let go and not having a fear of both failure and success. Also for the opportunity to work on some killer records, I still remember as a fresh uni graduate being given the task of adding extra dub elements on The Orb VS Lee “Scratch” Perry‘Golden Clouds’ remix thinking “WTF??!!! This is a dream line up!…and i’m being asked to contribute?”

Massive shout out especially for all the amazing help and support from Skyride Records. They have done absolutely everything and more you would hope from any label who truly believes in their artists. From mastering the record, helping out set up royalties right through to promotion. They have always been there ever since I sent in the demo. Cheers for having faith in the track!

Of course there are so many more of you I could thank and hopefully in due course I will be able to say thank you face to face over a drink or something. Until then, ladies and gentlemen…#HappyThanksgiving2017

The Nameless News

So what’s the current BIG news? Right now it’s a doddering old ruler in Zimbabwe clinging on as his army seeks to put in another guy who used to be his loyal and brutal chief henchman. Usual stuff.

There have been thousands in the streets of Paris shouting out because a new young dude in power is not delivering what they expected him to. He’s a bankers man.

A scary megalomaniac now runs the world’s most heavily armed nation, chosen by those who wanted anything but the known status quo of lying vying politicians. Very different package and flavour, same old shit.

The new British leader became an animated corpse and everybody’s fool after making a play for more power that blew up in her face. She had it all and now she’s had it.

We thought the woman in Burma who’d won a Nobel Peace Prize was a brilliant new leader. Now we are horrified that she condones genocide, though democratically elected and representing the will of her majority.

The climate continues to change despite government efforts to stop it. One is reminded of King Canute. Being kind to this planet is OUR job and not the sole province of tax and state regulation.

Male celebrities and a few politicians are being disgraced and having their careers (and movies) destroyed because they behaved badly, sometimes very badly. Fair enough in some cases but it’s mighty distracting BIG news.

The long-running Westminster paedophiles investigation continues to go nowhere at a slow pace, triggered by an “explosive” dossier, now lost, given to an iffy Home Secretary in 1984. Those in charge of investigating keep resigning. Those charged are dying off.

Across the world, law enforcement officers are occasionally found telling lies and fabricating evidence, video’d beating prisoners and shooting unarmed victims. In extreme cases they may face early retirement.

Politicians using false pretences take us into wars that kill hundreds of thousands, and then break the promises made to those they invade. They receive honours and end up very wealthy.

Millions of us continue to be damaged, displaced and killed because of conflicts between those ruling our world’s nations, funding their destruction with taxes demanded of us. The 1% cackle.

Many still believe that, in each of their big and little nations, they can find a way to get rulers to rule over them who are going to be thoughtful good guys with their best interests at heart. Nice dreams.

Few consider how many problems could be alleviated if half our wealth was not channelled through lying and vying rulers doing everything for “political reasons.” The term has become a byword for underhand motives.

What’s my motive here? To point out what a load of bullshit we are all funding, whether our rulers are chosen by ballots or bullets, God or mammon. Same old shit.

Yes, I wrote a book that explores the alternative, looking at our ability and capacity to self-organise in a regulatory way, without top-down government based on the “do what we say or we will damage you” modus operandi. It’s about freedom, and is appreciated by those who read it.

Check out the positive reviews and comments, including this from G.A.Jonathan (in a comment under “Lotus Blossom”):

“…the insightful Mr Sams has a fistful of examples of humans working together socially to make things work and life better without requiring the threat of state coercion. He’s pro responsibility, pro progress, pro ethical commerce, pro freedom and pro love. It would be churlish to criticise the book for posing more questions than answers because he doesn’t claim to be a messiah: he just does a great job of telling us how things are and pointing out that we could do so much better, supported by superb examples of this happening on a micro scale. The challenge for future generations is to make those examples flourish on a global scale.”

Paving the road to peace with the weapons of war

I realised a few months ago that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council were also the five largest arms dealers on the planet. There is no secret about this but few actually recognise the enormity of it. Clearly, the only brain wiring going on there will be to fight for peace with their stock in trade. Perhaps they think that by killing all the “bad guys” on planet Earth they will leave nothing but peace lovers. We can be sure that their arms expenditure will stay high just in case they left a few million “bad guys” out that need to be killed later.

Of course, what really happens is that conflicts are created in order to stimulate the arms trade. Now that our interventions in the Middle East have created a situation of permanent conflict these arms dealers are in heaven and cackling all the way to the bank. As the conflict seeps into the fabric of our formerly safe Western society the politicians/arms dealers wring their hands and point their fingers at scary religious terrorists. Their solution, of course, involves more military interventions, more expenditure on security, a lot less freedom for us, and lots more money for them and their ilk.

All of this expenditure, less we forget, is funded by us. Meanwhile we are constantly told of the cash shortages that mean state ‘services’ must be cut for lack of funding. The solution to this is always higher taxes and we actually see citizens lobbying for higher taxes to keep this monstrous beast in business. Sigh.

I would usually put up an image of my book here, which, as Graham Hancock put it, is “the route map that gets us out of this mess,” but instead here is the stand-alone poster I created to illustrate this point. It went kind of viral on Facebook.

Note: The UK recently went to No.2 in the arms dealers list per the latest sources.

Dogs of war use same old excuse

It’s the same old game. A state we don’t like is doing wrong by its people so we must go in and wage war on their nation to bring democracy, then exit as dozens of armed fundamentalist factions fight over what’s left. Don’t think for a moment that the warmongers care about injured children, any more than they do about the thousands abused by church officials and pedophiles in high positions. These are the same liars who brought us WMD and other popular deceptions and they are getting better at what they do, which is stirring up conflict. Will their next step be to brandish as fake, and ban, any news that differs from the official account?

This excellent overview from Antimedia succinctly tells us all we need to know to about chemical weapons use in Syria.

“On Tuesday, yet another chemical weapons attack occurred in Syria. This particular attack took place in the Idlib province, and dozens have reportedly died as a result.

Syria is no stranger to chemical weapons attacks. In 2013, there were two notably devastating attacks, both of which the Obama administration used to try to justify a direct strike on the Assad government.

The U.N. thoroughly investigated the first 2013 attack. The U.N Commission of Inquiry’s Carla Del Ponte ultimately said the evidence indicated the attack was carried out by the Syrian rebels — not the Syrian government. Despite this, support for the Syrian rebels from the U.S. and its allies only increased, raising serious questions about Obama’s sincerity when condemning chemical attacks.

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh found the second major attack was committed in a similar manner. Hersh found that the U.S. quite deliberately attempted to frame the evidence to justify a strike on Assad without even considering al-Nusra, a terror group with access to nerve agents that should have been a prime suspect.

In 2016… continue reading  

It did not start with Donald Trump

This did not start with Donald Trump. It is good that he is barefaced and honest enough for people’s eyes to snap right open and realise where we have come to. The world reacts in anger as millions take to the streets to protest at his temporary ban on immigration from seven nations. That the previous president was already bombing Muslims in seven nations had somehow been acceptable. Surely bombing people is as bad as banning them. The groundwork for Trump’s ban had been put into place before he came to power, in the Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 . To paraphrase Isaac Newton – If Trump has oppressed further than others it is because he is standing on the shoulders of tyrants.

It is not only the leader but also the system that oppresses, with a militarized police force, tyrannical application of laws and the criminalization of countless activities that have no victims. Sure, citizens have the right to vote for who is going to rule the system, but with that choice limited to different flavors of shite even an educated socially thoughtful majority are going to make a crap choice.

Many Americans had lost so much faith in the status quo that they wanted to vote against it, whatever the alternative. Many Trump voters would have been just as happy voting for his polar opposite, the humble and perceptive Bernie Sanders. They realized something had gone very wrong with their beloved nation and responded by jumping out of the pot they knew and despised, not caring if that might mean landing in an unfamiliar frying pan.

Those Trumpophobes who wanted to stick with the status quo (the devil you know) are in a shocked state of disbelief. The vulgar and insensitive character of the new president has activated them. They are like the frog in a pot that was being heated so slowly it was unaware of its own imminent demise. Trump’s election was a sudden leap in temperature, shifting from a very dark situation they had come to regard as normal, to what looks like an even darker shade of dark.

But just how dark does it have to flipping get? We know that our leaders did not give a damn whether or not WMD’s were in Iraq – they wanted war. They didn’t care about the people of Libya – they wanted a bombing spree. They fanned the flames of conflict in Syria, not for the people – they wanted war. Next in line was (or is) Iran, a beautiful nation of 77 million with a modern culture that functions better than many world nations who are allies of ours. Ditto for Syria and Libya not long ago. There are countless sub-plots to it all that involve oil-based currency plans, pipeline routes, oil, droughts, religions, bankers, et al. And the poster child of it all is the evil Islamic State, itself spawned by the heavy-handed activities of the so-called leader of the free world.

The problem with democracy, as we have just seen, is that anybody can win the popularity contest. Many world leaders, including Adolf Hitler, used and then abused the democratic system. The difficulty with government, democratic or otherwise, is that its natural tendency is to grow as long as society (it’s prey, you could say) is producing enough wealth to support it.

America currently creates more wealth than any other nation in the world. Its state is overgrown and its military budget surpasses that of the world’s next eight big spenders combined. A third of tax revenues go directly to the military (including veteran benefits). The real figure, including security agencies, private contractors, caring for the disabled, could take this far higher. At 20 a day, Veteran suicides grossly outnumber combat deaths, though do not figure as a cost or war.

Americans, immensely proud of being the strongest nation in the world, seem oblivious to the fact that such a mighty military force is not content to be sitting on its collective ass all day. It’s got a million and a half willing combatants trained to kill and equipped with the most sophisticated and powerful killing technology on the planet. Can you really think they are not going to be finding reasons to put all this practice and hardware into play? And if they cannot find a reason they can manufacture one.

In Europe and America our rulers and the status quo over which they preside (or under which they thrive) have been complicit in actions that have and continue to result in the death and injury of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions, the destruction of ancient monuments, homes and modern cities, the proliferation of weapons in the region, and massive profits for Western “defense” industries. To our own doorstep their actions have brought the relatively minor inconvenience of a refugee crisis and occasional acts of terrorism. We are feared and hated in many parts of the world, an understandable response to the wanton destruction being funded by our taxes.

The new president is such an obnoxious character that it is tempting to blame him for things which have been part of the scene for many years, such as police violence and the stripping of human rights that began with the Patriot Act. Fair play to Trumpophobes for hating him but don’t for a moment pretend that things were idyllic before him. He is just the new and uglier face of a government they support; a body to which they have already sacrificed their rights, complacent that the state knows who they know, what they watch and like, what they say, write, and buy. Our states have granted themselves the right to tap into everything we do, in order to protect us from a threat that has arisen as a result of their activities on the world stage. This is not something Trump set up. This is the apparatus of a police state, far more invasive even than the notorious Stasi of former East Germany. It was something to be concerned about long before the Donald.

With talk of measures to ban so-called “fake news,” any views diverging from the official propaganda line could soon become prosecutable. And if Trump is the evil demagogue that many fear, he will now have the power to quickly identify and shut down dissenting views, expunging any remaining semblance of democracy from the system. It has been an ever-reducing commodity of late.

Trump and Hillary are just different shades of darkness. We cannot know where she would have taken us, but her track record would suggest more war and pipelines, less rights and freedoms. Barack Obama may have seemed ‘white’ by comparison to those two, but still we saw bombings and domestic surveillance soar on his watch. He may not have banned Muslims but he sure bombed them. This is the so-called democracy that the American state now administers, setting a standard for the free world.

After this, can anybody still believe that the democratic process is going to make it all right, by getting a decent honest man into the White House? Many thought Obama to be that man, though with a barrelful of rotten apples it is optimistic to believe that we can throw an unblemished one into the pile that will un-rot all the others. Yet many keep hoping for this magic apple.

As long as we believe that the road to peace is paved with rules and regulations enforced by police and military we will continue to see conflict in the world. We are more suited to living together than to killing each other, with peace being an easier and more natural state than war. We are not all born with sin in our hearts because of what Eve did. There is another way and we have countless instances where we govern from the bottom up and do an excellent job, without even thinking about it. It is time to consider whether we are truly in need of a nuclear umbrella to protect us and countless politicians and bureaucrats to regulate us. However much power rests in the state’s hands, when it comes right down to it their existence depends upon our belief in a need for their control. Can we do it ourselves? You bet we can.

Warning: book plug approaching: I wrote this blog in the hope of converting Trumpophobes to ‘Stateophobes,’ or freedom lovers as I prefer to put it. We must pin the tail on the donkey and not its rider. Were Donald Trump removed from power next month the world would not return to some idyllic state without wars, onerous travel restrictions, racial tensions and sexist behavior. Government would still be corrupt and/or in the pockets of corporations, the military, and bankers. Wealth would still transfer from the many to the one percent.

Ah yes, the book. It is one thing to point out the flawed nature of this system. What we can do about it and how we can do it and why we need to do it is the subject of my book, The State Is Out Of Date, We Can Do It Better.
More information and chapter briefs on my website. It’s positive, not paranoid.

   – – – – – END – – – – –

Full interview with Luke Hancock, son of Graham  The State Is Out Of Date

A short interview with Delta Mike Life Without A State

 

America’s endless war

America is fighting wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen, sending drones to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and striving to revive the Cold War with Russia. These conflicts are good for no one but the military industrial complex that has had its hands on the throat of American government for decades. This institution is a cultural cancer that spreads across the world, threatening civilisation and our species. If there are future generations, they will look back with the same degree of horror at manufactured war as we do at the history of slavery or Nazi death-camps.

Let’s face it. Those running our governments knew damn well that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They do not give a damn about the people of Libya or Afghanistan, or whether they enjoy democracy. They support the jihadist rebels intent upon turning a formerly stable and secular Syria into an unholy mess ripe to be made holy in the mold of Islamic State. Iran is next in their sights, already under attack by severe economic sanction. Western nations are allied to far worse characters than those whose regimes they so righteously strive to change.

The rulers of today’s America need war. From their angle, as long as weapons are expended and fear generated it matters not whether they win or lose their wars. Nobody is going to invade the USA and neither soldiers nor generals will end up in prisoner of war camps. Military careers are made in war, not in peace. If their violent actions create more conflict or even bring it to Western shores that’s just more business for the security, killing and fear management industries.

This is an industry that seeks to create conflicts that will result in the death of hundreds of thousands and the dislocation of millions. I can assure you that these dead and dislocated are people very like you and me. They have, or had, children they raised and love, parents and grandparents they revere, businesses they built, homes they made home, gardens and farms they treasure.

You and I, with our taxes, fund the military industrial complex. It is a cancer that is metastasising and devouring us. Far from ‘defense’ industries protecting global citizens from danger they pose a more real and present risk to our life and liberty than global warming or a coronal mass ejection from the Sun. There is nobody out there from whom America needs defending, yet its ‘defense’ expenditure surpasses that of the next seven nations combined.

We do not want to believe that those who rule us, or those who quietly rule them, could be so cruel and heartless. They tell us they have nothing but our best interests in mind. Yet history is riddled with rulers who thought nothing of human life, rulers who slaughtered and raped all manner of innocents for all manner of reasons, including the pleasure of it.

There is no reason to assume that because we have some new-fangled way of determining who our next set of rulers will be that we thereby exclude the likes of a Nero, Genghis Khan, Hitler or Stalin from assuming power. One has only to look at the current American election to realize that we cannot rely upon the so-called democratic process to prevent dangerous criminals and demagogues from running a militaristic empire on a par with that of the Romans.

As long as we buy into the notion that top-down rulers are the best way to maintain order in our community we accept a system that disconnects the feedback loops needed to direct its evolution. With feedback loops our communications evolved from undersea telegraph cables going dot-dash to the smartphone connecting us all; our transport went from canals and bicycles to jet planes. Without feedback loops our security services have evolved from police, judges and prisons to more powerful and expensive police, judges and prisons, all of them thriving on crime. If crime rates were to halve they’d be out of work, or need to criminalise a raft of victimless crimes to compensate. The vast majority of US prison inmates today have been incarcerated for victimless crimes, and are used as virtual slave labour on production lines.

Instead of giving war-faring states the credit for our positive progress as humanity, we should applaud our own heroic ability to evolve despite their history of destructive and obstructive influence. In the freedom of the Internet major online retailers develop and improve low-cost means to control and compensate for crime without handcuffs, courtrooms and prisoners. This should give us cause for optimism. Perhaps it is possible for humanity to live together in peace without having to slaughter each other in its pursuit.

When we have top-down government determining policies with coercively enforced rules it follows that those making and applying the rules are the rulers. How those rulers arrive at their positions is not, ultimately, the point. The system arose long ago as a means for the few to live off the labours of the many, self-financing themselves with taxes demanded by force. There have been many variations on this theme in the past 4500 years or so, but wherever you have a state with the power to make and enforce rules, there is likely to be a despotic elite striving to get their hands on the controls. Sometimes they succeed.

We must recognize that just such an elite has succeeded in the US. Uncle Sam has been incarcerating his own subjects at unprecedented levels while exporting war and armed conflict across the world. This is a shocking unthinkable thought to most, but one that both presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy warned Americans of in the 1960’s. They were not paranoid conspiracy theorists and their fears have become reality.

What can we possibly do about this? The first step, undoubtedly, is to stop being in denial and to open our eyes to the truth. Stop swallowing the propaganda. Let go of the fear and recognize there is no existential need for this so-called “necessary evil.” We are stronger and more powerful than we know. Our collective belief is at the foundation of state power, more important than all its trappings and uniformed inforcers. Whoever moves into the White House next will make little difference. We can.

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I write this in a world awash with nuclear weapons as two frightening characters fight over the reins of the most militarised nation in history. So-called democracy has come down to letting Americans pick which of two candidates they don’t want least. Amusing, to someone from another planet. The book that I wrote goes well beyond the “who did what to whom” approach, looking at the power of freedom and the perils of suppressing it by governmental decree. It is titled The State Is Out Of Date – We Can Do It Better. It will give you hope for the future.

The wheel needs a new hub, not just another revolution