8-12 April 2018: Which Will It Be, Apocalypse or Revolution?

Trump Says He'll Bomb Syria, Russia Pledges Immediate Retaliation
 
"Donald Trump says the United States is about to bomb Syria, and Russia has vowed to shoot down US aircraft...With John Bolton, the new national security adviser and infamous enemy of the United Nations by Trump's side, diplomacy is not in the cards." Earlier report: "Russian officials warned that any military action by the U.S. and its allies would be met with an aggressive response—targeting any U.S. missiles as well as their launch sites." See also:  "'the Russian forces will confront any US aggression on Syria, by intercepting the missiles and striking their launch pads.'" Plus this: "Civilization itself is being put in peril so that the West can continue supporting sectarian armed groups seeking to overthrow the Assad government, in violation of international law and the UN Charter."  And especially this:  "...the deep state...helped prevent Barack Obama from launching a war in which a dozen nations would have fought and millions might have died, which could easily have escalated into a nuclear conflict between the US, Israel and NATO on the one hand and Russia on the other...We can hope that some of these forces, none of whom are friends of peace or justice, will restrain Donald Trump, as they did Obama. (But) the odds don’t look good."

  

Russian Navy's Syrian Squadron Puts to Sea (w/Aerial Photos)
"...satellite images (show) eleven Russian (warships) have already left the port of Tartus..." Comment: while these vessels may indeed have sailed as part of Russia's announced live-firing missile exercises, it is also world naval SOP (standing operating procedure) to get your ships out of port and scattered to relative safely at sea when you are anticipating enemy attack. Hence this is by far the most ominous indication yet to emerge from this escalating crisis. That said, Goddess save us all from the USian Empire's apocalypse-minded tyrants.

     

Also Relevant: Brink-of-War Commentaries by Slane and Greenwald
"Unfortunately American foreign policy was hijacked in the 1990s by fanatical ideologues with a messianic complex who cannot accept anything other than U.S. hegemony over the entire planet" (Slane) and "The exact danger Obama sought to avoid — military confrontation with Russia in Syria — is now upon us, being directly threatened by Trump. And Democrats — who spent years first scorning Obama for not becoming more militarily involved in Syria and then pushing Trump to be more hostile to Moscow — are, just as Clinton last year did, defending Trump’s military aggression" (Greenwald). 

   

U.S. Pseudo-Left Silent on Looming World War
"Four of the most prominent pseudo-left websites—Jacobin magazine, which is closely connected to the Democratic Socialists of America; Socialist Worker, the online newspaper of the International Socialist Organization; the website of Socialist Alternative; and International Viewpoint, the magazine of the Pabloite, ex-Trotskyist United Secretariat, have written next to nothing about the growing danger of a major world war." Comment: a sharp-edged analysis from the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) that exemplifies why Dispatches increasingly links to its reports.

Will U.S. Attack on North Korea (Again) Mean War with China?
"Bolton insists that North Korea’s nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to the U.S. which cannot be tolerated. Bolton claims that within months North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will...

(To read the rest, go here.)

Weekend Update 8/4/18: Vernal Pain and Promise

(Typepad, my primary blog server, is off line with what is apparently major equipment failure. Hence instead of posting a few paragraphs here and linking to dispatchesfromdystopia.net via Typepad for the rest, I'm posting the full text of today's report here on Blogger.)
  
Economic Warfare -- and Worse --  Looms at Home and Abroad
"The corporate-financial elite is preparing the most ruthless measures—economic and political—to counter the emerging rebellion of U.S. workers against the government, the corporations and the corporatist trade unions that do their bidding." See also: "The U.S. regards the economic growth of China...as an existential threat...(and is) threatening to plunge the world into the kind of economic chaos not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s, as well as world war if that proves necessary."

36% of U.S. College Students Battle Hunger and Homelessness
"As college students grapple with the rising costs of classes and books, mortgaging their futures with student loans in exchange for a diploma they're gambling will someday pay off, it turns out many of them are in great financial peril in the present...36 percent ...say they are food insecure. Another 36 percent say they are housing insecure, while 9 percent report being homeless."

Sessions Wants Death Penalty for Marijuana Dealers

"This week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions  sent a memo to the nation’s federal prosecutors urging them to seek the death penalty in cases involving large-scale drug traffickers...(therefore) Anyone convicted of cultivating more than 60,000 marijuana plants or possessing more than 60,000 kilograms of a substance that contains marijuana could face death as a punishment."

  

Federal Secret Police to Intensify Surveillance of Journalists

"The Department of Homeland Security wants to...monitor hundreds of thousands of news outlets and journalists around the world...(collecting) data about each source’s 'sentiment,' influence, language, and circulation...The tracking would apply to online, print, broadcast, cable, and radio sources — essentially, any journalist, editor, blogger, or correspondent deemed a possible 'media influencer' could be included. DHS also wants to follow social media activity..."  Comment: I don't doubt our overseers are already collecting this data -- most likely have been at least since the Vietnam War  -- but now they want to make this especially egregious example of USian fascism formal and legal.

  

Trump, Obama, Hillary All Guilty in Honduran Refugee Crisis
"Put all that Trumpian (anti-immigrant) madness aside for a moment and reflect on Hillary and the Obama administration’s role in generating the annual ragged and desperate march of deeply impoverished Central Americans through Mexico. Most of the caravan participants that Washington’s Orange Dotard railed against are Hondurans fleeing repression, violence, and extreme poverty imposed by a right-wing regime Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama helped put in place in the spring of 2009 – a government the U.S. has funded and equipped ever since."

                   

New Gun Laws: Forcible Disarmament, Confiscation without Compensation
"On Monday, Deerfield, Illinois—a suburb of Chicago—passed an ordinance that makes it illegal to possess, manufacture, or sell assault rifles and large capacity magazines...(and penalizing) anyone refusing to give up their banned firearm...$1,000 a day until the weapon is handed over or removed from the town's limits...In Boulder, Colorado on Thursday night, the city council unanimously passed a first reading of a similar ordinance." Comment: obviously the student anti-mass-murder protest movement, which many of us hoped would focus on the socioeconomic causes of mass shootings, has instead been co-opted by the Democratic (sic) Party with its Ruling Class agenda of forcible disarmament (i.e., mandatory pacifism and compulsory victimhood). The movement has seemingly abandoned reason and now seeks only the sort of draconian, confiscation-without-compensation measures imposed by Deerfield, Illinois and pending in Bolder, Colorado.  Who knows how many more such laws are pending in other locales -- especially in states that lack the protection of preemption laws. Note too how Common Dreams -- a staunch supporter of forcible disarmament -- buried these reports at the very bottom of a story applauding a federal judge's ruling to uphold the 20-year-old Massachusetts gun ban, which outlaws most semiautomatic weapons.

      

FCC Honcho Wants to Cut Poor People Off the Internet
"FCC chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to scale down the Lifeline program (by)...cut(ing) affordable internet access...for 8 million people, about 70 percent of the Lifeline’s recipients. This reduction would be particularly devastating for Puerto Rico, where about 500,000 people, or 17 percent of the population, have relied on the Lifeline program since Hurricane Maria." Comment: another of our Capitalist overlords terrified of what we might be finding out. 

      

Seven More Dead as Israeli Atrocities Continue
"Israel’s military forces killed seven Palestinian protestors along Gaza’s border and injured around 200 more, five of them seriously, according to Gaza’s health ministry." See also: "Gaza death toll climbs to 22 as Israeli forces continue violent suppression of protests..." Comment: given the Israeli/U.S. alliance -- especially the way the two countries gleefully share military and police tactics -- I cannot but wonder when U.S. authorities will begin firing live ammo at protestors here in the imperial homeland. 

Will Teachers' Strikes Trigger a Nationwide General Strike?  
"The strike by teachers in Oklahoma will continue into its second week on Monday, following the passage on Friday of...(deliberately deceptive) measures that will do nothing to meet the demands of the teachers...The attempt by the unions to sell out the strike in Oklahoma is taking place as teachers are winning ever-broader support. This year has already seen strikes and demonstrations by teachers in West Virginia, New Jersey, Arizona, Kentucky and other states. There are growing calls for a nationwide strike that would connect the fight of teachers with the struggles of all sections of the working class for quality jobs, wages, health care and pensions." See also: "Arizona teachers are considering a strike...if they don't receive their requested 20 percent pay raise. An official strike date hasn't been set, but the teachers, following the playbooks from West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky, have staged multiple protests in individual districts and at the state capitol in Phoenix for the last five weeks..." And this: "Transit workers (in New York City) declared their support for striking Oklahoma teachers, expressing the solidarity that workers across America, indeed internationally feel for the growing strike wave of teachers." Plus this: "After Kentucky's GOP-controlled legislature passed a bill last week to slash teachers' retirement benefits—a proposal that has provoked a series of massive protests—lawmakers approved legislation that would cut taxes for the state's wealthiest residents while hiking taxes for the remaining 95 percent." Comment: imagine what could happen if the teachers' strikes went nationwide, then morphed into the imperial homeland's first-ever nationwide general strike. 

     

Expanding Community Support Bolsters Resistance to Pipeline
"As the (Virginia/West Virginia) tree sits continue, residents in the surrounding area, many of which are in the middle of legal battles with MVP (Mountain Valley Pipeline) to keep their homes, began to rally in support of the resistance and also send up supplies. In response, police...attempt to cut off supplies and support, but have so far been unsuccessful in stopping the tree sit and people from mobilizing in solidarity." Comment: jeer not, bourgeois urbanites. I spent much of my boyhood in this area, mostly in East Tennessee, also in Virginia and West Virginia. Hence I know these people are most assuredly not to be fucked with. I also know that so moved, they could be devastatingly effective as leaders in the evolution of genuinely revolutionary environmentalism.

    

Anchorage Votes Down Anti-Transgender Proposal
"Voters in Anchorage, Alaska, have defeated an anti-transgender bathroom measure...(that) would have required everyone in Anchorage public spaces to use the locker room and bathroom that aligns with the gender they were assigned at birth — effectively barring trans people from using the facility that matches their gender identity."

How Community Mobilization and Protest Saved a Teacher's Job
"...a (Portland, Oregon) middle school teacher...was wrongfully suspended...(but) protest pressured administrators to reverse the (unjust) punishment." Comment: hear, hear! 

               

Last Word: How Millennials Are Revitalizing English
"...millennials have created a new rulebook for a variant of written English unique to social media. A rulebook which states that deliberately misspelled words and misused grammar can convey tone, nuance, humour, and even annoyance."

LB/8 April 2018         

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