STICKING IT TO CHINA
The US government will not send any officials to cheer on American athletes at the Winter Olympics in Beijing because of supposed human rights violations regarding Muslims on China’s western border.
Is the US saying that the Chinese response to terrorism is not as acceptable as ours: Guantanamo, 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, bombs away over Iraq, color revolutions across North Africa and the Middle East.
The world is getting tired of PR posturing over substantive issues…and hypocrisy born of Exceptionalism. Partisan paralysis prevents us from seeking any real solutions, as does fear of damaging our international business interests.
Let’s see if the Chinese response will be fake or real.
AN ERA ENDS WITH DOLE
The death of GOP icon Bob Dole marks the end of an era in American politics when the two-party system worked and democracy flourished. For 60 years, from Roosevelt’s election in 1933 to the end of the first Bush’s term in 1993, both Democrat and Republican leaders in the Senate and House worked cooperatively to pass domestic legislation that benefitted everyone. That bond for the common good began to crack when Southern Democrats (today’s Republicans) resisted federal laws to end racism in America. The Clinton election ushered in an era of partisanship in which legislators enriched themselves, valued power over service, and favored those constituents who could deliver the most votes and money. All the weeping for Dole: crocodile tears.
POLAND TELLS REFUGEES TO “DROP DEAD”
So what’s with 3,000 or more Syrian, Iraqi, Kurdish and Yaziti refugees on Poland’s eastern border with Belarus? Are they some sort of tipping point after the EU has already accepted more than a million of such refugees? What is it about them that has Poland screaming for NATO support for the 20,000 troops already in place? And why would the Ukrainian Foreign Minister urge the Poles to “shoot them all”?
Disingenuously, the Poles and their EU and NATO allies see this small group of refugees as part of a Belarus plot, with Russian support, to destabilize Europe. More likely it is an EU plot to destabilize Belarus, force its strongman out, and snare the country into the Western alliance. The EU has already allocated millions of dollars to a fund supporting Belarus revolutionaries.
The refugees are not seen as humans but as pawns in a power game designed to harm Belarus and Russia. The Poles have no problem spraying them with chemical infused water in sub-freezing temperatures. Nor, in violation of international law, returning the few that make into Poland back to the border.
People seems to forget that Poland was an occupying force in Iraq. They have some obligations to Iraqi refugees other than death threats.
THE GREAT POSTAL HEIST
Ray Galione, the son of a U.S. postal worker, has produced and directed his first documentary on the rape of the USPS by the federal government and private corporate interests. Workers are framed so they can be fired. Iconic buildings are being sold way below market value to developers. All this part of a Republican effort in violation of the Constitution to privatize the USPS.
The documentary gets sparse space on YouTube and Facebook. Totally ignored by compliant US media, left and right. Luckily RT America picked it up as a documentary offering over a few days. There are many independent documentaries exposing US shenanigans that our media ignores and RT will pick up if professional standards and ethics apply.
RUSSIA ABOUT TO INVADE UKRAINE
The Washington Post is still a willful dupe. A CIA operative uses an official channel to send a factless warning note up the chain of command. By design one person, an “unidentified informant,” leaks the officially contrived document.
The definitive headline in the news gives an exact time frame in which 170,000 Russian troops will cross into Donbas, the break-away Ukrainian province, with the aim of taking Ukraine before it can become a NATO dependent or member. It’s going to be a rough January.
The fact is that if Russia wanted to seize Ukraine, they could have responded to the overthrow of the duly elected pro-Russian government by far-right rebels. Instead, they settled for Crimea with the support of its majority Russian population.
LAOS - AT WHAT COST?
The US thrust Laos onto the world stage by dropping more bombs on that tiny country during the Vietnam War than were dropped in all of World War II.
Now China, through its Silk Road initiative, is building a badly needed railroad to boost the Laos economy and ease trade with China.
Whenever US media reports such events, the headlines are always tagged with “at what cost?” The mantra is expected to warn all of the strings attached to Chinese aid. As though the Laotians have never been “helped” by the IMF and the World Bank, nor forgotten the iron rain of the 1970’s.